“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.

“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.’”