Gymnăsium

, a place among the Greeks, where all the public exercises were performed, and where not only wrestlers and dancers exhibited, but also philosophers, poets, and rhetoricians repeated their compositions. The room was high and spacious, and could contain many you sands of spectators. The laborious exercises of the Gymnasium were running, leaping, throwing the quoit, wrestling, and boxing, which was called by the Greeks πενταθλον , and by the Romans quinquertia . In riding, the athlete led a horse, on which he sometimes was mounted, conducting another by the bridle, and jumping from the one upon the other. Whoever came first to the goal and jumped with the greatest agility, obtained the prize. In running afoot the athletes were sometimes armed, and he who came first was declared victorious. Leaping was a useful exercise; its primary object was to teach the soldiers to jump over ditches, and to pa over eminences during a siege, or in the field of battle. In throwing the quoit, the prize was adjudged to him who threw it furthest. The quoits were made either with wood, stone, or metal. The wrestlers employed all their dexterity to bring their adversary to the ground, and the boxers had their hands armed with gauntlets, called also cestus . Their blows were dangerous, and often ended in the death of one of the combatants. In wrestling and boxing, the athletes were often naked, whence the word Gymnasium, γυμνος , nudus . They anointed themselves with oil to brace their limbs, and to render their bodies slippery and more difficult to be grasped. Pliny , bk. 2 , ltr. 17 .— Cornel i us Nepos , bk. 20 , ch. 5 .