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Rh drawn from the varied fortunes of its heroic ancestors. But this is the exception. As a rule, in all the Odes addressed to Sicilian or Italian Greeks, the mythical element is introduced either in connection with the locality or other circumstances of the triumph (Ol. i. iii. iv. xi.; Pyth. xii., and perhaps Nem. i.), or with the personal surroundings or character of the victor (Pyth. i. ii. iii. vi.; Nem. ix.), or is practically absent altogether (Ol. v. x. xii., all very short Odes; Isthm. ii.) The only exceptions are the Ode to Thero already mentioned (Ol. ii.), and the Ode (Ol. vi.) to Agesias of Syracuse, a member of a sacerdotal house, whose peculiar privileges recalled, almost of course, the legend of their supposed ancestor Iamus, and thus enabled Pindar to grace his poem with one of the most exquisite tales in Greek mythology.

Pindar's chief Sicilian patrons belonged to the royal families of Syracuse and Acragas. The regal honours of these families had not been long achieved. About the time of Pindar's boyish studies in Athens, a certain Cleander, despot of Gela in Sicily, had in his army two captains of some distinction, Gelo and Ænesidamus. Cleander was succeeded by a brother, who fell in battle; and Gelo, after some pretence of establishing the late king's sons in their father's place, ultimately succeeded in securing it for himself. Gelo was one of four brothers, the "sons of Deinomenes," and when in B.C. 485 he transferred the seat of his empire from Gela to Syracuse, his brother Hiero succeeded him at Gela. Five years later (B.C. 480) a magnificent victory over the Carthaginians at Himera, coinciding