THE SIXTH OLYMPIC ODE.
TO AGESIAS OF SYRACUSE, ON HIS VICTORY IN THE CHARIOT DRAWN BY MULES.
ARGUMENT.
The scholiast informs us that this ode, according to some, was inscribed to Stymphelius, son of Sostratus, and that his victory was achieved in the eighty-sixth or eighty-seventh Olympiad.—The poem opens with a noble simile drawn from the frontispiece of a building, to which he compares the opening of his ode, expatiating on the glory of the Olympic contest.—He then proceeds to mention the praises and regret expressed by Adrastus on Amphiaraus, occasioned by the death of the latter; instituting a comparison between Agesias and the Theban seer.—The birth of Iamus, one of the ancestors of the victor, who are thence called Iamidæ, is then related at great length, together with the story of Evadne, daughter of Æpytus.—Agesias derived his lineage on the mother's side from Arcadia; and as there was a connection between the inhabitants of that country and the Thebans, the poet includes them in his praises.—He then addresses Æneas, the master of the chorus, whom he compliments on his musical skill, and exhorts to wipe away by his exertions the proverbial disgrace attached to his countrymen by the appellation of Bœotian swine.—Renews his praise of Agesias, and concludes with a prayer to Neptune, still to keep the victor under his propitious guidance, and to render the poet's hymns agreeable to those in whose honour they are written and sung.
Oft as the architect's creative hand [1]
Bids the fair porch on golden columns rise,
And all the dome's magnificence expand,
To strike the gazing eye with mute surprise—
