to the public from tents
and booths. But how can I possibly describe to you the surging throngs of
the populace, the echoing choruses, the smoking festal hecatombs, the
bright and variegated costumes, the sumptuousness of the equipages, the
clang of the different dialects and the joyful cries of friends meeting
again after years of separation; or the splendid appearance of the
envoys, the crowds of lookers-on and venders of small wares, the
brilliant effect produced by the masses of spectators, who filled to
overflowing the space allotted to them, the eager suspense during the
progress of the games, and the never ending shouts of joy when the
victory was decided; the solemn investiture with the olive-branch, cut
with a golden knife by the Elean boy, (whose parents must both be
living), from the sacred tree in the Altis planted so many centuries ago
by Hercules himself; or lastly, the prolonged acclamations which, like
peals of thunder, resounded in the Stadium, when Milo of Crotona
appeared, bearing on his shoulders the bronze statue of himself cast by
Dameas, and carried it through the Stadium into the Altis without once
tottering. The weight of the metal would have crushed a bull to the
earth: but borne by Milo it seemed like a child in the arms of its
Lacedaemonian nurse.

"The highest honors (after Cimon's) were adjudged to a pair of Spartan
brothers, Lysander and Maro, the sons of Aristomachus. Maro was victor in
the foot race, but Lysander presented himself, amidst the shouts of the
spectators, as the opponent of Milo! Milo the invincible, victor at Pisa,
and in the Pythian and Isthmian combats. Milo was taller and stouter than
the Spartan, who was formed like Apollo, and seemed from his great youth
scarcely to have passed from under the hands of the schoolmaster.

"In their naked beauty, glistening with the golden oil, the youth and the
man stood opposite to one another, like a panther and a lion preparing
for the combat. Before the onset, the young Lysander raised his hands
imploringly to the gods, crying: 'For my father, my honor, and the glory
of Sparta!' The Crotonian looked down on the youth with a smile of
superiority; just as an epicure looks at the shell of the languste he is
preparing to open.

"And now the wrestling began. For some time neither could succeed in
grasping the other. The Crotonian threw almost irresistible weight into
his attempts to lay hold of his opponent, but the latter slipped thro