The Portland daily press., 1880-11-25
Muscular Men.
some Famous Feats of Strength
Hartford Post.l

l. narIIOru HOSt.l
Among the Greeks the successful athlete
was crowned with laurels and loaded down
with wealth sand honors. When Egnetus, in
the ninety-second IOlympiad, triumphant in
games, entered Agrigentum, his native home,
he was attended by an escort of three hundred
chariots, each drawn by two white horses and
followed by the pnpulace, cheering and wav-
ing banners. Milo six times won the palm at
both the Olympian and the Pythian games. He
is said to have run mile with four year old
OK upon his shoulder, and afterward killed
the animal with one blow of his fist, and ate
the entire carcass in one day. So great was
his muscular power that he would bind cord
round his head and break it by the swelling
pressure of the veins. An ordinary meal for
Milo was twenty pounds of meat, as much
bread, and fifteen pints OF wine.
Polydamus of Thessalia, was of colossal
height and prodigious strength, and 1t is said,
alone and without weapons, killed an enor-
nous enraged lion. One day, it is recorded,
he seized a bull by his hind feet, and the ami
NAL only escaped by leaving the hoof in the
grasp of the athlete.
The Roman Emperor Maximus was upward
of eight feet in height, and like Milo Of Gro
tona, could squeeze to powder the hardest
stone with his fingers, and break the leg of a
horse by a kick. His wifes bracelet served
him as a ring, and his every day repast was
sixty pounds of meat and amphora of wine.
While a prisoner in Germany, Richard L.
accepted an invitation to boxing match with
| the son of the jailer. He received the first
blow which made him stagger, but recoy sring,
with blow of his fist he killed his antagonist
on the spot. Tophan, also an Englishman,
born in 17l0, was possessed of astonishing
strength. His armpits, hollow in the case OF
ordinary men, were with him full of muscles
and tendons He would take a bar of iron,
with its two ends held in his hands, place the
| middle of the bar behind his neck, and bend
the extremities by main force until they met
together and bend back the iron straight
again. One night, seeing,a watchman asleep
in his box, he carried both man and shell to
great distance and put them on the wall of
churchyard. Owing to domestic troubles he
committed suicide in the prime of life.
The famous Scanderberg, king of Albania,
who was born in 1414, was man Of great stat
ure, and his feats of sword exercise have never
been eGualled On one occasion he struca his
antagonist such blow with the scimitar, that
its force cleaved him to the waist. He is said
to have cloven in two men who were clad in
armor from head to foot. On one occasion the
brother and nephew of certain Ballaban, who
had been convicted of cruelties toward the
Albanians, were brought to him bound togeth-
or. Transported with rage. he cut them in
two with one stroke of his weapon.
Maurice, count of Saxony, the hero of Fon-
tenoy, inherited the physical vigour of his
father, and was especially noted for the sur
prising muscular power, or grip, of his hands.
On one OCCASION, needing q COrkScreW, ne
twisted long iron nail round into the required
shape with his fingers and opened half dozen
bottles of wine with it. Another time, when
stopping at a blacksmith shop to have mis-
horse shod, he picked up a number OF new
horseshoes, and with his hands snapped them
in two as readily as If they had been made of
glass. much to the disgust of the smith.
If history is to be believed, Phatyllus OF Gro
tona could jump distance of tifty-six feet.
The exercise was practised at the Olympic
games and formed part of the course of the
Pentahlon. Strut, an English authority on
jumper named ireland, whose powers were
marvellous He was SIX feet high, and at the
age of Is leaped, without the aid Of q spring.
board, over nine horses ranged side by side.
He cleared cord extended fourteen feet from
the ground with one bound, crushed with his
foot bladder suspended at height of sixteen
feet; and ON another occasion lightly cleared a
large wagon covered with an awning.
Colonel Ironside, who lived in India early in
this century, relates that he met in his travels
an old white-haired man, who, with one leap,
sprang over the back of an enormous elephant
flanked by six camels of the largest breed. A
curious French work, published in Paris, in
1875, entitled "The Tracts Towards the Histo-
ry of Wonders Performed at Fairs" mentions
an Engiishman, who, at the fair of st. Ger
main in 172i, leaped over forty people without
touching one of them. In our own day we
are familiar with many remarkable exposi-
tions of strength and endurance. DIR. Win
ship, with the aid of straps, lifted a weight Of
$500 pounds, and with the little finger OF the
right hand could raise his body considerable
distance from the ground.