88 HISTORICAL TALES.

from Thessaly, Diactorides; from Molossis, Alcon;
and from Attica, Megacles and Hippoclides. Of the
last two, Megacles was the son of the renowned
Alcmzon, while Hippoclides was accounted the
handsomest and wealthiest of the Athenians.

At the end of the sixty days, when all the suitors
had arrived, Cleisthenes asked each of them whence
he came and to what family he belonged. Then,
during the succeeding year, he put them to every
test that could prove their powers. He had had a
foot-course and a wrestling-ground made ready to
test their comparative strength and agility, and took
every available means to discover their courage,
vigor, and skill.

But this was not all that the sensible monarch
demanded in his desired son-in-law. He wished to
ascertain their mental and moral as well as their
physical powers, and for this purpose kept them
under close observation for a year, carefully noting
their manliness, their temper and disposition, their
accomplishments and powers of intellect, Now he
conversed with each separately; now he brought
them together and considered their comparative
powers. At the gymnasium, in the council chamber,
in all the situations of thought and activity, he tested
their abilities. But he particularly considered their
behavior at the banquet-table. From first to last
they were sumptuously entertained, and their de-
meanor over the trencher-board and the ,wine- aD
was closely observed.

In this story, as told us by garrulous old Herodotus,
nothing is said of Agaristé herself. In a modern ro-