The best illustration of tripping is furnished by a group of bronzes representing a wrestler fallen on one knee and supporting himself on his left arm, while his opponent stands over him with his left leg still hooked round his, and his right foot behind. So far all the bronzes agree, but in the position of the arms there are two varieties. In the St. Petersburg bronze (Fig. [130]) the victor forces the other’s head down with his left hand, and with his right presses his right arm back in the same way as in the bronze in the British Museum (Fig. [129]). In the Constantinople bronze (Fig. [131]) he holds his opponent’s neck with his right hand, while with his left he has twisted backwards his arm and shoulder. In both cases he makes the attack from behind. In the first case he seizes his opponent’s right hand with his own right, places his arm across his neck, and at the same time hooks his left leg round the other’s left leg; then pressing his neck forward he forces his right arm backwards, using it as a lever to twist him off his feet. The other as he falls puts out his left hand to save himself and falls with his left hand and right knee on the ground. In the other type he seizes the other’s left hand with his own left and pulls it across his back, at the same time forcing his head forwards and downwards with his right hand, and hooking his left leg. The fall is still more inevitable. All the bronzes seem to represent the fall as completed, and the victor has no appearance of continuing his attack. If a fall on the knee was a fair fall no further explanation is wanted. In any case the fallen man’s position is hopeless, and he can at any moment be rolled over on the ground.
Fig. 130. Bronze. St. Petersburg.
Fig. 131. Bronze. Constantinople.
These bronzes are probably copies of some well-known Hellenistic group. The number of replicas which exist of it attest the importance of the original statue and the popularity of the throw represented. It is the sort of attack that must naturally have commended itself to boys playing tricks on one another, or street roughs attacking innocent passers-by from behind. And it is, I believe, the very trick by which Aristophanes, in the Knights, describes the way in which Cleon cheated simple old country gentlemen. “Whenever you find such a one,” say the chorus, “you fetch him home from the Chersonese, and as the old gentleman is walking along unsuspectingly star-gazing you suddenly throw your arm across his neck (διαβαλών), hook his leg (ἀγκυρίσας), and, pulling his shoulder back, kick him in the stomach (ἐνεκολήβασας).”[[685]] Horse-play of this character was not unknown among the fashionable youth of Athens. Demosthenes relates how Conon and his sons set upon Ariston, tripped him up, threw him in the mud, and jumped upon him; and several of the terms which the orator uses are, like those of Aristophanes, terms familiar in the wrestling school.
In no sport is there greater variety of styles and rules than in wrestling. Almost every country has a style of its own. In Greece the Panhellenic festivals helped to preserve uniformity of rule, but there was still room for much diversity of style.[[686]] The Sicilians in particular had a style of their own, the rules for which had been drawn up by one Oricadmus.[[687]] There was also a “Thessalian chip,”[[688]] but in what the Sicilians or Thessalians excelled we do not know. The Argives, who were specially famed for their skill in wrestling, are described by Theocritus as “cross-buttockers.” On the other hand, the Spartans disdained the science of wrestling and the teaching of trainers, and relied on mere strength and endurance.[[689]] Plutarch ascribes the victory of the Thebans at Leuctra to their superiority over the Spartans in wrestling.[[690]] Individuals, too, had their favourite chips. It is recorded of Cleitostratus of Rhodes who won the wrestling at Olympia in Ol. 147 that he owed his victories to the use of the neck-hold.
CHAPTER XIX
BOXING
No sport was older, and none was more popular at all periods among the Greeks than boxing. Its antiquity and its popularity are manifest in their mythology.[[691]] Apollo himself is said to have defeated Ares in boxing at Olympia, and the Delphians sacrificed to Apollo the Boxer (πύκτης), a conclusive proof that boxing was regarded by the Greeks as a contest of skill rather than of brute strength. Heracles, Tydeus, and Polydeuces were all famous boxers, and the invention of boxing is ascribed to Theseus. Both in the Iliad and the Odyssey boxing appears as a common accomplishment and a popular sport; it was represented, according to Hesiod, on the shield of Heracles. The discoveries of Cnossus have shown that boxing was known in the Aegean centuries before the arrival of the Greeks. The survival of the tradition in these parts may perhaps explain the extraordinary popularity of boxing in the East, and particularly among the Ionians. Boxing formed part of the ancient Delian festival, and the laws of boxing in use at Olympia were ascribed to Onomastus of Smyrna. It was also extremely popular among the Arcadians, but found less favour with the Spartans who, though claiming to have invented boxing at first as a military exercise, abandoned it at an early date and took no part in boxing competitions.[[692]]
The early inhabitants of Crete are thought to have worn some kind of glove or caestus. But the boxing of historic times was far more nearly akin to fighting with bare fists, from which, of course, all boxing originated. The fight between Odysseus and Irus in the Odyssey proves that fights with bare fists were frequent in Homeric times. But the competitors in the funeral games of Patroclus had their hands covered with well-cut thongs of ox-hide, such as we find represented later on the vases. The use of some sort of covering or protection for the hand necessarily determines the whole system of fighting, and it will be convenient, therefore, before we consider the style of Greek boxing, to trace the history and development of what for convenience we may call the Greek gloves.[[693]] The simplest form of glove consisted in long, thin thongs wound round the hands. They were made of ox-hide, raw or simply dressed with oil or fat so as to render them supple. Later writers described them as “soft gloves,” ἵμαντες μαλακώτεροι or μείλιχαι in contrast with the more formidable implements in use in their own time.[[694]] In reality they must have been far from soft, and like the light gloves used sometimes in modern fights they served to protect the knuckles from swelling, and so to increase the power of attack rather than to deaden the force of the blow. From the vase paintings they appear to be ten or twelve feet long, and the number of windings represented require at least that length.