That athletics were regarded as a mode of enjoyment, as well as of military training, is shown by the fact that when for any reason the exercises of war were suspended, the heroes and their followers resorted to games. It was hardly necessary for warriors with years of experience, to train for the next day’s battle; they exercised, because to do so was a congenial pleasure. Habitual fighting will not alone explain this temperament. With the Hellenes, bodily exercise was almost synonymous with life itself. When they desired to escape from the chilling effect of a hero’s death, they instituted games, and thereby reasserted life. Perhaps the sufficient cause of this predilection for athletic exercise was the climate of the Grecian peninsula. The clear, serene sky over Hellas, the mild, bracing air which permitted nudity but did not dispose to indolence, the picturesque country, girdled by the sea, and presenting such a wonderful interchange of mountains and valleys, smiling plains, and beautifully winding rivers, must necessarily have aroused in the hearts of its people the desire for a free life full of activity in the open air, and thus have contributed to the formation of strong minds in vigorous bodies. In order to understand Homeric athletics--the substantial basis of all subsequent athletics--one must become interested in the method and details of Greek warfare. For to the Greek the road to distinction lay in the acquisition of the qualities required of the successful warrior, and it was only natural that pleasure and expediency should combine to make a pastime of the feats of war. Victory in modern warfare is achieved largely by the use of superior machines and by advantage of position. Until the time of Alexander, victory among the Greeks, depended on the muscular power, endurance, and skill of the individual warriors. The central and principal feature of early Greek warfare was a personal hand-to-hand grapple. Therefore, it was essential in preparing for war that each separate soldier should be made as active and vigorous as possible. That this mode of warfare prevailed until a late date, may be seen from the fact that Plutarch attributed the victory of the Thebans over the Spartans at the battle of Leuktra, B. C. 371, to the superiority of the former in the art of wrestling.