There happened a dispute betwixt the Argives and
Lacedaemonians about a claim to the possession of Thyreatis.
The Amphictyons gave their opinion for a trial of it by
battle, so many and so many of a side, and the possession
to go to the victor. The Lacedaemonians made choice of
Othryades for their captain, and the Argives of Thersander.
The battle was fought, and the only two survivors that appeared were Agenor and Chromius, both Argives, who
carried their city the news of the victory. In this interim,
Othryades, who was not as yet quite dead, made a shift to
raise himself by the help of broken lances, gathered the
shields of the dead together, and erected a trophy with
this inscription upon it in his own blood. ‘To Jupiter the
Guardian of Trophies.’ The controversy still depended,
till the Amphictyons, upon an ocular examination of the
matter, gave it for the Lacedaemonians.—This is according to Chrysermus, in his Third Book of the Peloponnesian History.
[p. 453]
In a war that the Romans had with the Samnites, they
made Posthumius Albinus their general. He was surprised in the difficult pass called the Caudine Forks, where
he was hemmed in and lost three legions, he himself likewise falling upon the place grievously wounded. In the
dead of the night, finding himself near his end, he gathered together the targets of his dead enemies, and raised
a trophy with them, which he inscribed with his hand
dipped in blood, ‘Erected by the Romans to Jupiter,
Guardian of the Trophies, for a victory over the Samnites.’
But Fabius Gurges, that was despatched away with troops
under his command, so soon as he came to the place and
saw the trophy, took up an auspicious omen upon it, fought
the enemy, and overcame them, took their king prisoner,
and sent him to Rome.—This is in the Third Book of
Aristides Milesius's Italian History.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.