The earliest patrons of literature, were the Peisistratidæ who endeavored to supply the general want of books, by inscribing the select passages on columns along the public streets. All that was most valuable and attainable, such as fragmentary laws, proverbial sentences of wise men, fables of Æsop, verses of Simonides, together with the lyric poets and tragedians of primitive times, Theognis and Solon, were collected in the library which they were the first to found. By the same conservative foresight, Homer was arranged in continuous form, and superseding the foregoing literary world, became the foundation and source of a better one already begun. Archilochus, memorable as the inventor of Iambic verse; Terpander, celebrated for his exquisite talents as a musician; and Stersichorus, of whom a few beautiful fragments remain, bring us to the consideration of that more renowned trio, Sappho, Pindar and Anacreon. The latter was a voluptuary, whose luxurious pictures might please the sensual, but contained nothing beautiful or sublime. Pindar was cotemporary with Æschylus, and senior to Bacchylides, Simonides of Ceos, Alcman, and Alcæus, all of whom he excelled in lyrical excellence. Corinna, his famous teacher, beat him five times in musical composition, the fair rival perhaps triumphing by personal charms, rather than through poetical superiority. But in the highest order of his art, Pindar was almost always declared supreme. He had a particular regard for Pan, and took up his abode contiguous to the temple of that deity, where he composed the hymns which were sung by the Theban virgins in honor of that mystic emblem of universal nature. This Theban eagle, whose pride of place is still undisturbed in the Grecian heavens, dedicated his chief odes to the glory of the Olympic games, when the selectest aspirants of a mighty nation joined in the competition for prizes awarded there.