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The gymnasium in ancient Greece functioned as a training facility for competitors in public games. It was also a place for socializing and engaging in intellectual pursuits. The name comes from the Greek term gymnos meaning naked. Athletes competed in the nude, a practice said to encourage aesthetic appreciation of the male or female body. Some early tyrants feared gymnasia facilitated politically subversive erotic attachments between competitors. [1] Gymnasia and palestrae were under the protection and patronage of Heracles, Hermes and, in Athens, Theseus.[2]