A Victor of Salamis

thenians, perfumed Sicilians-pressed his pulpit closer, elbowing for t

pentathlon, most honourable of the games held at the Isthmus, is Glaucon,

ouse of Alcm?on!" "The family's accursed!" "A great god helps him-even Eros."

, and won in marriage, Hermione, daughter of Hermippus of Eleusis. Now Hermippus is Conon's mortal enemy; therefore in g

broadest [pg 4]Doric; "the pretty boy has n

nian. "Did not Glaucon bend

r, foregoing his long speech on Glaucon's noble ancestry, began

hat Glaucon can beat

n against mice!" roared

ntas of

Give us Lyco

ens, contending for the first time in the great games, defeats Lycon

d near. The chariot race had just ended in the adjoining hippodrome; and the idle crowd, intent on a new excitement, came surging up like waves. In such a whirlpool of tossing arms and shoving elbows, he who was small of stature and short of br

a Spartan, your big sandals crush my toes [pg 5]again! Can I

ney and not lose it, when Glaucon's neck is wrung to-morrow." Whereupon he lifted h

eering up with bright, beady eyes; but the crier w

nian who had wagered already. "You, worthy sir? Then by Athen

lose by. With his stalwart helpers thrusting at eit

g, "two that Glaucon beats Lycon, an

an straighte

ides o

istling Spartan grew respectful. The crie

" cried the first of his two rescuers; "it's a great honour

the flattery. "You have saved me, I avow, from the forge and anvil of He

traying a strain of non-Grecian blood. His black eyes and large mouth were very merry. He wore his green chiton with a rakishness that proved him anything but a dandy. His companion, addressed as Democrates, slighter, blonder, showed Simonides a handsome and truly Greek profile, set off by a neatly trimmed reddish

to take them, "let me thank my noble deliverers, for I am sure two s

the taller Athenian; "Hellas has not yet f

's eyes danced. "Oh! the pity I was in Thessaly so long, and let you grow up in my

did

tes, that young lieutenant of Themistocles who all the world knows is gaining

all angered by the praise. But Simonides, whose tongue was brisk, ran on with a to

ly arrived this afternoon at the Isthmus, were

rriage with Hermione, the divinest maiden in Athens, and how he has gone to the games to win both the crown and crusty Conon's forgiveness. I tell you, every mule-driver along the way seemed to have staked his obol on him

s his schoolfellow once, his second self to-day? And touching his beauty, his valour, his modesty,"

swelled wi

cast me with you! Take

rainers are angry already; besides,

y; "and Simonides-is Simonides. If Themistocles [pg 8]and L

m around his neck, "I begin to love you already. Awa

long the bard could hardly follow; "his tent is not distant

, the offering of a pious Phocian; now a band of Aphrodite's priestesses from Corinth whirled by in no overdecorous dance, to a deafening noise of citharas and castanets. A soft breeze was sending the brown-sailed fisher boats across the heaving bay. Straight before the three spread the white stuccoed houses of Cenchr?a, the eastern haven of Corinth; far ahead in smooth semicirc

having seen it often, saw it not at al

ione of his i

answer [pg 9]came from Democrates, who seemed

gave her to the son

It is a fine thing to have the hand

Glaucon truly seek her not for do

side glance at Cimon, whose sister Elpinice had just made a love mat

is Penelope! And he is handsome, valiant, high-minded, with a w

lty; "turn here: this lane in the pines leads to his tent. If

le were swarming about a statue under a pine tree, and sh

g