for virtue, abounds also in grave and pointed warnings against particular faults—jealousy, impatience, love of flattery, trust in evil counsellors, and the like. And it appears that the Ode was written at a time when Hiero's tendency to these defects seemed likely to lead him into serious guilt and disastrous folly. He had but just succeeded to his kingdom, and his brother Polyzelus held a position in it little, if at all, inferior in power to his own. Nay, by marrying the widow of the late king, Polyzelus had taken a step which, in the eyes of a jealous rival, might easily appear as a preliminary to the assertion of a claim to the throne. Yielding either to his own fears or to the suggestions of evil advisers, Hiero seems to have formed a scheme which recalls the Biblical narrative of David and Uriah. Polyzelus should be sent to perish in attacking a neighbouring city, and the queen should become the wife of Hiero. Polyzelus, however, was warned and fled. He appealed for protection to Thero of Acragas, the son and heir of his late brother's old comrade Ænesidamus, and his appeal was successful. A demand on Hiero's part for the extradition of Polyzelus was disregarded by Thero, and a war seemed imminent, but was somehow averted. We have already alluded to the story that the quarrel was appeased by the mediation of Pindar's rival, Simonides.
These events probably explain the mythical contents of the Second Pythian. Hiero's foolish and guilty designs on the wife of Polyzelus, the murderous scheme which his jealous fear of his brother suggested, the unseemliness of such a quarrel as seemed impend-
