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EIGHTH CHAPTER.
Lifestyle and Exercises for Training Combatants. The stuffing, and how it was done. Temperance and abstinence. Waking. Abstinence from sexual intercourse. Hard work and continuous exercise. Shadowboxing.
§ I.
To become skilled in these, and especially the five famous main games, a particular lifestyle and frequent, strenuous exercises were highly necessary. In this chapter, we will discuss these, and what belongs to them, as far as is useful for our purpose.
§ II.
The lifestyle was not the same for everyone, nor was it always the same. But first, the abundant stuffing is remarkable, in order to acquire such heavy bodies that they seemed like entire loads and masses: with the aim of being able to suppress the opponent with more weight and to stand immovably against their attacks and assaults. For who will move an entire load? We judge that this stuffing, to obtain a gross heaviness, was not universal for all athletes, but only for the pugilists, wrestlers, and those who sought to win the prize by standing immovably
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still (Lydius in his 'Agonistica Sacra,' chapter 6, says: 'strong athletes retained the place they had once taken, and could in no way be moved from their position or place.' Seneca says in 'On the Tranquility of the Mind,' book 11, chapter 9: 'it was truly such a concern to stay on position, that when they were beaten, they struggled to keep the same place, etc.' Without a doubt, Paul had that habit in mind when he wrote to the Corinthians: 1 Corinthians 15:58 'be steadfast, unmovable.' Concerning the composition of those two words, Grotius says: 'he said the same thing twice, to show that great steadfastness is required in doing one's duty.' See also Colossians 1:23, 1 Corinthians 7:37, Philippians 4:1.): not for those who tried to excel with a fast run, quick jumps, light discus throw, and so on: as for them nothing could be more harmful than corpulence.
§ III.
That such a stuffing took place, the writings of the Ancients make clear enough to us, and it is even evident from the saying of Plautus (Plautus, Epidicus, Act 1, Scene 1), who said to 'fare in the manner of pugilists and athletes' and on the other hand 'in the manner of pankration fighters and athletes' (Bacchides, Act 2, Scene 3), to stuff oneself and to increase in heaviness. And Athenaeus speaks more extensively (Athenaeus, book 10, at the beginning) about their cramming and belly-stuffing in the manner of fattening animals: at the same time making it known that among them, Theagenes of Thasos, Milo of Croton, Astydamas and Timocreon of Rhodes excelled in gluttony. From here, stuffing has become almost unique to athletes: for Tertullian has said: 'let the Olympic pugilists and boxers be stuffed, for them is the craving for corpulence, who need great strengths' (Tertullian, book against the Psychics). And Diogenes Laërtius:
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that a certain anointing master Pythagoras in that way stuffed the athletes. And Curtius has (Curtius, book 9, chapter 7) called Dioxippus the combatant 'the fattened beast.' A more extensive argument on these things we can find in Mercurialis (Mercurialis, book 1, chapter 15) and Faber (Faber, book 3, chapter 1, 2, 3).
§ IV.
The stuffing was done in ancient times with dried fruits, that is, dry figs, nuts, and so on, according to the account of Pliny (Pliny, 'Natural History,' book 23, chapter 7) and Oribasius (Oribasius, book 1, chapter 40). However, the former recounts that the aforementioned Pythagoras (not the wise Samian, but a famous anointing master or trainer) gave meat instead. The latter recounts that a certain Goras was the first to introduce meat-eating in the person of a Samian, namely Euramenes, and that from there the use of meat-eating would have spread to the descendants. Be that as it may, Mercurialis concludes with certainty that meat-eating has been in use for these stuffed individuals, at least before the time of the famous physician Hippocrates, since he made mention of it (Hippocrates, in 'Epidemics' 5, § 70) with regard to the athlete Biantes. The meat now, that was given to them, was sometimes goat meat, and also pig testicles, as Martial points out (Martial, book 3, Epigram 81) in a taunting verse against a certain Zoilus. But usually it was beef and even more commonly pork (Galen, book 2, Method), because due to its sticky and adhesive quality it was judged, with the help of a good stomach and heavy exercise, to be the most nutritious. Others want that for the stuffing not the whole meat, but in particular that of the hind bones was taken (P. Castelanus, book 2, 'On meat, etc.,' chapter 5), whose muscles were called by the Greeks back muscles and loins (T. Bartholinus, 'On the diseases in the Bible,' chapter 8). And from this Hofman derives the word bread with meat, with which the food of the athletes is called. Although Mercurialis says bread with meat
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was a dish prepared from veal or beef and pork (Hofman, Universal Lexicon, under the word Coliphia), and moreover from bread and cheese without rennet, combined. Some also want that bread with meat received its name from limb and strength, the strength of the limbs, because it strengthened the limbs, if it was eaten in small bites, well chewed and slowly (Mercurialis, book 1, chapter 15). Be that as it may: it is certain that bread with meat also belonged to the food of the athletes, as is clearly shown from the saying of Juvenal (Ph. Pfeiffer, Greek antiquities, book 1, chapter 49): -- few eat bread with meat (Juvenal, satire 2, verse 53). that is: Few are those who desire to live on the food of the fighters. That is: Few become athletes. Also from Martial (Martial, book 7, epigram 67): When he ate sixteen times bread with meat that is: If he swallowed sixteen times the raw treat of the player. However, Pliny Valerian also gives us to understand that anise was added to the food of the athletes (Pliny Valerian, 'On Remedies' 4, chapter 27). Because now from ancient times only dry cheese, or rather curds, and dry figs, and then only the driest of the meat without any moisture or sauce was eaten by the athletes, so their diet is called dry food and the dry stuffing (Hofman, Lexicon, under 'Dry stuffing'). Mercurialis also does not fail to mention something about the amount of food the combatants took, in which he shows from Galen that someone who ate two pounds of meat, swallowed very little; while of the notorious Milo (Mercurialis, mentioned chapter)
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a great glutton, it is said that he would have devoured twenty pounds of meat, as much bread, and then also three measures of wine, and at another time an entire bull. While another pugilist, named Heraclides, was a glutton with an insatiable belly, and who had no equal (Aristotle, Politics, book 8). The gluttony of the athletes was increased, when they were forced to eat a lot like real fattening pigs, which was called forced eating, necessary eating, and compulsory eating, compulsion to eat (Galen, 'On Health,' book 3). Which gluttony and multitude in eating caused the athletes to be afflicted with many and severe ailments: because, according to Aristotle, nature does not have enough power to process all parts of the food throughout the body with such gluttony, and once processed to distribute it evenly (Aristotle, 'On the Reproduction of Animals,' book 4). In eating, furthermore, the athletes, according to the report of Mercurialis, kept little or no order. However, Galen wants them not to take as much food in the morning as in the evening, because in his opinion sleep causes the best digestion. Pliny, however, contends against this, stating that the combatants tried to digest the food more by walking than by sleep, because sleep would make them thick, but not at the same time strong (Pliny, Natural History, book 11, chapter 52).
§ V.
The lifestyle furthermore included for the athletes temperance, frugality, and hardship. (Paul says, 1 Corinthians 9:25: 'everyone who strives (for the prize), is temperate in all things.' Vossius says: 'he refers to the custom of the athletes, who followed a certain diet and prepared their body for the competition with various exercises.')
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§ VI.
For although they were fed like fattening pigs, as has been shown, even here a temperance and strict weaning took place; since it seems that they were commanded at certain times to abstain from the abundant eating (Faber, 'Agonisticus,' book 3, chapter 3). And it was a necessary abstinence not to eat bread with meat at noon, and in the evening, besides that, to use dry roasted meat without any flavoring sauce, and thus to live only on the simplest food and to avoid almost all change, so that I may follow Plutarch (Plutarch, 'Table-talk,' book 4, problem 4). Jacobus Lydius also seems to have not misunderstood us, if he judges that the athletes were indeed well stuffed, as long as they had come to their corpulence and weight, but then received the command to abstain, be sober, and even to fast (J. Lydius, 'Agonistica Sacra,' chapter 5). (Thus Epictetus said, book 3, chapter 15: 'Do you want to win in the Olympic Games? then you must observe the order well, eat as much as is necessary, abstain from banquets, exercise the body even against your will, and that at the predetermined hours, in heat and cold; then you must not drink cold water, sometimes not even wine; and you must surrender yourself to a butcher, as to your physician.' Some commentators believe that Paul with the word 'abstinence' does not mean moderation in food and drink, but the abstinence from the use of women, as our people also translate it with 'chaste' in Titus 1:8. And it is thought that the word means the same thing in Acts 24:25, Galatians 5:22, 2 Peter 1:6. So also in 1 Corinthians 7:9. But because Paul adds the word 'all' in the first-mentioned place, we think that he has in mind all things from which the combatant must abstain, such as gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, lust, and so on. So also Chrysostom understands it in his 23rd homily on the Corinthians. Paul wants to teach that Christians especially had to abstain from all such things. See Luke 21:34, Romans 13:13.) from
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which also Chrysostom has called fasting the exercise of the athletes (Chrysostom, homily 1 on fasting). Moreover, it is, according to our conjecture proposed in § II, to think that the abstinence and strict sobriety, yes, even fasting, took place among those who did not stand stiffly, nor pressured with their heaviness, but with a quick run, or light jumps and so on, would offer delight to the eye of the spectators. Be that as it may, just as among the athletes gluttony, ravenous stuffing and intemperance took place, so also did strict abstinence, sobriety and the tormenting fasting.
§ VII.
But also the wake-nights, wakefulness or waking, took place there. For, Father Chrysostom makes this known (Chrysostom, homily to the people of Antioch). For although the athletes indeed crammed themselves like fattening pigs, especially at supper, and then, like thickly filled sows, went to lie down, sleep and snore; it is to be thought that, as these now having obtained their required heaviness, the stuffing came to an end (the more so, because, according to Galen, such a life could not have lasted longer than only five years (Galen, book on the diseases of the time)), so also the snoring and sleeping came to an end and made way for the sorrowful and painful waking. Furthermore, one may also attribute waking to those who needed quick limbs, namely the runners, jumpers, and so on. For waking, especially if it was paired with abstinence and fasting, could save them from sluggish corpulence.
§ VIII.
There was also chastity, at least abstinence from sexual intercourse, found. Therefore the famous Plato testifies that Astylus, Diopompus, Chryso and Iccus the Tarentine kept themselves pure from sexual intercourse (Plato, 'The Laws,' book 8).
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From this abstinence Galen also testifies (Galen, 'On the Affected Places,' book 6), and after him Basil the Great, writing (Basil the Great, homily 52) that the trainers, considering that by sexual intercourse the body was made weaker, and slow and powerless for necessary performances, gave a law of abstinence, which would keep the bodies of the young men pure from lusts, and did not allow the athletes to even look at these beautiful women. The saying of Chrysologus also agrees with this: on this earth one fights, as those who desire to win abstain... from all impurity, with such chastity, that they do not even seek their own marriage, and do not dare to hope to win, unless they have kept their body chaste and pure (Chrysologus, sermon 119). That the athletes had to abstain from sexual intercourse, Martial also testifies, joking with a certain Blattara (Martial, book 11, Epigram 48); and Horace, saying (Horace, 'Art of Poetry,' verses 412-414):
He who strives to reach the desired finish line with his run,
has as a boy endured and done much, has sweated and suffered,
and abstained from love and wine - -
that is:
He who with a fast run hunts for the desired mark,
Has endured much, he had to toil and sweat,
And abstain from women and wine.
For this reason it was also that Eubates betrothed himself to Laïs (Aelianus, 'Varia Historia,' book 10, chapter 2), but on the condition of not consummating the marriage before the completed athletic contest, as Aelianus says, who also testifies how accurately the aforementioned Iccus behaved concerning the food law, and the abstinence from sexual intercourse throughout his whole life (Idem, book 11, chapter 3). Yes, Mercurialis testifies that the
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athletes, in order to numb the desire for sexual intercourse, bathed themselves with cold water; as it is also said that they, in order to prevent nocturnal seminal emissions, placed plates of lead on their loins and kidneys (Pliny, N.H., book 34, chapter 18); of which John Cassian has left us this report (Galen, 'On Health,' book 6): the athletes have so far kept themselves pure from the defilement from sexual intercourse (Cassian, book 6, chapter 7), that when they prepared themselves for the athletic games, lest they might, being deceived in a dream by nocturnal deceit, lose their strength, they covered the place of the kidneys for a long time with selected lead plates, so that they, by the cold metal being joined to the genitals, might be powerful to restrain the unchaste fluids (Schefferus, in Aelianus, book 10, chapter 2). Galen, however, has considered it a misconception that the athletes would completely abstain from sexual intercourse, because the fattened bodies could have been preserved from sluggish laziness by the moderate use of this, into which they otherwise necessarily had to fall. From here some want, that the athletes; with the exception perhaps of this or that one, did not always abstain from a moderate sexual intercourse: but used it to refresh sluggish limbs and to remedy the voice, which had degenerated from clear to dull (Pliny, Natural History, book 28, chapter 6): But that they all, however, strictly abstained from it during the times of the games, according to the explanation of Eustathius. After the athletic contest was done, some voluptuaries also seem to have let the lust have the full rein. To which unchaste convenience brothels also seem to have been at the training schools and athletic fields. It is at least certain that as such brothels the cells under the circumference of the Circus Maximus and other theaters served. Among the athletes then a strict abstinence from sexual intercourse was actually to be found for a certain
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time, namely against the public games, and during the same, while otherwise no small fornication was committed by those people, as is sufficiently apparent from the argument of Petrus Faber (P. Faber, 'Agonisticus,' book 3, chapter 4).
§ IX.
The labor was also frequent and the exercise of the athletes was continuous: for it was labor to abstain so strictly from food, drink, sexual intercourse, and so on (Idem, ibidem, chapter 5): and moreover, it was nothing but a toiling labor to exercise oneself so continuously with hitting, wrestling, trotting in dust and sand, and whatever else belonged to it to perform most diligently. Continuously, I repeat, that is, for some for their whole lives, for others at least some months, and the thirty training days, in which the pre-games were held (These pre-games were bloodless. Possibly Paul alludes to this in Hebrews 12:4: 'you have not yet resisted to the shedding of blood, fighting against sin.' Here what Josephus writes about the warfare of the Romans in 'Jewish War,' Book 3, Chapter 6, can serve for some clarification: 'one who sees their mock fights and exercise, might rightly call it a fight without blood, and their fighting an exercise with blood.' Or: a bloodless fight, and a bloody exercise.), so that the athletes might appear all the more skilled in public. And although the daily labor and incessant exercise was the craft of all or of some trainers, it was also located in the fact that the combatants with arms and legs fought against the shadow without an opponent: which fight is called sham fight, shadow fight. Of this Plato (Plato in Apologia, Antyllus, Oribasius, Mercurialis) said to fight against the shadow of those who fought without an opponent. However, they were also said to fight against the shadow, when
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they fought against a column, pole or wall, because they were also without an opponent then (Gymnastic Art, book 3, chapter 4). About such shadow, pole, and wall fighting one can read more in Plato (Plato, 'The Laws,' book 7), Plutarch (Plutarch, 'Table-talk,' book 7, problem 10), Juvenal (Juvenal, Satire 6, verse 247) and others. In particular, those who prepared themselves for war exercised against a column or pole: which Vegetius describes in more detail, when he says (Vegetius, 'On the Military Art,' book 1, chapter 11), that for every new soldier a pole was set in the ground, so fixed that it could not move, and protruded six feet high. Against this pole, as against an opponent, every new soldier exercised with a wickerwork and battle club, as if he was provided with a sword and shield: so that he now tried to hit the head or the face, then threatened the sides, sometimes also worked to hit shins and legs, jumped back, jumped forward, jumped against it, and with all might assailed the pole, as a present opponent, according to all military art. From this activity Seneca also derived his saying, when he says (Seneca, Letter 18): Let us exercise against the pole, etc. However, to return to the actual athletes, they also laboriously exercised shadow- and mirror-fighting against the air (Paul has this in mind when he says: 'to fight, not as one beating the air' 1 Corinthians 9:26. Virgil also calls this 'wasting strength in the wind,' as Francius reminds (at Nazianzenus, p. 112). Lucian, T. 2, 'On Gymnastics,' p. 271, speaks of 'kicking with the heels in the air.' With a similar saying Paul mentions a speaking into the air, 1 Corinthians 14:9: 'you will be speaking into the air.' Thus Euripides in Hecuba: 'my words are thrown idly into the air.' Suidas says: 'to speak against the wind.' And Catullus, Epigram 68: 'to write in the wind and fast-flowing water.' See Erasmus' Adagia, and compare Job 6:26: 'shall the reasons of the despondent be for wind?' See also Lydius, Agonistica Sacra, chapter 15.), as can be derived from
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Homer and his scholiast Eustathius (Homer, Iliad). Of this Mars also showed the pugilist Dares, as the one who as a prelude to the fight moved his arms with much swinging and hit the air, saying (Virgil, Aeneid, book 5, verse 375):
So Dares first raises his head high for the fight,
and shows his broad shoulders, and alternately throws
his extended arms, and lashes the air with blows.
Which Vondel thus translates:
This brave Dares raises his head, hot with anger,
And, ready to fight, shows his broad shoulder-blades,
Swings his arms round and round: the coarse fists strike
And fence in the air.
In addition to this, they also exercised themselves, with much labor and toil, fighting against baskets filled with sand: (The Greeks call that exercising (from ἀσκέω, to exercise), which word Paul also uses in Acts 24:16: 'herein I exercise myself etc.,' as it is very common among foreign writers.) as appears from the saying of Chrysostom (Chrysostom, in Epistle to the Hebrews, homily 19); 'Do you not see, how the athletes exercise themselves against baskets filled with sand?' And elsewhere (Chrysostom, in Epistle to the Hebrews, Homily 34): 'Do you not see, how those, who are called the combatants of the Five Games, if they perhaps do not find an opponent in the arena, filling a basket with sand, exercise themselves there with all might?' From this we also see, for what reason the athletes were indeed accustomed to exercising alone with some shadow- and mirror-fighting without an
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opponent, namely, when they had no opponent. However, there was still another reason, which Mercurialis adds to the one mentioned by Chrysostom, saying (Mercurialis, cited passage): or it is, that the exercise was so delicate and gentle, that it did not dare to expect the slightest injury, which comes home to those who are accustomed to exercising with all kinds of weapons against another. Otherwise, the usual exercise was to fight with an opponent, and usually with sharp weapons, as also among the Romans the gladiators fought with the sharp blade, which, according to Dio, Emperor Antonius, averse to useless bloodshed, forbade, wanting that they should henceforth perform their fights with blunt weapons, as those who learn the art of fencing do today, says Mercurialis.
§ X.
Although now some for their whole lives, others for an indefinite time, and thus often only briefly, occupied themselves in the training schools, it was however a necessary requirement for those who thought to participate in the public Olympic Games that they had been occupied for ten months (that is to say before the pre-games, which also lasted thirty days): since they had to assure this with expensive oaths, confirmed above the cut testicles of a pig, besides other things; as Pausanias comes to point out at the mentioned place (Pausanias, book 5).