After these three figures, which illustrate the fiery flight, the torrent-fulness, the intoxicating charm of Pindar, one remains by which the magnetic force and tumult of his poetry may be faintly adumbrated. He who has watched a sunset attended by the passing of a thunderstorm in the outskirts of the Alps; who has seen the distant ranges of the mountains alternately obscured by cloud and blazing with the concentrated brightness of the sinking sun, while drifting scuds of hail and rain, tawny with sunlight, glistening with broken rainbows, clothe peak and precipice and forest in the golden veil of flame-irradiated vapor; who has heard the thunder bellow in the thwarting folds of hills, and watched the lightning, like a snake's tongue, flicker at intervals amid gloom and glory--knows in Nature's language what Pindar teaches with the voice of Art. It is only by a strained metaphor like this that any attempt to realize the _Sturm und Drang_ of Pindar's style can be communicated. In plainer language, Pindar, as an artist, combines the strong flight of the eagle, the irresistible force of the torrent, the richness of Greek wine, the majestic pageantry of Nature in one of her sublimer moods. Like all the great lyrists of the Dorian school, Pindar composed odes of various species--hymns, prosodia, parthenia, threnoi, scolia, dithyrambs, as well as epinikia. Of all but the epinikian odes we have only inconsiderable fragments left; yet these are sublime and beautiful enough to justify us in believing that Pindar surpassed his rivals in the threnos and the scolion as far as in the epinikian ode. Forty-four of his poems we possess entire--fourteen Olympians, twelve Pythians, eleven Nemeans, seven Isthmians. Of the occasions which led to the composition of these odes something must be said. The Olympian games were held in Elis once in five years, during the summer: their prize was a wreath of wild olive. The Pythian games were held in spring, on the Crissæan plain, once in five years: their prizes were a wreath of laurel and a palm. The Nemean games were held in the groves of Nemea, near Cleonæ, in Argolis, once in three years: their prize was a wreath of parsley. The Isthmian games were held at Corinth, once in three years: their prize was a wreath of pine, native to the spot. The Olympian festival honored Zeus; that of Pytho, Phoebus; that of Nemea, Zeus; that of the Isthmus, Poseidon. Originally they were all of the nature of a #panêgyris# or national assembly at the shrine of some deity local to the spot, or honored there with more than ordinary reverence. The Isthmian games in particular retained a special character. Instituted for an Ionian deity, whose rites the men of Elis refused to acknowledge, they failed to unite the whole Greek race. The Greek games, like the Schwing-feste and shooting-matches of Switzerland, served as recurring occasions of reunion and fellowship. Their influence in preserving a Panhellenic feeling was very marked.