Anacharsis, or Athletics (6-10)

SOLON It is only natural, Anacharsis, that what they are doing should have that appearance to you, since it is unfamiliar and very much in contrast with Seythian customs. In like manner you yourselves probably have much io your education and training which would appear strange to us Greeks if one of us should look in upon it as you are doing now. But have no fear, my dear sir; it is not insanity, and it is not out of brutality that they strike one another and tumble each other in the mud, or sprinkle each other with dust. The thing has a certain usefulness, not unattended by pleasure, and it gives much strength to their bodies. As a matter of fact, if you stop for some time, as I think you will, in Greece, before long you yourself will be one of the muddy or dusty set; so delightful and at the same time so profitable will the thing seem to you.

ANACHARSIS Get out with you, Solon! You Greeks may have those benefits and pleasures. For my part, if one of you should treat me like that, he will find out that we do not carry these daggers at our belts for nothing!

But tell me, what name do you give to these performances? What are we to say they are doing?

SOLON The place itself, Anacharsis, we call a gymnasium, and it is consecrated to Lyceian Apollo; you see his statue—the figure leaning against the pillar, with the bow in his left hand; his right arm bent back above

As for these forms of athletics, that one yonder in the mud is called wrestling, and the men in the dust are wrestling too. When they stand upright and strike one another, we call it the pancratium.[*]. We have other such athletic exercises, too—boxing, throwing the discus, and jumping— in all of which we hold contests, and the winner is considered best in his class and carries off the prizes.

ANACHARSIS And these prizes of yours, what are they?

SOLON At the Olympic games, a wreath made of wild olive, at the Isthmian one of pine, and at the Nemean one of parsley, at the Pythian some of the apples sacred to Apollo, and with us at the Panathenaea, the oil from the holy olive.[*] What made you laugh, Anacharsis? Because you think these prizes trivial?

ANACHARSIS No, the prizes that you have told off are absolutely imposing, Solon; they may well cause those who have offered them to glory in their munificence and the contestants themselves to be tremendously eager

SOLON But, my dear fellow, it is not the bare gifts that we have in view! They are merely tokens of the victory and marks to identify the winners. But the reputation that goes with them is worth everything to the victors, and to attain it, even to be kicked is nothing to men who seek to capture fame through hardships. Without hardships it cannot be acquired; the man who covets it must put up with many unpleasantnesses in the beginning before at last he can expect the profitable and delightful outcome of his exertions,

ANACHARSIS By this delightful and profitable outcome, Solon, you mean that everybody will see them wearing wreaths and will applaud them for their victory after having pitied them a long time beforehand for their hard knocks, and that they will be felicitous to have apples and parsley in compensation for their hardships!

SOLON You are still unacquainted with our ways, I tell you. After a little you will think differently about