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142 his daughters' suitors assemble in the Stadium of Argos, and race for their brides. This precedent he determined himself to follow:—

His daughter's spouse the Libyan found

E'en thus. In rich array her place hard by the goal she took, the race

To guerdon; and her sire proclaimed around,

Who clasped her first, should claim the prize.

Swift o'er the course Alexidamus flies,

And seized her hand in his, and bore

His bride through nomad hosts of horsemen, raining down

Full many a leaf and crown,

And many a triumph-plume was his before."

We pass now to consider the Fourth and Fifth Pythian Odes, which were both composed in honour of a single occasion, the victory gained at Delphi in the chariot-race by Arcesilas, king of Cyrenè. The victor was not himself present to witness his triumph, but was represented by his kinsman Carrhotus, who drove the successful chariot, and who probably commissioned Pindar to produce an Ode for performance at Cyrenè, at a festival which followed on his return thither. This Ode was the Fifth Pythian; the fourth, as we shall see, was composed afterwards for a special purpose. Yet it is not unlikely that both Odes reached Arcesilas together, and were conveyed in the ship which brought Carrhotus home.

The Fifth Pythian opens with a lofty panegyric upon the power of wealth well used, and on the magnificent position of Arcesilas, at once a mighty monarch