The boxing gear
From the Homeric years to the 5th century BC, the boxers wrapped their hands in stripes, called strophia or meilichae, in order to keep their wrists and knuckles steady.  These were straps of soft ox-hide, approximately 3 meters long, which were greased or oiled in order to be soft. They were wrapped around the first knuckles of the fingers, then ran diagonally across the palm onto the back of the hand, leaving the thumb uncovered. Then, they were tied around the wrist or around the forearm. In the 4th century BC the stripes that covered the first knuckles of the fingers were reinforced with harder leather on the outside and wool on the inside (spheres) and were used mainly for practice.
From the 4th century BC to the 2nd century BC, the boxers started wearing a kind of glove made of leather straps that were wrapped beforehand, the so-called oxeis himantes. The Roman invention of caestus, a boxing glove that was reinforced with iron and lead transformed the Greek art of boxing into an inhuman and deadly competition.
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