So, lots of questions here for those who are currently researching ancient Greek boxing. In short, I wondered how much trouble you're having with your sources, and how you're dealing with / adapting to the potential problems of doing ancient combat sport history from a technical standpoint. I ask because I would expect a couple problems, in addition to the usual issue in all boxing history (i.e., that legends seem to spring up faster than you can whack-a-mole them.) First off, how close to the actual events do the sources get? Since you're dealing with a relatively non-literate culture where oral traditions rarely survived intact past three generations, I would imagine that might present problems. And I'm guessing a lot of the material is fragmentary and only singly attested. Second, to what extent do the sources share the problem you see in Plutarch and Thucydides, where the author will deliberately manufacture details because they were "fitting" for the occasion, telescope time episodes and mash them together, rework material, etc.? Don't get me wrong -- modern sources have their share of legend mongering too, but the ancients did it deliberately (in some contexts) because that was part of both the history and bios genres' literary expectations, and it was accepted as legitimate. Finally, any problems with timelines? This would have been trickier to assemble 50 or 60 years ago than today, but I imagine there are still issues since you've got a zillion ancient calendar systems. EDIT: It also occurs to me to wonder how much trouble you're having with the fact that the numerous styles of boxing practiced over a ~800 year period have been dead for almost two millennia. How much detail can you glean from the sources when you're not dealing with a living tradition? How do you adapt your research research that? EDIT 2: The language issue also interests me. Ancient Greek is not an easy language to work with anyway, but this kind of inquiry would have to translate what I assume would be Greek technical boxing terms into something understandable to moderns. I ran into a turn of the century Classics academic journal article that claimed the Badminton Library had misinterpreted Greek/Latin passages about boxing, and those guys would have probably been better equipped than we are to do it competently. (Edwardian society was, after all, immersed in classical studies, and barely two decades away from bareknuckle Prize Ring championships.)
I'm envisioning a giant, spinning terracotta plate that cycles through images of Diagoras punching a guy. Presumably turned by helots chained to a wheel.
