in order to encourage the men during the games by their acclamations and applause.  The market was set up beyond the Alphaeus, and there traders from all parts of the world were to be seen; Greeks, Carthaginians, Lydians, Phrygians and shrewd Phoenicians from Palestine settled weighty business transactions, or offered their goods to the public from tents and booths.  But how can I possibly describe to you the surging throngs of the populace, the echoing choruses, the smoking festal hecatombs, the bright and variegated costumes, the sumptuousness of the equipages, the clang of the different dialects and the joyful cries of friends meeting again after years of separation; or the splendid appearance of the envoys, the crowds of lookers-on and venders of small wares, the brilliant effect produced by the masses of spectators, 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 moistened by the great drops of sweat, the result of this Herculean struggle.