And dragging his disabled legs along.
Nodding, his head hangs down his shoulders o’er,
His mouth and nostrils pour the clotted gore.
Wrapped round in mist he lies, and lost to thought,
His friends receive the bowl too dearly bought.”
Among the exercises of the gymnasium which Hippocrates advises to be practised during winter[[675]] and bad weather, when it is necessary to remain under cover, is walking on the tight rope. This feat seems to have been so great a favourite among the youths of antiquity, that they applied themselves to it with constant assiduity, and arrived at length at a degree of skill little inferior to that of our mountebanks. It seems, in fact, to have been a common practice in the gymnasium to run upon the tight rope. The Romans, seeking in something to outdo the Greeks, taught an elephant to perform a similar exploit.
Another branch of gymnastics consisted in the various forms of the dance, to be ignorant of which was at Athens esteemed a mark of an illiberal education. To excel in this accomplishment was nearly by all the Greeks[[676]] considered absolutely necessary, either as a preparation for the due performance of the movements and evolutions of war, sustaining a proper part in the religious choruses, or regulating the carriage with the requisite grace and decorum in the various relations of private life. Thus the Cretans, the Spartans, the Thessalians, and the Bœotians, held this division of gymnastics in especial honour, chiefly with a view to war, while the Athenians, and Ionians generally, contemplated it more as a means of developing the beauty of the form, and conferring ease and elegance on the gait and gesture. But because in treating of the theatre I design fully to describe the several varieties of scenic dances, I think it proper to throw together in that place whatever I may have to say on this subject.[[677]]
To all these branches of gymnastics the Grecian youth[[678]] applied themselves with peculiar eagerness, and on quitting the schools devoted to them a considerable portion of their time, since they were regarded both as a preparation for victory in the Olympic and other games, and as the best possible means for promoting health and ripening the physical powers. Nor could anything be easily conceived better suited to the genius of their republics. In the first place, as I have already observed, the wild and headstrong period of youth was withdrawn by these agreeable exercises from the desire and thoughts of evil, while a wholesome feeling of equality was cultivated, and something like brotherhood engendered in men destined to live and act together. Besides what could more admirably prepare them for fulfilling their duties as citizens and more especially for defending their country, than a system of physical training, which at the same time brought to perfection their strength, their vigour, and their manly beauty, and fitted them for the acquisition of that peculiar species of glory which success in the sacred games conferred? The acquisition, moreover, of robust health and that vigour of mind which accompanies it, was a consideration second to none. And it will readily be conceived that a judicious system of exercises, such as we have described, would necessarily render men patient of labour, inaccessible to fear, and be productive at once of graceful habits and lofty and honourable sentiments.
[618]. Cf. Plato, de Rep. t. vi. p. 139, seq.