Pindar (Gr. Pindaros), the chief lyric poet of Greece, was born about 522 B.C. of Theban family at Cynoscephalæ, near Thebes, the capital of Bœotia, a district in which music and poetry were widely cultivated. His family, the Ægeidæ, was an old and illustrious one, often mentioned in the heroic legends. His father or his uncle was a flutist, and Pindar inherited the musical talent of his family. He made music and poetry his profession, and was placed under the tuition of Lasus, a well-known musician and poet, at Athens. Though Thebes was the bitter foe of that city, Pindar often speaks of Athens with love and veneration. But Pindar seems, as a poet, to have been influenced far more deeply by Corinna and Myrtis, two poetesses then famous, with whom he competed for the prize at public contests. Corinna five times gained the victory over him. She assisted the young poet with her advice, judiciously as it would seem. It is said that she urged him to introduce mythical subjects into his poems, and then, when he had composed an ode introducing almost the whole Theban mythology in the first six verses, she smiled and said: 'We ought to sow with the hand, and not with the whole sack.' He commenced his career as a composer of choral odes for special occasions at the early age of twenty with a song of victory which still remains (Pyth. X., composed in 502). He soon reached the highest rank in his profession, and composed odes for persons in all parts of the Greek world. He was employed by the Sicilian rulers, Hiero of Syracuse and Thero of Agrigentum, by Arcesilaus of Cyrene and Amyntas of Macedon, as well as by the free cities of Greece. Wherever he went, he was honoured and loved for his own sake as well as for his art. States vied with one another in doing him honour; great cities like Athens created him their public guest. Though a frequenter of princely houses and king's palaces, he never lost his independence. In his poems he gives advice and reproof as well as praise to his patrons. He warns the great Hiero to avoid flatterers, and cautions Arcesilaus of Cyrene against undue severity. He resided four years at the court of Hiero. He died about the age of eighty in 443 B.C. Two conquerors—Pausanias, king of Sparta during the Peloponnesian war, and later Alexander the Great, who left no other dwelling in Thebes standing—spared the house of Pindar.
Pindar was in the prime of life when Salamis and Thermopylæ were fought, when Greek energy and enterprise were at their highest, and Greek poetry and philosophy were opening into their richest blossom. But his poetry belongs to the old rather than the new period of literature. In spite of his admiration for Athens, which he calls 'the pillar of Greece,' the spirit of Athens did not lay hold of him. Intellectually, he stands nearer to the age of Homer than to that of his contemporary Æschylus. Pindar's language is Epic, tinged with Doric. He wrote an immense number of poems, including hymns to the gods, præans, dithyrambs, odes for processions (prosodia), mimic dancing songs (hyporchemata), choral songs of maidens (parthenæia), convivial songs (skolia), dirges (threnoi), and odes in praise of princes (encomia). Of all these poems we possess fragments only, often very beautiful, but his Epinikia or Triumphal Odes have come down to us entire. They are divided into four books, celebrating the victories won respectively in the Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games. The special occasion for which these odes were composed explains their character. A victory won either in the chariot-race, for prowess in wrestling or other exercises, or for skill in music was held to confer honour not only on the winner and his family, but also on his city, and received a solemn celebration. It began with a procession to the temple, where sacrifice was offered, followed by a banquet, and concluding with a boisterous revel (comus). Thus the festival was partly religious, partly convivial and joyous. For the occasion an ode was composed, and was sung by a chorus either during the procession or, more frequently, at the comus. An intense enthusiasm for athletic sports was one of the most distinctive features of the Greek, as of the English national character. The performance of a triumphal ode by a trained chorus to the music of lyre and flute, amid an enthusiastic concourse of the victor's townsmen, must have been one of the most stirring events of Greek civic life. Pindar treats the victory not as a mere incident, but as connected with the victor's whole life and history. He loves to dwell on the moral side of it, not merely on the bodily prowess which gained it, but on the temperance, love to parents, or piety which secured the favour of the gods who granted success. And this is to him no mere poetic fiction, for he has the sincerest faith in the divine superintendence. But it is too much to say, as Paley does (Trans. Pref. p. viii.), that Pindar shows 'unquestioning credulity in the wildest legends.' Of myths relating things unworthy of the gods he says with emphasis: 'I cannot think this way of divine beings!' (as of the myth of Pelops, Ol. i., and another regarding Hercules, Ol. ix.). The plan of his poetry is intricate, and the connection of the different parts is often very hard to see. Pindar takes up various trains of thought, either relating to the victor, his ancestors, the history of his city, or else moral reflection; he breaks off each of these before the application is seen, and it is not till the end of the poem that he weaves the different threads together and explains the allusions. Thus, says Müller, 'the curiosity of the reader is kept on the stretch throughout the entire ode.' The great merit of Pindar's poetry is its vividness and pictur- esque power, seen even in single epithets, as when he calls the mountain-mass of Ætna, overtowering all heights in the island, 'the forehead of fertile Sicily.' It is this vigour and vividness which suggest Mrs Browning's picture of 'bold, electric Pindar . . . with race-dust on his cheeks,' and eyes that seem to see 'the chariot rounding its last goal.' The description of the happy lot of the good after the final judgment in the Islands of the Blessed (Ol. ii.), the voyage of the Argonauts (Pyth. iv.), and the vivid picture of the eruption of Ætna in the First Pythian illustrate this power. To us his poems are specially interesting because they show as in a mirror the intense admiration of the Greeks for bodily prowess, strength, endurance, and beauty. Such gifts rouse in him a feeling of religious veneration; they come from the gods and are sacred. The groundwork of Pindar's poems consists in those legends which form the Greek religious literature. It will be seen that his life was intimately associated with the observances of Greek religion. In connection with the worship at Delphi he received unique honours. The belief in his devoutness as a worshipper of the gods shows itself in the legend, which apparently sprang up during his life, that the god Pan was seen and heard in a glade between Cithæron and Helicon singing one of Pindar's hymns. When once asked what sacrifice he intended to offer at Delphi, he answered 'a præn,' a reply not presumptuous, for his odes are full of religious feeling, not formal but real. His protest against myths dishonouring to the gods shows a truly reverent nature and an enlightened belief. Both in its strength and in its deficiencies his poetry reminds us of his claim on his own behalf: 'That man is wise who knows much by natural genius;' but the poets, his rivals, 'those who have learned, the versatile talkers, are but as crows vainly chattering against the divine bird of Zeus.' Thus the distinction between genius and talent is as old as Pindar's time. This high faith in his own poetic inspiration must not be mistaken for self-confidence; but it almost verges on a contempt for art which seems responsible for the frequent intricacy and obscurity of his poetry.
See Böckh (1811-21); Dissen (1830; re-edited by Schneidewin, 1840-47—commentary excellent, but, owing to Schneidewin's death, incomplete); Fennell (1879-83); Bury, Nemean Odes, 1891; translations by Cary in verse (1833), Paley (occasionally powerful, but arbitrary; 1869), E. Myers (2d ed. 1883). K. O. Müller's chapter (Müller and Donaldson's History of Greek Literature) is full of excellent criticism.