There is little else in Theocritus about the mountains except that Daphnis
χιὼν ὥς τις κατετάκετο μακρὸν ὑφ’ Αἷμον.
ἢ Ἄθω ἢ Ῥοδόπαν ἢ Καύκασον ἐσχατόωντα.[38]
If we compare Pindar’s descriptions of the mountains with those of any other Greek poet, it is not hard to make ourselves believe that he knew something of their secrets. But as soon as we set these passages side by side with the rest of his own work, we see them sink back into insignificance. He wrote four or five great mountain lines, but for each of these he wrote ten for the valleys, fifty for the stars, a hundred for the sea.
Still, we cannot often find a mountain honoured in Greek with such an epithet as ὑψιμέδων,[39] usually applied to Zeus alone; and Pindar also makes the first mention of the ‘age’ of the hills:—
Φλιοῦντος ὑπ’ ὠγυγίοις ὄρεσι.[40]
It is not clear why a hill should in general be considered older than a plain: they are said to have emerged from the Deluge within quite a short time of each other. But it would be pedantic to summon scientists and insist on accuracy at the cost of such hoary phrases as ‘the eternal hills,’ which are still the delight of those pessimists who habitually allude to mankind as ἐφημέριδες.
Among Pindar’s descriptive phrases we may notice ἔμβολον Ἀσίας, of the headland of Caria. The word, to a Greek, could not but suggest its naval use, the ‘prow’ of Asia riding unmoved upon the waves.
Actual references to mountaineering are so rare that we are tempted to find an exception in
καὶ πάγον
Κρόνου προσεφθέγξατο· πρόσθε γὰρ
νώνυμνος, ἇς Οἰνόμαος ἆρχε, βρέχετο πολλᾷ
νιφάδι[41]
by supposing it to be the only surviving record of a first ascent by the Theban Heracles, who claimed in consequence the right to name the summit ascended. Paley would add to the dangers and credit of the expedition by finding in ‘βρέχετο πολλᾷ νιφάδι’ ‘a curious and noteworthy tradition of a glacial or post-glacial period!’