XLIII. “Scourge of the nations! thy appointed time
Is near its close—exhausted is thy quiver.”
The certainty of the doom that awaits unjust violence is finely expressed by Pindar:—
Βία δὲ καὶ μεγάλαυχον ἔσφα-
λεν ἐν χρόνῳ. Τυφὼς Κίλιξ ἑκατόγκρα-
νος οὔ μιν ἄλυξεν,
ὀυδὲ μὰν βασιλεὺς Γιγάντων.
Δμᾶθεν δὲ κεραυνῷ,
τόξοισί τ’ ἀπόλλωνος.
Pyth. viii.
“But Violence mineth the proud in time. Cilician Typhos with his hundred heads escaped not its effects, nor the King of the Giants himself. They were slain by the thunder (of Jove) and the shafts of Apollo!” The “King of the Giants” is Porphyrion, who carried off the herd of Hercules, and appears to have originated the plan to scale Olympus. Typhos is better known by the names Typhon and Typhœus. Pindar is perpetually alluding to the combats of the Titans, and they impart a matchless sublimity to his poetry, which in this quality surpasses Homer.