Part 2

‘His soul rejoiced in splendour--splendour of stately palace halls where the columns were of marble and the entablature of wrought gold; splendour of temples of the gods, where the sculptor’s waxing art had brought the very deities to dwell with man; splendour of the white-pillared cities that glittered across the Ægean and Sicilian seas; splendour of the holy Panhellenic games, of whirlwind chariots and the fiery grace of thoroughbreds, of the naked shapely limbs of the athlete, man and boy.’[B]

Splendour was the ideal alike of the Achæan chieftain, the Corinthian tyrant, and the Olympic judge. But the stern lesson of the Persian Wars led the Greek people in the fifth century to higher things, and the true spirit of athletics passed from the magnificent precinct of Olympian Zeus to the simple exercising grounds which every town possessed. Olympia and its prizes fell into the hands of professionals; but gymnastics remained an essential part of national education.

2

Gymnastics and Military Training

The various athletic exercises, which are here for convenience classed together under the word ‘gymnastics,’ fall into three main classes, depending respectively on strength of body, of leg, and of arm. To the first class belong boxing and wrestling, to the second running and jumping, to the third throwing the diskos and the javelin. The last five of these six sports--boxing being excluded--formed the Pentathlon, a combined competition of five events arranged to suit the all-round military athlete, for whom Greek athletic training at its best was especially designed. In such a competition the foot-race probably came first and the wrestling last; the three middle events--the field events, as we should call them, jumping, throwing the javelin, and hurling the diskos--being those that were particularly identified with the five-sport system which aimed at producing, not a specialized athlete, but a man who combined strength with agility and skill. Victory in the Pentathlon depended, not on success in all events, but on a system of marks; victory in three of the competitions was sufficient in itself, but if no competitor won three times, and two competitors tied with two victories each, it is highly probable that account was taken of second and third places.

Of the separate exercises, wrestling perhaps was the favourite. It was the oldest of all sports, and to the Greeks one of the most important. To them it was both a science and an art. Theseus, its inventor, was, according to the myth, taught the rules by Athena herself. Victory alone was not sufficient; the winner must win gracefully and according to the precepts of the schools. It was from wrestling that the palæstra took its name, and the Greek language is full of metaphors and expressions borrowed from the technical phraseology of the ring. The contests between Heracles and Antæus, and between Atalanta and Peleus, are two of the best known and most frequently depicted episodes of the heroic saga, and wrestling was one of the sports in which women were allowed by some States--by Sparta and Chios, for example--to take part, competing even against men. Instruction was given in the school; there were separate rules for men and boys, and the different movements, grips, and throws were taught on a system of progressive difficulty; textbooks were used, and fragments of such a manual have recently been found on an Egyptian papyrus. There were two principal styles, the upright wrestling, in which the object was to throw one’s opponent to the ground, three falls being necessary for victory, and the ground wrestling, in which the struggle was continued even after a fall until one of the combatants yielded. The first style, however, was the only one regarded as strictly legitimate, the second being merely part of the pankration. The attitude of a Greek before coming to grips was very similar to that of modern wrestlers, and is beautifully illustrated in the pair of boy statues from Naples which may be seen in the Embankment gardens. Standing square to one another, they endeavoured to get a hold from the front or the side. The defence was often a grip on the opponent’s wrist, which might lead to the offensive if his elbow could also be seized and the throw we call ‘the flying mare’ be then executed. Of front body-holds, the most effective was gained by catching the waist with both hands and then lifting the opponent off his feet, such a hold as Heracles used against Antæus. Of side-throws the best known was ‘the heave,’ usually ascribed to Theseus, where one hand was passed round the opponent’s back and the other hand slipped underneath him. Another favourite hold was by the neck--a strong neck was essential for a wrestler--and when this was secured a sudden turn of the body would lead to the throw that we call a ‘cross-buttock.’ In all wrestling tripping played an important part, and there are a very large number of technical terms in Greek for the different trips that are

employed. Every district in Greece had a style of its own, and these diversities of method helped to keep active an interest in wrestling and to preserve it from the disease of professionalism, so that even when other sports had been ruined the wrestling ring still remained a useful and a popular institution.

It is this popularity in actual life that accounts for the frequency of descriptions of wrestling matches in Greek literature. Two of them at least are worth quoting; the first from the _Iliad_, Book XXIII, the contest between Ajax and Odysseus at the funeral games of Patroclus:

He said; and straight uprose the giant form Of Ajax Telamon: with him uprose Ulysses, skilled in every crafty wile. Girt with the belt, within the ring they stood, And each, with stalwart grasp, laid hold on each; As stand two rafters of a lofty house, Each propping each, by skilful architect Designed the tempest’s fury to withstand. Creaked their backbones beneath the tug and strain Of those strong arms; their sweat poured down like rain; And bloody weals of livid purple hue Their sides and shoulders streaked, as sternly they For victory and the well-wrought tripod strove. Nor could Ulysses Ajax overthrow, Nor Ajax bring Ulysses to the ground, So stubbornly he stood; but when the Greeks Were weary of the long protracted strife, Thus to Ulysses mighty Ajax spoke: ‘Ulysses sage, Laertes’ godlike son, Or lift thou me, or I will thee uplift: The issue of our struggle rests with Jove.’ He said, and raised Ulysses from the ground; Nor he his ancient craft remembered not, But locked his leg around, and striking sharp Upon the hollow of the knee, the joint Gave way; the giant Ajax backwards fell, Ulysses on his breast; the people saw, And marvelled. Then in turn Ulysses strove Ajax to lift; a little way he moved, But failed to lift him fairly from the ground; Yet crooked his knee, that both together fell, And side by side, defiled with dust, they lay. (Homer: _Iliad_, XXIII, 820-851, Derby’s translation.)

The second description is separated from Homer by some twelve centuries, but it is equally vigorous. In the tenth book of _The Æthiopian History_ of Heliodorus, the hero Theagenes, as his last trial before winning his beloved Chariclea, is matched against a stalwart Æthiopian, and in Underdowne’s quaint Elizabethan version the passage thus appears:

‘Then hee tooke dust, and cast it upon his armes and shoulders, and stretched foorth his hands, and tooke some footing, and bent his legges a little, and stouped lowe, at a word all partes of his body were ready, so that he stoode, and with great desire awayted for the advantage at the close. The Æthiopian seeing this laughed irefully, and triumphed scornefully upon him: and ranne suddenly upon him, and with his elbowe hit Theagenes in the necke, as sore as if he had stricken him with a leaver, and then drewe backe, and laughed againe at his owne foolish conceite. But Theagenes like a man alway from his cradle brought up in wrastling, and throughly instructed in Mercuries arte, thought it good to geve place at first, and take some triall of his adversaries strength, and not to withstand so rude a violence, but with arte to delude the same. Therefore he stouped lower, and made semblance as though he had beene very sorrowfull, and layde his other side to receive his other blowe. And when the Æthiopian came upon him againe, he made as though hee would have fallen flat upon his face; but as soon as the Æthiopian began to despise him, and was incouraged well, and came unadvisedly the third time, and lyfted up his arme againe to take holde of him, putting his right arme under his left side, by lifting up his hande he overthrew him in a heape, and casting himselfe under his arme pittes gryped his gorbelly with much a doo, and forced him with his heeles to fall on his knees, and then leapt on his backe, and clasping his feete about his privie parts made him stretch out his legges, wherewith he did stay up himselfe, and pulled his armes over his head behinde him, and laide his bellie flatte upon the earth.’

Boxing also, like wrestling, always retained its attractiveness, and in its ancient form offers some varieties from the modern mode. There were three stages in its history, depending largely upon the instruments of fighting used. Down to the beginning of the fourth century B.C. it was customary to wind soft strips of leather--_meilichai_--round the hands and arms, which served, like our light gloves, to protect the knuckles and so increased the power of attack, but did not in themselves add to the severity of the blow. Early in the fourth century the _meilichai_ were superseded by gloves--_sphairai_--made of hard pieces of leather with projecting and cutting edges, real weapons of offence, like our knuckle-dusters. From these the Roman _cæstus_ was developed, where the glove was weighted with pieces of iron and metal spikes placed in position over the knuckles.

In Greek boxing there was no ring and therefore little close fighting, there were no rounds and therefore the pace was slow, for rushing tactics marked the untrained man; lastly, there was no classification by weight; the heavier the man the greater his chance of success, so that a meat diet for boxers was almost compulsory, and boxing became practically the monopoly of the heavy-weights. As thongs or gloves were always used on the hands, wrestling was impossible, and in later times at least the defence was all-important. It seems fairly well established that body-hitting was not practised, and in the Hellenistic age a fight was usually decided by a knock-out blow on the jaw. But in the best period the Greek boxer used both his hands freely, was active on his feet, and had a considerable variety of attack. The introduction of heavy gloves vitiated the art, and boxers began to rely merely on their weight and defensive powers.

Of all these stages we have plentiful evidence both in art and literature, for boxing and its preliminaries are among the favourite subjects of vase painters, while in poetry, beside the account of the fight between Odysseus and the beggar Irus in the _Odyssey_ and between Entellus and Dares in the _Æneid_, we have a really enthusiastic and expert description by Theocritus of the great struggle between Amycus and Polydeuces. The battle is as vividly described as the epic contest in the Dell between Lavengro and the Flaming Tinman, and the poet, by making it a fight between the old school of scientific activity and the new method of stolid strength, ingeniously enlists our sympathies from the first upon the side of skill against brute force.

‘Then Amycus came on furiously, making play with both hands; but Pollux smote him on the point of the chin as he charged, maddening him the more, and the giant confused the fighting, laying on with all his might, and going in with head down.... But the son of Zeus stepped now this side, now that, and hit him with both fists in turn, and checked his onslaught, for all his monstrous strength. Like a drunken man he reeled beneath the hero’s blows, and spat out the red blood, while all the princes shouted together, as they marked the ugly bruises about his mouth and jaws, and saw his eyes half closed by puffy flesh. Next Pollux began to tease him, feinting on every side, and at last, seeing that he was now quite bewildered, he got in a smashing blow just above the middle of the nose beneath the eyebrows, and laid the bone of his forehead bare. Stretched on his back the giant fell amid the flowers; but he rose again, and the fighting went on fiercely. They mauled each other hard, laying on with the weighted thongs; but the giant was always busy with his fists on the other’s chest and outside his neck, while Pollux, the invincible, kept on smashing his opponent’s face with cruel blows.’ (Theocritus: _Idyll_, XXII, 87-111.)

Boxing and wrestling were combined in the pankration and allied with many other devices, such as kicking, strangling, twisting, etc.; it was a versatile performance, the joint invention of Heracles and Theseus, and considered both by Pindar and Philostratus as ‘the fairest of all contests.’ There was an element of danger, but it was no more brutal than is the almost similar method of jujitsu; moreover, strict rules were enforced by umpires who closely watched the combatants. Biting and gouging were strictly forbidden, although frequently attempted, as for example by Alcibiades. ‘You bite like a woman,’ cried his opponent. ‘No,’ said the young Athenian, ‘like a lion.’ Of gouging we have a picture on a cup in the British Museum, where one figure has inserted his finger into his opponent’s eye, while the umpire hurries forward with uplifted rod. But nearly every manœuvre of hands, feet, and body was permissible. You might catch your opponent by his foot and throw him backwards; you might seize his heel or ankle, and then, if you could, twist his foot out of its socket; you might kick him violently in the stomach; you might plant your foot against the other man’s waist and throw him over your shoulder; you might even stand on your own head, if that position seemed expedient. All these tricks were used in the standing position, but the issue of the combat was usually decided on the ground. There you might twist arm or hand, break fingers, and strangle. All neck holds were allowed, but the favourite method of strangling was known as the ‘ladder grip,’ in which you mounted your opponent’s back and wound your legs round his stomach and your arms round his neck. Ground wrestling was indeed the distinctive feature of the pankration, and the well-known group in the Uffizi Palace at Florence represents one of the last stages in such a contest.

Of running and jumping little need be said, for it is very possible that in neither sport had the Greeks much to teach modern athletes. They were a short-legged people, and although they may have had some advantages in long-distance races they probably would be much inferior to our specialized sprint runners: length of leg must tell, and as in horse-racing ‘a good big ’un’ is better than ‘a good little ’un,’ so in a short-distance race length of stride ensures victory. But running was very popular in Greece, and of the eight events in the early Olympic games no less than four were foot-races, three for men--at 200 yards, 400 yards, and three miles--and one for boys. The running course--the stade--was a straight 200 yards; for the diaulos of 400 yards the runners turned at a post and came back to the starting-point. The start was marked by two parallel lines, for a Greek runner began in a somewhat cramped position, with the feet close together. The runners ran naked, their bodies carefully oiled, and for each man there was a post at the starting and at the finishing point to which he ran; there were no dividing strings, nor was there any tape. Vase paintings of runners are very frequent and plainly show the difference of style between the sprinter and the long-distance man; in the early vases a short, thickset type is common, in the later the thin sprinter is preferred. The most famous names are those of long-distance runners--e.g. Pheidippides and Ladas, whose statue by Myron was even more admired than the same master’s Diskobolos,--and in these races the Cretans and Arcadians especially excelled, while the Athenians were better at short distances. Beside races proper there were various running contests; for example, the race in armour, which was introduced at Olympia towards the close of the sixth century and was the final event of the games, the competitors running in full panoply of shield, helmet, and greaves. Other similar events were the Oschophoria, where youths ran in women’s clothes, and the Lampadophoria, in which a lighted torch was carried by single runners or by teams. These latter were very popular at Athens, and they illustrate the difference between the ancient and modern view of running. They were not serious and specialized enough for a modern athletic meeting, where everything is a matter of record and a fifth of a second is of vital importance.

Jumping, also, was comparatively simple and restricted in its scope. Of high jumping and pole jumping the Greeks had none, for athletics were always practical, and as there were no hedges in Greece for soldiers to jump over it was unnecessary to practise high jumping in the school. Their long jump differed from ours in that it was always performed with the help of jumping weights--_halteres_--things much like our dumb-bells and used in a very similar fashion. With these implements a class of pupils would practise together to the music of the flute. Both standing and running jumps were performed from a take-off into a pit--_skamma_--and jumps of over twenty feet were common; the fifty-five feet ascribed to Phayllus is an impossible exaggeration.

But if in running and jumping we have little to learn, it is very different in regard to the ‘field events,’ the throwing of the javelin and the diskos. Here the Greek system of body poise and muscular development gave their athletes an enormous advantage and enabled them easily to perform movements which to our modern bodies seem almost impossible. Both exercises were especially popular at Athens, and were there regarded as part of gymnastics rather than athletics: i.e. they were designed, not as

competitive sports, but as means to improve bodily efficiency.

The javelin was a light stick of wood, usually pointless. Distance throwing was far more usual than throwing at a mark, and for this purpose a thong--_amentum_--was used, fastened near the centre of the javelin shaft. Such a thong practically quadruples the range of throw, but the process needs long practice and is of course highly artificial in comparison with the natural use of the spear in hunting or in war. Greek athletics had a definite purpose, and we may be sure that it was not the actual throw but the movements necessary for the throw that gave its value to the exercise. These movements, the short, quick steps before the cast and the sharp turn of the body to the right, are illustrated frequently on the vases; the throw itself is seldom represented, and then with very poor results. The diskos was a flat and fairly heavy circle of bronze. It was thrown from behind a line and in a restricted space, a throw of 100 feet being exceptionally good.

II

Such is a brief account of the gymnastic sports and exercises which formed so important a part of a Greek’s everyday round. Each one of them had its own special value in developing the strength of some particular part of the body, and taken together they formed a complete and adequate training for what was to an ancient citizen the chief business of life--war.

To us, whose civilization is based on the habits of peace and to whom war means the negation of all the humanities, it may seem illogical to think of fighting as a business. But it was not so in Greece. Warfare was _the_ art of life, so far surpassing all the other arts that it was regarded not so much as an accidental state but rather as a vital function, as necessary to existence as breathing, sleeping, eating, and drinking. It would accept what help the other arts could give: athletics made a soldier nimble and supple; medicine kept him in health; the music of the flute was useful in marching; the lyric poet and the dramatist could foster and elevate the martial spirit; but all these were subservient to the one engrossing purpose. Men fought to live and lived to fight.

For the Greeks it was war, not peace, that seemed the natural state of an organized community. War was part of their civilization: they liked fighting and they fought like gentlemen. The Romans, on the other hand, had no love for fighting in itself and fought without much regard to the rules of the game. And yet the Romans were more successful in the conduct of war, for, as our English general says, Courage, Common Sense and Cunning are the essentials of victory, and if by courage we mean endurance all three were Roman rather than Greek qualities. The Romans were always anxious to win and get finished with it, and for this purpose they were willing to fight on year after year in order that at last they might inflict a crushing defeat on the enemy and then return home to their flesh-pots. The Greeks were satisfied with one indecisive success and never tried to annihilate their opponents; for then the sport would have come to an end. To the Romans, in spite of their many campaigns, war was an unpleasant interruption of their usual way of life; to the Greeks, it was simply an exciting but somewhat dangerous diversion, which was, however, an integral part of the citizen’s service to the state.

The Greek attitude may be easily understood if we consider their history. They were never, like the Romans, a pastoral or agricultural community. Their culture was cradled on the battle-field and the more intense the fighting the more intense the literary and artistic effort of the nation. The constant stress of battle wore the race out eventually, but it never hurt their civilization. From the earliest days peace was unknown in the land. The raids of sea pirates, the forced migrations of peoples, tribal wars, trade wars, dynastic wars: such is the history of Greece in its first, middle, and concluding stages. If war is a curse that can only bring evil, then the Greeks were the most unhappy of nations, for the noise of battle was seldom hushed, and instead of declaring war they thought themselves fortunate if occasionally they could declare peace.