the Athenians during their struggle against Persia. He can find no higher praise for Hiero's victory at Himera than to compare it with the Athenian triumph at Salamis. A fragment[1] has been preserved from a lost poem referring to an occasion "when the sons of Athenians laid the bright foundation of freedom for the Greeks." And in writing to an Æginetan victor,[2] he loudly applauds the part taken by Ægina in the fight at Salamis. But to Athenian victors he writes twice. Each time the Athenians were exulting in a great recent victory; and each time Pindar leaves the victory unmentioned.
We can perhaps explain his silence in the one case; in the other it must remain an unsolved riddle. The Seventh Pythian was addressed to Megacles, a member of the noble Alcmæonid family; and it was gravely suspected that the sympathy of this family with the expelled Athenian tyrant Hippias, who fought and (as some say) fell on the Persian side at Marathon, had not merely made them lukewarm in their country's cause, but had led them into actual treachery. Whether this suspicion was true or false, it produced a feeling of no little odium against the Alcmæonids; and the events of Marathon would naturally long remain a sore subject with members of the family, reminding them rather of their own discredit, whether deserved or no, than of the glory of their city. But as to the Second Nemean, we have no knowledge of the victor's family which will enable us to explain Pindar's obviously intentional silence on the subject of the sea-fight at Salamis.
