CHAPTER XXII

THE GYMNASIUM AND THE PALAESTRA

In Homeric times the gymnasium and the palaestra did not exist. The

broad runs in Ithaca,[795] which are sometimes quoted as the prototype

of the Greek gymnasia, were not running-tracks but cattle-runs. The need

for special places for exercise first arose with the growth of city

life. At first these were no more than open spaces in some grove or

plain where the ground had been cleared for running or for wrestling.

Such were the “runs and wrestling rings” which Cleisthenes of Sicyon

prepared for his daughter’s suitors.[796] The place where the Spartan

youth exercised retained its ancient name the “Dromos” or run, even in

the time of Pausanias. The runs developed into the gymnasium, the

wrestling-ring into the palaestra.

The word “gymnasium” means, properly, an athletic exercise. By a natural

transference it comes to be used first in the plural, afterwards

collectively in the singular for a place set apart for such exercises.

It is a general term. The gymnasium is merely an athletic ground, or

playing-field, where all sorts of sport take place. It contains “runs

and wrestling-rings.” It may serve as a riding-school. Euripides speaks

of “gymnasia resounding with the tramp of horses.”[797] It may contain

buildings for the comfort of those who use it, but the essential part of

the gymnasium is the running-ground. On the other hand, the palaestra is

a special term for the wrestling-school. In its simplest form it is a

square enclosure, containing some provision for undressing and washing.

It is essentially a building. The palaestra may exist without a

gymnasium, but no gymnasium can exist without a palaestra. Moreover, in

a gymnasium the necessary buildings are naturally centred round the

palaestra. Hence the palaestra being architecturally the most important

part of the gymnasium, the two terms are in practice often used

synonymously. Yet the original distinction is never wholly obliterated;

in Pausanias the gymnasium is still the athletic ground, the palaestra

the wrestling-school.[798]

Gymnasia probably existed in most Greek states in the sixth century or

even earlier. Shade and water being essential for the comfort of those

who used them, the site selected was usually a grove beside some stream

outside the city. Such was the Platanistas at Sparta, an island formed

by the windings of the river, and taking its name from the plane trees

which surrounded it. Such were the three ancient gymnasia at Athens: the

Academea, the Lyceum, and the Cynosarges. All three were sacred groves

outside the walls of the city, the Academea on the west side, on the

banks of the Cephisus, the other two on the east near the Eridanus and

Ilissus. All three probably existed in the sixth century. The Academea

was first enclosed with a wall by Hipparchus, and was afterwards

improved by Cimon into a well-watered grove with trim avenues and walks.

The origin of the Lyceum was variously ascribed to Peisistratus,

Pericles, and Lycurgus. As it certainly existed in the time of Socrates,

it was probably founded by Peisistratus, if not earlier, and underwent

various improvements at the hands of Pericles and Lycurgus. The

gymnasium of Cynosarges was reserved for bastards, and those whose

parents were not both Athenian. Themistocles being the son of a Carian

mother, and resenting his exclusion from the other gymnasia, succeeded

in persuading some prominent young Athenians to accompany him to the

Cynosarges. Slaves were not allowed to take any part in athletics, which

were regarded as the distinctive mark of freeborn Greeks. The Academea

and Lyceum were large enough to serve as riding-schools and

parade-grounds for cavalry. The Athenian gymnasia were open to Athenians

of all ages; boys were certainly not excluded, though, as we shall see,

they were usually sent to the palaestra for education;[799] men of all

ages resorted to them for their daily exercise; competitors for the

games trained in them; above all, they were the training-school of the

epheboi, at all events from the fifth century onwards. “When a boy is

enrolled among the Epheboi,” says Socrates, in the Pseudo-Platonic

dialogue called _Axiochus_,[800] “then come the Lyceum and the Academea,

the rule of the gymnasiarchos, beatings with rods and ills innumerable.”

Consequently, the gymnasia were the favourite resort of sophists and

philosophers in search of pupils. Some philosophers habitually

frequented certain gymnasia, which thereby became connected with

particular schools of philosophy. In course of time literary studies

prevailed over athletics, and the gymnasium developed into a sort of

university.

The existence of palaestrae at Athens in the sixth century is attested

by the speech of Aeschines against Timarchus. In this speech the orator

refers to certain laws ascribed to Solon for the regulation of schools

and palaestrae. The paidotribai were not to open the palaestrae before

sunrise, and were to close them before sunset. There were regulations as

to the class of boys to be admitted, their numbers and age, their

discipline and the conduct of the Hermaea, a boy’s festival celebrated

in the palaestrae. The actual text of the laws is spurious, but there is

no reason for doubting the existence of the regulations mentioned by

Aeschines, and their antiquity. But we must not confound the palaestrae

referred to with those which formed part of the gymnasia. The latter

were public institutions, mostly outside the city; the palaestrae for

which Solon laid down regulations were such of the private palaestrae as

were used for the physical education of boys. There were numerous

private palaestrae, some perhaps built by rich individuals for their own

use,[801] others kept by paidotribai[802] for profit. The publicity of

the gymnasia and their remoteness rendered them unsuitable for the

training of young boys. Parents and teachers naturally preferred the

comparative privacy of the palaestra in the city. Some of these may have

been attached to schools, others may have been reserved for boys of

certain ages, or special times may have been reserved in them for

different ages. Certainly it is at these palaestrae that the Athenian

boys received their physical training. But it is no more correct to say

that the palaestrae generally were reserved for the education of boys

under the age of eighteen, than it is to say that no boys under that age

were admitted to the gymnasia. Some of the palaestrae were certainly

used by older pupils. In Plato’s _Lysis_ the sophist Miccus is stated to

have established himself in a newly built palaestra. Boys of different

ages are trained there at different times, but the pupils of Miccus are

not boys, but epheboi or grown-up men, and these at all events had free

entry there at certain times. The fact is that there were palaestrae of

various sorts just as there are schools and colleges of various sorts in

England to-day. To treat all the palaestrae as similar, and to endeavour

to lay down hard and fast rules for all alike, is as ridiculous as it

would be to write a treatise on the schools of England in which no

distinction was made between primary schools and secondary schools, or

between a college which forms part of a university and a college which

is really a school.

Our knowledge of Greek gymnasia down to the fourth century is

practically confined to Athens. The earliest existing gymnasium is that

of Delphi, which belongs to the fourth century. The gymnasium at Olympia

cannot be earlier than the third century. The only contemporary evidence

for the fifth century is derived from the vase-paintings which give a

vivid picture of the life of the gymnasium at Athens in the first half

of this century, but yield only fragmentary evidence as to the

arrangements of the gymnasium. Yet this evidence agrees so well with the

remains discovered at Olympia and Delphi, and also with such scattered

allusions as we find in literature, especially in Plato’s dialogues,

that we may feel sure that the gymnasia and palaestrae of the fifth

century throughout Greece were substantially of the type which we find

in these places.[803]

The essential parts of the gymnasium or palaestra are clearly stated in

the treatise on the Athenian Republic,[804] which if not written by

Xenophon was probably written in the second half of the fifth century.

The writer, speaking of the progress of the Athenian democracy, says:

“As for gymnasia and baths and undressing-rooms some rich people have

their own, but the people have built for their own use many palaestrae,

dressing-rooms, and bath-rooms, and the mob has far more advantages in

these respects than the fortunate few.” In this passage we notice,

first, that there is no real distinction between gymnasium and

palaestra; if there is any distinction, it is merely that the palaestra

is somewhat more elaborate than the gymnasium, as the bath-room is more

than the bath. Both are merely places for exercise. Secondly, the

dressing-rooms and bath-rooms are clearly not independent buildings, but

are connected with the gymnasia. Bath-rooms might exist separately, but

what would be the use of separate undressing-rooms? Every gymnasium and

every palaestra must contain, besides the actual “runs and

wrestling-rings,” some place where those who use them may undress and

oil themselves before exercise, and may wash themselves afterwards.

These are the three essential parts of every such building, and all the

complicated arrangements of the gymnasia at Ephesus and Pergamum are

merely elaborations of these three requirements.

The dialogues of Plato illustrate alike the similarity and difference in

the arrangements of a gymnasium and palaestra. The scene of the _Lysis_

is laid in the new-built palaestra to which reference has already been

made. In general plan it resembles an ordinary one-storied Greek house.

It is surrounded by a wall (περίβολος), the only opening in which is a

door giving access to the street. Around this wall, on the inside, are

placed the various rooms which all open out into the central court

(αὐλή) which in the palaestra is considerably larger than in an ordinary

house. On entering, the visitor finds himself in a sort of ante-chamber,

from which he passes into a large hall called the apodyterion

(ἀποδυτήριον). The front of this hall is open, so that it commands a

view of the court, which is used for exercise. This hall, as its name

denotes, is the undressing-room. But, like the modern cricket pavilion,

it serves as a general meeting-place for all who frequent the palaestra.

There are seats around the walls for their convenience. A group of boys

are playing knuckle-bones when Socrates enters, and Socrates retreats to

the farther corner to find a seat. Probably, if there were no other

rooms, it was in the apodyterion that Miccus used to hold his classes.

There may, of course, have been other rooms around the court, certainly

there must have been some accommodation for washing, but as the

bath-room is not conducive to serious conversation it naturally plays no

part in these dialogues.

Now let us pass on to the Lyceum gymnasium.[805] The arrangement is

similar, but on a larger scale. Close to the entrance is the apodyterion

where Socrates takes his seat and watches people come and go. But

besides the court, there is a covered track (κατάστεγος δρόμος),

probably a colonnade running round one or more of the four sides of the

court. This covered dromos is the place where Athenian gentlemen take

their daily constitutional. As Socrates is waiting, two such enter, take

two or three turns in this dromos, and then return to the apodyterion.

Acumenos[806] indeed recommends a walk in the country as less fatiguing,

but the gymnasium is a more sociable place, there is more life and

amusement to be found there, and so the Athenian prefers it. But these

covered runs are not for athletes or epheboi except in the worst of

weather. For them tracks are provided in the park outside (ὁ ἔξω δρόμος)

where, as in the Academy, they may run races “mid a fragrance of smilax,

and leisure, and white poplar in the spring-season when the plane tree

whispers to the elm.”[807]

The pictures on the red-figured vases enable us to fill in these

outlines. These vases, manufactured mostly at Athens, between the years

520 and 440 B.C., represent the life of the Athenian epheboi, that is to

say, life in the public gymnasia. On them we see scenes from the

gymnasia proper, where youths are exercising, scenes from the

apodyterion, and scenes from the bath-room.

We will first take a kylix in the Munich Museum, which gives a general

picture of exercises in the gymnasium (Fig. 17). The scene takes place

within a walled enclosure. The background represents this wall, or

perhaps the wall of the apodyterion; for on it are hanging all the

paraphernalia of the gymnasium, diskoi in their slings, halteres

fastened together by a cord, strigils, oil-flasks, sponges. A pair of

Ionic pillars frame the picture suggesting, perhaps, a covered

colonnade. Sometimes these pillars are surmounted by a large flat block,

which clearly indicates a roof. The actual exercises take place in the

court in front, or the dromoi outside. In the ground are planted poles

and picks. The poles are used as javelins for practice, and perhaps as

measuring-rods; or as posts to mark the lines from which the jump is

practised, or the diskos and javelin thrown. The two bearded men are

instructors—paidotribai or gymnastai. Usually these are clothed in a

long mantle; here they are naked, probably because they are teaching by

example. One of them leans on the usual official staff and holds in his

right hand a jumping-weight; the other holds in one hand a rod or

javelin, in the other a thong for throwing the javelin, but it is not

quite clear what his attitude means. The youth who looks on, leaning

upon a pole, may be either a youthful assistant or a spectator.

[Illustration: Fig. 173. R.-f. kylix. Canino Coll.]

Another kylix gives a vivid picture of the discipline of the gymnasium

(Fig. 173). On one side are a pair of wrestlers, and looking on at them

is an instructor wearing his robe, leaning on his staff with his right

hand, while in his left he holds the forked rod with which he enforces

discipline. On the other side is an instructor in the act of using this

rod on some boxers. The youth who stands behind the first instructor

with the pick may be another boxer taking this form of exercise, but the

mantle rolled up round his waist suggests rather that he is an assistant

who is loosening the ground of the skamma used by wrestlers and jumpers.

On the interior of this vase is a third instructor, and a youth who

seems to be measuring the ground with his feet, perhaps measuring the

throw of a javelin, for he holds in his hands a javelin and its thong.

The careless drawing of this amentum caused it to be misinterpreted

formerly as a pair of compasses. Another figure frequently depicted in

these scenes is the flute-player,[808] who is usually dressed in a long,

gaudy robe, and wears round his head a curious sort of muzzle called

φορβεία. These flute-players were probably slaves attached to the

gymnasium.

Many of the exercises depicted require considerable space. The javelin

and diskos could hardly be thrown with safety in the court of an

ordinary palaestra. The open dromoi were the places for such sports.

Here, too, it seems riding-lessons were given. Sometimes a group of

athletes and a riding scene are placed on opposite sides of the same

vase.[809] In these riding scenes pillars[810] are sometimes depicted,

oil-flasks and other objects hang on the walls, and the instructors are

the same as in athletic scenes. A good example of such a scene occurs on

a kylix in Munich (Fig. 174). There are three naked epheboi, one already

mounted, one leading a horse and holding in his hand the familiar forked

rod, the third is being instructed in the art of vaulting on to his

horse by means of a spear or pole. An oil-flask indicates the building,

while a tree suggests the groves of the gymnasium.

[Illustration: Fig. 174. R.-f. kylix. Munich, 515.]

[Illustration: Fig. 175. R.-f. kylix. Copenhagen.]

Scenes in the Apodyterion are very numerous, especially on later vases.

We will first take a kylix in the Museum at Copenhagen (Fig. 175). The

broad tops of the pillars suggest the roof of the room. Hanging or

leaning against the wall are the usual paraphernalia; one object seems

curious, it is a hare. Perhaps one of the epheboi has just caught it, or

he has brought it as a present to his trainer, or received it as a

present or prize.[811] A group of youths and trainers are standing about

or seated on stools. Some are fully dressed, others naked; one is

scraping himself with a strigil, another is just about to put on his

mantle; his walking-stick rests against the wall behind him. Some

clothes are placed on one of the stools. We can quite understand the

necessity of severe laws against theft in the gymnasia. A law attributed

to Solon imposed the penalty of death on any one who stole from the

Lyceum, or Acadamea, or Cynosarges a himation, or an oil-flask, or any

other object worth more than ten drachmae.[812]

After divesting himself of his clothes and placing them in as safe a

place as possible, the athlete next proceeded to anoint himself with oil

and carefully rub the oil into the skin. He might do so himself or

obtain the services of an attendant, the aleiptes. The terms aleiptes

and paidotribes indicate the importance which the Greeks attached to the

oiling and massaging of the body both before and after exercise. These

processes were afterwards developed into elaborate arts, and special

rooms were set apart for them, but in the fifth century they were

comparatively simple and took place either in the apodyterion or else in

the open air.[813] The oil was contained in little narrow necked flasks

of various shapes, lekythoi, aryballoi, alabastra. Each person probably

brought his own flask of oil and his strigil. At times of festival oil

was supplied free to all competitors, and in later times gymnasiarchoi

and other high officials showed their generosity by providing at their

own expense the oil required for the epheboi using the gymnasia. A

krater in Berlin (Fig. 176) shows a group of epheboi undressing and

preparing for exercise. One of them has just taken off his himation and

folded it up and is about to hand it to a slave-boy, either his own

slave or one attached to the gymnasium. Another has laid his himation on

a stool, and is pouring some oil from an aryballos into his left hand.

To his left stands a third ephebos resting on his stick, with his mantle

thrown loosely across his shoulders, while a small slave removes a thorn

from his foot. The other side of the vase illustrates the curious custom

of infibulation. Massaging is, as far as I know, not depicted on any

vases; but a drawing of an aleiptes rubbing down a boxer occurs on a

bronze cist in the Vatican[814] (Fig. 177).

[Illustration: Fig. 176. R.-f. krater. Berlin, 2180.]

[Illustration: Fig. 177. Bronze cista. Vatican.]

[Illustration: Fig. 178. R.-f. amphora. St. Petersburg, Hermitage,

1611.]

It may have been in the Apodyterion, or else in some other corner of the

gymnasium, that the korykos (κώρυκος) was fixed up. In later times a

special room was provided for the korykos, but its use at this time is

proved by the caricature of a pankratiast using it which occurs on a

vase in St. Petersburg (Fig. 178). The korykos was a sort of punchball,

a leathern bag or skin filled with fig grains, meal, or sand, and

suspended from the branch of a tree or a beam. It varied in size. The

larger sort which was used by pankratiasts was about the size of a sack

of coals, and was hung so that the bottom of it was on a level with the

athlete’s waist. The boxer used a smaller korykos about the size of a

punchball hung on a level with his head, to judge from the picture of it

on the Ficoroni cist, a work of the third century B.C. (Fig. 179).[815]

In the later gymnasia a special room was set apart for ball-play; but

popular as ball games always were they seem to have been of little or no

importance in the gymnasia of the fifth century.

[Illustration: Fig. 179. Ficoroni cista. Kirchner Museum, Rome. Third

century B.C.]

The bathing arrangements in the gymnasium were severely simple. There

existed, indeed, even in the time of Herodotus and Aristophanes,

separate bathing establishments (βαλανεῖα) where hot baths and even

vapour baths were to be obtained.[816] But these balaneia had nothing to

do with the gymnasia, and are indeed sharply contrasted with them. To

frequent them was considered, at all events among old-fashioned folk, to

be a sign of effeminacy. Aristophanes bitterly complains that the effect

of the new-fashioned education was to empty the wrestling schools and

fill the balaneia, and Plato considers hot baths only suitable for the

old and feeble.[817] In later times elaborate baths of this type were

attached to the gymnasia, and became so important that the athletic part

of the building was little more than an apanage of the baths. But there

is no sign of such baths in connexion with the gymnasia of the fifth

century, nor do they exist in the later gymnasia at Delphi and Olympia.

The epheboi of the fifth century washed in cold water after exercise.

The simplest form of washing is represented on a black-figured hydria in

Leyden which dates from the close of the sixth century (Fig. 180).[818]

A group of men and boys are washing at a fountain which stands in the

grove of the gymnasium. Their clothes hang on the branches of the trees.

The fountain itself is under a portico, and the water issues from two

panthers’ heads under which a man and a boy are taking a douche and

rubbing themselves. On either side stand others preparing for the bath.

One on the left lifts in his right hand what is probably an oil-flask,

while on the right we see a youth engaged in powdering himself. Various

powders were used, a sort of lye obtained from wood ashes, an alkali

called litron and somewhat similar to nitre, and a kind of fuller’s

earth.[819] After oiling and powdering his body the bather rubbed

himself till a lather was obtained.

[Illustration: Fig. 180. B.-f. hydria. Leyden, 7794b.]

[Illustration: Fig. 181. Scene on r.-f. vase. (Tischbein, i. 58).]

On the red-figured vases the washing takes place in a bath-room forming

a part of the gymnasium and probably adjoining the apodyterion. In the

centre of this room is set a large stone or metal basin placed on a

stand. Close to it a cistern is sometimes represented, and on one vase

we see a youth pouring water into the basin from a bucket which he has

drawn up from the cistern by means of a rope and windlass[820] (Fig.

181). The inscription on the basin (δημόσια) shows that it is a public

bath. One youth is splashing the water over himself, but a more

satisfactory way of washing is to get a friend or assistant to swill a

bucket of water over you in the manner represented on a kylix in the

British Museum (Fig. 182). On the other side of this kylix is seen a

group of youths scraping themselves with strigils (στλεγγίδες). The

strigil was in constant use in the gymnasium to remove dirt and sweat

after exercise or remove moisture and lather after the bath. It was made

of iron or bronze, sometimes of silver or even of gold; the handles are

sometimes highly ornamental. Many of them exist in the British Museum

and elsewhere. Their shape will be best understood from the accompanying

illustration of a fifth-century strigil from the British Museum, on

which the owner’s name is inscribed (Fig. 183). A youth scraping himself

with a strigil is the motive of the well-known statue, the

“Apoxyomenos,” formerly ascribed to Lysippus.

[Illustration: Fig. 182. R.-f. kylix. British Museum, E. 83.]

[Illustration: Fig. 183. Strigil, in British Museum, inscribed κέλων.

Fifth century.]

Plunge baths (κολυμβήθραι) certainly existed at this period. A

red-figured amphora[821] in the Louvre signed by Andocides (_c._ 500

B.C.) shows a group of women bathing in a swimming bath. One is

swimming, while another is preparing to dive into the water. We shall

find plunge baths both at Delphi and Olympia, but we have no evidence

for their existence in the gymnasia of the fifth century.

In passing on to the gymnasia at Delphi and Olympia we must bear in mind

the essential difference which distinguishes them from the gymnasia at

Athens, which we have been considering. The latter were intended for the

regular use of a large resident population. At Delphi, and still more at

Olympia, the resident population was small and scattered; and though

they doubtless took advantage of the gymnasia, these buildings were

primarily erected, not for their use, but for the use of the competitors

in the four-yearly festivals. Hence there was no need for the shady

walks and avenues which formed so prominent a feature of the early

gymnasia at Athens, nor for the lecture-rooms and libraries which were

provided for the literary training of the epheboi in the gymnasia of

Ptolemaeus Philadelphus or Hadrian. The gymnasia at Delphi and Olympia

were strictly practical and athletic.

[Illustration: Fig. 184. Plan of gymnasium at Delphi. (_B.C.H._)]

The gymnasium at Delphi[822] is a good example of the skill with which

the Greeks adapted their buildings to the nature of the ground (Fig.

184). It lies a little to the south-west of the precinct of Apollo below

the road which runs from Itea to Arachova and on the steep slopes which

overhang the valley of the Pleistus. It is built on two terraces, the

upper of which forms a rectangle some 180 metres long by 25 or 30 metres

deep, and contains the running tracks, while the lower terrace contains

the palaestra proper and the baths. The fine retaining wall which

divides the two terraces, and other architectural remains point to the

existence of the gymnasium in the early part of the fourth century, and

most of the parts which have been excavated are mentioned in an

inscription containing the official accounts for repairing the stadium

and gymnasium in the year 258 B.C.

The upper terrace was bounded above by the outer wall of the gymnasium.

It contained a covered running-track 7 metres broad, and a double

uncovered track 20 metres broad. These are the ξυστόν and παραδρομίς of

the inscription. They are divided from one another by a stone water

channel which, besides carrying off rain water, provided water for the

athletes when training. Another channel, which divided the paradromis

into two unequal parts, carried water from the Castalian stream to the

baths in the lower terrace. The Ionic pillars which formed the colonnade

(περίστυλος) of the xystos are of poor and late workmanship, and seem to

have replaced an earlier Doric colonnade. Neither xystos nor paradromis

was paved; but, as we learn from the accounts of Dion’s archonship, they

were dug up, rolled, and covered with fine white sand. Six picks

(ἐπισκαφεῖα) were provided either for this work or for the use of the

athletes.[823] The length of the xystos, 180 metres, is approximately

that of the Delphic stadium, which was 177 metres.

The lower terrace contains an irregular enclosure forming the baths, and

a small palaestra 32 metres square. The latter consists of a small court

nearly 14 metres square, surrounded by a colonnade (περίστυλος) on to

which several rooms open on the north and west sides. The uses of these

rooms cannot be determined. The inscription mentions an apodyterion, a

κόνιμα, and two σφαιριστήρια. The κόνιμα is probably another name for

the skamma or wrestling ring which is also called κονίστρα, and if so

may be identified with the central court.[824] The wrestling ring was

covered with fine sand, and the contract appropriately mentions the

“sifting of the earth” in the konima (τᾶς γᾶς τὰν σάσιν) at a cost of

ten drachmae. The sphairisteria were rooms, or perhaps open courts, for

ball play. In one of them the ground was to be dug up and rolled, then

carefully raked over and levelled, and finally covered with black earth.

A wall, too, is mentioned in the sphairisterion. Among the various games

of ball practised by the Greeks we find mention of one which consisted

in bouncing the ball on the ground or against a wall, and striking it

back with the flat of the hand as it rebounded. The object was to keep

it up as many times as possible; the first to miss was called the

donkey, and had to submit to any penalty imposed by the winner or

“king,” as he was called.[825] The palaestra at Delphi was not spacious

enough for games in which the balls were thrown with any violence, but

the carefully prepared floor and the wall may well have served for the

games described, which seem to have been quite familiar in Plato’s time.

As athletics became professional, ball play seems to have become

increasingly popular, and the ball alley probably became a recognized

part of the palaestra. The little private palaestra owned by the “Man of

Petty Ambitions” (μικροφιλότιμος) in Theophrastus contains “a wrestling

arena and a sphairisterion,”[826] the two parts mentioned in the Delphic

inscription. Alexander the Great was specially fond of ball play, and

one Aristonicus of Carystus, described as his “sphairistes,” received at

the hands of the Athenians the citizenship and an honorary statue.[827]

The baths lay in an irregular enclosure to the north of the palaestra.

The washing arrangements are particularly interesting from their

resemblance to what we have seen pictured on the vases. The whole

enclosure was uncovered. The east side of it was formed by the retaining

wall of the upper terrace, and in this wall a series of fountains were

arranged precisely similar to those illustrated in Fig. 180. The water

was supplied from the conduit in the upper terrace and issued through

eleven bronze spouts in the shape of animals’ heads, placed at such a

height as to fall conveniently over the head and shoulders of the

bathers beneath. It was caught below in eleven basins, which were used

for washing in the manner represented on the vases, and from the basins

it fell into large stone troughs by which it was carried outside the

building to fall into the Castalian ravine. In the centre of the

enclosure was a circular plunge bath (κολυμβήθρα) 10 metres in diameter,

and 1·80 metres in depth, the sides of which sloped downwards towards

the centre in a series of stone steps. There were no warm baths in the

old gymnasium, but these seem to have been added in Roman times, and

their remains exist to the north of the older building.

[Illustration: Fig. 185. Plan of palaestra at Olympia.]

The gymnasium and palaestra at Olympia[828] (Fig. 185), situated on the

left bank of the Cladeus to the north-west of the Altis, are far more

symmetrical in plan and more elaborate than those at Delphi. The

palaestra appears to be somewhat older than the gymnasium, and was built

in the third century B.C. It is a building 66 metres square enclosing an

open court 41 metres square, surrounded by a colonnade of Doric columns

on which numerous rooms open. There are two entrances at the corners of

the southern wall, and a third door in the middle of the northern wall

gives access to the gymnasium proper. The two chief entrances consist of

pillared vestibules leading into small anterooms which open on to the

covered colonnade. In the eastern anteroom are remains of a hearth or

altar. Between the two anterooms is a long narrow room or gallery only

separated from the colonnade by a row of pillars, in which we may

certainly recognize the apodyterion. In the north-eastern corner is a

bathroom, and in it were found remains of a brick-lined bath of Roman

date 4 metres square and 1·38 metres deep. There is another basin in the

adjacent corner of the gymnasium at the point where the southern

corridor opens on to the street. There are no signs in the palaestra or

gymnasium of the warm baths which are so important a feature of the

gymnasium described by Vitruvius. In Roman times warm baths were

installed at Olympia not in the palaestra but in a separate building to

the south-west. It is impossible to determine the uses of the various

rooms surrounding the court. Some of them are closed with doors, and

doubtless served for storing the oil, sand, and other requisites of the

palaestra. The larger rooms are open in front. In five of the rooms

there are remains of stone seats round the walls, and the floor is paved

with concrete. Such rooms must have been used as exedrai or galleries

for the spectators, but hardly, as it is sometimes stated, as lecture

rooms for philosophers and other teachers, who would certainly have

preferred the greater publicity afforded by the opisthodome of the

temple of Zeus or by the stoai. The palaestra and gymnasium at Olympia

must have been practically confined to the use of competitors, and the

practice of these competitors naturally drew thither crowds of friends

and interested spectators. In some of the rooms there are traces of

altars and bases of statues. Such buildings were always under the

patronage of certain gods and heroes. Hermes was in a special sense the

patron of the palaestra, and at Athens festivals were held there in his

honour. At Elis one of the gymnasia contained altars to Idaean Heracles,

to Eros and Anteros, to Demeter and Persephone, and the statues of the

first three were placed in the gymnasium called Maltho which was

specially reserved for wrestlers. Honorary statues were also sometimes

placed in the gymnasia, and at Olympia there were tablets inscribed with

the lists of Olympic victors.

The most curious feature in the palaestra at Olympia is a strip of tiled

pavement along the north side of the court. It is 24 metres long by 5

metres broad, and consists of two bands of rough ribbed tiles 1·60

metres in breadth divided by a band of smooth tiles 1 metre broad, while

a double row of these same tiles runs along the upper edge of the

pavement. The edges of these smooth tiles are raised so as to form

continuous ridges running the whole length of the pavement. The purpose

of this curious pavement is unknown; it certainly cannot have been

intended as a wrestling ring, or as a jumping ground, as certain learned

writers have with unconscious humour suggested. The most plausible

hypothesis is that it was used for some unknown game of ball, and this

hypothesis finds some support from the existence of a somewhat similar

bowling alley in the larger Thermae at Pompeii, on which two large heavy

stone balls were actually found.[829]

Of the gymnasium proper which lay to the north of the palaestra nothing

remains but portions of the southern and eastern colonnades. All the

western side has been destroyed by the floods of the Cladeus. The

southern colonnade consisted of a single row of pillars parallel to the

north wall of the palaestra, with which it communicated by a door in the

centre of the wall. The eastern colonnade was not, however, continuous

with the east wall of the palaestra, but, to avoid the slope of Mount

Cronius, was diverted so as to form a slightly acute angle with the

southern colonnade. It was 210 metres long by nearly 12 metres broad,

and divided into two tracks by a row of Doric pillars. The similar row

of pillars which formed its western front began only on a level with the

third of the central pillars from the south, and ended with the third

pillar from the north. At these two points are traces of the attachment

of stone sills such as were found in the stadium, and the distance

between these two points, 192·27 metres, is exactly the distance of the

Olympic stadium. This double track was the xystos, or covered

running-track, and athletes could practise there under precisely the

same conditions as in the actual stadium. On the western side of the

gymnasium were rooms for the accommodation of competitors during the

festival, and possibly in front of them another xystos. In the centre of

the open court was constructed a sort of stone stand for the spectators

described by Pausanias as κρηπίς, the term which he uses for the rows of

stone steps below the treasury terrace in the Altis. But of this and of

the lodgings of the athletes, and of the paradromides or uncovered

tracks which doubtless existed here, not a trace is left.

The gymnasia at Epidaurus and Delos belong apparently to the same

period, and as far as can be judged from their scanty remains were very

similar in type. They bear a much closer resemblance to the buildings

described by the Roman architect Vitruvius, who lived in the time of

Augustus, than do the elaborate gymnasia of later times, which we find

at Ephesus and Pergamum. They differ, however, from the Vitruvian type

in the absence of hot baths. In Lucian’s time the Lyceum at Athens

certainly possessed a hot bath and a plunge bath, and perhaps these

existed in Hellenistic times. It is probable that such gymnasia, which

were the daily resort of the inhabitants of Athens, resembled the

Vitruvian type more closely than did the gymnasia of Olympia and Delphi,

which were chiefly used at the seasons of the festivals by competitors.

Now that excavation has revealed to us the actual plans of so many

gymnasia and palaestrae, the descriptions of Vitruvius are of only

secondary importance, and it is needless to discuss the various

reconstructions of his plans which the reader will find fully treated in

all books of reference. It will be sufficient here to discuss briefly

such of the various parts of the building mentioned by him as have not

already been noticed.

The palaestra of Vitruvius is of the same type as that at Olympia, a

square court surrounded by colonnades on to which the various rooms

enter. On three sides the colonnades are single, and the rooms are

provided with benches for the use of philosophers, rhetoricians, and men

of letters, who can sit there and converse with one another, or lecture

to their pupils. The colonnade on the fourth side, which faces south in

the ideal palaestra, is double, and the rooms behind it are devoted to

the needs of those who take exercise in the palaestra. These rooms are

elaborations of the simple apodyterion and bathroom. In the centre is a

large hall provided with seats called the ephebeion,[830] which probably

served rather as a general club-room for the epheboi than as a

dressing-room. For dressing and washing, full provision is made in the

rooms to left and right.

To the right are the elaiothesion, and a series of rooms connected with

the hot baths. The elaiothesion is the room where the oil was stored,

and perhaps also where athletes and bathers oiled themselves. Oil was

used not only before exercise, but both before and after the bath. A

large supply was required, and, as has been already mentioned, there was

no better way in which a gymnasiarchos could show his liberality than by

providing oil for the use of the epheboi at his own expense. We even

hear of cases where a sum of money was left to form an endowment for

this purpose.[831] The oil was kept in amphorae or tanks. A picture of

such a tank occurs on the funeral stele found at Prusa of one Diodorus,

a gymnasiarchos, who, we may suppose, had celebrated his term of office

by himself providing the oil (Fig. 186). It is a large circular tank,

somewhat resembling a font, supported on three elaborately wrought legs.

On its side hang three ladles (ἀρυτῆρες), which were used for measuring

out the oil. Each perhaps held a kyathos, a small liquid measure equal

to about 1/12 of a pint. A Spartan inscription referring to some

athletic contest, perhaps the Leonidaea, directs that the gymnasiarchos

shall provide daily four kyathoi for each man, three for each ageneios,

and two for each boy.

[Illustration: Fig. 186. Stele of Diodorus. Prusa. (Imperial period.)]

Next to the elaiothesion comes the frigidarium, a term usually denoting

the cold bath, but here apparently corresponding to the tepidarium of

the Roman baths, a room kept at a moderate temperature, heated if

necessary by a brazier, where bathers were oiled and scraped and

massaged before or after the bath.[832] A passage separates this room

from the propnigeion, a hot-air chamber connected with the furnace, and

adjoining this is the large vaulted sweating-room (_concamerata

sudatio_) which contains the hot-water bath (_calda lavatio_) and the

hot-air bath (_laconicum_). It is curious to find one of the principal

parts of those luxurious hot baths bearing a name which denotes its

Spartan origin. Perhaps the Spartans employed this means of reducing

weight in training. Exposure to the heat of the sun’s rays was a

recognized part of athletic training, and helped to give the skin the

rich brown tone which the Greeks so greatly admired. Philostratus in the

chapter in which he deals with this point ridicules the use of the

sweating-bath (πυριατήριον) and rubbing with oil without a bath

(ξηραλοιφεῖν) as parts of the unscientific system of training adopted by

the Spartans, the object of which was merely to produce the power of

endurance.[833]

On the other side of the ephebeion are three rooms, the korykeion, the

konisterion, and the cold bath. The korykeion can hardly mean anything

else than the room of the korykos, or punch-ball. Some writers have

objected to this interpretation on the ground that the korykos was not

of sufficient importance to have a room especially allotted to its use,

and they have therefore suggested that the korykos referred to in this

term was not a punch-ball but a basket or string bag, in which visitors

to the palaestra brought their luncheon. The explanation is ingenious,

but hardly satisfactory. The punch-ball, as we have seen, was known in

the fifth century, and is represented on works of art. It was used by

boxers and pankratiasts, and, as has been made clear in the first part

of this work, boxing and the pankration were by far the most popular

events, especially in Hellenistic and Roman times. Hence it is not

evident that the korykos was of secondary importance. Moreover, it is a

most significant coincidence that the chapter in Philostratus describing

the korykos follows immediately on the chapter on the various kinds of

konis, and in Vitruvius the korykeion and konisterion are next to one

another.

If the above view is correct, the konisterion of Vitruvius is obviously

the powdering-room, where athletes powdered themselves before exercise.

This powder (κόνις) which they used must not be confused with the lye

(κονία) which was used in washing to form a lather. Indeed, its effects

were just the opposite; instead of forming a lather with the oil it

helped to dry it, and thus counteracted the excessive slipperiness which

the oil produced. Its effects on the body were regarded as no less

beneficial than those of the oil. It closed the pores of the skin,

checked excessive perspiration, and kept the body cool, thus protecting

it from chills and rendering it less susceptible to fatigue.[834] There

were also special sorts of powder credited with special virtues.[835]

One of a clayey nature (πηλώδης) was supposed to be particularly

cleansing; another resembling brick dust (ὀστρακώδης) produced

perspiration in bodies which were over-dry; a third of bituminous

character (ἀσφαλτώδης) warmed the skin. Two sorts, a black and a yellow,

both of an earthy character, were especially prized for making the body

supple and sleek, the yellow in particular imparting to the skin the

glossiness which was the sign of good training. The powder was kept in

baskets (σπυρίδες). Philostratus describes how it should be applied,

thrown on with a supple wrist and the fingers slightly opened so as to

fall like fine dust. But these are refinements for the few. The ordinary

youth contented himself with the ordinary earth or sand. Lucian in his

_Anacharsis_ describes the youths in the court of the gymnasium picking

up the sand and throwing it over one another. Sometimes it seems the

earth was mixed with water into a sort of mud, and then the simplest

plan was to roll in it. Under the Empire a special sort of ointment

(κήρωμα) was used, and the term ceroma was applied to part of the

palaestra; but the ceroma belongs to Rome, not to Greece.

The gymnasium of Vitruvius occupies an intermediate position between the

true Greek gymnasium and the type which was prevalent under the Empire.

The prominent feature of the latter is the elaboration of the buildings,

especially of those connected with the warm baths. Indeed, as every bath

had its court for exercise, it is sometimes difficult to decide whether

some particular building was a bathing establishment or a gymnasium. The

most familiar example of these later gymnasia is that at Ephesus; but as

the plans of it are to be found in every text-book it is unnecessary to

discuss it at length. It consists of a rectangular block of buildings

some 80 by 100 metres, standing in the centre of a large enclosed court.

Of this outer enclosure very few traces are left, and the imaginary

restoration of its courts commonly reproduced rests on no other

foundation than the desire of early archaeologists to accomplish the

absolutely impossible task of reproducing in it all the features of the

Vitruvian gymnasium. The central block of buildings, however, which we

may call the palaestra, is fairly well preserved, although the

identification of most of the rooms is extremely doubtful. Its plan is

almost exactly the reverse of the earlier palaestra. Round three sides

of the interior, if not all four sides, there runs a vaulted colonnade

(_cryptoporticus_), while the great central courtyard is almost entirely

occupied by the hot baths and buildings connected with them, the ancient

wrestling ring being reduced to a narrow strip along one side.

[Illustration: Fig. 187. Plan of lower gymnasium, Priene. (_Priene_,

Fig. 271.)]

The two gymnasia excavated by the Germans at Priene[836] illustrate the

earlier and the later types. The lower gymnasium (Fig. 187) which

adjoins the stadium near the south wall of the town appears to have been

built between the years 130 and 120 B.C. It is very similar in plan to

the Vitruvian palaestra, consisting of a court about 35 metres square

surrounded by a colonnade. On the north side, facing south, the

colonnade is double, as recommended by Vitruvius. On this side and on

the west a number of rooms open into it; on the other two sides there

are none. The entrance is in the centre of the west side, and is in the

form of an Ionic propylaion. To the north of it is an exedra fitted with

stone benches, and in the north-west corner is the Loutron or bathroom,

which is in excellent preservation and extremely interesting. Along the

north side is placed a row of stone troughs into which water flows from

a row of lions’ heads about 3 feet from the ground (Fig. 188). On either

side of the doorway in the south wall are remains of stone benches, in

front of which are troughs in the floor, so that people could sit there

and bathe their feet. There is no trace of any hot baths in this

gymnasium. In the centre of the north wall is the ephebeion, a large

lofty room, open in front save for two massive pillars. There are stone

benches round the walls, the upper part of which was decorated by an

elaborate arrangement of half pillars and architraves, on either side of

a round arched niche containing a large statue of a draped man. The

walls and pillars are covered with names of those who used the hall,

usually in the form ὁ τόπος Νέστορος τοῦ Νέστορος, “the place of Nestor,

the son of Nestor.” Another large hall at the north-east corner has some

traces of shelves, and may have been used as a place for undressing and

leaving clothes. The northern side of the gymnasium is cut out of the

slope of the hill, and was evidently two-storied. Above the ephebeion

seems to have been a large square room cut still farther back into the

hill. Perhaps there was an entrance from the street above into this

upper story. These upper rooms may have served as class-rooms. In

Hellenistic times the gymnasium was often a school where training was

given for mind as well as body.

[Illustration: Fig. 188. Bathroom in gymnasium at Priene. (_Priene_,

Fig. 278.)]

The upper gymnasium at Priene stood in the middle of the town. It was

the older of the two, for we learn from an inscription that it already

existed at the time when the lower gymnasium was being built. In its

original plan it seems to have been very similar; but so many

alterations have been made in it, and so much subsequent building has

taken place on the site, that we cannot be certain of its details. What

is certain is that in Roman times it was provided with hot baths. These

baths are referred to in an interesting inscription detailing the

services rendered by one Zosimus, who lived perhaps in the first century

B.C. “From a desire that every young man might attend the gymnasium for

the culture of his body, he had the furnace lighted all through the

winter.”[837]

Zosimus seems to have been an enthusiastic educationalist. Not only did

he provide for the physical training and recreation of the young “a

punch-ball, and hoops, and also balls and weapons,” he also provided for

the students a teacher in literature. He instituted competitions in all

accomplishments of mind and body, and showed the most lavish generosity

in furnishing oil and unguents in the gymnasium and in the bath, for all

visitors to the festivals of Priene. Among the competitions which he

instituted were a “squill fight” (σκιλλομαχία), and boxing in clothes

(ἐν εἵμασι). For the former he gave a heifer as a prize, while each

successful boxer received a golden fillet. The precise meaning of the

“squill fight” is uncertain; it was perhaps some sort of ceremonial

contest connected with the worship of Pan. The wearing of clothes in

boxing was possibly a concession to the Roman prejudice against nudity.

Equally interesting are the extensive remains of the gymnasia at

Pergamum recently excavated by the German archaeologists.[838] These

remains belong mostly to the second century A.D., but many traces of

earlier buildings survive. Built originally in the second century B.C.,

or earlier, under the early kings of Pergamum, the gymnasia underwent

various modifications and reconstructions in the succeeding centuries,

and may be regarded as typical of the gymnasia existing in Hellenistic

and Roman times in these rich cities of the East, which, after the loss

of Greek independence, became the chief centres of athletic activity.

Like the gymnasium at Delphi, they bear witness to the ingenuity of the

Greeks in adapting their buildings to the exigencies of the ground,

while the magnitude of the work involved is a striking proof of the

wealth of the Attalidae. They were built on a series of three terraces

cut out of the steep face of the hill above the road which led up to the

upper city. The lowest terrace at its western end is some twelve metres

above the road, and the other terraces are about the same height above

one another. The terraces are supported by numerous retaining walls,

strengthened by buttresses and cross walls forming a series of

compartments filled up with earth and rubble. Each terrace formed a

separate gymnasium, devoted respectively to the use of boys, epheboi,

and young men. It seems that there were originally four terraces,

corresponding perhaps to the four gymnasia mentioned in an inscription

of the time of Attalus III. (146 B.C.).[839] In the time of Tiberius,

Pergamum possessed five gymnasia, and at a later period six, but the

site of these additional gymnasia is unknown at present. Elder men, and

foreigners too, had the privilege of using the gymnasia. An inscription

in honour of Metrodorus,[840] a gymnasiarchos who lived at the close of

the second century B.C., records that besides offering prizes for boys

and epheboi he spent a considerable sum in providing “elder men” with

“all things necessary for their health.” The generosity of these

gymnasiarchoi is frequently recorded in inscriptions. The office seems

to have been held by the most distinguished citizens. The general

direction of education was in the hands of four Paidonomoi.

[Illustration: Fig. 189. Plan of gymnasia at Pergamum. (Simplified from

_Ath. Mitth._)]

The general arrangement of the buildings will be sufficiently clear from

the accompanying plan (Fig. 189). The lowest terrace, which was the

gymnasium of the boys, consists of a narrow triangle, about 80 metres

long and 25 broad at its widest point, divided into two parts by a wall.

Its northern side is formed by the retaining wall of the middle terrace,

the buttresses of which form niches containing long stone bases on which

were placed statues and stelai. One of these stelai contains a list of

boys who have passed out into the ranks of the epheboi. The middle

terrace forms the gymnasium of the latter. It measures 150 by 36 metres,

and contains at its eastern end a small Corinthian temple, the walls of

which seem to have been covered with lists of epheboi. The northern side

is formed by a long double colonnade, and beyond it to the east a series

of rooms, one of which is an exedra open to the front. This double

colonnade, which is two metres above the level of the court, seems to

have replaced an earlier single colonnade.

The upper terrace is far the most extensive. It contains the gymnasium

of the young men, and to the east the thermae or hot baths. This

gymnasium is identified on account of its size with what is called in an

inscription “The Panegyric Gymnasium,” where doubtless public festivals

and competitions were held. It consisted of an open court 36 by 74

metres, surrounded by a Corinthian colonnade of the time of Hadrian,

which replaced an earlier Doric building. In front of the pillars are

bases on which statues were placed. Numerous rooms opened on to the

colonnade, those on the north being especially spacious. One of these, a

large hall with an apse at either end, is named by the excavators the

Imperial Hall, on account of an inscription which it has on the

architrave, “To the Emperors and the Fatherland.” The floor of the court

is unpaved, but at the north-east corner is a small circular pavement

which may mark the site of a washing-fountain. Along the south side of

the gymnasium is a long corridor extending a considerable distance

beyond the gymnasium on either side to a total length of 200 metres,

which was obviously the xystos or running track, and behind this track

are some thirty or more small rooms which may have served as lodgings

for competitors. These rooms must have been a late addition; for in the

original building there ran underneath the half-open corridor a second

vaulted corridor, the windows of which must have been blocked by the

later buildings. This covered running track (crypto-porticus) seems

originally to have looked out on a fourth terrace dividing the upper and

middle terraces, the northern half of which was subsequently occupied by

the foundations of the rooms described, while the southern half was dug

away so as to form part of the new double colonnade of the middle

terrace. From this date the vaulted corridor became useless for athletic

purposes. The eastern half of the terrace is occupied by the thermae,

with the details of which we are not concerned.

Pending the final publication of the results of the excavations, it is

useless to try to determine the uses of the various buildings. Some of

these are mentioned in inscriptions. Diodorus, the son of Heroidas,[841]

a distinguished citizen who filled the office of gymnasiarchos about the

year 127 B.C., restored the gymnasium of the young men, and repaired the

covered colonnade, περίπατος, surrounding the court. Further, finding

that the konisterion or dusting-room was quite unworthy of the

gymnasium, he built another at his own expense with a marble exedra in

front, and rebuilt in marble the cold bath adjoining it. Metrodorus,

whom we have already mentioned, placed several public basins (ληνοί) in

the bathroom and improved the water-supply. He placed in the

sphairisterion two public basins described as λουτῆρας, which seem to

have been used to hold oil, and he also made suitable provision for the

safe keeping of clothes. In recognition of these gifts his statue was

erected in the paradromis of the gymnasium.

Athletics being an essential part of Greek education, the gymnasia were

naturally under the control of the various magistrates charged with the

education and discipline of the young. The titles and functions of these

magistrates and also of the officials who formed the staff of the

gymnasia varied considerably at different times and places, and the

differences between them are therefore very ill-defined. To discuss them

fully is impossible within the limits of this book, nor would it be

profitable, most of the details which we know about them belonging to

Hellenistic and Roman periods. I shall, therefore, confine myself to a

brief general account of the most important of these officials,

referring the reader for fuller details to special works dealing with

the subject.

The gymnasiarchos[842] must have been originally the magistrate in

charge of the gymnasium, and it can only be an accident that the

earliest officials of this name whom we know of, the gymnasiarchoi of

Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries, had no such general control of

the gymnasia and were little more than lampadarchoi, responsible for the

training of teams for the various torch-races which were one of the

favourite amusements of the Athenian populace. Perhaps the reason for

this narrow use of the term was that from the time of Solon, the

discipline and education of the young, and consequently the supervision

of the gymnasia, was in the hands of a board of ten called sophronistai,

while at the close of the fourth century we find a single magistrate,

the kosmetes, apparently taking over their functions and exercising

supreme control over the epheboi. Hence there was at Athens no room for

a special gymnasiarchos such as we find in many Greek states from the

third century onwards, and such as must undoubtedly have existed at a

much earlier date, if we may trust the obvious meaning of the title.

The gymnasiarchia at Athens was one of the regular leitourgiai or public

services exacted from rich citizens for the benefit of the sovereign

people. The duty of the gymnasiarchos in early days was to train a team

of youths or of boys, or sometimes two teams, for one of the many

torch-races. These teams represented the different tribes, each one of

which selected a certain number of names of rich tribesmen and submitted

them to the King Archon to make the final choice. The selected

gymnasiarchos had to collect and train a team, find their instructors,

provide oil and torches, and pay for all other expenses. If his team was

successful he dedicated a memorial of the victory to the gods, and in

return for all his trouble his name figured alone or at the head of his

epheboi in the official list of victors, and in records of the victory.

He doubtless exercised some authority over the epheboi in his tribe, or

at least over those in his team, but had no general control over the

public gymnasia.

In Hellenistic and Roman times the gymnasiarchos appears as a sort of

minister of education, maintaining discipline among the young,

exercising control over the gymnasia, and generally providing out of his

own pocket many of the expenses incurred. Sometimes the gymnasiarchia is

still a voluntary service. Such was the case at Athens, and in many

other states especially in Asia Minor under the Empire. Among the

distinguished men who undertook this office we find Marcus Antonius at

Athens and at Alexandria, Tiberius and Germanicus at Salamis in Cyprus,

Titus at Naples, Hadrian at Eleusis, and, needless to say, Herodes

Atticus at Athens. The office was usually held for a year, but was

sometimes voluntarily renewed and even continued for life and handed

down from father to son. We even hear of women serving as gymnasiarchoi.

Generally in the last three centuries B.C. the gymnasiarchia is not a

leitourgia but a public magistracy. The gymnasiarchos is appointed by

the assembly and holds office for one year. At Ceos[843] he has to be

over thirty years of age. An inscription from Phintia[844] tells us that

he has charge of the epheboi, the neoteroi, and generally of those who

use the gymnasia, and of all business connected with the gymnasia. He is

assisted by subordinates, sometimes by a hypogymnasiarchos, sometimes by

a paidonomos who looks after the younger boys, sometimes by other

gymnasiarchoi responsible for youths of different ages. At Teos[845] he

is charged with the appointment and payment of the hoplomachos and the

instructor in the use of the bow and the javelin. He is responsible for

the discipline of the young, checks rioting or disorder among them,

supervises their education in literature as well as athletics, above all

he personally superintends the military training of the epheboi, and

organises competitions to test their efficiency, He maintains discipline

sometimes with the rod, sometimes by means of fines.

Whether the gymnasiarchia was a leitourgia or a public magistracy it

involved considerable expense. The sums allotted by the state for the

service of the gymnasia were often ludicrously inadequate, and the

gymnasiarchos had usually to supplement them out of his own pocket;

often indeed, disdaining to use the public money at all, he provided for

all expenses himself. The chief expense was the provision of oil. Even

in a small state like Iasos the supply of oil for a single gymnasium

cost 450 denarii a month.[846] During the Empire the number of

competitions, and consequently the expenses for oil and other purposes,

were multiplied at an extraordinary rate. At Tauromenium the number of

competitions rose from twenty-four a year in A.D. 69 to eighty-one in

A.D. 92.[847] Sacrifices, processions, feasts, prizes afforded ample

scope to the liberality of the gymnasiarchos, which often took a more

permanent form in costly repairs and additions to the buildings of the

gymnasia and baths.

The gymnasiarchoi described above must not be confused with the ephebic

gymnasiarchoi at Athens, officers elected by the epheboi from their own

ranks. The expenses of training were borne to a great extent by the

epheboi themselves, and they seem, therefore, often to have elected as

captains rich youths who were willing to provide wholly or in part for

the public expenses, for any period from a month to a year.

The actual teachers were the paidotribes and the gymnastes. The

paidotribes, as his name denotes, was properly the teacher of boys, who

trained their bodies as the schoolmaster did their minds; the gymnastes

was the trainer of athletes for athletic competitions. This is the

original distinction between the two, and though in practice their

functions often overlapped, and though in Plato the terms are

practically synonymous, the original distinction never entirely

disappeared.

The paidotribes existed long before the gymnastes, for athletic

exercises formed part of the national education long before the demand

for specialised athletic training arose. From the time of Solon

education was in the hands of the paidotribes and the schoolmaster.[848]

In most states education was voluntary, and the paidotribai were usually

private teachers, who received fees for their services. In the fourth

century the fee seems to have been a mina (about £4) for the whole

course.[849] Many of the paidotribai had palaestrae of their own;

failing that, they must have taken their pupils to the public palaestrae

and gymnasia, which they must in any case have used for such exercises

as required more space than could be found in the ordinary

palaestra.[850] Besides those private paidotribai who took pupils from

the age of seven upwards, there were others who were paid by the state

to superintend the training of the epheboi. At Teos the paidotribes

received in the third century 500 drachmae a year.[851] The training of

the epheboi was practical and military and had no connexion with

professional athletics, and the paidotribes regularly figures in the

ephebic inscriptions down to the latest times.

Thus the paidotribes had charge of boys from their seventh to their

twentieth year. But the training which he gave was not of course

sufficient for those who aspired to win prizes in the great games. These

required special natural abilities and special practice for the

development of their natural abilities; and the special practice they

required was supplied by the gymnastai.[852] There was, however, nothing

to prevent a successful paidotribes if he possessed the necessary skill

and knowledge employing them in training athletes. It was not every one

who could afford the services of a champion boxer or wrestler. Further,

the paidotribes might also devote himself to medical gymnastics.[853]

Herodicus of Selymbria, the founder of medical gymnastics, is said to be

have been a paidotribes who suffered from ill-health, and discovered

from personal experience the means of treating disease by diet and

exercise. Hence the paidotribes might be also a gymnastes. But such

training and such knowledge were really outside his sphere, which was

that of the drill sergeant, whose duty it is to teach certain definite

movements and exercises to boys of various ages. As athletics became

more and more professional, and medical gymnastics developed, the

difference between the paidotribes and the gymnastes increased, till in

Galen and Philostratus we find the paidotribes subordinated to the

gymnastes as the mere drill sergeant to the professor of physical

culture. Galen compares them respectively to the cook and the

physician.[854]

The gymnastes can hardly have come into existence much before the

beginning of the fifth century.[855] His work consisted partly in

perfecting his pupils in some particular form of athletics, partly in

developing their strength and training them into proper condition. The

earlier gymnastai, such as those whom we read of in Pindar and

Bacchylides, devoted themselves chiefly to practical instruction. They

were often themselves successful athletes, especially boxers and

wrestlers, who having retired from competition took to teaching, and

were doubtless richly rewarded by their patrons. Such was Melesias the

trainer of thirty victors in wrestling and the pankration;[856] Iccus of

Tarentum, a winner in the pentathlon at Olympia in Ol. 76, the most

celebrated trainer of his day; Dromeus of Stymphalus and Pythagoras of

Samos, to whom were attributed the introduction of a meat diet. These

trainers, like other teachers, went wherever they could find a market.

Menander of Athens trained Pytheas of Aegina to victory.[857] We cannot

for a moment suppose that men like these descended to the work of the

ordinary paidotribes, though, as I have suggested, the reverse must

often have been the case. It was an age of science, and in the hands of

gymnastai and paidotribai there arose in the middle of the fifth century

a new science of gymnastic which aimed not at the performance of

particular exercises but at the production of certain physical

conditions (ἕξις),[858] especially the condition required for athletic

success. Its professors in the fourth century are in ordinary speech

called paidotribai, and Isocrates[859] describes it as a branch of the

art of the paidotribes, undoubtedly because so many paidotribai

professed it. The new science was closely allied to medicine. The

trainer, like the doctor, required some knowledge of diet and the

effects on the body of different kinds of food;[860] he required, too,

some knowledge of the body itself, and the effect on it of various

exercises; he required, too, to be a judge of the human animal, and to

be able to tell in what form of athletics any individual had most chance

of excelling, and what particular form of training he required.[861] The

ideal gymnastes, according to Aristotle,[862] should know what is the

ideally best condition for the ideally best man, what is the best for

the average man, and what is the best for any particular man.

Unfortunately the art of the gymnastes was almost from the first

connected with the training of professional athletes, and the condition

which they aimed at was that artificial condition required for success

in some particular form of athletics. At the same time medical

gymnastics was corrupted by the quackery which from the fourth century

was rampant in all departments of knowledge.[863]

There were also other officials connected with the gymnasia. The

xystarches was the president of one of those guilds of professional

athletes which we find under the Empire. The aleiptes was properly the

person who oiled and rubbed people who exercised in the gymnasia. This

was part of the work of the paidotribes or the gymnastes, and it is

doubtful whether there were special officials for the purpose. In

Aristotle aleiptes is merely another name for gymnastes.[864] In Roman

times we find slaves (_unctores_) performing this work in the public

baths, and possibly these existed in the Greek gymnasia. Subordinate

officials are also mentioned, the hypopaidotribes or assistant, and

others who had charge of the palaestra and its contents, variously

described as palaistrophylax, epimeletes, epistates. Besides these there

were in Hellenistic times special instructors for special exercises, the

sphairistes who taught ball-play, the akontistes and toxotes who gave

instruction in the use of the javelin and the bow, and the hoplomachos

who gave lessons in the use of arms.

Of the special training prescribed for athletes little is known beyond a

few details as to diet which have been noticed in the earlier chapters

of this book, and a few other details noticed under the special

exercises with which they are connected. There were manuals of athletic

training, but all are lost except the late treatise by Philostratus to

which we have so often referred. With regard to athletics as a branch of

education we are somewhat better informed, and it is instructive to

compare the physical training given in the fifth and fourth centuries

B.C. with the system described by Galen in the second century A.D.

The training given in the earlier period was based on those athletic

exercises which at all times formed the programme of Greek athletic

meetings. To these we may add ball-play, which is enumerated by Plautus

among the exercises which formed a young Greek’s training till the age

of twenty.[865] These exercises were taught progressively, at first the

simple movements or positions (σχήματα) separately, then combinations of

these movements which involved more exertion.[866] Many of these

movements admitted of being taught to classes as drill to the

accompaniment of music. Such drill, especially with halteres, is

sometimes represented on vases.[867] The various holds and throws of

wrestling were taught in this way, and we possess on the Oxyrhynchus

papyrus, to which we have already referred, a portion of such a

wrestling lesson.[868] Dances could be utilised in the same way: the

movements of wrestling were imitated in a dance performed by Spartan

boys called the gymnopaidike[869] just as the movements of war were

imitated in the Pyrrhic and other war dances. In the fourth century

particular attention was given to exercises of a military character, the

use of weapons of all sorts, and riding, but these exercises must have

been confined chiefly to older pupils of the age of the epheboi.

Proficiency in all the various exercises taught was encouraged by

numerous festivals and local competitions where prizes were offered for

boys of various ages. The training of teams for the torch-races and

choirs for dancing competitions, though not formally a part of the

education given by the paidotribes, must have afforded those who took

part in them a considerable amount of healthy and agreeable exercise.

Life in this period was spent mostly in the open air, and the formal

training of the palaestra was supplemented by hunting, swimming, rowing,

and other forms of exercise. Cities in Greece were small, and hunting

was as a rule easily obtainable. In Attica, owing to the increase of

population and the spread of cultivation, game was scarce, and sport had

therefore declined in Xenophon’s time; but the red-figured vases prove

its popularity in the fifth century. Swimming and diving were common

recreations. Every Greek could swim, and not to know how to swim was as

much a sign of an uneducated person as ignorance of letters.[870] Rowing

must also have been a universal accomplishment, at least among the

Greeks who lived near the sea; but we know nothing of the teaching of

rowing or swimming. Probably the Greek boy taught himself to swim and

row or picked it up from his fellows.

Here too the element of competition came in. At Hermione we hear of a

competition in diving (or perhaps swimming[871]), and also

boat-races.[872] We have seen that boat-racing took place at the Isthmia

and at various Athenian festivals. There was also a boat-race at the

Actian festival in the time of Augustus; and Professor Percy Gardner has

shown that there is a possible reference to this contest on the coins of

Corcyra and Nicopolis, on which a victorious galley is sometimes

represented. The coins suggest a race between galleys such as that

described in the _Aeneid_, but the boats used in the Athenian races were

probably not triremes, but small boats with a single bank of oars,

tender-boats (ὑπηρετικά) such as always accompanied a fleet. A boat of

this description is depicted on a stele in the Museum of Athens of

Hellenistic or Roman period (Fig. 190). It is a long narrow boat with a

pointed beak in front, and a curved aplustre at the stern, and in it

there sit eight oarsmen. There is no sign of the oars. The men are naked

and are sitting at ease, and bow, who is the smallest of the crew, holds

a palm-branch. The number eight is of course a pure accident. There is

no cox in the boat, but on the upper part of the stele are three figures

standing, a draped figure in the centre, probably the gymnasiarchos who

fitted out and trained the crew, on his left a naked youth bearing a

palm, on his right a youth in a chlamys crowning the man in the centre.

These two Professor Gardner identifies with the stroke and cox of the

victorious crew.

[Illustration: Fig. 190. Stele representing victorious crew. Athens.

(Hellenistic period?)]

When we come to Galen, we seem to pass from the free and open atmosphere

of the playing-field and the country into the artificial air of the town

gymnasium. The simple exercises of the earlier period, so inseparably

bound up with the lives and habits of the people, have given place to a

scientific system of physical training based on the teaching of

generations of gymnastai. In his treatise on Health[873] he describes at

length the exercises suited for youths between the ages of fourteen and

twenty-one. He distinguishes exercises for the legs, the arms, and the

trunk. He further classifies exercises into those which exert the

muscles and give them tone without violent movement (τὰ εὔτονα), quick

movements which promote activity (τὰ τάχεα), and violent exercises (τὰ

σφόδρα). As examples of the first class he mentions digging, driving,

carrying heavy weights, rope-climbing, and exercises of resistance such

as holding the arms extended while another person tries to pull them

down. Among quick exercises he enumerates running, sparring, the use of

the korykos or punch-ball, ball-play, rolling on the ground “either

alone or with others,” an exercise which seems to resemble “tackling” at

football, and a variety of leg and arm movements. Many of these

movements are well known in our modern physical drill. That known as

ἐκπλεθρίζειν is the familiar running figure in which the runner runs in

an ever-decreasing circle till he comes to the centre. Another exercise

(πιτυλίζειν) consisted in marching on the toes, and at the same time

swinging the arms. The leg exercises include jumping up and down, and

raising the legs alternately backwards and forwards. The arm exercises

are the usual dumb-bell movements performed rapidly without dumb-bells,

with the hands either open or clenched. Finally, any of the exercises of

the first class may become violent if practised rapidly and without

interruption, and quick exercises become so if practised with weights or

in heavy armour. Besides prescribing exercises Galen lays down elaborate

rules for the time of exercise, and for massage both before and after

exercise. The actual teaching of these exercises must have been in the

hands of paidotribai, but the direction of the training and the

arrangement of the exercises is, according to Galen, the work of the

gymnastes, who alone has a scientific knowledge of physical training.

The details of this training are full of interest to the student of

education and hygiene. There is, indeed, little in our modern systems of

physical education which he will not find anticipated in Greek medical

writings. We do not know how far Galen’s principles were ever carried

into practice, though we may suspect that it was only in the case of

individuals, and that they had little influence on the nation. But of

this we may be certain, that physical training did not, and could not,

do for Galen’s contemporaries what athletics had done for their

ancestors. Nor can physical training ever take the place of our own

games. For it lacks the element of competition and cannot inspire. There

is no antagonism between the two. Both are valuable, but their spheres

are different. Physical training is a branch of education—a most

important branch, and one hitherto shamefully neglected in England—and

it must therefore be carried out under discipline: it is a matter of

compulsion. Athletics and games are, or ought to be, a matter of free

choice, and compulsion tends to kill the spirit of joy which is their

essence. Physical training develops the body and imparts habits of

discipline, but it cannot impart those still higher qualities, courage,

endurance, self-control, courtesy, qualities which are developed by our

own games, or by such manly sports as boxing and wrestling when

conducted in the true spirit of friendly rivalry: it cannot teach boys

“to play the game” in the battle of life; it could never have inspired

the poetry of Pindar, or the art of Myron.

Footnote 795:

_Od._ iv. 605.

Footnote 796:

Hdt. vi. 126. Cp. Eur. _Andromache_, 599.

Footnote 797:

Eur. _Hipp._ 229; _Hec._ 207.

Footnote 798:

Paus. v. 15, 8; vi. 21, 2.

Footnote 799:

Aristoph. _Av._ 141; Antiphon, _Tetr._ ii.

Footnote 800:

_Axioch._ 366 C, 367 A.

Footnote 801:

Xen. _Rep. Ath._ 2, 10.

Footnote 802:

_E.g._ Taureas (Plato, _Charm._ 153), Timagetus (Theocrit. ii. 8),

Sibyrtius (Plut. _Alcib._ 3), Hippocrates (Plut. _Vit. dec. or._ 837),

Timeas and Antigonus in second century (_I.G._ ii. 444, 445, 446). Cp.

Staseas at Delos (_B.C.H._, 1891, p. 255).

Footnote 803:

M. Fougères (Dar.-Sagl., _s.v._ “Gymnasium”) considers the earliest

gymnasium to be that of Messene, which he identifies with the

colonnade surrounding the sphendone of what is usually considered to

be the stadium. The identification and the date of the building must

be regarded as very doubtful in the absence of more systematic

excavation.

Footnote 804:

ii. 10.

Footnote 805:

Plato, _Euthydemus_.

Footnote 806:

_Phaedr._ 227 A.

Footnote 807:

_Theaetet._ 144 C; Aristoph. _Nub._ 1005.

Footnote 808:

Gerh. _A. V._ 272, and _supra_, Figs. 63, 64.

Footnote 809:

Gerh. _A. V._ 272, 294.

Footnote 810:

Hartwig, _Meisterschal._ liii.; Freeman, _Schools of Hellas_, Pl. x.

Footnote 811:

The hare was frequently offered as a present. Gerh. _A. V._ 275, 276,

280, 290.

Footnote 812:

Demosth. _in Timocr._ 114.

Footnote 813:

Plato, _Theaet._ 144 C.

Footnote 814:

_Mus. Greg._ i. 37: Schreiber, _Atlas_, xxiii. 9.

Footnote 815:

Helbig, _Führer_, p. 388.

Footnote 816:

Hdt. iv. 75; Aristoph. _Eq._ 1060; _Nub._ 835, 991, 1045.

Footnote 817:

Plato, _Legg._ vi. 761.

Footnote 818:

Roulez, _Vases peints du Musée de Leyde_, Pl. 19. A similar scene in a

woman’s bath occurs on a b.-f. amphora in Berlin 1843. Vide Schreiber,

_Atlas_, xxi. 9, lvii. 4.

Footnote 819:

Aristoph. _Ran._ 710.

Footnote 820:

Tischbein, i. 58; Schreiber, _Atlas_, xxiii. 3.

Footnote 821:

Dar.-Sagl., Fig. 747; Schreiber, _Atlas_, lvii. 5.

Footnote 822:

Homolle, _B.C.H._, 1899, pp. 560 ff.

Footnote 823:

The purchase of a pick (σκαφεῖον) and rollers (τροχιλείαι) for the

palaestra is mentioned in the Delian accounts for 279 B.C., _B.C.H._,

1890, p. 397, ll. 98, 99; cp. p. 488 note 2, for similar purchases in

other years.

Footnote 824:

Similarly in _Ath. Mitth._ v. 232 τὸ πυριατήριον καὶ τὸ κόνισμα; Lebas

Waddington, _Inscr. As. Min._ 1112 λουτρῶνα καί κόνισμα. The open

court for exercise was an essential part of every bath. The κόνισμα

must not be confused with the konisterion or powdering-room of

Vitruvius.

Footnote 825:

Plato, _Theaet._ 146 A, and Schol. on the same. The game of bouncing

the ball on the ground was called ἀπόρραξις.

Footnote 826:

_Char._ xxi. αὐλίδιον παλαιστριαῖον κόνιν ἔχον καὶ σφαιριστήριον. This

palaestra he lends to philosophers, sophists, fencing-masters

(ὁπλόμαχοι) and musicians for their displays, at which he will himself

appear on the scene rather late in order that the spectators may say

one to another, “This is the owner of the palaestra.”

Footnote 827:

Athen. i. 34, p. 19 A.

Footnote 828:

_Ol._ Text. ii. pp. 113, 127.

Footnote 829:

Overbeck, _Pompeii_, 4th Ed., p. 219.

Footnote 830:

For the sake of uniformity I have kept the Greek spelling of the names

of different rooms instead of the Latin forms actually used in

Vitruvius.

Footnote 831:

For references to the numerous inscriptions connected with the

provision of oil _vide_ Dar.-Sagl., _s.vv._ “Gymnasiarchia,” p. 1682,

“Gymnasium,” p. 1689.

Footnote 832:

In inscriptions we find mention of a special room called ἀλειπτήριον,

which is sometimes used as synonymous with palaestra or gymnasium,

just as οἱ ἀλειφόμεινοι is equivalent to οἱ γυμναζόμενοι. Vide

_Hermes_, vii. 42; _C.I.G._ 2782, l. 25; _B.C.H._ xii. p. 326.

Footnote 833:

Phil. _Gym._ 58. I am pleased to find the explanation of ξηραλοιφεῖν

given above, which had occurred to me independently, anticipated and

confirmed by Jüthner in his recent edition of Philostratus. The word

occurs in a decree of Solon quoted by Aeschines. Galen defines it as

rubbing with pure oil as opposed to χυτλοῦσθαι, rubbing with oil mixed

with water. But this distinction can hardly be ascribed to Solon or to

the Spartans. The latter appear to have used a primitive kind of

sweating-bath in the open air (Strabo, iii. 3, 6), and the rubbing

connected with such a bath might well be described as ξηραλοιφεῖν in

contrast with the rubbing usual in other parts of Greece, which was

associated with bathing or washing in water. Jüthner, pp. 181, 182.

Footnote 834:

Lucian, _Anachars._ 2, 29.

Footnote 835:

Philostr. _Gym._ 56.

Footnote 836:

_Priene_, pp. 265 ff.

Footnote 837:

_Priene Inschriften_, 112. The authors date the inscription after 84

B.C.

Footnote 838:

_Ath. Mitth._ xxix. pp. 121 ff., xxxii. pp. 190 ff., xxxiii. pp. 327

ff.

Footnote 839:

_Op. cit._ xxix. p. 158.

Footnote 840:

_Op. cit._ xxxii. p. 273, 10.

Footnote 841:

_Op. cit._ xxxii. p. 257, 8.

Footnote 842:

For the Gymnasiarchia _vide_ the article by G. Glotz in Dar.-Sagl.,

where a full bibliography of the subject and copious references to

inscriptions are given. For the Gymnasiarchia at Athens _vide_ also

Freeman’s _Schools of Hellas_, p. 155.

Footnote 843:

Ditt. _Syll._ 2nd Ed., 522.

Footnote 844:

_I. G._ xiv. 256.

Footnote 845:

Ditt. _Syll._ 2nd Ed., 523.

Footnote 846:

Th. Reinach, _Rec. des études gr._ vi. p. 164, n.

Footnote 847:

_I. G._ xiv. 422?

Footnote 848:

Aeschines _in Timarch._ 10; Aristoph. _Nub._ 973; _Eq._ 1238.

Footnote 849:

Athen. 584 C.

Footnote 850:

Antiphon. _Tetr._ ii.

Footnote 851:

Ditt. _Syll._ 2nd Ed., 523.

Footnote 852:

Isocr. Περὶ ἀντιδόσεως, 181-185.

Footnote 853:

Plato, _Rep._ 406.

Footnote 854:

Philostr. _Gym._ 14; Galen, _De San._ ii. 86, 90.

Footnote 855:

The word first occurs in Xenophon, _Mem._ ii. 1, 20. But the fact that

it does not occur in literature earlier is no proof that it was not in

use; for the cognate words γυμνάζομαι and γυμνάσιον were in use at a

much earlier date.

Footnote 856:

Pindar, _Ol._ viii.; _Nem._ iv., vi.

Footnote 857:

Pindar, _Nem._ v.

Footnote 858:

Xenophon, _Mem._ _l.c._; Aristotle, _Pol._ 1338 b.

Footnote 859:

_l.c._

Footnote 860:

Plato, _Protag._ 313 E.

Footnote 861:

Plato, _De virtute_, 378 E.; _Amator._ 134 E.

Footnote 862:

_Pol._ 1288 b.

Footnote 863:

The account of the paidotribes and gymnastes was written before I had

read Jüthner’s learned discussion of the subject in the introduction

to his _Philostratus_, but I see no reason to alter my views. Jüthner

regards the gymnastes as from the first “the professor of physical

culture,” but himself inadvertently applies the term to Pindar’s

Melesias (p. 22), who was merely a teacher of boxing. Further Jüthner

seems to me vastly to overrate the value of the medical gymnastics and

the science of health based on the teaching of Herodicus of Selymbria.

Footnote 864:

_Nic. Eth._ ii. 6, 7.

Footnote 865:

_Bacch._ iii. 3, 24.

Footnote 866:

Isocrates, _l.c._

Footnote 867:

Cp. Fig. 65.

Footnote 868:

_Supra_, p. 374.

Footnote 869:

Athen. 631 B.

Footnote 870:

Plato, _Legg._ 689 D.

Footnote 871:

Paus. ii. 35, 1.

Footnote 872:

_Vide_ three papers in the _J.H.S._ by Prof. Percy Gardner, vol. ii.

p. 90 and p. 315, vol. xi. p. 146.

Footnote 873:

_De San. Tu._ ii. 8-11. Oribasius, vi. 14.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

_N.B._—No references are given to articles or sections on athletics or

athletic festivals in the following books of reference:—

BAUMEISTER, A. Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums.

DAREMBERG ET SAGLIO. Dictionnaire des antiquités.

FRAZER, J. G. Pausanias.

IWAN VON MÜLLER. Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft.

PAULY-WISSOWA. Real-Encyclopädie.

SCHREIBER-ANDERSON. Atlas of Classical Antiquities.

SMITH, W. Dictionary of Antiquities.

etc. etc.

A. ATHLETIC FESTIVALS

1. OLYMPIA.—(_a_) _General_

Olympia. Die Ergebnisse der von dem deutschen Reich veranstalteten

Ausgrabung. Edd. E. Curtius and F. Adler. Berlin, 1892-1897.

BÖTTICHER, A. Olympia: das Fest und seine Stätte. 2nd edition. Berlin,

1866.

FLASH, A. Olympia, in Baumeister’s Denkmäler, ii. p. 1053. Munich and

Leipsic, 1887.

GARDNER, P. Olympia, in New Chapters in Greek History. London, 1892. On

the Ancient Olympic Games, in the Official Handbook of the Olympic

Games. London, 1908.

HACHTMANN, K. Olympia u. seine Festspiele. Gütersloh, 1899.

KRAUSE, J. H. Olympia. Vienna, 1838.

S. P. LAMBROS AND N. G. POLITIS. Οἱ Ὀλυμπιακοὶ ἀγῶνες. Athens, 1896.

LEONARDOS, B. Ὀλυμπία. Athens, 1901.

WEST, G. A Dissertation on the Olympick Games, in his translation of The

Odes of Pindar. London, 1753.

(_b_) _Chronology and Lists of Victors_

S. JULII AFRICANI Ὀλυμπιάδων ἀναγραφή (Eusebii Chronic. (Schoene), i.

193) rec. J. Rutgers. Leyden, 1862.

DIEHL, C. Olympische Sieger. _Hermes_, xxxvi. p. 71.

FÖRSTER, H. Sieger in den olympischen Spielen. 2 parts. Zwickau, 1891,

1892.

GUTTMANN, W. De Olympionicis apud Minae Philostratum. Breslau, 1865.

HYDE, W. De Olympionicarum statuis a Pausania commemoratis. Halle, 1903.

KÖRTE, A. Die Entstehung der Olympionikenliste. _Hermes_, xxxix. p. 224.

MAHAFFY, J. P. On the Authenticity of the Olympic Register. _J.H.S._ ii.

164.

ROBERT, C. Die Ordnung der olympischen Spiele und die Sieger der 75-83

Olympiade. _Hermes_, xxxv., 1900. p. 141.

(_c_) _Miscellaneous_

DISSEN, L. De ordine certaminum Olympicorum. Göttingen, 1841.

DÖRFELD, W. Alter des Heiligtums von Olympia. _Ath. Mitth._ xxxi. p.

205. Tiryns, Olympia, Pylos. _Ib._ xxxii. p. 1. Pisa bei Olympia. _Ib._

xxxiii. p. 318. Olympia in prähistorischer Zeit. _Ib._ p. 185.

DYER, L. Olympian Treasuries and Treasuries in General. _J.H.S._ xxv. p.

294. Details of Olympian Treasuries. _Ib._ xxvi. p. 46. The Olympian

Theatron and the Battle of Olympia. _Ib._ xxviii. p. 250. The Olympian

Council-House and Council. _Harvard Studies in Classical Philology_,

xix. p. 1.

FÖRSTER, H. De Hellanodicis Olympicis. Leipsic, 1879.

HERMANN, G. De Hippodromo Olympico. Leipsic, 1839.

HOLWERDA, J. Olympische Studien. _Arch. Zeit._, 1880, pp. 169-172. (1)

Die Folgenreihe der Festspiele. (2) Ἔφεδρος and ἐφεδρεία.

MIE, F. Quaestiones agonisticae, imprimis ad Olympia pertinentes.

Rostock, 1888.

MOMMSEN, A. Über die Zeit der Olympien. Leipsic, 1891.

PUCHSTEIN, O. Altar des olympischen Zeus. _Jahrb._, 1896, p. 53.

ROBERT, C. Sosipolis in Olympia. _Ath. Mitth._, xviii. p. 37.

SCHERER, C. De Olympionicarum statuis. Göttingen, 1885.

SCHÖNE, H. Neue Angaben über den Hippodrom zu Olympia. _Jahrb._, 1897,

p. 150.

WENIGER, L. Das Hoch Fest des Zeus in Olympia. _Klio_, 1904, p. 125;

1905, pp. 1, 184. Olympische Forschungen. _Ib._, 1906, pp. 1, 259; 1907,

p. 145; 1909, p. 291.

WERNICKE, K. Olympische Beiträge. _Jahrb._, 1894, pp. 88, 127, 191;

1897, p. 169. (1) Altäre, (2) Heraion, (3) Proedria u. Hellanodikeon,

(4) Gymnasien, (5) Hippodrom, (6) Ostgiebel des Zeustempels.

II. THE PANHELLENIC FESTIVALS

CORSINI, E. Dissertationes IV. agonisticae quibus Olympiorum, Pythiorum,

Nemeorum atque Isthmiorum tempus inquiritur ac demonstratur. Florence,

1747.

KRAUSE, J. H. Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien. Leipsic, 1841.

HOMOLLE, T. Les Fouilles de Delphes. Paris, _in progress_.

DROYSEN, J. G. Die Festzeit der Nemeen. _Hermes_, xiv., 1879, p. 1.

BURY, J. B. Pindar. Nemean Odes. (_Vide_ Appendix.) London, 1890.

JEBB, SIR RICHARD C. Bacchylides. (_Vide_ Introduction.) Cambridge,

1905.

MONCEAUX, P. Fouilles et recherches archéologiques au sanctuaire des

jeux isthmiques. _Gazette archéologique_, 1884, ix. pp. 273-285,

352-365; 1885, x. pp. 205-214, 402-412.

POMTOW. Studien zu den Weihgeschenken und der Topographie von Delphi.

ATH. MITTH. xxxi. p. 437.

UNGER, G. T. Die Zeit der nemeischen Spiele. _Philologus_, xxxiv., 1874,

pp. 50-64. Die Winter Nemeen. _Ib._ xxxvii., 1877, pp. 524-566. Die

Isthmien und Hyacinthien. _Ib._ xxxvii., 1877, p. 1.

VILLOISON. Recherches historiques sur les jeux néméens. (Hist. de

l’Acad. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres, xxxviii. p. 29.)

III. THE PANATHENAEA

BÖCKH, A. De ludis Panathenaicis. Berlin, 1832.

MICHAELIS, A. Der Parthenon. Leipsic, 1871.

MOMMSEN, A. Feste der Stadt Athen. Leipsic, 1898.

SMITH, A. H. Sculptures of the Parthenon (Part of British Museum

Catalogue of Sculpture).

B. GREEK ATHLETICS

(_a_) GENERAL

KRAUSE, J. H. Die Gymnastik und Agonistik der Hellenen. Leipsic, 1841.

FABRI, P. Agonisticon. Lugduni, 1592.

GRASBERGER, L. Erziehung und Unterricht im klassischen Altertum.

Würzburg, 1864.

JAEGER, O. Die Gymnastik der Hellenen. Stuttgart, 1878.

MERCURIALIS. De arte gymnastica. Venetiis, 1573.

MEURSII, J. De ludis Graecorum. Elzevir, 1662.

PACIAUDI, P. M. De athletarum κυβιστήσει in palaestra Graecorum. Rome,

1756.

PHILOSTRATUS. For full Bibliography of the _Gymnastike_, _vide_

Jüthner’s edition, p. 84.

DAREMBERG, CH. Philostrate. Traité sur la gynmastique. Paris, 1858.

KAYSER, G. L. Philostratei libri de Gymnastica quae supersunt.

Heidelberg, 1840. Flavii Philostrati opera. Leipsic, 1870.

JÜTHNER, JULIUS. Philostratos über Gymnastik. Leipsic and Berlin, 1909.

(_b_) SPECIAL

BURETTE, M. In Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et

Belles-Lettres, 1736. Mémoire pour servir à l’histoire de la

sphéristique ou de la paume des anciens, i. p. 153. Mémoires pour servir

à l’histoire des athlètes, i. pp. 211, 237, 258. Mémoire pour servir à

l’histoire de la lutte des anciens, iii. p. 228. Mémoire pour servir à

l’histoire du pugilat des anciens, iii. p. 255. Mémoire pour servir à

l’histoire de la course, iii. p. 280. Dissertation sur ce qu’on appelle

pentathle, iii. p. 318. Dissertation sur l’exercice du disque ou palet,

iii. p. 330.

GARDINER, E. N. The Method of deciding the Pentathlon. _J.H.S._ xxiii.

p. 54. Notes on the Greek Foot-race. _Ib._ xxiii. p. 261. Phayllus and

his Record Jump. _Ib._ xxiv. p. 70. Further Notes on the Greek Jump.

_Ib._ xxiv. p. 179. Wrestling, I., II. _Ib._ xxv. pp. 14, 263. The

Pankration and Wrestling. _Ib._ xxvi. p. 4. Throwing the Diskos. _Ib._

xxvii. p. 1. Throwing the Javelin. _Ib._ xxvii. p. 249.

JÜTHNER, JULIUS. Antike Turngeräthe. (Halteres, Diskos, Akontion,

Himantes.) Vienna, 1896. Also in Pauly-Wissowa, _passim_.

_Boxing_

FABRETTI. Columna Trajani, p. 260. Rome, 1683.

FROST, K. T. Greek Boxing. _J.H.S._ xxvi. p. 213.

HÜLSEN. Il Cesto dei pugili antiqui. _Röm. Mitth._ iv. 175.

_The Diskos_

CHRYSSAPHIS, J. E. Ἡ Ἐλληνικὴ δισκοβολία in “Bulletin du comité des jeux

olympiques,” No. 3, p. 59. Athens, 1906.

KIETZ, G. Der Diskoswurf bei der Griechen. Agonistische Studien, i.

Munich, 1892.

PERNICE, E. Zum Diskoswurf. _Jahrb._, 1908, p. 95.

E. R. The Diskos Thrower. _Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York_, 1908, iii. 2, p. 31.

ROBERTSON, G. S. On Throwing the Discus, in the “Official Handbook of

the Olympic Games.” London, 1908.

SIX. Vases polychromes sur fond noir. Appendice au sujet du discobole.

_Gaz. Arch._, 1888, 291.

_The Hippodrome_, etc.

HELBIG, W. Les Hippeis athéniens. Paris, 1902.

MARTIN, A. Les Cavaliers athéniens. Paris, 1886. Also in Dar.-Sagl.,

_s.v._ Hippodrome.

POLLACK, E. Hippodromica. Leipsic, 1890.

_The Javelin and the Amentum_

BERTRAND, A. L’Amentum et la cateia sur line plaque de ceinture en

bronze. _Revue arch._, 1884, 104 f.

KÖCHLY. Opuscula, ii. 351 ff.

KRAUSE, F. Schleudervorrichtungen für Wurfwaffen. _Internationales

Archiv._ Leyden, 1902, pp. 121 ff.

MÉRIMÉE, P. _Revue arch._, 1860, 2nd Ed., 210 f.

_The Jump_

KÜPPERS. _Arch. Anz._, 1900, 104 ff.

PINDER, E. _Arch. Anz._, 1864, 230 f.

ROULEZ, M. Mémoire sur une coupe de Vulci. Brussels, 1842.

_The Race in Armour_

HAUSER. Zur Tübinger Bronze, i., ii. _Jahrb._ 2, 1887, p. 95; 1895, p.

182.

DE RIDDER, A. L’Hoplitodrome de Tübingen. _B.C.H._, 1897, p. 211.

_Wrestling Groups_

FÖRSTER. _Jahrb._, 1898, p. 178; 1901, pp. 49-51.

PERCLÜZET. _Rev. arch._, 1903, sér. 1, pp. 396-397.

_The Pentathlon_

BLÜMNER. In Baumeister’s Denkmäler, i. p. 1592.

BÖCKH, A. Adnotationes criticae, in his edition of Pindar, 1811. Über

die kritische Behandlung der pindarischen Gedichte. _Abhandlungen d.

Berl. Akad._, 1822-1823, p. 391.

FABER, MARTIN. Zum Fünfkampf der Hellenen. _Philologus_, 1891 (L), p.

469.

FEDDE, F. Der Fünfkampf der Hellenen. Breslau, 1888. Über den Fünfkampf

d. Hell. Leipsic, 1889.

FENNELL, C. A. M. The Pentathlon, in his edition of Pindar’s Nemean and

Isthmian Odes. Cambridge Press, 1883.

GARDNER, P. The Pentathlon. _J.H.S._ i. p. 210.

HAGGENMÜLLER. Die Aufeinanderfolge der Kämpfe im Pentathlon. Berlin,

1892.

HEINRICH, K. E. Über das Pentathlon der Griechen. Würzburg, 1892.

HERMANN, G. Commentationes de metris Pindari. Ed. Heyne, iii. 225. De

Sogenis Aeginetae victoria quinquertii. Lips., 1822.

HOLWERDA. Zum Pentathlon. _Arch. Zeit._, 1881, pp. 205-216.

LEGRAND, PH. E. In Dar.-Sagl., _s.v._ Quinquertium. 1907.

MARQUARDT, H. Zum Pentathlon der Griechen. Güstrow, 1886.

MYERS, E. The Pentathlon. _J.H.S._ ii. p. 217.

PHILIPP, G. F. De Pentathlo. Berlin, 1827.

PINDER, E. Über den Fünfkampf der Hellenen. Berlin, 1867.

(_c_) MISCELLANEOUS

BASIADES, C. De vet. Graecorum gymnastice. Berlin, 1858.

BECKER, W. A. Charikles. Leipsic, 1840.

BINTZ, J. Die Gymnastike d. Hellenen. Gütersloh, 1878.

EGGER, J. B. Begriff der Gymnastik bei den alten Philosophen und

Medizinern. Freiburg (Switz.), 1903.

FREEMAN, K. J. Schools of Hellas. Macmillan & Co., 1907.

GARDNER, P. Boat-races among the Greeks. _J.H.S._, ii. p. 90. Boat-races

at Athens. _Ib._ p. 315. A Stele commemorating a Victory in a Boat-race.

_Ib._ xi. p. 146.

GIRARD, P. L’Éducation athénienne. Paris, 1889.

GUTCH, C. The Greek Games. Cambridge, 1900.

JOUBERT, L. De gymnasiis et generibus exercitationum apud antiquos.

Sallengre Thes., i.

JÜTHNER, J. Gymnastisches in Philostrat’s Eikones. Eranos Vindob. p.

310. Vienna, 1893.

LINDEMANN, F. De utilitate artis gymnasticae apud Graecos. Zitt., 1841.

MIE, F. Über die διὰ πάντων καὶ ὁ ἐπινίκιος in agonistischen

Inschriften. _Ath. Mitth._ xxxiv. p. 1.

PETERSEN, CHR. Das Gymnasium der Griechen. Hamburg, 1858.

POLKE. Artis gymnasticae apud Graecos origo atque indoles. Gleiw., 1851.

RICHTER, W. Die Spiele der Griechen und Römer. Leipsic, 1840.

STALLBAUM, G. De vet. gymnasiorum disciplina et institutione. Leipsic,

1856, 1858.

TARBELL, F. B. The Palm of Victory. _Classical Philology_, iii. p. 264.

WILKINS, A. S. Roman Education. Cambridge Press, 1905.

P. WOLTERS. Zu griechischen Agonen. Würzburg, 1901.

C. ATHLETIC ART

_N.B._—The following section lays no claim to completeness. The

references are as a rule too scattered and fragmentary to be included in

a bibliography. Much information will be found in all histories and

handbooks of athletic art.

_Coins (for equestrian types)_

HILL, G. F. Historical Greek Coins. London, 1906.

EVANS, A. The Horsemen of Tarentum. London, 1889.

_Mosaics_

LUCAS, HANS. Athleten-Typen. _Jahrb._ xix., 1904, pp. 127-136.

SECCHI, P. Musaico antoniniano.

_Sculpture_

FURTWÄNGLER, A. Die Bedeutung der Gymnastik in der griechischen Kunst.

Leipsic, 1905.

GARDNER, P. The Apoxyomenos of Lysippus. _J.H.S._ xxv. p. 234.

KALKMANN, A. Die Statue von Subiaco. _Jahrb._, 1895, p. 46.

PATER, WALTER. The Age of Athletic Prizemen, in Greek Studies. London,

1895.

WALDSTEIN, C. Pythagoras of Rhegium and the Early Athletic Statues.

_J.H.S._ i. p. 168; ii. p. 332.

_Vases_

References to the most important Athletic vases will be found in our

list of illustrations. The following list is confined to Panathenaic

vases.

BÖCKH, A. De vasorum Panathenaicorum generibus. Berlin, 1831.

DICKINS, G. Panathenaic Amphorae found at Sparta. _B.S.A._ xiii. p. 150.

HEERMANCE, T. W. Fragment of dated Panathenaic Amphora. _Amer. Journ.

Archaeology_, 1896, p. 331.

HEINZE, F. Eine panathenäische Amphore des akademischen Kunstmuseums zu

Bonn. Bonner Studien R. Kekulé gewidmet. Berlin, 1890, p. 240.

HOPPIN, J. C. A Panathenaic Amphora. _Amer. Journ. Archaeology_, 1906,

p. 385.

POTTIER, E. Amphora panathénaïque. _B.C.H._ vi. p. 168.

ROBINSON, D. M. Fragment of Panathenaic Amphora. _Amer. Journ. of

Philology_, 1908, p. 47.

SMITH, SIR C. Panathenaic Amphorae. _B.S.A._ iii. p. 182.

STEPHANI. Compte rendu, 1876, p. 18.

TARBELL, F. B. Fragment of a dated Panathenaic Amphora. _Cl. Review_,

1900, p. 474.

WALTERS, H. B. History of Ancient Pottery, ii. p. 388.

WITTE, J. DE. Annali dell’ Instituto, 1877, p. 294; 1878, p. 276.

INDEX

Academea at Athens, 468

Achaeans, athletic character of, 8, 11

Acrobats, in Homer, 25;

on Panathenaic vase, 243

Aeginetan pediments, physical type of, 92

Aeginetan successes, 92, 216, 226

Aepytus of Elis, rides his father’s horse, 463

Aezani, stadium, 266

Africanus compiles Olympic register, 50, 192

Age, classification by, 271

Agesidamus of Locri Epizephyrii, boxer, 110

Ageus of Argos, dolichodromos, 201, 285

Agias, pankratiast, statue of, at Delphi, 124, 212

Aglaus of Athens, runner, 273

Agonothetes, 150

Akontistes, 150, 506