gold, to set it going in various ways." In the proemium to the second Isthmian he somewhat bitterly laments the necessity that made him sell his songs: "The men of old, Thrasybulus, who climbed the chariot of the gold-crowned Muses, and received a famous lyre, lightly shot their arrows of honey-voiced hymns in praise of boys, of him whose beauty kept the summer bloom of youth, that sweetest souvenir of Aphrodite throned in joy. For the Muse as yet loved not gain, nor worked for hire, nor were sweet and tender songs with silvered faces sold by Terpsichore. But now she bids us keep the Argive's speech in mind; and verily it hits the truth--that money, money, money makes the man. He spoke it when deserted of his riches and his friends." Yet we must not suppose that Pindar sang slavishly the praise of every bidder. He was never fulsome in his panegyric. He knew how to mingle eulogy with admonition. If his theme be the wealth of a tyrant like Hiero, he reminds him of the dangers of ambition and the crime of avarice. Arcesilaus of Cyrene is warned[112] to remit his sentence of banishment in favor of a powerful exile. Victors, puffed up with the pride of their achievements, hear from him how variable is the life of man, how all men are mere creatures of a day. Handsome youths are admonished to beware of lawlessness and shun incontinence. Thus Pindar, while suiting his praises to the persons celebrated, always interweaves an appropriate precept of morality. There was nothing that he hated more than flattery and avarice, and grasping after higher honors than became his station. In him more than in any other poet were apparent the Greek virtues of #eukosmia#, #sôphrosynê#, and all the moral and artistic qualities which were summed up in the motto #mêden agan#.[113] Those who are curious to learn Pindar's opinions on these points may consult the following passages:[114] Nem. viii. 32; id. vii. 65; Pyth. xi. 50; Isthm. vii. 40; id. v. 14; and, lastly, Pyth. x. 22, which contains this truly beautiful description of a thoroughly successful life, as imagined by a Greek: "That man is happy and song-worthy by the skilled, who, victorious by might of hand or vigor of foot, achieves the greatest prizes with daring and with strength; and who in his lifetime sees his son, while yet a boy, crowned happily with Pythian wreaths. The brazen heaven, it is true, is inaccessible to him; but whatsoever joys we race of mortals touch, he reaches to the farthest voyage." With this we may compare the story of happy lives told by Croesus to Solon, and the celebrated four lines of Simonides: "Health is best for a mortal man; next, beauty; thirdly, well-gotten wealth; fourthly, the pleasure of youth among friends."