The persons who presided in the games were called Agonothetæ, Athlothetæ, and Hellanodicæ: they registered the name and country of each champion; and upon the opening of the games a herald proclaimed the names of the combatants. They were then made to take an oath, that they would religiously observe the several laws prescribed in each kind of combat, and do nothing contrary to the established orders and regulations of the games. Fraud, artifice, and excessive violence, were absolutely prohibited; and the maxim so generally received elsewhere,[125] that it is indifferent whether an enemy is conquered by deceit or valour, was banished from these combats. The address of a combatant, expert in all the niceties of his art, who knows how to shift and ward dexterously, to put the change upon his adversary with art and subtlety, and to improve the least advantages, must not be confounded here with the cowardly and knavish cunning of one who, without regard to the laws prescribed, employs the most unfair means to vanquish his competitor. Those who disputed the prize in the several kinds of combats, drew lots for their precedency in them.
It is time to bring our champions to blows, and to run over the different kinds of combats, in which they exercised themselves.
Of Wrestling.
Wrestling is one of the most ancient exercises of which we have any knowledge, having been practised in the time of the patriarchs, as the wrestling of the angel with Jacob proves.[126] Jacob supported the angel's attack so vigorously, that the latter, perceiving he could not throw so rough a wrestler, was reduced to make him lame by touching the sinew of his thigh, which immediately shrunk up.
Wrestling, among the Greeks, as well as other nations, was practised at first with simplicity, little art, and in a natural manner; the weight of the body, and the strength of the muscles, having more share in it than address and skill. Theseus was the first that reduced it to method, and refined it by the rules of art. He was also the first who established the public schools, called Palæstræ, where the young people had masters to instruct them in it.
The wrestlers, before they began the combat, were rubbed all over in a rough manner, and afterwards anointed with oils, which added to the strength and flexibility of their limbs. But as this unction, by making the skin too slippery, rendered it difficult for them to take good hold of each other, they remedied that inconvenience, sometimes by rolling themselves in the dust of the Palæstra, sometimes by throwing a fine sand upon each other, kept for that purpose in the Xystæ, or porticoes of the Gymnasia.
Thus prepared, the wrestlers began their combat. They were matched two against two, and sometimes several couples contended at the same time. In this combat, the whole aim and design of the wrestlers was to throw their adversary upon the ground. Both strength and art were employed for this purpose: they seized each other by the arms, drew forwards, pushed backwards, used many distortions and twistings of the body; locking their limbs into each other's, seizing by the neck, throttling, pressing in their arms, struggling, plying on all sides, lifting from the ground, dashing their heads together like rams, and twisting one another's necks. The most considerable advantage in the wrestler's art, was to make himself master of his adversary's legs, of which a fall was the immediate consequence. From whence Plautus says in his Pseudolus, speaking of wine, “He is a dangerous wrestler, he presently trips up the heels.”[127] The Greek terms υποσκελίζειν and πτερνίζειν, and the Latin word supplantare, seem to imply, that one of these arts consisted in stooping down to seize the antagonist under the soles of his feet, and in raising them up to give him a fall.
In this manner the Athletæ wrestled standing, the combat ending with the fall of one of the competitors. But when it happened that the wrestler who was down, drew his adversary along with him, either by art or accident, the combat continued upon the sand, the antagonists tumbling and twining with each other in a thousand different ways, till one of them got uppermost, and compelled the other to ask quarter, and confess [pg lviii] himself vanquished. There was a third sort of wrestling, called Ἀκροχειρισμὸς, from the Athletæ's using only their hands in it, without taking hold of the body, as in the other kinds; and this exercise served as a prelude to the greater combat. It consisted in intermingling their fingers, and in squeezing them with all their force; in pushing one another, by joining the palms of their hands together; in twisting their fingers, wrists, and other joints of the arm, without the assistance of any other member; and the victory was his, who obliged his opponent to ask quarter.
The combatants were to fight three times successively, and to throw their antagonists at least twice, before the prize could be adjudged to them.
Homer describes the wrestling of Ajax and Ulysses; Ovid, that of Hercules and Achelous; Lucan, of Hercules and Antæus; and Statius, in his Thebaid, that of Tydeus and Agylleus.[128]