"As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door,
And hearing the hammers as they smote
The Anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire,
A nd formed the seven-chorded lyre."
See also the same poet's Occultation of Orion:
"The Samian's great AEolian lyre."
SYBARIS AND CROTONA
Sybaris, a neighboring city to Crotona, was as celebrated for luxury and effeminacy as Crotona for the reverse. The name has become proverbial. Lowell uses it in this sense in his charming little poem To the Dandelion:
"Not in mild June the golden-cuirassed bee
Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment
In the white lily's breezy tent,
(His conquered Sybaris) than I when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst."
A war arose between the two cities, and Sybaris was conquered and destroyed. Milo, the celebrated athlete, led the army of Crotona. Many stories are told of Milo's vast strength, such as his carrying a heifer of four years old upon his shoulders, and afterwards eating the whole of it in a single day. The mode of his death is thus related: As he was passing through a forest he saw the trunk of a tree which had been partially split open by wood-cutters, and attempted to rend it further; but the wood closed upon his hands and held him fast, in which state he was attacked and devoured by wolves.
Byron, in his Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, alludes to the story of
Milo:
"He who of old would rend the oak
Deemed not of the rebound;
Chained by the trunk he vainly broke,
Alone, how looked he round!"