Th’ admiring Greeks loud acclamations raise,
To him they give their wishes, heart, and eyes,
And send their souls before him as he flies.
Now three times turned, in prospect of the goal,
The panting chief to Pallas lifts his soul;
Assist, O Goddess, (thus in thought he prayed,)
And present at his thought descends the maid;
Buoyed by her heavenly force he seems to swim,
And feels a pinion lifting every limb.”
Next in the natural order, proceeding from the simplest to the most artificial exercises, was leaping, in which the youth among the Greeks delighted to excel. In the performance of this exercise they usually sprang from an artificial elevation (βατὴρ), and descended upon the soft mould, which, when ploughed up with their heels, was termed ἐσκαμμένα.[[662]] The better to poise their bodies and enable them to bound to a greater distance, they carried in their hands metallic weights, denominated halteres,[[663]] in the form of a semi disk, having on their inner faces handles like the thong of a shield, through which the fingers were passed. Extraordinary feats are related of these ancient leapers. Chionis the Spartan and Phaÿllos the Crotonian, being related to have cleared at one bound the space of fifty-two, or according to others, of fifty-five feet.