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But if you come to Themistius, let there be no more coldness! Lift up your voice, and hoist the sails to the top-most yard; proclaim him as a boxer, and tell how he claimed double excellence with his victory in the pancratium at Epidaurus. Bring to the porch of Aeacus green garlands of flowers, in company with the golden-haired Graces.
Nemean 6 For Alcimidas of Aegina Boys’ Wrestling ? 465 B. C. E.
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There is one race of men, one race of gods; and from a single mother we both draw our breath. But all allotted power divides us: man is nothing, but for the gods the bronze sky endures as a secure home forever. Nevertheless, we bear some resemblance to the immortals, either in greatness
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of mind or in nature, although we do not know, by day or by night, towards what goal fortune has written that we should run.
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Even now Alcimidas gives visible proof that his hereditary qualities are like the fruitful fields, which, in alternation,
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at one time give men yearly sustenance from the plains, and at another time gather strength from repose. He has come from the lovely games of Nemea, the athletic boy who, pursuing this ordinance of Zeus, has shown that he is a successful hunter in the wrestling ring,
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by planting his step in the tracks of his grandfather, his blood-relative. For that man, an Olympic victor, was the first to bring garlands from the Alpheus to the Aeacidae; and he had himself crowned five times at the Isthmus,
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and three times at Nemea, putting an end to the obscurity of Socleides, who proved to be the greatest of the sons of Hagesimachus,
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since he had three victorious sons who reached the summit of excellence,
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and who had a taste of toils. With the favorable fortune of the gods, no other family has been proclaimed by the boxing contest in the center of all Greece as the guardian of more garlands. I hope, with this great praise, to hit the target squarely, like one who shoots from a bow. Come, Muse, give a straight course to the glorious wind of song for this man.
