ὁ θεός here = ‘Hera’. But it is often used in an abstract sense (cf. vii. 10 ε). H., though a polytheist, is, like Sophocles, not uninfluenced by the philosophic tendencies which were affecting Greek religion in the sixth and fifth centuries; he is, perhaps, also influenced by Persian religion (c. 131 n.). For the monotheistic tendency of Pindar cf. Campbell, u. s. pp. 171, 183 f. For a good note on H.'s use of ὁ θεός κτλ. cf. Macan (1895), cxi. n. 3. ἄμεινον ... τεθνάναι. The sentiment is common in Gk. literature (cf. Butcher, Some Aspects of Gk. Genius, p. 134); perhaps the bestknown example is Soph. O. C. 1225 seq., with its parallel in Theog. 425 seq.; cf. too Bacchyl. iii. 47 θανεῖν γλύκιστον, said by Croesus himself, and
Death is welcomed as an escape from troubles. This is different from the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, who taught that death was a good, as delivering the soul from the prison of the body. The Thracian Trausi (v. 4. 2 n.) are credited with the same idea as Solon. A similar story to that of Cleobis and Bito is told of Trophonius and Agamedes (who received death as a reward from Apollo for building his temple at Delphi) and of the poet Pindar (Plut. Consol. ad Apoll. c. 14, pp. 108-9).“ὡς γὰρ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι,
ζώειν ἀχνυμένοις, αὐτοὶ δέ τ᾽ ἀκηδέες εἰσί.
”
