pankration

[Quintus Aurelius Lepidus]

i've seen a documentary on history channel yesterday regarding pankration. How widespread was it within the hoplite armies?

according to the makers, the spartans were definitely trained in it as well as Alexander's macedonian army.

did other citizen states do it too or did they only regard this as a sport for in the arena during the olympic games?

rgds

[hoplite14gr]

Naturally the Spartans were thought to be masters of it.
The fact that names of Olympic and Pythian winners survive in inscriptions testify to the fact that there were training schools all around the Greek World.
The legends of Milo of Kroton suggest that there was one in his city and probably more in the "Greater Greece" of the western colonies.

Kind regards

[PMBardunias]

Naturally the Spartans were thought to be masters of it.

Spartan pankration was all-in, with eye gouging and biting allowed. One of Plutarch's "sayings" of the Spartans" includes an anectdote about a Spartan pankrationist told he bites like a woman. "No", like a lion" he responds.

Some have taken the fact that Sparta stopped competeting in Pankration under the excuse that they did not want to ever submit to others as evidence that they lost focus on it, but I think it just as likely that, as with their hounds, there were elements of their style that they did not want disseminated.

[Kineas]

Or perhaps they just kept getting beaten....

Barring bias, there's not much evidence that the Spartans excelled at martial arts. Xenophon, an Athenian-born Spartan want-to-be tried to pretend that swordsmanship could be learned by any child with a stick. This is often quoted as an example of how the Greeks spurned Martial Arts--people should pay attention to Plato and Socrates... Socrates mocked Xenophon for engaging a professional soldier to coach him on military matters, because Aristocratic Greeks--Spartans especially--thought such teaching "un-natural."

But to answer the question as asked--yes, Greeks took Pankration very seriously indeed. Pankrationists were viewed as exceptionally deadly. Herodotus says of Mycale (a major battle in the Persian Wars)

"Of all the Hellenes who fought in this battle, the Athenians proved to be the best and bravest, and of the Athenians, Hermolykos son of Euthoinos, who had practiced the pankration." Hdt. 9.105

Socrates--a war hero--probably practiced Pankration. He used metaphors drawn from the sport, and it's one off practice form, Skiomachia.

Greek swordsmanship was probably based on Pankration--the stances appear the same, and the blade of the xiphos was used, according to vase art, largely as a thrusting motion in the same way that punches were launched in Pankration.

More later, if this seems interesting. BTW, I wouldn't get carried away with how evolved pankration was as a "martial art" or how "deadly" it was. The Spartans, for instance, seem to have disdained martial prowess as individuals for "unit cohesion" and team fighting.

[bachmat66]

czolem,
fascinating subject!
as a great aficionado of martial arts I hold this not quite irrational belief that it was the Bactrian Hellenes who via pankration and Indian Buddhist monks brought the so called Chinese Martial Arts to China
I would love to hear more about the practice of pankration as evidenced in the primary sources etc.

[Kineas]

It is a belief growing in popularity among martail arts scholars (si there such a thing?)

It's not impossible, although it seems ot me more likely that the enduring Hellenic legacy in the near East (not just Bactria) transferred the ideas and postures. Worth noting, too, that the flow might have been the other way. Way back in the 19th century, no less a philological light than Nietzsche suggested that many of the ideas of Heraclitus and Siddhartha Buddha bore resemblances to each other (that would be about 500BC). New theories on cultural and artistic transference seem to suggest that a good idea (like the bronze plough, the snaffle bit, stirrups, or unarmed combat) can move all the way across the steppes in a single generation. As you would know better than many!

[Polinik]

Or perhaps they just kept getting beaten....

Barring bias, there's not much evidence that the Spartans excelled at martial arts.

Or we don't have enough records.

Not sure what could be the evidence.Or is it smart to speak of "excellence". But I reckon Olympic winners can give us a hint...

I would say Lakedaimonian wrestlers Ipposthenis and Etoimoklis prove much of what was produced in Sparta, since no other fellow citizens came close to their 44 year rein in wrestling. First one being the equal to much better remembered Milo of Kroton. Too bad later centuries are not recorded well enough to make conclusions,but the best recorded century can give us a hint what was appreciated in Sparta. To be honest,from what is recorded, there were certain cities that produced greater number successful wrestlers/boxers/pankrationists....(though they,being small and not too powerful, probably worked 24/7 for those few and their appearance in the Olympic games,while Spartan fighters had only secondary mission in Olympic games,first being in their army)

So I would not put Spartan excellence in fighting in first place (judging only by Olympic games of course) but in the top of the list for sure.But even that is speculation since all records are purely individual...

The Spartans, for instance, seem to have disdained martial prowess as individuals for "unit cohesion" and team fighting.

Where do we learn that???
If we hold one thing higher it does not mean we necessarily forgot the other. If they fought well as a phalanx why does it mean they could not wrestle or fight alone just as well... especially if trained for as long as they were.I would really like this little thing explained?

All best

[Quintus Aurelius Lepidus]

The Spartans, for instance, seem to have disdained martial prowess as individuals for "unit cohesion" and team fighting.

If we hold one thing higher it does not mean we necessarily forgot the other. If they fought well as a phalanx why does it mean they could not wrestle or fight alone just as well... especially if trained for as long as they were.

now, in our age, soldiers learn special fighting without weapons... why wouldn't they do so back then? especially since spartans only prepared for war. they did not have other professions. fighting stealthily perhaps comes in handy too when fighting the helots? i once have seen a documentary about the spartans in which the makers (history channel) stated that there was a secret spartan agency which was trained to terrorize them.

All best[/quote]

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Perhaps the same old famous little phrase of Herodotus: "The Spartans one on one they are not better than any other Greek".
Now you can interpret this as you wish,making complicated thoughts. But the fact is that he simply said this. Which is exactly what Kineas said.
Khaire
Giannis

[Quintus Aurelius Lepidus]

yeah perhaps we do make too much of them... perhaps we see it too "hollywood-ish" :roll:

[Arrichion]

Hi Yves,

Pankration is a very interesting topic, but there are quite a few abiguities when one is searching for cold, hard facts on this ancient combat sport. I know this all too well since I recently wrote a long paper on it. I would like to say, first and foremost, stay away from those MMA combat forums! They know next to nothing about real Pankration (Which the Greeks pronounced Pan-kra-tee-on, depending on the dialect). Also the effect that Pankration really had on the development of eastern martial arts is a very much disputed topic amongst scholars today. I could go on and on, since I find this topic to be ecstatically interesting , but I will let you make your own conclusions.
Below are some resources that you might find to be helpful:

http://historical-pankration.com - Historical Reconstruction Project
Philostratus, On Gymnastics
Philostratus, Imagines
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu - Digital Libray, wonderful source on all things Greek
www.ejmas.com/jcs - Journal of Combative Sport
http://ancientlibrary.com/smith-dgra/0864.html - Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

Hoplite14gr,

Naturally the Spartans were thought to be masters of it.

They most assuredly were! Remember what Herodotus said about them fighting tooth and nail at Thermopylae.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

The point about the Spartans being no better than any other greek on a one-on-one basis I would read as they were no more deadly than any other in that situation, nor any less deadly. I would think safe to say that any one individual from Ancient Greece was a formidable foe.
The Spartans true strength was their unit cohesion.

[bachmat66]

In terms of combat sports and Ancient Hellenoi there seems to be no better read than Michael Poliakoff, Combat Sports in the Ancient World, Yale Univ Press 1995.
As per usefulness of individual martial prowess in the Hellenic armies then it seems that theoreticians (Platon), poets (Euripides) and practitioners ( Xenophon, Epaminondas, Alexander) looked down on the athelets as rather worthless soldiers.
In this context Spartans did not care about individual prowess of their fighting men but in the unit prowess and that was why they were so feared and so good at war business in their heyday. Already quoted Herodotus' passage states that very succinctly, I daresay. That might have changed in the times of the mercenaries of the Hellenistic Age, but I would think that rather stayed the same. Hellenic and Roman armies were armies of soldiers and nto warriors, although some officers (especially amongst the Roman equites) behaved like warriors. Warrior stuff and individual prowess belongs more to the Celts, German, Iberian, Numidian, Scythian, Sarmatian etc warriors, that was their way of life, and this was why there were eventually beaten by the armies of soldiers...
As per martial arts they seem to be part of the greater Indoeuropean world of warriors and horses from the steppes of the Late Stone and Bronze Age, spread to the western ans southern Europe with the consecutive migrations and in the east eventually adopted by the Altaic and Turkic peoples from their Indoeuropean neighbours .

[Polinik]

Didn't Herodotus tend to exaggerate greatly. Why then would we take this quote word for a word,when we already proven many of his assumptions are exaggeration?

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

The account of ALL ancient historians are often believed as exagerated. Herodotus is actually one of the most reliable,and in fact he's one of the most informative concerning the Spartans. Only Xenophon says more about them and can be called more reliable,but wrote for a different period of their history. One would say that even if he's more reliable,he's so because he writes for the Spartans of (his) today,not those of the past.
In addition,Herodotus is the most relieble source about early 5th century,more so than Xenophon and even Thucydides. If you want to rule out Herodotus,you can't do so selectively according to what doesn't suit your beliefs about a subject he knew much more than you.
Khaire
Giannis