More perhaps may be gained by grouping the Odes, not according to their nominal occasions, but according to their actual contents: the legendary matter, which, as has been already explained, should be considered as the true fount and source of Pindaric poetry. Adopting this as our general principle, we shall be enabled at the same time to classify the Odes according to the nationality of the respective conquerors whom they commemorate; for, as we have seen, much of a choric poet's skill depended on a happy selection from the boundless stores of mythology of those legends which were best calculated to gratify the family or national pride of a patron. Thus we shall find the Odes in honour of Æginetan victors dealing almost exclusively with the legends of the Æacidæ, the old heroic house which once ruled in Ægina. Similarly, to Rhodian and Cyrenaic athletes Pindar sings chiefly of the mythical origin of their respective states. The victory of a Theban, again, suggests to the poet a flood of local legends, Heracles and Iolaus, the wars of the "Seven against Thebes," and their descendants the "Epigoni." Such a classification, then, will enable us at once to reduce the tangled mass of Pindaric poetry into intelligible divisions, and to follow in some measure the workings of the poet's mind, as he endeavours to connect the nominal occasion of each Ode with that mythological world from which in each case he draws his loftiest inspirations.
Nearly, but not quite always, modern scholars are able to detect with certainty the connection between the occasion of a Pindaric Ode and the myths which are
