Connecticut western news., 1877-07-20
Greek Pugilists.

Boxing, in Homeric times was very dangerous and bloody amusement, in which the vanquished were always se- verely punished. The Greeks were not content with naked fists, but always used boxing apparatus, which con- sisted at first of a weight carried in the hand, and fastened by thongs of hide round the hand and wrist. But this ancient cestus came to be called the gentle kind when a latter ndanore brutal invention introduced "sharp thongs on the wrist,' and probably in- creased the weight of the instrument. The successful boxer in the "Iliad'' | (Epelus) confesses that he is bad war rior, though he is the acknowledged champion in his own line; but evi- dently this sport was not highly es- teemed inepic days. In historical times it seems to, have been more favored. There was no doubt great deal of skill required for it, but I think the body of the evidence goes to prove that the Greeks did not box on sound principles and that any prominent member of the prize ring would with his naked fists have easily settled any armed champion of Olympian fame. Here are my reasons :-The principle of increas- ing the weight of the fist as much as possible is only to be explained by the habit of dealing swinging or downward strokes and is incompatible with the true principle of striking straight home quickly and giving weight to the stroke by sending the whole body with it. In Virgil's description a boxer is even de- scribed getting up on tiptoe to strike his adversary on the top of the head, a ridiculous manaeuvre, reproduced in one of Canova's boxers, in the vatican, who has his arms so raised aloft as to make his instant ruin certain if his op- ponent knew the first elements of the art. That this down stroke was used also appears from the anecdote in Paul sanias, where father saw his son, who was ploughing, drive in the share which had fallen out, with strokes of his fist, ahd without hammer; so he immedi- ately entered him for the boys boxing match at Olympia. The boy got roughly handled from want of skill, and seemed likely to lose, when the father called out, "Boy, give him the plough stroke !'' and so encouraged the lad that he forth with knocked his adversary out of time. It is almost conclusive as to the swing ing stroke that throughout antiquity a boxer was not known as a man with his nose broken. but as man with his ears crushed. Virgil even speaks of their receiving blows on the back. Against all this there are only two pieces of evidence-one of them incredi- ble-in favor of the straight home stroke. In the fight between Pollux and Amygos, described by Theokritus Idyl 22), PolluX strikes his man on the left temple, "and follows the stroke up from the shoulder" But this is doubt full. The otheris the story of Pausanias (viii. 40, 3, that when Kreugas and Damoxenos boxed till evening, and neither could hit the other, they at last agreed to receive stroke about, and after Kreugas had dealt DamoXenos one on the head, the latter told him to hold up his hand, and then drove his fingers right into kreugas beneath the ribs and pulled out his entrails. Kreugas, ot course, died on the spot, and was crowned as victor, on the ground that DamoXenos had broken his agreement by striking him with five separate | fingers. But this curious decision was only one of many in which a boxing competitor was disqualified for having fought with the intention of maiming his antagonist.-Mdcmulon's (London) Mdgd*ine.