Νείλου πρὸς ἀκτάς (Isthm. ii. 42): "far as to Phasis was his voyage in summer days, and in winter to the shores of Nile." Such imagery is of peculiar interest as recalling the wide area of Greek colonisation in Pindar's time, and the impulse with which commerce was carrying Greek sailors to the bounds of the known earth, still bordered by a region of wonder and fable to the west and the north of the Mediterranean. Again, a victor's merits are countless as the sand:—ψάμμος ἀριθμὸν περιπέφευγεν (Ol. ii. 98): Olympia is "the crown" of festivals—κορυφὰ ἀέθλων—where the image is from a mountain-peak: or the flower, ἄωτος: it is excellent as water,—bright as that gold which shines among all possessions as a fire by night,—brilliant as the sun in the noonday sky (Ol. i. ad init.).
§ 17. Pindar's figurative language often seems to invert the natural mode of expression: as ἀκέρδεια λέλογχεν θαμινὰ κακαγόρος (i.e. κακαγόρος), Ol. i. 53: "misfortune hath oft marked slanderers for her own," instead of κακαγόροι λελόγχασιν ἀκέρδειαν. So ἤδη με γηραιὸν μέρος ἁλικίας ἀμφιπολεῖ (Pyth. iv. 157), "the evening of life is already closing around my path." ἱερὸν ἔσχον οἴκημα ποταμοῦ, Σικελίας τ' ἔσαν | ὀφθαλμός, αἰών τ' ἔφεπε μόρσιμος (Ol. ii. 9), "they won the sacred home beside the river, and were the light of Sicily, and life went with them to man's due term"—i.e. they were not cut off by premature deaths. λαγέτας ἕξ, ἀρεταῖσι μεμαλότας υἱούς (Ol. i. 89), "chieftains six, sons dear to chivalry." ὔμμε δ' ἐκλάρωσεν πότμος | Ζηνὶ
