(Pyth. iv. 16). The author of one of the Greek lives of Pindar
says that, “when Pausanias the king of the Lacedaemonians
was burning Thebes, some one wrote on Pindar’s house, ‘Burn
not the house of Pindar the poet’; and thus it alone escaped
destruction.” This incident, of which the occasion is not further
defined, has been regarded as a later invention.[1] Better
attested, at least, is the similar clemency of Alexander the Great,
when he sacked Thebes one hundred and eight years after the
traditional date of Pindar’s death (335 B.C.). He spared only
(1) the Cadmeia, or citadel, of Thebes (thenceforth to be occupied
by a Macedonian garrison); (2) the temples and holy places; and
(3) Pindar’s house. While the inhabitants were sold into
slavery, exception was made only of (1) priests and priestesses;
(2) persons who had been connected by private ξενία. with
Philip or Alexander, or by public ξενία. with the Macedonians;
(3) Pindar’s descendants. It is probable enough, as Dio Chrysostom
suggests (ii. 33), that Alexander was partly moved by
personal gratitude to a poet who had celebrated his ancestor
Alexander I. of Macedon. But he must have been also, or
chiefly, influenced by the sacredness which in the eyes of all
Hellenes surrounded Pindar’s memory, not only as that of a
great national poet, but also as that of a man who had stood
in a specially close relation to the gods, and, above all, to the Delphian Apollo.[2] Upwards of six hundred years after Pindar’s death the traveller Pausanias saw an iron chair which was
preserved among the most precious treasures of the temple in
the sanctuary at Delphi. It was the chair, he was told, “in
which Pindar used to sit, whenever he came to Delphi, and to
chant those of his songs which pertain to Apollo” (x. 24, 5).
During the second half of Pindar’s life, Athens was rising to that supremacy in literature and art which was to prove more lasting than her political primacy. Pindar did not live to see the Parthenon, or to witness the mature triumphs of Sophocles; but he knew the sculpture of Calamis, and he may have known the masterpieces of Aeschylus. It is interesting to note the feeling of this great Theban poet, who stands midway between Homeric epos and Athenian drama, towards the Athens of which Thebes was so often the bitterest foe, but with which l1e himself had so large a measure of spiritual kinship. A few words remain from a dithyramb in which he paid a glowing tribute to those “sons of Athens” who “laid the shining foundations of freedom” (παῖδες Ἀθαναίων ἐβάλοντο φαεννὰν κρηπῖδ’ ἐλευθερίας, fr. 55, Bergk4, 77), while Athens itself is thus invoked: ῶ ταὶ λιπαραὶ καὶ ἰοστέφανοι καὶ ἀοίδιμοι Ἑλλάδος ἔρεισμα, κλειταὶ Ἀθᾶναι δαιμόννιον πτολίεθρον (fr. 54, Bergk4, 76). Isocrates, writing in 353 B.C., states that the phrase Ἑλλάδος ἔρεισμα, “stay of Hellas,” so greatly gratified the Athenians that they conferred on Pindar the high distinction of προξενία. (i.e. appointed him honorary consul, as it were-for Athens at Thebes), besides presenting him with a large sum of money (Antidosis, 166). One of the letters of the pseudo-Aeschines (Ep. iv.) gives an improbable turn to the story by saying that the Thebans had fined Pindar for his praise of Athens, and that the Athenians repaid him twice the sum.[3] The notice preserved by Isocrates—less than one hundred years after Pindar’s death—is good warrant for the belief that Pindar had received some exceptional honours from Athens. Pausanias saw a statue of Pindar at Athens, near the temple of Ares (i. 8, 4). Besides the fragment just mentioned, several passages in Pindar’s extant odes bespeak his love for Athens. Its name is almost always joined by him with some epithet of praise or reverence. In alluding to the great battles of the Persian wars, while he gives the glory of Plataea to the Spartans, he assigns that of Salamis to the Athenians (Pyth. i. 76). In celebrating (Pyth. vii) the Pythian victory of the Athenian Megacles, he begins thus: “Fairest of preludes is the renown of Athens for the mighty race of the Alcmaeonidae. What home, or what house, could I call mine by a name that should sound more glorious for Hellas to hear?” Referring to the fact that an Aeginetan victor in the games had been trained by an Athenian, he says (Nem. v. 49) “meet it is that a shaper of athletes should come from Athens”—and recollecting how often Pindar compares the poet’s efforts to the athlete’s, we may well believe that he was thinking of his own early training at Athens.
Pindar’s versatility as a lyric poet is one of the characteristics remarked by Horace (Odes, iv. 2), and is proved by the fragments, though the poems which have come down entire represent only one class of compositions—the Epinicia, or odes of victory, commemorating successes in the great games. The lyric types to which Works.the fragments belong, though it cannot be assumed that the list is complete, are at least numerous and varied.
(1) Ὕμνοι, Hymns to deities—as to Zeus Ammon, to Persephone, to Fortune. The fragmentary ὕμνος entitled Θηβαίοις seems to have celebrated the deities of Thebes. (2) Παιᾶνες, gments. paeans, expressing prayer or praise for the help of a protecting god, especially Apollo, Artemis or Zeus. (3) Διθύραμβοι, Dithyrambs, odes of a lofty and impassioned strain, sung by choruses in honour of Dionysus (cf. Pind. Ol. xiii. 18, ταὶ Διωνύσου πόθεν ἐξέφανεν σὺν βοηλάτᾳ Χάριτες διθυράμβῳ—where Pindar alludes to the choral form given to the dithyramb, c. 600 B.C., by Arion—βοηλάτης, " ox-driving, ” perhaps meaning “winning an ox as prize”). (4) Προσόδια, Processional Songs, choral chants for worshippers approaching a shrine. One was written by Pindar for the Delians, another for the Aeginetans. (5) Παρθένια, Choral Songs for Maidens. The reference in Pyth. iii. 78 to maidens worshipping Cybele and Pan near the poet’s house is illustrated by the fact that one of these Παρθένια invoked “Pan, lord of Arcadia, attendant of the Great Mother, watcher of her awful shrine” (fr. 72, Bergk4, 95). (6) Ὑπορχήματα, Choral Dance-Songs, adapted to a lively movement, used from an early date in the cult of Apollo, and afterwards in that of other gods, especially Dionysus. To this class belongs one of the finest fragments (84, Bergk 4, 107), written for the Thebans in connexion with propitiatory rites after an eclipse of the sun, probably that of the 30th of April 463 B.C. (7) Ἐγκώμια, Songs of Praise (for men, while i9;.u/on were for gods), to be sung by a f<&>;/ns or festal company. In strictness éyxtbpiov was the genus of which é7l'Ll/IKLOV was a species; but the latter is more conveniently treated as a distinct kind. Pindar wrote encomia for Theron, de spot of Acra as, and for Alexander I. (son of Amyntas), king of Macedon. (8) Exbma, Festal Songs. The usual sense of 0'K6)LOV is a drinking-song, taken up by one guest after another at a banquet. But Pindar s ¢n<6>¢a were choragand anti strophic. One was to be sung at Corinth by a chorus of the fkpaaevxef attached to the temple of Aphrodite Ourania, when a certain Xenophon offered sacrifice before going to compete at Olympia. Another brilliant fragment, for Theoxenus of Ten-edos, has an erotic character. (9) Opfp/oc, Dirges, to be sung with choral dance and the music of the flute, either at the burial of the dead or in commemorative rituals. Some of the most beautiful fragments belong to this class (106-110, Bergk4, 129-133). One of the smaller fragments (114, Bergk4, 137)-in memory of an Athenian who had been initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries (iédw Kei:/a)-has been conjecturally referred to the Gpiix/os which Pindar is said to have written (schol. Pyth. vii. 18) for Hippocrates, the grandfather of Pericles. A number of small fragments, which cannot be certainly classified, are usually given as ég aéfpkwv ei6&>v, “of uncertain class.” On comparing the above list with Horace, Odes, iv. 2, it will be seen that he alludes to No. 3 (d1thyrambos); to Nos. 1, 2, and 7 (seu deos regesve canit); and to No. 9 (/iebzlz s onsae juvenemve raptum Plorat)-as well as to the extant Epmzcza (gave guos Elea domum reduczt Palma caelestes). Works.
The Epinicia.—The ἐπινίκια (sc., μέλη), or ἐπινἰκοι (sc. ), “Odes of Victory,” form a collection of forty-four odes, traditionally divided into four books, answering to the four great festivals: (1) Ὀλυμπιονῖκαι (sc. ὕμνοι): fourteen odes for winners of the wild olive-wreath in the Olympian games, held at Olympia in honour of Zeus once in four years; (2) Πυθιονῖκαι twelve odes for winners of the laurel-wreath in the Pythian games held at Delphi in honour of Apollo, once in four years, the third of each Olympiad; (3) Νεμεονῖκαι eleven odes for winners of the pine-wreath in the Nemean games, held at Nemea, in honour of Zeus, once in two years, the second and fourth of each Olympiad; and (4) 'Io0, utov'Zxa.1.: seven odes for winners of the parsley wreath in the Isthmian games, held at the Isthmus
- ↑ A. Schäfer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit. iii. 119.
- ↑ It will be remarked that history requires us to modify the statement in Milton’s famous lines—
“The great Emathian conqueror bade spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground.”
Indeed, the point of the incident depends much on the fact that the temples and Pindar’s house were classed together for exemption. - ↑ Compare Jebb, Attic Orators, ii. 143.
