The popularity of wrestling among the Greeks is proved by the constant use of metaphors from this sport and by the frequency with which scenes from the wrestling ring appear, not only in athletic literature and art but also in mythological subjects. Despite the changes in the spirit of Greek athletics caused by the growth of professionalism, which affected wrestling and boxing more perhaps than any other sport, the popularity of wrestling whether as a pastime or as a spectacle remained unabated. On early black-figured vases Heracles is constantly represented employing the regular holds and tricks of the palaestra not only against the giant Antaeus, but against monsters such as Achelous or the Triton, or even against the Nemean lion, and centuries later we find Ovid and Lucan describing these scenes in language borrowed in every detail from the same source.