Even the dim hope they owned of a future state was enough to make these
two brave men keep their word, and confront death for one another
without quailing. Dionysius looked on more struck than ever. He felt
that neither of such men must die. He reversed the sentence of Pythias,
and calling the two to his judgment seat, he entreated them to admit him
as a third in their friendship. Yet all the time he must have known it
was a mockery that he should ever be such as they were to each other--he
who had lost the very power of trusting, and constantly sacrificed
others to secure his own life, whilst they counted not their lives dear
to them in comparison with their truth to their word, and love to one
another. No wonder that Damon and Pythias have become such a byword that
they seem too well known to have their story told here, except that a
name in everyone's mouth sometimes seems to be mentioned by those who
have forgotten or never heard the tale attached to it.




THE DEVOTION OF THE DECII

B.C. 339



The spirit of self-devotion is so beautiful and noble, that even when
the act is performed in obedience to the dictates of a false religion,
it is impossible not to be struck with admiration and almost reverence
for the unconscious type of the one great act that has hallowed every
other sacrifice. Thus it was that Codrus, the Athenian king, has ever
since been honored for the tradition that he gave his own life to secure