See the suggestive passage in Pythian xi. (478 B.C.) 53: τῶν γὰρ ἀνὰ πόλιν εὑρίσκων τὰ μέσα μάσσονι σὺν | ὄλβῳ τεθαλότα, μέμφομ’ αἶσαν τυαννίδων· | ξυναῖσιδ’ ἀμφ’ ἀρεταῖς τέταμαι, κ.τ.λ.: “in polities I find the middle state crowned with more enduring good; therefore praise I not the despot’s portion; those virtues move my zeal which serve the folk…. (*)
Such a man was as perfect a teller-forth of the honour of the gods, as truly a heaven-born προφήτης, as the temple of Delphi could have found for its service and the more we study Pindar’s poetry, the more we shall read in it the mind of that Delphic religion which, in his time, was still a mighty, if a declining, power. (*)
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