Olympian Odes. Pythian Odes

Pindar (c. 518-438 BCE), highly esteemed as lyric poet by the ancients, commemorates in complex verse the achievements of athletes and powerful rulers at the four great Panhellenic festivals-the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games-against a backdrop of divine favor, human failure, heroic legend, and aristocratic Greek ethos.