rearing of magnificent palaces or the collection of valuable works of art. A rich man, who wished to use his wealth like a prince and not like a miser, had a somewhat limited choice of objects on which to expend it. Such were the undertaking at his own charges of some expensive public duty (a "Liturgia," as the Greeks called it), hospitality on a large scale, and, lastly, the maintenance of a fine stud of horses. So intimate was the connection between horse-keeping and aristocracy in Greece, that we hear in one state of "Hippobotæ" or "Horse-rearers" as the recognised title of its nobles. Æschylus calls horses "the ornament of wealthy pride;" Plato couples "wealth and horse-breeding" together as synonyms; and Aristotle remarks that "wherever a state is strong in horses, the chief power will be found to reside with the nobles." Thus the chariot-race recalled associations of wealth and splendour, which dazzled the vulgar, and which, in the judgment even of educated Greeks, at a time when aristocratical sentiment was still prevalent, and a wealthy and ancient house was looked upon as a lingering survival of the Heroic Age, might well be the theme of a poet's homage. It is as the antithesis to the miserly hoarding of wealth, that its liberal expenditure on horses and chariots is admired and applauded by Pindar. Wide is the power of wealth well used,[1] he exclaims. Wealth decorated with triumphs, and lavished freely on noble ambitions, shines like a dazzling star.[2]
