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Of garlands from these games hath Diagoras twice won him crowns, and four times he had good luck at famous Isthmos and twice following at Nemea, and twice at rocky Athens. And at Argos the bronze shield knoweth him, and the deeds of Arcadia and of Thebes and the yearly games Boeotian, and Pellene and Aigina where six times he won; and the pillar of stone at Megara hath the same tale to tell.
The fate that is born with a man is arbiter of all his acts. Thou, Euthymenes , at Aigina falling into the goddess victory's arms didst win thee hymns of subtle strain: yea and now too to thee, O Pytheas, who art his kinsman of the same stock and followest in his footsteps, doth thy mother's brother honour.
O divine Muse, our mother, I pray thee come unto this Dorian isle Aigina stranger-thronged, for the sacred festival of the Nemean games : for by the waters of Asopos young men await thee, skilled to sing sweet songs of triumph, and desiring to hear thy call.
In fact he reglamented Greece from his palace at Aigina like a divinely appointed autocrat, from his arrival in January 1828 till the summer of 1831, when he provoked the Hydhriots to open rebellion, and commissioned the Russian squadron in attendance to quell them by a naval action, with the result that Poros was sacked by the President's regular army and the national fleet was completely destroyed.
The date of this ode is unknown: we can only infer, from the way in which Athens is spoken of, that it was written before the war between that state and Aigina. It seems to have been sung on the winner's return home, very likely in a procession through the streets.
Our first, O Zeus, was unto thee, when at Nemea we won thy excellent crown, and now is this second unto the lord of Isthmos and unto the fifty daughters of Nereus, for that Phylakidas the youngest son is winner in the games. And be it ours to make ready yet a third for the Saviour , the Olympian one, and in honour of Aigina make libation of our honey-speaking song.
Unto all these did Achilles, champion of the Aiakid race, point the way to the house of Persephone, and thereby did he glorify Aigina and the root whence he was sprung. Neither in death was he of songs forsaken, for at his funeral pyre and beside his tomb stood the Helikonian maiden-choir, and poured thereon a dirge of many melodies.
But it is meet that a man cherish good hope: and meet also that I, whom seven-gated Thebes reared, proffer chiefly unto Aigina the choicest of the Graces' gifts, for that from one sire were two daughters born, youngest of the children of Asopos, and found favour in the eyes of the king Zeus.
The date of this ode is unknown, but from the mention of the trainer Melesias it has been inferred that it was among Pindar's later works. It would seem to have been sung at Aigina, perhaps at some feast of the Bassid clan given in honour of the victory.
But the son of Aktor and Aigina, Menoitios, he honoured above all settlers, him whose son went with the Atreidai to the plain of Teuthras and stood alone beside Achilles, when Telephos had turned the valiant Danaoi to flight, and drove them into the sterns of their sea-ships; so proved he to them that had understanding that Patroklos' soul was strong.
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