A RACE-HORSE CALLED PHERENIKOS

The aptly-named stallion Pherenikos (Victory-bearer) raced and won for Hieron,tyrant of Gela (485 BC) and Syracuse (485-467/6 BC). This is the only horse thatis named in the surviving victory odes (epinikia) of Pindar and Bacchylides.1 Hemakes his first victorious appearance in the single-horse event, the κ λη , of sixlaps (just over 1 km) in the hippodrome at the Pythia in 478, to which Pindar refersin P. 3.72-74, composed sometime after 476.2 This is probably the victory to whichBacchylides (5.41) refers when he states that Pherenikos won at Delphi before hisvictory at Olympia in 476.