The Odes

Pindar (Greek: Πίνδαρος Pindaros; Latin: Pindarus), c.522–c.443, was a Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts & figures, the rich exuberance of his language & matter, & his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable." His poems however can also seem difficult & even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least up until the discovery in 1896 of some poems by his rival Bacchylides, when comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of the poet himself. The brilliance of his poetry then began to be more widely appreciated. However his style still challenges the casual reader & he continues to be a much admired tho largely unread poet.