WINNER IN THE CHARIOT-RACE.

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The date of this victory is B.C. 474

In the year 480, the year of Salamis, the Syracusans under Hieron had
defeated the Carthaginians in the great battle of Himera.

In 479 a great eruption of Etna (Aitna) began. In 476 Hieron founded,
near the mountain but we may suppose at a safe distance, the new city
of Aitna, in honour of which he had himself proclaimed as an Aitnaian
after this and other victories in the games.

And in this same year, 474, he had defeated the Etruscans, or Tuscans,
or Tyrrhenians in a great sea-fight before Cumae.

Pindar might well delight to honour those who had been waging so well
against the barbarians of the South and West the same war which the
Hellenes of the mother-country waged against the barbarians of the
East.

* * * * *

O golden Lyre, thou common treasure of Apollo and the Muses
violet-tressed, thou whom the dancer's step, prelude of festal mirth,
obeyeth, and the singers heed thy bidding, what time with quivering
strings thou utterest preamble of choir-leading overture--lo even the
sworded lightning of immortal fire thou quenched, and on the sceptre
of Zeus his eagle sleepeth, slackening his swift wings either side,