We may here note that Tydides (the family name of Diomed, as the son of Tydeus) was Euryalus’s second in the mill with Epeus, wherein we have just seen him so soundly thrashed by the big and bounceable Epeus. As Virgil generally invents a “continuation” or counterpart of the Homeric heroes for his “Æneid,” we find Euryalus made the hero of an episode, and celebrated for his immortal friendship with Nisus: with him he had a partnership in fighting, and they died together in a night encounter with the troops of the Rutulians, whose camp they had plundered, but were overtaken and slain. (Virg. Æneid, ix., 176.) We will now therefore shift the scene from Greece, and come to Sicily and Italy, and the early boxing matches there.
Æneas’ companions were a “school” of boxers, and met with the like in Italy, among whom Entellus, Eryx, and Antæus (already mentioned), Dares, Cloanthus, Gyges, Gyas, etc., may be numbered.
Entellus, the intimate of Eryx, and who conquered Dares at the funeral games of Anchises (father of Æneas) in Sicily, deserves first mention. He was even then an “old ’un,” but, unlike most who have “trusted a battle to a waning age,” comes off gloriously in the encounter; which, as we shall presently see, under Dares, gives an occasion for the second ring report of antiquity, as well as a minute description of the cæstus itself. The lines from the fifth book of the “Æneid” need no preface. After the rowing match (with galleys), in which Cloanthus (see post) is the victor, Æneas thus addresses his assembled companions:—
“‘If there be here whose dauntless courage dare
In gauntlet-fight, with back and body bare,
His opposite sustain in open view,
Stand forth thou, champion, and the games renew:
Two prizes I propose, and thus divide—
A bull with gilded horns and fillets tied,
Shall be the portion of the conq’ring chief;