Plutarch on the Battle of Champions

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 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. Thus Chrysermus in the third book of his Peloponnesian History.



Plutarch, Moralia, 330 A-B