The aim of the earlier training had been to produce a harmonious development of the whole body. The new training, by prescribing concentration on some particular exercise, produced a one-sided development. “The runner,” says Socrates, “has over-developed his legs, and the boxer the upper part of his body,”[[145]] and he humorously suggests that he finds dancing a better form of exercise than athletics. In another passage of the Memorabilia, Socrates compliments a sculptor, whom under the name of Cleiton we may perhaps recognize as Polycleitus,[[146]] on his power of representing the different physical types produced by different forms of sport. Unfortunately we have not sufficient material to enable us to verify this statement for the sculpture of the end of the fifth century. But some idea of the diversity of type produced may be obtained by comparing two somewhat later works, the Apoxyomenos, formerly ascribed to Lysippus (Fig. [19]), and the Agias, a genuine work of Lysippus, recently discovered at Delphi[[147]] (Fig. [20]). In the former we see the thoroughbred type of the runner with his length of limb and fine ankles, in the latter the sturdier, heavier type of the pankratiast. Neither of these two statues, however, is open to the charge of one-sided development which Socrates brings against the athletes of his time, and which would probably be more noticeable in inferior works of art. For this we must turn to the vases. A Panathenaic vase in the British Museum, dated 336 B.C., shows us the typical boxer of the period, with his clumsy, bulky body and small coarse head[[148]] (Fig. [135]). A comparison of these boxers with the athletes on the red-figured vases affords convincing proof of the change which had come over athletics.
Fig. 20. Statue of Agias by Lysippus. Delphi. (Greek Sculpture, Fig. 141.)
The old athlete had lived a simple, natural, open-air life. Training in the strict sense of the word he had none. His diet had been mainly vegetarian. Like the diet of the country-folk in Greece at all times, it consisted mainly of figs and cheese from the baskets, of porridge and meal-cakes with only such meat as occasion offered.[[149]] It has been often stated that a diet of figs and cheese was prescribed by the law of the Olympic festival, and various fanciful interpretations of this custom have been suggested. It is possible that certain forms of food were forbidden to competitors at particular festivals; thus at Delphi we know that the introduction of wine into the stadium was forbidden, and that any breach of this rule was punished by a fine, half of which was paid to the god, the other half to the informer.[[150]] But such prohibitions were of the nature of a religious taboo, and there is no reason for supposing that the diet of athletes was otherwise regulated by any law. Indeed we have direct evidence to the contrary, for the introduction of a meat diet in the fifth century is ascribed to two private individuals—to Dromeus of Stymphalus, a runner who twice won the long race at Olympia in Ols. 80 and 81, and to Pythagoras of Samos, who trained Eurymenes, the winner of the boxing in Ol. 77.[[151]]
The introduction of a meat diet was a momentous change: it created an artificial distinction between the life of an athlete and the life of the ordinary man, who ate meat but sparingly and only as a relish. Its object, of course, was to produce the bulk of body and weight which are important considerations in boxing and wrestling, and which were especially so in Greece inasmuch as classification by weight was unknown in those competitions. Boxing, wrestling, and the pankration were, as I have stated, the most popular and most honoured of all the events in Greek sport, and it is in these events that specialization and professionalism first made their appearance, and that their results were most fatal. To produce the necessary bulk of body the trainer prescribed for his pupils vast quantities of meat, which had to be counteracted by violent exercise. Eating, sleeping, and exercise occupied the athlete’s whole time, and left little time or leisure for any other pursuits.[[152]] “Socrates,” says Xenophon, “disapproved of such a life as incompatible with the cultivation of the soul.” Even from a physical point of view this system of training was vicious and unscientific. It might produce weight and strength, but it did so at the sacrifice of activity and health. In the case of the young it tended to stunt the growth and destroy all beauty of form; and Aristotle, speaking no doubt of his own time, remarks on the fact that the boy victors at Olympia rarely repeated their successes as men.[[153]] Moreover, the athlete’s strength was useless for practical purposes. Epaminondas, we are told, when he came of age and began to frequent the palaestra, devoted himself to such exercises as produced activity rather than great strength, considering that the latter was of little use for war. So he exercised himself in running, and in wrestling “only so far as he could stand on his feet,” but he spent most of his time in the practice of arms.[[154]] Equally unsuitable for war was the habit of life produced by athletic training. “The athlete’s nature,” says Plato, “is sleepy, and the least variation from his routine is liable to cause him serious illness.”[[155]] Such a man is incapable of standing the various vicissitudes of a campaign, and therefore we find athletics condemned not only by philosophers like Plato and Aristotle but by generals such as Epaminondas, Alexander, and Philopoemen.[[156]] “The athlete,” says Euripides, “is the slave of his jaw and of his belly.”
Medical science confirmed the verdict of the philosopher and the soldier. Hippocrates of Cos, “the father of medicine,” and a contemporary of Herodicus and Gorgias, condemned the high state of training produced by athletics as a dangerous and unstable condition of body.[[157]] To live in a constant state of training is bad for any man, and especially under a system so unscientific as that of the Greeks.
There was another reason for the condemnation of athletics by military authorities. The old Homeric sports had been practical and military: the system of physical education which had grown out of them had produced that all-round development which made a man fit for all the duties of life in peace or war; but the new specialized education produced only a one-sided development, and at the same time was so exacting as to leave no time for the practice of military exercises. Plato was an ardent advocate of physical training. Trained by his father Ariston, who was a distinguished athlete, he had won victories in wrestling at Delphi, Nemea, and the Isthmus, and is even stated, though with less probability, to have won the Olympic crown. But the philosopher could find no place for the athletics of his day in his ideal state, and he therefore, in the Laws,[[158]] proposes a new and more practical gymnastic based on the requirements of war. From the age of six, boys, and girls too, are to learn to ride, to learn the use of the bow, the javelin, and the sling, and to learn to use the left hand as well as the right. In wrestling and boxing all tricks invented “out of a vain spirit of competition” are to be eschewed and only such forms practised as are likely to be of service for war. The dances, too, must be military in character, marches and processions in armour and on horseback, or mimic contests like the dances of Crete and Sparta. In another passage[[159]] he describes the competitions suitable for his ideal state. All foot-races are to be run in armour, there is to be a long-distance race of sixty stades in heavy armour, and a still longer race of 100 stades over mountains and across every sort of country for the light-armed archer. Instead of wrestling and the pankration there are to be conflicts in armour, and for the light-armed troops combats with bows, and javelins, and slings under a code of laws drawn up by military experts. The military character of Plato’s scheme indicates the philosopher’s opinion on the unpractical character of the existing athletics.
An interesting development of athletic training which has its parallel in our own day was the rise of “medical gymnastics.” The valetudinarian school of gymnastic originated with Herodicus of Selymbria, a contemporary of Socrates whom Plato ridicules for corrupting the arts of gymnastic and medicine.[[160]] “By a combination of training and doctoring he found out a way of torturing, first and chiefly, himself, and, secondly, the rest of the world, by the invention of a lingering death. Having a mortal disease, which he perpetually tended, he passed his whole life as a valetudinarian.” By the introduction of elaborate rules for eating and drinking he corrupted athletics, and is justly described by Plato as a gymnastic sophist, a name that might well be applied to many of the advertizing quacks of our own day. In this respect he is coupled by Plato with the somewhat earlier trainer, Iccus of Tarentum, who won the pentathlon at Olympia in Ol. 76, and who was famed for his temperance and self-restraint.[[161]] These trainers are credited with the invention of medical massage (ἰατραλειπτική), a development of the massage applied to athletes before and after training by the ἀλειπτής. Alexander had in his suite an Athenian Athenophanes, whose duty it was to attend his master in the bath and anoint him with oil.[[162]]
Of the rich rewards lavished upon successful athletes we have spoken in a previous chapter. In the Plutus of Aristophanes Hermes, having deserted the gods, takes service with Plutus as the “presider over contests.” “For,” says he, “there is no service more profitable to Plutus than holding contests in music and athletics.”[[163]] Plato knows no life more blessed from a material point of view than that of an Olympic victor, and in the myth of Er he describes the soul of Atalanta choosing the body of an athlete on seeing “the great rewards bestowed on the athlete.” Still more significant is the story of the Rhodian Dorieus, one of the famous Diagoridae. Banished from Rhodes by the Athenians he went to Thurii, and, as a commander of a Thurian ship, took part in the war against Athens. Taken prisoner by the Athenians in 407 B.C. he was set free without ransom in consideration of the fame which he and his family had won at Olympia.[[164]]
The result of specialization is professionalism. There is a point in any sport or game where it becomes over-developed, and competition too severe, for it to serve its true purpose of providing exercise or recreation for the many. It becomes the monopoly of the few who can afford the time or money to acquire excellence, while the rest, despairing of any measure of success, prefer the role of spectators. When the rewards of success are sufficient there arises a professional class, and when professionalism is once established the amateur can no longer compete with the professional.