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The initiatory contest between Lydon and Tetraides being less deadly than that between the other combatants, no sooner had they advanced to the middle of the arena than as by common consent the rest held back, to see how that contest should be decided, and wait till fiercer weapons might replace the cestus ere they themselves commenced hostilities.
A grand Ionic gateway gave them admittance to the hippodrome, a vast oval space, adorned with groups of sculpture and obelisks and columns in the midst; on some of which were affixed inscriptions commemorative of great feats of skill or strength or daring; while others displayed placards announcing games or contests to take place in future, and challenges of celebrated gymnasts for the cestus fight, the wrestling match, or the foot-race.
If she had come, unnamed, as any country maid, her loveliness would have dazzled him like sea-foam in the sun; but she was girt with her magical Cestus, a spell of beauty that no one can resist. Without a bribe she might have conquered, and she smiled upon his dumb amazement, saying, "Paris, thou shalt yet have for wife the fairest woman in the world."
The next contest was that with the cestus, the boxing-glove of the ancients, a formidable implement, intended not to soften the blows dealt by the boxers, but to make them more painful, for it was composed of strips of hardened oxhide.
"I would with all my heart bear the ridicule of a hundred blunders for the honour of having made such a simile: after all, his saying, 'I am sorry to hear my honourable friend stand mute, if it be a bull, is justified by Homer; one of the charms in the cestus of Venus is, 'Silence that speaks, and eloquence of eyes." Scotchman.
For all these Miss Walton was remarkable; but as these, like the above-mentioned Cestus, are perhaps still more powerful when the wearer is possessed of souse degree of beauty, commonly so called, it happened, that, from this cause, they had more than usual power in the person of that young lady.
The stars on the sleeves of young officers are more regarded than their dancing, and the red belt of a field officer is as winning in the eyes of beauty as a cestus of Venus. A. subaltern offered his hand and heart to a black-eyed girl of Castile. She said kindly but firmly that the night was too cloudy. "What," said the stupefied lover, "the sky is full of stars."
Unhappy Holbein, indeed! The temper of Xantippe herself, if she be but the decent mother of one's children, might work less havoc with a life than this embroidered cestus. But "the German Apelles" was no Greek voluptuary, ambitious in heathen vices, such as that other Apelles whose painting of Venus was said to be his masterpiece.
Not so harmless was Lydon's retaliation: he quickly sprung to his feet, and aimed his cestus full on the broad breast of his antagonist. Tetraides reeled the populace shouted. 'You are unlucky to-day, said Lepidus to Clodius: 'you have lost one bet you will lose another. 'By the gods! my bronzes go to the auctioneer if that is the case. I have no less than a hundred sestertia upon Tetraides.
"Surely the world cannot have erred in according to my own country the honour of your nationality?" "I was born upon a French ship, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean." "Ah, dearest Madame! then it is no marvel that, as you have inherited the cestus of Aphrodite, your votaries bow as blindly, as helplessly, as those over whom your ancient Greek mother ruled so despotically.
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