despise the union of the ornamental with the useful, and claim austerity as the rule of life, yet to the great body of the social Greek people the gymnasium offered all those attractions which boulevards, cafes, and jardins-chantants do now to the Gallic nation.  There is more than one point of resemblance between the two countries; but while the Athenian had the same mercurial qualities, which fitted him for outdoor life, he had even a less comfortable domestic establishment to retain him at home than the modern Parisian.

We must turn, however, rather to the physical view of the gymnasium.  All the sports of the gymnasia were either games, or special exercises for the contests of the public festivals.  And here a distinction must be made between amateur and professional gymnasts.  The former were styled agonistae, and exercised in the public gymnasium; the latter athletae, and were trained fighters, whose school was the palaestra.  At first frequenting the same, they afterwards became divided between two institutions.  Some of the harsher sports of the prize-fighters were not thought genteel for well-nurtured youths to indulge in.  Among the simpler games were the ball, played in various ways, and the top, which was as popular with juveniles then as now.  The sport called skaperda can be seen in any gymnasium of to-day, and consisted in two boys drawing each other up and down by the ends of a rope passing over a pulley.  Familiar still is also a game of dexterity played with five stones thrown from the upper part of the hand and caught in the palm.  Various other gentle exercises might be mentioned.

The training for the public games was comprised in the pentathlon, or five exercises,—­which were running, leaping, throwing the discus, wrestling, boxing.  The first four were practised also by amateurs, and by most persons who frequented the gymnasium for health.

The race, run upon the foot-race course, was between fixed boundaries, about a stadium apart.  The distances run were from one to twenty stadia, or from one-eighth of a mile to two and a half miles, and sometimes more.  This exercise was much followed.  Horses were sometimes introduced, but then the hippodrome was the course.  They ran without riders, as at the Roman carnival, or with chariots.  Horse-racing was most popular in the Roman circus, whose ruins still show its massiveness and great size.

Leaping was performed also within fixed limits,—­generally with metallic weights in the hands, but sometimes attached to the head or shoulders.

The quoit, or discus, was made of stone or metal, of a circular form, and thrown by means of a thong passing through the centre.  It was three inches thick and ten or twelve in diameter.  He who threw farthest, won.  It is a modern game also, and is imitated in the Old-Country custom of pitching the bar.