into your men's hearts to devise; and of an inventor cometh every work.
Whence were revealed the new graces of Dionysos with the dithyramb that winneth the ox[1]? Who made new means of guidance to the harness of horses, or on the shrines of gods set the twin images of the king of birds[2]? Among them thriveth the Muse of dulcet breath, and Ares in the young men's terrible spears. Sovran lord of Olympia, be not thou jealous of my words henceforth for ever, O father Zeus; rule thou this folk unharmed, and keep unchanged the favourable gale of Xenophon's good hap. Welcome for him this customary escort of his crown, which from the plains of Pisa he is bringing, having won with the five contests the stadion-race beside; the like whereof never yet did mortal man.
Also two parsley-wreaths shadowed his head before the people at the games of Isthmos, nor doth Nemea tell a different tale. And of his father Thessalos' lightning feet is record by the streams of Alpheos, and at Pytho he hath renown for the single and for the double stadion gained both in a single day, and in the same month at rocky Athens a day of swiftness crowned his hair for three illustrious deeds, and the Hellotia[3] seven times, and at the games of Poseidon between seas longer hymns followed his father Ptoiodoros with Terpsias and Eritimos. And how often ye were first at Delphi or in the Pastures of the Lion[4], though with full many do I match your crowd of honours, yet can I no more surely tell than the tale of pebbles on the sea-shore. But in
- ↑ I.e. as a prize. But the passage may be taken differently as referring to the symbolical identification of Dionysos with the bull. Dithyrambic poetry was said to have been invented or improved by Arion of Corinth.
- ↑ This refers to the introduction into architecture by the Corinthians of the pediment, within or above which were at that time constantly placed images of eagles.
- ↑ The feast of Athene Hellotis.
- ↑ Nemea.
