other object than as fitting
them to be better soldiers. Yet to so great a degree were these
exercises cultivated, even by the latter nation, that the Roman private
of the line did his fifteen or twenty miles' daily march under a weight
of camp-equipage and weapons which would have foundered some of the
best-drilled modern warriors, and concluded his day's labors by digging
the trenches of his camp at night. The ponderous _pilum_, and the heavy,
straight sword of the infantry were exchanged in the barrack-yard for
drill-weapons of twice their weight; and so perfectly were the detail
and regularity of actual service carried out in their daily discipline,
that, as an ancient writer has remarked, their sham-fights and reviews
differed only in bloodshed from real battles. The soldier of the early
Republic was hence taught gymnastics only as a means of increasing his
efficiency; the lax praetorian and the corrupt populace of the Empire
turned gladly from the gymnasium to the circus and the amphitheatre.

In the same manner were these exercises regarded by the Dorians and the
people of some other of the Grecian States. The inhabitants of Attica
and of Ionia, on opposite shores of the Aegean, as more cultivated
races, viewed them in a more correct physiological light. But it was at
Athens that the gymnasium was held in highest repute.

We read that Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, first established particular
regulations for its government. Attic legends, however, gratefully
refer the earliest rules of the gymnasium to Theseus, as to one of the
mightiest of the mythical heroes,--the emulator of Hercules, slayer of
the Minotaur, and conqueror of the Amazons. Hermes was the presiding
deity, which may appear strange to us, as he was as noted for an
unworthy cunning as for his dexterity. Generous emulation and
magnanimity were regarded as the noblest qualities called forth in
gymnastic exercises; and Mercury seems a fitter tutelar divinity of the
wary boxer and of the race-course than of the whole gymnasium.

Probably no Greek town of any importance was destitute of one of
these schools of exercise. Athens boasted three public gymnasia,--the
Cynosarges, the Lyceum, and the Academy. These were the daily resort
of young and old alike, though certain penal laws forbade them from
exercising together at the same hour.

The school-boy frequented them as part of his daily task; the young man
of leisure, as an agreeable lounging-place; th