e race; and that was certain forfeit of the great advantage
always striven for--the position next the division wall on the
inner line of the course.

This trial, its perils and consequences, the spectators knew
thoroughly; and if the opinion of old Nestor, uttered that time
he handed the reins to his son, were true--

"It is not strength, but art, obtained the prize,
And to be swift is less than to be wise"--

all on the benches might well look for warning of the winner to
be now given, justifying the interest with which they breathlessly
watched for the result.

The arena swam in a dazzle of light; yet each driver looked first
thing for the rope, then for the coveted inner line. So, all six
aiming at the same point and speeding furiously, a collision seemed
inevitable; nor that merely. What if the editor, at the last moment,
dissatisfied with the start, should withhold the signal to drop the
rope? Or if he should not give it in time?

The crossing was about two hundred and fifty feet in width. Quick the
eye, steady the hand, unerring the judgment required. If now one look
away! or his mind wander! or a rein slip! And what attraction in the
ensemble of the thousands over the spreading balcony! Calculating
upon the natural impulse to give one glance--just one--in sooth
of curiosity or vanity, malice might be there with an artifice;
while friendship and love, did they serve the same result, might be
as deadly as malice.

The divine last touch in perfecting the beautiful is animation. Can we
accept the saying, then these latter days, so tame in pastime and
dull in sports, have scarcely anything to compare to the spectacle
offered by the six contestants. Let the reader try to fancy it;
let him first look down upon the arena, and see it glistening
in its frame of dull-gray granite walls; let him then, in this
perfect field, see the chariots, light of wheel, very graceful,
and ornate as paint and burnishing can make them--Messala's rich
with ivory and gold; let him see the drivers, erect and statuesque,
undisturbed by the motion of the cars, their limbs naked, and fresh
and ruddy with the healthful polish of the baths--in their right
hands goads, suggestive of torture dreadful to the thought--in
their left hands, held in careful separation, and high, that they
may not interfere with view of the steeds, the reins passing taut
from the fore ends of the carriage-poles; let him see the fours,
chosen for beauty as wel