Harper's Round Table, May 12, 1896

BY S. SCOVILLE, JUN.

Thronged to the gates is the little town of Elis on this the night before the Olympic Games. Here are present not only men of every Grecian city and province, but strange wanderers from the uttermost corners of the world have assembled to view the games that honor the Ruler of the Gods.

Far away across the plain--so far that the many-voiced tumult of the crowded city is but an echo--in dark silence stand the sacred olive groves. Against the grayish-green foliage gleam the white tents of the athletes, chosen from all Greece, who are to compete on the morrow. Close to where towers the vast temple of Olympian Zeus, the world-wonder that Lidon made, is a little group of tents that shelter the men of Croton, famed for the might of her athletes. One of all the competitors lies wakeful. Dion, the son of Glaucus, gazes from his couch with wide-open eyes out into the night, sees the glimmer of the stars through the flickering leaves, listens to the whisper of the boughs overhead, and sleeps not. On the morrow he, a youth of eighteen, is to run in the dolichos, the hardest race of the games. His breath comes in gasps and the blood drums in the boy's ears as for the hundredth time in fancy he runs his race. The horrible waiting, the strain of suspense, have unnerved many an athlete more seasoned than Dion. A short hour before, Hippomaches, the grizzled old trainer of Croton, had made a final visit to see that all was well with his charges. Close on his departure came Glaucus, the boy's father, a man well past three score, yet with massive frame seemingly untouched by time as when, forty-four years ago, the mighty Milo of Syracuse had fallen before him under such a deadly cestus-stroke that the "blow of Glaucus" passed into a proverb. Dion, who had inherited the slighter frame and almost girlish beauty of a Thessalian mother, has always felt more of awe than affection for his silent Lacedæmonian father, little knowing what a wealth of love for his latest-born the grim old Spartan concealed under his impassive coldness.

To-night Glaucus stands for long without speaking, gazing down at his son, while the stern, unflinching eyes become very soft. Then, to the amazement of Dion, the hand that for nine Olympiads had won the wreath from the world's mightiest rests on his yellow hair, tenderly as a woman's.

"Dion, my son," and the deep voice trembles a little, "thou knowest how that our blood has ever brought glory to Croton. That the statues of thy grandfather, thy father, and thy two brothers all stand in this grove among the winners of Olympiads. Now thy turn hath come. Oh, my son, my son, for the love thy father bears thee, for the honor of city and blood, win the wreath to-morrow!"--and Glaucus is gone.

Through the black tree-trunks steals a wavering glow from where the lone priestess of Hestia tends the eternal flame that forever burns on the Prytaneum. From either side of Dion's tent he hears the deep, regular breathing of his twin brothers, men of tremendous strength and stature like to their father, who have won fame almost equal to his--one as a wrestler, the other as a boxer. Veterans are they in many a hard-fought contest at the great games--Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian--and, certain of success, rest untroubled by any feverish imaginings.

Dion's thoughts go back to that Olympiad in which his brothers scored a double victory for Croton. Before the silent multitude that day Glaucus blessed his sons for the glory they had brought him.

Every honor was heaped on the winners that Greece had to bestow. World poets and singers gave of their genius to adorn the names of the sons of Glaucus. Phidias himself made them immortal in snowy marble. The journey homeward was one long series of triumphs; and when at last the Olympiad-winners reached distant Croton, a breach was made through the solid masonry of the city wall for their entry, no mere gateway sufficing. Met by the assembled Council of Croton, they were formally installed in the Prytaneum as guests of the city for life.

And Dion, still thrilling at the remembrance of that day, falls asleep.

In the gray hour just before dawn Hippomaches rouses the boy from an uneasy slumber, and then with the clear oil rubs out every trace of stiffness from the lithe polished limbs of his charge. The nude youth stands in his manly beauty like a statue to Speed carved in ivory, his white skin crimson-tinged where the friction has brought the warm blood to the surface, while the coiling muscles ripple with every movement across the slim sinewy frame, from which years of training have taken away every ounce of useless fat.

"Ah, my lad," exclaims the old trainer, admiringly, as he gives the white back a farewell pat, "you are fit to-day to run a brave race for old Croton; and forget not all I have taught you!"

Dion dresses, and after a hurried meal proceeds to the temple, there to take the oath of the games--that he is qualified to run, and will use no guile in his race. Thence they go to the Metroön, rich with its treasures of art, to await the triple trumpet-note that shall announce the dolichos. For there are three races to be run this day--two short ones, the aulos and diaulos, and lastly the terrible dolichos, in which the runner covers the course twenty times. During the weary waiting Hippomaches heartens the boy by stories of the performances of his grandfather and father in Olympiads long past. The sun is well up before the first races are over, and the shrill trumpet-tones give the signal for the last of the running events.

At the northwestern corner of the Altis, by the station-entrance that only judges and competitors are privileged to use, the two separate, and Hippomaches hastens away to take his place among the men of Croton, who have their station near the base of the hill Kronion. Dion, with a crowd of other competitors, passes through the vaulted tunnel between long lines of brazen Zanes, and finds himself on the stadion in the full glare of the early sunlight. The heights around are thronged far as the eye can see with a vast crowd. To-day Dion runs before an assembled world. The long straight expanse of the stadion stretches before him. At either end are sunken slabs of white marble. Ten times must a runner touch each block to cover the full twenty courses. High above the stone which marks both start and finish are ranged the ten Hellenodikæ, the judges, while on the opposite side the white-faced priestess of Demeter Chamyrne sits alone--the only woman whose eyes may behold the games.

A great hush has fallen on the multitude as the competitors take the places assigned them by lot. It is broken by the voice of the herald.

"Let him that knows of any stain on the life or blood of a competitor speak now!" it thunders. A moment of tense silence, and then----"Let every runner place his feet on the mark!" echoes along the hill-side.

Each nude figure bends forward; a clear trumpet-note, and they are away, a rushing mass of bodies that gleam in the sunlight.

A little apart from the crowd in the seats of honor sit Glaucus, his twin sons--whose events do not come until late afternoon--and Hippomaches, the trainer.

"'Tis an easy game, this running," remarks one of the twins, the boxer, a little disdainfully.

"I say to you, oh winner with the cestus," Hippomaches responds, sternly, "that the most grievous blows on the palæstra are not to be compared with the suffering of the last five courses of the dolichos!"

But Glaucus hears nothing of this, nothing of the ejaculations and murmurs of excitement, pleasure, and disappointment that sound from all the throng. But for one thing has he eyes--a slim lithe figure far in the rear of the others, yet which moves with a smooth effortless gait like the swoop of a swallow. His iron grip tightens like a vise on the trainer's shoulder. "I know little of contests wherein men trust to their feet," he mutters. "Why lags the boy so far behind? He--he is not losing heart?"

"Watch the first turning, O Glaucus, and thou wilt see why Dion holds back," Hippomaches answers, grimly. "'Tis the bitter stadia that comes last by which thy son's courage will be proven."

Now the crowd of runners are at the end of the first course. The madness of the race is upon most of the novices. Forgetting the long stadia that come after, they strain every muscle to be the first to touch the white stone, and, instantly turning, retrace their course. In the wild jostle that results, Polymnestor, the Platæan runner, is thrown headlong, and though he rises instantly, and limpingly follows the others, never is the lost ground regained. A little group of the older runners, including Dion, who races with all the judgment of a veteran, have held back, and now, avoiding the returning rush, complete the course with no danger of interference, and are soon close upon the heels of the leaders.

It is to this little group that the knowing ones look for the winner. There is Philoctetes, the Spartan, a grim, black-bearded man in the prime of life, who won the dolichos at the last Olympiad. Near him are formidable rivals--Listhenes, Athens's speediest runner, who defeated Philoctetes by a desperate effort at the recent Nemean Games, and Antenor of Corinth, the winner of the event at the Pythian Games, is just at his shoulder. Then come two runners from distant provinces in Asia, who are rumored to have done marvellous racing over their native stadia. Back of them all is Dion, with the smouldering flame in his eyes and the long graceful stride. At the end of the second course the same scene of confusion is repeated, and two more runners go down. Stadion after stadion are traversed, and slowly the leaders drop back. By the end of the tenth the six that had brought up the rear are now in the van. Another course, and they begin to draw away from those who have exhausted their strength during the first half of the race. At last there are but five stadia more--the stadia in which the real race is run, the stadia that are the supreme test of a runner's courage and endurance.

Hippomaches tugs at his grizzled beard excitedly. "Fourteen Olympian dolichoi have I seen run in my day," he exclaims to Glaucus, "but never a faster than this. Flesh and blood cannot stand that pace much longer; some one will drop soon, and--the gods send it be not our Dion!"

Philoctetes is in the lead. His teeth are clinched, and the foam lies white on his black beard. A fit embodiment is he of the grim Lacedæmonian spirit which is yet to dominate all Greece. Faster and faster he runs, hoping to exhaust his rival from hated Athens--none other does he fear. A deep-throated roar of encouragement rises from the tiers of stern-faced, impassive Spartans as their champion flashes past them. Shrill cries come from the excitable Greeks of the Asiatic provinces as they cheer on their representatives, who are beginning to waver. But it is vain. Very different is an Olympic dolichos from any race of the provinces, and though struggling desperately, they drop back, unable longer to stand the tremendous strain. One stadion, two stadia, are passed, and the third begun, nor does Philoctetes falter aught in his even, rapid gait. Right at his shoulder glare the eyes of Listhenes, who would gladly give his life this day that Athens might win. There is a great hush as the runners traverse the third course. The supreme moment of the race is drawing nigh. All in a moment Antenor the Corinthian, who has held the third place just ahead of Dion, plunges forward in the very midst of a stride, and falls to the ground with the bright blood gushing from his mouth--his last dolichos run.