Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/355

win at home was easy, what a feat to gain Achaean prizes, shading thy temples now with the spray of Phoebus, now with Lerna’s grasses, now with the Athamantian pine,^[1] when Victory so often quailed for weariness, yet never missed thee or robbed thee of thy leaves, or touched another’s hair!

Hence came it that thou wert trusted with the fond hopes of parents, and under thy guidance noble youths were ruled, and learnt the ways and the prowess of men of old—the fate of Troy, Ulysses’ tardy return, what power has Maeonides to describe in song the battles and steeds of heroes, how the bards of Ascra and of Sicily^[2] enriched the faithful husbandmen, the law that sways the recurrent, winding rhythms of Pindar’s lyre, Ibycus who besought the birds,^[3] Alcman whose strains warlike Amyclae sang, proud Stesichorus, and bold Sappho^[4] who feared not Leucas, but took the heroic leap, and all others whom the harp has deemed worthy. Skilled wert thou to expound the songs of Battus’ son,^[5] and the dark ways and straitened speech of Lycophron, and Sophron’s tangled mazes and the hidden thought of subtle Corinna. But why speak I of lesser names? Thou wert wont to bear an equal yoke with Homer,^[6] and match his hexameters in prose, nor ever be outdistanced and fail to keep his pace. What wonder if they left their own land and sought thee, all whom Lucania sent and the acres of stern Daunus,^[7] and the home that Venus bewailed and the land that Alcides