Rambles and Studies in Greece

by J. P. Mahaffy

The next event was the wrestling match, which is out of fashion at our prize meetings, though still a favorite sport in many country districts. There is a very ample terminology for the various tricks and devices in this contest, and they have been explained with much absurdity by scholiasts, both ancient and modern. It seems that it was not always enough to throw your adversary,[128] but that an important part of the sport was the getting uppermost on the ground; and in no case was a man declared beaten till he was thrown three times, and was actually laid on his back. It is not worth while enumerating the various technical terms, but it may be observed that a good deal of what we should call foul play was tolerated. There was no kicking, such as there used to be in wrestling matches in Ireland, because there were no boots, but Pausanias mentions (vi. 4, 3) a man who did not know how to wrestle, but defeated his opponents by breaking their fingers. We shall return to this point when speaking of the pankration.

When the wrestling was over there followed the throwing of the discus and the dart, and the long leap, but in what order is uncertain; for I cannot [pg 331]accept as evidence the pentameter line of Simonides, which enumerates the games of the pentathlon, seeing that it would be impossible to vary them from the order he gives without great metrical difficulties. Our only safe guide is, I think, the date of the origin of each kind of competition, as it was plainly the habit of the Greeks to place the new event next after those already established. The sole exception to this is in the establishing of contests for boys, which seem always to have come immediately before the corresponding competition for men. But we are only told that both wrestling and the contest of five events (pentathlon) dated from the 18th Ol. (710 B. C.), and are not informed in what order each was appointed.[129]

Entrance to the Stadium, Olympia

The discus-throwing was mainly to test distance, but the dart-throwing to strike a mark. The discus was either of stone or of metal, and was very heavy. I infer from the attitude of Myron’s discobolus, as seen in our copies, that it was thrown without a preliminary run, and rather hurled standing. This contest is to be compared with our hammer-throwing, or putting of weights. We are, however, without any accurate information either as to the average weight of the discus, or the average distance which a good man could throw it. There is, indeed, one ancient specimen extant, which was found at Ægina, [pg 332]and is now preserved among the bronze antiquities at Munich. It is about eight inches in diameter, and something under four pounds in weight. But there seem to have been three sizes of discus, according as they were intended for boys, for grown youths (ἀγένειοι), or for men, and it is not certain to which class this discus belongs. Philostratos mentions one hundred cubits as a fine throw, but in such a way as to make it doubtful whether he is not talking at random and in round numbers. Similarly, we have no details concerning the javelin contest. But I suspect that here, if anywhere, the Greeks could do what we cannot; for the savages of to-day, who use spears, can throw them with a force and accuracy which is to us quite surprising. It is reported by trustworthy travellers that a Kaffir who comes suddenly on game will put a spear right into an antelope at ten or twelve yards’ distance by an underhand chuck, without taking time to raise his arm. This is beyond the ability of any English athlete, however trained.

The question of the long jump is more interesting, as it still forms a part of our contests. It is not certain whether the old Greeks practised the running jump, or the high jump, for we never hear of a preliminary start, or of any difficulty about “breaking trig,” as people now call it. Furthermore, an extant epigram on a celebrated athlete, Phayllus of Kroton, asserts that he jumped clean over the prepared ground (which [pg 333]was broken with a spade) on to the hard ground beyond—a distance of forty-nine feet. We cannot, of course, though some German professors believe it, credit this feat, if it were a single long jump, yet we can find no trace of anything like a hop, step, and jump, so that it seems wonderful how such an absurdity should be gravely repeated in an epigram. But the exploit became proverbial, and to leap ὑπὲρ τὰ σκάμματα (beyond the digging) was a constantly repeated phrase.

The length of Phayllus’s leap would be even more incredible if the competition was in a standing jump, and yet the figures of athletes on vases which I have seen strongly favor this supposition. They are represented not as running, but as standing and swinging the dumb-bells or ἁλτῆρες (jumpers), which were always used by the older Greeks, as assisting them materially in increasing their distance. I can imagine this being the case in a standing jump where a man rose with the forward swing of the weights, but in a running jump the carrying of the weights must surely impede rather than assist him. I know that Irish peasants, who take off very heavy boots to jump, often carry one in each hand, and throw them backward violently as they rise from the ground; but this principle is not admitted so far as I know, by any scientific authority, as of the slightest assistance.

We hear of no vaulting or jumping with a pole, [pg 334]so that in fact the leap seems an isolated contest, and of little interest except as determining one of the events of the pentathlon, in which a man must win three in order to be declared victor. This pentathlon, as comprising gentlemanly exercise without much brutality, was especially patronized by the Spartans. It was attempted for boys, but immediately abandoned, the strain being thought excessive for growing constitutions.

There remain the two severest and most objectionable sports—boxing and the pankration. The former came first (Ol. 23), the other test of strength not being admitted till Ol. 33 (650 B. C.). But one special occasion is mentioned when a champion, who was competing in both, persuaded the judges to change the order, that he might not have to contend against a specially famous antagonist when already wounded and bruised. For boxing was, even from Homeric times, a very dangerous and bloody amusement, in which the vanquished were always severely punished. The Greeks were not content with naked fists, but always used a special apparatus, called ἱμάντες, which consisted at first of a weight carried in the hand, and fastened by thongs of hide round the hand and wrist. But this ancient cestus came to be called the gentle kind (μειλίχαι) when a later and more brutal invention introduced “sharp thongs on the wrist,” and probably increased the weight of the instrument. The successful boxer in the Iliad [pg 335](Epeius) confesses that he is a bad warrior, though he is the acknowledged champion in his own line; but evidently this sport was not highly esteemed in epic days. In historical times it seems to have been more favored. There was no doubt a great deal of skill required for it, but I think the body of the evidence goes to prove that the Greeks did not box on sound principles, and that any prominent member of the P. R. with his naked fists would have easily settled any armed champion of Olympian fame. Here are my reasons:

The principle of increasing the weight of the fist as much as possible is only to be explained by the habit of dealing swinging or downward strokes, and is incompatible with the true method of striking straight home quickly, and giving weight to the stroke by sending the whole body with it. In Vergil’s description a boxer is even described getting up on tip-toe to strike his adversary on the top of the head—a ridiculous manœuvre, which must make his instant ruin certain, if his opponent knew the first elements of the art. That this downward stroke was used appears also from the anecdote in Pausanias, where a father seeing his son, who was ploughing, drive in the share which had fallen out with strokes of his fist, without a hammer, immediately entered him for the boys’ boxing match at Olympia. The lad got roughly handled from want of skill, and seemed likely to lose, when the father [pg 336]called out: “Boy, give him the plough stroke!” and so encouraged him that he forthwith knocked his adversary out of time.