THE SEVENTH OLYMPIC ODE.
TO DIAGORAS, THE RHODIAN, ON HIS VICTORY WITH THE CÆSTUS, GAINED IN THE SEVENTY-NINTH OLYMPIAD.
ARGUMENT.
Pindar begins this beautiful ode (which, as the younger scholiast informs us, was said to have been written in letters of gold, and suspended in the temple of Minerva) with a highly poetical simile drawn from domestic life, which introduces the praise of the Rhodian victor and his race.—He then proceeds to the story of Tlepolemus, an ancestor of Diagoras, who, after having murdered Licymnius, departed for Rhodes by the command of Apollo; the shower of gold which Jupiter caused to descend there.—Then follow the fables respecting the origin of Rhodes, the birth of Pallas, her most ancient sacrifices instituted without the aid of fire, and the gifts imparted by her to the favoured Rhodians, especially their skill in statuary.—Then follows a digression explaining the reason for consecrating the island to the sun—(Hyperionides;) his intrigue with the nymph Rhodos, from which sprang seven sons, one of whom gave birth to Camirus, Lindus, and Ialysus, who built the three cities of the island of Rhodes, which were named after them.
The poet then proceeds to panegyrize Tlepolemus and Diagoras, enumerating the several victories of the latter.
The ode concludes with an invocation to Jupiter, to whom divine honours were paid on Atabyrius, a mountain of Rhodes, propitiating his continued favour both for the poet and the victor, and a moral reflection on the mutability of human fortune.
As when a sire the golden bowl
All foaming with the dew of wine,
Takes with a liberal hand and soul,
Chief gem where all his treasures shine—
Then tends the beverage (hallow'd first 5
By prayers to all the powers above)
