CLASSICAL GAMES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 31 July 1926, Page 13

CLASSICAL GAMES.

OLD GREEK CUSTOMS

PROFESSIONALS AND AMATEURS

From vases and fragments found in tombs in Etruria, Southern Italy, and Greece, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art has reconstructed a comprehensive view of the ancient Greek substitute for the modern newspaper sporting page, says a United States publication. In the fifth and sixth centuries 8.C., the leading critics of sport were the painters and potters of Athens. They covered an even greater variety of sport than is known to-day. They could not compete in speed and volume of production with the press and the camera, but they made sport an even greater element of daily life than it now is. The Greeks and their customers all over the Mediterranean and Black Seas had their meals served up

in sporting scenes. They drank front vases painted over' with races, fights, wrestling matches; with athletic pictures of every kind Many of these pictures have a modern look, although they have been hidden in graves and elsewhere for 2509 years. An ancient vanity case, for instance, is painted with a. classic counterpart of the daily dozen to music. The..musician is playing on a two-reed flute, and the athlete is busy with bis setting-up exercises. Music- was a regular accompaniment of Greek training. A ncck-aiicl-ncck turf finish'on an amphora in the Metropolitan. Museum of Art makes a brilliant picture, despite and absence of gogeous shirts and caps. The jockeys are naked, and ride bareback. They sit rather far back, as a rule, but one jockey crouches far forward, on the horse’s neck —in the style supposedly invented by Tod Sloan. Ancient fight scenes are full of points for the modern riiig follower. A photograph of a kylix in a. Museum in Berlin shows the boxer wrapping his hands in leather strips, exactly as a boxer tapes Ins hands to-day. Soft leather hand protection, resembling the modern glove, was used: in classic times. This grew later into the brutal weapon of hard leather, and later into the 'iron cestus.

An amphora belonging to the Metropolitan Museum shows a second practising his ancient calling. He holds a towel in one hand. His left hand is extended in an encouraging- gesture, and he is plainly shouting advice to Ids principal. In this scene there is one Greek idea that has not been tried in the modern ling, but which might have possibilities. The referee- stands over two boxers. He holds a long whip, and with an outstretched, argumentative hand, is encouraging them to fight. But he is plainly ready to lay on the lash, either to make them fight or to compel observance of the rules.

in one scene on a kylix in the British Museum the referee is vigorously wielding a big stick to force one lighter to desist from gouging out the other’s eye. Gouging and biting were forbidden, as they arc forbidden in the moderii ring; but rules were violated t-lien, as now. An outright gouge cannot be accomplished with Hie modern glove, but the practice of ‘Thumbing” is an dice live substitute. Some of the modern boxers stick the thumb out beyond the fist and jab at their opponents’ eyes in the clinches, where the referee cannot see them. Some have been temporarily blinded, and others have had their eyes permanently injured in this way. As for biting, a boy was ruled out of the- ring by the New York Boxing Commission a year ago for a- carnivorous attack on one of his opponent’s ears. The Greek boxer aimed liis attack at his opponent’s head, body blows being almost unknown. For this reason, in boxing scenes, the contestants invariably have their heads well guarded, while their bodies are left exposed. Boxers wrapped their fists with thongs

10 or 12 feet in length, to form a sort of glove. Comparatively humane at- this period, boxing grew, a. few centuries later, 10 be a ferocious combat. It is difficult to see how, when the fighting was done with fists encased in iron, a boxer could last any length of time without spare parts. The cauliflower ear was even more frequent with the ancient than with the modern boxer, due to the practice of concentrating attack on the head. The broken nose was less usual, because the straight punch and uppercut were not in use. It was strictly forbidden, according to reliable works of reference-, to kill an opponent In the pankration (a mixture of boxing and wrestling) it was admissible to hit an opponent when he was down, and possibly even to kick him, although the fact that the contestants were in bare feet would probably make kicking a feeble and ill-judged offensive. Both wrestlers and boxers are sometimes pictured with full beards. \\ restlers aic shown using the hammer-look.

half-Nelson, and various tricks like those of i lie ju-jifsu, but- not the headlock or the body scissors, which have become important in modern wrestling. The Greeks had a. game resembling football, but no tennis, golf, or polo. There is one scene that brings modern baseball to mind. One player is running in one direction, and looking back in another, while men on both .sides of him are watching a ball in the air. If suggests a. man being run down between bases. Likewise there is only one Greek re-

presentation of the gayie of hockey, but it is proof that the 'Greeks played a dry-land version of this game. Two players hold hockey-sticks-,. differing very little from modern is ticks. These are crossed over a ball, the players apparently being ready for the signal Lo start. \,

The prize of the victor was nominally a, crown of wild olives. Herodotus, Thueydiles, and others eulogised: the disinterestedness and pure amateur spirit of the athletics of their time, but modern research has brought together many passages from the ancients to prove that amateur sports had almost as much difficulty in resisting the encroachment of professionalism then as they have now. Professionalism took another form. Stars were rewarded not only with the wild olive, hut also with big presents of money, and with a free meal ticket for life at the public commons —a gift of some consequence, if the appetites of ancient athletes were in a class with those of athletes to-day. Laments survive to tell of gastronomic feats.

In the simpler days the Greek athlete -was supposed to train for ten months on a. strict diet of fresh cheese, bread, dried figs and wine. The menu was later elaborated, and instances of an athlete’s ‘‘eating himself out of the “big leagues’’ are probably not confined to the table d’hote era. Socrates once sought, unsuccessfully, to he fed at the' public crib, his plea, being that a philosopher was as good as an athlete. Professionalism did not take the form exclusively of food. Large purses were paid to the successful athletes, from tax money and popular subscription, although the idea of the box office and the gate does not seem to have been much developed. Compared with Greece, the moderns take no interest in sports. The fusses made over Nurmi, lluth, Dempsey, and Tilden are nothing when placed alongside Greek tributes lo athletes. One ancient idea was to hatter a hole through the walls of a town for the entrance of an athlete, on the theory that the ordinary entrance was not good enough for him.