Jumping is not a military exercise but an amusement of peace. It is useful, of course, at times for a soldier to be able to leap over any obstacle in his way. But the Homeric chieftain was not suitably dressed for such feats of agility, whether he went to war in Mycenaean style with his long-shadowing spear and towerlike shield reaching down to his feet, or like the later hoplite arrayed in panoply of bronze. For flight or pursuit he trusted in his chariot and horses. Hence jumping was no part of his training, and it is mentioned in Homer only as an accomplishment of the peaceful Phaeacian traders. Pindar, true to Homeric tradition, does not include it among the sports introduced by Heracles in the first Olympic games, and Plato has no use for it in the training of his soldier-citizens. In athletic festivals the jump was one of the events of the pentathlon, but never existed as an independent competition. Yet it must have been always a popular exercise and amusement, and its popularity during the sixth and fifth centuries is shown by the frequency with which it is depicted on vases. Pentathletes were sometimes represented with jumping weights in their hands, and the jump seems to have been regarded as the typical event of the pentathlon.^[531] Perhaps it owed its importance to the part which the jumping weights played in physical training, at least in later times. They were used much in the same way as the modern dumb-bells, and many of the modern dumb-bell exercises were known to the Greeks and freely practised, especially in medical gymnastics.

The only form of jumping that had any place in athletic competitions was the long jump. The explanation of this is obvious. Greece was not a land of fences or hedges, and the only natural obstacles which it afforded were streams and ditches. There is no ground for the statement frequently made that the Greeks practised also the high jump, and the deep jump, much less that they practised the pole jump. They certainly used a spear or a pole in vaulting on horseback (Fig. 174), but the so-called jumping poles are now universally recognized as either javelins or measuring rods. A certain number of vase paintings may possibly represent the high jump, but they may just as well represent a standing long jump; none represent jumping from a height, or the deep jump.

It would be rash to say that such exercises were never practised; but certainly they were unknown in athletic competitions. In the daily life of the palaestra and gymnasium there must have been countless exercises and feats practised, of which no record survives. Lucian describes the athletes in the gymnasium jumping up and down like runners, but without moving from their places, and kicking the air.^[532] The exercise is that known in the modern gymnasium as “knees up,” and is apparently the same as that described by Seneca as “the fuller’s jump,”^[533] from its resemblance to the action of a fuller jumping up and down on the clothes in his tub. The Spartan Lampito in the Lysistrata of Aristophanes ascribes her complexion and figure to her athletic training, and mentions an exercise, not unknown in foreign gymnasia and dancing-schools, of jumping up and down and kicking the buttocks with alternate feet.^[534] Another Spartan lady claims to have made a record by repeating this feat a thousand times. But these tricks belong rather to the sphere of dancing than to that of athletics, though we must remember that dancing was an important part of Greek physical training. Its value consisted chiefly in graceful and rhythmic movement; but its practice also involved a variety of jumps, hops, flings, and kicks. Hopping (?s????as??)^[535] was a favourite amusement, but can hardly claim to be classed under athletics, unless we suppose that the Greek jump was a hop, skip, and jump.^[536] At the Dionysia there was a popular competition in which the competitors had to hop on to a greased wine-skin full of wine. He who succeeded in hopping on to it and staying there took it as a prize, while the falls of the unsuccessful were a source of boundless amusement to the populace. Mr. Henry Balfour informs me that the game still exists in Northern Greece.

The Greeks jumped into a pit (s??a)^[537] the ground of which had been carefully dug up and levelled. The same term skamma is also used of the wrestling ring. The picks (s?ap??a?) used for loosening the ground are frequently represented on athletic scenes on the vases, and the exercise of digging with them was regarded as a valuable means of training, especially for wrestlers and boxers.^[538] The ground of the skamma was soft, so as to take the impress of the jumper’s feet. No jump was allowed to be measured unless the impress of the feet was regular, says Philostratus, meaning thereby that if the jumper fell or stumbled or landed with one foot in advance of the other, the jump was not counted.^[539] In all athletics the Greeks attached great importance to style. If we are to believe the legends recorded by scholiasts and lexicographers about Phaÿllus, the length of the skamma was 50 feet. One version of this story is that Phaÿllus having jumped 5 feet beyond the skamma, on to the hard ground, broke his leg—a contingency by no means unlikely if such a jump were possible.^[540]

The take-off (at??) was at one end of the skamma. It is marked in vase paintings, sometimes by spears or poles placed in the ground, sometimes by pillars similar to those that mark the start of the running track.^[541] Possibly the stone starting-lines of the stadium may have served as the bater. The word merely denotes a stepping-place or threshold. We know that the bater must have been hard and firm,^[542] but whether it was made of wood or stone we cannot say. There is no evidence for the use of any kind of spring-board in athletics.^[543]

The jumps were measured by rods (?a???e?),^[544] and the individual jumps were marked either by pegs or by lines drawn in the sand. On a vase in the British Museum (Fig. 67) three vertical lines are drawn beneath the figure of a jumper in mid-air, and three similar lines occur under a jumper depicted on an Etruscan carnelian. They mark the jumps of previous competitors, but may equally well be interpreted as pegs or as lines in the sand. Certainly they are not, as has been sometimes suggested, spikes or arrows set there to give zest and danger to the sport. The acrobat might turn somersaults over swords and spikes, but the acrobat was a slave-girl usually, not a free citizen, and the Greeks fully appreciated the difference between acrobatics and athletics.

The Greek jumper generally used jumping weights (??t??e?). These halteres were of stone or metal, and differed considerably in shape and weight. We cannot say when their use came in. Homer does not mention them, but we find them already in existence at the very beginning of the sixth century, if not earlier. To this period belongs an inscribed halter of lead found at Eleusis, perhaps one of a pair, dedicated by a certain Epaenetus to commemorate his victory in the jump (Fig. 60).^[545] It is merely an oblong piece of lead about 4-1/2 inches long, 1-1/2 broad, and with the sides slightly concave, varying in depth from 1-1/4 inch at either end to less than an inch in the centre. It weighs 4 lbs. 2 oz. (1·888 kg.).

The vase paintings show that a large variety of shapes existed during the sixth and fifth centuries. There are two main types. On the earliest black-figured vases the halter appears as a nearly semicircular piece of metal or stone with a deep recess on the straight or lower side, which affords a convenient grip. The two club-like ends are equal, and the effect is that of a curved flattened dumb-bell. This type does not occur after the sixth century, towards the close of which the halter is improved by an increase in the size of the end projecting to the front, and a decrease in the hinder part. Numerous modifications of this type appear on the vases, differing mainly in the size and shape of the club-like ends. The British Museum possesses a pair of these halteres (Fig. 61). They are of lead about 8 inches long, affording a comfortable grip for the hand in the centre. One of the pair is damaged, the other weighs about 2 lbs. 5 oz. (1·072 kg.). A similar pair found at Athens are in the Museum at Copenhagen. They are somewhat shorter and heavier (1·610 and 1·480 kg. respectively), and the recess is so narrow that they can only have been held by the smaller end, and not in the centre.

Side by side with this club-like type we find in the fifth century another type consisting of an elongated, roughly semispherical block of metal or stone, thickest in the middle, with the ends pointed or rounded, the upper side being pierced or cut away, so as to furnish a grip for the thumb and fingers. These are the “old-fashioned” dumb-bells which Pausanias describes as held by a statue of Agon, which was dedicated by Micythus in the second half of the fifth century. Of this type we possess two interesting examples both of stone, a pair of halteres found at Corinth, and now in the Museum at Athens, and a single halter found at Olympia, and now at Berlin, a cast of which may be seen in the British Museum. Those from Corinth (Fig. 62) are nearly 10-1/4 inches long, and 4 inches deep by 3 broad. A little distance behind the centre they are cut through, the depression on one side affording a hold for the thumb, that on the other side for the four fingers. The Olympic halter (Fig. 61) is larger and more primitive. It is a right-handed halter 11-1/2 inches long, and weighs over 10 lbs., or four times as much as the leaden halteres in the British Museum. The surface of the stone is left rough, and the grip is formed by cutting away the stone on either side, so as to enable the hand to grasp it.

After the fifth century there is no evidence as to the form of the halteres until Roman times. On Roman copies of athletic statues a new cylindrical type of halter is represented, and the same appears on mosaics and wall paintings.^[546] It is merely a cylinder slightly narrower at the centre than at the ends, like a dice-box, and though very useful for dumb-bell exercises, can hardly have been as handy for jumping as the earlier types. We do not know when this type came in. The British Museum possesses a curious example of it, found at Camirus in Rhodes (Fig. 61). It is made of limestone, 7-1/2 inches long, and carefully grooved, so as to afford grips for the thumb and each of the fingers. References in late authors indicate that the halteres were usually not of stone, but of lead.

Philostratus distinguishes two kinds of halteres: “the long,” which “exercise shoulders and hands”; the spherical, which “also exercise the fingers.”^[547] It is clear that these cannot correspond to the two types which we found prevalent in the fifth century. For Pausanias regards one at least of these types as “old-fashioned,” and Philostratus is speaking of the halteres in use in his own day. Though he describes the halteres as an “invention of the pentathlon, and invented, as its name denotes, for the jump,” his ideas of their use for this purpose are of the vaguest,^[548] and he regards them principally as a means of training, employed, he says, by all athletes alike, “whether heavy or light.” It seems, therefore, that his “long halteres” are those used by the heavy athletes, the boxer or the wrestler, while the spherical ones are those used by light athletes, the runner or the spear-thrower. The former may be identified with the cylindrical halteres; the latter are perhaps little more than balls of wood or lead, such as are recommended by a medical writer in the early fifth century A.D., for the use of those suffering from gout in their hands.^[549]

The manner of using the halteres is clearly shown on the vases. The principle is the same as that of a standing jump, the utilization of the swing of the arms to assist the spring of the legs. The jumper swings the halteres forwards and upwards till they are level with, or higher than, his head, and then swings them vigorously downwards, at the same time bending his body till his hands are just below his knees. The actual jump takes place on the return swing. As the hands swing to the front, and the centre of gravity is shifted forward, the knees, which have been bent on the back swing, are vigorously straightened, and the swing of the halteres combines with the push of the legs to propel the body forwards. In the case of a standing jump the preliminary swing may be repeated two or three times.

It is this preliminary swing which is most frequently depicted on vases. On a red-figured pelike in the British Museum (Fig. 63) we see a youth preparing to jump. The right leg, which is advanced, is straight, and he is just in the act of swinging the halteres to the front. Opposite him stands a flute-player in a long striped and spotted robe, playing the double flute. The jump was always accompanied by music. But why the jumper especially required this assistance is not clear. Philostratus gives as the reason that the Greeks regarded the jump as the most strenuous of all exercises. But this is hardly satisfactory. It seems probable that in early days flute-playing was a common accompaniment of all athletic exercises. The Argives wrestled to the accompaniment of the flute. On the chest of Cypselus, Admetus, and Mopsus were represented boxing to music, on vases the flute-player accompanies the diskos-thrower in his exercise, and less frequently the spear-thrower.^[550] Possibly the rhythmical swing of the diskos and the halteres may have been assisted by the strains of music. But I suspect that the special connexion between the jump and the flute dates from the time when the halteres had already begun to be used as dumb-bells, and it was found that music was of great assistance as an accompaniment of physical drill for large classes.

The two typical moments in the swing, and those therefore which the artist usually selects, are the top of the upward swing and the bottom of the downward swing, though the two types are connected by a closely graduated series of intermediate types.^[551]

A good example of the upward swing occurs on a red-figured krater presented by Campana to the King of Denmark (Fig. 64). It is a scene from the life of the gymnasium, and represents youths practising the exercises of the pentathlon. A diskos in its case hangs on the wall. In the centre stands a flute-player. To the left a youth has swung the halteres vigorously upward; his body is thrown well back, and its weight rests on the right leg, which is behind, the left foot being lifted off the ground by the swing. Next to him stands a javelin-thrower, who has just adjusted the thong of his javelin, and is drawing back his arm to throw. Beyond the flute-player a diskos-thrower prepares to throw the diskos. All three are depicted at similar stages in their respective exercises. They seem to be moving in time to the music. The fourth figure is also that of a jumper: he is in the attitude of a runner suddenly checking his pace; perhaps he is practising a long jump, and after a short run checks himself in order to swing the halteres before the spring. The upward swing is also represented on black-figured vases, but less vigorously, and with the arms raised slightly higher and somewhat bent.

The downward swing is represented on a red-figured kylix found at Bologna (Fig. 65). The same motive is repeated in a number of red-figured vases, though it does not occur on earlier vases. The scene takes place in a gymnasium, as the strigils and other objects hanging on the walls show. A robed trainer in the centre is resting on his staff and directing the practice of two jumpers. The pillar and javelins on either side mark the bater from which the jumpers take off. The impression produced is of an exercise performed in time to music, or by word of command. Perhaps the Greek trainer taught his pupils jumping “by numbers” as the modern instructor teaches vaulting. At all events, the position shown is one essential to a jumper swinging the halteres before his spring, and is not a mere gymnastic exercise. Nor does the scene represent jumpers jumping from a height, as one writer has suggested. A jumper doing so in this position with weights would probably perform a somersault or land on his head.

On another red-figured kylix we see an excellent picture of a jumper in mid-air (Fig. 66). The style is perfect: he has jumped high, and arms and legs are extended to the front and almost parallel. This vase also represents a practice-scene from the gymnasium. To the right stands a trainer ready to correct any mistake with his rod, and to the left another jumper is swinging his halteres in a somewhat curious style, to which we shall refer again. On the other side of the kylix we see another trainer, a diskobolos, and another jumper, while a pick lies on the ground.

Immediately before alighting the jumper quickly forces his arms backwards, a movement which increases the length of the jump and enables him to land firmly and securely. This moment is admirably represented on a black-figured imitation Corinthian amphora in the British Museum (Fig. 67). The three lines underneath the jumper represent the jumps of other competitors, as has been already explained. A somewhat later moment is shown in an Etruscan wall-painting in a tomb at Chiusi.^[552] The jumper is in the very act of alighting and his body is almost straight.

The method of swinging the halteres and the positions depicted on the vases seem at first sight more suitable for a standing jump than a running jump, and the Greek jump has therefore been described usually as a standing jump. A representation of a jumper running with halteres occurs, however, on a number of vases both black-figured and red-figured.^[553] The realism of the earlier vases despite their grotesqueness makes their evidence very valuable. The run as represented on these vases is by no means incompatible with the use of the halteres. It is not like the run of the modern long-jumper who uses his pace to increase his spring, but like that of the high-jumper, consisting of a few short, springy steps, intended to prepare the limbs and muscles for the final spring. A somewhat exaggerated picture of such a run is seen on a Panathenaic amphora at Leyden,^[554] representing the pentathlon (Fig. 108), and a later picture of it occurs on the interior of a red-figured kylix by Euphronius (Fig. 68). A jumper running appears as the device of a shield on a kylix in the British Museum, representing a hoplitodromos arming for the race.^[555] The run in all these cases is similar, and is quite reconcilable with the upward and downward swings of the halteres. The jumper starts with arms close to the side and takes a short run, holding the halteres to the front. As he nears the bater he checks himself in the manner represented in Fig. 64. As he does so he swings the halteres upwards, and then with a slow stride forwards swings them down again, and on the return swing takes off. Such a run is in accordance with the practice of modern professionals who use jumping weights.^[556]

It seems, then, that the Greeks certainly practised the running jump, and probably also the standing jump. In the pentathlon the somewhat doubtful evidence of the Panathenaic amphorae is in favour of a running jump.

The pentathlete in competition seems always to have used the halteres, but in the gymnasia jumping was also practised without weights. Sometimes the jumper is represented swinging his arms in the same way as he does with the halteres, but on several vases a totally distinct type occurs.^[557] The jumper stands with both feet together, knees well bent, and arms stretched to the front. On one vase he seems to be standing on a low bema or platform, and opposite him is a short pillar, over which Krause supposes he is preparing to jump. The attitude is, however, quite as appropriate to the long jump as to the high jump, and on the interior of a red-figured kylix in Munich we see an almost identical figure, but with the pillar behind and not in front of him. The best example of this attitude is found on a red-figured pelike belonging to Dr. Hauser (Fig. 69). Opposite to the jumper stands a robed trainer, stretching out his hand with a familiar gesture of command. There can be no doubt that these figures represent jumpers, but whether long jumpers or high jumpers we cannot say for certain. What is certain is that the jump is a standing jump.

The use of jumping weights adds considerably to the length of jump possible. The present record for the long jump without weights is 24 feet 11-3/4 inches, whereas with jumping weights and off a board 29 feet 7 inches has been cleared by a jumper, who unassisted could probably not have jumped more than 21 feet. But neither weights nor spring-board can explain the discrepancy between these figures and the feats ascribed to the Greeks. Till recently it was commonly stated, and perhaps believed, that the Greeks jumped 50 feet or more. Even if we make the fullest allowance for the fact that jumping was a national exercise of the Greeks, a single jump of 50 feet is a physical impossibility. Two explanations are possible. Either the Greek jump was not a single jump or the record is pure fiction.

It has been suggested that the Greek jump was a hop, step, and jump, in which case the jump of 55 feet ascribed to Phaÿllus would be a very fine performance, but not perhaps impossible. Unfortunately there is absolutely no evidence in support of this suggestion. For the suggestion that the jump was a triple jump some evidence may be found in the fact that a triple jump is known in the present day in parts of Northern Greece. By itself this fact can hardly be regarded as adequate proof, and there is, I believe, good reason for discrediting all the evidence on which the supposed record rests. The evidence consists in (1) the well-known epigram on Phaÿllus, which states that he jumped 55 feet;^[558] (2) various statements of scholiasts and lexicographers of late and mostly uncertain date; (3) a passage in Africanus, who states that one Chionis, an Olympic victor in Ol. 29 (i.e. seven or eight hundred years before the time of Africanus), jumped 52 feet.

The 52 feet of Africanus is probably a simple mistake for 22 feet, which is the reading of the Armenian Latin text. The various statements of scholiasts and others can all be traced back to the epigram on Phaÿllus, and to an explanation given by some collector of proverbs on the use of the phrase “to jump beyond the pit,”^[559] to denote something extraordinary or excessive, and they have no independent value apart from the epigram.

The Phaÿllus of the epigram is identified by the scholiasts with Phaÿllus of Croton, who in the first half of the fifth century won two victories in the pentathlon and one in the foot-race at Delphi, but won no victory at Olympia. He fought at Salamis in a ship equipped at his own expense. Aristophanes alludes to one Phaÿllus, probably the same man, as a noted runner. He had a statue at Delphi which Pausanias saw, and Alexander the Great is said to have honoured his memory by sending a portion of his Asiatic spoils to Croton. He was evidently a popular hero, just the sort of man about whose exploits all sorts of tales arise. But though Herodotus, Aristophanes, Plutarch, and Pausanias all mention him, they know nothing of the epigram or of the jump. Moreover, according to one statement the epigram was inscribed on the basis of his statue. Parts of this basis and of the inscription have been recently found at Delphi, but, needless to say, there is no trace of the epigram. When the epigram was written we cannot say. Certainly it is not a contemporary commemorative epigram. We meet with it first in Zenobius, a collector of proverbs who lived in the time of Hadrian, and the artificiality of its style is characteristic of the epigrams of this period. But whatever its date it can hardly be regarded as serious evidence. The sporting story is notorious, and the sporting epigram is even less trustworthy than the sporting story. The pages of the Anthology abound in epigrams on famous athletes such as Milo and Ladas, some of them no less incredible. Milo, we are told in one epigram, picked up a four-year-old heifer at Olympia, and after carrying it round the Altis in triumph, killed it and ate it all in a single day. Nobody has yet elaborated a theory to account for this extraordinary gastronomic feat, and yet it rests upon just as good evidence as Phaÿllus’ jump. The mere fact that the numbers five and ten were used by the Greeks proverbially, just as we use the terms “half a dozen” or “a dozen,” sufficiently explains why an epigrammatist wishing to describe a prodigious jump should select such a number as fifty-five.

In Roman times the halteres were used as dumb-bells. The details of such exercises preserved in medical writings prove that they were very similar to those in use at the present day.^[560] Antyllus describes three kinds of this “halter-throwing” (??t??????a). The first consists in bending and straightening the arms, an exercise which strengthens the arms and shoulders. In the other two exercises the arms are extended and take little part in the movement, which consists in lunging with the arms advanced as in boxing, or in alternately bending and straightening the trunk. The former strengthens the legs chiefly, the latter the back. Galen adds a variety of the latter exercise for strengthening the side muscles of the body. The performer places the halteres 6 feet apart, and standing between them picks up first the left-hand halter with his right hand, next the right-hand halter with his left, and then replaces them, repeating the movement. The prominence given to exercises for developing the important muscles of the trunk is interesting, because the careful representation of these muscles in Greek sculpture and on vases shows that they were developed to a marked degree by the athletic exercises of the Greeks. Wrestling, jumping, and throwing the diskos all helped to develop these muscles. The absence of light clothing round the waist contributed to the same result, and, above all, the fact that the Greek stood and walked, but seldom sat. In the present day these muscles are the worst developed of all muscles in the ordinary man, a result due partly to the character of our games, partly to our clothing, chiefly to our habit of sitting, and sitting in a radically wrong position. It is to these causes that we may ascribe the general absence in the modern figure of the roll of flesh above the iliac crest which is so prominent in all ancient sculpture, and the difference in the form of the iliac line.^[561]

When were the halteres first used as dumb-bells? We have no definite evidence, but I venture to suggest as probable that the practice began about the time of the Persian wars, when the Greeks first consciously realized the national importance of athletic training. The first signs of such a use of the halteres occur on the red-figured vases. It began, I conjecture, in connexion with the jump. We have seen how certain vase paintings suggest that the various movements of the jump and the swinging of the halteres were practised in classes and in rhythmical time. Take the swing of the halteres and make of it a separate exercise, and you have at once a familiar and valuable dumb-bell exercise. Not that this exercise was practised by the Greeks at this period consciously as a physical exercise; it was an exercise for jumpers, and practised for the sake of the jump. It was soon found that the swinging of halteres was useful for other exercises. In Fig. 66 we see to the left a youth swinging the halteres sideways, his head is turned towards his extended left arm, and his right arm is bent, the hand being level with the breast. The type occurs on several vases, sometimes the left, sometimes the right arm being extended, but the head is always turned towards the extended hand. Now, if we compare this type with the type of the javelin-thrower drawing back his javelin to throw, we shall find that the position of body, arms, legs, and head is identical in the two types. Does it not seem, then, that we have here a halter exercise suggested by javelin-throwing, perhaps invented by the javelin-thrower to develop the special muscles and practise the special positions required for the throw? Perhaps we may recognize an intermediate position of this swing on a red-figured oinochoe in the British Museum (Fig. 70). In this sideways swing of the halteres we have another familiar exercise of the modern gymnasium. Such exercises intended originally for the jumper or javelin-thrower were subsequently adopted by trainers and medical men, and were incorporated by them in their systems of physical training. This conjectural history of the use of the halteres is confirmed by the fact that on later vases, when athletic scenes have given place to groups of idle epheboi, the halteres are still frequently seen hanging on the wall as the symbol of athletic training.