Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/39

14 man's skull or broke his arm. There are no chance blows in a first-rate modern fight with gloves.

But, so far as we can find, the "set-to" of the Greek and Roman boxers was not unlike modern pugilism. The records are rather vague as to the ancient manner of giving and guarding blows, but there are some writings and numerous drawings and carvings showing that the position and action of the engaged boxers were precisely then as they are to-day.

In a Greek drawing of boxers with the cestus now before me, one of the men stands in a most approved modern attitude, the left foot and hand advanced, the left arm slightly bent, and the right arm held across the lower chest, just as a careful boxer of to-day covers "the wind" or "the point."

The Greeks were the first boxers. Pugilism appears to have been one of the earliest distinctions in play and exercise that appeared between the Hellenes and their Asiatic fathers. The unarmed personal encounter was indicative of a sturdier manhood. The suppleness and adroitness of the Oriental were supplanted by the heavier build and more direct attack of the European.

The modern Englishman claims for his country