Sicyonian princess. For the rest, the Ode contains a passing allusion to new troubles brewing against Sicily from its dangerous neighbour Carthage, and a magnificent panegyric on the military exploits of Chromius, whose valiant youth, says the poet, has surely entitled him to hope for a peaceful and honoured old age. The close of the poem presents us with one of Pindar's ingenious and striking combinations of fact and fancy. The wine of song must flow for Chromius. And what bowl so fit to hold it as the silver goblets which Chromius has brought from Sicyon—the prize of his recent victory? Thus boldly and dexterously does Pindar's fancy glide from the concrete to the ideal world—from objects of sense like the visible and tangible race-cups, to objects of imagination like the immaterial wine of song.
We come now to the three Odes addressed to members of the royal house of Agrigentum. Thero, to whom the Second Olympian is addressed, was evidently a loved and honoured patron of the poet. But in Pindar's portraiture of him we miss those graphic touches which make the personality of Hiero stand out so clearly in the imagination of Pindar's readers. The unmixed encomium which Pindar lavishes on the king of Acragas leaves us with but a vague idea of his real character, or of the poet's conception of it. Yet this encomium is very fine of its kind. The valour, the wisdom, and the kindness of Thero are portrayed in brilliant colours, though the outline be somewhat vague and sketchy. The gem of the whole poem,
