BOOK II.

BODILY SKILL.

CHAPTER I.

RUNNERS AND RUNNING IN ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES.

Utility of Running in Ancient Times-The Swift-footed Achilles-How Running was esteemed-Different Kinds of Running-Greek and Roman Runners-The Pace-Opinion of the Ancients upon the Influence of the Exercise-The Endeavour to Abolish it-The Grand Turk's Runners, their Singular Accoutrement-The Abbé Nicquet-The Runner of the Polignacs.

In the earliest ages running was of the most marvellous use to man, for it was by means of it that he was enabled to capture some animals, and escape the attacks of others. In those days this was the only use to which men applied their swiftness, and when, at a later period, war took the place of the hunting of animals, and became the principal occupation of the human race, speed was again of the greatest importance in running down a weaker enemy, or escaping from a stronger. After the invention of arms of long range, agility became less necessary, and in our time victory no longer depends on suppleness of legs, for artillery mows down without mercy, as the reaper mows the ripe wheat. Achilles, with his swift feet, would in our day be but a pitiful personage, and though his speed might enable

him to win a flat race at a country fair, as a soldier it would avail him nothing. He would be picked up and forwarded by the iron road to the theatre of his exploits, like a simple parcel; his swiftness would not enable him to escape the unseen bullet, and he would be as likely as the merest raw recruit to come back from the battle-field minus one of his boasted limbs, and pass the remainder of his days a pensioner on the bounty of the state.

On account of the uses to which formerly it could be put in time of war, running was regarded as one of the exercises most becoming a free man; it was cultivated in the gymnasiums; it had its place in the public games, especially at Olympus; and it formed the chief feature of all fêtes. It was with this exercise, regarded as the most noble, that all the solemn games commenced, wrestling holding the second place. It is likewise with this that Homer opens, when he describes the games of strength and skill; it is racing that fires the enthusiasm of Pindar. The art of running was held in equal honour by the historians, Thucydides, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Diodorus of Sicily, and Pausanias, who date events by Olympiads, and do not omit to add the name of the athletes who at these solemn celebrations bore away the prizes. Such was the antiquity and utility of the exercise, that victorious competitors in the other games were not received with the favour which was accorded to successful runners.

There were many varieties of foot-races, but as the distinctions between them consisted only in the different lengths of the courses traversed, it will suffice to speak particularly of but one variety. There was first that in which the competitors went once the length of the stadium or course, which at Olympia was six hundred feet; secondly,

there was a diaulos, or double course, in which the athletes, after having reached the goal, returned; thirdly, there was the dolichos, in regard to which opinion is much divided. According to some it was seven courses of the stadium, to others that it was twenty courses, which it is difficult to believe.

This last feat too frequently repeated resulted in the loss. of life, as in the case of Ladas of Lacedæmonia, who fell

Ancient Foot Runners. (From a vase in the Berlin Museum.)

He

dead on arriving at the goal, after having run the dolichos. He attained such celebrity in this department of athletics that it was said of him, while language was still in its early exuberance, "his feet left no print on the sand." The Greek Anthology contains two epigrams concerning him. "Has Ladas started? Has Ladas flown across the course? goes so quickly it is impossible to say." The other was relative to the statue of this athlete, the work of the famous sculptor Myron, of whom we have already spoken. "Such as thou wert, when darting forward, thou didst skim the earth with thy feet, such, O Ladas! still living, Myron has cast.

thee in bronze, giving to thy whole body the life that thrills to the touch of the Olympic crown. The pulses of hope are beating in your lips, we see the heaving of your quickbreathing chest. Perhaps the bronze is about to throw itself forward toward the crown, the pedestal even will not hold it back."

Greece produced excellent runners, of whom the most highly esteemed came from the island of Crete. If it were necessary to enumerate all those who distinguished themselves in this exercise, a volume would not contain the names. But among the celebrities, the most famous beyond comparison were Hermogenes of Xanthos, in Lycia, who won eight wreaths in twelve years, and was known by the flattering surname of the "Horse;" Lasthenes, the Theban, who beat one of these quadrupeds in crossing the Choroneus at Thebes; and Polymnestor, the young goat-herd of Miletus, who caught a hare on foot, and who, in consequence of this feat, was sent by his master to the Olympic games. Alexander the Great had a runner, Philonides, who ran in nine hours the distance between Sicyon and Elis.

"The starting-place and the goal are the only points at which the young athlete allows himself to be seen, never in the course of his race," says a Greek poet, in singing the praises of a certain Arias of Tarsus, in Cilicia. The agility of the athlete could not be complimented in a more delicate and striking manner. And let us not forget the soldier who ran to announce the victory of Marathon, and, exhausted with fatigue, dropped dead at the feet of the magistrates of Athens as soon as he had signified the import of his message. Or that Euchidas of Platea who came to find at Delphos the sacred fire necessary for the sacrifices, to replace that which the Persians had quenched; on the