Did the ancient Greeks and Romans write about boxing technique?

Don't think so, unless you consider the Boxing match described in the Iliad a technical account. It was primarily just paintings.

Fun fact : This iconic painting is a 15 minute drive away from my house
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...AMA_Akrotiri_2.jpg/1200px-NAMA_Akrotiri_2.jpg

 

Seems I recall reading some of those boxing matches were to the death, yikes!

 

How many bareknuckle boxers do you think could read ancient Greek or Roman scripture?
How many people have you met that could?

 

The problem is pygmaxia lent itself to incredibly short careers; and if you did survive through a number of fights it was probably by sheer dint of natural gifts (strength & speed), willpower, luck, and learned instinct mapped to your in the moment adrenaline response - and not so much by "knowing" what to do in scenario XYZ. You didn't really have much opportunity to hone "craft" as it were. There were no Virgil Hills or Amir Khans in the arena. You're not jabbing your way to fame, and if you can't navigate a close melee and take a hit well you simply aren't long for this world.

I'm sure they were all taught rudiments to make it sporting enough to entertain the populace but there's no drills you can really do for getting whacked upside the jaw with a caestus. You either manage to soldier through it or you black out and never wake up.

 

It was indeed a great period of (attempted) neo-classicism - Napoléon & the French were going back to an Ancient Rome format, would that they could. I’ve read there are accounts of what might be considered the foetus of Boxing in Ancient Egypt, too.

 

Few boxers from the 18th century could read or write at all, them knowing Greek or Latin is out of the question.

 

I can believe several of the bare knucklers would have had some difficulty in deciphering plain English !

 

The Romans would have been horrified at the sight of modern day boxing gloves.

 

To this day, there are a lot of great Italian and Greekian boxer champions.

 

The socioeconomic conditions required to make a bare knuckle boxer are usually mutually exclusive to the socioeconomic conditions required to read Latin and Ancient Greek

Someone probably just said that because it makes a good story. Inheriting the legacy of ancient warriors, learning the art of mortal combat and becoming the spiritual successor of Legionnaires and Spartans admittedly sounds hardcore and ultra badass

But considering most bare knuckle boxers from that era likely couldn't even read their own native language let alone the classics, I doubt the veracity of that claim.

 

Boxing is for effete sissies, as expected of the Italians. Real men wrastle, just ask the Georgians. Ancient Romans wrote about using them for labour because they were so robust and strong. Real ubermensch, unlike their italo-hellenic counterparts