THE SECOND ISTHMIAN ODE.
TO XENOCRATES OF AGRIGENTUM, SON OF ARCESILAUS, VICTOR IN THE HORSE RACE.
ARGUMENT.
Pindar addresses this ode to Thrasybulus, son of the conqueror Xenocrates.—This he professes to do after the example of the old poets, who did not write, as was now done, urged by the sordid incitement of gain.—The triumphs of Xenocrates, his ancestor Ænesidamus, and his charioteer Nicomachus are sung, and Nicasippus is charged with the safe conveyance of this ode, sent in the form of an epistle.
Oft have the men of other days
From the gold-netted muses' car,
Oh Thrasybulus! hurl'd afar
The lyre's soft-sounding notes, to praise
Youth's ardent prime, that harbinger most sweet 5
Of Venus throned upon her lofty seat.
For then, not amorous of gain,
The muse sent forth no venal strain—
The honey'd lays not then, as now,
From sweet Terpsichore that flow, 10
Upon the shining front display'd
The silver emblem of their trade. 14
Now she suggests with heedful care
The Argive's words in mind to bear; [1]
- ↑ These words are attributed by the scholiast to Aristodemus the Lacedæmonian, whose constant doctrine it was that wealth was always to be sought, and that poverty could never be honourable. This saying afterward passed into a proverb, like Horace's
"O cives, cives, quærenda pecunia primum,
Virtus post nummos."
