CHAPTER IV
ATHENS AND THE REST OF HELLAS:
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
It is well known that the Hellenes attached an enormous importance to physical exercise. This was partly, no doubt, due to their intense appreciation of bodily beauty, which it was the endeavour of their gymnastic training to produce. But it must be remembered that to be in “good condition” was essential to them. Any morning an Hellenic citizen might find himself called upon to take the field against an invader, or might be despatched to ravage an enemy’s territory. Only the most cogent excuses were accepted. Plato[332] has left a vivid picture of a rich man, who has lived in idleness and luxury, suddenly called out to serve his country. Unhappy Dives marches along panting and perspiring, he is ill on board ship, and in battle when he has to charge or fight vigorously, he has no wind and is in a state of hopeless misery; while his poorer or wiser companions, who are “lean and wiry, and have lived in the open air,” mock at him and despise him. Sokrates points out to young Epigenes,[333] who has neglected his physical condition, what risks he runs. In battle, when a retreat is sounded, he will be left behind by his companions, and be either killed or taken prisoner by the foe; and the lot of the captive was frequently slavery for life, unless his friends ransomed him. But there were also intellectual and moral risks. “Bodily debility,” says Sokrates, “frequently causes a loss of memory, and low spirits, and a peevish temper, and even madness, to invade a man, so as to make even intellectual pursuits impossible.” To be a good citizen and to be a good thinker a man must always be in good physical condition. It became a duty to oneself and to the State “to live in the open air and accustom oneself to manly toils and sweat, avoiding the shade and unmanly ways of life.”[334] By divine ordinance, “Sweat was the doorstep of manly virtue,” as old Hesiod had sung.[335]
This addiction to gymnastic exercises of all kinds was characteristic of the Hellenic peoples from the days of Homer. The original object had been symmetrical development of the body, health, speed, strength, and agility. But, as the Egyptian sage remarked, the Hellenes were a nation of children—it is just that which gives to them their charm and interest—and children usually and naturally care most for the body. Consequently athletics were carried too far: they became an end in themselves, instead of being merely a means of attaining physical activity and health. The professional athlete became a sort of spoilt child, fed at public expense,[336] courted by crowds of admirers, and all the time he was quite useless for everything except his own particular sort of contest, boxing or wrestling or the like. The tendency was ruinous: the Hellenes preferred to be good gymnasts rather than good soldiers.[337] The competitor, boy or man, who entered for one of the great prizes had to live in complete idleness from other pursuits.[338] Such professionals “slept all the day long, and if they departed from their prescribed system of training in the very slightest degree, they were seized with serious diseases.”[339] Consequently they were useless as soldiers, since in war it is necessary to be wide awake, not torpid, and to be able to stand vicissitudes of heat and cold, and not to be made ill by changes of diet. Specialisation even led to deformity. The long-distance runner developed thick legs and narrow shoulders, the boxer broad shoulders and thin legs.[340] It is to this specialisation that Galen[341] attributes the decline in utility of Hellenic athletics. Philostratos even notes that only in the good old days was the health of athletes not actually impaired by their exercises. In those times, he says, they grew old late, and took part in eight or nine Olympic contests—retained, that is, their efficiency for thirty years or more; moreover, they were as good soldiers as they were athletes. Later, these habits changed, and athletes became averse to war, torpid, effeminate, luxurious in their diet. The medical profession took upon itself to advise them—a good thing in its way, but unsuitable for athletes; for it told them to sit still after meals before taking exercise, and introduced them to elaborate cookery. Bribery also
came into vogue among the professionals; usurers began to enter the training schools on purpose to lend them money for bribing their opponents.[342] The first recorded instance of this was early in the fourth century.[343]
PLATE V. A.
SCENES IN A PALAISTRA
Archaeologische Zeitung, 1878, Plate II. From a Kulix at Munich, attributed to Euphronios.
PLATE V. B.