It is the throw known in modern wrestling as the flying mare and is probably what Lucian describes as εἰς ὕψος ἀναβαστάσαι.[[668]] Having seized his opponent’s arm in the manner described the wrestler rapidly turns his back on him,[[669]] draws his arm over his own shoulder, using it as a lever by which to throw him clean over his head, at the same time he stoops forward, sometimes sinking on one knee or both. The beginning of the throw is seen on an Etruscan wall painting.[[670]] One wrestler has swung his opponent off his feet and hoisted him over his shoulder. His right hand still grasps his left wrist, and his left hand has been transferred to his neck, and he leans forward in order to complete the throw. A somewhat later moment occurs on a British Museum kylix (Fig. [114]). The drawing is rough and careless, and the stoop of the legs is probably exaggerated because otherwise the group would be too high for the vase space. Two wonderfully life-like pictures of this throw occur on a kylix in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris (Figs. [54], [115]). On the interior we see the victor kneeling on one knee; he has let go with his right hand, and his opponent, left unsupported, is about to fall on his back. The exterior, which is unfortunately much mutilated, shows the same fall a moment later, the falling wrestler tries to save himself by placing his right hand on the ground. This throw was undoubtedly common to wrestling proper and to the pankration. A black-figured amphora in the British Museum, B. 193, represents Heracles employing it against the Nemean lion.
Fig. 114. R.-f. kylix, in British Museum, E. 94.
Fig. 115. R.-f. kylix. Paris. (Interior of Fig. [54].)
Returning to the arm-hold which leads to this throw, we find several methods of meeting it represented. On the Amphiaraus vase (Fig. [3]) Peleus has seized with both hands the left arm of Hippaleimus. The latter with his free right hand grips Peleus under the right arm-pit, and thus weakens his grip and prevents him from turning round. A similar defence is shown on the black-figured amphora in the British Museum, B. 295, where the attack is made on the right arm. A Berlin amphora by Andocides (Fig. [116]) shows another style of counter. The wrestler to the left grasps his opponent’s left wrist, but the latter, by a quick move forward, has rendered useless the right hand which should have grasped his upper arm, and passing his own right hand behind his back grasps his right arm just above the elbow. In all these cases the object is to prevent the opponent turning round or to loosen his grip. The latter object is noticeable on the coins of Aspendus (Fig. [109]), where the left-hand wrestler grasps with both hands his opponent’s left, while the latter with his right hand grasps his right wrist or left upper arm. We may remark how on some of the coins the right-hand wrestler’s hand hangs down helplessly as if rendered powerless by the grip.
Fig. 116. R.-f. amphora. Berlin, 2159.
Greek wrestling was governed, it would seem, more by a tradition of good form than by actual rules. Thus, though it was not regarded as good form to seize an opponent’s fingers and break them, as Leontiscus did, such practices do not appear to have been actually prohibited. They were well enough in the pankration, where the object was to force an opponent, by any means to acknowledge defeat, but they could hardly be regarded as legitimate means for throwing an opponent, which was the object of true wrestling.
The neck is an obvious and effective place by which to obtain a hold, and strength of neck is essential to a wrestler.[[671]] Pindar, in the seventh Nemean ode, speaks of the wrestler’s “strength and neck invincible,” and Xenophon, describing the training of the Spartans, says that they exercised alike legs and arms and neck. In the Knights of Aristophanes Demos advises the sausage-seller to grease his neck in order to escape from Cleon’s grip. The technical word for obtaining a neck-hold is τραχηλίζειν. Neck-holds were freely used in the pankration, but rather for the purpose of choking an opponent than of throwing him.