The date of the victory is B.C. 476.

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O ye who haunt the land of goodly steeds that drinketh of Kephisos’ waters, lusty Orchomenos’ queens renowned in song, O Graces, guardians of the Minyai’s ancient race, hearken, for unto you I pray.  For by your gift come unto men all pleasant things and sweet, and the wisdom of a man and his beauty, and the splendour of his fame.  Yea even gods without the Graces’ aid rule never at feast or dance; but these have charge of all things done in heaven, and beside Pythian Apollo of the golden bow they have set their thrones, and worship the eternal majesty of the Olympian Father.

O lady Aglaia, and thou Euphrosyne, lover of song, children of the mightiest of the gods, listen and hear, and thou Thalia delighting in sweet sounds, and look down upon this triumphal company, moving with light step under happy fate.  In Lydian mood of melody concerning Asopichos am I come hither to sing, for that through thee, Aglaia, in the Olympic games the Minyai’s home is winner.  Fly, Echo, to Persephone’s dark-walled home, and to his father bear the noble tidings, that seeing him thou mayest speak to him of his son, saying that for his father’s honour in Pisa’s famous valley he hath crowned his boyish hair with garlands from the glorious games.

THE PYTHIAN ODES.

I.

For Hieron of Aitna,

Winner in the chariot-race.

* * * * * The date of this victory is B.C. 474

In the year 480, the year of Salamis, the Syracusans under Hieron had defeated the Carthaginians in the great battle of Himera.

In 479 a great eruption of Etna (Aitna) began.  In 476 Hieron founded, near the mountain but we may suppose at a safe distance, the new city of Aitna, in honour of which he had himself proclaimed as an Aitnaian after this and other victories in the games.

And in this same year, 474, he had defeated the Etruscans, or Tuscans, or Tyrrhenians in a great sea-fight before Cumae.

Pindar might well delight to honour those who had been waging so well against the barbarians of the South and West the same war which the Hellenes of the mother-country waged against the barbarians of the East.

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O golden Lyre, thou common treasure of Apollo and the Muses violet-tressed, thou whom the dancer’s step, prelude of festal mirth, obeyeth, and the singers heed thy bidding, what time with quivering strings thou utterest preamble of choir-leading overture—­lo even the sworded lightning of immortal fire thou quenched, and on the sceptre of Zeus his eagle sleepeth, slackening his swift wings either side, the king of birds, for a dark mist thou hast distilled on his arched head, a gentle seal upon his eyes, and he in slumber heaveth his supple back, spell-bound beneath thy throbs.