If the thing were worthy being treated gravely, I should tell him that the Pythian oracle, with the approbation of Xenophon, advised every one to worship the gods[Greek: nomo poleos].

Therefore attend to the greater diviner, the Pythian god, who ejected from the temple him who did not assist his friend, when he was being murdered. XXXIII.

Pythian 10-B.C. 502.

Isthmian 5 Nemean 5 Isthmian 7 " 480. Isthmian 3 Pythian 8 " 478. " 9 " 478. " 11 " 478. " 2 " 477.

Pythian 1 Nemean 1- " 473.

Pythian 4 }- " 466. " 5 } Olympian 7 " 464. " 13 " 464.

The Pythian games were held once in four years, in honour of Apollo.

[Footnote 1: See introduction to Pythian ix.]

Had he stayed in Crete he would not have won this victory; nor the Pythian and Isthmian victories, referred to at the end of the ode, for the Cretans seem to have kept aloof, in an insular spirit, from the Panhellenic games.

Yea even gods without the Graces' aid rule never at feast or dance; but these have charge of all things done in heaven, and beside Pythian Apollo of the golden bow they have set their thrones, and worship the eternal majesty of the Olympian Father.

THE PYTHIAN ODES.

O Zeus, be it ours to find favour in thy sight, who art defender of this mountain, the forehead of a fruitful land, whose namesake neighbour city hath been ennobled by her glorious founder, for that on the race-course at the Pythian games the herald made proclamation of her name aloud, telling of Hieron's fair victory in the chariot-race.

This ode is placed by usage among the Nemeans, but the victory was not won at Nemea, but at Sikyon, in the local games called Pythian.

[Footnote 3: Lightning and thunder were often an encouraging sign (there is an instance in the fourth Pythian), but this would depend on the manner of them.]

This is the same winner for whom the sixth Pythian ode was written.

Its date would seem to be 476, while that of the sixth Pythian was 494.

But to us, O Loxias of the golden-flowing hair, give also at thy Pythian games a new fair-flowering crown.

Cinaedus, after having entered his own Name in the Pythian Records, being asked the Name of the Person whom he leaped for, and being ashamed to discover it, he was set aside, and not suffered to leap.

If the thing were worthy of being treated gravely, I should tell him [the young man] that the Pythian oracle with the approbation of Xenophon advised every one to worship the gods[Greek: nhomô pholeôs].

Amidst the happy, unregarded, Mock'd by their fearful joy, I trod; Oh, dark to me the lot awarded, Thou evil Pythian god!

The earliest historical notice we have of this mountain is by Thucydides, who states that there were three eruptions previous to the Peloponnesian war (431 B.C.), to one of which Pindar alludes in his first Pythian Ode.

Cinaedus, after having entered his own Name in the Pythian Records, being asked the Name of the Person whom he leaped for, and being ashamed to discover it, he was set aside, and not suffered to leap.

¶ The Pythian god commanded the Romans to entrust to the best of the citizens the conveyance to the city of the goddess from Pessinus, and they accordingly honored Publius Scipio, a son of Gnæus who died in Spain, above all others by their first preference.

PYTHIAN GAMES, celebrated from very early times till the 4th century A.D. every four years, near Delphi, in honour of Apollo, who was said to have instituted them to commemorate his victory over the Python; originally were contests in singing only, but after the middle of the 6th century B.C. they included instrumental music, contests in poetry and art, athletic exercises, and horse-racing.

PYTHON, in the Greek mythology a serpent or dragon produced from the mud left on the earth after the deluge of Deucalion, a brood of sheer chaos and the dark, who lived in a cave of Parnassus, and was slain by Apollo, who founded the Pythian Games in commemoration of his victory, and was in consequence called Pythius.