Damoxenus

(Δαμόξενος). A boxer of Syracuse, excluded from the Nemean Games for killing his opponent in a pugilistic encounter. The name of the latter was Creugas; and the two competitors, after having consumed the entire day in boxing, agreed each to receive from the other a blow without flinching. Creugas first struck Damoxenus on the head, and then Damoxenus, with his fingers unfairly stretched out, struck Creugas on the side; and such, observes Pausanias, was the hardness of his nails and the violence of the blow that his hand pierced the side, seized on the bowels, and, drawing them outward, caused instant death to Creugas. A fine piece of sculpture has come down to us with this for its subject (Pausan. viii. 40).