Pindar

In a striking passage (Nem. v. ad. init.) Pindar recognizes sculpture and poetry as sister arts employed in the commemora tion of the athlete, and contrasts the merely local effect of the statue with the wide diffusion of the poem. "No sculptor I, to fashion images that shall stand idly on one pedestal for aye ; no, go thou forth from Aegina, sweet song of mine, on every freighted ship, on each light bark." Many particular subjects were common to Pindar and contemporary sculpture. Thus (I) the sculptures on the east pediment of the temple at Aegina represented Heracles coming to seek the aid of Telamon against Troy—a theme bril liantly treated by Pindar in the fifth Isthmian; (2) Hiero's victory in the chariot-race was commemorated at Olympia by the joint work of the sculptors Onatas and Calamis ; (3) the Gigantomachia, (4) the wedding of Heracles and Hebe, (5) the war of the Cen taurs with the Lapithae, and (6) a contest between Heracles and Apollo, are instances of mythical material treated alike by the poet and by sculptors of his day.

Place in Greek Literature.

In the development of Greek lyric poetry two periods are broadly distinguished. During the first, from about 600 to Soo B.C., lyric poetry is local or tribal- as Alcaeus and Sappho write for Lesbians, Alcman and Stesi chorus for Dorians. During the second period, which takes its rise in the sense of Hellenic unity created by the Persian wars, the lyric poet addresses all Greece. Pindar and Simonides are the great representatives of this second period, to which Bacchylides, the nephew of Simonides, also belongs. These, with a few minor poets, are classed by German writers as die universalen Meliker. The Greeks usually spoke, not of "lyric," but of "melic" poetry (i.e., meant to be sung, and not, like the epic, recited) ; and "universal melic" is lyric poetry addressed to all Greece. But Pindar is more than the chief extant lyrist. Epic, lyric and dra matic poetry succeeded each other in Greek literature by a natural development. Each of them was the spontaneous utterance of the age which brought it forth.

In Pindar we can see that phase of the Greek mind which produced Homeric epos passing over into the phase which pro duced Athenian drama. His spirit is often thoroughly dramatic— witness such scenes as the interview between Jason and Pelias (Pyth. iv.), the meeting of Apollo and Chiron (Pyth. ix.), the episode of Castor and Polydeuces (Nem. x.), the entertainment of Heracles by Telamon (Ist/im. v.). Epic narrative alone was no longer enough for the men who had known that great trilogy of national life, the Persian invasions; they longed to see the heroes moving and to hear them speaking. The poet of Olympia, accus tomed to see beautiful forms in vivid action or vivid art, was well fitted to be the lyric interpreter of the new dramatic impulse. Pindar has more of the Homeric spirit than any Greek lyric poet known to us. On the other side, he has a genuine, if less evident, kinship with Aeschylus and Sophocles. Pindar's work, like Olym pia itself, illustrates the spiritual unity of Greek art.

The fact that certain glosses and lacunae are common to all our mss. of Pindar make it probable that these mss. are derived from a

common archetype. Now the older scholia on Pindar, which appear to have been compiled mainly from the commentaries of Didy mus (c. 15 B.c.), sometimes presuppose a purer text than ours. But the com piler of these older scholia lived after Herodian (A.D. 160). The arche type of our mss., then, cannot have been older than the end of the 2nd century. Our mss. fall into two general classes.: (I) the older, repre senting a text which, though often corrupt, is comparatively free from interpolations; (2) the later, which exhibit the traces of a Byzantine recension, in other words, of lawless conjecture, down to the 14th or 15th century. To the first class belong Parisinus 7, breaking off in Pyth. v. ; Ambrosianus 1, which has only 01. i.–xii. ; Mediceus 2 ; and Vati canus two last-named being of the highest value. The editio princeps is the Aldine (Venice, 1513). A modern study of Pindar may be almost said to have begun with C. G. Heyne's edition (1773). Her mann did much to advance Pindaric criticism. But August Bockh (1811-21), who was assisted in his commentary by L. Dissen, is justly regarded as the founder of a scientific treatment of the poet. The edition of Theodor Bergk (Poetae lyrici graeci, 1878 new ed. by 0. SchrOder, 1900) is marked by considerable boldness of conjecture, as that of Tycho Mommsen (1864) by a sometimes excessive adherence to mss. A recension by W. Christ has been published in Teubner's series (2nd ed., 1896), also with Prolegomena and commentary (1896) ; and by 0. Schroder (1908). The complete edition of J. W. Donaldson (1841) has many merits; but that of C. A. M. Fennell (5879-83 ; new ed., 1893-99) is better adapted to the needs of English students. The Olympia and Pythia have been edited by B. L. Gildersleeve (1885), the Nemea and Isthmia by J. B. Bury (189o-92) ; the Scholia by E. Abel (1890, unfinished) and A. B. Brachmann (1903). There is a special lexicon by J. Rumpel (5883). The translation into English prose by Ernest Myers (2nd ed., 1883) is excellent ; verse translation by T. C. Baring (1875), and of the Olympian Odes by Cyril Mayne (1906), also the edition in the Loeb Classical Library, with Eng. trans. by J. Sandys (1915). Pindar's metres have been analysed by J. H. H.

Schmidt, Die Kunstformen der griechischen Poesie (Leipzig, 2868-72).

On Pindar generally, see L. Schmidt, Pindar's Leben and Dichtung (1862) ; F. D. Morice, Pindar (1879) ; A. Croiset, La Poisie de Pindare (i88o) ; G. Liibbert, Pindar's Leben and Dichtungen (Bonn, 1882) ; W. Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur (1898) ; F. Dorn seiff, Pindars Stil (1921). Bibliographical information on the earlier literature will be found in W. Engelmann, Scriptores graeci 0880 ; see also L. Bornemann, in Jahresbericht 'fiber die Fortschrift der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (ed. C. Bursian, vol. cxvi., 1904), with special reference to chronological questions and Pythia, Some considerable fragments of the paeans were discovered in 2906 by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, see Paeans in Oxyrhynchus papyri (pt. v. 1908), and A. E. Hausman, in Classical Review (Feb. 1908).