Fig. 120.
was probably reserved for the long course, when it was a question of preserving an equal speed, and the latter for the quickest course, in which the swinging of the arms might be a help; even here, however, the rule held that a good runner should adopt a slower motion at first, and only gradually proceed to his greatest speed. The pictures of runners, which are very common on vase pictures, especially on the so-called Panathenaic prize amphorae, generally show the peculiarity of holding the front leg very high up, while the other is set far backwards, and seems only to touch the ground with the toes. Now in ordinary pictures of runners we generally see the front leg resting on the ground and the other thrown out far behind, and this is sometimes found on antique pictures, but less often; we therefore must suppose that quick running in ancient times consisted rather in a series of wide jumps, in which only the toes touched the ground. In the vase painting represented in Fig. [120] we see four runners moving thus from left to right; their left legs are thrown far forward, their right legs back, and the arms swing with a motion corresponding to that of the legs. The hypothesis formerly current that on the vase paintings the runners from left to right are running the single, those from right to left the long course, is, however, not tenable. The two men practising, on the vase picture Fig. [121], are jumping in exactly the same manner; behind them another man is preparing to jump with dumb-bells, near them stands a teacher or superintendent in a cloak, with a switch in his hand; on the ground lies a quoit.
Fig. 121.
In ancient times, runners usually wore some drapery round their loins, but afterwards they had no clothing at all. There was, however, a special kind of race, called “armour-race,” (ὁπλιτοδρομία), which was not introduced into the Olympic games till the year 520, in which the runners wore the heavy armour of Hoplites. In ancient times, they seem to have run in full armour—that is, with helmet, cuirass, greaves, sword and spear; afterwards, if we may trust the representations on the vases, the armour-race consisted in running with helmet and round shield, as in Fig. [122]. This kind of race, which, of course, required still greater exertion, seems to have been only in use for the single and double course, and chiefly for the latter, but not for the horse-course, or the long course.
