Among the Greeks, throwing the discus did not form part of the games
till the eighteenth Olympiad. This exercise consisted in throwing,
as far as possible, a mass of wood or stone, but more commonly of
iron or copper, of a lenticular form. From the testimony of ancient
authors, there was no mark or butt fixed, except the spot where the
discus thrown by the strongest of the discoboli alighted. Mercuriali
has handed down to us three engravings, in which the discus is not
of the same shape. The first engraving represents four discoboli in
the act of throwing with the right hand a discus which is as thick at
the circumference as at the centre, which has been bored. The second
represents the statue of a discobolus holding a discus apparently of
a spherical form, in the left hand. The third shows the arm of an
athlete with a flat discus. The discus in the last two engravings now
mentioned, covers the greater part of the front of the forearm; and all
that the ancients have written respecting this instrument, tends to
show that it was of enormous size and weight. Homer tells us, that the
athletes threw the discus either up into the air merely as a prelude to
accustom their arms to it, or horizontally when they were striving for
the prize.
[Illustration: _Plate XVII_
_Page 63._