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He spoke, and immediately sat down. But for me it would take a long time to tell the story of all their excellence. For I came, Muse, a steward of victory-songs to Phylacidas and Pytheas and Euthymenes. The story will be told in the Argive manner, very briefly.
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For those splendid boys and their uncle won three victories in the pancratium—at the Isthmus, and others at Nemea with its fine trees, and they brought to light a great share of praises. With the lovely dew of the Graces they refresh the family of the Psalychids;
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they have kept upright the house of Themistius, and they live in a city which the gods love. Lampon, “taking care with his work,” honors these words of Hesiod, and he advises his sons with them too,
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thus bringing a shared adornment to his city.
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He is loved for his kindness to his guest-friends; he pursues with moderation in his thoughts and restrains with moderation. He does not say one thing and think another. You might say that for athletes he is like the bronze-mastering Naxian whetstone among other stones. I shall give him to drink the pure water of Dirce, which the deep-waisted daughters of
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golden-robed Mnemosyne Memory brought forth beside the fine-walled gates of Cadmus.
Isthmian 7 For Strepsiades of Thebes Pancratium ? 454 B. C. E.
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In which of the local glories of the past, divinely blessed Thebe, did you most delight your spirit? Was it when you raised to eminence the one seated beside Demeter of the clashing bronze cymbals, flowing-haired
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Dionysus? Or when you received, as a snow-shower of gold in the middle of the night, the greatest of the gods,
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when he stood in the doorway of Amphitryon, and then went in to the wife to beget Heracles? Or did you delight most in the shrewd counsels of Teiresias? Or in the wise horseman Iolaus?
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Or in the Sown Men, untiring with the spear? Or when you sent Adrastus back from the mighty war-shout, bereft
