The boxing of the Hellenic world even in the fifth century B.C. could boast an antiquity and renown to which modern pugilism can offer no parallel. The ‘noble art’ was associated with some of the most famous names of the heroic age, including even kings and demigods, so that the opprobrium which has become attached, perhaps unjustly, to the term ‘prize-fighter’ was precluded from the titles of the Greek champions. The antiquity of the sport is shown by the vivid descriptions of Homer and the place assigned to it in the Funeral Games, while a fragment of a relief showing a boxer armed with ίμάντεσ discovered by Dr. Evans at Cnossus carries us back to a remoter past. In historic times especially in the earlier period we find the Ionians were the chief boxers and supplied most of the champions. The Dorians, especially the Spartans, do not seem to have looked upon pugilism with much favour, although some victors are known to bave come from the Peloponnesus.