“The blow from the plough” (Philostr. Gymn. 20; Paus. VI.10.1–2)
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In the Gymnasticus, ascribed to Flavius Philostratus, there are five anecdotes about trainers who helped their athletes by various means to win at Olympia (Gymn. 20–24). None of these stories, except the one about the renowned boxer Glaucus of Carystus, is attested elsewhere. Glaucus’ trainer Tisias encouraged him by shouting τὰν ἀπ’ ἀρότρου πλῆξαι which meant ‘right-handed punch’ because his right hand was so strong that he once straightened a ploughshare with it. Pausanias, however, attributes the exhortation (ὦ παῖ τὴν ἀπ’ ἀρότρου) to Glaucus’ father Demylus and renders the story differently: Demylus takes his young son to Olympia after having watched him attach a ploughshare to a plough with his bare hands. The author of the present article proposes how to interpret this exhortation. The problem of interpretation has been solved differently as we may see in the translations of Pausanias’ work into Latin and modern languages; it has also resulted in a variant reading ἐπ(ί) instead of ἀπ(ό) in the Suda lexicon, where the Pausanias text is cited with minor changes. Since Philostratus’ aim was to praise the wisdom of trainers, it is not improbable that he slightly changed the story and that the Pausanias version is the original one. In this case, the two parts of the anecdote are logically connected and the ellipsis might be filled with the word “ploughshare” (ὕνιν) which is present in both variants of the anecdote
Keywords: Philostratus, Gymnasticus, Pausanias, boxing in Ancient Greece, Glaucus of Carystus
Article received: November 28, 2023
Article accepted: March 24, 2024
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© Article. Liya L. Ermakova, 2024.