“Ctesias of Epidaurus, come you forth.”
“Lycon of Sparta, come you forth.”
Glaucon held out his hands. Each trainer seized one.
“Wish me joy and honour, good friends!” cried the athlete.
“Poseidon and Athena aid you!” And Pytheas’s honest voice was husky. This was the greatest ordeal of his favourite pupil, and the trainer’s soul would go with him into the combat.
“Glaucon of Athens, come you forth.”
The curtains of the tent swept aside. An intense sunlight sprang to meet the Athenian. He passed into the arena clad only in his coat of glistering oil. Scolus of Thasos and Mœrocles of Mantinea joined the other four athletes; then, escorted each by a herald swinging his myrtle wand, the six went down the stadium to the stand of the judges.
Before the fierce light of a morning in Hellas beating down on him, Glaucon the Alcmæonid was for an instant blinded, and walked on passively, following his guide. Then, as from a dissolving mist, the huge stadium began to reveal itself: [pg 33]line above line, thousand above thousand of bright-robed spectators, a sea of faces, tossing arms, waving garments. A thunderous shout rose as the athletes came to view,—jangling, incoherent; each city cheered its champion and tried to cry down all the rest: applause, advice, derision. Glaucon heard the derisive hootings, “pretty girl,” “pretty pullet,” from the serried host of the Laconians along the left side of the stadium; but an answering salvo, “Dog of Cerberus!” bawled by the Athenian crowds opposite, and winged at Lycon, returned the taunts with usury. As the champions approached the judges’ stand a procession of full twenty pipers, attended by as many fair boys in flowing white, marched from the farther end of the stadium to meet them. The boys bore cymbals and tambours; the pipers struck up a brisk marching note in the rugged Dorian mode. The boys’ lithe bodies swayed in enchanting rhythm. The roaring multitude quieted, admiring their grace. The champions and the pipers thus came to the pulpit in the midst of the long arena. The president of the judges, a handsome Corinthian in purple and a golden fillet, swept his ivory wand from right to left. The marching note ceased. The whole company leaped as one man to its feet. The pipes, the cymbals were drowned, whilst twenty thousand voices—Doric, Bœotian, Attic—chorused together the hymn which all Greece knew: the hymn to Poseidon of the Isthmus, august guardian of the games.
Louder it grew; the multitude found one voice, as if it would cry, “We are Hellenes all; though of many a city, the same fatherland, the same gods, the same hope against the Barbarian.”
“Praise we Poseidon the mighty, the monarch,