Intellectual Defenestration

Really Old-School Mortal Kombat

Books & Culture reviews two works on the ancient Olympics with some interesting insights into how the Greeks viewed the old Olympics. It also has this anecdote:

The scene is a more-or-less open-fisted boxing match between Kreugas and Damoxenos during the games at Nemea, circa 400 BC, as related to us by the historian Pausanias. Each of the boxers had agreed in front of witnesses to take one punch, undefended, from the other guy. Kreugas went first, planting one on Damoxenos' face. Then it was Damoxenos' turn:

Damoxenos told Kreugas to lift his arm and, when Kreugas had done so, Damoxenos struck him under the ribs with his fingers straight out. The combination of his sharp fingernails and the force of his blow drove his hand into Kreugas' guts. He grabbed Kreugas' intestines and tore them out and Kreugas died on the spot.

The judges found, posthumously, for Kreugas, and expelled Damoxenos from the Olympics. Their ruling, so clever it was almost Talmudic, was that each of Damoxenos' fingers had delivered a separate punch, and so he had violated the agreement.

Ouch.