CHAPTER VII.
SICILY.—THE SYRACUSAN AND AGRIGENTINE DYNASTIES.
We saw in the last chapter that all the Odes embodying local legends of Olympia were addressed to Sicilians, and that two out of the three were addressed to Sicilian kings—Hiero of Syracuse and Thero of Acragas. Four other Odes were written by the poet for these princes—three for Hiero[1] and one for Thero;[2] and though these Odes are not connected by a common mythological substratum, it may be convenient to consider them together. We shall thus have before us a group of Odes illustrating Pindar's relations with the dynasties of Syracuse and Acragas; and this group may be completed by the addition of four more Odes, two[3] of which are addressed to Chromius, Hiero's viceroy in Ætna, and two[4] to kinsmen of Thero, Xenocrates and liis son Thrasybulus. In this group, as in all the Odes addressed to Sicilians, we shall find the poet less careful than usual to select his mythical illustrations from the national and family legends of his patrons. The practice which he here adopts is rather to select
