The Pankration and Wrestling Author(s): E. Norman Gardiner Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 26 (1906), pp. 4-22 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/624339 . Accessed: 16/12/2014 09:25 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Hellenic Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 16 Dec 2014 09:25:05 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE PANKRATION AND WRESTLING. III. [PLATESIII.-V.] A.-The Nature of the Pankration. THE combination of boxing and wrestling known as the pankration was a development of the primitive rough and tumble. To get his opponent down and( by throttling, pummelling, biting, kicking, to reduce him to submission is the natural instinct of the savage or the child. But this rough and tumble is not suitable for an athletic competition: it is too dangerous and too undisciplined. To the early Greeks, athletics were the recreation of a warrior class, they were not the serious business of life or even a profession, and in an age of real warfare the warrior'slife was too valuable to be endangered for sport. Moreover, without some form of law athletic competitions are impossible, and in the growth of law the simpler precedes the more complex Hence it was only natural that particular forms of fighting, such as boxing and wrestling, should be systematized first, and so made suitable for compe- titions before any attempt was made to reduce to law the more complicated rough and tumble of which they both formed parts. Wrestling and boxing were known to Homer, but not the pankration, and Greek tradition was following the natural order of evolution in assigning the introduction at Olympia of wrestling to the 18th, of boxing to the 23rd, and of the pankration to the 33rd Olympiad. We have already seen that the essential difference between wrestling and the pankration is that in the former the object is to throw an opponent, in the latter the struggle goes on until one of the two pankratiasts acknowledges his defeat (7nrayopetet).1 The Spartans, we are told, were therefore forbidden to compete either in the pankration or in boxing, because it was considered disgraceful for a Spartan to acknowledge defeat. Another reason perhaps for the prohibition was that at Sparta the primitive rough and tumble unrestricted by any laws, and unrefined by science 2 was practised as a mere test of I Phil. Gym. 9. 2 Phil. Irn. ii. 6; v. vol. xxv. of this Journal, p. 19, n. 27. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 16 Dec 2014 09:25:05 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE PANKRATION AND WRESTLING. 5 endurance and as a training for warfare, and it was felt instinctively that such an exhibition of brute force was not fit for an athletic competition. But at Olympia and all the great games, the pankration was subject to the v6'kovg dvaryovtov, and was, at all events in its best period, a contest no less of skill than of strength. B.-Laws of the Pankration. The fullest account which we possess of the pankration is in Philostratus' picture of the death of Arrhichion.3 After vividly describing the scene and the enthusiasm and excitement of the spectators he continues: ol07rayIcpar- t d06ovre rtcvEcvvevYdy 7rporXpC#vrat 7 rday, , 6e hp avTro~ 7rr7ta0oL v X a E Cre0o p• eCltv aoaXEt9 raT 7raXatovrt ,ca' v 7repyt'lyjea•at 86 tv/prrXoccov t XP7 OlOV7rTro0VTa, 8 aoiT^d ' icKaiTx~r' X lToIoXXOTe c1XXwo9ayXLtv, o avrot cal arvp' 7rporrtrXalovc-tseal ri Xetpa o-rpepXoVe-t 7rpooovwro 70roi 7ratetv /ae ravlt ydp roii rayicpartdetvw 'pya 7rX?\v 70o Sdamevtv dvdaXXE•oaL, IKatOpVrretv. Aace8aactodvtotEpv oivy tcaratra vogp ovowtv ainroyvpvad'ovrqe, e 3 otluac, eavrov rT ,toaeXa/,'HXeaot ala ol ay&veq 'ravrlTpv acatpoV^l, TOo earyXetv E7ratCvoVatv. It would be difficult to give a more concise description of the pankration. Wrestling, hitting, and kicking are employed : the wrestling is ; is secured IceK?cvvvev••ly victory usually by lyXetv ; SdaKvet and p'rTTretv alone are prohibited. The details of the description will be considered later: for the present we must confine our attention to the two things prohibited. Adicvetv explains itself, and has been illustrated in my last article.4 'Op'rTetv is more difficult. Liddell and Scott translate it 'to dig or give a heavy blow.' The translation is pointless; we cannot suppose that in such a contest only light blows were allowed :5 nor can we distinguish 7ratetv and as striking with an open hand and with the fist respectively; for opurretv the Panathenaic vases prove conclusively that striking with the fist was allowed. The clue to the meaning of op6Tretv will be found in a closer examination of two other passages in which it occurs, Aristo- phanes, Aves 442 and Pax 899. In both passages there is an obvious reference to the rules and methods of the pankration; in the Aves indeed the reference is to the very prohibition quoted by Philostratus. In both passages opvrerEtv is used in sensu obscoeno,6and the adjoining words give us the true meaning. It means to injure an opponent by digging the hand or fingers into certain tender parts of an opponent's body. I should be inclined to give it a general meaning so as to include forcing the fingers into an opponent's eye. 3 Loc. cit. 84wv Trxaya^vof the pankration iii. 29); 4 (Ne•m. Vol. xxv. p. 272. Op. also Phil. Im. i. 6. 12, cp. Isthm. v. 60. a description of the sports of Erotes, and Lu- 6 Cf. vol. xxv. p. 15, n. 3. The word &va- cian, Demon. 49 sKcsarap& rbv KXWvordamqis used exclusively in an erotic sense, iKaKo!aXo~ r'as Vduov dvaycvito6v IdKvo'ras. and there is no evidence for its use as a wrestling 5 Pindar, for example, speaks of the ial.arw- term. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 16 Dec 2014 09:25:05 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 6 E. NORMAN GARDINER A kylix in the B.M. E 78 (Fig. 1) gives us a vivid picture of such a scene. One of the pankratiasts has inserted his thumb into his opponent's eye as if to gouge it out, and the official is hastening up with his rod uplifted to interfere and punish such an act of foul play. Since I wrote the above, The Rev. C. W. Townsend has pointed out to me that this extension of the meaning of optreetv is confirmed by the next remark of Peisthetairus in the r-c;9aX~c' Xyco, and he makes the interesting suggestion that Ayves, pv77re"TV, besides its obvious meaning in the passage, means 'to scratch.' In view of N cr *r ~ I \ n rrii I I I o FIG. 1.-R.-F. KYLIX. B.M. E 78. (After Hartwig, Meisterschal.Fig. 53.) this I should be inclined to see another example of pv'rree6 in Fig. 3 where one pankratiast digs his fingers into the other's mouth, and the official again is interfering. C.-The Standing Pankration. The pankration may be divided into two parts avPo and rT Tr )ra7ycpax'ov In the former the opponents endeavour to throw each IdaT•Oe• ayKpdaLtov. other to the ground employing not only all the tricks of 6pel2radkc but also hitting and kicking. The wrestling is described as , an epithet appropriate to KEKictc8Vv/u•Z'r such throws as the flying mare,7 and also to the various legholds which though too dangerous for 3pl) 7rdX were freely used in the pankration.s Thus Anacharsis in Lucian's dialogue exclaims ical v IoP adpa'zevoq dEicvo T y 7 v, J.H.S. vol. xxv. pp. 23, 268. where various illustrations of and references to vs. ib. pp. 26-29, 283-286, Figs. 19-23, legholds are collected. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Tue, 16 Dec 2014 09:25:05 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE PANKRATION AND WRESTLING. 7 C An illustration of these words e 'rEpov FroLvo-KcXow dC/icev eil To s8ao. may perhaps be seen in a much mutilated group on a kylix from the Biblio- th'que Nationale published by Hartwig.9 One wrestler is kneeling on his left knee and having seized his opponent between the legs lifts him up and bends forward as if to throw him to the ground. All that we can see of his opponent is his right foot hanging over the other's back. Another good illustration of a leghold is afforded by a -gem in the British Museum (Fig. 4), representing a wrestler with his head 'in chancery' seizing his opponent by the thigh. In this case we cannot say which of the two is the attacker, and whether the leghold is employed in attack or defence; and the same is true of the type represented on the coins of Aspendus,1owhere one wrestler has caught his opponent's leg and appears to be tilting him backwards.