HALTERISTÆ, in Antiquity, a kind of players at discus, who were so denominated from a peculiar kind of discus, called by the Greeks άλτης, and by the Latins halter. (See Discus.) Some conceive the discus to have been a leaden weight or ball which the vaulters bore in their hands, to secure and keep themselves the more steady in their leaping. Others think that the halter was a lump or mass of lead or stone, with a hole or handle fixed to it, by which it might be carried; and that the halteristæ were those who exercised themselves in removing these masses from place to place. Mercurialis, in his treatise De Arte Gymnastica (l. ii. c. 12), distinguishes two kinds of halteristæ (for though there was but one halter, there were two ways of applying it); the one was to throw or pitch it in a certain manner; the other only
Ha note to hold it out at arm's-end, and in this posture to perform different motions, swinging the hand backwards and forwards, according to the figures given by Mercurialis. The halter was of a cylindrical figure, smaller in the middle, where it was held, by one diameter, than at the two ends. It was above a foot long, there was one for each hand, and it was either of iron, stone, or lead. Galen (De Tuend. Valetud. lib. i. v. and vi.) speaks of this exercise, and shows of what use it is in purging the body of peccant humours.