FIG. 116. WRESTLERS
The principal athletic contests were foot-races of various distances, including the torch-race, which corresponded to the modern relay race, broad jumping, throwing the diskos and the javelin, wrestling, and boxing. There were also the pentathlon (five contests), which consisted of the jump, the foot-race, throwing the diskos and the javelin, and wrestling; and the pankration, a combination of wrestling and boxing.
FIG. 117. SCENE FROM THE PANKRATION
For jumping, weights called halteres were used; on the black-figured lekythos on the middle shelf of Case 4 decorated with a scene of athletes practising, two of the number hold halteres, the drawing being sufficiently detailed to show the shape well. On the psykter and a vase fragment on the same shelf are jumpers at the take-off ([fig. 113]), and a boy preparing for a jump decorates the interior of a kylix on the lower shelf in Case P in the Fifth Room.
A foot-race is represented on one of the Panathenaic amphorai in the Third Room (Case N), and the cast of a bronze statuette in Tübingen shows a contestant in the race for hoplites (heavy-armed foot-soldiers), at the starting-line (top shelf of Case 3). The shield which he carried on his left arm has been broken away.
Throwing the diskos was one of the oldest Greek sports. The object was to throw it as far as possible, as in putting the shot. So many representations of this sport have come down to us in statues, vase paintings, coins, and gems, that it is possible to work out the successive movements of the throw. The principle seems to have been always the same, though individuals were allowed certain differences in style. A bronze statuette in Case B in the Fourth Room ([fig. 114]) shows one stance; the athlete is about to swing the diskos down from the left to the right hand. The position preliminary to the swing downwards to the side, the athlete now holding the diskos in both hands, may be seen on the lekythos in Case 4; and one of the figures on the psykter is in the same position. The well-known statue by Myron, of which a cast stands in Gallery 22, shows the position just preliminary to the throw, an instant before the diskos leaves the hand.
FIG. 118. PANATHENAIC AMPHORA
The art of fighting in heavy armor, hoplomachy, was taught to Greek boys by a special master as part of their athletic training. A most interesting scene of this kind decorates the shoulder of a hydria of the late sixth or early fifth century where two men armed with helmet and shield are fencing with spears to the music of a flute-player (Case Y in the Fourth Room). Plato alludes more than once to the attention given to this branch of physical training in his day, and the prestige enjoyed by teachers of the art.