The Olympian, A Tale of Ancient Hellas. A film treatment in eight movements.
Eighth Movement – The Exile Welcomed Home: Simonides completes his narrative. The Thasians are humbled and now understand that it is indeed Theagenes and his statue that the Oracle refers to as “the exile that must be welcomed back.” A year has passed and the old man returns to the island, 
which has regained its beauty after the statue as been recovered from the sea. “Thasos is once again a beautiful place … Theagenes’ place in history will be preserved…”
Seventh Movement – The Grave: After Xerxes’ million-man army has moved on, Simonides and Theagenes descend the cliffs to the killing ground. Exhausted, Simonides cannot resist sleep. When he awakes, he finds that Theagenes has dug a trench “100 paces long.” Simonides is reminded of the 12 “Labors of Herakles” and thinks of this as “the 13th Labor of Herakles.” Together, they carry the Spartan bodies to the grave Theo has created with his raw, bloodied hands using the remnants of a Spartan shield, his hands wrapped in rags like they were once wrapped in himantes, the boxing gloves of an Olympic champion. When they have buried the bodies, Theo sleeps. As he rests, the poet composes his famous epitaph “Go tell the Spartans …” and chisels it into a stone marker they place above the grave the next morning. “We embraced one another for the first and final time,” I wrote, “… he bowed respectfully, turned and walked east …”
Sixth Movement – Thermopylae: Simonides follows Theo as the boxer flees from Olympia to Thermopylae carrying his Olympic prize. They save days by cutting across the Corinthian Gulf where Theo waits for the old man. As they approach Thermopylae from the southwest, they encounter the Phocian soldiers who were slaughtered by the Persian rear guard that found a way to circumvent the pass at Thermopylae via a goat path to surround the Spartans. Simonides and Theagenes reach the cliffs overlooking Thermopylae in the final throws of the battle. They witness the final stand of the 300 as the Spartans fall before a deluge of Persian arrows, but not before they hear the noble Persian offer of clemency from the king, “Brave Spartans, your valor in the face of certain death is unmatched by any men. There is no shame in what you have done here. Receive Xerxes’ mercy and return to your wives and children. Throw down your weapons and be spared by the Great King.” Leonidas responds with his immortal words, “Molon Labe! Come and take them.” As Lampis and his Spartan brothers fall beneath the wave of arrows, Simonides turns to Theo and says “Watch now, Olympian. Turn your eyes back to the hill, for there is the man you dare call coward.”
Fifth Movement – The Olympic Games: Simonides tells his new friends what the games are like, the rituals, the ceremonies. He relates the stade, the opening race, a 200-meter sprint, but focuses on the pyx, the boxing competition. The Pyx is brutal and lasts the day. Theagenes meets the previous champion Euthymos in the final match. Theo destroys him in a brutal way. That night, Simonides encounters Theagenes as the boxer steals his olive crown. When confronted with his crime, Theo tells the poet that he will take the crown to Thermopylae where he will challenge Lampis to the fight Theo believes he was robbed of. “When I find him,” Theo says, “we will fight on his terms before the army he has fled to join.”
Fourth Movement – The Poet Meets the Boxer: After gaining passage to Thasos with the Egyptian merchant Khepri, Simonides recalls his journey to the 76th Olympiad and his encounter with a pair of Spartans who travel to the games with Leonidas’s message that he and his Spartan knights will forego the games and march to Thermopylae to check the Persian advance. The first night in Olympia, Simonides meets Theagenes who is extremely irate that the Spartan boxer Lampis has left to march with Leonidas.
Third Movement – A Boy like Herakles: Episcles, another Thasian relates the story when the boy Theagenes physically carried the large, bronze statue of Herakles from the temple to his home simply because ‘Theo wanted it there.’ His father Timosthenes, the priest of Herakles beats the child mercilessly. The next morning, the boy has run away, never to be heard from until years later when he brings fame to his homeland from his exploits at the Olympic Games.
Second Movement – Divine Birth: As they prepare to rest on their second night in the forest, the eldest Thasian, Parmenides tells Simonides that he has reason to believe that Theagenes is indeed the physical son of Herakles, the divine hero and son of Zeus. He relates a story told to him by Theagenes’ grandfather who says he was witness to the impregnation of his daughter by the greatest of Greek heroes.
alo in this single herd that graced the American landscape in the 19th century before Euro-Americans determined that it was in the best interests of American Manifest Destiny to exterminate these beautiful creatures.