4Health and Bodily Exercise

‘To hear then prepare of the Discipline rare which flourished in Athens of yore,When Honour and Truth were in fashion with youth and Sobriety bloomed on our shore;First of all, the old rule was preserved in our school that “boys should be seen and not heard”:And then to the home of the harpist would come, decorous in action and word,All the lads of one town, though the snow peppered down, in spite of all wind and all weather;And they sung an old song as they paced it along, not shambling with thighs glued together ...But now must the lad from his boyhood be clad in a man’s all enveloping cloke;So that, oft as the Panathenæa returns, I feel myself ready to choke,When the dancers go by with their shields to their thigh, not caring for Pallas a jot.You therefore, young man, choose me while you can; cast in with my method your lot;And then you shall learn the forum to spurn and from dissolute baths to abstain,And fashions impure and shameful abjure, and scorners repel with disdain,And rise from your chair if an elder be there, and respectfully give him your place.And with love and with fear your parents revere, and shrink from the brand of disgrace ...Not learning to prate, as your idlers debate, with marvellous prickly dispute,Nor dragged into court day by day to make sport in some small disagreeable suit:But you will below to the Academe go, and under the olives contendWith your chaplet of reed, in a contest of speed, with some excellent rival and friend;All fragrant with woodbine and peaceful content and the leaf which the lime blossoms fling,When the plane whispers love to the elm in the grove in the beautiful season of spring.’(Clouds, 961-1008, Rogers’ translation.)

Boyhood at Athens was a time of preparation; the real education of an Athenian, in physical and in mental studies, began when ours too often ceases, in the year when he reached manhood. Then, and not till then, did the State step in and accept responsibility for his training. The ephebeof eighteen enrolled, in his deme register, had first to take the oath:

‘I will not disgrace my sacred weapons nor desert the comrade who is placed by my side. I will fight for things holy and things profane, whether I am alone or with others. I will hand on my fatherland greater and better than I found it. I will hearken to the magistrates, and obey the existing laws and those hereafter established by the people. I will not consent unto any that destroys or disobeys the constitution, but will prevent him, whether I am alone or with others. I will honour the temples and the religion which my forefathers established. So help me Aglauros, Enyalios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone.’

Then under the direction of specially appointed magistrates, the ‘Sophronistai’ or ‘Moderators,’ a definite and thorough course of gymnastics and military training began. The young recruits were first taken round the temples and afterwards put into garrison at Munychia and Piræus. They had masters and undermasters to teach them the use of the hoplite’s accoutrement, and pædotribes for their gymnastic exercises. Discipline was fairly strict, but there were plenty of amusements, and many festivals in which the ephebes played a special part. When they were not engaged in military drill they were usually to be found in the gymnasia and palæstræ, and at the end of theirfirst year of training they were reviewed in the theatre during the celebration of the greater Dionysia. After the ceremony they received a spear and shield as a gift from the State and marched out of Athens, spending most of their final year patrolling the country and garrisoning the outlying forts. Then, this first initiation into the science of physical fitness achieved, they returned to the city, and during the rest of their lives devoted a large proportion of their time to perfecting their knowledge of the laws of health and developing the strength of their body.

The academies, where these studies in a Greek city were pursued by young and old together, were of two kinds, and were called either ‘gymnasia’ or ‘palæstræ.’ A gymnasium was an open space, with trees for shelter from the sun and, if possible, near a stream of running water; and there went on those sports that required plenty of room. The two chief gymnasia at Athens were both outside the town walls, the Academy in the sacred grove of the hero Academus and the Lyceum in the precinct of the hero Lycus. They corresponded fairly closely to the playing fields about our public schools, except that they belonged to the whole community and were used by all classes and ages alike. If we could imagine Hyde Park thronged every day and all day with men and boys running, jumping, hurling quoits, and throwing javelins,

INDOOR SPORTS (Athens)

we should get some idea, although of course on a very much larger scale, of the appearance of the Lyceum in the time of Socrates.

The palæstra, on the other hand, bore more resemblance to our school gymnasium. It was a covered building used especially for the indoor sports of boxing and wrestling. Built round a central court which in fine weather was normally the scene of these competitions, it had also a large hall opening on to the court and a number of smaller rooms used for bathing, rubbing down and undressing. In the large hall the spectators gathered, and a vivid picture of the impression made upon a foreigner by the sight is given in Lucian’s dialogueAnacharsis. The young Scythian speaks:

‘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 theclay; 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 will be a form of supplication; he is asking not to be quite choked to death.’

(Lucian,Anacharsis, I, Fowler’s translation.)

There were only three gymnasia in all Athens, but there was a very large number of palæstræ, some public, some private, some frequented by men, some by boys, the majority used indifferently by men and boys together. In the public establishments the instructors were provided and paid by the State, and were probably at the head of their profession, for as the oligarch who wrote the treatise on the Athenian Republic bitterly says:

‘As for gymnasia and baths, some rich people have their own, but the people also have built palæstræ for their own use, and the mob now has far more advantages in this respect than the fortunate few.’

The popularity of a private palæstra, especially if it were intended chiefly for the instruction of boys, depended largely on the personality of the pædotribe who there gave instruction, and Athenian fathers were as fond of expounding the merits of their own favourite teacher as Englishmen are of singing the praises of their old school. The pædotribe was usually assisted by subordinates—gymnastæ, who coached pupils in special exercises andprepared them for competitions, andaleiptæwho undertook for boys the actual rubbing down and massaging which men and youths performed for themselves; but he alone was the directing spirit of the place. He required to have considerable medical knowledge, and held a rank in popular estimation of equal importance with a physician. His business was to prevent, the doctor’s only to cure, disease. He had to know what exercises would suit what constitutions; he was called on frequently to prescribe in matters of diet and sometimes must advise a strengthening and sometimes a lowering regime. Besides giving his pupils health, he was expected also to increase their beauty and their strength. Finally, according to Plato, a good pædotribe was able to produce by his teaching firmness of character and strength of will: therefore he must know exactly how much training to administer to each boy, for too much of these qualities is as bad as too little. It will be seen that a successful pædotribe combined in his person most of the capacities and duties which in our educational institutions are shared among the headmaster, the games master, the school doctor, the drill sergeant and the cricket professional; with the additional responsibility of having frequently to teach both parents and children.

But the larger palæstræ, as we have said, were usually public and free, and it may be useful togive here a brief account of their arrangements. On entering from the street the visitor passed down a short passage into the‘Apodyterion,’ the undressing room, a large hall with one side opening directly on to the cloisters which surrounded the central court. His first business was to strip; for all the exercises of the palæstra were performed naked; and then to anoint himself all over, and carefully rub the oil into his skin. As Lucian says again in theAnacharsis, speaking now through the mouth of the great law-giver, Solon:

‘When their first pithless tenderness is past, we strip our youths and aim at hardening them to the temperature of the various seasons till heat does not incommode them nor frost paralyse them. Then we anoint them with oil by way of softening them into suppleness. It would be absurd that leather, dead stuff as it is, should be made tougher and more lasting by being softened with oil, and the living body get no advantage from the same process.’

Another room, the ‘Konisterion,’ was set apart for athletes to powder themselves with dust before exercise. The effects on the body of powder were regarded as no less beneficial than those of oil. It closed the pores of the skin, checked excessive perspiration, and kept the body cool, thus protecting it from chills and rendering it less susceptible to fatigue. Special sorts of powders weresupposed to have special virtues; those of a clayey nature were particularly cleansing, those that were gritty stimulated perspiration if the skin was inclined to be over-dry, the yellow earthy kind made the body supple and sleek, and gave that glossy appearance which was the sign of good condition and training.

Yet another apartment was the ‘Korykeion,’ where the punch-balls hung; some of them large skins filled with sand hanging about waist-level and used by wrestlers who would try and check their rebound, others smaller and lighter filled with fig seeds or meal, hanging as high as the athlete’s head and used by boxers as a mark for their blows.

And, lastly, there was the bathroom, a severely simple place with a large stone basin on a stand as its chief feature. Bathing establishments with hot and vapour baths existed in Athens, but they were discouraged by manly folk as corrupting athletic vigour and considered only truly suitable for the old and feeble. In the palæstra cold water was used alone, and the bath was either taken direct from the basin or else the athlete stood while a friend swilled him down from a bucket. Before the actual washing a flesh scraper was used to remove the dust and dirt from the skin, and a sort of lye obtained from wood ashes took the place of soap.

All this at Athens, as befits a true democracy, wasopen without restriction and without payment to every citizen. In the palæstra rich and poor met on equal terms without regard for rank or position. A strigil and an oil flask were the only implements that were needed, and on occasions the State even supplied the oil. We have scarcely anything like it in modern days; perhaps a racecourse, in its mingling together of all classes for sport, is the nearest equivalent. But our racecourses have some peculiar features that need not now be specified, from which the Greek palæstra was free.

FOR the attainment of the perfect health which is one of the highest goals of human endeavour, the Greeks of the fifth centuryb.c.in comparison with ourselves were placed under some disadvantages. Firstly, their racial stock, a difficult blend of the old Mediterranean people with central European immigrants, was not so good, for purposes of active strength, as our mixture of Saxon, Norman and Dane: the inhabitants of Attica claimed with some reason to be autochthonous, but in historical times they were already showing plain signs of race decay. Secondly, their climate on the whole was inferior to ours, the summer too hot and enervating, the winter dank and depressing rather than sharp and bracing: Attica in this respect also was more favoured than many states, and Athenian authors are very fond of contrasting the clear brilliance of their native air with the heavy dullness of the Bœotian plain. Thirdly, they lacked most of those sanitary appliances without which life in our cities now would seem almost impossible, and their doctors and surgeons had not that wealth of drugs and instruments which we possess.

On the other hand the Greeks, or at least the Athenians, had some points in their favour. Of all the people that we know the citizens of Attica did the highest thinking on the lowest feeding. They were naturally temperate both in food and drink, and a very great contrast both to the Romans and such other Greeks as the Bœotians and Thessalians. In this, at any rate, they were feminists; like most women they did not pay much regard to their stomachs, and made their meals not the most important but the least important thing in their lives, so that a Greek banquet was a very simple affair, compared with an English or a Roman repast, and its chief attraction was the music and conversation which followed the mere eating and drinking. The ordinary diet of the Athenians consisted almost entirely of cereals; porridge and bread were the staples, and although sometimes a little salt fish, cheese, honey or olives might serve as a relish, yet porridge in various forms was the staff of life. Their drink was usually water; a good supply was brought in to the city by pipes dating apparently from the time of Pisistratus, and the big fountain of the nine springs is mentioned by Thucydides. They realized all the benefits that come from a copious use of nature’s chief medicine: ‘best of all things is water’—such is the motto on the entrance portalto the great temple of Pindar’s poems, and the Athenians, knowing the truth, acted on their knowledge. Wine, of course, they drank and enjoyed—there were teetotalers amongst them, Demosthenes, for example, and they were regarded as crabbed, unpleasant fellows—but they enjoyed in moderation, and always diluted their wine copiously with water. To drink wine neat was to be a barbarian, and the story of the Spartan king who was driven mad by his unmixed potations was often repeated at Athens. The typical citizen was a thin wiry person, active and restless, and the highest praise you could give to an Athenian was to call him εὐτράπελος, ready to turn his hand to anything. As Aristophanes says, the Athenians were wasplike, thin-waisted and ready to sting—while one of commonest terms of political approbrium was παχύς—‘fat’—the word applied by the democrats to the idle rich.

Again, as we have said, the Athenians were autochthonous—such was their favourite boast—sprung from the land, born from the actual womb of mother Attica. Without examining too closely the exact truth of their claim, or accepting the origin of their grasshopper king, we may regard it as an historical fact that the Athenian stock remained undisturbed and without admixture for a very long period in Attica. They had therefore all the advantages which are derived from a pure andan old race; they were thoroughly suited to their environment, and had developed strong special characteristics. They were fully conscious of this themselves, never admitted aliens to Athenian citizenship, and took the most careful precautions to see that all citizens on the roll should be of pure Athenian parentage. In its relation to general health this steady continuity of race and domicile is more important than is often recognized. Only long centuries of undisturbed habitation can bring man into real harmony with nature, and this is one reason why the English peasant is so much finer a man, physically and intellectually, than the mixed breed of a great town. Half the diseases of our time are of nervous origin, caused ultimately by a feverish attempt to adapt oneself too rapidly to a new environment.

Moreover, the chief means whereby we stave off for the moment the results of this strain, drugs and stimulants of every kind, were unknown to the Greeks, and they were all the better for their ignorance. Tea, coffee, tobacco, opium; all these poisons are among the blessings of modern civilization, and in the fifth centuryb.c.were as unfamiliar to the Greeks as the countries from which they come. Here again the Greeks were closer to nature than we are. When they needed a stimulant—and stimulants are on occasion a real necessity—they took wine, the natural product oftheir own country, not something only to be found among totally different conditions. They knew nothing of the poisons of tropical countries, and nothing of the diseases which we have imported from the tropics. Asiatic fever, smallpox, cholera, syphilis, typhus were diseases of which the Greeks had neither knowledge nor experience, and even from our milder infectious complaints, such as measles and scarlatina, they were immune. Until the advent of malaria during the Peloponnesian War their most common malady seems to have been ophthalmia in its various forms, and consumption was their only serious scourge.

This would seem to be a fair statement of our respective advantages and disadvantages; and on the whole perhaps the balance of the account is in our favour. But all these considerations are counterbalanced and more than counterbalanced by one fact: an ancient Greek took a lively and intelligent interest in his own physical condition, and devoted most of his time, not to making money, or reading books or playing cards, but to what is a more remunerative investment than any of these, to the care of his health.

The most precious thing that a Greek possessed was not his soul, the existence of which he doubted, but his body. He took an interest in his body; he was not afraid of it in any of its parts, and he was not always trying to cover it up as something of which he was ashamed. He had none of those curious and morbid feelings that still linger on amongst us as an inheritance from Syrian conventicles and Egyptian monasteries. He stripped himself freely and often, in public as in private, and he allowed the sunlight, the fresh air, and the running water to reach every limb. Dirt was not to a Greek a proof of holiness, nor neglect of one’s person the sure sign of a love of learning. Cleanliness was not merely next to godliness; it was godliness itself. To be χαθαρός—clean, pure, free from defilement—was the ideal, and an ideal generally attained.

A Greek concentrated his attention on the care of his skin by means of baths, massage, and external applications. Bathing with the Greeks of the classical period was not the elaborate function that it became with the Romans, who used it indeed, as we use drugs, to correct the results of their own follies and self-indulgence; but it was thorough and it was constant. Moreover they knew the value of sun and air baths, a thing almost unattainable in England, and their dress allowed the free-play of air round the body. Hats, stockings, and gloves were practically unknown, and the feet were usually bare.

Of massage, both by the hand and by the instrument, which they called a ‘strigil,’ great use was made. The ‘rubber’ was as important for purposesof health as the ‘doctor,’ and an Athenian put aside a certain proportion of his time every day for his duties in this respect. In connection with rubbing comes the universal use of olive oil as an external application; the oil flask—lecythus—was as indispensable to a Greek as an umbrella is to an Englishman; and as a consequence the Athenians seem to have been seldom troubled with those coughs and colds which so harass modern men. Under the stimulus of the bath and frequent massage the skin performed its natural cleansing functions, and the oil served as an invisible protection against sudden chills, while from one of our greatest dangers, the hot polluted air of a crowded room followed by the cold dampness of a raw February evening, the Greeks were free, for artificial heating and lighting were little used and all gatherings of people took place in the open. By constant exposure to sun and air, by massage, by regulated exercises, and by rubbing with oil the Greek gained an elasticity of skin which meant health, vigour and beauty. A large proportion of our community take an interest in their complexions and spend a considerable amount of effort in trying to produce an artificial softness of face tissue, but to the far more important task of stimulating and strengthening the skin of the body and larger limbs they give scarcely any time at all. A delicate skin is not the essential, eitherfrom the point of view of health or real beauty; for though it may render details visible in an elegant fashion, only a skin that is well knit to the subjacent tissues shows the true configuration to advantage. This firm elasticity cannot be obtained except by attention, and in this respect we are inferior, not only to the Greeks, but to such different and widely separated modern peoples as the Red Indians of North America, the Malays of the Eastern Archipelago, and the Kanakas of the South Seas. A very large number of our minor maladies and disabilities come to us from our closed pores and our flabby epidermis, and from all these the Greeks escaped, owing to the care they gave to the outer surface of the body.

In the day-time a Greek was usually to be found upon his feet. Of the value of walking as the best of all the more gentle forms of exercise he was well aware, and he normally took a brisk walk in the early morning, another before the mid-day meal, another in the late afternoon, and another before he went to bed. Fortunately for him cycles and motor-cars were not yet invented. When he was not walking he usually stood, for the sitting position was regarded as more appropriate to slaves than to free men, and in any case he knew that sitting tends rather to cramp than to invigorate the body. If he wanted to relieve his leg muscles for a moment, which he seldom did, he dropped downeasily into the squatting position, which those other scientific gymnasts, the Japanese, now use, a mode of resting especially valuable for women, as it strengthens all the muscles about the pelvis and gives vigour to the most vital portions of the female anatomy. When the time for a complete rest came he lay down, either propped upon one elbow or at full length, and allowed all his muscles to relax. If ever it was necessary to sit—in the theatre of Dionysus, for example, where an audience sat attentive in the open air for hours together—he sat on a plain flat seat without a back, his legs straight down in front of him, his feet resting on the floor. He did not loll or lounge, and when he was sitting he did not have that round-shouldered appearance, which is now so noticeable in a room full of people: he kept his diaphragm firm with the upper part of his body correctly balanced, the centre of gravity being exactly over the base of the spine; and in this position he was able to remain for long periods without effort or fatigue.

But as we have said sitting to a Greek was not a matter of choice, and was for him the exception rather than the rule; he preferred an erect position. The chief reason for this very considerable difference between his custom and ours is to be found in a simple fact: he was taught in childhood how to stand and how to walkproperly, so thatboth actions were to him a pleasure and not a labour.

It may seem strange at first sight, but as an actual fact the operations of standing erect and walking straight are not in the strict sense of the word ‘natural’ to creatures like ourselves who have painfully evolved from a lower form of life. The awkward hesitations of the baby learning to walk are natural; the supple activity of the athlete is the result of art. To stand gracefully and easily is an accomplishment that must be acquired; it does not come to us of itself.

If a man stand erect, firmly planted on both feet at the same time, exerting as little muscular effort as possible, the hip joint is always a little overextended; the body would fall backward were it not for the ilio-femoral ligament which suspends the body to the hip joint. On the length and strength of this ligament depends both the position of the pelvis in relation to the thigh and also eventually the graceful carriage of the whole body. A lack of strength in this ligament and in the muscles of the abdomen means that the pelvis is too much inclined, the abdomen projects forward, and in the back there is a deep hollow: results unsightly and unhealthy enough, but unfortunately with us far too common, for we do not take means, as did the Greeks by a scientific system of gymnastics, to strengthen all these body muscles inearly youth. Jumping with dumb-bells (performed in squads to music), throwing the diskos, and casting the javelin were exercises expressly designed for this purpose, and combined with daily practice in the wrestling school they gave the ancient Greek a different and a superior body to ours, a body which in outward contour and muscular development was much further removed from the ancestral ape than is that of the ordinary middle-aged citizen of to-day. A Greek could ‘stand at ease’ without any difficulty: the attempts that may be seen on any drill ground now when recruits attempt to carry out the order would be ludicrous if they were not so painful.

In order to stand correctly the legs and feet must be of a proper shape; a man must not be knock-kneed or splay-footed. When the legs and feet are close together, the two legs should be in contact at four points: at the upper part of the thigh, between the knees, at the point where the calves come furthest inwards, and at the inner ankle bones. The body muscles also must be well developed and under control, and the stander should know exactly where the centre of his body’s gravity is and how to obtain correct poise. Our drill-book advises that the weight of the body be balanced on both feet and evenly distributed between the fore part of the feet and the heels. With our present type of boot this representsprobably the best position possible, but it should be remembered that it is not the best that can be devised. The perfect position for standing is this: the heels should just touch the ground, but there must be no weight on them; the feet should be close together so that the heels and the whole of the inside line of the feet are touching; the whole weight of the body should be got well forwardover the ball of the foot.

Right standing is as essential to beauty as is the care of the skin, but most women now, like most men, stand wrongly. The head is not held in its right position by the neck muscles but hangs negligently forward, so that eventually the beauty of the nape of the neck is destroyed. The back muscles of the neck, thus overstretched, cause the large chest muscle, on which the breast is supported, to sink, and then the abdomen is forced upward and forward. Body poise is thus completely lost, the weight of the upper trunk is left to be supported by the legs alone, and all the conditions of unnecessary fatigue, weariness, and lack of vigour come into existence. The whole art of standing consists in the knowledge of body poise, and this has to be learned.

Even when we have acquired that knowledge we are still at a disadvantage. We stand upon our feet, and under modern conditions our feet do not have a fair chance. Sculptors know that it is possible to get living models for other parts of the body, even though those models rarely approximate to perfection; but for the foot the only safe method is to copy direct from the antique. The Greek sandal was in every way superior to our boot: it protected from injury and yet did not hinder movement: it was easily taken off and when in use left all the top part of the foot exposed to the light and air. Our feet, imprisoned from early childhood in closely fitting socks and in boots that impede the play of the toe muscles, can hardly be said to be alive. The great toe is usually twisted towards the median line, and the joint consequently has an ugly knotted appearance: all five toes are crushed together, and lose their natural shape, while the last, and often the last but one, is altogether distorted and deformed. Nor is the mischief confined to the toes: the whole foot, so seldom exposed to the open air, has a dry, lean, ill-nourished look. It shows itself the starved captive that it really is, and, as our modern schools of dancing and eurhythmic have discovered, the first condition of beauty and of graceful movement is that the foot should be free.

The Greeks were too sensible and too well aware of the importance of securing true body poise to deprive of its vitality that part of the body which is the chief factor in balance, as being the main point of contact between ourselves and the solidground. As a result the Greek foot was in some important respects differently shaped from ours. The first three toes were longer and were thin and nervous like fingers; the second toe was often the longest of the three; the fourth and fifth toes were little used and were usually off the ground, being thus raised by a pad of firm fleshy tissue, spreading under the foot, on which all movement centred. The instep was not quite so high as with us, but the tendon Achilles was finer, the heel considerably smaller and much less used, for a Greek child was trained to dispense with it as a security for balance and to keep the centre of gravity over the forward part of the foot.

All these points of difference are perfectly well known to modern artists and can be observed in most ancient statues. It rests with ourselves, if we wish it, to recover the combination of beauty and strength which the Greek foot possessed; and if the attempt be made it will be found that it is not impossible even for us soon to approach with some closeness to that desirable ideal.

Let us suppose then for a moment that our feet are sensibly shod and that their muscles are properly exercised: let us suppose also that we have learned enough of the principles of body poise and balance to be able to ‘stand at ease.’ With the next order ‘Quick march!’ a new series of difficulties will begin. Correct walking requires that thecentre of gravity of a moving weight should be kept constant over its base, and to do this the muscles must be in a state of elastic tension. If the diaphragm is not doing its work, the act of passing the weight of the body from one foot to another results in an effort to feel forward for a new base, and movement proceeds in jerks. The way to avoid this jerky movement is to carry the whole weight forward at the same time as the advancing foot, and this can only be done if mind and muscle work together. The essential difference between a soldier’s march, if it be properly performed, and the civilian’s walk, degenerating into a slouch, is that the first calls for a definite mental effort; the second is mere mechanical habit. As soon as men march mechanically they cease to march, and that is the value of a regimental band: it stimulates the connection between mind and muscle that centres round our diaphragm.

Unfortunately, very few men know where their diaphragm is, or what purpose it serves. They think they know the position of their heart and their liver (although experience on the drill ground shows that they are generally wrong), but as regards their diaphragm, their ignorance is even as the night. As they plaintively remark, ‘How should they know? They have never been taught.’ And that is really the mischief. As children they were laboriously instructed in the anatomy of theworld: they knew what a promontory and a peninsula were, and could tell you the names of the principal rivers from China to Peru. But as for the anatomy of their body they were left in almost complete darkness. Many people cannot even spell the word diaphragm correctly; the ancient Greeks were so convinced of the influence of the diaphragm on mental and physical conditions that in their language the same word ‘phrenes’ stood for diaphragm and mind. It is a fact that if the diaphragm muscles are flabby and loose (as with undrilled men they almost invariably are), the whole mental system becomes infected with the resultant slackness. An alert mind is only secured by an alert body, and the call, ‘Attention!’ is, in fact, a stimulus to the abdomen muscles, which spring up vigorously and raise the weight of the body from the centre. A heightening of vitality and a sense of spiritual power follow as surely as it did on the ancient hymn—‘Sursum corda’—‘We lift up our hearts unto the Lord.’

Walking is of all forms of exercise the best for women; but it loses its value if a woman’s gait is radically wrong. Instead of walking from the hips, most women walk from the knees: the result is a strut, a shuffle, a stamp, a shamble, a waddle, or a hobble, never a true walk. To walk correctly, feet, legs and body must be under control. The feet must be allowed to keep their proper shapeand position, and while the inside of the foot is used the toes should be planted in a straight line with the heel, never turned outwards. Uncertain balance produces bent knees, and one of the first results of a true walk is an increase of beauty in all the leg muscles, an increase of strength in the knees and in the deep-set muscles of the lower back. A woman’s knees, which nature meant to be strong and elastic, are now, with the abdomen, the weakest part of the female frame. There is nothing that women fear so much as a jump, and this timidity is purely the result of knee weakness, and the consequent inability to distribute body weight correctly. In the interests of health, beauty and comfort, correct walking is essential for women, and yet not one woman in a thousand would satisfy an expert.

To walk properly, then, the diaphragm must be on the alert, and a lifted diaphragm in a state of muscular tension cannot exist side by side with a large flabby abdomen. If a man’s body is to be beautiful, and if the man himself is to be in perfect physical condition, the abdomen must be reduced to the smallest possible dimensions and not overloaded with fat. The size of the abdomen is increased by the absorption of large masses of food, especially if they are of a gaseous and indigestible nature; it is decreased if the amount of food taken is reduced and if the food itself is rich in nutriment so that less bulk is required. Above all, if the muscles of the abdomen and back are strengthened by a carefully-designed system of exercises, they will take their share in bearing the weight of the upper part of the body and will prevent it from settling down, an inert mass, in the socket of the pelvis. As things are now, our hip muscles have usually too much work to do and are exaggeratedly developed, and an examination of any Greek athlete statue—the Diadumenos will serve as one example of many—will show that the Greek hip was much finer and slimmer than ours: it was more behind the body than under it and a far greater freedom of movement was thereby made possible.

An even more striking change will be seen in the muscles of the abdomen. With us a young, well-proportioned man has usually a depression just above the iliac ridge, and the iliac line descending from the hips to the top of the legs makes only a slight inward curve. In the Greek body we see a firm roll of flesh lying just above the iliac crest, the iliac line running beneath it for a short distance inwards in a horizontal direction, and then bending downwards at an obtuse or sometimes almost a right-angle.

Of this plain fact two explanations are possible. Either the ancient sculptors wilfully falsified their models’ contours in the interests of ideal beauty,or else this difference between the ancient and modern abdomen really did exist. The first explanation is highly improbable considering the Greeks’ artistic conscience, and furthermore in their statues of women no trace of this horizontal iliac line is ever apparent. The only reasonable inference is that these muscles, which with us are so undeveloped as to be invisible, were the result of the constant physical training to which the Greek man, but not the Greek woman, was habituated.

In an artistic sense there can be no doubt as to the excellent effect which the ancient line produces. It gives proportion and an air of solidity and greatly diminishes the superficial area of the abdomen. And that it represented a real condition rather than an artistic ideal is a very probable fact, for the statues of Greek athletes often represent positions which for us with our weak abdomens are almost impossible of attainment. One of the most perfect of all, Myron’s Diskobolos—the young athlete throwing the diskos—seemed to Herbert Spencer ‘an impossible contortion’; and after a close examination of its poise he declared that at the next moment—if the action were continued—it would fall upon its nose. It is quite possible that such a regrettable accident would have been the result if our revered philosopher had attempted to perform the movement, but themuscles of the Greek body, properly trained and hardened, found in it no insuperable difficulty.

The movement that Myron represents is the swing back of the diskos. The athlete has already taken his stance, and with left foot forward has extended the diskos horizontally to the front in his right hand. Then comes the decisive action: the whole weight of the body is transferred to the right foot, whose toes grip the ground at full tension; the left foot trails back, offering no resistance either to the pause or the coming momentum; the body swings round upon the fixed pivot of the right foot. The diskos held in the right hand comes downwards and backwards; head and body turn with it; the next moment the body will swing round again with a forward lift and the diskos will fly from the extended hand. Whether the force of the throw relies entirely upon the lift of the thighs and the swing of the body, or upon the arm alone, swinging rapidly in a free shoulder socket, will depend upon the weight of the diskos used. In either case it is the pause at the end of the backward swing that the sculptor has fixed in the bronze.

Only in imagination can we see the actions by which the body has got into this position and by which it will again recover its equilibrium. It illustrates one of Lessing’s sayings in theLaocoön: ‘Of ever changing nature the artist can use only asingle moment and this from a single point of view. And as his work is meant to be looked at not for an instant but with long consideration, he must choose the most fruitful moment, and the most fruitful point of view, that, to wit, which leaves the power of imagination free.’

One of the greatest benefits that the ancient Greeks have bestowed upon the modern world, if only we like to make use of it, is the standard of bodily perfection they have bequeathed to us in the remains of their sculpture. Just as Greek literature is eternally precious, not only for itself but as a criterion of beauty, so Greek statuary supplies us with visible proof of the power and grace to which the human body with proper care and training can attain. Besides the Diskobolos we have an admirable example of slender vigour in the Hermes of Praxiteles, of athletic strength in the Hagias of Lysippus, of grave dignity in the Charioteer of Delphi, of poise and balance in the Archers of the Ægina pediment, and of what the Greeks considered perfect proportion in the various copies—all unfortunately rather late and lifeless—of the Doryphoros of Polycleitus, from which the sculptor himself worked out his ideal canon.

Of examples of female beauty we have an equal wealth, and almost every movement of the body may be illustrated from some extant statue. For walking, we have the Victory of Pæonius, stepping freely forward with her light linen robe blowing back against her girlish limbs, and the more mature figure of the Victory of Samothrace. To some modern critics both statues seem to be flying through the air, but the appearance of winged motion is in reality simply due to the fact that they are walkingcorrectly, using about half the effort, and covering at each pace nearly double the ground that a modern woman would traverse.

As types of the standing position there are the three great statues of Venus in Paris, Rome, and Florence. The Venus de Milo, more beautiful than any modern body with her mingled charm of grace and vigour, the tapering waist line and fine hips giving grace, the strength and development of the abdominal muscles promising the perfect fulfilment of woman’s noblest task; the Venus of Cnidus, where again the line of beauty is the line of the hips, as the goddess stands with left knee bent resting the weight of her body on the right flank; the Venus de Medici, less vigorous at first sight than the other two, but revealing on a closer view a subtle complexity of sinew and muscle about the waist line, where the modern corset leaves unsightly rolls of fat and muscles atrophied.

For sitting, there is the group known usually as ‘The Three Fates,’ from the east pediment of the Parthenon; the figures resting, but resting with knowledge, the shoulders square and thorax high

THE VICTORY OF PAIONIOS (Olympia)

arched, the body not allowed to collapse in an inert mass, but ready at need to spring again at once into active life. Another example is the crouching Venus of the Vatican, set in a position of modest grace which a modern woman would find almost impossible of attainment. With us the cartilages of the breast bone are practically useless and the thorax is left unsupported; Greek women were able to move the entire thorax sideways, a capacity we have lost, and when lowering their bodies they kept them, as does the goddess here, with the longitudinal axis of the torso remaining as far as possible in the vertical plane.

If we need types of more active motion, there is the Amazon from the pediment at Epidaurus, her body perfectly poised as her thigh muscles press the horse’s side; or the Athena of the Æginetan pediment showing us how with proper control of the muscles it is possible to turn the body through three-quarters of a circle without moving the feet; and the exquisite bronze Fortune at Naples, a perfect example of muscular balance—‘drawn up on the extreme points of her toes, she looks as though hovering over the world, light as thistledown, and yet in her tense immobility the very essence of Force.’

It has often been said that the marvellous achievements of Greek sculptors were a result of their daily opportunities of seeing the nude form; butnudity alone does not suffice. The greatest sculptor of our time tried the experiment of studying his nude models as they walked to and fro at their ease in his great room at the Hotel Biron. We saw the result: critics accused him of a love for the grotesque and the uncouth, while Rodin himself was reduced to the theory that for the artist nothing is ugly. The truth is that the naked body of a modern grown man is not beautiful, and therefore a faithful transcription such as Rodin gives cannot be beautiful. But the Greek models were beautiful, because beauty of body had been developed by a system of gymnastics universally applied.

With their statues to guide us, it will be our own fault if we do not again reach the standard of physical perfection which the Greeks attained; for it is a curious and inspiriting fact that the human form almost immediately responds to any opportunity that is given it, and that with each child the race begins anew. What we need is a national training, carefully planned by experts and adapted alike for children, youths and grown men. And with it we need a fuller realization of the duty that every one owes to himself, and a deeper determination to make each part of our body as beautiful as nature allows. Listen to the words of the wisest of philosophers:

‘It is a shameful thing to grow old in neglect,without having realized to the utmost such strength and beauty as your body is capable of. Strength and beauty will not come of themselves: the man who takes no care for them will never possess them.’

BALL games, as we know from Homer, were from the earliest times popular among the Greeks, being especially esteemed for the grace of body which the act of throwing and catching gives. The central incident of theOdysseyis connected with such a game, for it was a lost ball that roused Odysseus from his sleep in the bush and led to his discovery by Nausicaa. At Athens in the fifth century they were, for men, rather overshadowed by the gymnastic exercises already described, but youths found in them a favourite diversion, and the poet Sophocles in his tragedy of theNausicaawon particular praise in the title-rôle—a non-speaking part—because of his dexterous skill. Those who played, as Athenæus tells us, always paid great attention to elegance of attitude, and he quotes from the comic poet Demoxenus:

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