(4) A 1, B 1, C 1, D 1, E 1.—In this highly improbable case victory can only have been decided by marks.
Complications may have been introduced by dead heats or ties: all such cases would, no doubt, have been settled by the same common-sense principles. This scheme, which I stated more fully in vol. xxiii. of the Journal of Hellenic Studies, is not affected by the modification which I have since adopted about admission to the wrestling. It is in entire accordance with modern athletic experience, and there is no passage in any ancient author which contradicts it.
CHAPTER XVIII
WRESTLING
Wrestling is perhaps the oldest and most universal of all sports. The wall-paintings of Beni Hassan show that almost every hold or throw known to modern wrestlers was known to the Egyptians 2500 years before our era. The popularity of wrestling among the Greeks is proved by the constant metaphors from this sport, and by the frequency with which scenes from the wrestling ring appear not only in athletic literature and art but also in mythological subjects. Despite the changes in Greek athletics caused by professionalism, which affected wrestling and boxing more than any other sports, the popularity of wrestling remained unabated. On early black-figured vases Heracles is constantly represented employing the regular holds of the palaestra not only against the giant Antaeus but against monsters such as Achelous or the Triton, or even against the Nemean lion, and centuries later the language in which Ovid and Lucan describe these combats is in every detail borrowed from the same source. Still more is this the case with the wrestling match between Cercyon and Theseus which occurs so often on the red-figured vases of Athens. On coins wrestling types survive into imperial times. The fight with the Nemean lion is represented on the fourth-century gold coins of Syracuse, and that with Antaeus on imperial coins of Alexandria (Fig. [109]).
Fig. 109. Wrestling types on coins, in British Museum. a, b, c, Aspendus, fifth and fourth centuries. d, Heraclea in Lucania, fourth century. e, f, Syracuse, circa 400 B.C. g, Alexandria, Antoninus Pius. (J.H.S. xxv. p. 271.)
These fights are one of the many forms under which Greek imagination loved to picture the triumph of civilization and science over barbarism and brute force. To the Greek wrestling was a science and an art. Theseus, the reputed discoverer of scientific wrestling, is said to have learnt its rules from Athena herself.[[633]] The greatest importance was attached to grace and skill; it was not sufficient to throw an opponent, it had to be done correctly and in good style.[[634]] Hence even when athletics had become corrupted by professionalism, wrestling remained for the most part free from that brutality which has so often brought discredit on one of the noblest of sports. Pausanias records the case of a certain Sicilian wrestler, Leontiscus, who defeated his opponents by trying to break their fingers.[[635]] But such tactics did not commend themselves to the Greeks, although it does not seem that they were formally prohibited, and Pausanias expresses his disapproval by the comment that he did not understand how to throw his opponents.
The very name palaestra sufficiently indicates the early importance of wrestling in Greek education, an importance which it maintained even during the Empire. The method of instruction was strictly progressive.[[636]] There were separate rules for men and boys; the different movements, grips, and throws were taught as separate figures, the simpler movements first, then the more complicated. In learning them the pupils were grouped in pairs, and more than one pair could be taught at the same time. In the early stages a beginner would be paired with a more advanced pupil, who would help him. Later on the movements were combined, and practice was allowed in free play. The paidotribes seems to have enforced his instruction with a free use of the rod. In Fig. [96] a vivid picture of a wrestling lesson is seen. A pair of paidotribai are engaged in instructing a pair of youthful wrestlers. One of the latter has seized his opponent round the waist and prepares to give him the heave; the other has allowed him to obtain his grip and stands with outstretched hands waiting for the paidotribes to give his next order.
There were doubtless numerous text-books of drill in wrestling and other sports for the use of paidotribai. A fragment of such a text-book has been found on a papyrus of the second century A.D.[[637]] It contains orders for executing a number of different grips and throws, and each section ends with the order “complete the grip” (πλέξον) or “throw him” (ῥεῖψον). The sections dealing with the throws are hopelessly mutilated, but considerable portions of four sections dealing with the grips remain. Unfortunately, the brevity of the commands, characteristic of all drill books, makes them extremely difficult to understand accurately, and the interpretation is too technical to deal with here.
Competitions in wrestling, boxing, and the pankration were conducted in the same way as a modern tournament. Lucian’s description of the manner of drawing lots has already been quoted. In case of an odd number of competitors one of them drew a bye. This of course gave him a considerable advantage in the next round over a less fortunate rival, who had perhaps been exhausted by his previous contest. Thus the crown may sometimes have depended on the luck of the lot. It is to such an accident that Pindar refers at the close of the sixth Nemean Ode when he says that Alcimidas and his brother were deprived of two Olympic crowns by the fall of the lot. So it is mentioned as an additional distinction for an athlete to have won a crown without drawing the bye, and Pausanias speaks with some contempt of such as have ere now won the olive by the unreasonableness of the lot and not by their own strength.[[638]] There is, of course, no ground for the idea that one who had drawn a bye in the first round remained a bye till the final. To draw a bye in a single round is quite sufficient advantage, and archaeologists should really credit the Greeks with a certain amount of practical common-sense.