II.
FOR XENOKRATES OF AKRAGAS,
WINNER IN THE CHARIOT-RACE.
This is the same winner for whom the [[../../Pythian Odes/6|sixth Pythian ode]] was written. Its date would seem to be 476, while that of the sixth Pythian was 494. Yet the opening passage of this ode seems to imply that Xenokrates' son Thrasyboulos was still little more than a boy, whereas in 494 he had been old enough to be his father's charioteer, and this would be eighteen years later. But perhaps the passage is only an allusion to Thrasyboulos' boyhood as a time past. And certainly both Xenokrates and his brother Theron seem to be spoken of in this ode as already dead, and we know that Theron did not die till 473. Perhaps therefore Thrasyboulos was celebrating in 472 the anniversary of his deceased father's victory, four years after the victory itself.
The men of old, Thrasyboulos, who went up into the Muse's car to give welcome with the loud-voiced lyre, lightly for honour of boys shot forth their honey-sounding songs, whensoever in one fair of form was found that sweetest summer-bloom that turneth hearts to think on fair-throned Aphrodite.
For then the Muse was not yet covetous nor a hireling, neither were sweet lays tender-voiced sold with silvered faces by Terpsichore of honeyed speech. But now doth she bid heed the word of the Argive man[1] which keepeth nigh to the paths of truth:
- ↑ Aristodemos.
