How do the boxing scenes in The Iliad and Aeneid
How do the boxing scenes in The Iliad and The Aeneid fit in with the ideal of the Classical Hero?
CONTENTS
Introduction
The Ideal of the Classical Hero in Ancient Greek and Roman Culture
Boxing in the Ancient World
Homer
Virgil
Plato
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
Ancient Greek and Roman literature was a vital tool in the construction of the ideal of the classical hero. Augmented by the classical architecture and sculpture, classical mythology and literature made sure that the fictional role of the hero became fixed during the pre-Christian and early Christian realms of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. In keeping with the dominant, male?centric vision of ancient society, the hero was always a male, always athletic and always skilled in the arts of fighting and warfare. This basic cultural fact is as true of Homer as it is of Virgil. In fact, all of the great classical writers saw the edification of the literary hero as the latest in a long line of succession beginning with Achilles and continuing in a linear fashion up to the heroes created by the late Roman Republic. In this way, a certain symbiosis is detectable between Greek and Roman cultures with the Romans being seen to have adopted and adapted a great many of the Greek ideals pertaining to civilisation.
This obsession with creating the perfect fictional male hero necessarily had consequences for the real?life political and military constitution of the ancient world with classical conquerors such as the Macedonian King Alexander the Great providing the political manifestation of the classical hero as idealised in The Iliad and The Aeneid. As with Alexander, separating the myth from the fact provides the historian with the greatest challenge when reading ancient literature (Worthington, 2004).
For the purpose of perspective, the following examination into the boxing scenes of a selection of landmark ancient literary works must adopt a chronological approach, tracing the work first of Homer before necessarily turning attention towards subsequent writers, including Virgil and Plato. Each book will be analysed in individual detail so as to form a synthesis as to the depiction of the classical hero in ancient culture, although the central focus will be on, first, The Iliad and, next, The Aeneid. A conclusion will be sought that attempts to highlight both the similarities and differences of the various accounts of boxing and heroism in ancient Greek and Roman society in relation to our own. First, however, a brief overview of the idealised hero in the ancient world must be ascertained in order to establish a conceptual framework for the remainder of the discussion.
The Ideal of the Classical Hero in Ancient Greek and Roman Culture
The ideal of the classical hero emerged in the archaic period that can be traced back to the tenth century BC. This is the point at which the emerging city states of the Mediterranean and the Aegean began to vie for supremacy in the region, which signalled the formation of large land based armies and military style cultures that whose ultimate success or failure was determined by warfare and conquest. It is at this time that we first begin to see the mass distribution of the kouros figurines in ancient Greece, which were male, military figures depicting the archetypal soldier/hero in the archaic period. The kouros were made as lean, muscular fighters, perfectly proportioned and balanced upon their rostra. They serve to show how, even before the advent of Homeric heroism, there was a tangible link between militant athleticism and the idealised conception of the ancient Greek hero. This remained true of the whole ancient period, from Homer to Plato to Virgil to Pindar.
After the advent of Homer’s poetry the link between the idealised male Greek body and the concept of the hero become further institutionalised in ancient Greek art, literature and culture. In place of the ubiquitous image of the kouros came the classical depictions of ancient heroism with the body in particular taking on a more divine form in the major Greek artistic expressionism of the Classical and Hellenistic periods. As a result, we begin to see artwork such as the bronze statue found in Rome dating from circa 150 BC that shows the bruised torso of the classical boxer with another similarly dated artefact highlighting in copper the blood dripping from the boxer’s battered face. This fusion of the scantily clad male form with the ideal of the classical hero is one that could not have prospered without there first being in place a certain kind of ancient Greek philosophy that revelled in the masculine depiction of the human form.
“Greek confidence in the body can be understood only in relation to their philosophy. It expresses above all their sense of human wholeness. Nothing which related to the whole man could be isolated or evaded; and this serious awareness of how much was implied in psychical beauty saved from the two evils of sensuality and aestheticism.” (Clark, 1985:21)
This visual idealisation of the ancient Greek hero was transferred to literature in both the Greek and Roman worlds where the more primitive notion of the hero being confined to purely military pursuits expanded so as to include athletic endeavours and sports. In essence, while the heroes of the archaic period were warriors, the heroes of the Roman Republic were sportsmen as well as conquerors although the essential attributes of both incarnations of the hero remained the same throughout both the Greek and Roman realms. As time went by, the hero had to be skilled in the arts of warfare, in dexterity as applied too athleticism and, increasingly, he must have been shown to display honour and virtue so that his moral conduct dovetailed his physical prowess. This was as true of Achilles as it was of the Roman Emperors of the Republic; a hero could not be lauded if he was not mentally as well as physically superior to all men.
It should be noted that there was a certain sense of arrogance that permeated both the ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of the hero in this athletic and virtuous context, which is very evident in the literature at this time. For instance, the ancient Greeks, like the Romans after them, saw all athletic pursuits as uniquely Hellenistic – physical endeavours that marked the ancient Greeks out as discernibly different and superior to their contemporaries. No other civilisation could have been skilled in the sports that enthralled the Greeks. This is a basic feature of any hegemonic, imperialistic culture that has achieved regional and political dominance over its neighbours. If one thinks of, for instance, the way in which the United States has monopolised its own sports by making, for example, baseball into a ‘world series’ even though it is not played outside of the North American geopolitical sphere of hegemonic influence, then we can see how sport becomes an essential part of the national character and of the maintenance of a hegemonic civilisation. This was an important feature of both the Greek and Roman worlds.
There was therefore a sense of inherent arrogance attached to the idealisation of the hero and all of the arts that he was well versed in – be it boxing, running or wrestling. In some ancient societies this emphasis upon sporting pursuits became the defining feature of that civilisation. The Spartans (who were said to have invented the sport of boxing as a direct result of their distaste for wearing traditional military helmets), for instance, separated their society along male?female lines, taking the young boys away at the age of eight where they would be made to endure years of training in physical pursuits such as boxing and fighting. The cumulative result was two fold. On the one hand, the Spartans were arguably the most fearsome fighting culture of the ancient world with a reputation that spread from Athens to Persia in the sixth and fifth centuries BC (Kennell, 1995). On the other hand, the over-emphasis upon sport and competition resulted in an arrogant and isolated world view that was promulgated in Sparta whereby the Spartans were never willing to even enter into negotiations or compromise with competing city-states. This, ultimately, contributed to Sparta’s downfall as the reliance upon heroism, valour and military pursuits came at the expense of instilling the requisite political skills needed to maintain parity in an increasingly sophisticated ancient world.
It can be seen that the ideal of the hero was somewhat fixed in the ancient world, for the most part completely unchallenged in any kind of cultural or societal sense. Indeed, the only major challenge to the idealised conception of the hero in ancient Greece and Rome came with the advent of the class system. The Classical Greeks were the first to incorporate a division between active and passive citizenship that the Romans turned into a much more rigid caste structure that prevented the vast majority of the population from holding office and from acquiring the skills of the state. This, in turn, had a major impact upon the kind of hero who was to emerge from the boxing arena or from the gladiatorial spectacles of Imperial Rome. To be a virtuous hero, one had to be from a cultured class. This necessarily impacted upon the writing of ancient Greek and Roman chroniclers who revelled in the brutality and barbarism of the fighting credentials of some of the lower classes. Thus, much of the literary description of boxing scenes in the ancient world is tinged with an inevitable hint of sycophantism and exaggeration of the true nature of the fighting taking place due to the inherent arrogance of the ruling classes, which was fuelled by their distaste and disgust of the lower classes. Consequently, and as ever with regards to ancient source material, caution must be the historian’s constant companion when appraising scenes of competition and boxing in ancient Greek and Roman texts.
Boxing in the Ancient World
Before commencing detailed analysis of the portrayal of boxing in The Iliad, mention must be made of the difference between the ancient conception of boxing and the way that it is understood in the modern world. While both pursuits have been labelled as ‘sports’, boxing in the ancient era was a much more vicious and, indeed, life threatening pastime. Boxers in the ancient world fought until one of the competitors was either knocked unconscious or was battered into such a state of submission as to be wholly unable to continue the fight at which point the contest would be brought to a close by a recognised adjudicator. Therefore, unlike in the modern day, there were no Queensbury rules to abide by, although both the ancient Greeks and the Romans preferred their boxing heroes to fight with their fists and to incorporate a great deal of aestheticism into their art. Thus, a boxer would not be considered to be heroic or iconic if he fought in what we would understand as a ‘dirty’ way. Fairness was adjudged to be as worthy a personal attribute as valour. This basic moral premise was first established by Homer where the dirty fighters (usually the Trojans) are soon despatched by the remorseless and unforgiving gods. Likewise, a boxer could not be considered to be a hero if there was not the omnipresent threat of death and destruction to contend with. Only by battling against fierce odds and an even fiercer fate should he lose could the ancient boxer lay claim to the title of ‘hero’. “As Pindar wrote, ‘prowess without hazard has no honour among men or among the hollow ships.’” (Poliakoff, 1995:113)
In addition, it is also important to note that boxing in the ancient world was closely allied to warfare, which is not true of the pugilistic sport as it is conceived of in the modern day. This is primarily because ancient societies were constructed upon and around the spectre of external war with competing neighbours as well as internal war between competing kinships and tribes all vying for political and military power. This fusion of militarism and culture continued to rise with the advent of the Roman Empire – a state conceived of almost solely via military conquest.
“The Greek world was a complex mosaic of communities, often at war with each other or outside powers. In Rome, the focus is on a single state. From the earliest days, war was at the heart of the life of the Roman people. They fought wars almost every year. Annual rituals marked the opening and closing of the campaigning season.” (Rich, 1993:1)
Moreover, unlike today, ancient warfare was conducted without the aid of industrial weaponry. Therefore, the skill of being able to defend oneself with one’s fists was considered to be a particularly attractive attribute in both ancient Greece and ancient Rome. Indeed, being a skilled and able boxer was considered to be an ample substitute for a perceived lack of skills relating specifically to warfare, such as ability with a sword or a spear. As Michael Poliakoff (1995:113) declares, “his [the soldier’s] compensation is his boxing prowess, so vital to his identity that a match with a fellow soldier elicits his most violent jealousy for honour and recognition.”
Thus, boxing became a substitute as well as an augmentation of warfare in the ancient world. In this way, generals were able to make sure that their soldiers were in a constant state of awareness for battle – to the extent that they were made to fight against one another during lulls in the war so as to maintain vigilance in the art of fighting. In this way, boxing was a non?specific as well as a specific sporting endeavour that had usage in a variety of different ways. It was the ultimate expression of masculinity. Indeed, manhood could not be said to have existed without recourse to blood and combat sports such as boxing, wrestling or pankration (an ancient Greek mode of martial art that was first introduced to the Olympic Games in 646 BC).
None of this, of course, is to state that the practice of boxing remained uniform throughout the period between Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid. There is a discernible evolution of boxing techniques and practices that occurred during the transition from the Greek to the Roman stage. The most obvious difference occurred with the himantes – the pieces of cloth that were tied around the boxers’ knuckles and wrists before he commenced the bout. In the Homeric era, the himantes would have been made of ox hide (not pigskin, as it left wounds that were particularly painful and slow to heal). This, in turn, meant that boxing matches tended to last longer in the Homeric era as the ‘soft’ cloth that was placed around the boxer’s wrists and knuckles curtailed too many excessively damaging injuries as a result of blows landed during the fight itself. In the later Classical period of ancient Greece, a harder himas replaced the softer cloth with a leather ‘shield’ that was strapped across the boxer’s forearm. Thus, boxing became more brutal and more closely allied to the concept of the gladiator that would appear in ancient Rome. Indeed, it was the Romans who took the paradigm of combat sports to a new level by creating a new kind of boxing glove, the caestus, which was “commonly loaded with metal and glass fragments. A single punch could be lethal.” (Miller, 2004:54)
It can be seen that the ideal of the heroic boxing champion changed markedly from the sport’s first inception in the Olympic Games in 688 BC to the advent of the bloodthirsty Roman incarnation of ancient contact sports where blood was demanded by society at large. Clearly, therefore, there must have been a sizeable gap between the kind of mythical boxing relayed by writers such as Homer, Pindar, Virgil, Aristotle and Plato and the kind of boxing that was seen at the Olympic Games and at Greek and Roman boxing arenas in the ancient world. Consequently, we must be careful not to confuse the theoretical writings of classical authors with the pugilistic realities of competition sports in the classical epoch.
Finally, mention must briefly be made of the audience – the most important commodity in ancient combat sports in the ancient Greek and Roman periods. It should be noted that the spectator went to the Olympic Games and to gladiatorial contests to watch a dangerous fight take place where the stakes were high for both competitors and the audience alike. The spectators did not attend games to see boxers who did not conform to this sporting stereotype. Therefore, boxing became a microcosm of the militant ancient societies of Athens and Rome whereby the fighters were able to satisfy the spectators’ (as well as their own) bloodlust. This is a highly significant point and one that ought to be borne in mind throughout the remainder of the discussion at hand: boxing in the ancient world represented the heroic ideal of all of society, not just of the fighters and the men who wrote about those fighters for the sake of posterity. However, the writers whom we speak of herein were not privy to such masculine prowess. As a result, Classical authors including Pindar and Aristotle commented on boxing, wrestling and other combat sports with a decidedly envious eye that reflected the primacy of physical endeavour of mental aptitude in the ancient world.
Regardless of the bias and lack of manly insight of the majority of the primary source material, this prevailing cultural fact did not change during the transition from Roman to Greek regional hegemony in the last two centuries before the birth of Christ. Manliness was constantly associated with sports, combat, fighting and physical prowess; philosophy, politics and science remained the realms of the womanly wise. Heroism was a manifestation of these positive male character traits. With this essential historical background in mind, attention must now be turned to the depiction of boxing in The Iliad – the first point of reference for any literary study of ancient Greek culture and values.
Homer
The Iliad is a literary masterpiece that is dedicated to warfare and its consequences both for humans and gods alike. It is “a poem that lives and moves and has its being in war, in that world of organised violence in which a man justifies his existence most clearly by killing others.” (Knox, 1990: Introduction li) The Iliad consequently represents the most blatant mixture of militarism and heroism of any of the great literary works of the ancient period. Its depictions of boxing are located within this ode to war and act as a continuation of the fighting during periods when the Greeks and the Trojans have fought themselves to a stalemate. Boxing also provides Homer with the opportunity to lament the fate of the central heroes within the poem via the spectacle of funeral games. At heart, The Iliad is therefore a tragic poem, epitomised by the tragedy that befalls the two central protagonists of the struggle between the armies of Greece and Troy, namely the legendary Greek warrior/fighter Achilles and his Trojan adversary Hector (Redfield, 1993:99?127).
The skill of the boxers and fighters that are detailed within The Iliad is in correlation to the characters’ favourable or unfavourable relationship with the gods. In this way Homer infuses boxers with only moderate skill with the kind of energy, rage and pugilistic prowess that would usually be reserved only for the heroes. Thus, physical power is something that is bestowed upon men by the whim of the gods as well as an art that can be honed, practised and fine?tuned on the battlefield and beyond. This is best evidenced in Book Five of the poem when the goddess Pallas Athena bestows a violent rage upon Diomedes who then embarks upon an orgy of bloodshed and destruction. Likewise, it is Apollo throughout The Iliad who decides as and when to instil great combat powers in Greek and Trojan mortals. However, with specific regards to boxing, it is Book Twenty Three of The Iliad that provides the most illuminating insight into the uniquely Hellenistic view of the worth of boxing in ancient culture.
Book Twenty Three is set towards the end of the Trojan War when the Greeks and the Trojans had been fighting for many years. It takes place after the death of Hector at the hands of Achilles who is himself apoplectic at the death of his close friend (and, perhaps, lover) Patroclus. The Greeks are holding a procession of lavish funeral games for the departed Patroclus, which consists of the major athletic pursuits of the Homeric era. These sports are: boxing, horse racing, wrestling, spear throwing (javelin throwing as it is understood today), foot?racing (running) and gladiatorial combat. The adjudicator of the funeral games in Achilles – the one mortal who can perform each task better than any rival; also the most unpredictable and contrary of all of the Homeric heroes. This is an important point with specific regards to the depiction of boxing as a heroic character trait within The Iliad. The funeral games are put together in such a sequence as to suggest that each forms a composite part of the warrior whole of Achilles – the ultimate sporting hero intermeshed with the ultimate war-mongering warrior. Boxing is therefore just one part of a complex tapestry of heroic character that is, in the final analysis, beyond the realms of any mortal man. Essentially, Achilles is so devastatingly effective a fighter because of his unpredictable nature and his semi?divinity, not in spite of it. Thus, Homer’s vision of a hero is curiously both within and outside of the reach of mortal men.
The funeral games begin with Achilles’ lament over the loss of his friend. Gifts are exchanged; food and wine are consumed. Achilles gives out symbolic prizes to the assembled guests. To the legendary fighter and Antilochus’ father, Nestor, he gives a jar as a reminder of Patroclus’ valour and the honour he found in death. Achilles thus states to Nestor:
“Here, old friend – a trophy for you too! Lay it away as a treasure… let it remind you of the burial of Patroclus. Never again will you see him among the Argives. I give you this prize, a gift for giving’s sake, for now you will never fight with fists or wrestle, or enter the spear throw, or race on sprinting feet, the burden of old age already weigh you down.” (The Iliad, Book Twenty Three, 687?694; pp.500?501)
Here, the message being relayed is clearly that an inability to express oneself on a battlefield or within a combat sports context is tantamount to being dead. Nestor admits as much in his response to Achilles when he reminisces on his time as a renowned boxer. Therefore, there is an added equation of old age to ineptitude in the battle arena that clearly impacts upon Homeric society in a more profound way than is the case in the twenty first century. Old age meant becoming obsolete in military terms, which in turn telegraphed a sense of retirement above and beyond any resemblance of retirement as it is understood today. In this way, Nestor laments his metamorphosis from a champion into a spectator, dovetailing the earlier scene in Book Twenty Three when Antilochus and Menelaus almost come head-to-head at the start of the funeral games.
After acknowledging the insight gained via wisdom and old age, Antilochus says to the brother of Agamemnon: “well you know the whims of youth break all the rules.” (Book Twenty Three, 654; p.499) Thus, boxing is an essential part of the make?up of heroes; without the opportunity to express oneself in such a way, life becomes, according to the Homeric code, essentially meaningless. Furthermore, one becomes a burden to the family and to the state.
Achilles uses the funeral games to stoke up old rivalries within the Greek camp. In this way, Euryalus boxes on behalf of the Achaeans while Epeus boxes on behalf of the Argives in the second of the great contests included in Book Twenty Three of The Iliad. This scene would be mimicked in Virgil’s Aeneid, although the context of having boxers fight from competing geopolitical orders is one that appears to be constant in the ancient world, in much the same way as our contemporary boxing bouts take place between fighters from different nationalities. In this way, the umpire introduces fighters on behalf of, for instance, Great Britain or the United States of America in the same way that Homer announces Euryalus as a boxer who represents the Achaeans.
The author next makes certain that the ritual of ‘belting?up’ and ‘squaring?up’ to one’s opponent is accentuated in a way that resonates in today’s version of boxing where the prelude to the ‘big fight’ still attracts as much intrigue as the boxing match itself. Moreover, in ancient Greek terms, the ritual of squaring up to the opposition served to show the spectators which boxer was mentally stronger than the other. Like today, the boxers would look one another square in the eye before beginning the contest as if each is waiting for the other to flinch or to back down. This mirrors the pressure of the battlefield where the Greeks had to face the Trojans face?to?face in mortal combat; where one side’s weakness turned out to be the other side’s strength. In this way, boxing can be seen to be an integral part of the heroic composition of icons in Homer’s Iliad, mirroring the valour displayed over ten years during the siege of Troy. Moreover, the description of the boxing match itself evokes strong comparisons with the author’s vivid portrayal of the battle scenes between the Greeks and the Trojans, especially the prior fight between Achilles and Hector that proved so pivotal to the overall ending of the Trojan War. Homer thus states that:
“Both champions, belted tight, stepped into the ring, squared off at each other and let loose, trading jabs with their clenched fists then slugged it out – flurries of jolting punches, terrific grinding of jaws, sweat rivering, bodies glistening – suddenly Euryalus glanced for an opening, dropped his guard and Epeus hurled his smashing roundhouse hook to the head – a knockout blow!” (The Iliad, Book Twenty Three, 763?769; p.503)
The specific heroic attributes ascribed to boxing are underscored with the contest that follows the boxing match during Patroclus’ funeral games. After the boxing match, Ajax and Odysseus embark upon a wrestling match. The way that the wrestling match is described by Homer tends to show that this was considered to be a slower combat sport; one that inflicted less physical damage upon the competitors due to the heavy?set size of the fighters and the lethargic manner of the fight itself. Wrestling scenes are consequently handled in a much more languid literary style.
“And their back bones creaked as scuffling hands tugged for submission-holds and sweat streamed down their spines and clusters of raw welts broke out on ribs and shoulders slippery, red with blood, and still they grappled, harder, looking for victory; locked for that burnished tripod: Odysseus no more able to tripod bring to ground his man than Ajax could.” (The Iliad, Book Twenty Three, 795?801; pp.503-504)
This essential heroic difference between boxing wrestling is further cemented via the identity of the competitors at Patroclus’ funeral games: both Ajax and Odysseus are known to be legendary fighters whose heyday is long behind them. Both are seasoned campaigners who are no longer thought of in terms of boxing; but instead in more jovial terms; hence, of wrestling. Once again, therefore, Homer makes the connection between boxing and virulent youth and between old age and an inability to box against younger, fitter opponents.
Mention at this point must be made of the essential homoeroticism prevalent in Greek games during the Homeric era. Not only did these celebratory games explicitly exclude women; they also made sure that the men competing in the games did so in a discernibly homoerotic manner by wrestling, boxing, jousting and – at the end of the day – enjoying copious amounts of wine and merriment.
“Banquets were strictly all-male affairs. Here we get a clear glimpse of that aspect of Greek society already alluded to – apropos education and pederasty: freeborn women were vigorously debarred from these social occasions, just as they were from any participation in political affairs.” (Flaceliere, 2002:173?174)
One can only imagine what went on towards the end of these games, symposia and banquets although the practice of pederasty (the sexual and philosophical coupling of an adult male and a junior adolescent boy) which was highly popular at the time that Homer was writing ought to make us believe that the games the likes of which occur in Book Twenty Three of The Iliad were much more ‘masculine’ as we could ever comprehend today. Moreover, in The Iliad, Homer alludes to Patroclus playing the part of Achilles’ young, adolescent lover; thus, the entire funeral procession takes place under the broader umbrella of homoeroticism and homosexual love. This is a highly important point and one that directly impacts upon the construction of the idealised ancient Greek hero during the Homeric era. While boxing and other comparable combat sports were important composite parts of the heroic whole, the conception of the male hero during the Hellenistic period fluctuates wildly from our own, chiefly in a sexual way whereby the ancient Greeks saw no cultural taboo in men enjoying sexual relationships with other men. This was as true of the politicians operating on the Acropolis as it was of heroic warriors such as Achilles. Similarly, whereas boxing is today seen as one of the manliest expressions of sporting prowess, to the Greeks it was seen as this in addition to a uniquely Hellenistic type of male bonding.
Homer augments his depiction of boxing in The Iliad with a similar scene which takes place in The Odyssey. However, rather than being a funeral games as was the case in The Iliad, The Phaeacian Games that constitutes Book Eight of The Odyssey is set to the context of a celebratory games where the indigenous Phaeacians invite Odysseus to take part as a guest in their games. At first, Odysseus is reluctant to engage in any sports on account of his arduous journey (as well as the aforementioned fact in The Iliad that Odysseus’ glory days are far behind him); but an insult from the re?appearing Euryalus incites Odysseus not only to take part in the combat sports, but to emphatically win. Afterwards, Odysseus recounts his former fame as a boxer and a wrestler, once again underlining the Homeric association between boxing and manliness and fame. Odysseus declares to the gathered Phaeacian masses:
“Since you have thoroughly roused me, come out, if any of you fancy the idea and have the pluck, come out and take me on – at boxing, wrestling or even running, I don’t care which… for I am not a bad hand all round at any kind of manly sport.” (The Odyssey, 1976:127)
Thus, fame at grass roots, popular culture level in the Hellenistic Age could only come about through becoming skilled at athletic pursuits. This kind of fame is able to spread far and wide from the geographic nexus of the great sporting deeds in question. This is further cemented by the negative treatment of men who do not display such athletic prowess – men such as Paris whose distinct lack of manliness and overt cowardice can be seen to have triggered the devastation of the Trojan War in the first place. Homer accentuates this discrepancy between the manly pursuits of famous men and the feminine pursuits of non?famous men in the response that he pens for the Phaeacian King to Odysseus’ claims of fighting and boxing prowess. Alcinous thus states:
