Odes, the element of local mythology, though never wanting, is on the whole less prominent than might have been expected, and takes the form of allusion rather than of narrative. The most important legendary episode which we find in them—that of Agamemnon's murder, and the revenge of Orestes on the assassins, in the Eleventh Pythian—is, in the form in which Pindar tells it, a Laconian legend, and has no connection with the mythology of Thebes. Possibly the contemporary troubles of his city may have to some extent distracted the attention of the poet from its past glories. Or he may have deemed these themes so familiar to his hearers, as to be sufficiently recalled to their memories by passing allusions. Whatever be the reason, it is certain that the chief passages in which Pindar dwells on Theban legends are to be found in Odes addressed to a foreign and not to a native audience.[1]
We have seen how eagerly the poet looked to Sparta, as the ally whose support was to save his unhappy city amid its troubles, present and to come. But there was another Grecian state towards which he seems to have been drawn by a yet stronger sympathy. His attachment to the island-community of Ægina was both personal and national. He was associated with many of its citizens by the ties of warm private friendship, strengthened, it would seem, by frequent and familiar intercourse. The memory of a fancied kinship had, even in historical times, united Thebes and Ægina
- ↑ E.g. Nem. i. and ix. Ol. ii. and vi. all addressed to Sicilian victors. The legends of Heracles often appear in Odes addressed to Æginetans—e.g. Nem. iii. Isthm. v.
