Pindar is said to have studied at Thebes and under the musician Apollodorus at Athens. He married Megacleia and had three children. He wrote numerous choral works, usually ones of praise for notable people and events. A complimentary piece he wrote for Alexander I of Macedonia is said to have caused Alexander the Great to spare his house in Thebes. According to a late antique biographer, Pindar's work was grouped into 17 books by the scholars at the Library of Alexandria, although today we have only the four sets of victory odes, Olympian, Pythian, Istmian and Nemean, together with some minor fragments. Pindar is considered one of the greatest of Greek poets, whose career spanned more than sixty years. A few other fragmentary quotations have come down to us through Plato, who quotes Pindar in a number of his own works. |
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