Modern Athletics 1868

ANCIENT ATHLETICS. 7 tive feature of the ancient pentathlon. Indeed, so im­ portant was it, that in its wider sense the word naXt] (wrestling) embraced all gymnastic exercises, and the schools of the athletes were called palcestrce. Homer has two beantifnl descriptions ofwrestling matches. Ono in the twenty-third Iliad, so often referred to, in which the mighty Telamonian Ajax and wise Odysseus contend. Their backs creaked, the perspiration ran down, purple welds arose on their sides and shoulders, all in vain, neither could throwthe other, though Ajax wavsery near it after his invocation of Jove. But Odysseus was too much for Ajax and Jove together. The other description is in Odyssey Till., 169. In the Phseacian games Euryalus surpassed alhl is countrymen in wrestling; and presuming on hiseasy victory over them, must needsjeer at Odysseus— "Now am T, stranger, not at ailnlclined To judge theeversed in wrestling and therace, Or games that are in voguaemong mankind. Thee, ratherwith the ship-frequentingkind Of traders, overseers omf erchandise. Whose talkis of cargoes, and their mind Dreams ofunjust gains, and oth bargains prize, 1class with athletes noitf, I may trust meyes." Worsley. He soon, however, "caved in," on proof of the stranger's prowess in throwing the disc. Of these games the foot-race seemsto have been coeval with the institution otfhe Olympic Games themselves, or, at least, with their use as a chronological asra, when Coroebus conquered in the foot-race, B.C. 776. Indeed, the Spci/xoswas the only contest during the first thirteen Olympiads. The S/auXos(in which the coursewas traversed twice) was introduced inOlympiad XIV.; wrestling and the pentathlon generally, inOlympiad XVII.; boxing, in Olympiad XXIII.; and the pancratium in Olympiad XXXIII. How the victorywas determined in someof the athletic games of the ancients itis not easy to say. In leaping, racing, throwing, decisionwas easy, even if several athletes competed. Ikit inwrestling no more than two persons could be engaged together at once. Did the victors in the several pairs contend togetherat last ? But howwas the prize awarded in the wholepentathlon P Was a man ex-