The boys, then as now, found great sport with tops, playing in the house as well as in the street. They had different kinds of tops, among them being a humming-top. The Greek boy would tie a long string to the leg of a beetle and then let it loose and guide its flying by holding to the string; sometimes the boys would fix a wax splinter to the beetle's tail and then light it before letting him loose.
The children played blind man's buff. They would bandage a boy's eyes, who would then go about calling out, "I am hunting a brazen fly." This would be answered by the others with, "You will hunt, but you won't catch it." They would then run about and strike him with whips till he caught one, who would then be blindfolded.
The Greeks were very fond of the ball and ball-playing. The balls were of all sizes and colors. Some were stuffed with feathers and wool and others were empty. They were made of leather and of such a size as was suited to the kind of game to be played with them. There was tossing and throwing and juggling with balls and also there were regular games. Mahaffy thinks that he has discovered from the descriptions given that they played games similar to the present foot-ball, hand-ball, and lacrosse. He believes foot-ball is shown in this description: "The first is played by two even sides, who draw a line in the center, on which they place the ball. They draw two other lines behind each side, and those who first reach the ball throw it over the opponents, whose duty it is to catch it and return it, until one side drives the other back over their goal line." In the following he can see hand-ball: "It consists of making a ball bound off the ground, and sending it against a wall, counting the number of the hops according as it was returned." From another writer he finds lacrosse: "Certain youths, divided equally, leave in a level place, which they have before prepared and measured, a ball made of leather, about the size of an apple, and rush at it, as if it were a prize lying in the middle, from their fixed starting-point (a goal). Each of them has in his right hand a racket of suitable length ending in a sort of flat bend, the middle of which is occupied by gut strings, dried by seasoning, and plaited together in net fashion. Each strives to be the first to bring it to the opposite end of the ground from that allotted to them. Whenever the ball is driven by the rackets to the end of the ground, it counts a victory."[171]
Sports and Festivals.
The most common forms of gymnastic exercises were running, jumping, throwing the discus, hurling the javelin, and wrestling, and they formed what was known as the pentathlon. They were engaged in at the gymnasium and at the four great national festivals. Beside these there were boxing, the pancration, which consisted of boxing and wrestling, horse racing, and chariot racing.
The gymnasium was originally an athletic ground where all kinds of sports were carried on and it contained the palæstra, which was essentially a building for the purposes of wrestling, although both palæstra and gymnasium came later to stand for other things beside.
There were four great national festivals, known as the Olympian, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmian. In these festivals contests in races and athletic exercises were held and also sometimes in music, poetry, rhetoric, and the like. The Olympic festival was held at Olympia every four years, in the summer, and lasted for five days; the Pythian festival was also held every four years, near Delphi, in the winter, in the third year of every Olympiad; the Nemean festival was held at Nemea in the second and fourth year of every Olympiad, alternating in winter and in summer; and the Isthmian festival was held at Corinth, in the first and third years of each Olympiad, alternating between spring and summer. These times were thus arranged so that these national festivals did not conflict with one another.
The Olympic festival was the most noted. It was so important that in case of war a truce was entered into among the Grecian states, which lasted probably for three months during the year of the festival. During this time all people journeying to and from the festival were granted protection, and no one was allowed to carry arms within the sacred territory. The official prize was but a crown of wild olive, not valuable in itself, but it was perhaps the most coveted honor in all Greece. Only Greeks were eligible to compete and the winner received the highest honor from his fellow-townspeople. Poets of high renown composed odes in his honor, bronze statues were made of him, he rode home in a triumphal chariot and sometimes a part of the wall of his town was torn down for his entry, he was generally supported for the remainder of his life at public expense, and his honor extended to his parents and to his children, and even to the city of his birth.
Women were not allowed to be present at the Olympian games. The only exception was in permitting the priestesses of Demeter to be present, who remained in a temple built for them near the Stadium. All other women were excluded from the territory for a certain number of days. The penalty of trespassing on the part of a woman was death, the transgressor being thrown from the Typæan rock. "Only one instance is recorded of this rule being broken. Pherenice, a member of the famous family of the Diagoridæ, in her anxiety to see her son Peisirodus compete in the boys' boxing, accompanied him to Olympia disguised as a trainer. In her delight at his victory she leapt over the barrier and so disclosed her sex. The Hellanodicæ, however, pardoned her in consideration for her father and brothers and son, all of them Olympic victors, but they passed a decree that henceforth all trainers should appear naked."[172] But women were permitted to enter their horses for the chariot-race, which they did, and won some races, too. The women had their own festival at Olympia, the Heræa, occurring every four years, at which there were races for maidens of various years, the course being one-sixth less than that for men.
Every Greek boy received a thorough physical training. To keep up the spirit for such training, local festivals were held in which was given opportunity for the boys' testing their strength and skill. In the 37th Olympiad were first introduced contests for boys, the names of the victors being inscribed on the records of the events before the names of the adult victors. At first there were only two classes of competition, for boys and for men, later a third class being added, for the beardless or those between boys and men. It would appear as if the ages for boys was between twelve and sixteen and for the beardless between sixteen and twenty. The length of the race-course for boys was but half that for adults and for the beardless it was two-thirds the full length. In the races at the Olympic Heræa the girls were likewise divided into the three ages. In the second century before Christ was introduced the pancration for boys, which shows that the games were becoming more cruel and degraded.