Then the god of the vine brought the funeral prizes. He kept the people there, and marked out a wide space for games with the goal for a chariot-race. There was on the ground a stone of a fathom’s width, rounded into a half-circle, like the moon, well smoothed on its two sides, such as an old craftsman has fashioned and rounded with industrious hands wishing to make the statue of a god. A giant Cyclops lifted this in his hands and set it in the earth for a stone turning-post, and fixed another like it at the opposite end. There were various prizes, cauldron, tripod, shields, horses, silver, Indian jewels, cattle, Pactolian silt.”
The god offered prizes of victory for the charioteers. For the first, a bow and Amazonian quiver, a demilune buckler, and one of those warlike women, whom once as he walked on the banks of Thermodon he had taken while bathing and brought to the Indian city. For the second, a bay mare swift as the north wind, with long mane overshadowing her neck, still in foal and gone half her time and her belly swollen with the burden her mate had begotten. For the third, a corselet, and a shield for the fourth. This was a masterpiece made on the Lemnian anvil and adorned with gold patterns ; the round boss in the middle was wrought with silver ornaments. For the fifth, two ingots, treasure from the banks of Pactolos. Then he stood up and encouraged the drivers ;
“My friends, whom Ares has taught citystorming war, to whom Seabluehair has given the racer’s horsemanship ! You whom I urge are men not unacquainted with hardship, but used to heavy toils ; for our warriors hold dear all sorts of manly prowess. If one is of Lydian birth from Tmolos, he will do deeds worthy of the victorious racing of Pelops. If one comes from the land of Pisa, nurse of horses, a man of Elis with its fine chariots, a countryman of Oinomaos, he knows the sprigs of Olympian wild olive : but this is not the race of Oinomaos, our drivers here have not the goad of a marriage fatal to strangers — this is a race for honour and free from the Foamborn. If one has the land of Aonia or the blood of Phocis, he knows the Pythian contest honoured by Apollo. If he holds Marathon, rich in olives, the home of artists, he knows those jars teeming with rich juice. If one is a habitant of the fruitful land of Achaia, he has learnt of Pellene, where men wage a shivery contest for the welcome prize of a woollen cloak, a coat to huddle up their cold limbs in winter. If he has grown up to live in sea-girdled Corinth, he knows the Isthmian contest of our Palaimon.”
He spoke, and the leaders came hastening up and ran round each to his chariot. First Erechtheus brought his horse Bayard under the yoke, and fastened in his mare Swiftfoot ; both sired by Northwind Boreas in winged coupling when he dragged a stormfoot Sithonian Harpy to himself, and the Wind gave them as loveprice to his goodfather Erechtheus when he stole Attic Oreithyia for his bride.
Second, Actaion swung his Ismenian lash. Third was speedyfoal Scelmis, offspring of Earthshaker lord of the wet, who often cut the water of the sea driving the car of his father Poseidon. Fourth Phaunos leapt up, who came into the assembly alone bearing the semblance of his mother’s father, with four horses under his yoke like Helios ; and fifth Achates mounted his Sicilian chariot, one insatiable for horsemanship, full of the passion which belongs to the river that feeds the olivetrees of Pisa. For he lived in the land of the nymph loved by hapless Alpheios, who brings to Arethusa as a gift of love his garlanded waters untainted by the brine.
Bold Actaion was led away from the crowd by his father, who addressed these loving injunctions to his eager son :
“My son, your father Aristaios has more experience than you. I know you have strength enough, that in you the bloom of youth is joined with courage ; for you have in you the blood of Apollo my father, and our Arcadian mares are stronger than any for the race. But all this is in vain, neither strength nor running horses know how to win, as much as the driver’s brains. Cunning, only cunning you want ; for horseracing needs a smart clever man to drive.
“Then listen to your father, and I will teach you too all the tricks of the horsy art which time has taught me, and they are many and various. Do your best, my boy, to honour your father by your successes. Horseracing brings as great a repute as war ; do your best to honour me on the racecourse as well as the battlefield. You have won a victory in war, now win another, that I may call you prizewinner as well as spearman. My dear boy, do something worthy of Dionysos your kinsman, worthy both of Phoibos and of skilful Cyrene, and outdo the labours of your father Aristaios. Show your horsemastery, win your event like an artist, by your own sharp wits ; for without instruction one pulls the car off the course in the middle of a race, it wanders all over the place, and the obstinate horses in their unsteady progress are not driven by the whip or obedient to the bit, the driver as he turns back misses the post, he loses control, the horses run away and carry him back where they will. But one who is a master of arts and tricks, the driver with his wits about him, even with inferior horses, keeps straight and watches the man in front, keeps a course ever close to the post, wheels his car round without ever scratching the mark. Keep your eyes open, please, and tighten the guiding rein swinging the whole near horse about and just clearing the post, throwing your weight sideways to make the car tilt, guide your course by needful measure, watch until as your car turns the hub of the wheel seems almost to touch the surface of the mark with the near-circling wheel. Come very near without touching ; but take care of the stone, or you may strike the post with the axle against the turning-post and wreck both horses and car together. As you guide your team this way and that way on the course, act like a steersman ; ply the prick, scold and threaten the whip without sparing, press the off horse, lift him to a spurt, slacken the hold of the bit and don’t let it irk him. Manage your car like a good steersman ; guide your car on a straight course, for the driver’s mind is like a car’s rudder if he drives with his head.”
With this advice, he turned away and retired, having taught his son the various tricks of his trade as a horseman, which he knew so well himself.
One after another as usual each put a blind hand into the helmet, turning away his face, and hoping to get the uncertain lot in his favour, as one who shakes his fingers for a throw of the doubtful dice far from him. So the leaders in turn took their lots. Horsemad Phaunos, offspring of the famous blood of Phaethon, was first by lot, and Achates was second, next came the brother of Damnamenes, and next to him Actaion ; but the best racer of all got the last lot, horsewhipper Erechtheus.
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