It is almost conclusive as to the swinging stroke that throughout antiquity a boxer was not known as a man with his nose broken, but as a man _with his ears crushed_. Vergil even speaks of their receiving blows on the back. Against all this there are only two pieces of evidence—one of them incredible—in favor of the straight home stroke. In the fight between Pollux and Amykos, described by Theocritus (_Idyll_ 22), Pollux strikes his man on the left temple, _καὶ ἐπέμπεσεν ὤμῳ_, which may mean, “and follows up the stroke from the shoulder.” But this is doubtful. The other is the story of Pausanias (viii. 40, 3), that when Kreugas and Damoxenos boxed till evening, and neither could hit the other, they at last agreed to receive stroke about, and after Kreugas had dealt Damoxenos one on the head, the latter told him to hold up his hand,(130) and then drove his fingers right into Kreugas, beneath the ribs, and pulled out his entrails. Kreugas of course died on the spot, but was crowned as victor, on the ground that Damoxenos had broken his agreement of striking _one_ blow in turn, by striking him with five separate fingers! But this curious decision was only one of many in which a boxing competitor was disqualified for having fought with the intention of maiming his antagonist. Little need be added about the pankration, which combined boxing and wrestling, and permitted every sort of physical violence except biting. In this contest a mere fall did not end the affair, as might happen in wrestling, but the conflict was always continued on the ground, and often ended in one of the combatants being actually choked, or having his fingers and toes broken. One man, Arrachion, at the last gasp, broke his adversary’s toe, and made him give in, at the moment he was himself dying of strangulation. Such contests were not to the credit either of the humanity or of the good taste of the Greeks, and would not be tolerated even in the lowest of our prize rings. I will conclude this sketch by giving some account of the general management of the prize meetings.