[721]. Gym. 10, 23.
[722]. Benndorf, Gr. Sic. Vasenb. xxxi. 2; Gerhard, A.V. 177 (= Munich 584); Le Musée, ii. p. 276, Fig. 24 (b.-f. vase at Boulogne). Other examples of a blow with the left hand are: a Fragment in the Louvre (Hartwig, Meisterschalen, Fig. 31); Mus. Greg. ii. 17 (very similar to B.M. B. 271); Krause, Gym. xviii. d. 66 f.; Brussels 336. In the Benndorf vase and some others the blow seems to be somewhat downward, which is probably due to the fact that the opponent is in the act of falling.
[723]. Gorgias, 516 A; Protag. 342 B; cp. Theocritus xxii. 45. For full references vide Krause, Gym. pp. 516, 517, and J.H.S. xxvi. p. 13.
[724]. Philostratus, Heroic. 180 τὰ δὰ ὧτα κατεαγὼς ἤν οὐκ ὑπὸ πάλης.
[725]. Theb. vi. 731-825.
[726]. Gym. 34 προσβῆναι ταῖς τῶν ἀντιπάλων κνήμαις ἄργοι καὶ εὐάλωτοι τῷ προσβάντι. Cp. c. 11 ὁ πύκτης τρωθήσεται καὶ τρώσει καὶ προσβήσεται ταῖς κνήμαις. To προσβῆναι I have given the somewhat wider sense of “advancing” or “lunging” which is undoubtedly implied in the following words, ὁρμητικώτερον τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ πυκτεύοντος ἢν μὴ συμβαίνωσιν οἱ μηροί. The addition of the words ταῖς τῶν ἀντιπάλων κνήμαις is a difficulty. There can be no question of “kicking” which was certainly not allowed in boxing, nor are any of the vases quoted by Jüthner in his note on the passage appropriate. The words can only mean “advancing against an opponent’s shins.” Shoving an opponent backwards in this way may occur in “in-fighting,” in which case his only remedy is “slipping.” But the tactics are not particularly effective, and shoving is not allowed in modern boxing. I have a suspicion that Philostratus was very vague in his ideas about boxing. As Jüthner has shown in his recent edition, Philostratus was a rhetorician, not a practical athlete, and he owed his athletic knowledge to some technical treatise on gymnastics, which he did not always quite understand.
[727]. Bacchylides i.
[728]. Dion. Orat. xxix.; cp. Eustath. Il. Ψ 1322, 1324. Eusebius, Histor. Syn. p. 350, quoted in Krause, p. 510.
[729]. ii. 25-97.
[730]. Symp. ii. 4.