Book - p. 75
CHAPTER SIX.
Preparation for the Games. Training of the Olympic Athletes. Training Schools of the Greeks and Romans, Their parts, separate rooms, amenities and statues of the gods. People who appeared in the Training Schools, of various kinds. Their teachers, overseers and servants.
§ I.
Now we will speak about the PREPARATION for the games.
§ II.
First to be considered here is the training of the athletes. In earlier times, when the game was still rough and lacked skill, even the untrained would sign up and sometimes take home the prize (P. Faber Agon. book 3 ch. 12), such as COROEBUS the cook, and shepherds and farmers from the land (Theocritus Idyll. 4); among whom AEGON is especially well known, whom MILO, since he considered him strong, brought to the Olympic field; as well as CARYSTIUS, a farm boy, who drove the plow, but his father saw that he used his fist instead of a plow beam; to drive the plowshare in, he brought him to the athletic contest in OLYMPIA, where he would, however, have been defeated (Pausanias book 6, not far from the beginning), if his father had not called out to him: "Punch, son, as if at the plow!" Whereupon he let his fists come down in such a way that he was declared the victor. After that victory, he went on to collect two Pythian and eight Nemean and Isthmian crowns. Because of such
Book - p. 76
poor and untrained people, it is also said of ALCIBIADES that he despised the Olympic Games, although he, in skill and strength, was second to none and would undoubtedly have carried away more than one crown.
§ III.
However, when the games gained more skill and fame, those interested would usually have to go to the training schools and be instructed there, especially since around the time of the games they were forced to swear an oath that they had done so for ten months, as will be pointed out in the relevant place (Isocrates, On the Two-Horse Chariots).
§ IV.
The training schools were called gymnasia, derived from the Greek word for 'to get undressed,' which in turn comes from the word for 'naked,' because those who trained in these places had to undress either completely or at least in part. However, because the undressing was done for the purpose of training, it is the case that later the word for 'to undress' also took on the meaning of 'to train' in the athletic games, and even of 'to train' in general. For example, Isocrates says: 'train yourselves in voluntary exertion.' Thus also 'to train the body' and 'to train the soul.' And Aristotle speaks of 'those who have gained skill in military operations through training.' In the second book of Maccabees 10:15 this word is also used, when it is said of Gorgias and the Idumaeans that they trained the Jews with their army. In the New Testament the word for 'to train' is used once, undoubtedly as a borrowing from the athletic games. Paul says: physical training
Book - p. 77
is of little use (1 Timothy 4:8). He uses the word for 'to train' in that same sense three times. 'Train yourself' for godliness (1 Timothy 4:7). 'Who have through practice trained their senses' (Hebrews 5:14). The discipline... yields a peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:11). Once Peter uses it for training in evil: 'having a heart trained in greed' (2 Peter 2:14). And the training itself was called gymnasia, the practitioner gymnos and gymnikos, and the training place or school gymnasion: which Galen describes as a public place, built in an isolated part of the city, where one was anointed, rubbed, wrestled, threw the discus, or did such things (Galen, On the Preservation of Health, book 2, chapter 2). The main gymnasia or training schools were therefore public, for general use, although there were also private ones, but we will pass over those in silence, as we consider only the public ones worthy of our attention and close examination.
§ V.
Such a gymnasium, or training school, once existed in ELIS, so that the athletes could practice and train in advance, to present themselves with honor on the Olympic field in due time. Pausanias calls it the OLD GYMNASIUM, and describes it further as follows (Pausanias, book 6): within the enclosure wall are ash trees planted in a whole circuit: that enclosure (that is, what lies within the trees and creates a spacious walkway all around) is called xystus, because, it is said, HERCULES, the son of AMPHITRYON,
Book - p. 78
daily, to get used to work, removed all the weeds that sprouted in the place (for it seems to come from the Greek words for 'to scrape' and 'to shave,' from which 'to scrape off,' 'to make bald,' 'to make smooth' and so on are also derived). There is another running track, which the inhabitants call 'the Sacred'; and yet another, in which the runners and those training for the pentathlon run. There is also a place in the gymnasium called plethrium; the square is an 'acre' in size; in which the game masters at certain times, and in certain types of games, have the athletes compete by lot. There are also altars of the gods in that gymnasium ...... . There is another smaller circuit of the gymnasium, located within the large one, which is called 'the square' because of its shape: the combatants use this for the palaestra (wrestling ground) ...... There is also a third circuit of the gymnasium, called maltho, because of the softness of the ground: this is open to the young men for the entire duration of the games ..... In this same gymnasium the Eleans have their 'shaving house' .... when one goes from the gymnasium to the baths, etc. However, the Lacedaemonians also had their training school, and have excelled in it among the Greeks, as can be clearly inferred from Martial (Martial, book 4, epigram 55). The Athenians also had theirs: three are attributed to them in particular, namely the Academy, the Lyceum and the Cynosarges, in which the unfree and illegitimate stayed. The name of the first and second has passed to the colleges of learning, which were called academies and lyceums: and no wonder, because the training schools of the Greeks were arranged in such a way that the philosophers and orators also had their places there, where they made themselves heard (Diogenes Laërtius, books 3 & 5). Above all this is true for Athens, where learning seemed to have settled: therefore
Book - p. 79
PLATO taught in the Academy, but ARISTOTLE in the Lyceum. The Corinthians also had a gymnasium, or training school, known by the name Craneion. Indeed, ANACHARSIS has said that there was almost no Greek city that did not have a gymnasium, or training school (Lucian in Anacharsis).
§ VI.
However, later the Romans also adopted the gymnasia, the training schools, from the Greeks: for Cicero admits that they got them from the Greeks, when he says: 'that the training schools for the sake of amusement and training were first established by them (the Greeks)' (Tullius Cicero, On the Orator, 2). They were thus already in use among the Romans in Cicero's time, indeed, long before that, for the infamous comic poet Plautus, who died around the 145th Olympiad, also made mention of them (Plautus, Bacchides, 3rd act, 3rd scene). The Romans, however, usually called them palaestrae, or 'wrestling grounds' (in which a main part is named for the whole, as will soon become apparent) and built them much more artistically and splendidly than the Greeks had done, as can even be deduced from the broken remains of the thermae, or 'hot baths' (important parts of the training schools), in particular those of NERO, which can hardly be seen without amazement. About this Martial sang, when he asked Severus how the scoundrel Charinus could have done something good, and answered himself: (Martial, book 7, epigram 33)
I will tell you, but with haste:
A man so vile, and so crazy
Book - p. 80
As Nero, where would one find him?
But where, and in what corners of the world,
Even if you searched from kingdom to kingdom,
Would you find a bath equal to his?
§ VII.
Let's now consider the parts of the gymnasia or training schools a bit more precisely, and then consider their layout. These are now estimated at ten, namely:
I. The colonnades, which are the galleries, full of spacious benches and seats, on which the philosophers, orators and other college teachers appeared, taught or debated.
II. The ephebeum, where the ephebes, the aspiring young men, trained; where also those who wanted to train and compete with each other gathered and made bets on the prizes and types of training games.
III. The coryceum, otherwise apodyterium, gymnasterium, spoliarium: the place where one undressed when one wanted to train or bathe.
IV. The alipterium, otherwise unctuarium; where those who were going to the athletic contest or to the baths were anointed and re-anointed.
V. The conisterium, in which the anointed were sprinkled with dust.
VI. The palaestra, properly so called; where one practiced in the actual athletic games, running, wrestling, boxing, discus throwing, jumping, hanging from ropes, squeezing of the fists, lifting of great weights, which were called halteres, shadow boxing and armed combat.
VII. The sphaeristerium; in which also various exercises, but especially with the ball, were performed.
Book - p. 81
VIII. The paths between the galleries and walls, and the entire square around the peristylium. These served to provide light to the galleries and to provide an opportunity for walking and for other exercises that were difficult to perform in thick sand or in the xystus. It is said that here in particular the running exercise took place, both the regular race, and the double race, and the other kind that was called the long race (more about which later); and also that there the jumps and discus throws, etc., took place.
IX. Xysti and xysta, covered galleries; where the combatants trained in winter and in summer, in bad weather; next to them open walkways, in which they came out of the galleries in winter in mild weather, and practiced and walked almost always in summer; which the Greeks called 'side paths'.
X. The bath, for bathing.
Here Mercurialis adds to this: (Mercurialis, book I, ch. 10)
XI. The stadium, that is, the running track.
§ VIII.
There were still some other separate rooms and amenities: but we can best understand these, with the ten main parts now described, if we take the floor plan of the training school, both the square and the oblong, from Mercurialis and then from Vitruvius, with the further explanation via letters, into view (Mercurialis, book I, ch. 6).
The letter marks.
A. A square and oblong square inside the pillars in the training school.
B. Three single galleries.
Book - p. 82
C. The fourth gallery, on the south, and is double.
D. The spacious exedras, on which the philosophers and orators reasoned.
E. The ephebeum, that is, an exedra, a third longer than it is wide.
F. The coryceum, changing room on the right side.
G. The conisterium; the place where one was sprinkled with dust.
H. The cold bath, in the corner of the gallery.
I. The elaeothesium, the anointing place, on the left side of the ephebeum.
K. The cooling room.
L. The path to the propnigeum, which Vitruvius calls the praefurnium, the stoke room.
M. Propnigeum.
N. The vaulted sweating room, located opposite the cooling room, with
O. On one side the laconicum, that is, the Lacedaemonian stoke room.
P. On the other, the hot bath.
Q. The exit from the peristyle.
R. The first gallery outside the palaestra.
S. The second gallery, facing north, being double, wide and long.
T. The third single gallery; made in such a way that it had:
U. Rims along the walls.
X. Rims along the pillars.
Z. A hollow middle.
a. Open walkways next to the xystus and the double gallery, which were called xysta by the Latins and paradromides (side paths) by the Greeks.
b. Woods or plantations.
c. Places for sculpture.
Book - p. 83
d. The stadium, shaped in such a way that a very large number of people could watch the athletes without crowding.
e. Places which, although not mentioned by Vitruvius, were nevertheless present in the palaestra: a place for wood, for water, for vessels, latrines, little rooms for the servants, and the like.
§ IX.
The training schools were also decorated with some statues of the gods, namely the statue of HERCULES, because he had been a very prominent founder and practitioner of the Olympic Games; furthermore the statue of MERCURY, who is called 'the competitor' by Pindar, and who received no less honor than HERCULES. But one can find a broader discourse on these things in Faber (Faber, Agonistica, book 1, ch. 16, 17).
§ X.
In the training schools an extremely large number of people usually appeared, who were also of different professions and had different goals.
The first kind that appeared there were the philosophers, orators, poets, to show their learning and art in the colonnades (mentioned above).
The second: young men, but free citizens, who went there to observe the manners and ways of training, to be more skilled afterwards for the actual training itself.
The third: the athletes, or those who were trained to become skilled for the public and sacred games.
The fourth: those who trained in the athletic games to become skilled for military operations, or also for health reasons; to which latter belonged those
Book - p. 84
who only came to be bathed, anointed or rubbed.
The fifth: the spectators, in such a large number, that great quarrel and noise often arose among them (Galen, Method, 10), according to the testimony of Galen and Seneca (Seneca, Letter 56).
The sixth: the masters and servants of the exercises.
§ XI.
Among the teachers, a certain PYRRHUS has been very famous since ancient times, who may also have been the inventor of the armed dance called the 'pyrrhiche'; Seneca has also spoken about this PYRRHUS (Seneca, On Anger, book 2, chapter 14), calling him 'the greatest teacher of the gymnastics contest,' the 'most famous teacher of the training game,' and praising him for commanding his students not to get angry. Furthermore, Plato mentions two training masters who were very famous in Athens, namely XANTHIAS and EVADORUS (Plato in Meno). One also finds mention of a certain ICCUS TARENTINUS, and a certain DIOTIMUS, who excelled as great masters. See Mercurialis (Mercurialis, The art of gymnastics, book I, ch. 12) and Faber (P. Faber, Agonistica, book I, ch. 15).
§ XII.
Let's talk with a bit more distinction about the overseers and servants of the training school.
The first place was held by the gymnasiarch; whose task it was to supervise the entire training school and to manage everything. Plautus called him the 'overseer of the gymnasium'. The name was borrowed from him when the overseers of literary schools are called gymnasiarchs.
The second was the xystarch, who had control over the xysti, the running tracks, and in general over all exercises: such as a certain DEMETRIUS HERMAPOLITA was.
The third was the gymnastes, also called progymnastes
Book - p. 85
and by Seneca, it seems, protogymnasius (Seneca, Letter 83): who paid special attention to the exercises, and, as a skilled person in medicine, determined the measure thereof. He had under him:
4. The paedotriba, although some believe that this is the same as the previous one. Others consider him to be the teacher of the wrestlers: who was perhaps also called 'chief of the wrestlers' or 'guardian of the wrestling ground'. However, these may also have been different people.
5. The aliptes and aliptae, the anointing master and his servants, the anointers.
6. The rubbers, who performed the rubbing with cloths and horsehair combs.
7. The re-anointers, who anointed the practitioners after the exercise was done.
8. The sphaeristicus, who was in charge of the ball game.
9. The doorkeepers.
10. The furnace stokers.
11. The mediastini, servants who swept and tidied up the floor, and performed other services.
12. The pilicrepi, who, with balls coated in pitch, made sure the fire of the bath stoves stayed lit; although others understand them to be ballplayers or racket players. Others read pedicrepi, that is, 'flea catchers'; but that is in our opinion absurd.
13. The alipili, who plucked the hairs from the body.
14. There were also people who sold cakes and nuts (to speak in the language of our time), as appears from Seneca, who calls them 'cake bakers,' and also mentions 'sausage makers' and 'pastry chefs' (Seneca, Letter 56).
Book - p. 86
The causing of wounds and mutilation of the limbs also made it necessary for there to be wound healers, although only slaves.
About these and similar matters one can see a broader discourse in the aforementioned Mercurialis (Mercurialis, in the cited place).