Athletics at Athens.

Bodily exercise formed a most important factor in the life of the ancient Greeks. In the course of study prescribed for an Athenian boy equal prominence was given to both mental and physical training. While yet at school, the boy became proficient in the lighter exercise, a certain part of each day being devoted to work in the gymnasium. At the age of fifteen, the regular course of instruction in athletics was begun, which fitted the youth to participate in the great games, "field meetings" we would call them now, held every year at Athens. Higher honors were conferred on the victors in these games than fall to the lucky prizeman at Oxford or Cambridge.

The athletics practiced at Athens fell under one or the other of six sports: leaping, running, throwing the discus, hurling the javelin, boxing and wrestling. No one but professionals, however, paid much attention to boxing. All these exercises, with the exception of boxing, were combined in the Pentathlon, which took place every year in the gymnasium. The winner was he who won the wrestling, which came last, and had gone successfully through the other events. In these games, leaping was always the first event. In this event a minimum leap was set, and all those failing to cover this distance lost their chance to compete in the other events, which reduced the great number of contestants. The Greeks never leaped without weights, and used two sorts, first the dumbbell, which had a curved bar between the round ends, and of which the dumbbell in use at the present day is an imitation; second, the half of a flattened disk, with an orifice on the curved side for the hand; these they threw behind them when in mid-air, and this gave them additional impetus. By the aid of these weights tremendous distances were covered; for instance, Herodotus tells a little story of a certain Greek who had a record of fifty-five feet; and this statement is probably true, for they loosened the ground to a distance of fifty feet, so that they must have expected them to jump that far. After the leaping came the javelin throwing, in which the object was distance, not accuracy in hitting a certain mark. The javelin was light, and had no head, and was thrown by a thong. In this event the three men who made the shortest throws were dropped out. Next the foot race was held; this was the most primitive of all the contests, and for a long time was the only event at the Olympic games. From this fact came the custom of naming the year after the winner in this event. In the Pentathlon the customary distance was two hundred yards. They ran naked, and without shoes, the object being only to win, as time was of no account. The ground was very soft, which made running difficult. The other distances which the Greeks ran were four hundred yards, and the "long race," which was from a mile and a half to three miles. With such soft ground, the strain on the runners must have been fearful, and it was no uncommon thing for them to faint when they reached the end. No trickery of any kind was allowed, as false starts, etc.

In discus throwing, the Greeks had a record of ninety-five feet, but the weight of the discus which was used is not known. A year or two ago, discus throwing was introduced at Harvard, and Kip, '83, threw 80 feet, with a discus made of oak, weighted with lead, weighing four pounds.

There were two forms of wrestling taught in Greece. The first consisting of a simple throw, and in which no wrestling on the ground was allowed. The second was where the fighting continued on the ground and in which everything was allowed, as strangling, or breaking the joints of one's opponent. In the first kind, three falls meant defeat. This was the only form which was used in the Pentathlon. Boxing was considered a professional sport, and did not enter into the games. They used no gloves, but the hands were bound up in strips of leather, which strengthened the hand and broke the force of the blow. The contestants fought until one held up his hand as a sign of defeat. Milling and blows below the waist were allowed, and, in fact, everything which could help to defeat an opponent.

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