ost unfair means to vanquish his competitor. Those who disputed the
prize in the several kinds of combats, drew lots for their precedency in
them.

It is time to bring our champions to blows, and to run over the different
kinds of combats, in which they exercised themselves.

Of Wrestling.

Wrestling is one of the most ancient exercises of which we have any
knowledge, having been practised in the time of the patriarchs, as the
wrestling of the angel with Jacob proves.(126) Jacob supported the angel's
attack so vigorously, that the latter, perceiving he could not throw so
rough a wrestler, was reduced to make him lame by touching the sinew of
his thigh, which immediately shrunk up.

Wrestling, among the Greeks, as well as other nations, was practised at
first with simplicity, little art, and in a natural manner; the weight of
the body, and the strength of the muscles, having more share in it than
address and skill. Theseus was the first that reduced it to method, and
refined it by the rules of art. He was also the first who established the
public schools, called _Palaestrae_, where the young people had masters to
instruct them in it.

The wrestlers, before they began the combat, were rubbed all over in a
rough manner, and afterwards anointed with oils, which added to the
strength and flexibility of their limbs. But as this unction, by making
the skin too slippery, rendered it difficult for them to take good hold of
each other, they remedied that inconvenience, sometimes by rolling
themselves in the dust of the Palaestra, sometimes by throwing a fine sand
upon each other, kept for that purpose in the Xystae, or porticoes of the
Gymnasia.

Thus prepared, the wrestlers began their combat. They were matched two
against two, and sometimes several couples contended at the same time. In
this combat, the whole aim and design of the wrestlers was to throw their
adversary upon the ground. Both strength and art were employed for this
purpose: they seized each other by the arms, drew forwards, pushed
backwards, used many distortions and twistings of the body; locking their
limbs into each other's, seizing by the neck, throttling, pressing in
their arms, struggling, plying on all sides, lifting from the ground,
dashing their heads together like rams, and twisting one another's necks.
The most considerable advantage in the wrestler's art, was to make himself
master of his adversary's legs, of which a fall was the immediate