We have already had occasion to allude to the important part played by gymnastics in Greek life. In the Doric states it was the basis of the education of girls as well as boys, and even at Athens the training of the body was an important feature of the education of boys and youths, and was also diligently cultivated even afterwards for the sake of developing and strengthening the body. We have now to consider the most important of these gymnastic exercises, and the mode in which they were carried on, dealing first with the easier and simpler ones, and afterwards with the more difficult and complicated. One of the chief exercises in the gymnastic schools and at the sports was jumping. Along with running, quoit-throwing, wrestling, and boxing, jumping was regarded even in the Homeric age as part of gymnastics, but we know very little of the mode in which it was practised. In the historic period we find the same kinds of jumping as at the present day, namely, the high jump, the long jump, and the high long jump; among these the long jump was of the first importance, and was the only one in use at the contests. While we, however, confine ourselves more to the jump with or without a spring-board, and use no artificial means except perhaps a pole, in ancient times weights (ἁλτῆρες) were largely in use, and though they required a greater effort on the part of the jumper on account of the additional weight, yet they gave him some advantage by increasing the impetus. These weights are simply dumb-bells made of metal or stone, and resemble in shape those which we use at the present day for very different purposes. There were two kinds. The older form resembled the segment of a circle, somewhat smaller than a semicircle, part of the circle being used as a handle. This older kind of dumb-bell, which is represented on many vase pictures, was used in later times chiefly for hygienic purposes. Another kind came into general use for sports, and especially the Pentathlon; these exactly resembled our modern dumb-bells, for which, indeed, they served as models. A round ball is fastened at either end of a massive handle, bent into something of a curve, and sometimes--especially when they were used not merely to exercise the arms but in leaping--one of these balls was larger and heavier than the other, and this, in the leap, was thrust forward. We are expressly told that these dumb-bells were also used in ancient gymnastics for strengthening the shoulders, arms, and fingers, and on many old vase paintings, where we see dumb-bells in the hands of youths, the attitude suggests such exercises and not jumping. In the painting represented in Fig. 118 one of the men holds two such dumb-bells in his hands; it is not easy to decide whether he is preparing to jump, as is usually supposed, or is only practising dumb-bell exercises. Still, the latter seems to have been a subordinate use only, and the chief use of the [Illustration: FIG. 118.]