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Headword: *taini/a
Adler number: tau,209
Translated headword: tainia, headband
Vetting Status: high
Translation:
Milo[1] the pankratiast[2] used to tie a string of gut around his forehead like a headband or garland. Holding his breath and filling the veins of his head with blood, he would break the string with the strength of his veins as if it were papyrus. He used to put his upper arm next to his side and stretch out his lower arm straight toward his fingers. With his thumb turned up and his fingers lying next to one another in a row, his littlest finger was in the lowest position. No one could separate it from the others by force.[3] He was killed when he chanced upon a dry tree that was held apart by wedges. He purposefully put his hands into the tree to split it apart. The wedges slipped, and, gripped by the tree, he became the windfall of wolves.[4]
Greek Original:
*taini/a: o( de\ *mi/lwn o( pagkratiasth\s periedei=to tw=| metw/pw| xordh\n kaqa/per taini/an h)\ ste/fanon: kate/xwn de\ e)nto\s xeile/wn to\ a)=sqma kai\ e)mpipla\s ai(/matos ta\s e)n th=| kefalh=| fle/bas dierrh/gnuen u(po\ i)sxu/os tw=n flebw=n th\n xordh\n kaqa/per pa/puron. kai\ th=s decia=s xeiro\s to\ me\n e)s to\n a)gkw=na e)k tou= w)/mou par' au)th\n kaqi/ei th\n pleura/n, to\ de\ a)po\ tou= a)gkw=nos e)/teinen e)s eu)qu\ tw=n daktu/lwn, to\n me\n a)nti/xeira a)ntistre/fwn e)s to\ a)/nw, tw=n loipw=n de\ a)llh/lois e)pikeime/nwn kata\ stoi=xon. to\n e)la/xiston ou)=n tw=n daktu/lwn ka/tw gino/menon ou)k a)peki/nhsen a)/n tis biazo/menos. a)pe/qane de\ ou(=tos e)pituxw\n cu/lw| chrw=|, sfh=nas e)/xonti dii+stw=ntas au)to/: o( de\ u(po\ fronh/matos kaqi/hsi ta\s xei=ras w(s diarrh/cwn. o)lisqai/nousi/ te dh\ oi( sfh=nes, ka)kei=nos e)xo/menos u(po\ tou= cu/lou lu/kwn e)ge/neto eu(/rhma.
Notes:
From Pausanias 6.14.7-8; see more fully at mu 1066, and summarily at phi 720. The headword itself, tainia, has already been defined at tau 207 and tau 208.
[1] Milon, a.k.a. Milo, came from Croton (present-day Crotone) in Italy, a city famous in his day for its winning athletes. He won six victories in wrestling at Olympia, one of them as a boy, and once as a boy and six times as a man at the Pythian Games in Delphi (Pausanias 6.14.5; Diodorus Siculus 12.9). He was also victorious ten times at the Isthmian Games and nine at the Nemean. For a biography of Milo see H.A. Harris, Greek Athletes and Athletics (Indiana and London: Indiana University Press, 1966) 110-112; Michael B. Poliakoff, Competition, Violence, and Culture: Combat Sports in the Ancient World (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987) 117-119.
[2] Milo was a wrestler as Pausanias (6.14.5-8), the source for this entry and for mu 1066 Milon, specifies.
[3] Milo's career spanned twenty-four years, an achievement that justifies Poliakoff's conclusion that his prodigious strength is historical (117-118). Milo is also said to have been able to hold a pomegranate in his hand in such a grip that his hands could not be dislodged nor did they crush the fruit (Pausanias 6.14.6; Aelian, Historical Miscellany 2.24). Such myths about Milo's strength may have been inspired by an archaic bronze statue described by Philostratus (Life of Apollonius of Tyana 4.28). Milo is standing on a discus; in his left hand he holds a pomegranate; the fingers of his right had are stretched out; his head is bound with fillets. For a discussion, see Walter Woodburn Hyde, Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art (Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1921) 105-107.
[4] The story of Milo's death is told in essentially the same way by Strabo 6.1.12. Poliakoff points out that "The Greeks tended to attribute 'significant deaths' to famous persons in keeping with their purported characters. So according to legend, overweening belief in his strength brought Milo to his death" (118). For "significant deaths," see Mary R. Lefkowitz, The Lives of the Greek Poets (Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981) 3, 85-86 and 96-97.
Keywords: art history; athletics; biography; botany; geography; medicine; zoology
Translated by: Wm. Blake Tyrrell on 15 February 2002@20:25:02.
Vetted by:
David Whitehead (cosmetics) on 22 November 2002@10:12:06.
Catharine Roth (cosmetics) on 3 December 2012@01:32:54.
David Whitehead (more keywords; tweaking) on 7 January 2014@06:50:11.

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