and a victor at Pytho. The king is admonished never to forget how much of this glory he owes to two constant friends, the one a god, the other a mortal, Apollo and Carrhotus. Pindar dwells at considerable length on the skill and nerve exhibited by Carrhotus. The race had been singularly disastrous to the mass of competitors. No less than forty cars had been upset; the confusion and danger must have been indescribable. Yet Carrhotus had steered his chariot through the writhing mass of cars and horses, without so much as grazing a wheel or snapping a trace, and had reached the winning-post in triumph.
"With calm strong purpose pressing on
'Mid forty fallen guiders of the rein,
Secure through all did he his chariot guide,
And from the games returned hath reached his home on Libya's plain."
Then follows a brief allusion to the legend of Battus, and to the rise of Cyrenè under the continual favour and protection of Apollo, to whom Arcesilas is taught to refer not only the material prosperity of his country, but all the enlightened and artistic civilisation which surrounds him, and the noble strains of minstrelsy which are the reward of his victory. The origin of the Carneian festival of Apollo at Cyrenè, the occasion on which the Ode was to be performed, is traced back to Thera, and thence to the Ægids of Sparta, with which illustrious house Pindar boasts a connection of his own family. Then returning to the subject of Battus, the poet describes the actual foundation of the
