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The text of str. 1 is fragmentary. singing the praises of sheep-sacrificing Pytho, and Nemea and the Isthmus. I will make my boast, laying my hand on the earth—
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every debt of praise shines in the light of truth—no Greek, boy or man, has won more victories in his age-group.
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Zeus, whose spear is the thunderbolt, by the banks of the silver-whirling Alpheus may you also fulfill his prayers for great god-given glory, and place on his head a gray-green wreath
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of Aetolian olive in the famous games of Phrygian Pelops.
Ode 9 For Automedes of Phlius Pentathlon at Nemea Date unknown
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Graces with golden distaffs, give fame, which moves the minds of men; for the divinely inspired prophet of the violet-eyed Muses is ready to sing the praises of Phlius and
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the flourishing plain of Nemean Zeus, where white-armed Hera reared the sheep-slaughtering, deep-voiced lion, the first of Heracles' far-famed labors.
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There the heroes with red shields, the best of the Argives, held games for the first time in honor of Archemorus, whom a fiery-eyed monstrous dragon killed in his sleep: a sign of the slaughter to come.
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Powerful fate! The son of Oicles could not persuade them to go back to the streets thronged with good men. Hope robs men [of their sense]:
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it was she who then sent Adrastus son of Talaus
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to Thebes to Polyneices The mortal men who crown their golden hair with the triennial garland from those glorious games in Nemea are illustrious;
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and now a god has given it to the victorious Automedes,
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for he stood out among the pentathletes as the shining moon in the mid-month night sky outshines the light of the stars.
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In such a way, amid the vast circling crowd of the Greeks, did he display his marvellous body, hurling the wheel-shaped discus, and raise a shout from the people as he flung the shaft of the dark-leaved elder-tree
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from his hand into the steep sky.
