The question of the long jump is more interesting, as it still forms a part of our contests. It is not certain whether the old Greeks practised the running jump, or the high jump, for we never hear of a preliminary start, or of any difficulty about “breaking trig,” as people now call it. Furthermore, an extant epigram on a celebrated athlete, Phayllus of Kroton, asserts that he jumped clean over the prepared ground (which was broken with a spade) on to the hard ground beyond—a distance of forty-nine feet. We cannot, of course, though some German professors believe it, credit this feat, if it were a single long jump, yet we can find no trace of anything like a hop, step, and jump, so that it seems wonderful how such an absurdity should be gravely repeated in an epigram. But the exploit became proverbial, and to leap _ὑπὲρ τὰ σκάμματα_ (beyond the digging) was a constantly repeated phrase. The length of Phayllus’s leap would be even more incredible if the competition was in a standing jump, and yet the figures of athletes on vases which I have seen strongly favor this supposition. They are represented not as running, but as standing and swinging the dumb-bells or _ἁλτῆρες_ (jumpers), which were always used by the older Greeks, as assisting them materially in increasing their distance. I can imagine this being the case in a standing jump where a man rose with the forward swing of the weights, but in a running jump the carrying of the weights must surely impede rather than assist him. I know that Irish peasants, who take off very heavy boots to jump, often carry one in each hand, and throw them backward violently as they rise from the ground; but this principle is not admitted so far as I know, by any scientific authority, as of the slightest assistance. We hear of no vaulting or jumping with a pole, so that in fact the leap seems an isolated contest, and of little interest except as determining one of the events of the pentathlon, in which a man must win three in order to be declared victor. This pentathlon, as comprising gentlemanly exercise without much brutality, was especially patronized by the Spartans. It was attempted for boys, but immediately abandoned, the strain being thought excessive for growing constitutions.