Page:Pindar and Anacreon.djvu/15



was a native of Thebes in Bœotia, or, as some authors, among whom is the geographical writer Stephanus Byzantinus, affirm, of the town of Cynocephali, which was under the Theban jurisdiction. He was the son of the musician Scopelinus, or, according to Suidas, of Deiphantus and Myrto: his birth is stated by the same author to have taken place in the sixty-fifth Olympiad, corresponding nearly with the year 520, A.C. His parents were probably of obscure situations in life, although of illustrious descent; as he asserts in his fifth Pythian ode that they were of the same origin with Arcesilaus, king of Cyrene. It is said of Pindar when verging to manhood, that a presage of his future lyrical eminence was drawn from the circumstance of a swarm of bees having settled on his lips. For his early skill in musical and