[Illustration: Fig. 23. Professional boxer, from mosaic in Thermae of Caracalla. Lateran.]
The athletes of the second century must at least be credited with a certain amount of brute strength, but in the generation which succeeded Galen even their strength fell off, if we may believe the statement of Philostratus, who wrote in the first half of the third century. His work on the art of gymnastic reads like an answer to Galen’s attack on athletics, and is marked by a strong bias against the medical profession, whom he holds responsible for enervating athletics by the introduction of ridiculous and effeminate rules of diet.[281] By gymnastic, he understands the art of training athletes, which in opposition to Galen he describes as an art inferior to no other and akin to the arts of the doctor and paidotribes. The latter is concerned merely with actual exercises and movements, while the trainer requires a knowledge of the human body which may enable him to prescribe in each case the diet and training necessary to correct any defect. Thus the gymnastes cures by exercise and massage diseases for which the doctor employs potions, plasters, and fomentations. The decline in the athlete’s physique Philostratus ascribes to a vicious system of training due in the first instance to the quackery of doctors. The valetudinarianism of the second century had produced, as it always does, a host of impostors with quack systems and rules for health, some of which were imported into athletics. Medicine, says Philostratus, has pampered athletics, and rendered athletes dainty and luxurious. They are told to remain seated, stuffed with food, for a long time before taking exercise. Their diet consists of seasoned breads, of fish, and pork. Different kinds of fish are credited with different qualities; their pork must come from pigs fed only on cornel nuts and acorns and not reared in the neighbourhood of the sea or of rivers. We all know this sort of fad; our own age has produced by the score systems no less absurd. The inventors of such systems always insist that their patients must follow their rules without deviating from them a hairbreadth. So the Greek trainers developed hard-and-fast systems of training which they applied indifferently to all alike, to boys as well as men, without any regard to the individual’s needs. Boys trained on the same principles as men lost all the buoyancy and activity natural to their age and became lazy, heavy, and sluggish. The most absurd of these systems was that known as the Tetrad, a scheme of work for four days, by which the athlete’s life was regulated. Each day had its own work. The first day’s work, consisting of light and quick movements, “prepared” the athlete; the second “extended” him and tested all his powers of endurance; the third “relaxed” him by means of gentle movements; the fourth, consisting apparently of movements of defence, left him in a middle state.