Passing to the consideration of Pindar purely as an artist, we may first examine the structure of his odes, and then illustrate the qualities of his poetry by reference to some of the more splendid proemia and descriptions. The task which lay before him when he undertook to celebrate a victory at one of the Greek games was this: Some rich man had won a race with his chariot and horses, or some strong man had conquered his competitors by activity or force of limb. Pindar had to praise the rich man for his wealth and liberality, the strong man for his endurance of training and personal courage or dexterity. In both cases the victor might be felicitated on his good-fortune--on the piece of luck which had befallen him; and if he were of comely person or illustrious blood, these also offered topics for congratulation. The three chief commonplaces of Pindar, therefore, are #olbos, aretê, eutychia#, wealth or prosperity, manliness or spirit, and blessings independent of both, god-given, not acquired. But it could not be that a great poet should ring the changes only on these three subjects, or content himself with describing the actual contest, which, probably, he had not witnessed. Consequently Pindar illustrates his odes with myths or stories bearing more or less closely on the circumstances of his hero. Sometimes he celebrates the victor's ancestry, as in the famous sixth Olympian, in which the history of the Iamidæ is given; sometimes his city, as in the seventh Olympian, where he describes the birthplace of Diagoras, the island Rhodes; sometimes he dwells upon an incident in the hero's life, as when in the third Pythian the illness of Hiero suggests the legend of Asclepius and Cheiron; sometimes a recent event, like the eruption of Etna, alluded to in the first Pythian, gives color to his ode; sometimes, as in the case of the last Pythian, where the story of Medusa is narrated, the legendary matter is introduced to specialize the nature of the contest. The victory itself is hardly touched upon: the allusions to #olbos, aretê, eutychia#, though frequent and interwoven with the texture of the ode, are brief: the whole poetic fabric is so designed as to be appropriate to the occasion and yet independent of it. Therefore Pindar's odes have not perished with the memory of the events to which they owed their composition. Pindar's peculiar treatment of the epinikian ode may best be illustrated by analyzing the structure of one or two of his poems. But first take this translation of one of the shorter and simpler of the series--the twelfth Pythian: To thee, fairest of earthly towns, I pray-- Thou splendor-lover, throne of Proserpine, Piled o'er Girgenti's slopes, that feed alway Fat sheep!--with grace of gods and men incline, Great queen, to take this Pythian crown and own Midas; for he of all the Greeks, thy son, Hath triumphed in the art which Pallas won, Weaving of fierce Gorgonian throats the dolorous moan.