shall content myself with having only mentioned thera in this place. For the better methodizing the particulars of thefe games and exercises, it will be neceffary to be. gin with an account of the Athletæ, or combatants. Of the Athleta or Combatants. The term Athletæ is derived from the Greek word 9, which fignifies labour, combat. This name was given to those who exercised themselves with design to difpute the prizes in the public games. The art by which they formed themselves for thefe encounters, was called Gymnastic, from the Athletæ practising naked. Those who were defigned for this profeffion fre quented, from their moft tender age, the Gymnafia or Palæ ftra, which were a kind of academies maintained for that purpose at the public expence. In thefe places, fuch young people were under the direction of differ. ent masters, who employed the most effectual methods to inure their bodies for the fatigues of the public games, and to form them for the combats. The regimen they were under was very hard and fevere. At firft they had no other nourishment but dried figs, nuts, foft cheese, and a grofs heavy fort of bread, called μaga. They were abfolutely forbid the ufe of wine, and enjoined continence; which Horace expresses thus o, Qui ftudet optatam curfu contigere metam Who in th' Olympic race, the prize would gain, St. Paul, by an allufion to the Athlete, exhorts the Corinthians, near whofe city the Ifthmian games were ce lebrated, to a fober and penitent life. "Those who ftrive," fays he," for the mastery, are temperate in all things: now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible." Tertullian ufes the fame thought to encourage the martyrs. He makes a comparison from what the hopes of victory made the Athletæ endure. He repeats the fevere and painful exercises they were obliged to undergo; the continual anguish and constraint, in which they paffed the best years of their lives; and the voluntary privation which they impofed upon themselves, of all that was most affecting and grateful to their paffions. It is true, the Athletæ did not always obferve fo fevere a regimen, but at length substituted in its stead a voracity and in-dolence extremely remote from it. The Athletæ, before their exercifes, were rubbed with oils and ointments to make their bodies more fupple and vigorous. At firft they made ufe of a belt, with an apron or scarf fastened to it, for their more decent appearance in the combats; but one of the combatants happening to lose the victory by this covering's falling off, that accident was the occafion of facrificing modefty to convenience, and retrenching the apron for the future. The Athlete were only naked in fome exer. cifes, as wrestling, boxing, the pancratium, and the foot-race. They practifed a kind of noviciate in the Gymnafia for ten months, to accomplish themselves in the feveral exercises by affiduous application; and this they did in the prefence of fuch, as curiofity or idleness conducted to look on. But when the celebration of the Olympic games drew nigh, the Athlete, who were to appear in them, were kept to double exercise. Before they were admitted to combat, other proofs were required; as to birth, none but Greeks were to be received. It was alfo neceffary, that their manners fhould be unexceptionable, and their condition free. * Nempe enim et Athleta fegregantur ad ftrictiorem difciplinam, ut robori adificando vacent; continentur a luxuria, a cibis latioribus, a potu jucundiore'; coguntur, cruciantur, fatigantur. TERTUL, ad Martyr. No No ftranger was admitted to combat in the Olympic games; and when Alexander, the fon of Amyntas king of Macedon, prefented himself to difpute the prize, his competitors, without any regard to the royal dignity, oppofed his reception as a Macedonian, and confequently a Barbarian and a ftranger; nor could the judges be prevailed upon to admit him, till he had proved in due form his family originally defcended from the Argives. The perfons who prefided in the games, called Agonotheta, Athlothetæ, and Hellanodica, registered the name and country of each champion; and upon the opening of the games an herald proclaimed the names of the combatants. They were then made to take an oath, that they would religioufly observe the feveral laws prescribed in each kind of combat, and to do nothing contrary to the established orders and regulations of the games. Fraud, artifice, and excellive violence, were abfolutely prohibited; and the maxim fo generally received elfewhere, that it is indifferent whether an enemy is conquered by deceit or valour, was banished from thefe combats. The addrefs of a combatant, expert in all the turns of his art, who knew how to fhift and fence dexterously, to put the change upon his adverfary with art and fubtlety, and to improve the leaft advantages, must not be confounded here with the cowardly and knavish cunning of one, who, without regard to the laws prefcribed, employs the most unfair means to vanquish his competitor. Those who difpute the prize in the feveral kinds of combats drew lots for their precedency in them. It is time to bring our champions to blows, and to run over the different kinds of combats, in which they exercised themselves. Of Wrefling. Wrestling is one of the moft ancient exercifes of which we have any knowledge, having been practifed in the time of the patriarchs, as the wrestling of the angel with Jacob proves". Jacob fupported the angel's attack fo vigoroufly, that, perceiving he could not throw fo rough a wrestler, he was reduced to make him lame by touching the finew of his thigh, which immediately fhrunk up. Wrestling among the Greeks, as well as other nations, was practifed at firft with fimplicity, little art, and in a natural manner; the weight of the body, and the ftrength of the muscles, having more fhare of it, than address and skill. Thefeus was the first that reduced it to method, and refined it with the rules of art. He was also the first who established the public fchools, called Palaftra, where the young people had mafters to inftruct them in it. The wrestlers, before they began their combats, were rubbed all over in a rough manner, and afterwards anointed with oils, which added to the ftrength and flexibility of their limbs. But as this unction, in making the fkin too flippery, rendered it difficult for them to take good hold of each other, they remedied that inconvenience, fometimes by rolling themselves in the duft of the Palæstra, fometimes by throwing a fine fand upon each other, kept for that purpose in the Xysæ, or porticoes of the Gymnafia. Thus prepared, the wreftlers began their combat. They were matched two against two, and fometimes feveral couples contended at the fame time. In this combat, the whole aim and design of the wrestlers was to throw their adversary upon the ground. Both ftrength and art were employed to this purpofe; they feized each other by the arms, drew forwards, pufhed backwards, ufed many distortions and twiftings of the body; locking their limbs in each other's, feizing by the neck, throttling, preffing in their arms, ftruggling, plying on all fides, lifting from the ground, dalhing their heads together like rams, and twisting one another's necks. The moft confiderable advantage in the wreftler's art, was to make himfelf master of his adverfary's legs, of which a fall was the immediate confequence. From whence Plautus fays in his Pfeudolus, fpeaking of wine*, "He is a dangerous wrestler, he prefently takes *Captat pedes primum, lultator dolofus eft. onc one by the heels." The Greek terms oσng, and py, and the Latin word fupplantare, seemed to imply, that one of thefe arts confifted in stooping down to feize the antagonist under the foles of his feet, and in raising them up to give a fall. In this manner the Athlete wrestled ftanding, the combat ending with the fall of one of the competitors. But when it happened that the wreftler, who was down, drew his adverfary along with him, either by art or accident, the combat continued upon the fand, the antagonifts tumbling and twining with each other in a thousand different ways, till one of them got uppermoft, and compelled the other to ask quarter, and confeffed himself vanquished. There was a third fort of wrestling, called Axpoxipiouos, from the Athletæ ufing only their hands in it, without taking hold of the body as in the other kinds; and this exercise served as a prelude to the greater combat. It confifted in intermingling their fingers, and in fqueezing them with all their force; in pufhing one another, by joining the palms of their hands together; in twifting their fingers, wrifts, and other joints of the arm, without the affiftance of any other member; and the victory was his, who obliged his opponent to ask quarter. The combatants were to fight three times fucceffively, and to throw their antagonists at least twice, before the prize could be adjudged to them. Homer describes the wrestling of Ajax and Ulyffes; Ovid, that of Hercules and Achelous; Lucan, of Hercules and Antæus; and the Thebaid of Statius, of Tydeus and Agylleus. The wreftlers of greateft reputation amongst the Greeks, where Milo of Croton, whofe history I have related elsewhere at large, and Polydamas. The latter, alone and without arms, killed a furious lion upon mount Olympus, in imitation of Hercules, whom he proposed to himself as a model in this action. Another time having seized a bull by one of his hinder legs, Iliad. 1. xxiii. v. 708, &c. Ovid Metam. 1. ix. v. 31, &c. Pharf. 1. iv. v. 612. Stat. 1. v. vi. 147. the 1 |