Epeus, with his massive frame and brawny arms, seemed quite capable of performing his threats, and it was some time before anyone was found willing to face him. At last Euryalus, an Argive, whose father had been a famous boxer, was encouraged by his friend Diomede to try his chances in this painful and dangerous sport; and having stripped to the waist, and bound their hands with tough leathern thongs, the two combatants confronted each other in the centre of the ring. The struggle was very short, for after they had fenced a little with their fists Euryalus received a crushing blow on the side of his jaw, and dropped in a heap where he stood, like a great fish flung by the waves on the beach. Spitting out blood, and rolling his head from side to side, he was led away by his friends, and Epeus carried off the mule in triumph. Then followed a hard-contested match between Odysseus and Telamonian Ajax, for the championship in wrestling. Stripped, like the boxers, to the waist, they clutched each other in a fierce embrace, and remained thus locked together, their strong arms crossed like the rafters in a roof, and their sides growing black under the iron pressure. They seemed rooted to the ground, and neither could stir the other an inch. Then Ajax, suddenly exerting his enormous strength, lifted Odysseus bodily into the air; but Odysseus struck him with his heel behind the knee, and they fell together, Odysseus above, and Ajax below. Rising again to their feet they wrestled a second bout, and this time Odysseus, though foiled in his attempt to lift the huge bulk of his antagonist, succeeded in tripping him by a crook of the knee, and they came down again, and lay side by side. Once more they would have renewed the struggle, but Achilles put an end to the contest, and awarded them an equal prize.