Boxing

Table of Contents

• Origin
• Equipment
• Rules of the Game
• Characteristics of a Good Boxer
• Additional Information

Origin

Boxing was added in 688 B.C. and is one of the oldest sports. Boxing was first found in Homeric poems, where it was one of the games in honor of the dead Patroklos as well as one of the games on the island of the Phaiakians. According to mythology, Apollo was the inventor of boxing; he defeated and killed Phorbas, a boxer who compelled travelers through Delphi to compete with him.

The model boxing match in ancient mythology was the contest between Polydeukes and Amykos, the king of the Bebrykes, who lived in Bithynia on the Black Sea. The king would compel all strangers traveling through his country to box with him and then kill them in the contest. Polydeukes was one such stranger, who proved to be too tough of a competitor for the king, and he made the king swear to leave travelers alone.

Equipment

Boxers wrapped himantes , or straps of soft ox-hide, round their hands to strengthen their wrists and steady their fingers. Himantes were wrapped around the first knuckles of the fingers, ran diagonally across the palm and back of the hand, leaving the thumb uncovered, and were tied round the wrist or higher up the forearm.

The forms of these himantes, or thongs, evolved, and in order to make the blows harsher, straps of harder leather were added around the knuckles of the fingers.

Because the business of winding these himantes was so time-consuming, from the 4th century B.C. boxers instead began to wear a kind of glove, formed of ready-wound leather straps. These gloves, called oxeis himantes (sharp thongs), left the fingertips free, had applied straps of hard leather to strengthen them and an inner layer of wool to protect the hand, and were secured by leather straps in the middle of the forearm. This type of glove was used in Greece until the end of the 2nd century A.D.

The Roman invention of the caestus , a boxing glove reinrced with iron and lead, transformed the Greek art of boxing into an inhuman and deadly contest.

Rules of the Game

Ancient boxing differed in many ways from modern boxing.

1) It is not known in what kind of area the contest was held.

2) There was no time limit on the duration of the contest. Opponents fought until one withdrew by raising one or two fingers to show that he admitted defeat, or fell to the ground senseless.

3) Sometimes, if both contestants agreed, the referee would allow them time to regain strength.

4) Classification of the boxers by weights was unknown; instead, they fought with whomever fell to them by lot.

5) It seems that the Greeks preferred blows to the head as being most effective

6) The position of the boxer in relation to the sun was crucial ã if one managed to force his component into a position facing the sun, he would gain an advantage in that his component would be blinded by the glare.

7) When a contest continued for a long time, the opponents had the option of klimax . Klimax was when each man in turn stood motionless and received a blow from his opponent without making an attempt to avoid it.

The precise nature of the rules of boxing is not known, but we do know that the following were forbade: holds, blows to the genital organs, reinforcing the thongs with extra layers of straps, and the use of pig-skin straps. The referees examined the thongs before each contest.

Characteristics of a Good Boxer

According to Philostratos, the good boxer should have long and powerful arms, strong shoulders, a high neck, and steely and flexible wrists. Handicaps are a thick shin (preventing agility) and a large stomach (prevents supple movements). In addition, the boxer should possess persistence, patience, endurance, psychological character, great will-power, and strength.

Additional Information

Changes in the himantes (thongs) brought important changes in the technique of the game. When the thongs were soft, boxing required agility, adroitness, flexibility and good technique, but when "sharp thongs" were introduced, boxers paid more attention to defense, and the contest became heavier and slower, with more emphasis on brute force than on skill.

Much derision and even satirical poems and epigrams resulted from the disfiguring of the boxer's faces.