Of those whom a neglect of the principles which Pindar would instil into his townsmen had involved in faction and deserved calamity, he speaks not with anger but with sympathy. He pities their reverses, rejoices in any gleam of returning prosperity, and finds in their sad experiences lessons both of consolation and of warning. Thus he alludes to a member of a noble house who had so far compromised himself in the strife of parties as to be driven to flee his city and seek a new home in the neighbouring Orchomenus:[1]—
"On him, in storms of civil tumult wild
Shipwrecked, by every furious billow tossed,
Her bruised and battered child,
Orchomenus—a friendly host—
From the deep sea a willing welcome smiled.
Now hath his inborn fate
Lifted again his fall'n and sad estate,
And hard experience taught his soul to learn
The lore of prudent thought, her lesson sage and stern."—(S.)
Domestic feuds and the calamities of individuals were not the only evils brought upon Thebes by the factions which disturbed her commmonwealth. Through them, also, the city found itself committed to a foreign policy disgraceful in itself and disastrous in its consequences. At that momentous period, when the rapid advance of Persian invasion summoned all patriotic Greeks to rally in defence of their common fatherland, the selfish and scheming oligarchy who were for the time supreme in Thebes flung themselves
- ↑ Isthm. i. 36.
