Pankration:
Martial Art of Classical Greece
By Paul McMichael Nurse, Ph.D.
Contrary to popular perception, fighting arts are not exclusively an
Asian phenomenon, but exist in practically every culture and across all
historical time-frames. It is doubtful if any people, anywhere on earth,
ever lacked completely for some kind of combative techniques with which
to fight savage nature or their sometimes-more savage fellowmen. Moreover,
beliefs and practices that Europeans and North Americans associate with
Asian combative systems often find their counterparts in western fighting
methods. The kiai (shout) of the Japanese martial artist is similar in
purpose and scope to the war-cries of many non-Asian peoples such as Africans,
Amerindians, Celts, Greeks, Romans and Slavs, while the concept of chí
or ki can be found readily in the Grecian belief in pneuma (air, breath,
spirit), an inner power which burns brightly inside each human and, when
properly used, can aid them in attaining superior physical results. Greek
and Roman pugilists frequently broke planks and stones to demonstrate
their prowess, while wrestlers sometimes stood on oiled shields and invited
challengers to push them off--an act reminiscent of aikido and tai chi
ch'uan adepts withstanding the combined force of several men by concentrating
on their center of gravity.
 |
Greek
(525-500 B.C.)
|
|
Greek
(Circa 520)
|
 |
| |
Photos taken with permission
of the
New York Metropolitan Museum
|
What is also not generally known is that there existed in the ancient
world an unarmed fighting art which not only compares favorably with later
Asian systems, but as an event in the ancient Olympic Games was considered
the truest test of an athlete's combative ability. This was the martial
art known as pankration, a blend of Hellenic wrestling, boxing, strangulation,
kicking and striking techniques, as well as joint locks. Indeed, the only
practices not allowed in pankration were biting, gouging, or scratching
-- all else were considered legal acts during competition.
As a word, pankration comes from the adjective pankrates, meaning "all
encompassing" or "all powers." Its earliest reference occurs
in 648 B. C., when it made its debut in the 33rd ancient Olympic Games,
but its introduction into the Olympic program denotes that it had to have
become a systematized art long before this date. In short order it became
the most popular event of every Greek athletic festival, including the
Olympics, usually climaxing the festival following boxing and wrestling.
A mark of its enormous popularity came in 200 B. C., when a boys' division
was added to the Olympics.
Pankration matches were significantly rugged endeavors -- serious injuries
and even deaths were "occupational hazards" of the pankratist
and not considered extraordinary events. Those wishing to train in pankration
did so at the palaestra (training hall), within a special room set aside
for the exclusive use of boxers and pankratists known as the korykeion.
This chamber contained punching and kicking equipment known as korykos;
bags or balls filled with meal or fig seeds and suspended from the ceiling
at chest level. Similarly, a sandbag was suspended approximately two feet
off the floor for kicking, although some trainees preferred practicing
their kicks against tree trunks. Records indicate that some prankratists
possessed the ability to kick through war shields.
During practice sessions trainees were usually divided into pairs, with
techniques taught progressively. The novice pankratist was first compelled
to learn basic techniques and combinations before he was allowed to participate
in "loose play;" i. e. free sparring with other fighters. Although
participants wore protective equipment in sparring, such as padded gloves
known as spheres and earguards called amphotides, full-contact was emphasized
to bring practice matches as near as possible to actual contest conditions.
Stamina and flexibility were stressed: stretching, running, abdominal
exercises, as well as a kind of shadowboxing known as skiamachia made
up the bulk of conditioning. To toughen one's physique, trainees would
first strike a punching bag with their fists and then allow the rebounding
bag to hit them fill-impact in the stomach, chest, or back.
Actual contests began by drawing lots from a silver urn. Match winners
continued to fight until the final two-man bout -- thus the winner, as
in old-style judo contests, was always undefeated. Originally pankratists
fought in the characteristic Greek way of nude and oiled. Later, rawhide
thongs wrapping the hands and forearms were used, and later still sheepskins
were attached to the thongs to allow fighters to wipe sweat, blood, and
sometimes tears from their eyes. When pankration was transplanted to Rome,
Italian fighters began wearing loincloths to protect their genitals. Eventually
they came not only to be partially-clothed but armed as well, wearing
the pugilist's deadly caestus which were studded gloves which could open
a gash to the bone.
The Greek version of pankration, however, remained an art, with skill
held in higher esteem than mere bloodlust. Pankratists usually began a
match by sparring with their fists or open hands, using short, hooking
blows to the head. These opening maneuvers were called krocheirismos and
every pankratist had his favorite standing technique. One fighter from
Sikyon was nicknamed "Fingertips" because of his habit of breaking
his opponents' fingers at the start of a bout to gain an advantage. Different
city-states also had their preferences. The Spartans, for instance, who
practiced pankration as part of their training but did not compete in
it (reckoning it was effected because it didn't include everything), preferred
hard foot sweeps to bring an opponent to the ground, while the Eleans
were acknowledged masters of the stranglehold. Some arm-twisting was done
while standing but the norm was punches and low, rising kicks to the stomach
or groin. Kicks above the stomach were never attempted when standing,
and kicks to the chest or head were done only to a grounded competitor.
A particularly popular standing technique was called chancery: a fighter
grabbed the hair of his enemy, pulling the head down while delivering
an uppercut to the throat or face with the free hand. Occasionally while
standing a competitor's foot or ankle was grasped and the leg tilted upwards
until the opponent tumbled backwards to the ground. One Sicilian pankratist
was known as "Jumping Weight" due to his penchant for throwing
his enemies backwards manner while attempting to twist their ankles out
of their sockets. Shorter, squatter fighters could sometimes prevent being
thrown backwards by balancing themselves on their heads and hands and
spinning out of harm's way.
Usually, sooner or later, the match ended up in the dirt, where striking
was less effective and grappling, strangulation, and joint-locking took
over. Strangulation techniques appear to have been mostly of the "choke
holdî" or hadakakime (naked choke) of the modern judoka variety,
in which the forearm is used across the opponent's windpipe or carotid
artery to force submission or unconsciousness. A favored technique used
both prone or standing was called the klimakismos or "ladder trick,"
in which a competitor leaped or otherwise worked his way onto his opponent's
back, encircling him with his legs and simultaneously strangling him from
behind while scissoring the abdomen with the thighs -- an early example
of double Jeopardy. "Flying mares" and "stomach throws"
were also popular, especially as a hard blow or fall could knock the wind
out of one's opponent and leave him momentarily defenseless.
Contest matches in pankration continued indefinitely until one competitor
signified defeat by tapping his opponent on the shoulder, raising one
hand, or -- this being the pankration -- being killed. Skill was a definite
must, but the lack of weight categories naturally meant that the event
was dominated by heavier men, although more than one husky fighter found
that his superior strength was no match against a lighter but better trained
opponent. Rules were strictly enforced by famously-impartial referees
who carried rods or switches which they used on competitors' backs and
shoulders at the slightest infraction. Even so, it must be said that even
these minimal standards were often ignored in competition, since a mild
beating was considered preferable to defeat or even death at the hands
of a rival pankratist. One team was dubbed "the lions" for consistently
defying the rules and biting their opponents.
It need hardly be said that a fighting art such as pankration, as well
as its Olympic fame, spawned a number of stories. One famous tale concerns
the champion Arrichion of Phigaleia, who fought his last pankration match
in the 564 B. C. Olympic Games. During the bout Arrichion's opponent tried
the klimakismos, leaping onto the champion's back and strangling him furiously
from behind at the same time as he wrapped his legs around Arrichion's
waist, locking his insteps behind Arrichion's thighs and squeezing. In
a last ditch attempt to extricate himself, Arrichion hooked his right
leg behind his opponent's right foot and threw them both backwards to
the ground, breaking his adversary's ankle in the process. As they tumbled
backwards two things happened at the same time: Arrichion died from his
opponent's strangulation while the other contestant, screaming in pain
as his ankle snapped, raised his hand in defeat. After a brief conferral
the judges gave the laurels to the dead pankratist, and Arrichion became
Olympic champion once more -- this time posthumously.
Another Olympic champion, Polydamus of Scotussa, was famous for his great
strength. Legends abound of his killing a lion with his bare hands or
halting a moving chariot by grabbing a wheel with one hand. His most famous
moment, however, came when he and some companions were in a mountain cave
and the roof began to collapse. With his hands Polydamus held up the falling
roof until all his friends had crawled to safety, at which point the mountain
finally gave way and caved in on the gallant pankratist.
A third anecdote has to do with a fighter named Dioxippus, Olympic champion
by default in 336 B. C. when no other pankratist dared meet him. Alexander
the Great became Dioxippus' friend and sponsor, but the pankratist soon
quarreled with a warrior named Coragus and the two were forced to meet
in a duel to settle their differences. Coragus wore a full complement
of Battle-armor and bore javelin, lance, and sword, while Dioxippus appeared
pankration-style, nude and wearing a sheen of olive oil, and carrying
nothing but a club. Coragus first hurled his javelin, which Dioxippus
easily dodged, and then Alexander's warrior rushed his enemy with his
spear. A blow from Dioxippus' club shattered the other's spear, whereupon
Coragus tried to draw his sword from its scabbard, only to have Dioxippus
grab the Macedonian's sword-arm with his left hand while with his right
he threw Coragus off-balance and footswept him to the ground. The heavily-armored
Coragus fell to the earth, helpless in his battle-dress, at which point
Dioxippus completed his victory by placing his foot on his antagonist's
neck. Unfortunately, this marvelous example of pankration's effectiveness
as a combative system had a bad end. Alexander was so angry at the thought
that Dioxippus had defeated one of his own warriors that he had the champion
fighter framed for theft and forced to commit suicide as punishment.
We have seen how the Romans modified pankration for their own games,
and how it eventually degenerated to little more than a bloody spectacle.
Even in Greece, however, the art suffered. During the poet Pindar's time
(522?-443 B.C.) sparring was emphasized, but by the philosopher Plato's
era (427?-347 B.C.) it had descended to nearly-immediate ground fighting,
where grappling became all-important and there was little to differentiate
pankration from a rougher form of wrestling. For this reason Plato, himself
an Olympic wrestler, thought little of pankration as military training,
since it did not teach men to keep on their feet.
Even so, there is little doubt that hoplites (Greek infantry) used pankration
as part of their training, and that with their invading armies it spread
far and wide. When Alexander the Great invaded India in 326 B. C. his
soldiers took pankration with them, practicing the art in large collapsible
tents with their other athletic endeavors. Some researchers have speculated
that this diaspora of pankration techniques on the Subcontinent influenced
Indian combative arts such as vajramusti ("the adamant fist"),
laying the framework for the later diffusion of fighting techniques from
India into China and Okinawa. This theory, however, does not take into
account the historical reality of the spontaneous rise of indigenous combative
forms in a majority of cultures, as well as the expatiation of fighting
techniques across many centuries and from many nations, so the concept
that pankration is the linear "ancestor" of Asian combative
systems must remain little more than conjecture.
However, pankration cannot be described as a "lost" martial
art, with its methods confined to references in historical writings and
artistic representations of the system. Rather, its techniques continued
to be handed down through the ages from one Greek generation to the next,
kept alive in Greek communities both in Greece -- particularly in Athens
and Delphi -- and abroad. It never entirely died out, and a limited form
of the classical art continues to be practiced today, with trainees attired
in light clothing and even some body armor, and groin strikes joining
the ranks of forbidden techniques such as gouging and biting. Thus it
may be said that the pankration practiced today is a diluted form of the
classical entity, rather than an art handed down unchanged from its inception.
The most famous pankratist of modern times is James Arvanitis, a Greek-American
who was taught pankration as a child. Since that time he has reformulated
the system, incorporating aspects of other combative arts into a highly-
eclectic cognate form he has named mu tau, from the Greek acronym for
"martial truth." Although clearly based on pankration, the inclusion
of techniques from other systems, as well as the use of protective equipment
such as gloves, makes mu tau a personalized combative system developed
by Arvanitis from the roots of pankration, rather than a modern form of
the classical art.
That being said, pankration's historical importance as a combative art
cannot be overemphasized. While most of its techniques can be found in
other unarmed martial forms, pankration was perhaps the first fighting
system to incorporate a wide-ranging array of techniques within its syllabus:
wrestling throws and pins, strangulation methods, strikes and kicks, as
well as joint-locks. Bridging the gap between striking and grappling,
and with few limits to its repertoire, pankration was recognized in ancient
Greece as the ultimate unarmed combative system -- the ancient world's
foremost fighting art.
About The Author
Paul McMichael Nurse has a Ph.D. in History from the University of Toronto
and a researcher and writer on judo and other martial arts. His articles
have appeared in Kick Illustrated and Black Belt Magazine. He is also
a member of the International Hoplology Society (the academic study of
combative systems) and has been a student of judo, he says, "sporadically,"
since 1969.
|
