Pankration

Pankration was an unarmed combat sport introduced into the Greek Olympic Games in 648 BC. The athletes used boxing and wrestling techniques but also others, such as kicking, holds, joint locks, and chokes on the ground, making it similar to modern mixed martial arts. The term comes from the Ancient Greek word , meaning "all of power".

History

According to Greek legend, it was said that the heroes Heracles and Theseus invented pankration as a result of using both wrestling and boxing in their confrontations with opponents. Theseus was said to have used pankration to defeat Cercyon of Eleusis in a wrestling match, as one of his labours on the sea route to Athens, as well as the minotaur in the labyrinth. Heracles too was often depicted in ancient artworks subduing the Nemean lion using pankration.
In this context, pankration was also referred to as pammachon or pammachion, meaning "total combat", from πᾶν-, pān-, "all-" or "total", and μάχη, machē, "matter". The term pammachon is older, and would later become used less than the term pankration.
The mainstream academic view has been that pankration developed in the archaic Greek society of the 7th century BC, whereby, as the need for expression in violent sport increased, pankration filled a niche of "total contest" that neither boxing nor wrestling could. However, some evidence suggests that pankration, in both its sporting form and its combative form, may have been practiced in Greece already from the second millennium BC.
Pankration, as practiced in historical antiquity, was an athletic event that combined techniques of both boxing and wrestling, as well as additional elements, such as the use of strikes with the legs, to create a broad fighting sport similar to today's mixed martial arts competitions. There is evidence that, although knockouts were common, most pankration competitions were decided on the basis of submission. Pankratiasts were highly skilled grapplers and were extremely effective in applying a variety of takedowns, chokes and joint locks. In extreme cases a pankration competition could even result in the death of one of the opponents, which was considered a win for the surviving combatant.
However, pankration was more than just an event in the athletic competitions of the ancient Greek world; it was also part of the arsenal of Greek soldiers – including the famous Spartan hoplites and Alexander the Great's Macedonian phalanx. It is said that the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae fought with their bare hands and teeth once their swords and spears broke. Herodotus mentions that in the battle of Mycale between the Greeks and the Persians in 479 BC, those of the Greeks who fought best were the Athenians, and the Athenian who fought best was a distinguished pankratiast, Hermolycus, son of Euthynus. Polyaemus describes King Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great, practicing with another pankratiast while his soldiers watched.
File:Pancratist Amphora, by the Berlin Painter - Red Figure.jpg|left|thumb|Pankratiasts represented on a Panathenaic amphora, c.490 BC, Staatliche Museum.
The feats of the ancient pankratiasts became legendary in the annals of Greek athletics. Stories abound of past champions who were considered invincible beings. Arrhichion, Dioxippus, Polydamas of Skotoussa and Theogenes are among the most highly recognized names. Their accomplishments defying the odds were some of the most inspiring of ancient Greek athletics and they served as inspiration to the Hellenic world for centuries, as Pausanias, the ancient traveller and writer indicates when he re-tells these stories in his narrative of his travels around Greece.
Dioxippus was an Athenian who had won the Olympic Games in 336 BC, and was serving in Alexander the Great's army in its expedition into Asia. As an admired champion, he naturally became part of the circle of Alexander the Great. In that context, he accepted a challenge from one of Alexander's most skilled soldiers named Coragus to fight in front of Alexander and the troops in armed combat. While Coragus fought with weapons and full armour, Dioxippus showed up armed only with a club and defeated Coragus without killing him, making use of his pankration skills. Later, however, Dioxippus was framed for theft, which led him to commit suicide.
In an odd turn of events, a pankration fighter named Arrhichion of Phigalia won the pankration competition at the Olympic Games despite being dead. His opponent had locked him in a chokehold and Arrhichion, desperate to loosen it, broke his opponent's toe. The opponent nearly passed out from pain and submitted. As the referee raised Arrhichion's hand, it was discovered that he had died from the chokehold. His body was crowned with the olive wreath and returned to Phigaleia as a hero.
By the Imperial Period, the Romans had adopted the Greek combat sport into their Games. In 393 AD, the pankration, along with gladiatorial combat and all pagan festivals, was abolished by edict by the Christian Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I.
Pausanias mentions the wrestler Leontiscus from Messene. He wrote that Leontiscus's technique of wrestling was similar to the pankration of Sostratus the Sicyonian because Leontiscus didn't know how to throw his opponents; he won by bending their fingers instead.

Structure of the ancient competition

There were neither weight divisions nor time limits in pankration competitions. However, there were two or three age groups in the competitions of antiquity. In the Ancient Olympic Games specifically there were only two such age groups: men and boys. The pankration event for boys was established at the Olympic Games in 200 BC. In pankration competitions, referees were armed with stout rods or switches to enforce the rules. In fact, there were only two rules regarding combat: no eye gouging or biting. Sparta was the only place eye gouging and biting were allowed. The contest itself usually continued uninterrupted until one of the combatants submitted, which was often signalled by the submitting contestant raising his index finger. The judges appear, however, to have had the right to stop a contest under certain conditions and award the victory to one of the two athletes; they could also declare the contest a tie.
Pankration competitions were held in tournaments, most being outside of the Olympics. Each tournament began with a ritual which would decide how the tournament would take place. Grecophone satirist Lucian describes the process in detail:
This process was apparently repeated every round until the finals.
There would be a bye in every round containing an odd number of athletes, which could potentially be in every round until the final. The same athlete could be an ephedros more than once, and this could of course be of great advantage to him as the ephedros would be spared the wear and tear of the rounds imposed on his opponent. To win a tournament without being an ephedros in any of the rounds was thus an honorable distinction.
There is evidence that the major Games in Greek antiquity easily had four tournament rounds, that is, a field of sixteen athletes. However, there is clear evidence from Plato, who refers to competitors in the Panhellenic Games, with opponents numbering in the thousands. Moreover, in the first century A.D., the Greco-Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria—who was himself probably a practitioner of pankration—makes a statement that could be an allusion to preliminary contests in which an athlete would participate and then collect his strength before coming forward fresh in the major competition. Therefore, we can assume regional and preliminary contests leading up to the major games could include upwards of hundreds of competitors, of which a select few will qualify to compete in the most important games.

Techniques

The athletes engaged in a pankration competition – i.e., the pankratiasts ; and when they took the fight to the ground, that stage of pankration competition was called Katō pankration.
Some of the techniques that would be applied in anō pankration and katō pankration, respectively, are known to us through depictions on ancient pottery and sculptures, as well as in descriptions in ancient literature. There were also strategies documented in ancient literature that were meant to be used to obtain an advantage over the competitor.

Fighting stances

The pankratiast faces his opponent with a nearly frontal stance—only slightly turned sideways. This is an intermediate directional positioning, between the wrestler's more frontal positioning and the boxer's more sideways stance, and is consistent with the need to preserve both the option of using striking and protecting the center line of the body and the option of applying grappling techniques. Thus, the left side of the body is slightly forward than the right side of the body and the left hand is more forward than the right one. Both hands are held high so that the tips of the fingers are at the level of the hairline or just below the top of the head. The hands are partially open, the fingers are relaxed, and the palms are facing naturally forward, down, and slightly toward each other. The front arm is nearly fully extended but not entirely so; the rear arm is more cambered than the front arm, but more extended than a modern-day boxer's rear arm. The back of the athlete is somewhat rounded, but not as much as a wrestler's would be. The body is only slightly leaning forward.
The weight is virtually all on the back foot with the front foot touching the ground with the ball of the foot. It is a stance in which the athlete is ready at the same time to give a kick with the front leg as well as defend against the opponent's low-level kicks by lifting the front knee and blocking. The back leg is bent for stability and power and is facing slightly to the side, to go with the slightly sideways body position. The head and torso are behind the protecting two upper limbs and front leg.