As now the favour of God perfecteth his might, so for the time to come, blest children of Kronos, grant him to keep it in counsel and in deed, that never at any time the wintry blast of the late autumn winds[15] sweep him away.  Surely the mighty mind of Zeus guideth the destiny of the men he loveth.  I pray that to the seed of Battos he may at Olympia grant a like renown.

[Footnote 1:  Kastor was not only a patron of charioteers, but also, with his twin-brother Polydeukes, a protector of mariners and giver of fair weather.]

[Footnote 2:  The charioteer.]

[Footnote 3:  I. e. well-handled and un-broken in the sharp turns round the goal.]

[Footnote 4:  I. e. in Apollo’s temple at Delphi.]

[Footnote 5:  This would seem to have been a piece of wood growing naturally in the form of a man.]

[Footnote 6:  Karrhotos.]

[Footnote 7:  This seems great havoc among the starters.  Probably besides the forty who fell there were others who were not actually upset but yet did not win.  No doubt the race must have been run in heats, but these must still have been crowded enough to make the crush at the turns exceedingly dangerous.]

[Footnote 8:  Pausanias says that Battos, the founder of Kyrene, was dumb when he went to Africa, but that on suddenly meeting a lion the fright gave him utterance.  According to Pindar the lions seem to have been still more alarmed, being startled by Battos’ foreign accent.]

[Footnote 9:  The Dorians.]

[Footnote 10:  There were Aigidai at Sparta and Spartan colonies, of which Kyrene was one, and also at Thebes:  to the latter branch of the family Pindar belonged.]

[Footnote 11:  The Karneia, a Dorian feast of which we hear often in history.]

[Footnote 12:  These Trojan refugees were supposed to have anciently settled on the site where Kyrene was afterwards built.  Battos (or Aristoteles) and his new settlers honoured the dead Trojans as tutelar heroes of the spot.]

[Footnote 13:  Battos.]

[Footnote 14:  The sacred street of Apollo, along which the procession moved which sang this ode.  The pavement, and the tombs cut in the rock on each side are still to be seen, or at least were in 1817, when the Italian traveller Della Cella visited the place.  Boeckh quotes from his Viaggio da Tripoli di Barberia alle frontiere occedentali dell’ Egitto, p. 139:  ’Oggi ho passeggiato in una delle strade (di Cirene) che serba ancora Papparenza di essere stata fra le piu cospicue.  Non solo e tutta intagliata nel vivo sasso, ma a due lati e fiancheggiata da lunga fila di tombe quadrate di dieci circa piedi di altezza, anch’ esse tutte d’un pezzo scavate nella roccia.’]

[Footnote 15:  I. e., probably, calamity in old age.]

VI.

For Xenokrates of Akragas,

Winner in the chariot-race.