Pindar

Only a handful of details are known about the life of Pindar. He was born around 518 BC in Cynoscephalae, near Thebes, to an aristocratic family. As a young man, he received a formal education in music and poetry, likely studying in Athens. Evidence suggests that, in 497 or 496, Pindar won at least one dithyrambic victory at the Great Dionysia. These impassioned hymns dedicated to Dionysus were a style that Pindar soon moved on from, focusing instead on lyric poetry and epinician (victory) odes, the latter for which he became best known.

Although he composed many kinds of poems, collected in seventeen books at the Library of Alexandra, only his victory odes survive intact. Grouped into four books named after the Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean Games, these formal poems celebrated the victories of the athletes. Pindar’s career as a poet began with commissions from his aristocratic connections. As his reputation grew, he received commissions from even the furthest reaches of the Hellenic world. Pindar was such a respected poet, it is said that Alexander the Great spared Pindar’s home in Thebes while the Macedonians destroyed the city.

He died around 438 BC in Argos.