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.
Odes For Kings
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.