Quoit-throwing, as well as running and jumping, was taught even to boys, but undoubtedly they used smaller and lighter discs than men. The disc from Aegina, now in the Berlin Museum, one side of which is represented above in Fig. 119, was only eight inches in diameter, and about four pounds weight, but was probably never used as an actual implement of the school. Throwing the javelin was also taught in the boys’ gymnastic schools. This was originally a military exercise; we find it mentioned in heroic times, not only as a mode of fighting, but also as a game. In the gymnastic schools of the boys and youths they often used, as we may tell from the pictures, instead of a real spear, a blunt stick of about the same length, but they must sometimes have made use of real spears with sharp points for their exercises, since the orator Antiphon tells us that one of the older boys at the [Illustration: FIG. 124.] [Illustration: FIG. 125.] gymnasium killed a younger one, who had by mistake run in the way, and this would have been impossible if a mere stick had been used. Probably the weight of the spears was gradually increased, as also of the quoits, and the youths used heavier weapons than the boys, while the men in their turn used still heavier ones. We may, however, infer that, besides throwing a mere stick in which certainty of aim would be the object, they used actual spears, and studied especial ways of managing them, since the javelin, which was supplied with a loop or strap, had to be thrown in a quite peculiar way, while the stick had no loop, and could be quite differently thrown. This loop was near the lower end of the javelin; the thrower put the first and second fingers of his right hand through it--sometimes it was a double loop, so that each finger grasped a separate strap--he laid his thumb on the wood of the spear, which rested on the third or fourth fingers placed underneath, or else on the third finger alone; in this position the hand was drawn backwards and then aim was taken at some definite goal, the nature of which we are not acquainted with. This we learn from the Berlin disc already mentioned (Fig. 126), and also from various vase paintings, and the figure of the giant frieze from Pergamum. The throw was either horizontal, if distance was aimed at, which was most usual, or upwards towards some raised mark. Among gymnastic exercises represented in a vase painting (Fig. 127), throwing the spear also plays a part. We see here, on the left (near the handle), a youth represented as just about to run; on the right, near him, a second is practising dumb-bells, or else preparing to jump. Near a long-robed flute-player, whose music is accompanying the exercises, a spear-thrower is running forward, but his face is not turned forward to the mark, but backward towards the hand which holds the spear (like the throwing Discobolus), so that we must suppose that it was not a question