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CHAPTER III.

PUGILISM AMONG THE ANCIENTS.

Love of the Greeks for Pugilism, in spite of their delicacy-Whence came the best Pugilists-Diagoras and his Three Sons-The use of the Cestus-The Battle between Kreugas and Damoxene-Ferocity of an Athlete-Melancomas and his Artistic Style-GlaucusChildren and Pugilism-Epigrams in the Anthology.

THE practice of pugilism is of the highest antiquity, for long before the invention of offensive and defensive weapons, men were accustomed to make use of that arm which was at once effective and easily used. How was it that the Greeks, the lovers of the arts-the Greeks, so delicate in their other tastes, came to admire and cherish a sport of which rude brute strength constitutes the foundation? The reason simply is that the Greeks, in spite of the refinement of their civilisation, continued to be the children and followers of nature, and made pugilism a science which they taught in common with philosophy and the fine arts. The young men were instructed and trained by skilful masters thoroughly acquainted with all the tricks and resources of this brutal art. At public amusements, at the funerals of heroes, and even at religious ceremonies, contests of this kind took place. In the "Iliad," for example, pugilistic encounters figure among a number of funeral games given in honour of Patroclus; and we read in the "Odyssey" that it was practised by the Phæacians at the court of Alcinous. The heroes of antiquity took great pride in the massive

power of their fists. Amongst those who excelled in this exercise we may mention, according to Homer, Amycus, king of the Bebrycians, who would allow strangers to travel through his kingdom only on condition that they took part in an encounter with him, and who, on these occasions, was invariably the victor, and Epeus, who was the builder of the famous wooden horse that brought about the destruction of Troy, and boasted that he had never met his equal in pugilism. It is to these two heroes that we owe the

Encounter between Pugilists. (From a Greek vase.)

introduction of the "noble art of self-defence" among the athletic sports. It did not, however, at first attract much attention, for it was only admitted as a public exhibition at the celebration of the games of Elis, which took place in the twenty-third Olympiad, Onomastos, of Smyrna, being the first who publicly bore away the prize.

The most renowned pugilists came from Rhodes, Ægina, Arcadia, and Elis. Diagoras, a Rhodian, whose praises. are sung by Pindar, when an old man, and after having in his time won many wreaths, led his two sons to the Olympic

games. The young men having been proclaimed the conquerors, they, taking their father upon their shoulders, bore him through the great assembly, amidst the most enthusiastic applause. "You may die now, Diagoras," cried a Lacedæmonian; "you will be remembered on earth, though you go to heaven;" meaning by this that the old man had achieved the greatest fame which a human being could

Pugilist rubbed with oil before a Combat. (From a bronze in the Academy of St. Luc.)

wish. And Diagoras seemed to be of the same opinion; for, unable to bear up against the excitement of the occasion, he died under the eyes of the assembled Greeks, in the arms of the two sons whose victory he had been spared to witness. He did not live to enjoy the triumph of the third of his offspring, who some time afterwards won a name even more famous than his own.

If these encounters excited among the Greeks such interest, it is difficult to see how, as certain authors assert,

As a

the exercise was contemned by them, and practised almost exclusively by the lower classes. It is shocking to think of this passion, this enthusiasm of the Greeks for so rude a sport; but it is a fact which history, while it deplores it, is bound to record. Still, this exhibition of material strength in its coarsest and most brutal form, must have ceased to exist among the ancients, in spite of their partiality for it, had not certain athletes found means to raise it to the category of the arts. general rule, the earlier pugilists rushed against each other with closed fists, showering their blows, which were rendered terrific by the leather thongs which were wound around the hand and the fore-part of the arm, and so formed the gauntlet, called the cestus. The blows thus delivered were terrible. "One hears the jaws cracking under the strokes," says Homer, in describing the contest between Epeus and Euryalus; "the divine Epeus 'landing' upon his adversary, gives him a buffet on the cheek that makes him drop. He falls, his friends surrounding him, carry him away insensible, his legs hanging powerless, his head drooping on his shoulder, and dark blood flowing from his mouth." These were the results of ordinary pugilism, when the athlete directed his efforts to the disfiguration of the visage, dashed back his adversary's head to make him

Pugilist armed with the Cestus. (After a statue in the Louvre.)

giddy, and finally delivered the coup de grâce by striking him with the two cesti at the same time.

Combats of this kind occasionally were of a specially ferocious character; for example, the fight between Damoxene and Kreugas, at the Nemean games. Kreugas was an athlete originally from Epidamnus (Durazzo, in Albania), Damoxene, his antagonist, was from Syracuse. As the terrible struggle in which they were engaged threatened to be pro

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Pugilistic Encounter. (After a painted vase in the Blacas Museum.)

longed into the night, both agreed that they should in turn cease parrying the blows which should be delivered, and that while one struck the other should remain motionless. Kreugas had the first turn, and his blow fell like that of a heavy hammer upon his opponent's head, which, however, withstood the onslaught. Damoxene, having signed to his opponent to hold his arm above his head, which was done, then drove his hand - of which the nails were long and pointed, and which was laced with leather thongs, fixed at the palm, so as to leave the extremities of the fingers free, and so very different from the cestus, which had not yet been invented-against the pit of Kreugas's stomach, sunk it into

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