obvious reasons, we cannot expect to find Pindar expressing himself fully and unreservedly on burning questions of contemporary politics. His allusions are necessarily guarded, and therefore frequently obscure. Still, amid all this obscurity, a few facts seem to emerge, which throw light on Theban history and on the political views of the poet.
One such fact is the existence, in Pindar's days, of a long and bitter struggle between contending factions at Thebes—a struggle which Pindar regrets, and would fain appease. We obtain frequent glimpses of the misfortunes which the overweening pride and ambition of a portion of the Theban aristocracy drew down upon themselves and their country. We hear of banishments, of great houses suffering a temporary eclipse of their greatness, of savage feuds, and apparently—in dark and mysterious hints[1]—of fratricidal murders, and stern reprisals on their authors. Of the selfish ambitions which produced these disastrous consequences the poet speaks with regret and with implicit condemnation; yet he never exults over their defeat. He admires and loves the illustrious Theban aristocracy; and though he deplores its faults, he feels the deepest pity for its misfortunes. He appears to seek a remedy for the evils of the time, not in the expulsion from the State of the members who had disturbed its peace, but in the general diffusion through the community (and especially the upper classes) of a tranquil, law-abiding spirit. In the
- ↑ So Boeckh explains the mythological matter of the Eleventh Pythian.
