FOR HIERON OF SYRACUSE,

WINNER IN THE HORSE-RACE.

* * * * *

The dates both of the victory and of the ode are uncertain. But as
Pherenikos, the horse that won this race at Pytho, is the same that
won at Olympia B.C. 472, in honour of which event the First Olympian
was written, the victory cannot have been very long before that date,
though the language of the ode implies that it was written a good deal
later, probably for an anniversary of the victory. It must at least
have been written before Hieron's death in 467. It is much occupied
with his illness.

* * * * *

Fain were I (if meet it be to utter from my mouth the prayer conceived
of all) that Cheiron the son of Philyra were alive and had not
perished among men, even the wide-ruling seed of Kronos the son of
Ouranos; and that there still lorded it in Pelion's glens that Beast
untamed, whose soul was loving unto men, even such as when of old he
trained the gentle deviser of limb-saving anodynes, Asklepios, the
hero that was a defence against all kind of bodily plague.

Of him was the daughter[1] of Phlegyas of goodly steeds not yet
delivered by Eileithuia aid of mothers, ere by the golden bow she was
slain at the hands of Artemis, and from her child-bed chamber went
down into the house of Hades, by contriving of Apollo. Not idle is the
wrath of sons of Zeus.