In Greek boxing there was no ring and therefore little close fighting, there were no rounds and therefore the pace was slow, for rushing tactics marked the untrained man; lastly, there was no classification by weight; the heavier the man the greater his chance of success, so that a meat diet for boxers was almost compulsory, and boxing became practically the monopoly of the heavy-weights. As thongs or gloves were always used on the hands, wrestling was impossible, and in later times at least the defence was all-important. It seems fairly well established that body-hitting was not practised, and in the Hellenistic age a fight was usually decided by a knock-out blow on the jaw. But in the best period the Greek boxer used both his hands freely, was active on his feet, and had a considerable variety of attack. The introduction of heavy gloves vitiated the art, and boxers began to rely merely on their weight and defensive powers. Of all these stages we have plentiful evidence both in art and literature, for boxing and its preliminaries are among the favourite subjects of vase painters, while in poetry, beside the account of the fight between Odysseus and the beggar Irus in the _Odyssey_ and between Entellus and Dares in the _Æneid_, we have a really enthusiastic and expert description by Theocritus of the great struggle between Amycus and Polydeuces. The battle is as vividly described as the epic contest in the Dell between Lavengro and the Flaming Tinman, and the poet, by making it a fight between the old school of scientific activity and the new method of stolid strength, ingeniously enlists our sympathies from the first upon the side of skill against brute force. ‘Then Amycus came on furiously, making play with both hands; but Pollux smote him on the point of the chin as he charged, maddening him the more, and the giant confused the fighting, laying on with all his might, and going in with head down.... But the son of Zeus stepped now this side, now that, and hit him with both fists in turn, and checked his onslaught, for all his monstrous strength. Like a drunken man he reeled beneath the hero’s blows, and spat out the red blood, while all the princes shouted together, as they marked the ugly bruises about his mouth and jaws, and saw his eyes half closed by puffy flesh. Next Pollux began to tease him, feinting on every side, and at last, seeing that he was now quite bewildered, he got in a smashing blow just above the middle of the nose beneath the eyebrows, and laid the bone of his forehead bare. Stretched on his back the giant fell amid the flowers; but he rose again, and the fighting went on fiercely. They mauled each other hard, laying on with the weighted thongs; but the giant was always busy with his fists on the other’s chest and outside his neck, while Pollux, the invincible, kept on smashing his opponent’s face with cruel blows.’ (Theocritus: _Idyll_, XXII, 87-111.) [Illustration: A WRESTLING CONTEST (Athens)]