Callias: A Tale of the Fall of Athens

by Alfred John Church

But if the ground, broken with rocks and overgrown with wood was not suited to scientific wrestling, it certainly helped to make some of the other sports more than usually amusing. The first contest was a mile race for boys. Most of the competitors were lads who had been taken prisoners on the march, but a few Colchians entered for the prize, as did also two or three boys of Trapezus, who had the reputation of being particularly fleet of foot. But the natives of the plain, still more the inhabitants of the town, found themselves entirely outpaced on this novel race course by the young mountaineers. A Carduchian came in first, and was presented with his liberty, his master being compensated out of the prize fund which had been subscribed by the army. As soon as he understood that he was free, he set out at full speed in the direction of his home. A true mountaineer, he sickened for his native hills, and in the hope of seeing them again was ready to brave alone the perils which an army had scarcely survived.

A foot race for men followed, but the distance to be traversed was, according to the common custom of the great games, only two hundred yards. There were as many as sixty competitors; but curiously enough, they were to a man Cretans. Another foot race, this time for men in heavy armor, was next run. The president had a Spartan’s admiration for all exercises that had a real bearing on military training, and the race of the heavy armed was unquestionably one of these. It was won by a gigantic Arcadian, an Ætolian whose diminutive stature made a curious contrast to his competitor, coming in close behind him.

Next came the great event of the day, the “Contest of the Five Exercises,” or “Pentathlon.” The five were leaping, wrestling, running, quoit-throwing, and javelin-throwing. The competitor who won most successes had the prize adjudged to him.[73] Callias had been trained for some time at home with the intention of becoming a competitor at Olympia; but various causes had hindered him from carrying out his purpose, and, of course, he was now wholly out of practice. He was sitting quietly among the spectators when he felt a hand upon his shoulder and looking up, saw his general standing by.

“Stand up for the honor of Athens,” said Xenophon, “don’t let the men of the Island[74] carry everything before them.”

“But I am not in training,” said Callias.

“You are in as good training, I fancy,” replied the general, “as are any of these; better I should say, to judge from the way in which they have been eating and drinking since the retreat was ended. Besides, it is only the boxers who absolutely require anything very severe in that way. And you have youth.”

Callias still made objections, but yielded when his general made the matter a personal favor.

The competitors were five in number, the winner of the foot-race, the tall Arcadian and his diminutive rival from Ætolia, two Achaeans, and Callias.

The first contest was leaping at the bar. Here the Arcadian’s long legs served him well. He was a singularly ungainly fellow, and threw himself over the bar, if I may be allowed the expression, in a lump. Every time the bar was raised, he managed just to clear it, though the spectators could not understand how his clumsy legs, which seemed sprawling everywhere, managed to avoid touching it. Still they did manage it, and when he had cleared four cubits short of a palm, which may be translated into the English measure of five feet nine inches, his rivals had to own themselves beaten. Callias, who came second, declared that he had been balked by the infamous playing of the flute player, whose music according to the custom followed at Olympia, accompanied the jumping. “The wretch,” he declared to the friends who condoled with him on the loss of what they had put down to him for a certainty, “the wretch played a false note just as I was at my last trial. If I had not heard him do the same at least half-a-dozen times before, I should have said that he did it on purpose.”

If chance or fraud had been against him in this trial, in the next he was decidedly favored by fortune. This was the foot race. The course was, as usual, round a post fixed about a hundred yards from the starting point, and home again. Whenever a turn has to be made, a certain advantage falls to the competitor who has the inner place, and when, as in this case, the distance is short, the advantage is considerable. The places were determined by lot. The innermost fell to the Arcadian; Callias came next to him; fortunately for him, his most dangerous competitor, the Cretan who had won the foot race, had the outermost, i. e., the worst station. The Arcadian jumped away with a lead, and for fifty yards managed, thanks to the long strides which his long legs enabled him to take, to keep in front; but the effort was soon spent; by the time that the turning point was reached, Callias had gained enough upon him to attempt the dangerous manœuvre of taking his ground. If it had not been for this, he must have been beaten, for the fleet-footed Cretan, weighted though he was by his disadvantageous place, ran a dead heat with him.