When Argives and Spartans were contending for
the Thyreatis, the Amphictyonic Assembly decreed
that three hundred of each should fight, and the
country should belong to the victors. The Spartans
accordingly made Othryades their general, and the
Argives made Thersander theirs. In the battle two
of the Argives survived, Agenor and Chromius, who
brought to their city the report of their victory. But
when the battlefield was deserted, Othryades revived
and, supporting himself on spear-shafts broken in
two, despoiled and stripped the corpses of their
shields ; and when he had erected a trophy, he wrote
[p. 263]
with his own blood upon it: ‘To Zeus, Guardian of
Trophies.’ And when the two peoples still disputed
over the victory, the Amphictyonic Assembly, after
a personal inspection of the battlefield, decided in
favour of the Spartans.1 Thus Chrysermus in the
third book of his Peloponnesian History.
The Romans in a war with the Samnites elected
Postumius Albinus general.2 He was ambushed at a
place called the Caudine Forks (it is a very narrow
pass) and lost three legions, and himself fell mortally
wounded. But in the dead of night he revived for
a little and despoiled the enemy's corpses of their
shields. With these he set up a trophy and, dipping his
hand in his blood, wrote upon it : ‘The Romans from
the Samnites to Jupiter Feretrius.’ But Maximus,
surnamed the Glutton,3 was dispatched as general
and when he had come to the place and had seen
the trophy, he gladly accepted the omen. He attacked the enemy and conquered, and taking their
king prisoner, sent him to Rome. Thus Aristeides
the Milesian in the third book of his Italian Histories.
1 Cf. Herodotus, i. 82; Stobaeus, Florilegium, vii. 68 (iii. p. 333, Hense); Valerius Maximus, iii. 2. ext. 4. Stobaeus quotes the story on the authority of Theseus, and, while his account has quite the same context, there is a great difference in wording.
2 He as consul 321 b.c. accodring to Livy, ix. 1. ff., but his death after his defeat was not so dramatic as is here depicted.
3 Gurges; cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia, iii. 13. 6.