Voices in Time

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Anacharsis: Why do your young men behave like this, Solon? Some of them grappling and tripping each other, some throttling, struggling, intertwining in the clay like so many pigs wallowing. And yet their first proceeding after they have stripped—I noticed that—is to oil and scrape each other quite amicably; but then I do not know what comes over them—they put down their heads and begin to push, and crash their foreheads together like a pair of rival rams. There, look! That one has lifted the other right off his legs and dropped him on the ground; now he has fallen on top and will not let him get his head up, but presses it down into the clay; and to finish him off he twines his legs tight round his belly, thrusts his elbow hard against his throat, and throttles the wretched victim, who meanwhile is patting his shoulder—that would be a form of supplication—he is asking not to be quite choked to death. Regardless of their fresh oil, they get all filthy, smother themselves in mud and sweat till they might as well not have been anointed, and present, to me at least, the most ludicrous resemblance to eels slipping through a man’s hands.

Then here in the open court are others doing just the same, except that instead of the clay they have for floor a depression filled with deep sand, with which they sprinkle one another, scraping up the dust on purpose, like fowls. I suppose they want their interlacings to be tighter; the sand is to neutralize the slipperiness of the oil, and by drying it up to give a firmer grip.

And here are others, sanded too, but on their legs, going at each other with blows and kicks. We shall surely see this poor fellow spit out his teeth in a minute; his mouth is all full of blood and sand; he has had a blow on the jaw from the other’s fist, you see. Why does not the official there separate them and put an end to it? I guess that he is an official from his purple, but no, he encourages them and commends the one who gave that blow.

Wherever you look, every one busy—rising on his toes, jumping up and kicking the air, or something.

Now I want to know what is the good of it all. To me it looks more like madness than anything else. It will not be very easy to convince me that people who behave like this are not wrong in their heads.

Solon: It is quite natural it should strike you that way, being so novel and so utterly contrary to Scythian customs. Similarly you have no doubt many methods and habits that would seem extraordinary enough to us Greeks if we were spectators of them as you now are of ours. But be reassured, my dear sir, these proceedings are not madness; it is no spirit of violence that sets them hitting each other, wallowing in clay, and sprinkling dust. The thing has its use, and its delight too, resulting in admirable physical condition. If you make some stay, as I imagine you will, in Greece, you are bound to be either a clay bob or a dust bob before long; you will be so taken with the pleasure and profit of the pursuit.

Anacharsis: Hands off, please. No, I wish you all joy of your pleasures and your profits, but if any of you treats me like that, he will find out that we do not wear scimitars for ornament.

But would you mind giving a name to all this? What are we to say they are doing?

Solon: The place is called a gymnasium, and is dedicated to the Lycian Apollo. You see his statue there, the one leaning on the pillar, with a bow in the left hand. The right arm bent over the head indicates that the god is resting after some great exertion.

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