(compounded of πᾶν, all, and νικάω, I overcome), among the ancients, a kind of intermixed exercise, consisting of the lucta or wrestling, and the boxing or pugilate; but it differs in this, that as the athletes are not to seize the body, their hands are not armed with gauntlets, and give less dangerous blows.

The pancretium was the third gymnastic exercise, and was not introduced till long after the others. The people who were engaged in these exercises were called pancratiache; which name was also given to such as did not confine themselves to one exercise, but succeeded in several different ones.

Bartholomew, in his Travels of Anacharsis, gives us a short account of one of those at which he supposes him to have been present, in these words: "The action was soon terminated: a Sicilian named Sybratus, a champion celebrated for the number of prizes he had won, and the strength and skill which had procured them, had arrived the preceding day. The greater part of the combatants yielded up all pretensions to the crown as soon as he appeared, and the others on the first trial; for in those preliminary essays, in which the athlete try their strength by taking each other's hands, he squeezed and twisted the fingers of his adversaries with such violence as instantly to decide the victory in his favour."