ου (ὁ) [ᾰ] Pindaros (Pindare) :
      1 poète lyrique de Thèbes, en Béotie ;
      2 autres, PLUT. Ant. 22, etc.

➳ Gén. épq. Πινδάροιο, PLAT. Ep. 6.

Proper name: PI′NDARUS (Πίνδαρος), the greatest lyric poet of Greece, according to the universal testimony of the ancients. Just as Homer was called simply ὁ ποιητής, Aristophanes ὁ κωμικός, and Thucydides ὁ συγγραφεύς, in like manner Pindar was distinguished above all other lyric poets by the title of ὁ λυρικός. Our information however respecting his life is very scanty and meagre, being almost entirely derived from some ancient biographies of uncertain value and authority. Of these we possess five; one prefixed by Thomas Magister to his Scholia on the poet; a second in Suidas; a third usually called the metrical life, because it is written in thirty-five hexameter lines; a fourth first published by Schneider in his edition of Nicander, and subsequently reprinted by Böckh along with the three other preceding lives in his edition of Pindar; and a fifth by Eustathius, which was published for the first time by Tafel in his edition of the Opuscula of Eustathius, Frankfort, 1832. Pindar was a native of Boeotia, but the ancient biographies leave it uncertain whether he was born at Thebes or at Cynoscephalae, a village in the territory of Thebes. All the ancient biographies agree that his parents belonged to Cynoscephalae; but they might easily have resided at Thebes, just as in Attica an Acharnian or a Salaminian might have lived at Athens or Eleusis. The name of Pindar's parents is also differently stated. His father is variously called Daiphantus, Pagondas, or Scopelinus, his mother Cleidice, Cleodice or Myrto; but some of these persons, such as Scopelinus and Myrto, were probably only his teachers in music and poetry; and it is most likely that the names of his real parents were Daiphantus and Cleidice, Avhich are alone mentioned in the 'Metrical Life' of Pindar already referred to. The year of his birth is likewise a disputed point. He was born, as we know from his own testimony (Fragm. 102, ed. Dissen), during the celebration of the Pythian games. Clinton places his birth in Ol. 65. 3, B. C. 518, Böckh in Ol. 64. 3, B. C. 522, but neither of these dates is certain, though the latter is perhaps the most probable. He probably died in his 80th year, though other accounts make him much younger at the time of his death. If he was born in B. C. 522, his death would fall in B. C. 442. He was in the prime of life at the battles of Marathon and Salamis, and was nearly of the same age as the poet Aeschylus; but, as K. O. Müller has well remarked, the causes which determined Pindar's poetical character are to be sought in a period previous to the Persian war, and in the Doric and Aeolic parts of Greece rather than in Athens; and thus we may separate Pindar from his contemporary Aeschylus, by placing the former at the close of the early period, the latter at the head of the new period of literature. One of the ancient biographies mentions that Pindar married Megacleia, the daughter of Lysitheus and Callina; another gives Timoxena as the name of his wife; but he may have married each in succession. He had a son, Daiphantus, and two daughters, Eumetis and Protomacha. The family of Pindar ranked among the noblest ​in Thebes. It was sprung from tlie ancient race of the Aegids, who claimed descent from the Cadmids, who settled at Thebes and Sparta, whence part emigrated to Thera and Cyrene at the command of Apollo. (Pind. Pyth. v. 72, &c.) We also learn from the biography by Eustathius, that Pindar wrote the δαφνηφορικὸν ᾆσμα for his son Daiphantus, when he was elected daphnephorus to conduct the festival of the daphnephoria; a fact which proves the dignity of the family, since only youths of the most distinguished families at Thebes were eligible to this office. (Paus. ix. 10. §4.) The family seems to have been celebrated for its skill in music; though there is no authority for stating, as Böckh and Müller have done, that they were hereditary flute-players, and exercised their profession regularly at certain great religious festivals. The ancient biographies relate that the father or uncle of Pindar was a flute-player, and we are told that Pindar at an early age received instruction in the art from the flute-player Scopelinus. But the youth soon gave indications of a genius for poetry, which induced his father to send him to Athens to receive more perfect instruction in the art; for it must be recollected that lyric poetry among the Greeks was so intimately connected with music, dancing, and the whole training of the chorus that the lyric poet required no small amount of education to fit him for the exercise of his profession. Later writers tell us that his future glory as a poet was miraculously foreshadowed by a swarm of bees which rested upon his lips while he was asleep, and that this miracle first led him to compose poetry. (Comp. Paus. ix. 23. § 2; Aelian, V. H. xii. 45.) At Athens Pindar became the pupil of Lasus of Hermione, the founder of the Athenian school of dithyrambic poetry, and who was at that time residing at Athens under the patronage of Hipparchus. Lasus was well skilled in the different kinds of music, and from him Pindar probably gained considerable knowledge in the theory of his art. Pindar also received instruction at Athens from Agathocles and Apollodorus, and one of them allowed him to instruct the cyclic choruses, though he was still a mere youth. He returned to Thebes before he had completed his twentieth year, and is said to have received instruction there from Myrtis and Corinna of Tanagra, two poetesses, who then enjoyed great celebrity in Boeotia. Corinna appears to have exercised considerable influence upon the youthful poet, and he was not a little indebted to her example and precepts. It is related by Plutarch (De Glor. Athen. 14), that she recommended Pindar to introduce mythical narrations into his poems, and that when in accordance with her advice he composed a hymn (part of which is still extant), in which he interwove almost all the Theban mythology, she smiled and said, 'We ought to sow with the hand, and not with the whole sack' (τῇ χειρὶ δεῖν σπείρειν, ἀλλὰ μὴ ὅλῳ τῷ θυλάκῳ). With both these poetesses Pindar contended for the prize in the musical contests at Thebes. Although Corinna found fault with Myrtis for entering into the contest with Pindar, saying, 'I blame the clear-toned Myrtis, that she, a woman born, should enter the lists with Pindar,' Μέμφομη δὲ κὴ λιγούραν Μούρτιδ᾽ ἱώνγα ὅτι βάνα φοῦσ᾽ ἔϐα Πινδάροιό ποτ᾽ ἔριν: (Wikisource | public domain)

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