The throws described in the last two paragraphs sufficiently illustrate those “backward falls unsafe for the wrestler, and grips in which victory must be obtained by falling,” which made the wrestling of the pankration particularly hazardous.
Fig. 157. Panathenaic amphora, in British Museum, B. 604. Fourth century. Signed by the artist “Kittos.”
Fig. 158. Panathenaic amphora, in British Museum, B. 610. Archonship of Nicetes, 332 B.C.
Wrestling and boxing combined are depicted in a highly conventional manner on two Panathenaic vases in the British Museum (Figs. [157], [158]) representing respectively the contest for youths and for men. On B 604 a pankratiast has rushed in head down, allowing his opponent to catch his head in the bend of his arm. It is not quite clear what the latter intends to do, whether to complete the neck hold or to pummel him. In B 610 there is no doubt: the left-hand wrestler lifts his fist to pummel the other’s head, which he still holds in the bend of his arm. Why he allows his head to remain unnecessarily in such a position is not quite clear. Perhaps he has really had his head in chancery, and unable to break the grip, has bitten the other’s arm. A favourite Greek story told by Plutarch of Alcibiades, and in another place of a Spartan wrestler, illustrates this suggestion.[[754]] Being hard pressed and about to be thrown, he bit his opponent’s hand. Letting go his hold, the latter exclaimed, “You bite, Alcibiades, like a woman.” “No,” he replied, “like a lion.” Biting, as we know, was strictly forbidden, and some confirmation of the explanation of the vase may be found in the attitude of the official on the right, who seems to be awarding the palm to the other pankratiast. Other examples of biting in the pankration, whether standing or on the ground, will be found in our illustrations.
Kicking was also a distinctive feature of the pankration. In Theocritus,[[755]] Polydeuces being challenged to fight by Amycus, inquires if it is to be a boxing match or whether kicking too was allowed; and Galen,[[756]] in his skit on the Olympic games, awards the prize for the pankration to the donkey, as the best of all animals in kicking. A combination of kicking and boxing is represented on the two Panathenaic vases in Figs. [154], [155]. At least it seems to me probable that the pankratiast on the left has caught his opponent’s foot in mid-air as he was trying to kick him in the stomach. Kicking in the stomach (γαστρίζειν)[[757]] appears to have been a favourite trick in the pankration, as it is in the French savate. It is depicted in one of the groups in the Tusculan mosaic (Fig. [22]), and in a relief in the Louvre. On another Panathenaic vase (Fig. [159]) one pankratiast appears in the act of catching the other’s leg as he lifts it in his onset. The action of the latter rather resembles that described as jumping on an opponent (ἐνάλλεσθαι) than of kicking. A better illustration of this term is seen in Fig. [153], where one pankratiast is jumping on his fallen opponent.
Fig. 159. Panathenaic amphora. Lamberg Coll.
Twisting an opponent’s arm or fingers (στρεβλοῦν) and strangling him (ἄγχειν) are tricks belonging principally to the later stage of the contest, when both opponents are on the ground, but opportunities for them also occurred in standing wrestling. Twisting the arm has already been illustrated in our chapter on wrestling (Figs. [129]-[131]). Similarly in the Uffizi group (Fig. [163]) the upper wrestler twists his opponent’s arm across his back, and the same motive occurs in one of the groups on the frieze of Lysicrates’ monument. Pausanias tells us of one Sostratus, a pankratiast of Sicyon, who, like Leontiscus in wrestling, forced his opponents to yield by twisting and breaking their fingers.[[758]] At first sight we are apt to condemn such practices as brutal and unsportsmanlike, but the principle of twisting an opponent’s limb so as to incapacitate him has been reduced to a science in Japanese wrestling. The same may be said of “strangling,” the method of finishing a contest of which the Eleans much approved. Almost any neck hold can be used to throttle an opponent. Reference has already been made to the familiar hold known as “getting the head in chancery,” illustrated on the gems in Fig. [162]. The most effective and favourite method of strangling an opponent is that known as κλιμακισμός,[[759]] which consists in mounting on an opponent’s back, winding the legs round his stomach, and the arms round his neck. The klimakismos can be employed both in the standing pankration and on the ground. On the Tusculan mosaic both types are represented (Fig. [22]), and we have references to both types in literature. It is the favourite method of attack employed by Heracles in his contests with the Triton and Achelous (Fig. [160]), and is best known to scholars from the account of the latter contest given in the chorus of the Trachiniae, 407-530. In the standing pankration, in order to execute the klimakismos it was necessary to get behind one’s opponent either by making him turn round or by springing round him. This may be illustrated from the humorous picture which Anacharsis draws of the Greeks advancing to meet their foe like boxers with clenched fists.[[760]] “And the enemy,” he says, “naturally cower before you and take to flight for fear lest, as they stand gaping, you fill their mouth with sand, or jumping round to get on their backs, twist your legs round their bellies and strangle them to death, placing your arm beneath their helmets.” A similar description of the klimakismos on the ground has already been quoted.