As already noted in the overall comment at I.8.1–70, Pindar’s wording in Isthmian 8 highlights the reciprocity between the Aeginetan victor and the Theban poet—a reciprocity that is built into the victory ode—by elaborating on a mythological link between Aegina and Thebes. This link, as highlighted in the victory song of Isthmian 8, is the genealogical relationship of the nymphs Aegina and Thebe as daughters of the river god Asopos. According to this myth as retold here at I.8.16–31, the nymph Aegina (Αἴγινα) was the twin sister of a nymph named Thebe (Θήβη / Θήβα), local goddess of Thebes (Θῆβαι), and these nymphs were daughters of Asopos, who was the god of the river Asopos that waters the land of Thebes. The myth tells how Zeus abducted the Asopid nymph Aegina from this land and relocated her in the island of Aegina, where she was impregnated by the god and gave birth to Aiakos. The detail about the impregnation of the Asopid nymph Aegina by Zeus in the island of Aegina is already attested in the Hesiodic Catalogue (F 205).