archaic Greece. Thus it is not surprising that his musically
gifted son was trained in music and poetry, both of them closely
related to religion, first at Thebes, then at Athens, and that he
devoted his life to celebrating the gods and the national festivals
of the Dorians. At the age of twenty Pindar wrote his first com-
missioned ode to celebrate the victory of the boy Hippokleas at
Delphi. Tradition has it that he lived until he was eighty. The
last ode which can be dated certainly is the fourth Olympian,
which was written in 452 B.C. ¹ During his long life Pindar
travelled widely over the mainland of Greece, to the islands, to
Sicily, and to North Africa as spreading fame brought him
commissions and invitations. ² Everywhere his reputation
reached such heights that myths grew up about him even in
his own lifetime. The ode that Pindar wrote for Diagoras of
Rhodes so delighted the citizens of Lindos that they had it
inscribed in gold on the wall of the temple of Athena. Parts of
another ode of Pindar's were inscribed on a column in the
sanctuary of Zeus Ammon in Libya. Part of his ode to Hagesias
has been found stamped on a brick in Syracuse. ³ The honours
rendered to Pindar at Delphi approached those of a demi-god. ⁴

The poetry that Pindar had written was classified by the
great Alexandrian critic, Aristophanes of Byzantium ( third
century B.C.), into ten categories, nine of which were religious.
They were Ἐπινίκια (songs for victories in the great games),

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