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Updated: May 13, 2025
It is said that Sulla always carried about with him in his bosom, in battle, a small golden figure of Apollo, which he got from Delphi, and that he then kissed it, and said, "O Pythian Apollo, after raising the fortunate Sulla Cornelius in so many contests to glory and renown, wilt thou throw him prostrate here, at the gates of his native city, and so bring him to perish most ignobly with his fellow-citizens?"
In this recital he portrays the ceremony of the Pythian races in lines justly celebrated, and which, as an animated and faithful picture of an exhibition so renowned, the reader may be pleased to see, even in a feeble and cold translation.
And born with the instinct of soul is the instinct that leads the soul from the seen to the unseen, from time to eternity, from the torrent that foams towards the Ocean of Death, to the source of its stream, far aloft from the Ocean. "Know thyself," said the Pythian of old. "That precept descended from Heaven." Know thyself! Is that maxim wise? If so, know thy soul.
Your eyes may trace the whole of his graceful and majestic height, and discover no defect or blemish. With his free and noble attitude, with the bow in his hand, and the quiver at his back, he might seem, but for his face, the Pythian Apollo himself. Such a figure rose before the imagination of West, when on first seeing the Belvidere in the Vatican, he exclaimed, "By God, a Mohawk!"
Let me tell you a story of what happened once at Delphi. A native of Tarentum, Evangelus by name, a person of some note in his own city, conceived the ambition of winning a prize in the Pythian Games. Well, he saw at once that the athletic contests were quite out of the question; he had neither the strength nor the agility required.
The Olympic games were held once in four years, in honour of Zeus. The prize was a wreath of wild olive. The Pythian games were held once in four years, in honour of Apollo. The prize was a wreath of bay. The Nemean games were held once in two years, in honour of Zeus. The prize was a wreath of wild parsley. The Isthmian games were held once in two years, in honour of Poseidon.
For this, Solon grew famed and powerful; but his advice in favor of defending the oracle at Delphi, to give aid, and not to suffer the Cirrhaeans to profane it, but to maintain the honor of the god, got him most repute among the Greeks: for upon his persuasion the Amphictyons undertook the war, as, amongst others, Aristotle affirms, in his enumeration of the victors at the Pythian games, where he makes Solon the author of this counsel.
Cool young Briton! The pale cliffs of his own England do not look down on the tides of the Channel more calmly than he watched the Pythian inspiration of that night. Looking at his face, I longed to know his exact opinions, and at last I put a question tending to elicit them.
Landor insinuates that this persecution is extended to all geniuses: Alas! what snows are shed Upon thy laurelled head, Hurtled by many cares and many wrongs! The ill-treatment of Burns has had its measure of denunciation. The centenary of his birth brought forth a good deal of such verse. Thus Shelley exults in the thought, The Pythian of the age one arrow drew And smiled.
"Oh! my nether garments," thought I. "Quantus sudor incrit Bedoso, to restore you to your pristine purity." "But, whence come you?" said my host, who cherished rather a formal and antiquated method of speech. "From the Pythian games," said I. "The campus hight Newmarket. Do I see right, or is not yon insignis juvenis marvellously like you?
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