"Aulus, the pugilist, consecrated to the god of Pisa all the bones of his skull collected one by one. Should he return alive from the Nemean games, O valiant Jupiter! he will consecrate the vertebræ of his neck-they will be all that is left to him."

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CHAPTER IV.

QUOIT THROWING.

Quoit throwing in Ancient Times not a Game of Skill-Dangers of the Amusement-The Quoit in Heroic Times-Attitudes of the Player -The Statue of Myron-The Swiss Game.

IN the same rank with wrestlers and pugilists we class those who are called discoboloi, or quoit-players, from the game of throwing the discus or quoit. It seems natural at a first glance to rank the sport among exercises of skill; but it must be considered that the quoit was a very heavy mass, difficult to handle, and that it was the object of the player not to aim at a particular mark, but to heave it up and throw it as far as possible. It was a game, therefore, which required much more strength than skill.

The quoit itself consisted of a piece of flat metal, or a stone, or a lump of heavy and compact wood, which one threw in the air as far in front of him as he could. Most commonly, however, it was made of copper or iron. When held in the right hand it came some distance up the forearm, and it became more perfect in form in course of time. In the great days of Greece, it may be said to have been made like the ball of the eye, bulging in the middle, but growing thinner at the edges. Lucian has described it as a small round buckler, so polished and smooth that it readily slipped from the hand of the person holding it.

The throwing of the quoit-a very ancient game-was practised even in the heroic age, and the invention has been

assigned to Perseus, son of Jupiter and Danaë. In the times of Homer the quoit was a mass of rough iron called solos, and was used just as it came from the foundry before it had been moulded by the hammer.

Each player threw the quoit in his turn, no doubt in an order previously settled by lot, and endeavoured to surpass his opponents. The prize was won by him who threw it furthest, and this result of the competition proves that the game depended on strength rather than skill. The distance to which a strong hand could cast the iron became a measure of length acknowledged and ratified by usage, for in ancient times, "a cast of the quoit" was an expression as well understood as the range of a gun amongst us. Homer was intelligible in his time, when he says, speaking of a chariot race, "The horses of Antilochus outstepped those of Menelaus all the distance traversed by a quoit thrown by a young man who wishes to put forth his strength." The same instrument served for all the competitors, and at each throw the place where the quoit fell was marked by a stake, or an arrow, or a mark of some such kind. It will be remembered that in the "Odyssey," it is Minerva who, disguised, renders this service to Ulysses, and the goddess proved so good a marker that the quoit of her hero always found itself far in advance of those of the others. Ulysses had found this game established among the Phæacians at the court of King Alcinous, in the country to which the tempest had driven him after the sack of Troy. It was not surprising that it was familiar to him, for he had seen it played in the Greek camp before the walls of Priam's renowned city. Especially at the time when Achilles, refusing to act with his countrymen, kept within his tent, his Myrmidons amused themselves by playing with quoits.

on the sea-shore. In Sparta the game was specially cultivated -no doubt, because it was an excellent training for the art of war, strengthening the arms of the young warriors for wielding freely the sword or javelin. The Romans also, under the emperors, practised the art, which the ancients seem to have held in higher esteem than the moderns do.

In playing at quoits the athlete placed himself in a space called balbis. He advanced his right leg, slightly bending the knee, with all the weight of the body resting on the right foot. When he was ready to launch the heavy mass, he bent his body, his left hand took a point of support, while his right extended holding his quoit, and raised behind him to the level of his shoulder, remained a moment in this position, then described half a circle in the air, and the athlete, collecting all his strength, made his throw, leaping forward at the same time, as if to increase the force of projection.

The quoit-thrower who, when commencing to take his part in the game, happened to let the instrument fall, was at once excluded from the contest. It was the practice of players to rub their right hands with mud or dust, and they treated in the same way the quoit, in order that, being thus made less smooth, it might be more easily handled. There has been much discussion on the points whether the quoit throwers wholly or partially divested themselves of their clothing, and whether they anointed themselves before entering the lists. It is beyond doubt that the use of oil would increase the elasticity and power of the muscles, but it is equally evident that if it was used the body must have been uncovered. The idea that the quoit-throwers engaged naked is also favoured by the fact that the game ranked third in the Pentathlon, or the five kinds of exercises in vogue at

D

the Olympic games. These were-Wrestling, running on foot, quoit-throwing, leaping, and javelin-throwing.

Now,

in both the departments which preceded it, the athletes were naked, and were rubbed with oil and dust, and therefore it is probable that on entering on the next they still remained unclothed,

The quoit-thrower at play was a favourite theme with

the Greek artists, but no one has treated the subject so happily as the sculptor Myron. The original work has not been transmitted to us, but many copies exist, the best of which is to be found in the collection of antiquities in the British Museum. Myron, who flourished about 432 B.C., was gifted with a genius for modelling animals as well as human beings. All his works are instinct with life and action; and it is for these qualities

The Statue of the Quoit-thrower. that his statue of the Discobolos is so remarkable. It was greatly admired by the ancients, and Quintilian mentions it as a model of its kind. "How much more powerful," cries the Latin critic, "is the effect upon the spectator when the artist represents his subject in action and not fixed and in repose." It was in this precisely that the merit of the sculptor consisted. Many had previously represented the quoitplayer before or after the exercise, but Myron was the first to render him in the very act of throwing.

The mountaineers of the Appenzell practise a similar game, though in their case the instrument employed is a