Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Corycus

（κώρυκος). A large leathern sack, filled with flour, fig-grains, or sand, hung up in the gymnasium, for the athletes to swing to and fro by striking it, whence the exercise is called κωρυκομαχία

Corycus. (From the Cista Ficoroniana.)

or κωρυκοβολία (Hesych. s. v.). The game is alluded to by Plautus ( Rud. iii. 4, 16). From this game came the proverbial expression, πρὸς κώρυκον γυμνάζεσθαι (Diog. vii. 54), of labour in vain.