Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 1 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-40, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863Miles, Henry Downes
History
Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 1 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-40, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863
Miles, Henry Downes
Boxing
ANTÆUS here claims a place. We have had a couple from heaven (by
Jupiter), and one from the sea (by Neptune), our next shall be from
earth and ocean combined. Antæus, though principally renowned as a
wrestler, is represented with the cæstus. He was the son of Terra, by
Neptune; or, as the stud-book would put it, by Neptune out of Terra. He
was certainly dreadfully given to “bounce,” for he threatened to erect a
temple to his father with the skulls of his conquered antagonists; but
he planned his house before he had procured the materials. The story
runs, that whenever he kissed his “mother earth” she renewed his
strength, from which we may fairly infer that he was an adept in the art
of “getting down,” like many of our modern pugilists. Hercules, however,
found out the dodge by which the artful Antæus got “second wind” and
renewed strength. He accordingly put on “the squeeze,” and giving him a
cross-lift, held him off the ground till he expired, which we take to
have been foul play on the part of his Herculean godship.[3] There was
another Antæus, a friend of Turnus, killed by Æneas in the Latin wars.
Of the Homeric boxers, EPEUS and EURYALUS are the most renowned. Epeus
was king of the Epei, a people of the Peloponnesus; he was son of
Endymion, and brother to Pæon and Æolus. As his papa was the paramour of
the goddess of chastity, Diana, the family may be said to have moved in
high society. The story of Endymion and the goddess of the moon has been
a favourite with poets. Epeus was a “big one,” and, like others of
Homer’s heroes, a bit of a bully.
In the twenty-third book of the Iliad we find the father of poetry
places the games at the funeral of Patroclus in this order:—1, The
chariot race; 2, the cæstus fight; 3, the wrestling; 4, the foot race.
As it is with the second of these only that Epeus and Euryalus are
concerned, we shall confine ourselves to the Homeric description.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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