PINDAR was born B.C. 522, at Cynoscephalæ, near Thebes, of a family of flute-players, and showed his poetic powers at an early age. As a Theban, he was opposed to the patriotic Greeks in the great struggle with Persia, and as a professional poet, writing for all Greeks alike, he stood all his life aloof from the politics and the cities. His poems were all of a lyric character, and were written to be sung by choruses moving to the rythmic measure of the verse. They comprised Hymns to the Gods, Poeans, Threni or Lamentations for the Dead, and Hymns to the Victors in the Games.

His claim to our remembrance and study rests on many grounds. He was the most famous and popular lyric poet of his day, and is the only Greek lyric poet of whose works any considerable portion remains. He possessed an extraordinary wealth of language and of imagery, which often renders his poems complicated and difficult to understand. He illustrates the glories of the victors by allusions to the exploits and traditions of their ancestors and their cities in every age, so that his works are a mine of reference to the mythologist and chronicler of ancient Greece. Plutarch alone has ninety quotations from Pindar. But the extant poems are, perhaps, more interesting from the picture they give us of the place of importance which the athletic contests at Olympia, Nemea, and the Isthmus held in the minds of the Greeks. Victory here conferred an honour with which no other distinction could compare.

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