The special features in which the other great games differed from those of Olympia need not detain us long. The Pythian contests were held in the plains of Crissa, under the shadow of the towering crag of Delphi, the centre or "navel" of earth, as Greek poets described it. Here was the world-renowned temple and oracle of Apollo, the especial god of the Dorian race, and the patron of music and the arts. This fact may serve to explain the chief peculiarity of the Pythian games, the musical and poetical contests, which here accompanied the equestrian and gymnastic competitions. A single Ode of Pindar's recalls this feature in the games of Pytho,—that in which he commemorates the victory of the Agrigentine Midas, victor in the competition of flute-players. Its brevity renders it suitable for quotation, and it introduces the remarkable legend of the invention of the flute, suggested to Athene (as tradition told) by the dying shrieks of the Gorgon! For the credit of Greek music, we must hope that the inventress improved upon her model, or that Midas's performance had not too slavishly reproduced it
PYTHIAN XII.
TO MIDAS OF ACRAGAS, WINNER OF THE PRIZE FOR FLUTE-PLAYING.
Strophe.
"I pray thee, Queen of splendour, city of peerless grace,
