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PINDAR.

That crown whose double honours glow,
Diagoras, around thy brow: 150
On which four times the Isthmian pine,
And twice the Nemean olive shine:
While Athens on her rocky throne
Made her illustrious wreath his own. [1] 151


Trophies of many a well-fought field 155
He won in glory's sacred cause,
The Theban tripod, brazen shield
At Argos, and Arcadia's vase.
Her palms Bœotia's genuine contests yield;
Six times Ægina's prize he gain'd, 160
As oft Pellene's robe obtain'd,
And graved in characters of fame,
Thy column, Megara, records his name. 159


Great sire of all, immortal Jove,
On Atabyrius' mount enshrined, [2] 165
Oh! still may thy propitious mind
Th' encomiastic hymn approve,
Which celebrates in lawful strain
The victor on Olympia's plain,
Whose valorous arm the cæstus knows to wield.


Protected by thy constant care, 171
In citizens' and strangers' eyes
Still more exalted shall he rise
Whose virtuous deeds thy favour share:

  1. Athens is here put synecdochically for the whole of Attica. Pindar, as the younger scholiast observes, leaves it doubtful in what Attic contest Diagoras came off victorious: whether in the Panathenaic, the Heraclean, the Eleusinian, or the Panhellenic; or whether he obtained the prize in all these. The same epithet is applied by Homer to Ithaca: (Il.. ii. 201.)
  2. A mountain in Rhodes, on which was erected a temple to Jupiter, containing brazen bulls, that, according to the scholiast, had the property of lowing whenever any unseemly action was about to be committed there.