across the soft sands.  There is much shouting and good-natured rivalry.  As each lad leaps, an eager attendant marks his distance with a line drawn by the pickaxe.  The lines gradually extend ever farther from the mound.  The rivalry is keen.  Finally, there is one leap that far exceeds the rest.[*] A merry crowd swarms around the blushing victor.  A grave middle-aged man takes the ivy crown from his head, and puts it upon the happy youth.  “Your father will take joy in you,” he says as the knot breaks up.

[*]If the data of the ancients are to be believed, the Greeks achieved records in leaping far beyond those of any modern athletes, but it is impossible to rely on data of this kind.

149.  Quoit Hurling.—­Close by the leapers is another stretch of yellow sand reserved for the quoit throwers.  The contestants here are slightly older,—­stalwart young men who seem, as they fling the heavy bronze discus, to be reaching out eagerly into the fullness of life and fortune before them.  Very graceful are the attitudes.  Here it was the sculptor Miron saw his “Discobolus” which he immortalized and gave to all the later world; “stooping down to take aim, his body turned in the direction of the hand which holds the quoit, one knee slightly bent as though he meant to vary the posture and to rise with the throw."[*] The caster, however, does not make his attempt standing.  He takes a short run, and then the whole of his splendid body seems to spring together with the cast.

[*]The quotation is from Lucian (Roman Imperial period).

150.  Casting the javelin.—­The range of the quoit hurlers in turn seems very great, but we cannot delay to await the issue.  Still elsewhere in the Academy they are hurling the javelin.  Here is a real martial exercise, and patriotism as well as natural athletic spirit urges young men to excel. the long light lances are being whirled at a distant target with remarkable accuracy; and well they may, for every contestant has the vision of some hour when he may stand on the poop of a trireme and hear the dread call, “All hands repel boarders,” or need all his darts to break up the rush of a pursuing band of hoplites.

151.  Wrestling.—­The real crowds, however, are around the wrestlers and the racers.  Wrestling in its less brutal form is in great favor.  It brings into play all the muscles of a man; it tests his resources both of mind and body finely.  It is excellent for a youth and it fights away old age.  The Greek language is full of words and allusions taken from the wrestler’s art.  The palestras for the boys are called “the wrestling school” par excellence.  It is no wonder that now the ring on the sands is a dense one and constantly growing.  Two skilful amateurs will wrestle.  One—­a speedy rumor tells us—­is, earlier and later in the day, a rising comic poet; the other is not infrequently heard on the Bema.  Just at present, however, they have forgotten anapests and oratory.  A crowd of cheering, jesting friends thrusts them on.  Forth they stand, two handsome, powerful men, well oiled for suppleness, but also sprinkled with fine sand to make it possible to get a fair grip in the contest.