Pindar

R. C. Jebb

doi:10.2307/623533

Pindar

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013

R. C. Jebb

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§ 1. Pindar is a classic of whom the study may be expected to grow with the growth of an interest in Greek archæology. Not, indeed, because it is indebted to him, so largely as to many other authors, for direct illustration. Rather because his ‘Odes of Victory’ are lit up in a new way by a fuller knowledge of the places with which they are concerned, of the contests which they celebrate, of the art and religion by which they were inspired. To take a single instance—the discoveries at Olympia, which have restored for us the main features of the altis, have given a new meaning for every modern reader to the beautiful, but hitherto indistinct, picture suggested by Pindar's description of ‘all the holy place resounding with festal joy,’ when ‘the lovely light of the fair-faced moon shone forth’ after a day of contests. Pindar's odes are poems of occasion, magnificent expressions of Hellenic life in its most distinctively Hellenic phases. Hitherto the real drawback to his popularity has not been obscurity of language, but the strain which he was felt to place on the modern imagination.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 3 , November 1882 , pp. 144 - 183

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/623533 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1882

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References

^{page 146 note 1} Curtius, , Hist. Gr. vol. ii. p. 264 (tr. Ward.)Google Scholar.

^{page 146 note 2} Her. vi. 115.

^{page 146 note 3} Pyth. i. 75. Cp. Isthm. iv. 49, on the distinction won by the Aeginetans at Salamis.

^{page 146 note 4} Isthm. vii. 10.

^{page 147 note 1} Pyth. i. 75.

^{page 147 note 2} See Müller, 's Orchomenus, c. 5, p. 111 (2nd ed.)Google Scholar.

^{page 147 note 3} Müller, , Dorians ii. 79Google Scholar.

^{page 148 note 1} The is identical with the Pindar means: ‘At the new Aetna, as at Sparta, Dorians are true to their ancestral usages.’ Hyllus, son of Heracles, was said to have been adopted by Aegimius, the father of Pamphylus and Dymas. (In Isthm. vii. 43 note alluding to the )

^{page 148 note 2} Pyth. iii. 71.

^{page 148 note 3} Pyth. ii. 86.

^{page 149 note 1} Pyth. vii. ad init.

^{page 149 note 2} Nem. v. 49.

^{page 149 note 3} Ol. viii. 36.

^{page 150 note 1} Ol. xiii. 8.

^{page 150 note 2} Ol. ix. 15.

^{page 150 note 3} Ol. iv. 16: Pyth. viii.

^{page 150 note 4} Isthm. ii. 23.

^{page 151 note 1} Ol. viii, ad init.

^{page 151 note 2} Ol. xii. 7.

^{page 151 note 3} Nem. xi. 43.

^{page 151 note 4} A suggestive example is the story which Herodotus tells with such delightful, though unconscious, humour. After his fall, Crœsus sent to ask at Delphi whether it was the god's usual practice to deceive and ruin generous votaries. The reply was (1) that Apollo had, in fact, done his best; he had persuaded the Moiræ to delay the doom of Crœsus for some years, (2) that Crœsus had misunderstood the oracle which had emboldened him to engage in war with Cyrus.

^{page 151 note 5} Pyth. v. 25: i. 41: ii. 49.

^{page 152 note 1} Ol. i. 35: ix. 41.

^{page 152 note 2} Ol. ii. 66.

^{page 153 note 1} Ol. ii. 83.

^{page 153 note 2} Pyth. ii. 34 : Nem. iii. 74