Page:Pindar (Morice).djvu/226

212 described as the crowning virtue of the Theban hero Iolaus. The lavish yet discreet employment of wealth and material prosperity is exemplified in Pindar's legend of the early settlers in Rhodes, and in many brief allusions to old-world worthies—Crœsus, Nestor, Sarpedon, Cinyras. The due development of inborn wisdom is traced in the myths of Iamus and Amphiaraus. On the other hand, Pindar finds in many a legend warnings against a misuse of natural gifts, or a presumptuous departure from a natural sphere. Ixion and Tantalus illustrate the ruin which attends a wrong and presumptuous use of prosperity; Asclepius perishes because he has used his gift of wisdom without discretion;—not content to heal the sick, he has raised the dead to life. These instances are but a few out of many. Pindar rarely misses any opportunity which the details of his legends offer, of calling attention to a point of his philosophy. The heroic qualities of his heroes are traced to their "inborn nature," their feats are performed at the bidding of "noble zeal," "high ambition;" if they fail, it is because they have miscalculated their measure, and discretion has not restrained ambition from degenerating into presumption.

The same doctrines are carried by Pindar into the sphere of politics. Holding that greatness is an inborn and inherited gift, he naturally sympathises with hereditary monarchies and aristocracies of birth, and is unwilling to see political power committed to a "greedy host" of plebeians. But he does not consider