else you can crush him."

"Beware of Moerocles of Mantinea. He's a knavish fellow; his backers are
recalling their bets. But he hopes to win on a trick; beware, lest he trip
you in the foot-race."

"Aim low when you hurl the javelin. Your dart always rises."

Glaucon received this and much more admonition with his customary smile.
There was no flush on the forehead, no flutter of the heart. A few hours
later he would be crowned with all the glory which victory in the great
games could throw about a Hellene, or be buried in the disgrace to which
his ungenerous people consigned the vanquished. But, in the words of his
day, "he knew himself" and his own powers. From the day he quitted boyhood
he had never met the giant he could not master; the Hermes he could not
outrun. He anticipated victory as a matter of course, even victory wrested
from Lycon, and his thoughts seemed wandering far from the tawny track
where he must face his foes.

"Athens,--my father,--my wife! I will win glory for them all!" was the drift
of his revery.

The younger rubber grunted under breath at his athlete's vacant eye, but
Pytheas, the older of the pair, whispered confidently that "when he had
known Master Glaucon longer, he would know that victories came his way,
just by reaching out his hands."

"Athena grant it," muttered the other. "I've got my half mina staked on
him, too." Then from the tents at either side began the ominous call of
the heralds:--

"Amyntas of Thebes, come you forth."

"Ctesias of Epidaurus, come you forth."

"Lycon of Sparta, come you forth."

Glaucon held out his hands. Each trainer seized one.

"Wish me joy and honour, good friends!" cried the athlete.

"Poseidon and Athena aid you!" And Pytheas's honest voice was husky. This
was the greatest ordeal of his favourite pupil, and the trainer's soul
would go with him into the combat.

"Glaucon of Athens, come you forth."

The curtains of the tent swept aside. An intense sunlight sprang to meet
the Athenian. He passed into the arena clad only in his coat of glistering
oil. Scolus of Thasos and Moerocles of Mantinea joined the other four
athletes; then, escorted each by a herald swinging his myrtle wand, the
six went down the stadium to the stand of the judges.

Before the fierce light of a morning in Hellas beating down on him,
Glaucon the Alcmaeonid was for an instant blinded, and walked on passively,
following his guide. Then, as from a dissolving mist, th