I.a wrestling-school, wrestling-place, place of exercise, palœstra, where youths, with their bodies naked and anointed with oil, practised gymnastic exercises. Such palæstrae were also attached to private houses: “in palaestram venire,” Plaut. Bacch. 3, 3, 20; cf. id. ib. 3, 3, 27: “in palaestrā atque in foro,” id. Am. 4, 1, 3: “statuas in palaestrā ponere,” Cic. Verr. 2, 2, 14, § 36: “pars in gramineis exercent membra palaestris,” Verg. A. 6, 642. —Of the palæstrae in private houses, Varr. R. R. 3, 13: “(Fibrenus) tantum complectitur quod satis sit modicae palaestrae loci,” Cic. Leg. 2, 3, 6; id. Q. Fr. 3, 1, 2.—
II. Transf.
A. A wrestling in the palæstra, the exercise of wrestling: “non utuntur in ipsā lusione artificio proprio palaestrae, sed indicat ipse motus, didicerintne palaestram an nesciant,” Cic. de Or. 1, 16, 73: “exercent patrias oleo labente palaestras Nudati socii,” Verg. A. 3, 281: “corpora agresti nudant palaestrae,” id. G. 2, 531: “uncta palaestra,” Ov. H. 19, 11: “nitidā palaestrā ludere,” id. ib. 16, 149; cf. Luc. 4, 615.—Mercury was regarded as the founder of wrestling combats, Hor. C. 1, 10, 4; Luc. 9, 661.—
B. In the lang. of comedy, a brothel, Plaut. Bacch. 1, 1, 34; Ter. Phorm. 3, 1, 20.—
C. Exercises in the school of rhetoric, rhetorical exercises, a school of rhetoric, a school: “nitidum genus verborum sed palaestrae magis et olei, quam hujus civilis turbae ac fori,” Cic. de Or. 1, 18, 81: “non tam armis institutus, quam palaestrā,” id. Brut. 9, 37: “sic adjuvet, ut palaestra histrionem,” id. Or. 4, 14; 56, 186; cf. id. ib. 68, 228: Antipater habuit (in scribendā historiā) vires agrestes ille quidem atque horridas sine nitore ac palaestrā, id. Leg. 1, 2, 6.—*
