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The cphebcum, where the youth assembled very early, to learntheir exercises in private without any spectators. 3. The cory-ceum, apodyterion, or gymnasterion, a kind of wardrobe, wherethey stripped, either to bathe or exercise. 4. The ekeothesium,ali pterion, or unctuarium, appointed for the unctions, which eitherpreceded or followed the use of the bath, wrestling, pancratia, Ac.5. The conisterium or conistra, in which they covered themselveswith sand or dust, to dry up the oil or sweat. 6. The palaestra,properly so called, where they practised wrestling, the pugillate,pancratia, and other exercises. 7. The sphsristerium or tennis-court, reserved for exercises wherein they used balls. 3. Largeunpaved alleys, which comprehended the space between the por-ticos and the walls wherewith the edifice was surrounded, y.The xysti or porticos for the wrestlers in 'winter cr bad weather.10. Other xysti or open alleys, some of w Inch were quite open,and others planted with trees. 11. The baths, consisting of se-veral different apartments. 12. The stadium, a large space of asemicircular lorm, covered with sand, and surrounded with seatsfor the spectators. For the administration of the gymnasia, therewere different officers: the principal were, 1. The gymnasiarcha.2. The xystarcha. 3. The gymnastes. And, 4. The pxdotriba.See these articles. Under these four officers vr.ire a number ofsubalterns. The gymnastic exercises may be reduced to two ge-neral classes ; as they depend either on the action of the bodyalone, or as they require external agents or instruments. The lat-ter consisted chiefly in mounting tlie horse, driving the chariot,and swimming. The former were chiefly of two kinds; Orches-trice, and Palaeslrice ; which sec.

GAMNASTES, a deputy under the gymnasiarch, who wasmaster of the ceremonies.

Gymnastics, Gymnastics, or the Gymnastic , [yu|i*var««s,]the art of performing exercises of the body, whether for defence,health, or diversion. See Gymnasium . Several modern writershave treated of this art. M. Burrette lias given the history ofgymnastics in the Mem. of the R. Acad, of Inscrip. On the firstestablishment of society, men, being apprised of the necessity ofmilitary exercises, for repalling the insults of their neighbours,instituted games, and proposed prizes to animate their youth tocombats of divers kind. And as running, leaping, throwing thejavelin, driving a ball, tossing a quoit, wrestling, Sic. were exer-cises suited to the manner of fighting in those days ; so the j'outhvied to excel in them, in the preser.ee of the aged, who satas judges, and dispensed prizes to the conquerors; till what wasoriginally amusement, became at length a matter of such impor-tance, as to interest great cities and entire nations in its practice.Hence arose an eagerness to excel, in hopes of being one daycrowned conquerors in the public games, which was the highesthonour a mortal could arrive at: nay, they imagined, that eventhe gods were not insensible of what men were so captivated with ;and, in consequence, introduced the greatest part of these exer-cises into their religious and funeral ceremonies. The. gymnasticart, as appears from Homer’s Iliad , lib. 23, where lie describesthe games at the funeral of Patroclus , was known at the time of theTrojan war. From that description, it appears, that they had cha-riot-races, boxing, wrestling, foot-races, gladiators, throwing thediscus, drawing the bow, and hurling the javelin ; and that eventhen the gymnastic art wanted little of perfection. When Galensays there was no gymnastic art in Homer ’s days, and that it be-gan to appear no earlier than Plato , he is to be understood of me-dicinal gymnastics only.

Gymnastics, Medicinal. According to Plato , one Ilero-dicus, a little prior to Hippocrates , was the first who introducedthis art into physic ; and his successors, convinced of its usefulnessimproved it. Hippocrates has given instances of it, where hetreats of exercise in general! and of the particular effects of walk-ing with regard to health ; also of the different sorts of races onfoot or horseback ; leaping, wrestling, the exercise of the sus-pended ball, chironomv, unctions, frictions, rolling in the sand,&c. But as physicians did not adopt all the gymnastic exercisesin their practice, it came to be divided between them and themasters of martial and athletic exercises, who kept schools, thenumber of which was greatly increased in Greece . The Homans,adopting the military and athletic exercises ol the Greeks, ad-vanced them to the* utmost pitch of magnificence. But the de-clension of the empire involved the aits in its ruin, and, among

others gymnastics and medicine ; which last unhappily then re-linquished the title it had to the former, and has neglected to re-sume it ever since.

GYMNOSOPPIISTS, [ryfzvoj^iruf, Greek, i. e. a naked phi-losopher,] a set of Indian philosophers, famous in antiquity, socalled from their going naked. They, however, did not abso-lutely go naked : but only clothed themselves no farther thanmodesty required.. There were some of these sages in Africa ;but the most celebrated of them were in India . In general, theGymnosophists were wise and learned men; their maxims anddiscourses, recorded by historians, do not savour of a barbarouseducation, but are the result of great sense and deep thought.They kept up the dignity of their character to so high a degree,that it was never their custom to wait upon any body, not evenupon tlie princes. They believed the immortality and transmi-gration of tlie soul: they placed the chief happiness of man in acontempt of the goods of fortune and tlie pleasures of sense, andgloried in having given faithful and disinterested counsels toprinces and magistrates. Apuleius describes the Gymnoscphislsthus : “ They are all devoted to the study of wisdom, both theelder masters and the younger pupils : and what to me appears themost amiable thing in their character is, that they have an aversionto idleness and indolence: accordingly, as soon as the table isspread, before a bit of victuals be brought, the youths are allcalled together from their several places and offices, and themasters examine them what good they have done since the sun-rise : here one relates something he lias discovered by meditation ;another has learned something by demonstration ; and as for those 'who have nothing to allege why they should dine, they are turnedout to work fasting.”

GYMNOSPERMIA, in botany, from yupv* naked, ando-cifpre, seed; the first order in Linnaeus ’s class of didynamia. Itcomprehends those plants of that class which have naked seeds.The seeds are constantly four in number, except in one genus,viz. phryma, which is monospermous.

GYMNOTnoRAX,the murccnu, in natural history, a genus of fishesof the order Apodes. Body eel-shaped, no pectoral fins; spiraclesingle, on each side of the neck, small oval, and uncovered. Thereare four species according to Gmelin, but Shaw enumerates eleven.The G. romana abounds on the Mediterranean coasts, and attainsnearly the size of the common eel.

GYMNOTUS,gi/wmofe, a genus of fishes, of tlie order apodes.The generic character is, head with lateral ope,-cula; tenlaculatwo on the upper lip; eyes covered by the common skin ; gill-membrane five-rayed ; body compressed, without dorsal fin (inmost species), but carinated by a fin beneath. It has nine species.

Gymnotus Electricus, or Electrical Gymnote, is a na-tive of tlie warmer regions of Africa and America , where it inha-bits the larger rivers, and is particularly found in those of Surinam .

In Africa it is said chiefly to occur in the branches of the riverSenegal . It is a fish of a disagreeable appearance ; bearing a ge-neral resemblance to a larger eel, though somewhat thicker inproportion, and of a much darker colour, being commonly of anuniform blackish-brown. It is usually seen of the length of threeor four feet, but is said to arrive at 10 feet in length. It was firstmade known to the philosophers of Europe about the year 1071, -when its wonderful properties were announced t« the French Aca-demy by Mor.s. Richer. This account however seems to havebeen received with a degree of cautious scepticism by the majorpart of European naturalists; and it was not till towards the mid-dle of the last century that a full and general conviction appearsto have taken place ; the observations of Mons. Condamine, Mr.Ingram, Mr. Gravesend, and others, then conspiring to prove thatthe power of this animal consists in a species of real electricity,being conducted by similar conducting substances, and interceptedby others of an opposite nature. Thus, on touching the fish withthe fingers, the same sensation is perceived as on touching a chargedphial; being sometimes felt as far as the elbows ; and if touchedby botli hands, an electric shock is conveyed through the breastin the usual manner. Fermin, in particular, who, during his resi-dence in Surinam , had frequent opportunities of examining theanimal, demonstrated by experiment that 14 slaves, holding eachother by the hands, received the shock at the same instant; thefirst touching the fish with a stick, and the last dipping his hand' ■into tlie water in whichit was kept, •' The experiments of Dr. Ban-croft L