The strength, agility, and symmetry of the body were valued in the highest degree by the Greeks, and with them physical training occupied a much larger place than has been the case among other peoples. Athletics were closely connected with religion, since contests were held as a part of the funeral and memorial rites of heroes, and likewise of the worship of the gods. They also had an important practical end; Greek armies were always levies of citizens, and since there was no considerable length of time during which the Greek states were at peace before the period of Roman domination, the safety of the state depended to a great extent upon the training of its citizens. Gymnastic games and exercises were continued throughout the greater part of a man’s life, contributing to good health and physical development no less than to recreation.

This interest in athletics can be traced back to very early times in the Boxer Vase from Crete dated in the sixteenth century B.C. (a reproduction of this vase is in Case J in the First Room) and the scenes of bull-leaping and the ivory leapers from Knossos (reproductions on the south wall of the First Room and in Case H 2). The Homeric poems contain many references to athletics, as the funeral games of Patroklos in the Twenty-third Book of the Iliad, the games among the Phaeacians in which Odysseus took part (Odyssey VII), and Odysseus’ encounter with the beggar (Odyssey XVIII, vv. 15ff.); but at this time sports were unorganized and no rules had as yet been devised for them. The seventh century was especially the period of organization during which the great festivals became fixed in time and in the number and kind of contests, and by 570 B.C. the four great Panhellenic festivals—the Olympian, the Pythian, the Isthmian, and the Nemean—were established.

There are a large number of vases, especially those of the late sixth and early fifth centuries, ornamented with scenes from the wrestling-schools and gymnasia. The place is indicated by the objects hung on the walls, such as jumping-weights, a diskos, or an oil-flask and a strigil for removing sand and oil. The trainer is usually present, represented as a mature man, wearing a himation and carrying a forked rod. The flute-player in a long, spotted robe often accompanies the exercises or plays for the jumper.

The principal athletic contests were foot-races of various distances, including the torch-race, which corresponded to the modern relay race, broad jumping, throwing the diskos and the javelin, wrestling, and boxing. There were also the pentathlon (five contests), which consisted of the jump, the foot-race, throwing the diskos and the javelin, and wrestling; and the pankration, a combination of wrestling and boxing.

For jumping, weights called halteres were used; on the black-figured lekythos on the middle shelf of Case 4 decorated with a scene of athletes practising, two of the number hold halteres, the drawing being sufficiently detailed to show the shape well. On the psykter and a vase fragment on the same shelf are jumpers at the take-off (fig. 113), and a boy preparing for a jump decorates the interior of a kylix on the lower shelf in Case P in the Fifth Room.

A foot-race is represented on one of the Panathenaic amphorai in the Third Room (Case N), and the cast of a bronze statuette in Tübingen shows a contestant in the race for hoplites (heavy-armed foot-soldiers), at the starting-line (top shelf of Case 3). The shield which he carried on his left arm has been broken away.

Throwing the diskos was one of the oldest Greek sports. The object was to throw it as far as possible, as in putting the shot. So many representations of this sport have come down to us in statues, vase paintings, coins, and gems, that it is possible to work out the successive movements of the throw. The principle seems to have been always the same, though individuals were allowed certain differences in style. A bronze statuette in Case B in the Fourth Room (fig. 114) shows one stance; the athlete is about to swing the diskos down from the left to the right hand. The position preliminary to the swing downwards to the side, the athlete now holding the diskos in both hands, may be seen on the lekythos in Case 4; and one of the figures on the psykter is in the same position. The well-known statue by Myron, of which a cast stands in Gallery 22, shows the position just preliminary to the throw, an instant before the diskos leaves the hand.

The art of fighting in heavy armor, hoplomachy, was taught to Greek boys by a special master as part of their athletic training. A most interesting scene of this kind decorates the shoulder of a hydria of the late sixth or early fifth century where two men armed with helmet and shield are fencing with spears to the music of a flute-player (Case Y in the Fourth Room). Plato alludes more than once to the attention given to this branch of physical training in his day, and the prestige enjoyed by teachers of the art.

Throwing the javelin also had a practical value as preparation for warfare and was one of the commonest sports of the palaistra. In the pentathlon it was thrown for distance only, but there were competitions in throwing at a target at the Panathenaea and, no doubt, on other occasions. A thong, fastened near the center of gravity, and twisted around the hardwood shaft, acted like the rifling of a gun in insuring greater accuracy. One of the figures on the black-figured lekythos is preparing to throw a javelin, and the artist has represented the thong in such a way that the method of using it can easily be understood. The thrower holds the shaft in his hand with the first and second fingers inserted into loops in the end of the thong. As he throws, the thong unwinds, giving the missile a whirling motion (fig. 115).

The use of the bow and the sling, as has been said in the section on Armor, was also taught in the palaistra at Athens.

The pankration, a combination of wrestling and boxing, was one of the most popular Greek sports. In it ground-wrestling and hitting were allowed. Two scenes from the pankration are represented on a skyphos in Case 4. On one side the winner has thrown his opponent backward and is about to strike him, while the other holds up his hand, probably as a signal of defeat (fig. 116). On the other side the combatants have their hands covered with the thongs which served as boxing-gloves. The man on the ground has thrown the other by a neck-hold (see head-band, p. 89). There are two boxers in the group of athletes on a krater on the top shelf of Case Q in the Fifth Room, and a boxing scene is represented on one of the Panathenaic amphorai.

The value of the prizes given for athletic skill varied greatly, from the wreath of olive at Olympia and the parsley leaves of Nemea to articles of considerable value and, in a few cases, even money. At the Panathenaea the prizes were jars of oil in greater or less numbers, and the painted vases known as Panathenaic amphorai. Probably only one of these was given to a victor. They bear on one side a picture of the contest in which the vase was won, and on the other, the figure of Athena with an inscription, “From the games at Athens” (fig. 118). When the prize took the form of a wreath, the victor first bound a fillet or band of wool around his head and upon this the official in charge of the games placed the wreath. The act of tying the fillet was often represented by Greek sculptors; the most famous example is, of course, the Polykleitan statue known as the Diadoumenos, of which a cast stands in Gallery 22. The beautiful bronze statuette in Case D in the Sixth Room has the same motive (fig. 119), and on the psykter in Case 4 a boy who holds in his hands the palms signifying victory is being crowned by an official.