the
Lokrians' famous race, and have sprinkled my honey upon a city of
goodly men: and I have told the praises of Archestratos' comely son,
whom I beheld victorious by the might of his hand beside the altar at
Olympia, and saw on that day how fair he was of form, how gifted with
that spring-tide bloom, which erst with favour of the Cyprian queen
warded from Ganymede unrelenting death.

[Footnote 1: Reading [Greek: horat on hopa].]

[Footnote 2: This Kyknos seems to have been a Lokrian freebooter, said
to have fought with success against Herakles.]

[Footnote 3: His trainer.]

[Footnote 4: Probably because Zeus was especially concerned, both with
the fulfilment of promises and with the Olympic games.]

[Footnote 5: For the story of these Moliones see Nestor's speech, Hom.
Il. xi. 670-761.]

[Footnote 6: Perhaps this implies a tradition of a colder climate
anciently prevailing in Peloponnesos: perhaps the mention of snow is
merely picturesque, referring to the habitual appearance of the hill
in winter, and the passage should then rather be rendered 'when
Oinomaos was king its snow-sprinkled top was without name.']

[Footnote 7: The Lokrians worshipped Zeus especially as the Thunderer,
as certain coins of theirs, stamped with a thunderbolt, still
testify.]

XII.

FOR ERGOTELES OF HIMERA,

WINNER IN THE LONG FOOT-RACE.

* * * * *

Ergoteles was a native of Knosos in Crete, but civil dissension had
compelled him to leave his country. He came to Sicily and was
naturalized as a citizen of Himera. Had he stayed in Crete he
would not have won this victory; nor the Pythian and Isthmian
victories, referred to at the end of the ode, for the Cretans seem to
have kept aloof, in an insular spirit, from the Panhellenic games.

The date of the ode is B.C. 472, the year after the Himeraeans had
expelled the tyrant Thrasydaios of Akragas. The prayer to Fortune
would seem to have reference specially to this event. The ode was
probably sung in a temple either of Zeus or of Fortune.

* * * * *

I pray thee, daughter of Zeus the Deliverer, keep watch over
wide-ruling Himera, O saviour Fortune.

By thee upon the sea swift ships are piloted, and on dry land fierce
wars and meetings of councils.

Up and down the hopes of men are tossed as they cleave the waves of
baffling falsity: and a sure token of what shall come to pass hath
never a