Pindar

• 1. Fragments Of A Life

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  A short biography discovered in 1961 on an Egyptian papyrus dating from at least 200 AD stands as the only ancient source containing all recorded details of Pindar's life. Five ancient sources contain all the recorded details, yet four were not finalized until some 1600 years after his death. One is a brief biography found by Pausanias describing his tomb in Boeotia. Another comes from commentaries by Eustathius of Thessalonica. A third text known as the Vita Vratislavensis was found in a manuscript at Wrocław with no author named. The final piece consists of meagre writings attributed to the lexicographer Suidas. Scholars view this material with scepticism today because much of it is clearly fanciful. They turn instead to Pindar's own victory odes for biographical information since some poems touch on historic events and can be accurately dated. The 1962 publication of Elroy Bundy's ground-breaking work Studia Pindarica led to a change in scholarly opinion regarding these texts. The Odes were no longer seen as expressions of personal thoughts but rather as public statements dedicated to eulogizing men and communities. It has been claimed that biographical interpretations are due to a fatal conjunction of historicism and Romanticism. In other words we know almost nothing about Pindar's life based on either traditional sources or his own poems. However the pendulum of intellectual fashion has begun to change direction again. Cautious use of the poems for some biographical purposes is considered acceptable once more.

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• 2. Odes For Kings

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  Pindar was commissioned by the ruling family in Thessaly to compose his first victory ode Pythian 10 when he was about twenty years old in 498 BC. Commissions took him to all parts of the Greek world including Panhellenic festivals in mainland Greece westwards to Sicily eastwards to Asia Minor north to Macedonia and south to Cyrene. He composed two odes in honour of Arcesilas king of Cyrene in 462 BC pleading for the return from exile of a friend named Demophilus. His poetry sometimes reflects rivalry with other poets at the same venues. Olympian 2 and Pythian 2 refer respectively to ravens and an ape signifying rivals engaged in a campaign of smears possibly Simonides and Bacchylides. The historian Herodotus considered the Aegeid clan important enough to deserve mention since membership possibly contributed to Pindar's success as a poet. His political views are marked by a conservative preference for oligarchic governments of the Doric kind. In his first Pythian ode composed in 470 BC in honour of Hieron he celebrated victories against foreign invaders. Such celebrations were not appreciated by his fellow Thebans who had sided with Persia. The authorities in Thebes fined him 5,000 drachmae while Athenians responded with a gift of 10,000 drachmae. It was probably in response to Theban sensitivities that he denounced tyrants in an ode composed shortly after visiting Hieron's sumptuous court in 476, 75 BC.

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• 3. Language Of Fire

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  Pindar's poetic style is very distinctive even when peculiarities of the genre are set aside. Sentences are compressed to the point of obscurity unusual words and periphrases give the language an esoteric quality. Images seem to burst out it is a style that sometimes baffles but also makes his poetry vivid and unforgettable. Quintilian refers to this as a rolling flood of eloquence while Horace calls it the uncontrollable momentum of a river that has burst its banks. Longinus likens him to a vast fire and Athenaeus refers to him as the great-voiced Pindar. His odes typically feature a grand and arresting opening often with an architectural metaphor or resounding invocation to a place or goddess. He makes rich use of decorative language and florid compound adjectives. The stanza begins with a celebration of divine power then abruptly shifts to a darker more allusive train of thought featuring condemnation of Archilochus. The intensity of the stanza suggests that it is the culmination and climax of the poem. It occupies the middle of Pythian 2 yet the intensity is sustained throughout from beginning to end. His treatment of myth involves variations on traditional stories since his original audience was familiar with them. Reversing chronological order was one such effect allowing him to concentrate on unique and surprising effects.

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• 4. Gods And Giants

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  His view of the gods is traditional but more self-consistent than Homer's and more reverent. He never depicts gods in a demeaning role. An eclipse is not a mere physical effect as contemplated by early thinkers like Thales nor even a subject for bold wonder as it was for Archilochus. Instead Pindar treats an eclipse as a portent of evil. Gods are the embodiment of power uncompromisingly proud of their nature and violent in defense of their privileges. There is some rationalization of religious belief within a tradition at least as old as Hesiod where abstractions are personified. Truth appears as the daughter of Zeus. Sometimes wording suggests a belief in God rather than a god though implications are not given full expression. Nor do they vocalize a belief in Fate as background to gods unlike plays of Aeschylus. Pindar subjects both fortune and fate to divine will. He selects and revises traditional myths so as not to diminish dignity and majesty of gods. Apollo's abduction of nymph Cyrene is not presented as shameful act since his gods are above ethical issues men cannot judge them by ordinary standards. The finest breeds of men resulted from divine passions. Being descendants of divine unions with privileged mortals mythical heroes form intermediate group between gods and men.

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• 5. Scribes And Shreds

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  Pindar's verses have come down through variety of ways including fragments preserved via quotes by ancient sources and papyri unearthed by archaeologists at Oxyrhynchus. His extant victory odes are unique because bulk has been preserved in manuscript tradition generations of scribes copying from earlier copies possibly originating in single archetypal copy. Victory odes survive in just two manuscripts but incomplete collections located in many others all dating from mediaeval period. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff inferred existence of common source or archetype dated no earlier than 2nd century AD while C.M. Bowra argued there were too many discrepancies to identify specific lineage. Otto Schroeder identified two families of manuscripts yet Bowra rejected this following work of Alexander Turyn. Bowra singled out seven manuscripts as primary sources featuring errors gaps due to loss of folios and careless copying. One codex Ambrosianus dates to 13th, 14th century containing Olympian 1, 12 with some unique readings considered reliable. Another codex Vaticanus graeca 1312 is silk from 13th century covering entire corpus though leaves missing. A third codex Parisinus graecus 2774 written in careless hand includes scholia but also Byzantine interpolations. These scholars cross-referenced and supplemented verified by reference to other doubtful manuscripts and papyrus fragments combination on which they based editions.

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• 6. Echoes In Time

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  Influential Alexandrian poet Callimachus was fascinated by Pindar's originality his masterpiece Aetia included elegy celebrating chariot victory at Nemean Games composed in style recalling Pindar. Hellenistic epic Argonautica by Apollonius Rhodius influenced by aspects of Pindar's style and use of episodic vignettes in narrative. There seems to have been vogue for Pindaric-style lyrics following publication of Horace's Odes 1, 3. Regular verses in four line stanzas associated with Horace while irregular verses termed Pindarics though association largely fanciful. Abraham Cowley considered main exponent of English Pindarics yet two styles not always easy distinguish many Pindaric odes quite Horatian in content. During 17th and 18th centuries literary theorists distinguished between types loosely associated with Horace and Pindar. A Pindaric Ode composed for revived 1896 Olympic Games in Athens by Oxford scholar George Stuart Robinson similar compositions commissioned from classicist Armand D'Angour for Athens Olympics 2004 and London Olympics 2012. Latin poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus described Pindar's style as fluttering on wings of wax doomed like son of Daedalus to christen somewhere shining sea. He likened him to river bursting banks rushing down mountain with uncontrollable momentum rain-saturated churning chanting thunder.

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