ANCIENT MUG-HUNTERS

Timaru Herald, Volume XCIV, Issue 14384, 4 March 1911, Page 2 (Supplement)

ANCIENT MUG-HUNTERS

OLD GREEKS ALSO INDULGED IN PROFESSIONALISM. AMATEURISM AMONG THE ANCIENTS. Professor R. Tait McKenzie, of tlie University of Pennsylvania, in. the course of a few tart remarks on amateurism in the colleges, proved to 'have a vast fund of information on professionalism' in amateur sport (says tlx© New York "Evening Post.") As an athletic pundit no one at the meeting of the National Collegiate Athletic Association was quite in Professor McICenzie's class. Hie paper, "A Chronicle of the Athletic Spirit," was In part as follows: , "There ia a saying m Ireland that the oows of Connaugat have long tails, which being _ interpreted means that distance in time or space tends to glorify an event, and to magnify and make heroic the commonplace and the actual; and one has hut to read two stories by different writers of a football game, a.prize fight, or a political meeting, to realise how conflicting are the impressions of actual eye witnesses. "But acoounts of events rescued from oblivion by the poet, the traveller, and the historian, can throw light on conditions, that must have bean pre. sent, however idealised or distorted the story may . be, and may help to illuminate the Teal story of. athletic cornpetition among amateurs in Greece, about which there has been woven such a network of romance. "Were decisions of officials ever disputed? In 332 8.C., Callipus of Athens bribed his opponents to let him win the Pentathlon. The guilty purties were fined, and the Athenians sent the orator Hyperides to beg the Eieans, who < were in charge of the games, to remit the fines. His mis-ion fa-led, they refused to pay, and withdrew their entries, for the games until they wero compelled to give in because tlu l Delphic god refused to give them any answers until the lines were paid. "POT HUNTING" IN GREECE.

A Delphic god would be a boon nt some of our games, both international and at home. Six bronze zanes were oast from their money, placed at the entrance of the stadium., where every competitor must pass, and adorned witli the s ; gnificant ins.cript.on, "Not with money, but with speed of foot and strength of body must prizes be won at Oiympia." At certain periods in the history of Greek uthletics, pot hunting was almost universal. One man boasted of 1,500 crowns, which, >vith the attendant amphorae of oil and money prizes and rewards, must have kept him in a luxury undreamed of by his modern emulator.

Nor was the double cross unknown. At the Isthmian games a competitor promised liis rival 3,000 drachmae to let him win. After the race he refused to pay, stating that he would have won anyhow, and the resulting quarrel made a spicy scandal in the athletic circles of the day. In the long and continuous story of athletics in Greece we can trace four periods:

First—The period of unorganised /.r casual athletic competitions, for wiiich no special training was undertaken; consisting of a rehearsal of the warlike exercises of soldiers 011 active service, to celebrate or commemorate a fast or a funeral.

Second-—The period of widespread competition; in running, jumping, busing. wrestling, throwing the discus and javelin, which all the Greek youth practised -i and the orjymisation of tiie freat athletic festivals at Olympia, 'elphi, Nemea, .Athens, and the Isthmus.

Third —The period of high standard of excellence and record-breaking. The introduction of training, diet, and great specialization and hero worship, which finally resulted in the Fourth period—professional athletics, pa:d for by tile States, when athletics drifted into the hands of guilds or "umpanies of athletes who travelled about and were merely used as entertainers of the crowd. FIRST DISTINCTIONS HADE. 11l this last period athletic exercises completely lost their hold anions the better class ol' Greeks, who refused to compete with those whom they considered tehi r social inferiors, Alexander of Macedonia saying that he would compete only if they would give him kings for Ins competitors. In America we have all these periods mixed up and fused 111 the crucible of our developing national life; and our intolerance of tradition, our altertnes-s and haste, tempt us often to repeat either from ignorance or from overconfidence the needless mistakes tbfit have been paid for so dearly by those who .have y;oiie before. TKOUBIJi IN ENGLAND, TOO. The inroads of masked professionalism in football, cricket, anil athletics, are the subjects of much discussion in England as well as America. The abuses of competition and the dangers of overspecialisation—all these questions, of such vital interest, can be illuminated from another angle, so to speak, by a consideration of the struggle of the Greeks with these same world-old questions.

It is in Homer that we get the first glimpse of the true amateur competing rewards, memento* of th« dp.ad. and

the physical effort. The gymnasium oi tJjo Homeric Greeks was tho field, the hill, and the shore. The courtyard or the turf waft thoir wrestling ring, and for a race a suitable stretch could be quickly cleared, Needless to say, there was 'no special training unions wo /;ay that tho life of a warrior was a continual training for athletics, just us Washington, was able to make ii record—breaking jump without training. Tim value of the prize depended on. tho generosity of the giver of the games. They wero gifts 'rather than rewards, mementos of the dead, And often every one got a prize. They were open only to guests, and wore strictly kept among tho aristocracy. This was the first code of eligibility, and was founded on strictly social lines.

The description of the gainee of Pa*, troclus (Iliad xxiii) could only have been written by a poet living among an athletic people such as the fair-Haired Achaean warriors/ to whom sports were part of their education, and distinguished thorn socially from traders. Euryalus/taunts Odysseus, whom lie does not recognise, as a "master sailors that are merchantmen, one with a memory for his freight and of greedily gottn gains; thou ecomest not a man of they hands." (Odyssey viii, 108, 39.) Odysseus, stung by the taunta of the Phacacians, picks up a discus larger than any of the others and hurls it beyond their furthest marks, putting them into a most apologetic frame of mmd.

CHIEFTAINS AND THE CHARIOTS. Of the actual events, the chariot race was the monopoly of the chieftains. In Homer, both boxing and wrestling were already arts, and xrorn the rougb-and-tumble lighting the Greeks later developed tlie Pankration. Thew> arts seem also to have been the possession ot tho chieftains, and were jealously guarded like the jiu-jitsu of the Bamurai in Japan, and the victories of Hercules, Theseus, and Polydeuces were taken later on as a symbol of tho triumph of science and Hellenism over brute force and barbarism.

In the wrestling at tho games -of Patroclus the competitors aro Odysseus and Ajax, the types ■ respectively of cleverness and strength. "Kaeh clasped the other in his arms arms with stalwart hands like table rafters of a lofty house." After two inconclusive falls Achilles stops the contest and givo? each an equal prize. In the loot racy both competitors in tiM* WJ'eatling ran. The spear throwi HQ went to Aguiiienuiion without a contest. Aj» tor tho dislcos—tha word iteelf Iterally moKjis a thing for throwing and a st-ono—-a lump of metal or a tree trunk proved equally a mtural weapon in time ot war and a test of strength in time of peaxjo. It was un unwrought mass'of metal, probably the oontents of one of the prmiifcvo open hearth furnaoes. The piece of iron was the prize as wfell tui the implement. Polypoetes hurled it •Hi far u_3 tie herdsman flings the bola, 'when it fliotti whirling through _the nerds of kino." ft i 'M 16 games began then as a local gathering of neighbours, but owing to its situation and acceea.bility the valley soon became tho railying-point for an ever increasing crowd, and the games bccamo a great factor in pi-o- - niotmg the unity of the Greek empire. U was at the ancient tomb of Mops that Heracles returning from his vietoiy over Augeus iir&t celebrated the Olympic games, according to Pindar. There lie measured a tacred grovo for the father, and, having, fenced it tteiwf' *TI El i n,ar ! tcd t|,e bounds feast 6 ordainpd 'tho fifth

fir! J?! ' the glorification of tfojs first Olympic festival by Pindar, the feathei ing must . have been oiks of iho tin's tho'r' C lle "? I ms for it that tone the Gieck tribrs lived a ravine life, their wealth in cattle and their - - ™ feuds wore p.nt ot their■ cvery-day life, mid it ,vas o v a ni.;.ntl. s truce\ so necessary, TMiis sacred tn.o<. extended over <m?mo"th and, during it all, ecifipuUfcars, specta' embassies were under the p.of-ect.on of Zeus. There exists n own plots list of win- "( 3 B. C. down to 217 A D r, n ,l- r" S " r K ' arn " " v " | i"iWo-rn 6 n.rs of the n in'w fV' 1 1 (H Viu I >i i wl bearing ' inWnt 'n'- ~W th<J Stnd « 1. L ,1 1 SOmcs were Iwld about t!ie end ~f August every fourth even'.f f, ► r •"> f«nt.nuiii!.s history, y ', f " r " f( '«' dl'inlloivt'd OwillL' r, disputes ~, to their ntrol. k tU lii'V--. * |'f•••vl'l'V " lml: ,T n Olympiads, there « t tt! i »« to win trill, Znot Shw »° Snlon . SU* ff&js Hood Di!t l,v offfrn.;' thj- L Spnrt ""* the ■ , ' ■ } 11 ,vi »"ei« OH V K ~1 , ' l'f i ", wxf t" t/i3 i"r; v /i cf -" d lj:s pej-sj-ti. JI..WIIIK, tile purest fiiwrt, te-jui?e 'lie /en-:t ex.v.jfd to (inaneinl t»^n P !". li-'pni l" IS2, witli th.3 Oxford and of'Tho'He- | raC<? ' t, ' <! cfi tnbli,shineiit tIK : "e.ih.y rr K nttn 111 1839. Anier'n,,vin - is

J lie modern definition of amateur wns meiint t.i exclude from conioeUfc'on the proferaioniil ivaterman vin« by working about boats with his in lids, and to whom the winninn or l. snifr of a race jnifjlit be of ]«, no n . scdiience tlian the enrn'iig r f n foe from a patron who had bet. heavily on thv* outcome. In athletics the exclusion of the professional p.vV'slrnu was necessary owing to the notoriously oorri'r»t conc.ition of professional athletic 11m lover.? of amateurism realized thnt a.-? soon «* a sport becomes ?o p-.pnlnr that niom=y can he made out of it,, men enstntte it. it V> whom t.b" !.•<« nr

a reputation for inVirr'fr '.•= of Hit'" or no nwcqucnoe, tlw nor;t n.hiu&s will

The distinction nniafctir mv 7 then, j cliflioflinn, nnel m ro-M ;.ro Iri'Y! <o jvc/! tvo :niyuh'»>-o f>Mf] <•>.«- wciallv in siwt. h"d nnd *.+ TT hnvo th<* snmo trr,nhV\s t<"* nn fil:^ of amateurism thrsi wns found in Greece.