Fig. 127. Bronze wrestling group. Paris.
Some of the holds described must have been combined with various turns of the body. Thus to obtain a hold from behind a wrestler must either force his opponent to shift his position (μεταβιβάζειν), or shift his own position so as to get behind him (μεταβαίνειν), while the wrestler so attacked will naturally turn round himself (μεταβαλέσθαι). The last two terms occur in two consecutive lines of the Oxyrhynchus papyrus. One pupil is told to get behind his fellow and grip him, the other is ordered at once to turn round himself.[[679]] The use of the preposition μετά in these compounds suggests the “afterplay” of Cornish wrestling.
A sudden turn of the body is often used when a hold has been already obtained, in order to twist an opponent off his feet. The modern throws known as the “buttock” and “cross-buttock” find their Greek equivalent in the phrase ἕδραν στρέφειν, to turn the buttock. The cross-buttock differs chiefly from the buttock in that the legs come more into play, and we may therefore infer that this is the special throw whereof Theocritus speaks when he relates how Heracles learnt from Harpalacus “all the tricks wherewith the nimble Argive cross-buttockers (ἀπὸ σκελέων ἑδροστρόφοι) give each other the fall.”[[680]] It was evidently a favourite throw. Theophrastus, in his character of the late learner who wishes to be thought thoroughly accomplished and up-to-date, remarks that “in the bath he is continually giving the cross-buttock as if wrestling.”[[681]] Cannot we picture this athletic fraud strutting about the bath cross-buttocking imaginary opponents, just as his modern counterpart bowls imaginary balls, or with his walking-stick wings imaginary birds?
Fig. 128. B.-f. amphora. Vatican.
These movements may be illustrated by a group on a black-figured vase in the Museo Gregoriano (Fig. [128]). The wrestler to the left has obtained a hold round his opponent’s waist, either from in front or from behind. In the former case his opponent must have immediately turned round. Anyhow, by throwing his weight well forward, he frustrates the attempt to lift him, and puts himself in an advantageous position for swinging the other off his feet. Somewhat similar must have been the motive of a much mutilated group on a metope of the treasury of the Athenians at Delphi, representing the exploits of Theseus, except that the figures are more upright.[[682]]
Fig. 129. Bronze group, in the British Museum.
A throw somewhat resembling the cross-buttock is represented in a recently acquired bronze of the British Museum (Fig. [129]). As two other replicas[[683]] exist it seems probable that it is a copy of some well-known Hellenistic group in bronze or marble. A thick-set bearded man is wrestling with a powerful youth, and with his back turned to him twists him off his feet by a most curious arm-lock. With his right hand he forces his opponent’s right arm back across his own thigh, while he has slipped his left arm under his left armpit and gripped his neck, thus rendering the imprisoned arm quite useless, and obtaining a leverage similar to that of our half Nelson. Perhaps the grip was obtained in the following way. The man seizes the youth’s right arm, and by a quick movement pulls him towards him and turns him round, μεταβιβάζει, at the same time stepping himself to the left so as to be behind him. He then slips his left hand under his left armpit so as to grasp his neck and force it down. The grip obtained he turns round to the right and twists him over.
We have seen that tripping (ὑποσκελίζειν) was at all times an essential part of Greek wrestling. There are various technical terms for the different chips, but their interpretation is very uncertain and the monuments give little help. The words βάλλω, βολή, and their compounds, are used to denote both arm and leg movements. Perhaps we may recognise in ἑμβοληή the modern “hank” and in παρεμβολή the “back heel,” the foot being hooked round the opponent’s leg from the inside and the outside respectively. The latter term occurs in an amusing passage of Lucian’s Ocypus.[[684]] Ocypus, who is suffering from gout but will not acknowledge it, alleges, among various excuses for his lameness, that he hurt his foot in trying a back heel. By analogy the term διαβολή, if used of a leg movement, may mean the “outside stroke.” The chip by which Odysseus threw Ajax is described by Eustathius as μεταπλασμός or παρακαταγωγή. From the Homeric account these terms ought to correspond to the “inside click” or “hank.” Some such click is perhaps intended on the vases in Figs. [116], [123], where one wrestler, lifted from the ground, clicks his foot round his opponent’s leg.