About 460 B.C. The Hellenic historian Herodotus describes the practices and
culture of some female warriors he calls the Amazons. Who the
Amazons were is not known, and in fact there were female
warriors and priestesses throughout the Mediterranean world.
About 445 B.C. Hellenic philosophers describe the four “roots” of the universe
as being Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. These elements in turn had
basic characteristics, namely hot, cold, dry, and wet.
About 398 B.C. Engineers working for the Syracusan tyrant Dionysius the Elder
invent what the Greeks called katapeltes(hurlers) and the Ro-
mans called ballistae(throwers). Smaller versions of these
weapons subsequently became crossbows. The Chinese mean-
while were developing trebuchets, which were enormous slings
attached to pivoting wooden beams.
388 B.C. During one of the first fixed fights on record, a boxer named
Eupolos the Thessalian pays the fighters Agetor of Arkadia,
Prytanis of Kyziokos, and Phormion of Halikarnassos to lose to
him during the Olympics.
About 350 B.C. According to a story by Zhuang Zi, Chinese kings enjoy watch-
ing sword fights, sometimes to the exclusion of affairs of state.
About 330 B.C. Etruscan bronze statuettes show men wrestling with women.
About 322 B.C. According to Greek sources, a north Indian king named Chan-
dragupta kept an armed female bodyguard.
About 290 B.C. While commenting on the Yijing (I Ching; Book of Changes),
the Chinese scholar Zhuang Zi introduces the convention of
describing “yin” and “yang” as “bright” and “dark” instead of
“weak” and “strong.”
About 270 B.C. Chinese scholars describe matter in terms of the Five Configu-
rations (wu xing). These elements included wood, fire, earth,
metal, and water, and may show Hellenistic influence via India.
The appearance of this cosmology in Sun Zi is part of the rea-
son that many non-Chinese scholars think that Sun Bin actually
wrote (or at least extensively revised) the text.
About 246 B.C. As part of a memorial for a deceased patrician named Junius
Brutus Pera, three pairs of slaves are made to fence with one
another in the Roman cattle market. The spectacle makes this
funeral famous, and gladiators are the ultimate result.
216 B.C. King Ptolemy IV of Egypt sends his best pankrationist, a man
named Aristonikos, to the Olympic Games; his goal is to show
Egypt’s superiority over Greece. However, to the Greeks’ satis-
faction, the Theban pankrationist Kleitomachos ultimately pre-
vailed. And how did he do this? Not by outfighting the Egyp-
tian, but by appealing to the patriotism of the ethnically Greek
officials and crowd. This is a reminder that neither the use of
athletics for political purposes nor biased officiating is anything
new.
Second century The Chinese historian Si Ma Qian describes xia,a word that
B.C. can be translated as “knights who wore coarse clothes” or
“knights from humble alleys.” In general, these heroes were
noted for their altruism, courage, and sense of justice (with the
emphasis being on correcting individual rather than social in-
justices). They were notorious for associating with butchers and
gamblers, drinking in public, and ignoring normal social cour-790 Chronological History of the Martial Arts