CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSION.
Great as was the contemporary success of Pindar's poetry, unanimously as the ancient and modern world alike have admitted his claim to rank among the most famous names of literary history, it may be doubted whether his works were ever really popular in any age but his own. It would be easy to prove by a long list of extracts from Greek and Roman writers, especially the latter, that his was a great name in the classical world: but it is surprising how seldom these laudations imply any real familiarity with the writings which are their subject, or even prove that their authors had ever read a single poem of the Theban bard. "The thunderous utterance of Pindar," "the Theban trumpet-blast," "the swan of Dirce," and so forth, were to them simply convenient periphrases for Lyric poetry in general, and their praises of his genius are expressed chiefly in a lavish employment of such epithets as "divine" or "sublime" or "inimitable." One or two Pindaric saws did indeed find their way into the commonplaces of ancient literature, and are quoted again and again by learned and unlearned
