Chapter
1
2
3
4
5
6
|
|
Page
4
12
16
22
27
31
53
79
|
|
Pankration—παγκράτιον was one of the three empty-hand combat sports practiced in ancient Greece—the other two being wrestling and boxing—and it was the one of the three that most closely approximated all-out empty-hand combat. The name of pankration alludes to “the most powerful” or to “the one using all powers and means.” Actually, it is arguable that pankration competition is the closest that a sport has ever come to outright no-rules empty hand combat. Pankration is described succinctly by Philostratus, who calls it a dangerous form of wrestling, which involves bruising strikes to the face, grappling techniques—including after falling to the ground—different types of chokes, foot and arm locks, and strikes and kicks; all this except biting and gouging. Aristotle describes pankration as the event where it is required to do both what wrestlers do and what boxers do. Philostratus expresses a similar view of pankration in another work of his, where he calls the sport a combination of impure wrestling and impure boxing. In this context, it should be noted that pankration was also called πάμμαχον—pammachon or παμμάχιον— pammachion. These names may actually precede the one of pankration, and more directly describe the athletic event itself, making it even more clear that it is combat by virtually any means. We have clear evidence of pankration competitions from the seventh century BCE to the fourth century CE, i.e., lasting a millennium. There are some indications, however, that the Greeks held pankration competitions even before the seventh century BCE. Pankration was strictly a sport of the Greek world, with no counterpart in the ancient Near East.
My first and fundamental aim in writing this book is to reconstruct the ancient sport of pankration from all the available primary sources of information—from the texts and the products of the visual arts of antiquity. In my research, I have tried to be exhaustive in identifying textual references to, as well as artistic representations of, pankration that could provide an insight into some aspect of the sport. In this sense, the book can be used as a reference source for researchers of the topic of pankration and, more generally, (combat) sports in ancient Greece. However, I should point out that, in the interest of economy, I have not referred to all identified material in this book as some of it simply reinforces points that are already evident from the material that I have decided to reference. I am also sure that there still exist artistic representations, as well as references in ancient texts, which could help further “fill out” the picture of the practice of pankration, but which I did not manage to survey. I hope other researchers will bring them to the fore.
|
|
Hercules was considered to be one of the fathers of pankration, having won in a pankration contest in Olympia, after winning on the same day the wrestling competition. He reputedly also won a pankration competition organized by the Argonauts. The Argonautics of Orfeus has him being awarded a shining and ornamented vase by Jason. Hercules is also said to have won in the first Pythian Games, held by Apollo himself at Delphi. Another tradition has it that Hercules first used pankration techniques to subdue the Nemeanlion, which is also depicted on numerous surviving Greek vases. Theseus— another very important hero of Greek antiquity—was said to have defeated the Minotaur using pankration.
The sport of pankration was not mentioned by its name in Homer, or in any other literature before the fifth century. One view, advanced by Poliakoff, is that pankration was really the product of the development of the archaic Greek society of the seventh century BCE, whereby, as the need for expression in violent sport increased, pankration filled a niche of “total contest” that neither boxing or wrestling could. There are arguments to the contrary however. I have already argued in Chapter 1 that there is evidence of the combat form of pankration in Homer’s description of the confrontation of Ulysses and Irus in the Odyssey. While this indicates the existence of combat pankration, it does not in itself imply that there were pankration competitions at that time. The evidence for the latter is from the testimony of Pausanias in his travel log on Olympia and Ēlis, as detailed below.
Pausanias makes the argument that the Olympic Games were first introduced well before the descent of the Doric tribes into the Peloponnesus, and that this first period of the Games was interrupted after these tribal movements, at the time when king of Ēlis (where Olympia is located) was Oxilus, who was the grandson of Thoas—one of the sackers of Troy. The sacking of Troy described in the Iliad is estimated to have taken place around 1200 BCE. Thus, according to Pausanias, the first period of the Games ended sometime in the eleventh century BCE, and the Games did not resume until the eighth century BCE. In this context, Pausanias records the view held by the people of Ēlis that they gradually reconstructed the ancient program of events of the Games as they slowly added back the events from the first period of the Games. Eventually they went beyond that and added entirely new events, but what is important here is the distinction between the revived events and the entirely new events. According to Pausanias, the events that were revived included pankration. Thus, according to this view, pankration competitions were already being held more than 500 years before their (re)introduction into the (revived) Olympic Games in 648 BCE.
|
|
The rules of pankration competition (εναγώνιες διατάξεις—enagōnies diataxeis) that this study has found information on concern (1) the structure of competitions and the process of qualifying for participation in competitions, (2) the conditions for declaring victory and those for interrupting the competition, and (3) the techniques prohibited in competition.
Structure of Competitions and Qualifying for Participation
The pankratiasts, like boxers and wrestlers, competed in tournaments to determine a single winner. Lucian describes the process in a detailed manner: “A sacred silver urn is brought, in which they have put bean-size lots. On two lots an alpha is inscribed, on two a beta, and on another two a gamma, and so on. If there are more athletes, two lots always have the same letter. Each athlete comes forth, prays to Zeus, puts his hand into the urn and draws out a lot. Following him, the other athletes do the same. Whip bearers are standing next to the athletes, holding their hands and not allowing them to read the letter they have drawn. When everyone has drawn a lot, the alytarch or one of the Ellanodikae walks around and looks at the lots of the athletes as they stand in a circle. He then joins the athlete holding the alpha to the other who has drawn the alpha for wrestling or pankration, the one who has the beta to the other with the beta, and the other matching inscribed lots in the same manner.” This process was apparently repeated every round until the finals.
If there was an odd number of competitors, there would be a bye (έφεδρος—ephedros) in every round until the last one. The same athlete could be an ephedros more than once, and this could of course be of great value to him as the ephedros would be spared the wear and tear of the rounds imposed on his opponent(s). To win a tournament without being an ephedros in any of the rounds (ανέφεδρος—anephedros) was thus an honorable achievement.
There is evidence that the major Games easily had four tournament rounds, that is, a field of sixteen athletes. Xanthos mentions the largest number—nine tournament rounds. If these tournament rounds were held in one competition, up to 512 contestants would participate in the tournament, which is difficult to believe for a single contest. Therefore one can hypothesize that the nine rounds included those in which the athlete participated during regional qualification competitions that were held before the major games. In this context, it should be noted that it is quite certain that such preliminary contests were held prior to the major games to determine who would participate in the main event. This makes sense, as the 15-20 athletes competing in the major games could not have been the only available contestants. There is clear evidence of this in Plato, who refers to competitors in the Panhellenic Games, with opponents numbering in the thousands. Moreover, in the first century CE, the Greco-Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria—who was himself probably a practitioner of pankration—makes a statement that could be an allusion to preliminary contests in which an athlete would participate and then collect his strength before coming forward fresh in the major competition.
|
|
Pankration, wrestling, and boxing, constituted the heavy events (βαρέα αγωνίσματα—barea agōnismata) of the ancient Games, most probably because these events were the domain of the large and heavy athletes. Plutarch explicitly notes that heavily muscled athletes eventually crush their opponents and defeat even those who have good timing and skill. As successful pankratiasts needed to be heavily muscled, there was an effort to increase lean body mass. In a passage critical of athletes, Galen accuses them of continuously aiming to accumulate “flesh and blood.”
The fact that size and strength mattered is indicated also by references to the large size of many successful pankratiasts. Of course the most famous pankratiast and, according to tradition, the founder of the sport was Hercules. His physique, as depicted in the Farnese version, probably indicates the “envelope” of the kind of heavily muscled physiques that appeared in pankration competition. A number of historical athletes were said to have had such Herculean physiques. Lygdamēs of Syracuse, the first victor in pankration in the historical Olympic Games (648 BCE), was said to have had a foot length of about 18 inches. This would imply that he was approximately 7 feet tall, and could have weighed 400 pounds or more. Poulydamas from Skotousa in Thessaly was considered by Pausanias the biggest man of his time. A three-time winner of the Olympic games in pankration, Dorieus from Rhodes, was so large and well built that when he was captured by the Athenians in a battle he was released without being harmed, apparently because of his impressive physique.
One of the most renown pankratiasts of antiquity was Theagenēs from the island of Thasos, who must also have been very impressive physically. Tradition has it that at the age of nine, while he was coming back from school, he took the bronze statue of a god from the marketplace and carried it home because he liked it. He even took it back by himself when the angry people of the island demanded that he do so. According to Aristotle, another pankratiast, Damagētos, was four “πήχες”—pēches—tall, that is, anywhere between 2.08 and 2.44 meters (6’ 8” to 7’ 10”) tall. Athenaeus of Naukratis recounts that the pankratiast Astyanax from Milētos—a three time winner at the Olympic games—was of such proportions that, when he was invited to dinner by the Persian satrap Ariobarzanēs, he promised to eat all the food prepared for all the guests, and actually did so. And when the Persian asked Astyanax to perform a feat that would demonstrate his power, he took the bronze frame of the bed and straightened it out with his bare hands.
|
|
This chapter aims to shed some light into certain broad questions about empty hand combat alluded to in Chapter 1: Did pankratiasts emphasize grappling or striking in their preparation for and in actual competition? That is, were they either grapplers or strikers more or less exclusively? If pankratiasts did not heavily specialize, what was the preferred mix of grappling versus striking skills among most successful pankratiasts? Is there any evidence that grappling specialists were more or less successful than striking specialists? Similar questions are also being asked by modern martial artists/combat athletes and the answers are slowly emerging from the experience gained in the last few years in revived “no-holds barred” competitions. Below are some conclusions on these issues that can be drawn from the ancient practice of pankration and which could help advance the debates in modern combat sports/martial arts.
The first winner of the pankration competition in the supreme Games—the Olympics—was said to be Hercules, who also won the wrestling competition in those Games. The fact that the myth presents him as a pankratiast/ wrestler is a clue that the Greeks considered the two sports to be intimately related and that a pankratiast had to be, above all, good in grappling. Philostratus also corroborates this view when he describes pankration as a dangerous form of wrestling, implying that wrestling moves were an essential or necessary part of the pankratiast’s skills—more so, apparently, than boxing skills. That grappling on the ground was considered to be the characteristic of pankration, is indicated by Theocritus’ referring to boxers being good in their hand wraps, wrestlers in their throws, and pankratiasts in their ground fighting techniques. This evidence indicates that an exclusively striker type of fighter would not be successful as the fight would oft en be taken to the ground.
An alternative perspective might be one that is implicit in an—otherwise caustic for athletes—passage by Galen, who awarded the prize in pankration to a donkey because of its excellence in kicking. Kicking was therefore another characteristic element of pankration, along with ground fighting, as kicking was absent from the other two combat sports of the Greeks. On this basis, it is difficult to be definite about the relative importance of grappling versus striking in pankration. To help resolve the issue, we can use the evidence provided by the numbers of two-event winners in Olympia, in boxing/pankration and wrestling/pankration, respectively. I will not confine myself to the winners in two events in the same Olympiad, but take into consideration victories by an athlete achieved in any Olympiad. The reason is that boxing was a particularly injurious event that was held before pankration on the same day and this undoubtedly prevented many boxers/striking specialists from entering also the pankration competition in the same games. There were nine historical examples of athletes who won in two combat sport events in the Olympics, seven of them winning wrestling and pankration victories and two others achieving boxing and pankration victories. We may not have the complete list of such two-event winners because the record is incomplete, but we presume that any loss of data has not affected the ratio of the numbers of the two types of victors.
|
|
Trainers
The basic instruction of pankration techniques was conducted by the παιδοτρίβαι— paedotribae, who were in charge of boys’ physical education from the beginning. The παιδοτρίβης—paedotribēs would explain the techniques and the circumstances under which these are used as well as the intensity and the duration of their application; he would also explain the way one could protect against these techniques or counter them, as well as the counters to these counters.
For the training of high level athletes, however, there were also special trainers (γυμνασταί—gymnastae). The latter were probably not in existence before the beginning of the fifth century BCE. Their work for sure involved the conditioning of the athletes. It is not so clear whether they also taught advanced techniques and fighting strategies to the athletes, or that role was still being carried out by the paedotribae. There are various apparently contrasting testimonies on the matter.
On the one hand, Galen in his commentary on the relative roles of paedotribae and gymnastae, states that a paedotribēs is to a gymnastēs what a cook is to a doctor. He explains that the cook prepares dishes, but does not understand the benefits of each dish. The doctor on the other hand cannot prepare any of these dishes, but understands the benefits of each. This seems to imply that the paedotribēs was a practical teacher of techniques who would implement the training regimes available to him, but who lacked the scientific understanding and rationale of these regimes. According to this view, the gymnastēs could prescribe the techniques and regimes but did not/could not (necessarily)show them effectively nor administer the actual training of the athletes.
One the other hand, the poets Pindar and Bacchylidēs refer to gymnastae who had been themselves successful athletes and who, having retired from competition, had taken to training others. Given this kind of background and the way these cases were mentioned by ancient writers, we can surmise that these gymnastae must have directly imparted their knowledge of advanced techniques and strategies to their students and did not confine themselves solely to planning the athletes’ training and to providing theoretical instruction.
If these individuals were referred to as gymnastae, then on that account it is reasonable to assume that a significant part—if not all—of gymnastae must have had some practical, as well as theoretical, abilities to prepare a pankratiast for competition. It is also possible that, while this assumption is valid for the period when Pindar was writing, there was significant evolution in the role of gymnastae towards greater specialization by the time that Galenmade his comments (see previous paragraph).
|
Pankratiast applying a shoulder lock technique. Hellenistic era Greek
bronze. National Archaeological Museum (ΑΙΓ. 2547), Athens. Photo Credit: National
Archaeological Museum, Athens.
|
|
|
