THE PANKRATION[741]
The combination of boxing and wrestling known as the pankration was a
development of the primitive rough and tumble. To get his opponent down,
and by throttling, pummelling, biting, and kicking, to reduce him to
submission, is the natural instinct of the savage or the child. But this
rough and tumble was too undisciplined for athletic competition.
Competitions require law, and in the growth of law the simpler precedes
the more complex. Hence it was only natural that particular forms of
fighting such as boxing and wrestling should be systematized first, and
so made suitable for competition, before any attempt was made to reduce
to law the more complicated rough and tumble of which they both formed
part. Wrestling and boxing were known to Homer, but not the pankration,
and Greek tradition was following the natural order of development in
assigning the introduction at Olympia of wrestling to the 18th, of
boxing to the 23rd, and of the pankration to the 33rd Olympiad. In the
pankration as in boxing the contest continued till one or other of the
parties held up his hand in sign of defeat. At Sparta, where for this
reason the laws of Lycurgus forbade citizens to compete in these events,
the primitive rough and tumble unrestricted by law and unrefined by
science was allowed and encouraged as a test of endurance and a training
for war. The pankration at the great festivals was something quite
different; it was governed by the law of the games (νόμος ἐναγώνιος),
and was, at all events in the best period, a contest no less of skill
than of strength.
[Illustration: Fig. 151. R.-f. kylix. British Museum, E. 78.]
Modern writers turn up their eyes in holy horror at the brutality of the
pankration, and marvel that a race so refined as the Greeks could have
tolerated so brutal a sport. Undoubtedly the pankration might degenerate
into brutality, and perhaps sometimes actually did. So may football,
boxing, wrestling, unless they are controlled by rules, and unless the
rules are enforced. But the pankration was controlled by rules, and the
rules were enforced in the wrestling school and in the games by trainers
and officials under public control, and enforced with the rod in a
practical way which the modern umpire or referee may well envy, and the
rod was certainly not spared. Further, the rules were enforced by a
public opinion and tradition that in the best times certainly placed
skill and grace far above brute strength in all athletics. No branch of
athletics was more popular than the pankration. Philostratus describes
it as the fairest of all contests.[742] Mythology ascribed its invention
to Heracles and Theseus,[743] the typical representatives of science as
opposed to brute strength. What the pankration was in the fifth century
we can learn from Pindar. No less than eight of his odes are in praise
of pankratiasts, and from these odes can be illustrated every feature of
the poet’s athletic ideal. There was, of course, an element of danger,
but danger does not make a sport brutal. Serious injuries, even loss of
life, sometimes occurred, but these accidents were rare, rarer probably
than in football or in the hunting-field, and the Greeks certainly
regarded the pankration as less dangerous than boxing.[744] Finally, the
example of jiujitzu proves that such contests may be conducted without
any brutality as contests of pure skill.
The fullest account of the pankration occurs in Philostratus’
description of the death of Arrhichion, a famous pankratiast of the
sixth century, who expired at the very moment when his opponent
acknowledged himself beaten.[745] After describing the scene and the
excitement of the spectators, Philostratus adds a characteristic account
of the pankration. “Pankratiasts,” he says, “practise a hazardous style
of wrestling (κεκινδυνευμένῃ τῇ πάλη). They must employ falls backward
(ὑπτιασμῶν) which are not safe for the wrestler, and grips in which
victory must be obtained by falling (οἷον πίπτοντα). They must have
skill in various methods of strangling (ἄνχειν); they must also wrestle
with an opponent's ankle (σφυρῷ προσπαλαίουσι) and twist his arm
(στρεβλοῦσι), besides hitting and jumping on him, for all these
practices belong to the pankration, only biting and gouging (ὀρύττειν)
being excepted. The Spartans admit even these practices, but the Eleans
and the laws of the games exclude them, though they commend strangling.”
It would be difficult to give a more concise description. Wrestling,
hitting, and kicking are employed; the style of wrestling is hazardous;
victory is usually obtained by strangling; biting and gouging are alone
prohibited. The prohibition of gouging and biting is evidently a
quotation from the actual rules of Olympia. It is twice quoted by
Aristophanes.[746] Biting needs no comment. The meaning of the word
translated “gouging” is clear from Aristophanes. It means digging the
hand or fingers into the eyes, mouth, and other tender parts of the
body. A vivid illustration of “gouging” occurs on a British Museum kylix
(Fig. 151). One of the pankratiasts has inserted his thumb and finger
into his opponent’s eye as if to gouge it out, and the official is
hastening up with his rod uplifted to interfere and punish such foul
play. A somewhat similar scene is represented on a kylix in Baltimore
(Fig. 152), where a pankratiast inserts his thumb into the mouth of an
opponent whom he has thrown head over heels.
[Illustration: Fig. 152. R.-f. kylix. Baltimore.]
[Illustration: Fig. 153. R.-f. kylix. Berlin.]
The pankration naturally divides itself into two parts, the standing
pankration (τὸ ἄνω παγκράτιον) and the struggle on the ground (τὸ κάτω
παγκράτιον). In the former the opponents endeavoured to throw one
another heavily to the ground, by wrestling or kicking or hitting. There
was much preliminary sparring, appropriately described as
ἀκροχειρισμίς.[747] The hands were unprotected by thongs or other
covering, and, as is natural in a combination of wrestling and boxing,
the open hand and the fist were both used. Both are represented on the
fragment of a kylix in Berlin (Fig. 153). The fallen youth bleeds freely
from the nose, and bears on his back the imprint of his opponent’s
fingers. At the same time, his fist is clenched ready to strike. The
relative importance of wrestling and boxing in the pankration depended
much on the individual. The man with a long reach naturally preferred to
utilize his advantage in hitting; the short, thickset boxer generally
depended for victory on his wrestling.[748] The struggle was usually
decided on the ground. It is commonly stated that when one or other
opponent had fallen, hitting was no longer allowed. This purely modern
idea is conclusively disproved by such vases as the one just quoted.
Neither in boxing nor in the pankration was it forbidden to strike a man
who was down. As a rule, when both men were down hitting was of little
use, and the contest was usually decided by wrestling, especially by
twisting a limb, or by strangling. If, however, one opponent had been
knocked down by a heavy blow, he was usually at his opponent’s mercy,
and he commonly holds up his hand in sign of defeat, or else the
official is represented interfering to stop the contest.
The epithet “hazardous” by which Philostratus characterizes the
wrestling of the pankration is appropriate to such throws as “the flying
mare” and the various foot and leg holds which, though too risky for the
wrestler proper, were freely employed in the pankration, where it was
not sufficient only to throw an opponent, but he must be thrown heavily.
The use of the flying mare is illustrated on the Baltimore kylix (Fig.
152), where the left-hand wrestler proceeds to pummel his fallen
opponent. A much mutilated group on the kylix illustrated in Fig. 54
represents a throw from a leg-hold. A wrestler kneeling on one knee has
seized his opponent between the legs and lifts him up, bending forwards
as if to hurl him on to the ground. The scene is described by Anacharsis
in Lucian.[749] “Look,” he cries, “that fellow has picked up the other
by the legs and flung him to the ground, and falling on him, will not
suffer him to rise, but forces him into the mud, and at last, winding
his legs round his stomach, with his arm placed under his throat, he
strangles the poor wretch.”
[Illustration: Fig. 154. Panathenaic amphora. Sixth century. (_Mon. d.
I._ I. xxii.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 155. Panathenaic amphora. Sixth century. (_Mon. d.
I._ I. xxii.)]
A favourite trick of the pankratiast was to catch his opponent by the
foot, and lifting it up, to tilt him backwards. Antaeus is frequently
depicted grabbing thus at the foot of Heracles, but without
success.[750] The manœuvre is excellently illustrated on two Panathenaic
vases (Figs. 154, 155), and on the coins of Aspendus (Fig. 109). On a
gem in the British Museum (Fig. 162) a somewhat similar hold is adopted
by way of defence by a wrestler who has his head in chancery.
Sometimes a wrestler, having thrown his opponent, would lift him up by
the legs, and the other, to save himself from a heavy fall, would
balance himself on his hands and head. Philostratus, speaking of the
short, thickset athletes, whom he calls οἱ ἐν μικρῷ μεγάλοι[751]—the
type of the “pocket Hercules”—says, “They are quick and active, and able
to extricate themselves from the most hopeless grips, standing on their
heads as on a pedestal.” This manœuvre, quite familiar in modern
wrestling, is not represented in Greek art, but occurs on the wall
paintings of Beni-Hassan.
A wrestler who was thrown on his back was defeated. But a pankratiast
might intentionally throw himself on his back in order to throw his
opponent more heavily, or to throw him in a worse position. A manœuvre
of this sort called τὸ ἀποπτερνίζειν was invented, according to
Philostratus,[752] by a Cilician pankratiast, nicknamed for the
smallness of his stature, Halter or the Dumbbell. On his way to compete
at Delphi, he stopped at the shrine of the hero Protesilaus to ask him
how he should conquer his opponents. The hero replied, “By being
trampled upon” (πατούμενος). At first he was disconcerted by this
ambiguous answer, but after a little thought he understood that the
hero’s advice meant “that he was not to let go the foot of his opponent;
for the man who wrestles with the opponent’s foot must be constantly
trampled on and be underneath his opponent.” So he devised the “heel
trick,” by means of which he remained undefeated and won great renown.
This is probably the same method as that described in the passage of
Philostratus already quoted as “wrestling with the ankle.” Such a hold
ensures a heavy fall; but the peculiarity of the “Dumbbell’s” method
was, that instead of releasing the foot after throwing his opponent, he
preserved his hold, and by twisting or bending the foot forced him to
yield. This use of the ankle hold is well known in Japanese wrestling.
Arrhichion, we are told, forced his opponent to succumb by twisting his
foot out of its socket.
Another throw in which the thrower throws himself on his back is the
“stomach throw.” A wrestler seizes his opponent by the shoulders or arms
and throws himself backward, at the same time planting his foot in the
other’s stomach and thus throwing him heavily clean over his head, while
he himself falls lightly. This favourite throw of the Japanese is
depicted on the tombs of Beni-Hassan. It is accurately described by Dio
Cassius in his account of a fight between the Romans and Iazyges:[753]
“Whenever any of them fell backwards, he would drag his opponent after
him, and with his feet hurl him backwards as in wrestling.” Pindar in
his third Isthmian Ode is referring to tactics of this sort when he says
of Melissus: “In craft he is as the fox that spreadeth out her feet and
preventeth the swoop of the eagle.” The only representation which I know
of such a throw is on a black-figured hydria in Munich (Fig. 156), where
Antaeus lies on his back with his right hand grasping Heracles’ left
foot and his left leg kicking him in the stomach. As usual, Antaeus has
failed to execute the throw and Heracles has regained the advantage.
[Illustration: Fig. 156. B.-f. hydria. Munich, 114.]
The throws described in the last two paragraphs sufficiently illustrate
those “backward falls unsafe for the wrestler, and grips in which
victory must be obtained by falling,” which made the wrestling of the
pankration particularly hazardous.
[Illustration: Fig. 157. Panathenaic amphora, in British Museum, B. 604.
Fourth century. Signed by the artist “Kittos.”]
[Illustration: Fig. 158. Panathenaic amphora, in British Museum, B. 610.
Archonship of Nicetes, 332 B.C.]
Wrestling and boxing combined are depicted in a highly conventional
manner on two Panathenaic vases in the British Museum (Figs. 157, 158)
representing respectively the contest for youths and for men. On B 604 a
pankratiast has rushed in head down, allowing his opponent to catch his
head in the bend of his arm. It is not quite clear what the latter
intends to do, whether to complete the neck hold or to pummel him. In B
610 there is no doubt: the left-hand wrestler lifts his fist to pummel
the other’s head, which he still holds in the bend of his arm. Why he
allows his head to remain unnecessarily in such a position is not quite
clear. Perhaps he has really had his head in chancery, and unable to
break the grip, has bitten the other’s arm. A favourite Greek story told
by Plutarch of Alcibiades, and in another place of a Spartan wrestler,
illustrates this suggestion.[754] Being hard pressed and about to be
thrown, he bit his opponent’s hand. Letting go his hold, the latter
exclaimed, “You bite, Alcibiades, like a woman.” “No,” he replied, “like
a lion.” Biting, as we know, was strictly forbidden, and some
confirmation of the explanation of the vase may be found in the attitude
of the official on the right, who seems to be awarding the palm to the
other pankratiast. Other examples of biting in the pankration, whether
standing or on the ground, will be found in our illustrations.
Kicking was also a distinctive feature of the pankration. In
Theocritus,[755] Polydeuces being challenged to fight by Amycus,
inquires if it is to be a boxing match or whether kicking too was
allowed; and Galen,[756] in his skit on the Olympic games, awards the
prize for the pankration to the donkey, as the best of all animals in
kicking. A combination of kicking and boxing is represented on the two
Panathenaic vases in Figs. 154, 155. At least it seems to me probable
that the pankratiast on the left has caught his opponent’s foot in
mid-air as he was trying to kick him in the stomach. Kicking in the
stomach (γαστρίζειν)[757] appears to have been a favourite trick in the
pankration, as it is in the French _savate_. It is depicted in one of
the groups in the Tusculan mosaic (Fig. 22), and in a relief in the
Louvre. On another Panathenaic vase (Fig. 159) one pankratiast appears
in the act of catching the other’s leg as he lifts it in his onset. The
action of the latter rather resembles that described as jumping on an
opponent (ἐνάλλεσθαι) than of kicking. A better illustration of this
term is seen in Fig. 153, where one pankratiast is jumping on his fallen
opponent.
[Illustration: Fig. 159. Panathenaic amphora. Lamberg Coll.]
Twisting an opponent’s arm or fingers (στρεβλοῦν) and strangling him
(ἄγχειν) are tricks belonging principally to the later stage of the
contest, when both opponents are on the ground, but opportunities for
them also occurred in standing wrestling. Twisting the arm has already
been illustrated in our chapter on wrestling (Figs. 129-131). Similarly
in the Uffizi group (Fig. 163) the upper wrestler twists his opponent’s
arm across his back, and the same motive occurs in one of the groups on
the frieze of Lysicrates’ monument. Pausanias tells us of one Sostratus,
a pankratiast of Sicyon, who, like Leontiscus in wrestling, forced his
opponents to yield by twisting and breaking their fingers.[758] At first
sight we are apt to condemn such practices as brutal and
unsportsmanlike, but the principle of twisting an opponent’s limb so as
to incapacitate him has been reduced to a science in Japanese wrestling.
The same may be said of “strangling,” the method of finishing a contest
of which the Eleans much approved. Almost any neck hold can be used to
throttle an opponent. Reference has already been made to the familiar
hold known as “getting the head in chancery,” illustrated on the gems in
Fig. 162. The most effective and favourite method of strangling an
opponent is that known as κλιμακισμός,[759] which consists in mounting
on an opponent’s back, winding the legs round his stomach, and the arms
round his neck. The klimakismos can be employed both in the standing
pankration and on the ground. On the Tusculan mosaic both types are
represented (Fig. 22), and we have references to both types in
literature. It is the favourite method of attack employed by Heracles in
his contests with the Triton and Achelous (Fig. 160), and is best known
to scholars from the account of the latter contest given in the chorus
of the _Trachiniae_, 407-530. In the standing pankration, in order to
execute the klimakismos it was necessary to get behind one’s opponent
either by making him turn round or by springing round him. This may be
illustrated from the humorous picture which Anacharsis draws of the
Greeks advancing to meet their foe like boxers with clenched fists.[760]
“And the enemy,” he says, “naturally cower before you and take to flight
for fear lest, as they stand gaping, you fill their mouth with sand, or
jumping round to get on their backs, twist your legs round their bellies
and strangle them to death, placing your arm beneath their helmets.” A
similar description of the klimakismos on the ground has already been
quoted.
[Illustration: Fig. 160. Heracles and Triton. B.-f. amphora, in British
Museum, B. 223.]
[Illustration: Fig. 162. Graeco-Roman gems in British Museum.]
Ground wrestling must have been the most distinctive, as it certainly
was the most decisive, part of the pankration. It was probably as
complicated if not as long as it is at the present day, the combatants
sometimes sprawling at full length, sometimes on their knees,[761]
sometimes on the top of one another. It is this part of the pankration
to which Plato objected and which led him to exclude it from his ideal
state as useless for military training, because it did not teach men to
keep their feet.[762] Perhaps in Plato’s time the pankratiast, like the
modern Graeco-Roman wrestler, was apt to neglect the preliminary contest
and go down on the ground at once. Such grovelling, if it existed, was a
sign of the decay of these antagonistic sports, which, as we have seen,
had set in before Plato’s time; it was unknown to Pindar, who specially
emphasizes the importance of boxing in the pankration.[763] Ground
wrestling is seldom represented on the vases, except in the contest of
Heracles and Antaeus (Fig. 161); but groups of the kneeling type are
frequent on later gems, being particularly suitable for oblong or oval
spaces. The examples given in Fig. 162 from gems in the British Museum
explain themselves.
[Illustration: Fig. 161. Herakles and Antaeus. R.-f. kylix. Athens.]
[Illustration: Fig. 163. Group of pankratiasts. Uffizi Palace, Florence.
(From a photograph by Brogi.)]
The most important and interesting of all the monuments connected with
the pankration is the group of wrestlers in the Uffizi gallery in
Florence (Fig. 163). Unfortunately, it is considerably restored, but in
spite of recent criticism there seems to be no reason for doubting the
general correctness of the restoration.[764] The underneath wrestler
supports himself on his left arm, and his opponent’s immediate object is
to break down this support. This can be effected by a blow. For the
underneath wrestler’s right arm being secured, he can only guard his
head with his left. The situation can be illustrated by the description
in Heliodorus of the match between Theagenes and the Aethiopian
champion.[765] Theagenes forces the latter on to his knees, twines his
legs round him, and then knocks away his wrists, with which he is
keeping his chest off the ground. Having broken down this support, he
forces him down on his stomach on the ground. While a wrestler is
supporting himself on his hands and knees, his position is far from
hopeless, and he may by a quick and vigorous movement often overturn his
adversary and reverse matters. Such is the moment selected by the
sculptor; the victory is still undecided, the uppermost wrestler is
anxious to make sure of victory, the other is eagerly watching to take
advantage of any carelessness on his opponent’s part. How fatal any such
carelessness may be we learn from the story of Arrhichion.[766]
Arrhichion was being strangled by his opponent, who was on the top with
arms and legs entwined round him; but even as he was expiring he took
advantage of a momentary relaxation of the grip to kick his right leg
free, and rolling over so as to crush his opponent’s left side, he
seized his right foot and twisted it out of its socket with such
violence as to force him to yield, and so even with his last breath he
secured the victory.
There are numerous technical terms of wrestling and the pankration known
to us only from scholiasts and lexicographers. These are of very
doubtful interpretation and of no practical importance, and it is
therefore unnecessary to discuss them here.[767]
Footnote 741:
_J.H.S._ xxvi. pp. 4-22.
Footnote 742:
_Im._ ii. 6.
Footnote 743:
Heracles, according to Bacchylides, xiii., first employed the art of
the pankration against the Nemean lion; according to another
tradition, Theseus employed it against the Minotaur.
Footnote 744:
Paus. vi. 6, 5; 15, 5; Artemidor. _Oneir._ i. 64.
Footnote 745:
_Im._ ii. 6.
Footnote 746:
_Aves_, 442; _Pax_, 899.
Footnote 747:
_J.H.S._ xxvi. p. 14.
Footnote 748:
Phil. _Gym._ 36. I do not agree with Jüthner’s division of the text.
He makes the account of οἱ ἐν μικρῷ μεγάλοι the beginning of the
classification of athletic types which follows. Kayser rightly
connected it with the account of wrestling and the pankration which
preceded.
Footnote 749:
_Anacharsis_, 1.
Footnote 750:
_J.H.S._ xxv. pp. 283 ff., Figs. 19, 20.
Footnote 751:
_Gym._ 36.
Footnote 752:
_Heroic._ 53, 54. The word πτερνίζειν is used in the LXX. of Jacob
supplanting Esau (Gen. xxvii. 36, cp. xxv. 26). _J.H.S._ xxvi. 20.
Footnote 753:
lxxi. 7.
Footnote 754:
_Alc._ 2; _Apophthegm. Lac._ 234 D, 44.
Footnote 755:
xxii. 66.
Footnote 756:
Προτρεπτ. ἐπὶ τέχνας, 36.
Footnote 757:
Lucian, _Anachars._ 9; Aristoph. _Eq._ 273, 454; Pollux, iii. 150.
Footnote 758:
Paus. vi. 4, 2.
Footnote 759:
_J.H.S._ xxvi. 15.
Footnote 760:
Lucian, _Anachars._ 31.
Footnote 761:
From Lucian’s _Asinus_ we gather that knee wrestling (τὰ ἀπὸ γονάτων)
was systematically taught in the palaestra. Cp. Aristoph. _Pax_, 895.
Footnote 762:
_Legg._ 795, 834.
Footnote 763:
_Nem._ iii. 29; _Isthm._ v. 60.
Footnote 764:
_J.H.S._ xxv. 30, xxvi. 19.
Footnote 765:
_Aeth._ x. 31, 32.
Footnote 766:
Phil. _Im._ ii. 6; Paus. viii. 40, 2.
Footnote 767:
Many of them are discussed in my articles in the _J.H.S._ xxv., xxvi.
Cp. Grasberger, 349-374; Krause, 400-438, 534-556.