100 



DISCOVERY 



figures and the varietj' of their attitudes show at once 

 the vigour and the capacity for experiment which 

 was so characteristic of the Ionian art of Attica at this 

 period. The back view and the foreshortened drawing 

 of the feet of the captain of the team on the right 

 provide us with one of the earUest examples in sculpture 

 of this artistic initiative which was so characteristic 

 of the period. 



It may be objected that Pollux was hardly in a 

 position to know anything about the games that had 

 been played in Athens in the days of Peisistratus. 

 But it must be remembered that games die hard : the 

 urchins of Rome still play the games that were in vogue 

 in Imperial times. There was, further, something in 

 the nature of a revival of the old university life of Athens 



painted wand, and it is difficult to see how, if pamted, 

 it could have been rendered, since the surface of the 

 marble is broken by the two projecting arms of the two 

 figures so that it would be impossible to paint a straight 

 line upon it. 



The attitude in detail of the two central players is 

 curious. Each holds his stick by a grip well up the 

 shaft and not at the end. The player on the right 

 holds it in his right hand and places his left hand almost, 

 but not quite, upon the butt of the stick. The other 

 player uses his hands in the same way, but with the 

 right hand as the playing hand. The ball lies between 

 the two sticks as though in position for a " buUy." 



The game, to judge from the evidence of the relief 

 alone, is one for tv\-o players and not for a team. The 



Fig. 2.— THE ANCIENT ATHENIAN EQUIV.\I,ENT of HOCKEY. 



at the time that Pollux was there ; even if Episkyros 

 had not been revived as a game, there would probably 

 have been men who knew well enough what the game 

 was. 



The relief which shows the so-called " Hockey- 

 players " involves no serious problem of interpretation 

 beyond that of the precise name and nature of the 

 game, if one can be found. The scene is simple and 

 straightforward. Two naked athletes in the centre 

 •of the field bend down, each holding a hooked stick, 

 which, to judge from the proportions it bears to the 

 bodies, must have been some two and a half feet in 

 length. Behind these central figures on each side are 

 two other players standing in attitudes of rest, all 

 except one holding similar sticks. The one exception 

 holds his hands in an attitude of one holding a wand, 

 but there are no traces of either a metal fixture or of a 



players at the sides seem to be spectators waiting their 

 turn. Perhaps there were two teams, each consisting 

 of three players, who played in individual combat, the 

 game being thus decided on points. 



The name of the game has been fixed, almost with 

 certainty, by the Greek archaeologist M. Oekonomos,' 

 of Athens. He finds, in a passage in Plutarch,^ a 

 reference describing a statue of the orator Isocrates. 

 The statue represented him as a boy, was of bronze and 

 stood on the Acropolis at Athens in an enclosure called 

 the " Spha:ristra of the Arrhephoroi." The Arrhe- 

 phoroi, we know, were the two attendants who acted 

 as priestesses or officials in the Panathenaic and 

 other processions. Their dwelling is usually identified 



1 In the official Greek journal StXrlov 'Apxa.io\oytK6i', ig22. 

 pp. 56-9. 



- Lives of the Ten Orators, ch. 4. 



