EXERCISES OF YOUTH.
Simultaneously with the above studies,[618] that highly intricate and
artificial system of exercises denominated gymnastics occupied a
considerable portion of the time of youth. Among northern nations the
influence of education is requisite to soften the manners and check
ferocity; but in the south hardihood must in general be the fruit of
discipline, and flourishes only while assiduously cultivated. Thus we
find that the Persians,[619] by acting on the advice of Crœsos, and
teaching the Lydians to become musicians and shopkeepers, uprooted
entirely their martial spirit. In Greece, however, during the
flourishing period of her history there was more danger that the
passion for war should drown all others, than that its influence
should be too feeble. Among the Athenians particularly, that restless
energy of character, so marvellous and so distasteful to the Dorians,
sought vent in dangerous and distant wars and stupendous schemes of
ambition. This characteristic trait is adduced by Plato for the
purpose of suggesting a contrast with the rival race. He had been
dwelling, to his Cretan and Spartan companions, on the exercises
necessary for pregnant women,[620] and observing their astonishment,
he could understand, he said, how it might appear extraordinary to
them, but at Athens his recommendation would be perfectly
intelligible; for there, people were rather too active than otherwise.
The difficulty always was to find becoming employment. Accordingly,
for lack of something better, not merely boys but grown-up men,
comprehending nothing of the _dolce far niente_, employed themselves
in breeding cocks, quails, and other birds for fighting, and the care
of these imposed on them the necessity of much exercise. To be sure,
these cock-fighters, during their professional perambulations,
presented a spectacle infinitely ludicrous. All regard to appearances
was abandoned. With a couple of small cocks[621] in their hands, and
an old one under either arm, they sallied forth, like vagabonds who
had been robbing a henroost, to give their favourite animals air and
gentle exercise, and thus laden often strolled several miles into the
country.
Footnote 618:
Cf. Plato, de Rep. t. vi. p. 139, seq.
Footnote 619:
Herod. i. 155. Cf. Polyæn. vii. 6. 4. Justin, i. 6.
Footnote 620:
De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 3. cf. p. 11.
Footnote 621:
Plato, de Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 3. seq.—On the practice of
quail-fighting, see Poll. vii. 16. Comm. p. 237. Büd. Com. Ling.
Græc. p. 615. Paris. Iungermann ad Poll. vii. 136. p. 427, observes
that it was customary to exhibit public quail-fights at Athens. But
Lucian who states this (Anach. § 37), confounds the quail with the
cock-fighting.—Ælian. V. H. ii. 28. Cf. Ludovic. Nonn. de Re Cib.
ii. 22. p. 228. Poliarchos, an Athenian, buried his dogs and cocks
magnificently.—viii. 4. In the same spirit, a French lady erected a
mausoleum to her cat with this epitaph:
“Ci-gît une chatte jolie,
Sa maîtresse qui n’aima rien
L’aima jusques à la folie.
Pourquoi le dire? On le voit bien.”
The dog who detected the robber of Asclepios’s temple, received
while he lived the marks of public gratitude, and was maintained
like a hero at the people’s expense.—Ælian. V. H. vii. 14.
To such a people the gymnasium opened up a source of peculiar delight,
and in the end became a passion prejudicial to the cultivation of the
understanding. But within the bounds of moderation it was prescribed
by philosophers in lieu of physic, and as an antidote against those
pale faces and emaciated frames, too common where intellectual studies
are ardently pursued.[622] It was a law of Solon, that every
Athenian[623] should be able to read and to swim; and the whole spirit
of Attic legislation, leaving the poor to the exercise of industrious
and hardy occupations, tended to create among the opulent and the
noble a taste for field-sports, horsemanship, and every martial and
manly exercise.[624] The difficulty, of course, was to render them
subordinate to mental cultivation, and to blend both so cunningly
together as to produce a beautiful and harmonious system of
discipline, well fitted to ripen and bring to greatest perfection
every power and faculty of body and mind.
Footnote 622:
Aristoph. Nub. 185. Plat. Repub. t. vi. p. 146.
Footnote 623:
Petit. de Legg. Att. l. ii. tit. iv. p. 162. Æsch. cont. Tim. § 2–4.
Footnote 624:
Plat. de Legg. vii. t. viii. 17. seq.
The practises of the gymnasium may be traced backward to the remotest
antiquity, and probably commenced among the warriors of the heroic
ages,[625] in the peaceful intervals occurring between expeditions,
from the desire to amuse their leisure by mimic representations of
more serious contests. At first, no doubt, the exercises, frequently
performed in honour of the gods,[626] were few and rude; but by the
age of Homer they had assumed an artificial and regular form, and
comprehended nearly all such divisions of the art as prevailed in
later times. Other views than those with which they were instituted,
caused them to be kept up. When reflection awoke, it was perceived
that in these amicable contests men acquired not only force and
agility, a martial bearing, the confidence of strength, beauty, and
lightness of form; but, along with them, that easy cheerfulness into
which robust health naturally blossoms.[627] In fact, so far were the
legislators of Greece from designing by gymnastics to create, as
Montesquieu[628] supposes, a nation of mere athletes and combatants,
that they expressly repudiate the idea, affirming that lightness,
agility, a compactly knit frame, health, but chiefly a well-poised and
vigorous mind, were the object of this part of education. In order the
better to attain this point, Plato in his republic ordains that boys
be completed in their intellectual studies, which in his ideal state
they were to be at the age of sixteen, before they entered the
gymnasium, the exercises of which were to be the companions of simple
music. From converting their citizens into athletes they were
prevented by experience; for it was quickly discovered that those men
who made a profession of gymnastics acquired, indeed, by their diet
and peculiar discipline a huge stature and enormous strength, but were
altogether useless in war, being sleepy, lethargic, prodigious eaters,
incapable of enduring thirst or hunger, and liable to the attacks of
sudden and fatal diseases if they departed in the least degree from
their usual habits and regimen.[629]
Footnote 625:
Cf. Athen. i. 16.
Footnote 626:
Hom. Hymn. Apoll. 149.
Footnote 627:
Plat. Gorg. t. iii. p. 14.
Footnote 628:
Esprit des Loix, l. iv. c. 8.
Footnote 629:
Cf. Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 151.—To express the sweat gained by
exercise or labour, the Greeks used to say ξηρὸς ἱδρὼς, or ‘dry
sweat.’—Phæd. t. i. p. 26. Runners, it was observed, had large legs;
wrestlers small.—Xenoph. Conv. ii. 17.
Already in the Homeric age, gymnastics, though not as yet so
named, constituted the principal object of education, and many
branches of the art had even then been carried to a high degree of
perfection.[630] The passion for it descended unimpaired to the
Spartans, whose polity, framed solely for the preservation of
national independence and the acquisition of glory in war,
inspired little fondness for mental pursuits, but left the youth
chiefly to the influence of the gymnasia, which gradually created
in them a temper of mind compounded of insensibility and
ferocity,[631] not unlike that of the North American Indians.
This, however, they above all things prized, though as has been
justly observed their exercises could in no sense be considered
among the aids to intellectual cultivation.[632]
Footnote 630:
Feith, Antiq. Homer. iv. 6. 304. Cramer. p. 35.
Footnote 631:
Plat. de Rep. t. vi. 154.
Footnote 632:
Hermann. Polit. Antiq. § 26. n. 2.
At Athens they came later into vogue, though common in the age of
Solon. When, however, this ardent and enthusiastic people commenced
the study of gymnastics, admiring as they did strength and vigour of
frame, when united with manly beauty, their plastic genius soon
converted it into an art worthy to be enumerated among the studies of
youth. In very early ages they imitated the Spartan custom of
admitting even boys into the gymnasia. But this was soon abandoned, it
being found more profitable first to instruct them in several of the
branches of study above described, and a class of men[633] called
pædotribæ or gymnasts arose, who taught the gymnastic art privately,
in subordination to their other studies, and were regarded as
indispensable in the progress of education.[634] These masters gave
their instructions in the palæstræ,[635] which generally formed a part
of the gymnasia, though not always joined with those edifices, and to
be carefully distinguished from them. It is not known with certainty
at what age boys commenced their gymnastic exercises, though it
appears probable that it was not until their grammatical and musical
studies were completed, that is somewhere perhaps, as Plato counsels,
about the age of sixteen. For it was not judged advisable to engage
them in too many studies at once, since in bodies not yet endowed with
all their strength over-exertion was considered injurious.
Footnote 633:
Cf. Æsch. cont. Tim. § 37. Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 200.
Footnote 634:
Cramer, p. 36.
Footnote 635:
Poll. iii. 149.
Before we enumerate and explain the several exercises it may be proper
to introduce a description of the gymnasia themselves. Of these
establishments there were many at Athens;[636] though three only,
those of the Academy, Lyceum, and Cynosarges have acquired celebrity.
The site of the first of these gymnasia being low and marshy was in
ancient times infested with malaria, but having been drained by Cimon
and planted with trees it became a favourite promenade and place of
exercise.[637] Here, in walks shaded by the sacred olive, might be
seen young men,[638] with crowns of rushes in flower upon their heads,
enjoying the sweet odour of the smilax and the white poplar, while the
platanos and the elm mingled their murmurs in the breeze of spring.
The meadows of the Academy, according to Aristophanes the grammarian,
were planted with the Apragmosune,[639] a sort of flower so called as
though it smelt of all kind of fragrance and safety like our
Heart’s-ease or flower of the Trinity. This place is supposed to have
derived its name from Ecadamos, a public-spirited man who bequeathed
his property for the purpose of keeping it in order. Around it were
groves of the moriæ sacred to Athena, whence the olive crowns used in
the Panathenaia were taken. The reason why the olive trees as well as
those in the Acropolis were denominated moriæ must be sought for among
the legends of the mythology, where it is related that Halirrothios
son of Poseidon formed the design of felling them because the
patronship of the city had been adjudged to Athena, for the discovery
of this tree. Raising his axe, however, and aiming a blow at the trunk
the implement glanced, and he thus inflicted upon himself a wound
whereof he died.[640]
Footnote 636:
There was a gymnasium sacred to Hermes, near the Peiraic
gate.—Leake, Topog. of Attica, p. 124.
Footnote 637:
Cf. Xenoph. de Off. Mag. Equit. iii. 14.
Footnote 638:
Aristoph. Nub. 1001.
Footnote 639:
Sch. ad Aristoph. Nub. 1003.
Footnote 640:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 992.
The name of the Lyceum[641] sometimes derived from Lycus, son of
Pandion[642] probably owed its origin to the temenos of Lycian Apollo
there situated. It lay near the banks of the Ilissos, and was adorned
with stately edifices, fountains and groves. Here stood a celebrated
statue of Apollo, in a graceful attitude, as if reposing after toil,
with his bow in the left hand, and the right bent negligently over his
head. The walls, too, were decorated with paintings. In this place
anciently the Polemarch held his court[643] and the forces of the
republic were exercised before they went forth to war.[644]
Footnote 641:
Pausan. i. 19. 3. Harpocrat. v. Λύκειον, p. 190.
Footnote 642:
Here Aristotle taught (Cic. Acad. Quæst. i. 4.) as he had previously
done at Stagira, where the stone seats and covered walls of his
school remained in the age of Plutarch.—Alexand. § 7.
Footnote 643:
Suid. v. Ἄρχων. i. p. 452. c.
Footnote 644:
Aristoph. Pac. 355. seq. Suid. v. Λύκειον, t. ii. p. 66. b. Xenoph.
de Off. Magist. Equit. iii. 6.
Appended to the name of the Cynosarges, or third gymnasium surrounded
with groves[645] was a legend which related that when Diomos was
sacrificing to Hestia, a white dog snatched away a part of the victim
from the altar, and running straightway out of the city deposited it
on the spot where this gymnasium was afterwards erected.[646] Here
were several magnificent and celebrated temples to Alcmena, to Hebe,
to Heracles, and to his companion Iolaos. Its principal patron,
however, was Heracles,[647] who, lying himself under the suspicion of
illegitimacy, came very naturally to be regarded as the protector of
bastards, half citizens, and in general all persons of spurious birth,
who accordingly in remoter ages resorted thither to perform their
exercises.
Footnote 645:
Liv. xxxi. 24.
Footnote 646:
Suid. v. Κυνόσαργ. t. i. p. 1550. e.
Footnote 647:
In the gymnasia, the statue of Eros was generally placed beside
those of this divinity and Hermes.—Athen. xiii. 12.
Themistocles afterwards, by prevailing upon several of the young
nobility to accompany him to the Cynosarges, obliterated its reproach,
and placed it on the same level with the other gymnasia.[648] Here
anciently stood a court in which causes respecting illegitimacy, false
registry, &c. were tried. But to proceed to the general description.
“The gymnasia were spacious edifices, surrounded by gardens and a
sacred grove. The first entrance was by a square court, two stadia in
circumference, encompassed with porticoes and buildings. On three of
its sides were large halls, provided with seats, in which
philosophers, rhetoricians, and sophists assembled their disciples. On
the fourth were rooms for bathing and other practices of the
gymnasium. The portico facing the south was double, to prevent the
winter rains, driven by the wind, from penetrating into the interior.
From this court you passed into an enclosure, likewise square, shaded
in the middle by plane-trees. A range of colonnades extended round
three of the sides. That which fronted the north had a double row of
columns, to shelter those who walked there in summer from the sun. The
opposite piazza was called Xystos, in the middle of which, and through
its whole length, they contrived a sort of pathway, about twelve feet
wide and nearly two deep, where, sheltered from the weather, and
separated from the spectators ranged along the sides, the young
scholars exercised themselves in wrestling. Beyond the Xystos was a
stadium for foot-races.”[649]
Footnote 648:
Plut. Them. § 1.
Footnote 649:
Barthel. Trav. of Anach. ii. p. 133. sqq.
The principal parts of the gymnasium were,—first, the porticoes,
furnished with seats and side-buildings where the youths met to
converse. 2. The Ephebeion,[650] that part of the edifice where the
youth alone exercised. 3. The Apodyterion, or undressing-room.[651] 4.
The Konisterion, or small court in which was kept the haphe, or yellow
kind of sand sprinkled by the wrestlers over their bodies[652] after
being anointed with the ceroma, or oil tempered with wax. An important
part of the baggage of Alexander in his Indian expedition consisted of
this fine sand for the gymnasium. 5. The Palæstra, when considered as
part of the gymnasium,[653] was simply the place set apart for
wrestling: the whole of its area was covered with a deep stratum of
mud. 6. The Sphæristerion,[654]—that part of the gymnasium in which
they played at ball. 7. Aleipterion or Elaiothesion,[655] that part of
the palæstra where the wrestlers anointed themselves with oil. 8. The
area: the great court, and certain spaces in the porticoes, were used
for running, leaping, or pitching the quoit. 9. The Xystoi have been
described above. 10. The Xysta[656] were open walks in which, during
fine weather, the youths exercised themselves in running or any other
suitable recreation. 11. The Balaneia or baths, where in numerous
basins was water of various degrees of temperature, in which the young
men bathed before anointing themselves, or after their exercises. 12.
Behind the Xystos, and running parallel with it, lay the stadium,[657]
which, as its name implies, was usually the eighth part of a mile in
length. It resembled the section of a cylinder, rounded at the ends.
From the area below, where the runners performed their exercises, the
sides, whether of green turf or marble, sloped upwards to a
considerable height, and were covered with seats, rising behind each
other to the top for the accommodation of spectators.
Footnote 650:
Vitruv. v. 11.
Footnote 651:
Plin. xxv. 13.—Even old men performed their exercises naked.—Plat.
de Rep. t. vi. p. 221.
Footnote 652:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 172.
Footnote 653:
Poll. iii. 149.
Footnote 654:
Suet. Vesp. c. 20. with the note of Torrentius, p. 375.
Footnote 655:
In the Gymnasium of Asclepios at Smyrna, Heracleides the sophist
erected an anointing-room, containing a fountain or well of oil, and
adorned with a gilded roof.—Philostr. de Vit. Sophist. ii. 26. p.
613.
Footnote 656:
Vitruv. v. 11. Cf. on the Xystoi, Xenoph. Œconom. xi. 15.—Cicero,
Acad. iv. 3; ad Att. l. 8. Of this covered walk Aristeas makes
mention in a fragment of his Orpheus:—
Ἦν μοὶ παλαίστρα καὶ δρόμος
ξυστὸς πέλας.
Poll. ix. 43.
Footnote 657:
Potter, Book i. chap. 8.
Such were the buildings which Athens appropriated to the exercises of
its youth; and if we consider the conveniences which they contained,
the large spaces they enclosed, and the taste and magnificence which
they exhibited, we shall probably conclude that no country in the
world ever bestowed on the physical training of its citizens so much
enlightened care.
The first step in gymnastics was to accustom the youth to endure,
naked, the fiercest rays of the sun and the cold of winter, to which
they were exposed during their initiatory exercises.[658] This is
illustrated in a very lively manner by Lucian, where he introduces the
Scythian Anacharsis anxious to escape from the scorching rays of noon
to the shade of the plane-trees; while Solon, who had been educated
according to the Hellenic system, stands without inconvenience
bareheaded in the sun. The step next in order was wrestling, always
regarded as the principal among gymnastic contests, both from its
superior utility and the great art and skill which the proper practice
of it required. To the acquisition of excellence in this exercise the
palæstra and the instructions of the pædotribæ were almost entirely
devoted; while nearly every other branch of gymnastics was performed
in the gymnasium. These, according to Lucian, were divided into two
classes, one of which required for their performance a soft or muddy
area, the other one of sand, or an arena properly so called.[659] In
all these exercises the youth were naked, and had their bodies
anointed with oil.
Footnote 658:
Lucian, Amor. § 45. seq.
Footnote 659:
Lucian, Anach. § § 1–3. 28.
To render, however our account of the exercises more complete, it may
be proper to give a separate though brief description of each. The
first or most simple was the Dromos or Course,[660] performed, as has
been above observed, in the area of the stadium, which, in order to
present the greater difficulty to the racers, was deeply covered with
soft and yielding sand. Still further to enhance the labour, the youth
sometimes ran in armour, which admirably prepared them for the
vicissitudes of war, for pursuit after victory, or the rapid movements
of retreat. The high value which the Greeks set upon swiftness may be
learned from the poems of Homer, where likewise are found the most
graphic and brilliant descriptions of the several exercises. Some of
these we shall here introduce from Pope’s version, which in this part
is peculiarly sustained and nervous. Speaking of the race between
Oilean Ajax, Odysseus, and Antilochos, he says:—[661]
“Ranged in a line the ready racers stand,
Pelides points the barrier with his hand.
All start at once, Oileus led the race;
The next Ulysses, measuring pace with pace,
Behind him diligently close he sped,
As closely following as the mazy thread
The spindle follows, and displays the charms
Of the fair spinster’s breast and moving arms.
Graceful in motion, thus his foe he plies,
And treads each footstep ere the dust can rise;
The glowing breath upon his shoulder plays,
Th’ admiring Greeks loud acclamations raise,
To him they give their wishes, heart, and eyes,
And send their souls before him as he flies.
Now three times turned, in prospect of the goal,
The panting chief to Pallas lifts his soul;
Assist, O Goddess, (thus in thought he prayed,)
And present at his thought descends the maid;
Buoyed by her heavenly force he seems to swim,
And feels a pinion lifting every limb.”
Footnote 660:
Accumenes, the friend of Socrates, advised persons to walk on the
high-road in preference to the places of exercise, as being less
fatiguing and more beneficial.—Plat. Phæd. t. i. p. 3. On the
rapidity of public runners see Herod. vi. 106. Cf. on the Pentathlon
West, Dissert. on the Olympic Games, p. 77. They appear to have
acquired so equable and steady a pace that time was measured by
their movements, as distance is by that of caravans in the East.
Thus Dioscorides, ii. 96. gives direction that gall should be boiled
while a person could run three stadia.
Footnote 661:
Il. ψ. 754. sqq. Cf. Odyss. η. 119.—As an illustration of the
necessity there was of going through all the various exercises, it
is mentioned by Xenophon that runners had large legs, wrestlers
small ones.—Conviv. ii. 17.
Next in the natural order, proceeding from the simplest to the most
artificial exercises, was leaping, in which the youth among the Greeks
delighted to excel. In the performance of this exercise they usually
sprang from an artificial elevation (βατὴρ), and descended upon the
soft mould, which, when ploughed up with their heels, was termed
ἐσκαμμένα.[662] The better to poise their bodies and enable them to
bound to a greater distance, they carried in their hands metallic
weights, denominated _halteres_,[663] in the form of a semi disk,
having on their inner faces handles like the thong of a shield,
through which the fingers were passed. Extraordinary feats are related
of these ancient leapers. Chionis the Spartan and Phaÿllos the
Crotonian, being related to have cleared at one bound the space of
fifty-two, or according to others, of fifty-five feet.
Footnote 662:
Poll. iii. 151.
Footnote 663:
Paus. v. 26. 3; 27. 12.
With the latter account agrees the inscription on the Crotonian’s
statue:
“Phaÿllos leaped full five and fifty feet,
The discus flung one hundred wanting five.”[664]
Footnote 664:
Eustath. ad Odyss. θ. 128. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 210.
Homer briefly describes leaping among the sports of the Phæacians:
“Amphialos sprang forward with a bound,
Superior in the leap a length of ground.”[665]
Footnote 665:
Odyss. θ. 128.
To this succeeded pitching the quoit, which in the Homeric age would
appear to have been practised with large stones or rude masses of
iron. On ordinary occasions it has been conjectured that one discus
only was used. But Odysseus, desirous of exhibiting his strength to
the Phæacians, converts into a quoit the first block of stone within
his reach.[666]
“Then striding forward with a furious bound
He wrenched a rocky fragment from the ground,
By far more ponderous and more large by far
Than what Phæacia’s sons discharged in air;
Fierce from his arm the enormous load he flings,
Sonorous through the shaded air it sings;
Couched to the earth, tempestuous as it flies,
The crowd gaze upwards while it cleaves the skies.
Beyond all marks, with many a giddy round,
Down rushing it upturns a hill of ground.”
Footnote 666:
Odyss. θ. 186. sqq. Cf. Il. ψ. 836. seq.
The disk[667] in later times varied greatly both in shape, size, and
materials. Generally it would seem to have been a cycloid, swelling in
the middle and growing thin towards the edges. Sometimes it was
perforated in the centre and hurled forward by a thong, and on other
occasions would appear to have approached the spherical form, when it
was denominated solos.[668]
Footnote 667:
Schol. Hom. Il. β. 774.
Footnote 668:
Schol. Hom. Il. β. 774.
Other of these exercises were shooting with the bow at wisps of straw
stuck upon a pole,[669] and darting the javelin, sometimes with the
naked hand and sometimes with a thong wound about the centre of the
weapon. In the stadium at Olympia, the area within which the pentathli
leaped, pitched the quoit, and hurled the javelin, appears to have
been marked out by two parallel trenches: but if these existed
likewise in the gymnasia, they must have been extremely shallow, as we
find in Antiphon[670] a boy meeting with his death by inconsiderately
running across the area while the youths were engaged in this
exercise. Instead of throwing for the furthest, they would seem, from
the expressions of the orator, to have aimed at a mark.
Footnote 669:
Lucian. Hermot. § 33.
Footnote 670:
Tetral. ii. 1. Cf. Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 51. sqq. 142.
Wrestling[671] consisted of two kinds, the first, called Orthopale,
was that style, still commonly in use, in which the antagonists,
throwing their arms about each other’s body, endeavoured to bring him
to the ground. In the other, called Anaclinopale, the wrestler who
distrusted his own strength but had confidence in his courage and
powers of endurance, voluntarily flung himself upon the ground,
bringing his adversary along with him, and then by pinching,
scratching, biting, and every other species of annoyance, sought to
compel him to yield.
Footnote 671:
Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 569.
An example of wrestling in both its forms occurs in Homer, where Ajax
Telamon and Odysseus contend in the funeral games for the prize.[672]
“Amid the ring each nervous rival stands,
Embracing rigid, with implicit hands;
Close locked above, their heads and arms are mixt;
Below their planted feet at distance fixt.
Like two strong rafters which the builder forms
Proof to the wintry winds and howling storms;
Their tops connected, but at wider space
Fixed on the centre stands their solid base.
Now to the grasp each manly body bends,
The humid sweat from every pore descends,
Their bones resound with blows, sides, shoulders, thighs
Swell to each gripe, and bloody tumours rise.
Nor could Ulysses, for his art renowned,
O’erturn the strength of Ajax on the ground;
Nor could the strength of Ajax overthrow
The watchful caution of his artful foe.
While the long strife even tires the lookers-on,
Thus to Ulysses spoke great Telamon:
Or let me lift thee, Chief, or lift thou me,
Prove we our strength and Jove the rest decree.
He said; and straining heaved him off the ground
With matchless strength; that time Ulysses found
The strength t’ evade, and where the nerves combine
His ankle struck: the giant fell supine.
Ulysses following on his bosom lies,
Shouts of applause run rattling through the skies.
Ajax to lift Ulysses next essays;
He barely stirred him but he could not raise.
His knee locked fast the foe’s attempt defied,
And grappling close they tumbled side by side,
Defiled with honourable dust they roll,
Still breathing strife and unsubdued of soul.”
Footnote 672:
Il. ψ. 708, sqq. et Heyne ad loc.
Boxing, which has very properly been called a rough exercise, though
condemned by physicians and philosophers, was still practised in the
gymnasium, sometimes with the naked fist but more frequently with the
cestus, which consisted of a series of thongs, bound round the hand
and arm up to the elbow, or even higher.[673] This exercise, however,
seems to have been little practised, except by those who designed to
become athletæ by profession. Homer has described the combat with the
cestus in its most terrible form.[674]
“Amid the circle now each champion stands,
And poises high in air his iron hands:
With clashing gauntlets now they firmly close,
Their crackling jaws re-echo to the blows,
And painful sweat from all their members flows.
At length Epeus dealt a weighty blow
Full on the cheek of his unwary foe.
Beneath that ponderous arm’s resistless sway
Down dropped he powerless, and extended lay.
As a large fish, when winds and waters roar,
By some huge billow dashed against the shore,
Lies panting, not less battered with his wound,
The bleeding hero pants upon the ground.
To rear his fallen foe the victor lends
Scornful his hand, and gives him to his friends,
Whose arms support him reeling through the throng,
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.”
Footnote 673:
Theoc. Eidyll. xxii. 3. et 80. Mercurial. de Art. Gymnast. ii. 9.
Virg. Æn. v. 401. sqq. Paus. viii. 40. 3. Poll. ii. 150. Scalig.
Poet. i. 22. p. 92.
Footnote 674:
Il. ψ. 684. sqq.
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.
Footnote 675:
But Galen cautions youth against useless acquisitions, which he says
are not arts at all: such as πεττευριπτεῖν, throwing the
tali,—walking over a small tight rope,—whirling round without being
giddy, like Myrmecides the Athenian and Callicrates the
Spartan.—Protrept. § 9. p. 20. Kühn.—He then speaks very slightingly
of gymnastic exercises. The studies he recommends are: medicine,
rhetoric, music, geometry, arithmetic, dialectics, astronomy,
grammar, and jurisprudence, to which may be added, modelling and
painting.—§ 14. Cf. Foës. Œcon. Hip. p. 366.
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]
Footnote 676:
Vid. Aristot. de Poet. i. 6. Herm.
Footnote 677:
See Book iv. Chapter 8.
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.
Footnote 678:
Cf. Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 97.—The gymnasia in the later ages of
Greece were so little frequented, that their area was sown with
corn. Dion. Chrysos. i. 223.