Excerpt from Gymnastics and Rope Climbing: How to Become an Expert in the Gymnasium In the National events of the ancient Greeks and Romans games of every description formed a most important part. The principal of the four games publicly solemnized in Greece were the Olympic; but games Of different kinds were exercised by the early Romans, which consisted of chariot and horse racing, combats and theatrical sports. They also exercised themselves before bathing in leaping, running, throwing the javelin, quoit, etc. The athletic exercises practiced among these nations consisted of wrestling, boxing and such other exercises, requiring great strength. Prizes were given to the victors and many privileges granted to them. The Olympic Games, the chief of the festivals of the Greeks, were celebrated every fifth year, and consisted of religious ceremonies, athletic contests and races. Under the emperors Of ancient Rome places were built in which the Romans were to perform athletic exercises. These places were known as Gymnasia, but they were imitations of those buildings erected by the Spartans, the inhabitants of Sparta, the capital of the mountainous country in Greece, and bounded by the Messenian, La eonian and Argolic Gulfs. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.