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95-493: Pankration ( / p æ n ˈ k r eɪ t i . ɒ n , - ʃ ən / ; Ancient Greek : παγκράτιον [paŋkráti.on] ) was an unarmed combat sport introduced into the Greek Olympic Games in 648 BC. The athletes used boxing and wrestling techniques but also others, such as kicking, holds, joint locks , and chokes on the ground, making it similar to modern mixed martial arts . The term comes from

190-402: A keikogi (" gi ") or training uniform. The choke has two variations. In one version, the attacker's arm encircles the opponent's neck and then grabs his own biceps on the other arm (see below for details); in the second version, the attacker clasps his hands together instead after encircling the opponent's neck. These are very effective moves. A counter to the choke from behind involves

285-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in

380-483: A "pile driver" or, alternatively, with a simple release of the opponent so that he falls to the ground. The athlete passes to the back of his opponent, secures a regular waist lock, lifts and throws/drops the opponent backwards and sideways. As a result of these moves, the opponent would tend to land on his side or face down. The athlete can follow the opponent to the ground and place himself on his back, where he could strike him or choke him from behind while holding him in

475-463: A circle. He then joins the athlete holding the alpha to the other who has drawn the alpha for wrestling or pankration, the one who has the beta to the other with the beta, and the other matching inscribed lots in the same manner. This process was apparently repeated every round until the finals. There would be a bye ( ἔφεδρος – ephedros "reserve") in every round containing an odd number of athletes, which could potentially be in every round until

570-594: A club and defeated Coragus without killing him, making use of his pankration skills. Later, however, Dioxippus was framed for theft, which led him to commit suicide. In an odd turn of events, a pankration fighter named Arrhichion ( Ἀρριχίων ) of Phigalia won the pankration competition at the Olympic Games despite being dead. His opponent had locked him in a chokehold and Arrhichion, desperate to loosen it, broke his opponent's toe (some records say his ankle). The opponent nearly passed out from pain and submitted. As

665-474: A grip would have been considered gouging and thus illegal in the Panhellenic Games. The athlete grabs the throat of the opponent with the four fingers on the outside of the throat and the tip of the thumb pressing in and down the hollow of the throat, putting pressure on the trachea. The rear naked choke (RNC) is a chokehold in martial arts applied from an opponent's back. Depending on the context,

760-477: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and

855-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in

950-429: A painting of Arrhichion's death. In the translation of Arthur Fairbanks : Accordingly the antagonist of Arrichion, having already clinched him around the middle, thought to kill him; already he had wound his forearm about the other’s throat to shut off the breathing, while, pressing his legs on the groins and winding his feet one inside each knee of his adversary, he forestalled Arrichion’s resistance by choking him till

1045-550: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment

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1140-608: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek

1235-630: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c.  300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as

1330-517: A tie. Pankration competitions were held in tournaments, most being outside of the Olympics. Each tournament began with a ritual which would decide how the tournament would take place. Grecophone satirist Lucian describes the process in detail: A sacred silver urn is brought, in which they have put bean-size lots. On two lots an alpha is inscribed, on two a beta, and on another two a gamma, and so on. If there are more athletes, two lots always have

1425-475: A tournament without being an ephedros in any of the rounds ( ἀνέφεδρος – anephedros "non-reserve") was thus an honorable distinction. There is evidence that the major Games in Greek antiquity easily had four tournament rounds, that is, a field of sixteen athletes. However, there is clear evidence from Plato , who refers to competitors in the Panhellenic Games , with opponents numbering in

1520-538: A very wide variety of methods, most of which would be immediately recognizable by the trainers of modern high level athletes, including competitors in modern mixed martial arts competitions. These methods included among others the periodization of training; a wealth of regimens for the development of strength, speed-strength, speed, stamina, and endurance; specialized training for the different stages of competition (i.e., for anō pankration and katō pankration ), and methods for learning and engraining techniques. Among

1615-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and

1710-455: A wrestling match, as well as the minotaur in the labyrinth . Heracles too was often depicted in ancient artworks subduing the Nemean lion using pankration. In this context, pankration was also referred to as pammachon or pammachion ( πάμμαχον or παμμάχιον ), meaning "total combat", from πᾶν- , pān- , "all-" or "total", and μάχη , machē , "matter". The term pammachon

1805-570: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of

1900-491: Is a stance in which the athlete is ready at the same time to give a kick with the front leg as well as defend against the opponent's low-level kicks by lifting the front knee and blocking. The back leg is bent for stability and power and is facing slightly to the side, to go with the slightly sideways body position. The head and torso are behind the protecting two upper limbs and front leg. Pankration uses boxing punches and other ancient boxing hand strikes. Strikes delivered with

1995-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected

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2090-666: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to

2185-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in

2280-411: Is nearly fully extended but not entirely so; the rear arm is more cambered than the front arm, but more extended than a modern-day boxer's rear arm. The back of the athlete is somewhat rounded, but not as much as a wrestler's would be. The body is only slightly leaning forward. The weight is virtually all on the back (right) foot with the front (left) foot touching the ground with the ball of the foot. It

2375-540: Is older, and would later become used less than the term pankration . The mainstream academic view has been that pankration developed in the archaic Greek society of the 7th century BC, whereby, as the need for expression in violent sport increased, pankration filled a niche of "total contest" that neither boxing nor wrestling could. However, some evidence suggests that pankration, in both its sporting form and its combative form, may have been practiced in Greece already from

2470-759: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect

2565-865: The Persians in 479 BC, those of the Greeks who fought best were the Athenians, and the Athenian who fought best was a distinguished pankratiast, Hermolycus, son of Euthynus. Polyaemus describes King Philip II , the father of Alexander the Great, practicing with another pankratiast while his soldiers watched. The feats of the ancient pankratiasts became legendary in the annals of Greek athletics. Stories abound of past champions who were considered invincible beings. Arrhichion , Dioxippus , Polydamas of Skotoussa and Theogenes (often referred to as Theagenes of Thasos after

2660-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)

2755-522: The "grapevine" body lock (see above), stretching him face down on the ground. This technique is described by the Roman poet Statius in his account of a match between the hero Tydeus of Thebes and an opponent in the Thebaid . Tydeus is described to have followed this takedown with a choke while applying the "grapevine" body lock on the prone opponent. As the pankration competitions were held outside and in

2850-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):

2945-517: The Ancient Greek word παγκράτιον ( pankrátion ), meaning "all of power" (from πᾶν ( pân )  'all' and κράτος ( krátos )  'strength, might, power'). In Greek mythology , it was said that the heroes Heracles and Theseus invented pankration as a result of using both wrestling and boxing in their confrontations with opponents. Theseus was said to have used pankration to defeat Cercyon of Eleusis in

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3040-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from

3135-615: The Christian Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I . Pausanias mentions the wrestler Leontiscus ( Λεοντίσκος ) from Messene . He wrote that Leontiscus's technique of wrestling was similar to the pankration of Sostratus the Sicyonian because Leontiscus didn't know how to throw his opponents; he won by bending their fingers instead. There were neither weight divisions nor time limits in pankration competitions. However, there were two or three age groups in

3230-559: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs,   Arrhichion Arrhichion was the winner of the pankration at the 52nd and 53rd Olympiads (572 BC and 568 BC, respectively). Pankration

3325-502: The Olympic Games in 336 BC, and was serving in Alexander the Great's army in its expedition into Asia. As an admired champion, he naturally became part of the circle of Alexander the Great . In that context, he accepted a challenge from one of Alexander's most skilled soldiers named Coragus to fight in front of Alexander and the troops in armed combat. While Coragus fought with weapons and full armour, Dioxippus showed up armed only with

3420-413: The afternoon, appropriately positioning one's face in relation to the low sun was a major tactical objective. The pankratiast, as well as the boxer, did not want to have to face the sun, as this would partly blind him to the blows of the opponent and make accurate delivery of strikes to specific targets difficult. Theocritus, in his narration of the (boxing) match between Polydeukēs and Amykos , noted that

3515-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has

3610-416: The armpit of the athlete. To trap the left arm, the athlete has pushed (from outside) his own left arm underneath the left elbow of the opponent. The athlete's left hand ends up pressing down on the scapula region of his opponent's back. This position does not permit the opponent to pull out his hand from the athlete's armpit and puts pressure on the left shoulder. The right arm of the athlete is pulling back at

3705-412: The athlete has the option of either dropping his opponent head-first to the ground, or driving him into the ground while retaining the hold. To execute the latter option, the athlete bends one of his legs and goes down on that knee while the other leg remains only partially bent; this is presumably to allow for greater mobility in case the "pile driver" does not work. Another approach emphasizes less putting

3800-410: The athlete sets a waist lock by encircling, from the back, the torso of the opponent with his arms and securing a "handshake" grip close to the abdomen of the opponent. He then heaves the opponent back and up, using the muscles of his legs and his back, so that the opponent's feet rise in the air and he ends up inverted, perpendicular to the ground, and facing away from the athlete. The throw finishes with

3895-516: The athletic competitions of the ancient Greek world; it was also part of the arsenal of Greek soldiers – including the famous Spartan hoplites and Alexander the Great 's Macedonian phalanx . It is said that the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae fought with their bare hands and teeth once their swords and spears broke. Herodotus mentions that in the battle of Mycale between the Greeks and

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3990-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in

4085-412: The basis of submission (yielding to a submission or joint lock). Pankratiasts were highly skilled grapplers and were extremely effective in applying a variety of takedowns , chokes and joint locks . In extreme cases a pankration competition could even result in the death of one of the opponents, which was considered a win for the surviving combatant. However, pankration was more than just an event in

4180-408: The beginning of the competition and as long as the athletes remained standing. The decision to remain standing or go to the ground obviously depended on the relative strengths of the athlete, and differed between anō and katō pankration. However, there are indications that staying on one's feet was generally considered a positive thing, while touching the knee(s) to the ground or being put to

4275-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West

4370-514: The competitions of antiquity. In the Ancient Olympic Games specifically there were only two such age groups: men ( andres – ἄνδρες ) and boys ( paides – παῖδες ). The pankration event for boys was established at the Olympic Games in 200 BC. In pankration competitions, referees were armed with stout rods or switches to enforce the rules. In fact, there were only two rules regarding combat: no eye gouging or biting. Sparta

4465-423: The competitor. The pankratiast faces his opponent with a nearly frontal stance—only slightly turned sideways. This is an intermediate directional positioning, between the wrestler's more frontal positioning and the boxer's more sideways stance, and is consistent with the need to preserve both the option of using striking and protecting the center line of the body and the option of applying grappling techniques. Thus,

4560-563: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of

4655-521: The efforts of Savvidis E. A. Lazaros, founder of modern Pankration Athlima, the technical examination programma, the endyma, the shape of the Palaestra and the terminology of Pankration Athlima, in 2010 the sport was accepted by FILA, known today as United World Wrestling (UWW), which governs the Olympic wrestling codes, as an associated discipline and a "form of modern Mixed Martial Art ". Pankration

4750-400: The final (but also potentially in none of the rounds, if the number of competitors was a power of 2 and none of the winners quit before fighting their next round, or any other irregularities). The same athlete could be an ephedros more than once, and this could of course be of great advantage to him as the ephedros would be spared the wear and tear of the rounds imposed on his opponent(s). To win

4845-410: The first century AD) are among the most highly recognized names. Their accomplishments defying the odds were some of the most inspiring of ancient Greek athletics and they served as inspiration to the Hellenic world for centuries, as Pausanias , the ancient traveller and writer indicates when he re-tells these stories in his narrative of his travels around Greece. Dioxippus was an Athenian who had won

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4940-526: The following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c.  1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c.  1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c.  800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c.  500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been

5035-405: The ground and rolling, the athlete steps with his left leg over the left leg of the opponent and wraps his foot around the ankle of the opponent stepping on his instep, while pushing his body weight on the back of the opponent. In this technique, the position of the bodies is very similar to the one described just above. The athlete executing the technique is standing over his opponent's back, while

5130-507: The ground was overall considered disadvantageous. It has been suggested that in antiquity, as today, falling to one's knee(s) was a metaphor for coming to a disadvantage and putting oneself at risk of losing the fight. Regarding the choice of attacking into the attack of the opponent versus defending and retreating, there are indications, e.g. from boxing, that it was preferable to attack. Dio Chrysostom notes that retreat under fear tends to result in even greater injuries, while attacking before

5225-457: The hand grip to be used with this choke, the web area between the thumb and the index finger is to be quite high up the neck and the thumb is bent inward and downward, "reaching" behind the Adam's apple of the opponent. The main fingers which do much of the squeezing, is the thumb, index and middle finger, with the ring finger putting minimal force and, the pinky having no impact. It is unclear if such

5320-445: The heel" and "the one who wrestles with the ankle", which indicates early knowledge of what is now known as the straight ankle-lock, and the heel hook . In executing this choking technique ( ἄγχειν – anchein ), the athlete grabs the tracheal area ( windpipe and " Adam's apple ") between his thumb and his four fingers and squeezes. This type of choke can be applied with the athlete being in front or behind his opponent. Regarding

5415-561: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from

5510-476: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to

5605-431: The latter is down on his right knee. The left leg of the athlete is straddling the left thigh of the opponent—the left knee of the opponent is not on the floor—and is trapping the left foot of the opponent by stepping on it. The athlete uses his left hand to push down on the side/back of the head of the opponent while with his right hand he pulls the opponent's right arm back, against his midsection. This creates an arm bar on

5700-407: The left side of the body is slightly forward than the right side of the body and the left hand is more forward than the right one. Both hands are held high so that the tips of the fingers are at the level of the hairline or just below the top of the head. The hands are partially open, the fingers are relaxed, and the palms are facing naturally forward, down, and slightly toward each other. The front arm

5795-404: The left while he locks the latter’s foot tightly inside his own knee, by this violent outward thrust he wrenches the ankle from its socket. Philostratus of Athens writes in his Gymnasticus that Arrichion's failure to submit to his opponent was the result of his trainer, Eryxias, shouting to him, "What a noble epitaph, 'He was never defeated at Olympia . ' " A victor statue of Arrhichion

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5890-438: The legs were an integral part of pankration and one of its most characteristic features. Kicking well was a great advantage to the pankratiast. Epiktētos makes a derogatory reference to a compliment one may give another: " μεγάλα λακτίζεις " ("you kick great"). Moreover, in an accolade to the fighting prowess of the pankratiast Glykon from Pergamo, the athlete is described as "wide foot". The characterization comes actually before

5985-408: The major games could include upwards of hundreds of competitors, of which a select few will qualify to compete in the most important games. The athletes engaged in a pankration competition – i.e., the pankratiasts (sg. παγκρατιαστής , pl. παγκρατιασταί – employed a variety of techniques in order to strike their opponent as well as take him to the ground in order to use a submission technique. When

6080-525: The methods and techniques used by different athletes varied, i.e., there were different styles. While specific styles taught by different teachers, in the mode of Asian martial arts, cannot be excluded, it is very clear (including in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics ) that the objective of a teacher of combat sports was to help each of his athletes to develop his personal style that would fit his strengths and weaknesses. The preparation of pankratiasts included

6175-475: The multitude of the latter were also training tools that appear to be very similar to Asian martial arts forms or kata , and were known as cheironomia ( χειρονομία ) and anapale ( ἀναπάλη ). Punching bags ( kōrykos κώρυκος "leather sack") of different sizes and dummies were used for striking practice as well as for the hardening of the body and limbs. Nutrition, massage, and other recovery techniques were used very actively by pankratiasts. At

6270-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which

6365-457: The opponent backward. The athlete executing the counter has to lean forward to avoid hand strikes by the opponent. This counter is shown on a Panathenaic amphora now in Leiden . In another counter, the athlete sidesteps, but now to the outside of the oncoming kick and grasps the inside of the kicking leg from behind the knee with his front hand (overhand grip) and pulls up, which tends to unbalance

6460-536: The opponent in an inverted vertical position and more the throw; it is shown in a sculpture in the metōpē ( μετώπη ) of the Hephaisteion in Athens, where Theseus is depicted heaving Kerkyōn . The opponents are facing in opposite directions with the athlete at a higher level, over the back of his opponent. The athlete can get in this position after making a shallow sprawl to counter a tackle attempt. From here

6555-462: The opponent so that he falls backward as the athlete advances. The back hand can be used for striking the opponent while he is preoccupied maintaining his balance. Arm locks can be performed in many different situations using many different techniques. The athlete is behind the opponent and has him leaning down, with the right knee of the opponent on the ground. The athlete has the opponent's right arm straightened out and extended maximally backward at

6650-406: The opponent strikes is less injurious and could very well end in victory. As indicated by Plato in his Laws , an important element of strategy was to understand if the opponent had a weak or untrained side and to force him to operate on that side and generally take advantage of that weakness. For example, if the athlete recognizes that the opponent is strictly right-handed, he could circle away from

6745-493: The opponent's right wrist (or forearm). In this way, the athlete keeps the right arm of his opponent straightened and tightly pulled against his right hip/lower abdomen area, which results in an arm bar putting pressure on the right elbow. The athlete is in full contact on top of the opponent, with his right leg in front of the right leg of the opponent to block him from escaping by rolling forward. Pankratiasts would refer to two different kinds of athletes: "the one who wrestles with

6840-620: The pankratiasts fought standing, the combat was called Anō Pankration ( ἄνω παγκράτιον , "upper Pankration"); and when they took the fight to the ground, that stage of pankration competition was called Katō pankration ( κάτω παγκράτιον , "lower Pankration"). Some of the techniques that would be applied in anō pankration and katō pankration , respectively, are known to us through depictions on ancient pottery and sculptures, as well as in descriptions in ancient literature. There were also strategies documented in ancient literature that were meant to be used to obtain an advantage over

6935-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c.  1450 BC ) are in

7030-532: The referee raised Arrhichion's hand, it was discovered that he had died from the chokehold . His body was crowned with the olive wreath and returned to Phigaleia as a hero. By the Imperial Period , the Romans had adopted the Greek combat sport (spelled in Latin as pancratium ) into their Games. In 393 AD, the pankration, along with gladiatorial combat and all pagan festivals, was abolished by edict by

7125-510: The reference to his "unbeatable hands", implying at least as crucial a role for strikes with the feet as with the hands in pankration. That proficiency in kicking could carry the pankratiast to victory is indicated in a sarcastic passage of Galen, where he awards the winning prize in pankration to a donkey because of its excellence in kicking. The straight kick with the bottom of the foot to the stomach ( γαστρίζειν / λάκτισμα εἰς γαστέραν – gastrizein or laktisma eis gasteran , "kicking in

7220-422: The right arm with the pressure now being mostly on the elbow. The fallen opponent cannot relieve it, because his head is being shoved the opposite way by the left hand of the athlete executing the technique. In this technique, the athlete is again behind his opponent, has the left arm of his opponent trapped, and is pulling back on his right arm. The trapped left arm is bent, with the fingers and palm trapped inside

7315-665: The right hand of the opponent and towards the left side of the opponent. Moreover, if the opponent is weak in his left-side throws, the athlete could aim to position himself accordingly. Training in ambidexterity was instrumental in both applying this strategy and not falling victim to it. The basic instruction of pankration techniques was conducted by the paedotribae ( παιδοτρίβαι , "physical trainers"), who were in charge of boys' physical education. High level athletes were also trained by special trainers who were called gymnastae ( γυμνασταί ), some of whom had been successful pankration competitors themselves. There are indications that

7410-482: The same letter. Each athlete comes forth, prays to Zeus, puts his hand into the urn and draws out a lot. Following him, the other athletes do the same. Whip bearers are standing next to the athletes, holding their hands and not allowing them to read the letter they have drawn. When everyone has drawn a lot, the alytarch, or one of the Hellanodikai walks around and looks at the lots of the athletes as they stand in

7505-415: The same time he squeezed his neck with his hands. Arrhachion dislocated his opponent's toe, but expired owing to suffocation; but he who suffocated Arrhachion was forced to give in at the same time because of the pain in his toe. The Eleans crowned and proclaimed victor the corpse of Arrhachion. Philostratus' account is longer. In his Imagines , an imaginary tour of an art gallery, Philostratus describes

7600-493: The second millennium BC. Pankration, as practiced in historical antiquity, was an athletic event that combined techniques of both boxing ( pygmē / pygmachia – πυγμή / πυγμαχία ) and wrestling ( palē – πάλη ), as well as additional elements, such as the use of strikes with the legs, to create a broad fighting sport similar to today's mixed martial arts competitions. There is evidence that, although knockouts were common, most pankration competitions were decided on

7695-446: The shoulder joint. With the opponent's right arm across his own torso, the athlete uses his left hand to keep the pressure on the opponent's right arm by grabbing and pressing down on it just above the wrist. The right hand of the athlete is pressing down at the (side of) the head of the opponent, thus not permitting him to rotate to his right to relieve the pressure on his shoulder. As the opponent could escape by lowering himself closer to

7790-424: The sleep of death thus induced began to creep over his senses. But in relaxing the tension of his legs he failed to forestall the scheme of Arrichion; for the latter kicked back with the sole of his right foot (as the result of which his right side was imperiled since now his knee was hanging unsupported), then with his groin he holds his adversary tight till he can no longer resist, and, throwing his weight down toward

7885-443: The stomach") was apparently a common technique, given the number of depictions of such kicks on vases. This type of kick is mentioned by Lucian. Counter : The athlete sidesteps the oncoming kick to the inside of the opponent's leg. He catches and lifts the heel/foot of the planted leg with his rear hand and with the front arm goes under the knee of the kicking leg, hooks it with the nook of his elbow, and lifts while advancing to throw

7980-409: The strength of his hips and legs ( ἀναβαστάσαι εἰς ὕψος – anabastasai eis hypsos , "high lifting"). Depending on the torque the athlete imparts, the opponent becomes more or less vertically inverted, facing the body of the athlete. If however the reverse waist lock is set from the back of the opponent, then the latter would face away from the athlete in the inverted position. To finish the attack,

8075-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies

8170-405: The term may refer to one of two variations of the technique, either arm can be used to apply the choke in both cases. The term "rear naked choke" likely originated from the technique in jujutsu and judo known as the hadaka jime or "naked strangle". The word "naked" in this context suggests that, unlike other strangulation techniques found in jujutsu/judo, this hold does not require the use of

8265-480: The thousands. Moreover, in the first century A.D., the Greco-Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria —who was himself probably a practitioner of pankration—makes a statement that could be an allusion to preliminary contests in which an athlete would participate and then collect his strength before coming forward fresh in the major competition. Therefore, we can assume regional and preliminary contests leading up to

8360-666: The time of the revival of the Olympic Games (1896), despite the efforts of Pierre de Coubertin , pankration was not reinstated as an Olympic event. Neo-Pankration (modern pankration) was first introduced to the martial arts community by Greek-American combat athlete Jim Arvanitis in 1969 and later exposed worldwide in 1973 when he was featured on the cover of Black Belt magazine . Arvanitis continually refined his reconstruction with reference to original sources. His efforts are also considered pioneering in what became mixed martial arts (MMA). The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not list pankration among Olympic sports , but

8455-446: The twisting of one of the fingers of the choking arm. This counter is mentioned by Philostratus. In case the choke was set together with a grapevine body lock, another counter was the one applied against that lock; by causing enough pain to the ankle of the opponent, the latter could give up his choke. From a reverse waist lock set from the front, and staying with hips close to the opponent, the athlete lifts and rotates his opponent using

8550-407: The two opponents struggled a lot, vying to see who would get the sun's rays on his back. In the end, with skill and cunning, Polydeukēs managed so that Amykos' face was struck with sunlight while his own was in the shade. While this positioning was of paramount importance in boxing, which involved only upright striking (with the eyes facing straight), it was also important in pankration, especially in

8645-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,

8740-522: Was a martial art blending boxing and wrestling as well as kicking and holds, joint-locks and chokes on the ground, making it similar to modern MMA . Arrhichion's fatal fight was described by the geographer Pausanias and by Philostratus the Younger . According to Pausanias: For when he was contending for the wild olive with the last remaining competitor, whoever he was, the latter got a grip first, and held Arrhachion, hugging him with his legs, and at

8835-475: Was first contested at the World Combat Games in 2010. Modern pankration has a ruleset resembling amateur MMA, divided into two rulesets: Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into

8930-512: Was set up at Phigalia; what is believed to be the same statue is now displayed in the museum at Olympia. It is one of the oldest dated Olympic victor statues. Arrhichion was the subject of a poem, "Arrichion", by Jeanette Threlfall , in which the poet laments the fact that the athlete lived and died before St. Paul brought Christianity to Greece. Arrhichion's fatal fight would be parodied in Monty Python and The Holy Grail , where

9025-405: Was the only place eye gouging and biting were allowed. The contest itself usually continued uninterrupted until one of the combatants submitted, which was often signalled by the submitting contestant raising his index finger. The judges appear, however, to have had the right to stop a contest under certain conditions and award the victory to one of the two athletes; they could also declare the contest

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