Pankration
ΠαγκράτιονAn ancient Greek combat sport that, according to the Perseus Project, combined boxing and wrestling, at the Olympic Games from 648 BC according to the Greek Ministry of Culture.
Quick Facts
GreeceCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
Catalogs & Databases for Pankration
About Pankration
Pankration was an ancient Greek combat sport that, according to the Perseus Project of Tufts University, combined boxing and wrestling. Pausanias states that men's pankration was admitted to the Olympic programme at the 33rd Olympiad, and the Greek Ministry of Culture places this first appearance in 648 BC. According to Pausanias, the first Olympic victor was Lygdamis of Syracuse. The Greek Ministry of Culture states that all punches, kicks and holds were permitted and only biting, poking a finger into the opponent's mouth or nose and gouging the eyes were forbidden. It also distinguishes kato pankration, in which the fight continued on the ground, and standing ano pankration. According to the same source, the defeated fighter surrendered by raising one or two fingers, a gesture called apagoreuein. Philostratus the Elder states that the Lacedaemonians allowed biting and eye gouging, whereas the games in Elis excluded them. Pausanias also recorded fighters such as Theagenes of Thasos or Arrhichion of Phigalia, whom the Eleans declared the winner although he died in the bout. The modern form called neo-pankration was, according to the diaspora newspaper Neos Kosmos, created in 1969 by the Greek-American fighter Jim Arvanitis, and according to English Wikipedia, FILA recognised pankration athlima in 2010 as an associated discipline.
History
Pausanias, in his Periegesis from the second century AD, states that the men's pankration was admitted to the Olympic programme at the eighth Games after the 25th Olympiad, that is, at the 33rd Olympiad, together with the horse race. The Greek Ministry of Culture, on its website about the ancient Olympic Games, dates this first appearance to 648 BC. According to Pausanias, the first Olympic victor was Lygdamis of Syracuse, whom the Syracusans claimed to have been as big as Heracles. The Perseus Project of Tufts University cites the poet Xenophanes of the sixth century BC, who called the pankration a new and terrible contest of all holds. According to Pausanias, the boys' pankration was introduced at the Olympic Games only at the 145th Olympiad, and Phaedimus of Troas won it.
How it differs
Philostratus the Elder, in the third century AD, states that the Lacedaemonians allow biting and gouging out eyes, whereas the games in Elis exclude them but permit strangling. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities of 1875 states that in Sparta regular pankration was forbidden, that biting and scratching appeared in an irregular Spartan form of fighting, and that according to the dictionary they probably did not occur at the great public games. According to the Perseus Project of Tufts University, pankration combined boxing and wrestling, but unlike in boxing, the fighters did not wrap their hands in himantes straps. Carter in the Classical Journal of 2006 states that Poliakoff in 1987 included pankration among ancient combat sports but excluded gladiatorial combat from them, and that the gesture of surrender with a raised finger comes from Greek combat sports.
Technique
The Greek Ministry of Culture states that in the pankration all strikes, kicks and holds were allowed, and only biting, poking a finger into the opponent's mouth or nose, and gouging out the eyes were forbidden. The Perseus Project of Tufts University states that the rules forbade only biting and gouging with the nails at the opponent's eyes, nose or mouth, that kicks to the belly were allowed, and that, unlike boxers, pankratiasts did not wrap their hands with himantes straps. The Ministry distinguishes two forms, kato pankration, in which the fight continued even after contact with the ground, and ano, or orthostanden, pankration, fought standing. According to the same source, small men who were agile enough to avoid dangerous blows also excelled, and cunning was essential too. Pausanias writes of Sostratus of Sicyon, nicknamed Akrochersites, who caught his opponent by the fingers and bent them until he gave up. Philostratus the Elder describes Arrhichion's last fight as one in which the opponent wrapped a forearm around his throat to stop his breath, and Arrhichion dislocated the opponent's ankle with a sudden pressure. In the same story Pausanias speaks of a dislocated toe.
Training
According to the Greek Ministry of Culture, the standing ano pankration was less violent and was preferred in training. Plato, in the Laws of the fourth century BC, states that an athlete thoroughly trained in pankration, boxing or wrestling can fight with the left side as well, and he offers it as a model of two-sided training. Elsewhere in the Laws he writes that anyone raising boxers or pankratiasts would have them wrestle with others every day and, in need, even fight a shadow. Exercises with padded gloves and on a hanging dummy refer explicitly to boxers in his text. Lucian, in the second century AD, describes in the dialogue Anacharsis youths in the Athenian gymnasium sprinkled with sand, who stand and trade punches and kicks, and Solon explains in it that this is precisely what is called pankration. Solon defends the practice of pankration and wrestling in the dialogue as useful and pleasant, and in his view it leads to excellent physical condition.
Competition
According to the Greek Ministry of Culture, the winner forced his opponent to give up, and the defeated man signalled defeat by raising one or two fingers, the gesture apagoreuein. Pausanias describes how Arrhichion of Phigalia died by strangulation at the 54th Olympiad, but his opponent gave up simultaneously because of a dislocated toe, and the Eleans therefore crowned his dead body and proclaimed it the victor. According to Pausanias, Theagenes of Thasos wanted to win boxing and pankration at the same Olympiad. In boxing he defeated Euthymus, but he had no strength left for pankration, and the judges fined him a talent for the god and a talent for Euthymus. According to Pausanias, Dromeus of Mantinea won pankration at these Games without a fight, reportedly as the first documented case, and Theagenes won at the next Games. According to Pausanias, the first after Theagenes to be proclaimed victor at Olympia in both boxing and pankration was Cleitomachus of Thebes. Sostratus of Sicyon won, according to Pausanias, three Olympic victories, two Pythian and twelve at the Nemean and Isthmian Games combined. The Eleans did not recognise his first victory at the 104th Olympiad, because the Games were run by the Pisans and Arcadians.
Today
The modern form called neo-pankration was, according to the expatriate paper Neos Kosmos of 2022, created in 1969 by the Greek-American fighter Jim Arvanitis, and his approach spread after an article in Black Belt magazine in 1973. Black Belt states that Arvanitis studied the history of pankration for years before the codification of modern pankration and that the magazine inducted him into its Hall of Fame as Instructor of the Year 2009. In Australia, modern pankration is, according to Neos Kosmos, run by the Australian Federation of Pankration. According to USA Wrestling of 2013, pankration was one of two non-Olympic styles that FILA kept at its extraordinary congress. English Wikipedia states that in 2010 FILA recognised pankration athlima as an associated discipline and that the IOC does not recognise pankration as an Olympic sport. The World Combat Games website distinguishes two styles, pankration as full contact and pankration athlima as semi contact. United World Wrestling announced that after the restructuring of styles pankration will be held only for the U17 category and younger, while U20 goes to amateur MMA.
Did you know
Pausanias reports that Theagenes of Thasos won nineteen prizes in boxing and pankration at the Nemean and Isthmian Games, and reportedly 1,400 victory wreaths in total. He describes the pankratiast Pulydamas, son of Nicias, as the tallest man of his time, with a statue at Olympia made by Lysippus, and says that on Mount Olympus he killed a lion with his bare hands. According to Pausanias, the Persian king Darius II invited him to Susa, where Pulydamas challenged three Persian Immortals and killed all three alone. According to Pausanias, Arrhichion won twice at the Olympic Games already before the 54th Olympiad, and his archaic stone statue stood in the marketplace at Phigalia. The Greek Ministry of Culture lists among its monuments on pankration a marble statue of the pankratiast Agias from the group of votive offerings of Daochos. In the Laws, Plato proposes that in his ideal city pankration be replaced by a contest of the lightly armed.
Frequently asked questions
When did pankration appear at the Olympic Games?
According to Pausanias, men's pankration was admitted at the 33rd Olympiad, and the Greek Ministry of Culture places this first appearance in 648 BC. According to Pausanias, the first victor was Lygdamis of Syracuse.
What was forbidden in pankration?
According to the Greek Ministry of Culture, only biting, poking a finger into the opponent's mouth or nose and gouging the eyes were forbidden, and all punches, kicks and holds were permitted.
How was defeat signalled in pankration?
According to the Greek Ministry of Culture, the winner forced the opponent to give up, and the defeated fighter signalled defeat by raising one or two fingers, with the gesture apagoreuein.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.