Cloanthus is crowned with bays as the victor of the day, and receives as
his prize an embroidered robe of rare device--one of those miracles of
divers colours of needlework in which the classical age seems to have as
far excelled us as the mediæval ladies certainly did. Each crew receives
three oxen and a supply of wine, while a talent of silver is divided
amongst the men of the victorious Scylla. Mnestheus, as second in the
race, wins a shirt of mail whose scales are of gold, which two of his
attendants bear off with difficulty. The third of the captains has a
pair of brazen caldrons and chased silver bowls. But while the awards
are being distributed, the crippled Centaur has got off the rock, and is
brought into harbour; and a Cretan slave-woman, with her twin children,
is allotted, by the liberality of Æneas, as a consolation to her
captain.
From the shore of the bay the company now move off to a natural
amphitheatre close at hand, where the rest of the games are to be
exhibited. Æneas takes his place high in the midst on an extemporised
throne. For the foot-race, which comes first on the list, a crowd of
competitors enter, both of native Sicilians and of their Trojan guests.
Among the Sicilians are Salius and Patron, of Greek families settled in
the island, and Helymus and Panopes, friends and companions of Acestes.
The favourites among the Trojans are Diores, one of the many sons of
Priam, and Nisus and Euryalus, noted for their romantic friendship, of
which we shall hear more hereafter. The prizes in this contest are a
war-horse with full trappings for the first, an Amazonian quiver for the
second, and a helmet--the spoil of some conquered Greek on the plain of
Troy--for the third. Nisus goes off with a strong lead, and has the race
easily in hand. Next him, but at a long interval, comes Salius, Euryalus
lying third, Helymus and Diores, close together, fourth and fifth. But
when within a short distance of the goal, Nisus slips up in the blood
and filth which has been left uncleared at the spot where the oxen have
been sacrificed, and falls heavily to the ground. Knowing himself to be
out of the race, he determines that his dear Euryalus shall win. So, by
a piece of most unjustifiable jockeyship, which ought to have led to his
being warned off from all such contests for ever after, he rises up at
the moment that Salius is passing, and brings him down upon him.
Euryalus has thus an easy victory, Helymus and Diores coming in second
and third. Very naturally, there is much dispute about the award. Salius
complains loudly of unfair play; but young Euryalus is handsome and
popular, and Diores backs his claim energetically; for it is very
evident that if Salius is adjudged the first prize, Euryalus the second,
and Helymus the third, then he--Diores--will be nowhere. So the result
is accepted by the judges as it stands. But Æneas quiets the reasonable
objections of Salius by the present of a lion’s hide with gilded claws.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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