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Anonymous
Wikipedia
>The bronze Boxer of Quirinal, also known as the Terme Boxer, is a Hellenistic Greek sculpture from the first century B.C of a sitting boxer with cestus. It is one of the two unrelated bronzes discovered on the slopes of the Quirinal within a month of each other in 1885, possibly from the remains of the Baths of Constantine. The realism of the portraiture suggests that it is a particular boxer, with a boxer's scars and broken nose, and not a representation of Polydeuces, one of the Dioscuri.
>> Anonymous
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>The ancient Greeks, and later the Romans, called boxing pugilism (a term now often used for boxing). The Greeks were the first to give rules to the sport: while clinching was strictly forbidden, there were, unlike modern boxing, no weight classes. Fights were not separated into rounds and had no time limit, ending at a knockout, or at a fighter abandoning the fight, or sometimes at the death of one of the fighters. Although gloves were used in practice, in competition fighters wrapped their hands in strips of hardened leather which protected the fist and caused unpleasant injuries for the opponent.
>> Anonymous
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>Homer's Iliad (ca. 675 BC) contains the first detailed account of a box fight (Book XXIII). According to the Iliad, Mycenaean warriors included boxing among their competitions honoring the fallen, though it is possible that the Homeric epics reflect later Greek culture. Another Greek legend holds that the heroic ruler Theseus, said to have lived around the 9th century BC, invented a form of boxing in which two men sat face to face and beat each other with their fists until one of them was killed. In time, the boxers began to fight while standing and wearing gloves (with spikes) and wrappings on their arms below the elbows, although otherwise they competed naked.
>> Anonymous
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>> Bat Guano
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I heard the sculpture is from the 3rd-2nd centuries BC.
>> Anonymous
very fascinating
>> Anonymous
Yeah, most sculptures like this would have been melted down for the bronze by later cultures, but this one was lost via shipwreck, as are all other surviving bronze sculptures from the Greco-Roman world. At least to my knowledge.
>> Anonymous
This is a great example of Hellenistic Greek art, which is generally more naturalistic and expressive than Classical Greek art (480-420 BC). That's not to say that it's better or worse, though the technical challenges were arguably greater. Just a changing culture adopting a new aesthetic.