Page:Virgil (Collins).djvu/104

94 champion of the modern prize-ring might shrink from encountering an antagonist whose fists were bound round with strips of hardened ox-hide. But such was the "cæstus" which was worn by the pugilists of this heroic age. The prizes are displayed by Æneas; for the conqueror, a bull with gilded horns; a helmet and falchion for the loser. Up rises the Trojan Dares, whose strength and skill are well known. The only man whom he acknowledged as his superior in the ring was one whom we might have least expected—Paris, who certainly bears no such reputation in Homer. At the great games held in honour of the dead Hector, of which we have the very briefest note in the Iliad, Dares had defeated the huge champion Butes, sprung from a race of athletes, and so mangled him that he died on the spot. No wonder that when he now steps forth, and goes through some preparatory sparring with the air, no one is found bold enough to put on the gloves with him. So, after a glance of triumph round the admiring circle, he advances to where the bull stands in front of Æneas, lays his hand upon its horns, and claims it as his rightful property in default of an antagonist.

King Acestes is concerned for the honour of Sicily. There is lying beside him on the grass a grey-haired chief named Entellus, sometime a pupil in this art of the great hero Eryx, who gave his name to the mountain which overhangs the place of assembly. Will he sit tamely by, Acestes asks, and see this Trojan boaster carry off the prize and the glory unchallenged? Entellus listens to his friend, and feels the old fire stir