Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/238

216 stand highest in the favour of the Syracusan tyrant, Hiero, and Thero of Agrigentum stimulated the jealousy between these two poets, yet the real cause lies deeper; it is to be found in the spirit and temper of the men; and the contest which necessarily arose out of this diversity, does no dishonour to either party.

The ancient commentators on Pindar refer a considerable number of passages to this hostility : and in general these are in praise of genuine wisdom as a gift of nature, a deep rooted power of the mind, and in depreciation of acquired knowledge in the comparison; or the poet represents genial invention as the highest of qualities, and demands novelties even in mythic narratives. On the contrary, Simonides and Bacchylides thought themselves bound to adhere faithfully to tradition, and reproved any attempt to give a new form to the stories of antiquity.





§ 1. Pindar's descent; his early training in poetry and music. § 2. Exercise of his art; his independent position with respect to the Greek princes and republics. § 3. Kinds of poetry cultivated by him. § 4. His Epinikia; their origin and objects. § 5. Their two main elements, general remarks, and mythical narrations. § 6. Connexion of these two elements; peculiarities of the structure of Pindar's odes. § 7. Variety of tone in his odes, according to the different musical styles.

§ 1. was born in the spring of 522 B. C. (Olymp. 64. 3); and, according to a probable statement, he died at the age of eighty. He was therefore nearly in the prime of his life at the time when Xerxes invaded Greece, and the battles of Thermopylæ and Salamis were fought. He thus belongs to that period of the Greek nation, when its great qualities were first distinctly unfolded; and when it exhibited an energy of action, and a spirit of enterprise, never afterwards surpassed, together with a love of poetry, art, and philosophy, which produced much, and promised to produce more. The modes of thought, and style of art, which arose in Athens after the Persian war, must have been unknown to him. He was indeed the contemporary of Æschylus, and he admired the rapid rise of Athens in the Persian 