ors, 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 through
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
m