of Corinth, in honour of Poseidon, once in two years, the first and third of each Olympiad. The Greek way of citing an ode is by the nomin plur followed by the numeral, e.g. “the ninth Olympian” is Ὀλυμπισνῖκαι θ′. The chronological range of the collection (so far as ascertainable) is from 502 B.C. (Pyth. x.) to 452 B.C. (Ol. v.). With respect to the native places of the victors, the geographical distribution is as follows: for the mainland of Greece proper, 13 odes; for Aegina, 11; for Sicily, 15; for the Epizephyrian Locrians (southern Italy), 2; for Cyrene (Africa), 3.
The general characteristics of the odes may be briefly considered under the following heads: (1) language; (2) treatment of theme; (3) sentiment—religious, moral and political; (4) relation to contemporary art.
1. The diction of Pindar is distinct in character from that of every other Greek poet, being almost everywhere marked by the greatest imaginative boldness. Thus (a) metaphor is used even for the expression of common ideas, or the translation of familiar phrases, as when a cloak is called (Ol. ix. 97) “a warm remedy for winds.” (b) Images for the highest excellence are drawn from the farthest limits of travel or navigation, or from the fairest of natural objects, as when the superlative hospitality of a man who kept open house all the year round is described by saying, “far as to Phasis was his voyage in summer days, and in winter to the shores of Nile” (Isthm. ii. 41); or when Olympia, the “crown” or “flower” of festivals, is said to be excellent as water, bright as gold, brilliant as the noonday sun (Ol. i ad init.) This trait might be called the Pindaric imagery of the superlative. (c) Poetical inversion of ordinary phrase is frequent, as, instead of, “he struck fear into the beasts,” “he gave the beasts to fear” (Pyth. v. 56). (d) The efforts of the poet’s genius are represented under an extraordinary number of similitudes, borrowed from javelin-throwing, chariot-driving, leaping, rowing, sailing, ploughing, building, shooting with the bow, sharpening a knife on a whetstone, mixing wine in a bowl, and many more. (e) Homely images, from common life, are not rare; as from account-keeping, usury, sending merchandise over sea, the σκυτάλη or secret dispatch, &c. And we have such homely proverbs as, “he hath his foot in this shoe,” i.e. stands in this case (Ol. vi. 8). (f) The natural order of words in a sentence is often boldly deranged, while, on the other hand, the syntax is seldom difficult. (g) Words not found except in Pindar are numerous, many of these being compounds which (like ἐναρίμβροτος, καταφυλλοροεῖν, &c.) suited the dactylic metres in their Pindaric combinations. Horace was right in speaking of Pindar’s “nova verba,” though they were not confined to the “audaces dithyrambi.”
2. The actual victory which gave occasion for the ode is seldom treated at length or in detail—which, indeed, only exceptional incidents could justify. Pindar’s method is to take some heroic myth, or group of myths, connected with the victor’s city or family, and, after a brief prelude, to enter on this, returning at the close, as a rule, to the subject of the victor’s merit or good fortune, and interspersing the whole with moral comment. Thus the fourth Pythian is for Arcesilaus, king of Cyrene, which was said to have been founded by men of Thera, descendants of one of Jason’s comrades. Using this link, Pindar introduces his splendid narrative of the Argonauts. Many odes, again, contain shorter mythical episodes—as the birth of Iamus (Ol. vi), or the vision of Bellerophon (Ol. xiii)—which form small pictures of masterly finish and beauty. Particular notice is due to the skill with which Pindar often manages the return from a mythical digression to his immediate theme. It is bold and swift, yet is not felt as harshly abrupt—justifying his own phrase at one such turn—καί τινα οἶμον ἴσαμι βραχύν (Pyth. iv. 247). It has been thought that, in the parenthesis about the Amazons’ shields (quibus Mos unde deductus . . . quaerere distuli, Odes, iv. 4, 18), Horace was imitating a Pindaric transition; if so, he has illustrated his own observation as to the peril of imitating the Theban poet.
3. a. The religious feeling of Pindar is strongly marked in the odes “From the gods are all means of human excellence.” He will not believe that the gods, when they dined with Tantalus, ate his son Pelops, rather Poseidon carried off the youth to Olympus. That is, his reason for rejecting a scandalous story about the gods is purely religious, as distinct from moral, it shocks his conception of the divine dignity. With regard to oracles, he inculcates precisely such a view as would have been most acceptable to the Delphic priesthood, viz. that the gods do illumine their prophets, but that human wit can foresee nothing which the gods do not choose to reveal. A mystical doctrine of the soul’s destiny after death appears in some passages (as Ol. ii. 66 sq). Pindar was familiar with the idea of metempsychosis (cf. ibid. 68), but the attempt to trace Pythagoreanism in some phrases (Pyth. ii. 34, iii. 74) appears unsafe. The belief in a fully conscious existence for the soul in a future state, determined by the character of the earthly life, entered into the teaching of the Eleusinian and other mysteries. Comparing the fragment of the Θρῆνος (114, Bergk4, 137), we may probably regard the mystic or esoteric element in Pindar’s theology as due to such a source.
b. The moral sentiment pervading Pindar’s odes rests on a constant recognition of the limits imposed by the divine will on human effort, combined with strenuous exhortation that each man should strive to reach the limit allowed in his own case. Native temperament (φυή) is the grand source of all human excellence (ἀρετή), while such excellences as can be acquired by study (διδακταὶ ἀρεταἰ, Ol. ix. 100) are of relatively small scope—the sentiment, we may remark, of one whose thoughts were habitually conversant with the native qualities of a poet on the one hand and of an athlete on the other. The elements of ὑγίεις ὄλβος—“sane happiness,” such as has least reason to dread the jealousy of the gods—are substance sufficing for daily wants and good repute (εὐλογία). He who has these should not “seek to be a god.” “Wealth set with virtues” (πλοῦτος ἀρεταῖς δεδαιδαλμένος), as gold with precious gems, is the most fortunate lot, because it affords the amplest opportunities for honourable activity. Pindar does not rise above the ethical standard of an age which said, “love thy friend and hate thy foe” (cf. Pyth. ii. 83; Isthm. iii. 65). But in one sense he has a moral elevation which is distinctively his own; he is the glowing prophet of generous emulation and of reverent self control.
c. The political sentiments of the Theban poet are suggested by Pyth. xi. 52; “In polities I find the middle state crowned with more enduring good, therefore praise I not the despot’s portion; those virtues move my zeal which serve the folk.” If in Pyth. ii. 87, a democracy is described as ὁ λάβρος στρατός, “the raging crowd,” it is to be noted that the ode is for Hiero of Syracuse, and that the phrase clearly refers to the violence of those democratic revolutions which, in the early part of the 5th century B.C., more than once convulsed Sicilian cities. At Thebes, after the Persian wars, a “constitutional oligarchy” (ὀλιγαρχία ἰσόνομος, Thuc. iii. 62) had replaced the narrower and less temperate oligarchy of former days (δυναστεία οὐ μετὰ νόμων), and in this we may probably recognize the phase of Greek political life most congenial to Pindar. He speaks of a king’s lot as unique in its opportunities (Ol. i. 113), he sketches the character of an ideal king (Pyth. iii. 71); but nothing in his poetry implies liking for the τυραννίς as a form of government. Towards the Greek princes of Sicily and Cyrene his tone is ever one of manly independence; he speaks as a Greek citizen whose lineage places him on a level with the proudest of the Dorian race, and whose office invests him with an almost sacred dignity. In regard to the politics of Hellas at large, Pindar makes us feel the new sense of leisure for quiet pursuits and civilizing arts which came after the Persian wars. He honours “Tranquillity, the friend of cities” (Ἁσυχία φιλόπολις, Ol. iv. 16). The epic poet sang of wars; Pindar celebrates the “rivalries of peace.”
4. Pindar’s genius was boldly original; at the same time he was an exquisite artist. “Mine be it to invent new strains, mine the skill to hold my course in the chariot of the Muses; and may courage go with me, and power of ample grasp” (Ol.
