THE PENTATHLON
In a tent at the lower end of the long stadium stood Glaucon awaiting the final summons to his ordeal. His friends had just cried farewell for the last time: Cimon had kissed him; Themistocles had gripped his hand; Democrates had called “Zeus prosper you!” Simonides had vowed that he was already hunting for the metres of a triumphal ode. The roar from without told how the stadium was filled with its chattering thousands. The athlete’s trainers were bestowing their last officious advice.
“The Spartan will surely win the quoit-throw. Do not be troubled. In everything else you can crush him.”
“Beware of Mœrocles of Mantinea. He’s a knavish fellow; his backers are recalling their bets. But he hopes to win on a trick; beware, lest he trip you in the foot-race.”
“Aim low when you hurl the javelin. Your dart always rises.”
Glaucon received this and much more admonition with his customary smile. There was no flush on the forehead, no flutter of the heart. A few hours later he would be crowned with all the glory which victory in the great games could throw about a Hellene, or be buried in the disgrace to which his ungenerous people consigned the vanquished. But, in the words of his day, “he knew himself” and his own powers. From the day he quitted boyhood he had never met the giant he could not master; the Hermes he could not out[pg 32]run. He anticipated victory as a matter of course, even victory wrested from Lycon, and his thoughts seemed wandering far from the tawny track where he must face his foes.
“Athens,—my father,—my wife! I will win glory for them all!” was the drift of his revery.
The younger rubber grunted under breath at his athlete’s vacant eye, but Pytheas, the older of the pair, whispered confidently that “when he had known Master Glaucon longer, he would know that victories came his way, just by reaching out his hands.”
“Athena grant it,” muttered the other. “I’ve got my half mina staked on him, too.” Then from the tents at either side began the ominous call of the heralds:—
“Amyntas of Thebes, come you forth.”