dictating thus:--

If Paris valiant Menelaus kills,
Let him have Helen, and the goods possess;
If youthful Menelaus Paris kills,
The woman and the goods shall all be his.
(See "Iliad," iii. 68, 88, 255, and 281.)

Now since Menelaus only overcame but did not kill Paris, each party hath
somewhat to say for itself, and against the other. The one may demand
restitution, because Paris was overcome; the other deny it, because he
was not killed. Now how to determine this case and clear the seeming
repugnancies doth not belong to philosophers or grammarians, but to
rhetoricians, that are well skilled both in grammar and philosophy.

Then Sospis said: The challenger's word decides; for the challenger
proposed the conditions, and when they were accepted, the opposite
party had no power to make additions. Now the condition proposed in this
challenge was not killing, but overcoming; and there was reason that
it should be so, for Helen ought to be the wife of the bravest. Now the
bravest is he that overcomes; for it often happens that an excellent
soldier might be killed by a coward, as is evident in what happened
afterward, when Achilles was shot by Paris. For I do not believe that
you will affirm, that Achilles was not so brave a man as Paris because
he was killed by him, and that it should be called the victory, and not
rather the unjust good fortune, of him that shot him. But Hector was
overcome before he was killed by Achilles, because he would not stand,
but trembled and fled at his approach. For he that refuseth the combat
or flies cannot palliate his defeat, and plainly grants that his
adversary is the better man. And therefore Iris tells Helen beforehand,

In single combat they shall fight for you,
And you shall be the glorious victor's wife.
(2 Ibid. iii. 137.)

And Jupiter afterwards adjudges the victory to Menelaus in these words:

The conquest leans to Menelaus's side.
(3 Ibid. iv. 13.)

For it would be ridiculous to call Menelaus a conqueror when he shot
Podes, a man at a great distance, before he thought of or could provide
against his danger, and yet not allow him the reward of conquest over
him whom he made fly and sneak into the embraces of his wife, and whom
he spoiled of his arms whilst he was yet alive, and who had himself
offered the challenge, by the articles of which Menelaus now appeared to
be the conqueror.

Glaucias subjoined: in all laws, decre