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A Note on Boxing-Gloves Author(s): E. K. Borthwick Source: The Classical Review, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Jun., 1964), p. 142Published by: on behalf of Cambridge University Press Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/709111Accessed: 28-10-2015 23:09 UTC

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This content downloaded from 190.161.121.182 on Wed, 28 Oct 2015 23:09:48 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

142 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

dypov Lts 78v 87-LOv 8s KaAEL-7Ta AEL/.VCVES, darE flov KaTrayayEtv dL c TpaaLv, dvaarTdvTra 7TpwiEPOV 7r S VVKTdS, aEA7v'rqs AalaTrodays•, []yELV 7V 1ov Els CIT 7dALVWS !' 'YVETO70 Ka-ra

7vO 7.d-rov Os' KaAELra?7 Aw I1aat , d 'aL yvvaiKcas

[1]s8ev 0o'pdars voplaavra S' dcr6 rc v cpywv

drTLva~ a••rdls ELs 7rOALV r7poAOov7.a aKW7T.ELV. There can be no doubt that dvaa-rcdvra

IrPWIr•EOV 7ij VvVK7rdO means 'getting up rather early in the night', that is, some little time before dawn. The alternative interpre- tations considered by W. Peek, Philologus, xcix (I955), I8, and Kambylis, 137 ff., make nonsense of the story. The problem is, why should Archilochus, meeting women on the road in the early morning, suppose them to be going home from work?

He did not. He supposed them to be

country women going to market from the fields where they lived and worked. The impression must have been confirmed when they offered to buy his cow; it was only when they vanished, taking the cow with them and leaving a lyre at his feet in ex- change, that he began to wonder. The local sense of 9pya is not confined to early poetry; cf. Hdt. i. 36. I 7• ra7-rv

MvaJov ipya &Sa-

OElpECTKE, Xen. Cyn. 4- 9, 5- 12, 15, 34, al., Theophr. Sign. 3. 9 AvcKOs o7av - rpos 7Tad pya dpl ... XEL.LWva a7)/lavEL Evl;v, P. Petr. 2. 4, fr. 3- 5 (iii B.c.) JAO'dvTrwv plW^v ElS 7ad pya, fr. 6. 2 KarTafladvT7OS IOv 7mrt 7a Apya, P. Baden 40. 5 (ii A.D.) ElS Adoyov rpoXpela. OEpLatLW^V 7Tvr7WV PpYWv.

University College, Oxford M. L. WEST

A NOTE ON BOXING-GLOVES

carpenta cum mimis et omni genere hi- strionum, pugiles flacculis, non ueritate pugil- lantes.

(Trebellius Pollio, Gall. 8. 3.) flacculis P: flosculis 2: sacculis vulgo: flocculis Ellis.

Flacculus(-um?), apparently meaning a type of boxing-glove, is not a word attested else- where, and early editors of the Historia Augusta read sacculis; but although the latter word might be used of punch-bags filled with sand or meal (Gk. KCpVKOs, adK-ras; Lat. follis, -iculus), it is scarcely conceivable that the Roman populace was entertained on the occasion of Gallienus' triumph by such a spectacle. This must have been a contest between boxers, even if they did not fight 'in earnest'. The reading of P was defended by Salmasius' and more recently by H. Frbre,2 who interprets flacculis as a translation of the

/LarVTE. IpaAaKW'7cTpo of Greek boxing, which

were superseded by the more brutal l'L•VdTES

0d6E'S (Lat. caestus) in the contests normally fought in the Roman arena.

In Hermathena, xiv (I907), 3, however, Robinson Ellis conjectured flocculis. 'More probably it is a substantive, and either a cor- ruption or a mis-spelling of flocculis, dim. of floccus. Flocks or shreds of wool or other soft materials would naturally be used to deaden the force of the blows dealt in a sham boxing- bout.' Frere rejects this, but neither he nor, it would appear, Ellis himself was aware of a passage in Philostratuss in which Kc8a'a is used of fleece gauntlets of the type en- visaged by Ellis. The boxer Plutarch has prayed to Achelous Enagonius for help when he is almost exhausted after a long contest. Then vcOAr i C 7r a-rodSOV Ka-rapp41yvvTaL Kat StVwv d HAov'TapxoS arraae 7r00 o 8a7ro, 8 daELAOEbEL Td EPl eptoLS rt7TXEcL KQGta. The

floruit of Philostratus is not long before the reign of Gallienus, and flocculis may after all be right, a diminutive of floccus, parallel to Kwag~-KYC&OV.4 These boxers were, in our equivalent idiom, using 'kid gloves'.5

University of Edinburgh E. K. BORTHWICK

I pilas istas vel pugillos qui in morem pilae laxae et flaccidae circum ponebantur bracchiis pugillantium facculas a Trebellio vocatas arbitror, si pilas intelligamus, aut flacculos si pugillos.

2 Milanges Ernout, p. 155. Frere compares aurifjaccus 'cauliflower-eared', of C.G.L. iii.

330.46, a gloss on aT-oK Aaas& (cf. droAa&'as.9). The analogy is of course only approximate, as flaccus in one case refers to the condition of the ears after being struck, the other to the actual composition of the boxing-glove.

SHer. 6 (ii. 147- 4 Kayser). 4 The neglect of the Philostratus passage

may be due to its omission in Jiithner's basic study Ober antike Turngerdithe, where (p. 84) he compares the flacculi of Treb. Poll. to the E lraOatpa of Plut. Mor. 825e (but see Frere, op. cit., p. 151). Fleece gauntlets of some sort are implied in the boxing match in Statius, Theb. vi. 786 (summo maculas in uellere uidit).

s In modern times also gloves used for sparring (apparently referred to in the pro- fession as 'pillows') are much heavier and more thickly padded than those used in the ring.

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