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The fullest literary criticism is to be found in La poésie de Pindare et les lois du lyrisme Grec, Alfred Croiset, Paris, 1880.

Professor R. C. Jebb's truly admirable paper on Pindar in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, is a model of what an essay on the character and style of an ancient poet ought to be. He shows clearly and briefly that "the most indispensable commentary on Pindar" is the "reconstruction of Old Greek Life."

Selected Odes of Pindar, with Notes and an Introduction, by Thomas D. Seymour, Greek Professor in Yale College, Boston, 1882, is a welcome evidence that our brethren across the Atlantic are studying Pindar to good

purpose.

Students of Greek metres can consult Ueber den Bau der Pindarischen Strophen, Mor. Schmidt, Leipzig, 1882.

Reference may also be made to Bräuning, Th. F. G., de adjectivis compositis apud Pindarum, Berlin, 1881; Brayer, Berth., Analecta Pindarica. I Dissert. inaugur., Berlin, 1880; Lübbert, Ed., Pindar's Leben und Dichtungen. Vortrag, Bonn, 1882; de Pindari carmine Pyth. 11. Kiel, 1880; id. Ol. x. Kiel, 1881.

I have given all the Fragments which give, or profess to give Pindar's own words, but have omitted several fragmenta incerta which only give the drift of Pindar's version of mythological points. An asterisk before the number of a fragment indicates that its classification does not rest on express testimony.

For the references to the books whence the Fragments are taken I have trusted to Böckh and Bergk; they are given because it is often needful to know the context in which a fragment stands to make it thoroughly available for purposes of argument or research.

The index-to the notes of both volumes-which is in some cases supplementary to the notes, has been for the most part prepared by Mr B. Benham, M.A., of Corpus Christi College. To him and to Mr H. J. C. Knight, of St Catharine's College, I am indebted for great assistance in revision of proof.

I desire to express my hearty thanks to Dr C. B. Scott for many corrections of and additions to my volume on the Olympian and Pythian Odes, and for advice which I have endeavoured to follow; to the Public Orator for lending me MS. marginal notes to Cookesley's edition taken by a Clare man from the late Mr Arthur Holmes' lectures; to Professor Colvin for kindly selecting and seeing to the illustrative coins; to Mr Fanshawe and Professor Postgate for many notes; and to Dr Waldstein for very valuable information as to the pentathlon.

The comparative prominence of the critical work in this volume has to some extent crowded out etymology.

I have ascertained that the Emmanuel MS., which originally contained the Pythians and Nem. I. II. III., belongs to the Moschopulean family.

It may seem that I have not profited as much as I might by one friendly criticism, namely, the suggestion that I sometimes gave too many explanations of one passage. I admit that as a rule it is a great mistake in an editor to seem to halt between two (or more) opinions. But I have sometimes given the views of others as well as my own, so as to give teachers and mature scholars the materials on which to exercise their own judgment in case they were dissatisfied with mine. In other cases I have come to the unsatisfactory conclusion, after strenuous and prolonged efforts to arrive at some one definite solution of a problem, either that it was insoluble or that

there were not in my possession sufficient data upon which to decide between alternative proposals; and in such cases I think candour is preferable to arbitrary selection. Pindar is so exceptionally difficult an author that few who read his odes will be in danger of inferring from an editor's occasional indecision that any given set of Greek words may mean almost anything you please. No doubt critics are perfectly right to protest against any semblance of the tendency, shown in several modern commentaries, towards unjustifiable vacillation.

My views as to the chronology of several of the Nemean and Isthmian Odes, given in Olympian and Pythian Odes, pp. xxxi. xxxii. will be found to have changed during the preparation of this volume. In particular I have found that Isth. IV. is a Nemean Ode (B.C. 479) since I wrote the Introduction to it and to Nem. v. which I should now date B.C. 483 or earlier, while Isth. V. should be placed B. C. 482 or earlier. Isth. VII. and Isth. III. are dated B.C. 478. Again, Nem. III. should be dated shortly before B.C. 458, and Nem. VIII. before B.C. 462 or just after.

It will be many years before a second edition is required, but I should be very grateful for criticisms of both volumes, as I am already preparing for the eventual issue of a revised edition.

The references to Liddell and Scott are to the sixth edition.

The Fragments are numbered according to Bergk's 3rd Ed., the numbers of his 4th Ed. being added with B prefixed. Böckh's numbers are given in brackets.

INTRODUCTION.

THE PENTATHLON.

My explanation of Nem, vII. 72, 73 differs materially from that of Prof. Gardner and Dr Pinder (Der Fünfkampf der Hellenen, Berlin, 1867), and moreover my view of the nature of the pentathlon is, I believe, to a great extent new. It seems advisable therefore to explain and defend my position at greater length than the limits of a commentary permit.

I agree substantially with Professor Gardner as to the order in which the contests took placeἅλμα δίσκος ἄκων (better ἄκων δίσκος) δρόμος πάλη, and I had anticipated his view of the ephedros in my note on Ol. VIII. 68. I also agree with Prof. Gardner and Dr Pinder that victory in only three contests was necessary to win the prize (in spite of Aristides, Panathen. p. 341).

But I hold in opposition to Professor Gardner that the competitors all contended at once in leaping, discus-throwing, and spear-throwing, and also in running, save that all competitors who were beaten by one competitor (or more) in the first three contests may have at once retired as beaten. Similarly all wrestled, or at least those who had not been beaten by any one competitor in three out of the first four contests.

This retirement is a natural consequence of what I hold to be the qualification for ultimate victory, namely TO DEFEAT

1 See Dr Waldstein's letter at the end of this essay.

EACH AND ALL OTHER COMPETITORS IN SOME (NOT NECESSARILY THE SAME THREE CONTESTS OUT OF THE FIVE. Thus I do not, like Dr Pinder, force the meaning of vikav, but only distribute its application.

It follows from my hypothesis that the first in wrestling, if there was any, won the pentathlon.

But still a winner could not, as Prof. Gardner urges, in objection to Dr Pinder's scheme, "be very inferior in the three first contests."

On my hypothesis, precisely the same man would (barring the different incidence of fatigue and the ephedros question) win as on Prof. Gardner's, which I here quote from p. 219 of his paper in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. I. pp. 210-223 (hereafter referred to by page numbers in brackets):

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"It is far more probable that the Greeks adopted the simple expedient of considering the pentathlon as a single and indivisible " contest, and drawing the competitors in pairs to contend in it. The "successful athletes of the pairs, that is, those who had won any "three events out of the five would then again be drawn against each other, and so on until only two were left, between whom the final "heat took place. In wrestling, boxing, and the pankration we have "reason to hold that this took place, and it seems all but certain that "it must have taken place also in the pentathlon.

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"In this case there must have frequently been an ephedros among the "pentathli."

As to Dr Pinder Prof. Gardner writes, ib. p.

217:

"Dr Pinder's own notion is that the circle of the competitors was "narrowed after each successive competition. If after the leaping only "five competitors were allowed to remain in, and in each of the subse"quent contests the worst man were excluded, it is clear that by the "time the wrestling came on only two would be left, between whom the "final victory would lie."

Dr Pinder narrows the circle of competitors after the second contest, not after the first (Fünfkampf, pp. 77, 79) to four, three, two successively in the last three contests.

This view seems at once untenable, because

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