Part 7

‘If you consider the effect and nature of each of the other kinds of exercise, you will see clearly that ball play is the most satisfactory of them all. You will find that the others are either over violent or not violent enough; that they give disproportionate exercise to the lower or to the upper part of the body or to one part at the expense of the others; the loins, the head, the arms, the chest. Something which keeps all parts of the body moving alike and admits either of the most violent strain or the gentlest relaxation, this can be found in no exercise except the small ball. The game can be sharp or slow, soft or violent just according to your own inclination, as your body seems to need it. You can exercise all parts of the body at the same time, if that appears best, or if it should seem preferable, some parts rather than others. When the players form sides and try to stop their opponents midway and rob them of the ball, the exercise is very severe and violent. You often have to grip your man in wrestling fashion or else collar him; the latter method giving plenty of work for head and neck, the former exercising ribs, chest and stomach, as you fasten your own grip or escape from your opponent’s. Sometimes you make your mark, sometimes you use one of the holds that are taught in the wrestling schools; and this means a very considerable strain on the loins and the legs. And so for this sport a man must be a strong runner: he will have to swerve and leap sideways as well as run straight forward and this is hard exercise for the legs. Indeed, to speak the truth, it is the only sport that properly exercises the legs in all their parts. When you run forward one set of sinews and muscles comes into play; when you jump backwards others have more work to do, and others again when you change direction sideways. In track-running on the contrary, only one sort of movement is necessary and the exercise is unequal, not affecting all parts of the legs alike.

‘And as with the legs so also with the arms, the exercise is very fairly apportioned, for the players are accustomed to catch the ball in every kind of attitude. This variety of attitude inevitably exercises different muscles at different times in different degrees of intensity. Every muscle has its turn of work and an equal share of rest: they are now active, now quiescent; none remains altogether idle, none is overcome with weariness by working alone. As for the training that the eye receives you may realize this by remembering that unless a man anticipates exactly the flight of the ball and its direction, he must inevitably fail to make his catch. Moreover, the wits are sharpened by the game: you have to think carefully how best to stop your opponent, and not drop the ball yourself. Thought by itself makes a man thin; but when it is combined with exercise and the pleasant rivalry of a sport it is of the very greatest benefit. The body improves in health, the mind is turned to practical knowledge. When exercise can render service both to body and mind, each in its own special form of excellence, it is a blessing indeed.

‘It is easy too to see that ball games can give men practice in two most important forms of training, those two which the royal ordinance of law bids our generals most sedulously to pursue. The functions of a good general are these: to attack at the proper time and to seize quickly each opportunity for action: to secure the property of the enemy either by force or by an unexpected assault, and to keep safe any possessions already acquired. In short, a general should be an expert guardian and an expert thief: that is the sum of his trade.

‘Now, can any exercise but ball games train a man so well how to keep what he has got, to recover what he has lost, and to anticipate his opponent’s plans? I should be surprised, if you could tell me of one. Most forms of exercise have the opposite effect: they make men lazy, slow-witted and fond of sleep. The competitions of the wrestling school tend to make people corpulent rather than to train them in virtue. Many wrestlers become so fat that they have difficulty in breathing, and such folk could never be good generals in time of war or good administrators either in a royal or a republican state: you might sooner trust pigs than them.

‘Perhaps you may think that I approve of running and any other form of exercise that reduces fat. I do not. I disapprove of excess in all matters, and I think that every art should aim at symmetry. If a thing lacks measure, it is in so far bad. So I cannot approve of track athletics, for they reduce a man’s physical condition and give him no training in manliness. Victory does not come to those who run quickly but to those who are able to hold their own in a close fight, and the Spartans owed their greatness not to their speed of foot but to their stubborn courage. Even if you considered it purely on grounds of health, a sport is not healthy in so far as it exercises the parts of the body unequally. Inevitably, some parts are overstrained, some left quite idle. Neither of these conditions are good: both foster the seeds of illness and produce a weak state of health.

‘The exercise I approve of most is one that can give health of body, symmetry of limbs and excellence of mind: and all these virtues are found in the small ball. It can benefit the mind in all kinds of ways; it exercises every part of the body alike--and this is of the greatest importance for health--for it produces a regular state of constitution; and it does not lead either to undue corpulence or excessive thinness: it is competent to perform such acts as require strength, it is suitable also for those that need quickness.

‘Now if we consider ball games in their most violent form they are inferior in no respect to any sort of athletics. But we must also look at them in their milder aspect, for sometimes we need gentle exercise. We may be either too old or not old enough to stand a severe strain; we may wish to relax our efforts or be recovering from illness. I think that in this respect also the small ball has a great advantage, for no game is quite so gentle, if you wish to take it gently. Should you need moderate exercise and desire to avoid excess, you will sometimes step softly forward, sometimes stand quite still: you need not make any violent effort and you can add to the effect by a warm bath or a gentle rub down with oil. Of all exercise this is the most gentle: it is most suitable for one who needs useful recreation, it can revive failing strength, it is most suitable for old and young alike. There are, however, some stronger sorts of exercise which can be obtained by the use of the small ball, although they are milder than the most intense form of the game, and these must now be considered if we really wish to treat the subject completely. If ever some unavoidable task, such as often falls to many a man’s lot, has caused an excessive strain to all the upper or all the lower parts of the body, or to the arms alone or to the feet, by the help of the small ball you can rest those parts that have been overstrained and give the same amount of exercise to those other parts that were then left quite idle. To stand a fair distance apart and throw the ball vigorously, without using the legs hardly at all, rests the lower limbs and gives a somewhat violent exercise to the upper parts of the body. On the other hand, if you run most of the way at a good speed keeping a wide distance and seldom throw the ball, the lower limbs have more work to do. The quickness of action and the speed required, involve no great muscular strain but they exercise the lungs, while the vigorous effort, as you grasp the ball and catch and throw it, although it needs no speed of foot, yet braces and strengthens the body. If the ball is thrown both vigorously and at full speed there will be a considerable strain on the body and on the lungs: it will be indeed the most violent form of exercise possible. But how far this strain should be relaxed or intensified, as circumstances require, it is impossible to set down in writing--exact quantities should never be stated; in actual practice it is easy enough to discover the proper limit and to instruct others. On actual experience all depends. The quality of a thing is useless if it is spoilt by a wrong quantity, and this will be the business of your trainer, who will act as guide in all matters of exercise.

‘But I must bring my subject to an end. In addition to all the other advantages, which, as I have said, the small ball possesses, there is one more which I should not like to omit. It is free from all the risks to which most other athletic exercises are liable. Before to-day many a man has died of a broken blood-vessel after a violent race: and so also the practice of loud and furious shouting, if pursued without intermission for some time, has often proved the cause of very serious mischief. Continuous horse-riding ruptures the parts about the kidneys and often injures the chest, besides in some cases doing harm to the generative organs. I say nothing of the mistakes that horses make, whereby frequently their riders have been unseated and killed on the spot. Many men have also been hurt while jumping, or throwing the discus, or turning somersaults. As for the frequenters of the wrestling school, what need I say of them? They are all scarred more shamefully than the Curse-hags of whom Homer tells us. The great poet describes them: “Lame and wrinkled and with eyes askance.” And so with the wrestling master’s pupils, you will find them lame, distorted, battered, and maimed in some part at least of their body. Since then, in addition to the other advantages, this freedom from danger is the particular attribute of small ball games, they must be regarded as the best of all inventions, so far as actual utility is concerned.’

There are many striking points in the little essay; the importance that Galen assigns to athletics as part of military training; his insistence on the moral and intellectual virtue of games and their value in producing a cheerful frame of mind; his depreciation, on social and physical grounds, of track-running. It is written obviously from the standpoint of a physician and not of an athlete or a sportsman. The athlete might well wish for fuller details of the three different games of ‘harpastum,’ ‘trigon,’ and ‘follis,’ which are here mentioned rather than described. The sportsman would probably object to the strictures on hunting and riding, and reply that a spice of danger gives an additional zest to exercise. It is noticeable also that in discussing the moral virtue of games Galen makes no mention of that which we consider their most important feature, the ‘team-spirit,’ the working not for yourself but for your side.

Criticisms such as these, however, are ungracious. The ‘small ball’ is a delightful example of the work of a great practical genius who devoted his whole life to the service of his fellow-men. In spirit, moreover, and in method it follows the true Greek tradition, and regards athletics not as a mere diversion but as the best practical preparation for the strenuous business of life.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

_E. N. Gardiner_: Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals. Macmillan, 1910.

_K. J. Freeman_: Schools of Hellas. Macmillan, 1907.

_W. W. Hyde_: Olympic Victor Monuments. Washington, U.S.A., 1921.

_Walter Pater_: Greek Studies. Macmillan, 1895.

_J. B. Bury_: The Nemean Odes of Pindar. Macmillan, 1891.

_E. Bruecke_: The Human Figure. Grevel, 1900.

_D. Watts_: The Renaissance of the Greek Ideal. Heinemann, 1914.

_E. Jaques-Dalcroze_: Rhythm, Music and Education. Chatto and Windus, 1921.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] _The Arts in Greece._ By F. A. Wright. Longmans, 1923.

[B] E. Myers: _Odes of Pindar_.