“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 seen only the figures of the wrestlers as they rose before his remembrance.  Now, on looking round, he perceived, to his astonishment, that the grey-haired man with the wooden leg, whom he had already noticed, though without recognizing him, had hidden his face in his hands and was weeping.  Rhodopis was standing at his right hand.  Phanes at his left, and the other guests were gazing at the Spartan, as if he had been the hero of Kallias’s tale.  In a moment the quick Athenian perceived that the aged man must stand in some very near relation to one or other of the victors at Olympia; but when he heard that he was Aristomachus-the father of that glorious pair of brothers, whose wondrous forms were constantly hovering before his eyes like visions sent down from the abodes of the gods, then he too gazed on the sobbing old man with mingled envy and admiration, and made no effort to restrain the tears which rushed into his own eyes, usually so clear and keen.  In those days men wept, as well as women, hoping to gain relief from the balm of their own tears.  In wrath, in ecstasy of delight, in every deep inward anguish, we find the mighty heroes weeping, while, on the other hand, the Spartan boys would submit to be scourged at the altar of Artemis Orthia, and would bleed and even die under the lash without uttering a moan, in order to obtain the praise of the men.