Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v2.djvu/99

in looks, in car and steeds, in raiment, and in the harmony of their wishes, either to win or to lose only at a brother’s hands. Next ride Chromis and Hippodamus, the one born of mighty Hercules, the other of Oenomaus: it were doubtful which drove more madly. The one has horses bred by Getic Diomede, the other a yoked pair of his Pisean sire, both chariots are decked with cruel spoils and drip with ghastly blood. For turning-points there stood here a bare oak-trunk, there a stone pillar, arbiter of husbandmen; betwixt either bound there lay a space thou mightest reach with four times a javelin’s cast, with thrice an arrow’s flight.^[1]

Meanwhile Apollo was charming with his strains the Muses’ glorious company, and, his finger placed upon the strings, was gazing down to earth from the airy summit of Parnassus. First he recounts the deeds of the gods—for oft in duty bound he had sung of Jove and Phlegra and his own victory o’er the serpent and his brothers’ praises^[2]—and then reveals what spirit drives the thunderbolt or guides the stars, whence comes the fury of the rivers, what feeds the winds, what founts supply the unmeasured ocean, what pathway of the sun hastens or draws out the course of night, whether earth be lowest or in mid-heaven and encompassed by yet another world we view not. There he ended, and puts off the sisters, eager though they are to listen, and while he fastens bay about his lyre and the woven brilliance of his coronet, and ungirds his breast of the pictured girdle, he hears a clamour, and beholds not far away Nemea famed for Hercules, and there the mighty