Next in the natural order, proceeding from the simplest to the most artificial exercises, was leaping, in which the youth among the Greeks delighted to excel. In the performance of this exercise they usually sprang from an artificial elevation (βατὴρ), and descended upon the soft mould, which, when ploughed up with their heels, was termed ἐσκαμμένα.^[662] The better to poise their bodies and enable them to bound to a greater distance, they carried in their hands metallic weights, denominated halteres,^[663] in the form of a semi disk, having on their inner faces handles like the thong of a shield, through which the fingers were passed. Extraordinary feats are related of these ancient leapers. Chionis the Spartan and Phaÿllos the Crotonian, being related to have cleared at one bound the space of fifty-two, or according to others, of fifty-five feet.

With the latter account agrees the inscription on the Crotonian’s statue:

Homer briefly describes leaping among the sports of the Phæacians:

To this succeeded pitching the quoit, which in the Homeric age would appear to have been practised with large stones or rude masses of iron. On ordinary occasions it has been conjectured that one discus only was used. But Odysseus, desirous of exhibiting his strength to the Phæacians, converts into a quoit the first block of stone within his reach.^[666]

The disk^[667] in later times varied greatly both in shape, size, and materials. Generally it would seem to have been a cycloid, swelling in the middle and growing thin towards the edges. Sometimes it was perforated in the centre and hurled forward by a thong, and on other occasions would appear to have approached the spherical form, when it was denominated solos.^[668]

Other of these exercises were shooting with the bow at wisps of straw stuck upon a pole,^[669] and darting the javelin, sometimes with the naked hand and sometimes with a thong wound about the centre of the weapon. In the stadium at Olympia, the area within which the pentathli leaped, pitched the quoit, and hurled the javelin, appears to have been marked out by two parallel trenches: but if these existed likewise in the gymnasia, they must have been extremely shallow, as we find in Antiphon^[670] a boy meeting with his death by inconsiderately running across the area while the youths were engaged in this exercise. Instead of throwing for the furthest, they would seem, from the expressions of the orator, to have aimed at a mark.

Wrestling^[671] consisted of two kinds, the first, called Orthopale, was that style, still commonly in use, in which the antagonists, throwing their arms about each other’s body, endeavoured to bring him to the ground. In the other, called Anaclinopale, the wrestler who distrusted his own strength but had confidence in his courage and powers of endurance, voluntarily flung himself upon the ground, bringing his adversary along with him, and then by pinching, scratching, biting, and every other species of annoyance, sought to compel him to yield.

An example of wrestling in both its forms occurs in Homer, where Ajax Telamon and Odysseus contend in the funeral games for the prize.^[672]

Boxing, which has very properly been called a rough exercise, though condemned by physicians and philosophers, was still practised in the gymnasium, sometimes with the naked fist but more frequently with the cestus, which consisted of a series of thongs, bound round the hand and arm up to the elbow, or even higher.^[673] This exercise, however, seems to have been little practised, except by those who designed to become athletæ by profession. Homer has described the combat with the cestus in its most terrible form.^[674]

Among the exercises of the gymnasium which Hippocrates advises to be practised during winter^[675] and bad weather, when it is necessary to remain under cover, is walking on the tight rope. This feat seems to have been so great a favourite among the youths of antiquity, that they applied themselves to it with constant assiduity, and arrived at length at a degree of skill little inferior to that of our mountebanks. It seems, in fact, to have been a common practice in the gymnasium to run upon the tight rope. The Romans, seeking in something to outdo the Greeks, taught an elephant to perform a similar exploit.

Another branch of gymnastics consisted in the various forms of the dance, to be ignorant of which was at Athens esteemed a mark of an illiberal education. To excel in this accomplishment was nearly by all the Greeks^[676] considered absolutely necessary, either as a preparation for the due performance of the movements and evolutions of war, sustaining a proper part in the religious choruses, or regulating the carriage with the requisite grace and decorum in the various relations of private life. Thus the Cretans, the Spartans, the Thessalians, and the Bœotians, held this division of gymnastics in especial honour, chiefly with a view to war, while the Athenians, and Ionians generally, contemplated it more as a means of developing the beauty of the form, and conferring ease and elegance on the gait and gesture. But because in treating of the theatre I design fully to describe the several varieties of scenic dances, I think it proper to throw together in that place whatever I may have to say on this subject.^[677]

To all these branches of gymnastics the Grecian youth^[678] applied themselves with peculiar eagerness, and on quitting the schools devoted to them a considerable portion of their time, since they were regarded both as a preparation for victory in the Olympic and other games, and as the best possible means for promoting health and ripening the physical powers. Nor could anything be easily conceived better suited to the genius of their republics. In the first place, as I have already observed, the wild and headstrong period of youth was withdrawn by these agreeable exercises from the desire and thoughts of evil, while a wholesome feeling of equality was cultivated, and something like brotherhood engendered in men destined to live and act together. Besides what could more admirably prepare them for fulfilling their duties as citizens and more especially for defending their country, than a system of physical training, which at the same time brought to perfection their strength, their vigour, and their manly beauty, and fitted them for the acquisition of that peculiar species of glory which success in the sacred games conferred? The acquisition, moreover, of robust health and that vigour of mind which accompanies it, was a consideration second to none. And it will readily be conceived that a judicious system of exercises, such as we have described, would necessarily render men patient of labour, inaccessible to fear, and be productive at once of graceful habits and lofty and honourable sentiments.

Among the sports and pastimes of the Greeks, which may be considered as a kind of supplement to gymnastics, we must class first the chase, which Xenophon vainly hoped might be made to operate as a check on the luxurious and effeminate habits of his contemporaries.^[679] But each age having its own distinctive characteristic, it profits very little to aim at engrafting the customs of one period of civilisation upon another. The world will go its own gait. Chuckfarthing and Pricking the Loop might as well be recommended to young gentlemen and ladies dying for love, as hunting to the population of a vain and foppish city, to whom wild boars and wolves must seem certain death. However, the country gentlemen, and the agricultural population generally, long in their own defence continued the practice of the chase, though in Attica the absence of wild animals, consequent upon a high and careful cultivation, had reduced it at a very early period to a matter of mere amusement.

But in remoter times, and in those parts of the country where game always continued to abound, there were never wanting persons who delighted in the excitement of the chase. Herdsmen, particularly, and shepherds, considered it part of their occupation.^[680] Thus we find Anchises a young Trojan chief, who inhabited the hill country, making his lair of bears and lion-skins, the spoils of his own lance.^[681] Sport, of course, it would furnish to bold and reckless young men, as lion and tiger hunting still does to our countrymen in Northern India; but from this recreation proceeded in some measure their safety, since where wild beasts are numerous they not only devastate the country,^[682] trampling down the corn-fields and devouring herds and flocks, but occasionally, if they chance to find them unarmed, dine also upon their hunters. Thus the chase of the Calydonian boar, the tally-ho’s and view-halloes of which still sound fresh in song, was undertaken by the Ætolians and Curetes, for the purpose of delivering the rustic population from a pest;^[683] and precisely the same motive urged Alcmena’s boy into the famous conflict with the Nemean lion,^[684] which he brought down with his invincible bow and finished with his wild olive club. In like manner Theseus, his rival in glory, slew the Marathonian bull; and delivered the Cretans from another monster of the same kind.^[685] He engaged, too, with a sow of great size at Crommyon on the confines of Corinthia, and slaughtered the pig, an achievement of much utility and no little glory.

The arms and accoutrements of these primitive sportsmen corresponded with the rough service in which they were engaged. Sometimes, to the attack of the wild bull or the boar, they went forth with formidable battle-axes.^[686] But when their game was fleet and innocuous a handful of light javelins and the bow sufficed, as when Odysseus and his companions beat the country in search of wild goats.^[687] In the Æneid, too, we find the hero doing great execution among a herd of deer with his bow. Boar-spears also were in use ere the period of the Trojan war, as Odysseus, who appears to have been excessively addicted to the chase, is represented going thus armed to the field with the sons of Autolycos when he was wounded by the hog.^[688] With the same weapon we find Adrastos engaged in the same sport, killing the son of Crœsos.^[689] The chase of the lion, which in Xenophon’s time could no longer be enjoyed in Greece Proper, required the most daring courage and the most formidable weapons, spears, javelins, clubs, and burning torches, with which at last they repelled him at night from the cattle stalls. Homer, as usual, represents the contest to the life:^[690]

The existence of wild beasts in a country has by some been enumerated among the causes of civilisation, and it may, under certain circumstances, deserve to be so considered, though generally such modes of accounting for things are exceedingly unphilosophical. Mitford, who advances it,^[691] needed but to cast a glance across the Mediterranean to dissipate his whole theory, since nowhere are there more wild beasts or men less civilised than in Africa. Egypt, Chaldæa, Assyria, the earliest peopled countries, enjoyed few of these helps to refinement. The reasons of Greek civilisation lay neither in their country or in the accidents of it, but in the race itself, which, as one family in a nation is distinguished from its neighbours by superior genius, was thus distinguished from other races of men. However, the lion, as we have seen, formerly existed among them, though never probably in great numbers, and even in the age of Herodotus was still found in a wild tract of country extending from the Acheloös in Acarnania to the Nestos in Thrace,^[692] where in fabulous times Olynthos, son of Strymon,^[693] is said to have been slain in a lion hunt. In the age of Dion Chrysostom, however, this fierce animal was no longer known in Europe.^[694]

Dogs, all the world over and from the remotest times, have been man’s companions in the chase, and Homer, the noblest painter of the ancient world, has bequeathed us many sketches of the antique hunting breed. It has above been seen that in company with man they feared not to attack even the lion. Odysseus’ famous dog Argos was a hound that

And again when the same sagacious Nimrod makes his rounds in quest of “belly timber,” a brace of dogs runs before him “examining the traces,” while with boar-spear in hand he follows close at their heels.^[696] But already, even in those days, the habit of keeping more cats than catch mice had got into fashion—that is among the great—since we find grandees with their κύνες τραπεζῆες or “table dogs,”^[697] valued simply for their beauty. Patroclus maintained nine of these handsome animals, and Achilles understanding his tastes, cast two of them into the flames of his funeral pile, that their shades might sit at his board in the realms below.^[698]

Fowling too, if we may depend upon Athenæus,^[699] entered into the list of heroic amusements. It is clear, however, that the sportsmen of those days were arrant poachers, for, not content with attacking their prey in open fight, they condescended to spread nets for them and set gins for their feet. But being accomplished bowmen, however, they could occasionally, when pressed for provisions, fetch down a thrush, a pigeon, or a dove with an arrow, dexterously as that Jew in Eusebius^[700] who exhibited his marksmanship to demonstrate the fallacy of augury. For in the funeral games of Patroclus, we find one of the heroes hitting from a considerable distance a dove which had been tied by a small cord to the summit of a mast.^[701]

They were given moreover not only to fishing with nets—a practice in nowise unbecoming a hero when in want of a dinner—but even to angling with “crooked O’Shaughnessies,”^[702] as Homer expresses it; though the passage in the Iliad, indeed, where a net is mentioned, cannot well be adduced in corroboration, since it may refer to fowling as well as to fishing.^[703] Certain verses in the Odyssey, however, prove beyond a doubt that the Greeks had already begun to derive a great part of their sustenance from the sea;^[704] and the Homeric heroes even understood the value of oysters, which, as appears from the Iliad, were procured by diving.^[705]

Nevertheless these ancient heroes, though by no means averse as we have seen to pigeons or oysters, delighted chiefly in the chase of the larger animals, in which article of taste they agreed with Plato, who considered all other kinds as unworthy of men. He appears to have entertained an especial aversion for the Isaac Waltons of the ancient world, and in his advice to youth earnestly exhorts them to eschew hooks and fish-traps, which he slily classes with piracy and house-breaking: and so he does fowling. Nor would his generous philosophy countenance poaching with nets and gins and snares. His sportsmen, modelled after the old Homeric type, were to mount their chargers,^[706] and accompanied by their dogs come to close quarters with their wild foes in open daylight, and subdue them by dint of personal courage.^[707] Precisely similar views prevailed in the heroic age, when the chiefs and principal men were exercised from boyhood in the chase, as appears from the examples of Achilles and Odysseus;^[708] of whom the former, according to Pindar, tried his hand at a lion at the age of six years, ἐξέτης τοπρῶτον. Being swift of foot as those Arabs of Northern Africa, who, as Leo^[709] says, are a match for any horse, he used without the aid of dogs to overtake and bring down deer with his javelin, and whatever prey he took he carried to his old master Cheiron. This passage Mr. Cary has translated in the following vigorous and elegant manner:—