Halteres
ἁλτῆρες
Halteres (ἁλτῆρες) were certain masses of stone or metal which were used in the gymnastic exercises of the Greeks and Romans. Persons who practised leaping often performed their exercises with halteres in both hands; but they were also frequently used merely to exercise the body in somewhat the same manner as our dumb-bells (Crates, fr. 11 M.; μολυβδίδας χειροπληθεῖς, Lucian, Anach. 27, p. 909 R.; graves massae, Juv. 6.421; Senec. Ep. 15.4, 56.1; Mart. 14.49; Pollux, 3.155, 10.64). Pausanias (5.26.3; 5.27.8; 6.3.4) speaks of certain statues of athletes who were represented with halteres. They appear to have been made of various forms and sizes (μακροὶ and σφαιροειδεῖς, Philostr. de Gymn. 55). In the rage for female gymnastics, even the heavier sort were used by women (Mart. 7.67, 6; Juv. l.c.). The preceding woodcut is taken from Tassie, Catalogue, &c. pl. 46, No. 7978. (Mercurialis, de Arte Gymnastica, 2.12; Becker-Göll, Gallus, 3.183; Krause, Die Gymnastik und Agonistik der Hellenen, vol. i, p. 395; Blümner, Privatalterth. 346.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.