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.