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Pindar (or Pindarus, Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
: ) (probably born 522 BC in Cynoscephalae, a village in Boeotia
Boeotia

Boeotia, Beotia, or B?otia , formerly Cadmeis, was a region of ancient Greece, north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It was bounded on the south by Megaris and the Kithairon mountain range that forms a natural barrier with Attica, on the north by Opuntian Locris and the Euripus Strait at the Gulf of Euboea, and on the...
; died 443 BC in Argos
Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
), was an Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
 lyric
Lyric poetry

Lyric poetry refers to a usually short poem that expresses personal feelings, which may or may not be set to music. Aristotle, in Poetics , contrasted lyric poetry with drama and epic poetry....
 poet.

Of the canonical nine lyric poets
Nine lyric poets

The nine lyric poets were a canon of archaic Greece composers esteemed by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria as worthy of critical study....
 of ancient Greece, Pindar is the one whose work is by far the best preserved, and critics in antiquity tended to regard him as the greatest. Quintilian
Quintilian

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman Empire rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in Middle ages schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing....
 described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence".

ar was born in Cynoscephalae, a village in Boeotia
Boeotia

Boeotia, Beotia, or B?otia , formerly Cadmeis, was a region of ancient Greece, north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It was bounded on the south by Megaris and the Kithairon mountain range that forms a natural barrier with Attica, on the north by Opuntian Locris and the Euripus Strait at the Gulf of Euboea, and on the...
.






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Pindar (or Pindarus, Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
: ) (probably born 522 BC in Cynoscephalae, a village in Boeotia
Boeotia

Boeotia, Beotia, or B?otia , formerly Cadmeis, was a region of ancient Greece, north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It was bounded on the south by Megaris and the Kithairon mountain range that forms a natural barrier with Attica, on the north by Opuntian Locris and the Euripus Strait at the Gulf of Euboea, and on the...
; died 443 BC in Argos
Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
), was an Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
 lyric
Lyric poetry

Lyric poetry refers to a usually short poem that expresses personal feelings, which may or may not be set to music. Aristotle, in Poetics , contrasted lyric poetry with drama and epic poetry....
 poet.

Of the canonical nine lyric poets
Nine lyric poets

The nine lyric poets were a canon of archaic Greece composers esteemed by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria as worthy of critical study....
 of ancient Greece, Pindar is the one whose work is by far the best preserved, and critics in antiquity tended to regard him as the greatest. Quintilian
Quintilian

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman Empire rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in Middle ages schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing....
 described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence".

Biography

Pindar was born in Cynoscephalae, a village in Boeotia
Boeotia

Boeotia, Beotia, or B?otia , formerly Cadmeis, was a region of ancient Greece, north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It was bounded on the south by Megaris and the Kithairon mountain range that forms a natural barrier with Attica, on the north by Opuntian Locris and the Euripus Strait at the Gulf of Euboea, and on the...
. He was the son of Daiphantus and Cleodice. Pindar was married to Megacleia. They had two daughters, Eumetis and Protomache, and a son, Daiphantus. Pindar is said to have died at Argos
Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
, at the age of seventy-nine, in 443 BC.

During the Medean wars in 490 and 480, Pindar’s personal and professional life may have been difficult. He was most likely related to individuals and groups who sided with Persia during the conflict. Thebes
Thebes, Greece

Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, Greece, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain....
 was occupied by Xerxes
Xerxes

Xerxes may refer to these Persian kings:*Xerxes I of Persia, reigned 485–465 BC, aka Xerxes the Great*Xerxes II of Persia, reigned 424 BC...
' general, Mardonius, until he was defeated and killed at the Battle of Plataea
Battle of Plataea

The Battle of Plataea was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place in 479 BC near the city of Plataea in Boeotia, and was fought between an alliance of the Ancient Greece city-states, including Sparta, History of Athens, Corinth, Megara and others, and the Achaemenid Empire of Xerxes I....
 (479), along with many Theban aristocrats who had sided with Persia. However, Pindar’s career doesn't seem to have suffered much by this association. Soon after the war, his reputation spread throughout the Greek world and its colonies.

Pindar travelled throughout the Greek world to attend to his patrons. From his writings, it appears that he traveled to the court of Hiero I of Syracuse
Hiero I of Syracuse

Hieron I was the son of Deinomenes, the brother of Gelon and tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily from 478 to 467 BC. In succeeding Gelon, he conspired against a third brother Polyzelos....
, probably in 476, at the time he wrote the first three Olympian Odes for victories of Hiero and Theron. Pindar also visited the cities of Delphi
Delphi

Delphi is an archaeology site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. Delphi was the site of the Pythia, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, when it was a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python , a deity who lived there and protecte...
 and Athens
Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
, where he may have written one or two dithyramb
Dithyramb

The dithyramb was originally an Ancient Greece hymn sung to the god Dionysus and was also a term used as an epithet of the god.. Its wild and ecstatic character was contrasted by Plutarch with that of the paean....
s to be sung at the Great Dionysiae
Dionysia

The Dionysia was a large religious festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central event of which was the performance of tragedy and, since 487 BC, Greek comedy....
, of which only fragments are extant. A reference in Isocrates
Isocrates

File:Isocrates pushkin.jpgIsocrates , an ancient Greek rhetorician, was one of the ten Attic orators. In his time, he was probably the most influential rhetorician in Greece and made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and written works....
' Antidosis (166), records Pindar's success in the city. Out of the 45 odes, 11 are written for Aeginetans, which makes it likely that he visited the powerful island of Aegina
Aegina

Aegina is one of the Greek islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, 17 miles from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island....
.

Pindar's house in Thebes was spared by Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
 in recognition of the complimentary works he composed about and for his ancestor, king Alexander I of Macedon
Alexander I of Macedon

Alexander I was ruler of Macedon from 498 BC to 454 BC. He was the son of Amyntas I of Macedon king of Macedon and Eurydice.According to Herodotus he was unfriendly to Persian Empire, and had the envoys of Darius I of Persia killed when they arrived at the court of his father during the Ionian Revolt....
.

Works

Pindar is one of the most famous Greek poets, one of the few whose works are still extant in sizeable part. Pindar wrote choral works
Greek chorus

The Greek chorus is a group of twelve or fifteen minor actors in tragedy and twenty-four in Ancient Greek comedy plays of classical Athens....
, such as Paean
Paean

Paean is a term used to describe a type of triumphal or grateful song, usually choral though sometimes individual. It comes from the ancient Greek pa??? "song of triumph, any solemn song or chant" and it was also used as the name for the physician of the Greek gods and as an epithet of Apollo....
s and other hymns for religious festivals. Most of his writings were in honor of notable personages and victory odes in honor of winners at various games. 45 victory odes are still fully extant, grouped in four books based on the games in which the celebrated winner had competed : Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian and Nemean. In addition to Hiero of Syracuse, other patrons included ITheron of Acragas, and Arcesilas of Cyrene.

The oldest extant Pindarian ode, the Tenth Pythian Ode, celebrates the victory of the Thessalian Hippocleas in the double-stadium race in 498, when the poet was only 20. However, the peak of his literary activity is generally seen as from 480 to 460. His last extant ode is probably the Eighth Pythian Ode, usually dated to 446 (when he was 72), which was written to celebrate the victory of an Aeginian wrestler, Aristomenes.

Family traditions appear to have left their impression on his poetry. The clan of the Aegidae–tracing their line from the hero Aegeus
Aegeus

In Greek mythology, Aegeus , also Aigeus, Aegeas or Aigeas, was an archaic figure in the founding myth of Athens. The "goat-man" who gave his name to the Aegean Sea was, next to Poseidon, the father of Theseus, the founder of Athenian institutions and one of the kings of Athens....
–belonged to the Cadmean
Cadmus

Cadmus or Kadmos , in Greek mythology mythology, was a Phoenician prince, the son of Agenor and the brother of Phoenix , Cilix and Europa ....
 element of Thebes, that is, to the elder nobility
Nobility

Nobility is a government-privileged title which may be either hereditary or for a lifetime. Titles of nobility exist today in many countries although it is usually associated with present or former monarchies....
 who traced their descent from the days of the legendary city founder, Cadmus
Cadmus

Cadmus or Kadmos , in Greek mythology mythology, was a Phoenician prince, the son of Agenor and the brother of Phoenix , Cilix and Europa ....
. Traces of these traditions in his work may also provide important information on his relationships with his contemporaries.

The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis
Eupolis

Eupolis was an Athens poet of the Old Comedy, that flourished in the time of the Peloponnesian War....
 is said to have remarked that the poems of Pindar "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning" and it may be suggested that in modern times, too, Pindar is more respected than read.

Choral works

Pindar composed choral songs of several types. According to a Late Antique biographer, these works were grouped into seventeen books by scholars at the Library of Alexandria
Library of Alexandria

The Royal Library of Alexandria or Ancient Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was once the largest Great libraries of the ancient world....
. They were, by genre:

  • 1 book of humnoi - "hymn
    Hymn

    A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity/deities, a prominent figure or an epic tale....
    s"
  • 1 book of paianes - "paean
    Paean

    Paean is a term used to describe a type of triumphal or grateful song, usually choral though sometimes individual. It comes from the ancient Greek pa??? "song of triumph, any solemn song or chant" and it was also used as the name for the physician of the Greek gods and as an epithet of Apollo....
    s"
  • 2 books of dithuramboi - "dithyrhambs"
  • 2 books of prosodia - "preludes"
  • 3 books of parthenia - "songs for maidens"
  • 2 books of huporchemata - "songs to support dancing"
  • 1 book of enkomia - "songs of praise
    Encomium

    Encomium is a Latin language word deriving from the Classical Greek ???????? meaning the praise of a person or thing. Related to this general meaning, "encomium" also identifies several distinct aspects of rhetoric:...
    "
  • 1 book of threnoi - "laments"
  • 4 books of epinikia - "victory odes"


Of this vast and varied corpus, only the epinikia — odes written to commemorate athletic victories — survive in complete form; the rest are known to us only by quotations in other ancient authors or from papyrus
Papyrus

Papyrus is a thick paper material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland Cyperaceae that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
 scraps unearthed in Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
.

Pindar is to be conceived as standing within the circle of those families for whom the heroic myths were domestic records. He had a personal link with the cultural memories which everywhere were most cherished by Dorians, no less than with those which appealed to those of "Cadmean" or of Achaean stock. And the wide ramifications of the Aegidae throughout Hellas rendered it peculiarly fitting that a member of that illustrious clan should celebrate the glories of many cities in verse which was truly as panhellenic
Panhellenic Games

Panhellenic Games is the collective term for four separate sports festivals held in ancient Greece.The four Games were:* Ancient Olympic Games - the most important and prestigious of the Games, held every four years near Elis, in honour of Zeus...
 as the Olympian Games.

Pindar is said to have received lessons in aulos
Aulos

An aulos or tibia was an ancient Greece musical instrument. Different kinds of instruments bore the name, including a single pipe without a reed called the monaulos , and a single pipe held horizontally, as the modern flute, called the plagiaulos , but the most common variety must have been a reed instrument....
-playing from one Scopelinus at Thebes, and afterward, to have studied at Athens
Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
 under the musicians Apollodorus (or Agathocles) and Lasus of Hermione. Several passages in Pindar's extant ode
Ode

Ode is a form of stately and elaborate lyric poetry. A classic ode is structured in three parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode....
s glance at the long technical development of Greek lyric poetry before his time and at the various elements of art that the lyricist was required to temper into a harmonious whole. The facts that stand out from these meagre traditions are that Pindar was precocious, meticulous, and laborious. Preparatory labour of a somewhat severe and complex kind was, indeed, indispensable for the Greek lyric poet of that age.

Chronology of his Victory Odes

The victory odes were composed for aristocratic victors in the four most prominent athletic
Athletic

Athletic may refer to:* An athlete, or sportsperson* Athletic director, a position at many American universities and schools* Athletic type, a physical/psychological type in the classification of Ernst Kretschmer...
 festivals in early Classical Greece
Classical Greece

Classical Greece was a culture that was highly advanced and which heavilly influenced the cultures of Ancient Rome and much of the Western World....
: the Olympian
Ancient Olympic Games

The Ancient Olympic Games, originally referred to as simply the Olympic Games were a series of athletic competitions held for representatives of various city-states of Ancient Greece....
, Pythian
Pythian Games

The Pythian Games were one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece, a forerunner of the modern Olympic Games, held every four years at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi....
, Isthmian
Isthmian Games

The Isthmian Games or Isthmia were one of the Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece, and were named after the Isthmus of Corinth of Corinth, where they were held....
, and Nemean Games
Nemean Games

The Nemean Games were one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece, and were held at Nemea every two years.With the Isthmian Games, the Nemean Games were held both the year before and the year after the Olympic Games and the Pythian Games in the third year of the Olympiad cycle....
. Rich and allusive
Allusion

An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, a place, event, literary work, mythology, or work of art, either directly or by implication....
 in style, they are packed with dense parallels among the athletic victor, his illustrious ancestors, and the myths of deities and heroes underlying the athletic festival. But "Pindar's power does not lie in the pedigrees of ... athletes, ... or the misbehavior of minor deities. It lies in a splendour of phrase and imagery that suggests the gold and purple of a sunset sky." Two of Pindar's most famous victory odes are Olympian 1 and Pythian 1.

Modern editors (e.g. Snell and Maehler in their Teubner edition), have assigned dates, securely or tentatively, to Pindar's victory odes, based on ancient sources and other grounds (doubt is indicated by a question mark immediately following the number of an ode in the list below). The result is a fairly clear chronological outline of Pindar's career as an epinician poet:

  • 498 BC: Pythian Odes 10
  • 490 BC: Pythian Odes 6, 12
  • 488 BC: Olympian Odes 14
  • 485 BC: Nemean Odes 2, 7
  • 483 BC: Nemean Odes 5
  • 486 BC: Pythian Odes 7
  • 480 BC: Isthmian Odes 6
  • 478 BC: Isthmian Odes 5; Isthmian Odes 8
  • 476 BC: Olympian Odes 1, 2, 3, 11; Nemean Odes 1
  • 475 BC: Pythian Odes 2; Nemean Odes 3
  • 474 BC: Olympian Odes 10; Pythian Odes 3, 9, 11; Nemean Odes 9
  • 474/473 BC: Isthmian Odes 3/4
  • 473 BC: Nemean Odes 4
  • 470 BC: Pythian Odes 1; Isthmian Odes 2
  • 468 BC: Olympian Odes 6
  • 466 BC: Olympian Odes 9, 12
  • 465 BC: Nemean Odes 6
  • 464 BC: Olympian Odes 7, 13
  • 462 BC: Pythian Odes 4
  • 462/461 BC: Pythian Odes 5
  • 460 BC: Olympian Odes 8
  • 459 BC: Nemean Odes 8
  • 458 BC: Isthmian Odes 1
  • 460 BC or 456 BCE: Olympian Odes 4, 5
  • 454 BC: Isthmian Odes 7
  • 446 BC: Pythian Odes 8; Nemean Odes 11
  • 444 BC: Nemean Odes 10


Further reading

  • Barrett, W. S.
    Spencer Barrett

    Spencer Barrett British Academy, was an England classical scholar, Fellow and Sub-Warden of Keble College, Oxford, and Reader in Greek Literature in the University of Oxford....
    , Greek Lyric, Tragedy, and Textual Criticism: Collected Papers, edited for publication by M. L. West (Oxford & New York, 2007): papers dealing with Pindar, Stesichorus
    Stesichorus

    Stesichorus was a Ancient Greece lyric poetry from Himera in Sicily, one of the nine lyric poets esteemed by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria as worthy of study....
    , Bacchylides
    Bacchylides

    Bacchylides was an Ancient Greek Lyric poetry poet. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets which included his uncle Simonides....
     and Euripides
    Euripides

    Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
  • Race, W. H. Pindar. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.


Sources


External links

  • , marked up to show selected rhetorical and poetic devices
  • , read aloud in Greek, with text and English translation provided
  • , translated by Frank J. Nisetich
  • by Gregory Crane, in the Perseus Encyclopedia
    Perseus Project

    The Perseus Project is a digital library project of Tufts University that assembles digital collections of humanities resources. It is hosted by the Department of Classics....
  • by Basil L. Gildersleeve
    Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve

    Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve , United States classics, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, son of Benjamin Gildersleeve , a Presbyterianism Evangelism, and editor of the Charleston Christian Observer from 1826 to 1845, of the Richmond Watchman and Observer from 1845 to 1856, and of The Central Presbyterian from 1856 to 1860....
    , in Pindar: The Olympian and Pythian Odes