Neither in cuffing nor in wrestling strong
But swift of foot are we.
("Odyssey" viii. 206 and 246.)
So that he doth not carelessly confound the order, and, according to the present occasion, now place one sort first and now another; but he follows the then custom and practice and is constant in the same. And this was so as long as the ancient order was observed.
To this discourse of my brother's I subjoined, that I liked what he said, but could not see the reason of this order. And some of the company, thinking it unlikely that cuffing or wrestling should be a more ancient exercise than racing, they desired me to search farther into the matter; and thus I spake upon the sudden. All these exercises seem to me to be representations of feats of arms and training therein; for after all, a man armed at all points is brought in to show that that is the end at which all these exercises and trainings end. And the privilege granted to the conquerors, viz., as they rode into the city, to throw down some part of the wall—hath this meaning; that walls are but a small advantage to that city which hath men able to fight and overcome. In Sparta those that were victors in any of the crowned games had an honorable place in the army and were to fight near the king's person. Of all other creatures a horse only can have a part in these games and win the crown, for that alone is designed by nature to be trained to war, and to prove assisting in a battle. If these things seem probable, let us consider farther, that it is the first work of a fighter to strike his enemy and ward the other's blows; the second, when they come up close and lay hold of one another, to trip and overturn him; and in this, they say, our countrymen being better wrestlers very much distressed the Spartans at the battle of Leuctra. And Aeschylus describes a warrior thus,—
One stout, and skilled to wrestle in his arms;
and Sophocles somewhere says of the Trojans,—
They rid the horse, they could the bow command
And wrestle with a rattling shield in hand.
But it is the third and last, either when conquered to fly, when conquerors to pursue. And therefore it is likely that cuffing is set first, wrestling next, and racing last; for the first bears the resemblance of charging or warding the blows; the second, of close fighting and repelling; the third, of flying a victorious, or pursuing a routed enemy.
QUESTION VI. WHY FIR-TREES, PINE-TREES, AND THE LIKE WILL NOT BE GRAFTED UPON. SOCLARUS, CRATO, PHILO.
Soclarus entertaining us in his gardens, round which the river Cephissus runs, showed us several trees strangely varied by the different grafts upon their stocks. We saw an olive upon a juniper, a peach upon a myrtle, pear grafts on an oak, apple upon a plane, a mulberry on a fig and a great many such like, which were grown strong enough to bear. Some joked on Soclarus as nourishing stranger kinds of things than the poets' Sphinxes or Chimaeras, but Crato set us to inquire why those stocks only that are of an oily nature will not admit such mixtures for we never see a pine, fir, or cypress bear a graft of another kind.
And Philo subjoined: There is, Crato, a reason for this amongst the philosophers, which the gardeners confirm and strengthen. For they say, oil is very hurtful to all plants, and any plant dipped in it like a bee, will soon die. Now these trees are of a fat and oily nature, insomuch that they weep pitch and rosin; and, if you cut then gore (as it were) appears presently in the wound. Besides, a torch made of them sends forth an oily smoke, and the brightness of the flame shows it to be fat; and upon this account these trees are as great enemies to all other kinds of grafts as oil itself. To this Crato added, that the bark was a partial cause; for that, being rare and dry, could not afford either convenient room or sufficient nourishment to the grafts; but when the bark is moist, it quickly joins with those grafts that are let into the body of the tree.