. Athletics and manly sport . ncients was the curved swordof the Lacedaemonians and the Irish, specimensof which can be seen in the Royal Irish AcademyMuseum, and which almost exactly resembled thepresent scimetar of the Persians. All the gladiatorial sword fights of the Romanswere with the short, straight sword, like aScottish claymore; and when the hapless loserthrew up his hands and the people shouted ^HocHabet! (He has got it \ ) they knew that thevictor had driven his straight weapon between hisopponents ribs. But with the northern conquest of Rome theuse of the straight sword, or rather
. Athletics and manly sport . ncients was the curved swordof the Lacedaemonians and the Irish, specimensof which can be seen in the Royal Irish AcademyMuseum, and which almost exactly resembled thepresent scimetar of the Persians. All the gladiatorial sword fights of the Romanswere with the short, straight sword, like aScottish claymore; and when the hapless loserthrew up his hands and the people shouted ^HocHabet! (He has got it \ ) they knew that thevictor had driven his straight weapon between hisopponents ribs. But with the northern conquest of Rome theuse of the straight sword, or rather the use of thepoint as the principal means of attack, practicallydisappeared for over a thousand years, and when ANTIQUITY OF BOXING. 13 it came again, it was in tiie long, light rapier playof the Italian and French schools of fence. Bat all this time the boxing skill of Greek andlionian must have come traditionally and practi-cally down from fother to son, the only changebeing in the dropping of the hand-weights GREEK BOXERS WITH THE TESTUS. When Pollux obtained the boxing victory at the ^Pythian games, he wore gloves or leathern ban-dages filled with lead and iron. When Sullivandefeats his man, he uses soft gloves filled withcurled hair. This is the chano-e of time and ^judgment. The latter is the better test. Achance blow from the heavy cestus cracked a 14 ETHICS OF BOXING AND MANLY SPORT. mans skull or broke his arm. There are nochance blows in a first-rate modern fio-ht withliloves. But, so far as we can find, the set-to of theGreek and Roman boxers was not unlike modernpugilism. The records are rather v^ague as to theancient manner of aivino; and ofuardino; blows, butthere are some writings and numerous drawingsand carvings showing that the position and actionof the engaged boxers were precisely then as theyare to-day. In a Greek drawing of ])oxers with the cestusnow before me, one of the men stands in a mostapproved modern attitude, the left foot and handad
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectgames, bookyear1890
