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Rh legend of the early prophecies, which foretold the rise of the Cyrenaic kingdom, and of the mystic clod presented by the local deity to the Argonaut Euphemus. This legend embodies the first premiss of Pindar's syllogism. The rule of the Euphemids in Cyrenè is no usurped and brutal tyranny, but a legitimate and law-abiding sovereignty, sanctioned and ordained by Heaven. Next we have the myth of Jason, the central idea of which furnishes the poet with his second premiss—that true kingship exhibits itself not in violence, but in a certain winning grace and gentleness, which secure to the true-born ruler influence over his fellow-men and favour from the gods. Last comes the conclusion, enforced by easy allegory and indirect suggestion, but nowhere nakedly stated, that Arcesilas, the representative of the Euphemid monarchy, can afford to disdain the harsh methods of proscription and cruelty, by which a vulgar tyrant is forced to maintain his power.

The substance of the legend which occupies the first of these three divisions, the myth of Euphemus and the clod which symbolised his sovereignty, has been already given: and we may now pass to the second division—the story of Jason.

Jason's father Æson had been forcibly deprived of the sovereignty of the Thessalian town Iolcos by his crafty kinsman Pelias. Jason himself was only saved from death by the interposition of friends, who conveyed the child secretly to the cave of the Centaur Chiron. There he was trained in all heroic exercises, and thence on reaching manhood he returned to claim