The javelin was usually thrown with a short run, but one or two vase paintings suggest that a standing throw was also practised. Such is the figure on a kylix in Rome (Fig. [104]), the attitude being evidently borrowed from that of the diskobolos. Possibly the Torlonia kylix may also represent a standing throw.
Fig. 104. R.-f. kylix. Rome(?) (Jüthner, Ant. Turn. Fig. 43.)
Was the javelin thrown with the left hand as well as the right? Plato recommends the training of both hands alike, and the fact that the Greek always carried two javelins, often one in either hand, renders the suggestion possible. But the only direct proof of a left-handed throw is a figure on a kylix of Nicosthenes in Berlin.[[605]] Even if a left-handed throw was practised in the gymnasia, there is no evidence of it in competitions. Nor is there any evidence to show that the Greeks ever threw the javelin without the amentum. The omission of the amentum on the vases is a detail too untrustworthy to warrant us in drawing any definite conclusion from it.
It is hardly necessary to point out that the vases in which the spear is pointed upwards offer no support at all to the remarkable theory that the Greeks practised high throwing “le tir en haut,” as it is described by a French writer. To obtain the maximum of distance it is, of course, absolutely necessary to throw high. A similar theory has been put forward for the diskos. One wonders how “le lancement en haut” of the diskos was measured.
In the games of Patroclus javelin throwing was a separate event. Here, and wherever it is mentioned in Homer as a sport, the competition is for distance only. Throwing at a mark may be implied in the association of javelin throwing with the bow, which meets us again in fourth-century inscriptions, and Pindar definitely refers to such a competition when he describes how at the founding of the Olympic games “Phrastor with the javelin hit the mark.”[[606]] On a fragment of a large vase found on the Acropolis which represents the funeral games of Pelias a javelin competition is shown. The prize is a tripod, and the javelins are not the blunt weapons of the palaestra, but have broad metal points. On one of them the amentum is clearly shown.[[607]]
As the weapon of the chase, every Greek boy must from boyhood have practised throwing the javelin both for distance and at any improvised target. At an early date its use was taught in the gymnasia, and its popularity is shown by the numerous representations of it in art, and by the frequent metaphors which Pindar borrows from it. But in the Greek games, at least, the javelin, like the diskos, only figured as part of the pentathlon, and with the exception of the competition on horseback at Athens, there is no evidence for any separate competition for javelin throwing, either for distance or at a target, till the fourth century.
Towards the close of the fifth century increased importance was given to the javelin as the weapon of light-armed troops and of the epheboi; and from the fourth century onwards we find ἀκοντισμός quoted in inscriptions as a separate competition at Athens and elsewhere.[[608]] The association of the javelin and the bow suggests that in these competitions some sort of target was used, and the case cited by Antiphon proves the use of a target and pointed javelins in practice. But the only direct evidence for such a competition, apart from that on horseback, is furnished by two later inscriptions from Larisa of the time of Hadrian which mention victors σκοπῷ πεζῶν and σκοπῶ ἱππέων.[[609]]
What was the character of the competition in the pentathlon? The question has been discussed at wearisome length by commentators on Pindar and others, but Dr. Jüthner’s conclusion seems to me incontestable, namely, that the competition in the pentathlon was one for distance only.
On this point the evidence of the vases seems conclusive. The javelins are blunt, the head is turned backward just before the throw, and there is no sign of any target. The last point is particularly convincing because in the competition on horseback the target is always represented. Certain archaeologists, it is true, have discovered evidence of targets in the badly-drawn amenta held in the hand of the javelin thrower on the Panaetius kylix and other vases. These have been interpreted as compasses for drawing circles on the ground at which the throwers aimed; or again as a sort of croquet-hoop stuck in the ground to serve as target! The authors of these delightful suggestions forget that the hunter or soldier does not aim at his opponent’s feet but at his body, and that if a target is used it is at a reasonable height.