[29]
Now the Arcadians had never imagined that the Eleans would come against them, and were themselves directing the festal meeting in company with the Pisatans. They had already finished the horse-race, and the events of the pentathlon1 held in the race-course. And the competitors who had reached the wrestling2 were no longer in the race-course, but were wrestling in the space between the race-course and the altar.3 For the Eleans, under arms, had by this time reached the sacred precinct. Then the Arcadians, without advancing to meet them, for}ed in line of battle on the river Cladaus, which flows past the Altis4 and empties into the Alpheus. They had allies also to support them, about two thousand hoplites of the Argives and about four hundred horsemen of the Athenians.
1 The pentathlum, which immediately followed the horse-race, consisted — as its name implies — of five events, viz., running, jumping, discus-throwing, javelin-hurling, and wrestling. The order of these events is uncertain, except that the wrestling contest was the last, while the foot-race was in all probability the first. The first four events ῾τὰ δρομικἄ were held in the δρόμος, or race-course, the wrestling usually in the open space in front of the treasury steps.
2 i.e., had survived the first four events.
3 The great altar of Zeus, whose sacredness was expested to protect them from any attack by the Eleans.
4 The inner portion of the sacred precinct bore this name.
Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 1 and 2. Carleton L. Brownson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. vol. 1:1918; vol. 2: 1921.
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