Olympian and Pythian Odes

of Greece, that he went as far north as Macedon, as far south as Kyrene. Everywhere he was received with respect, with veneration.

Myths.

Myths were woven about him as about few poets, even in myth-loving Greece. Not only did the princes of earth treat him as their peer, but the gods showed him distinguished honor. The Delphic priests, as we have seen, invited him to the theoxenia festival where gods are invited as guests as a guest of the divinities, and, more than this, Pan himself sang a poem of Pindar's, and Pindar returned thanks for the honor in the parthenion maiden-song beginning "O Pan." Of a piece with this story is the other that Pindar had a vision of a walking statue of Magna Mater Great Mother, and it is needless to say that Magna Mater, Pan, and the rest are all combinations from various allusions in his poems. Unworthy of critical examination as they are, such stories are not to be passed by in silence, because they reflect the esteem in which the poet was held.

The death of Pindar, as well as his life, was a fruitful theme. The poet prayed for that which was best for man. The god—Ammon, or Apollo—sent him death on the lap of his favorite Theoxenos—according to one legend, in the theatre at Argos, according to another, in the gymnasium. His bones, however, rested in Thebes. Persephone—or was it Demeter?—

Death of Pindar.

appeared to him in vision, and reproached him with not having celebrated her in song, her alone of all the deities, and she prophesied at the same time that he would soon make up for his shortcomings when he should be with her. In less than ten days Pindar had gone to "the black-walled house of Phersephona" Persephone (O. 14, 20), daughter of Demeter. After his death he appeared in vision to an aged kinswoman, and repeated a poem on Persephone, which she wrote down after she awoke, as Coleridge did Kubla Khan, and thus preserved it for after-times.

Time of Pindar's death.

The time of Pindar's death is very uncertain. It is commonly supposed that he lived to an advanced age. Some make him die at eighty; others see no proof of his having gone beyond sixty-six. One prudent soul, with wise reserve, says he did not live to see the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war. The latest poem