ugh
the iron grip like a snake. This struggle to gain a hold lasted long, and
the immense multitude watched silently, breathless from excitement. Not a
sound was to be heard but the groans of the wrestlers and the singing of
the nightingales in the grove of the Altis. At last, the youth succeeded,
by means of the cleverest trick I ever saw, in clasping his opponent
firmly. For a long time, Milo exerted all his strength to shake him oft,
but in vain, and the sand of the Stadium was freely moistened by the
great drops of sweat, the result of this Herculean struggle.

"More and more intense waxed the excitement of the spectators, deeper and
deeper the silence, rarer the cries of encouragement, and louder the
groans of the wrestlers. At last Lysander's strength gave way.
Immediately a thousand voices burst forth to cheer him on. He roused
himself and made one last superhuman effort to throw his adversary: but
it was too late. Milo had perceived the momentary weakness. Taking
advantage of it, he clasped the youth in a deadly embrace; a full black
stream of blood welled from Lysander's beautiful lips, and he sank
lifeless to the earth from the wearied arms of the giant. Democedes, the
most celebrated physician of our day, whom you Samians will have known at
the court of Polycrates, hastened to the spot, but no skill could now
avail the happy Lysander,--he was dead.

"Milo was obliged to forego the victor's wreath"; and the fame of this
youth will long continue to sound through the whole of Greece.

[By the laws of the games the wrestler, whose adversary died, had no
right to the prize of victory.]

I myself would rather be the dead Lysander, son of Aristomachus, than the
living Kallias growing old in inaction away from his country. Greece,
represented by her best and bravest, carried the youth to his grave, and
his statue is to be placed in the Altis by those of Milo of Crotona and
Praxidamas of AEgina". At length the heralds proclaimed the sentence of
the judges: 'To Sparta be awarded a victor's wreath for the dead, for the
noble Lysander hath been vanquished, not by Milo, but by Death, and he
who could go forth unconquered from a two hours' struggle with the
strongest of all Greeks, hath well deserved the olive-branch.'"

Here Kallias stopped a moment in his narrative. During his animated
description of these events, so precious to every Greek heart, he had
forgotten his listeners, and, gazing into vacancy, had se