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Best is Water of all, and Gold as a flaming fire in the night shineth eminent amid lordly wealth; but if of prizes in the games thou art fain, O my soul, to tell, then, as for no bright star more quickening than the sun must thou search in the void firmament by day, so neither shall we find any games greater than the Olympic whereof to utter our voice: for hence cometh the glorious hymn and entereth into the minds of the skilled in song, so that they celebrate the son of Kronos, when to the rich and happy hearth of Hieron they are come; for he wieldeth the sceptre of justice in Sicily of many flocks, culling the choice fruits of all kinds of excellence: and with the flower of music is he made splendid, even such strains as we sing blithely at the table of a friend.
This Chromios was a son of Agesidamos and brother-in-law of Hieron, and the same man for whom the ninth Nemean was written. He had become a citizen of Hieron's new city of Aitna, and won this victory B.C. 473. This ode seems to have been sung before his house in Ortygia, a peninsula on which part of Syracuse was built, and in which was the fountain Arethusa.
For the magnificent Sicilian princes, Hieron of Syracuse and Theron of Akragas, not unlike the Medici in the position they held, Pindar wrote five of the longest of his extant odes, and probably visited them in Sicily. But he would not quit his home to be an ornament of their courts.
Mauritaniæ Fluvius usque ad præsens Tempus Phut dicitur, omnisq; circa eum Regio Phutensis. Hieron. Tradit. Hebroeæ. Amnem, quem vocant Fut." Pliny, L. 5. c. 1. Some of this family settled above Ægypt, near Æthiopia, and were styled Troglodytæ. Syncellus, p. 47. Many of them passed inland, and peopled the Mediterranean country."
Now the good that cometh of to-day is ever sovereign unto every man. My part it is to crown Hieron with an equestrian strain in Aeolian mood: and sure am I that no host among men that now are shall I ever glorify in sounding labyrinths of song more learned in the learning of honour and withal with more might to work thereto.
The celebrated Jason Mainus, of Milan, calls attention to his "elegance of figure, his serene brow, his kingly forehead, his countenance with its expression of generosity and majesty, his genius, and the heroic beauty of his whole presence." Raynaldus, 1460. No. 31. Statura procerus, colore medio, nigris oculis, ore paululum pleniore. Hieron.
For at this point they again approach each other at Sestus and Abydus, and once more at Byzantium and Chalcedon as far as the rocks called in ancient times the "Dark Blue Rocks," where even now is the place called Hieron. For at these places the continents are separated from one another by a distance of only ten stades and even less than that.
For the archer maiden with both hands fitteth the glittering trappings, and Hermes, god of games, whensoever Hieron to the polished car and bridle-guided wheels yoketh the strength of his steeds, calling on the wide-ruling god, the trident-wielder. Now unto various kings pay various men sweet song, their valour's meed.
One Hieron, whom he had brought up in his house and educated, assisted him greatly in throwing this air of mystery and haughty exclusiveness over his life. This man gave out that he was the son of Dionysius, called Chalkus, whose poems are still extant, and who was the leader of the expedition to Italy to found the city of Thurii.
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.
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