File:Greek athletic sports and festivals (1910) (14790178493).jpg

Identifier: greekathleticspo00gard (find matches)
Title: Greek athletic sports and festivals
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Gardiner, E. Norman (Edward Norman), 1864-1930
Subjects: Athletics Sports Olympics Fasts and feasts
Publisher: London : Macmillan and Co.
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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hetype is particularly connected with Heracles and Antaeus. Thelifting of Antaeus is first represented on the fourth centurycoins of Tarentum. From this time it is constantly repeatedin bronzes and statues, iind especially on coins and gems.^Eoman poets said that Antaeus being the son of earth derivedfresh force from his mother each time he touched earth, andthat Heracles therefore lifted him from earth and squeezedhim to death in mid air. This version of the story is, how-ever, unknown to the literature and art of Greece; andthough it may have originated in a mistaken interpretation of ^ For references see J.H.S. p. 283, u. 76. XVIII WRESTLING—BODY-HOLDS 391 the type which we are considering, cannot possibly be regardedas its motive. With a few doubtful exceptions Heracles isalways represented as lifting Antaeus, not to crush him, but toswing him to the ground, and nowhere is this motive clearerthan on some of the imperial coins, such as the coin ofAntoninus Pius shown in Fig. 109.
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Fig. 121. —B.-f. amphora. Munich, 1336. For no throw have we such abundant evidence as for theheave, the hold for which is obtained from the side by passingone hand across and round the opponents back, and the otherunderneath him. This is the hold which is being practised inthe wrestling lesson shown in Fig. 96. It is a hold sometimesemployed by Heracles against Antaeus, but is particularlycharacteristic of Theseus. Two kylikes in the British Museum(Figs. 124,125) will sufficiently illustrate it. On the one Cercyon 392 GREEK ATHLETIC SPORTS AND FESTIVALS CHAP. has endeavoured vainly to save himself by applying a similarhold to Theseus, but too late ; on the other vase he has alreadybeen swung off the ground, one arm still clasps Theseus back,the other hand reaches for the ground or grabs at the foot of hisadversary. The popularity of the heave among the Greeksis shown by a far more important monument. A metope fromthe Theseum shows Theseus in the very act of turning Cercyonover to t

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