From the swift ships their youth he hurl'd
Deep plunged beneath the watery world;
Setting the land of Hellas free
From the rude bonds of slavery.
To praise th' Athenian name, my muse 150
From Salamis her lay would choose;
While Sparta glorious in the fight
Waged near Cithæron's towering height;
When her brave progeny o'erthrew
The Median archers' bended yew. 155
E'en thus, Deinomenes, thy fame
Sounded in hymns of loud acclaim,
Near Himera's well-water'd shore,
Where thy strong arm in glory's field
Made the contending foeman yield, 160
Thy latest children shall explore. 156
If just, the brief and simple tale
O'er lengthen'd numbers shall prevail:
While loathes the breast and sated ear
Exaggerated strains to hear; 165
Strains which disgust and envy raise
same invocation to Saturnian Jupiter to grant continued peace and prosperity to the Sicilians, as well as to the Grecians in general. Pindar ascribes to it the most important consequences, no less than the liberation of Greece, and not merely of Sicily, from the heavy yoke of captivity. The second victory, recorded at v. 154, was that gained by the sons of Deinomenes over the Carthaginians at Himera on the same day with the victory by the Athenians at Salamis, (A. C. 480.) These were themes worthy of the patriotic poet's enthusiasm, and he appears to expatiate on them with peculiar delight. In v. 152 Pindar alludes to the battle of Platæa, gained by Pausanias with the united forces of Lacedæmon and Athens over an army of Persians vastly superior in number, (A. C. 479,) on the same day with that of Mycale. This great victory completed the liberation of Greece; and perhaps in the whole range of descriptive poetry we shall scarcely find a series of victorious actions more concisely yet more appropriately described.
