t is remarkable
for its inundations, which happen regularly every year, and
overflow the whole country of Egypt. To this is chiefly owing the
extraordinary fertility of the soil of that country; for when the
waters subside, they leave behind them great quantities of mud,
which, settling upon the land, enrich it, and continually
reinvigorate it.]

[Footnote 71: _Instituted sacred games._--Ver. 446. Yet Pausanias,
in his Corinthiaca, tells us that they were instituted by
Diomedes; others, again, say by Eurylochus the Thessalian; and
others, by Amphictyon, or Adrastus. The Pythian games were
celebrated near Delphi, on the Crissaean plain, which contained a
race-course, a stadium of 1000 feet in length, and a theatre, in
which the musical contests took place. They were once held at
Athens, by the advice of Demetrius Poliorcetes, because the
AEtolians were in possession of the passes round Delphi. They
were most probably originally a religious ceremonial, and were
perhaps only a musical contest, which consisted in singing a hymn
in honor of the Pythian God, accompanied by the music of the
cithara. In later times, gymnastic and equestrian games and
exercises were introduced there. Previously to the 48th Olympiad,
the Pythian games had been celebrated at the end of every eighth
year; after that period they were held at the end of every fourth
year. When they ceased to be solemnized is unknown; but in the
time of the Emperor Julian they still continued to be held.]

[Footnote 72: _Crown of beechen leaves._--Ver. 449. This was the
prize which was originally given to the conquerors in the Pythian
games. In later times, as Ovid tells us, the prize of the victor
was a laurel chaplet, together with the palm branch, symbolical of
his victory.]

EXPLANATION.

The story of the serpent Python, being explained on philosophical
principles, seems to mean, that the heat of the sun, having dissipated
the noxious exhalations emitted by the receding waters, the reptiles,
which had been produced from the slime left by the flood, immediately
disappeared.

If, however, we treat this narrative as based on historical facts, it
is probable that the serpent represented some robber who infested the
neighborhood of Parnassus, and molested those who passed that way for
the purpose of offering sacrifice. A prince,