This metric system originated in ancient Greek poetry, and was used by poets such as Pindar and Sappho, and by the great tragedians of Athens.

The artist Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres painted a scene showing Ictinus together with the lyric poet Pindar.

The ancient Greek lyric poet Pindar records the victories of several athletes in his Victory Odes, and two inscribed stelae recently excavated from the Lykaian hippodrome provide information about the events, participants, and winners at the games.

It appears likely that Sappho's poetry was largely lost through action of the same indiscriminate forces of cultural change that have left us such paltry remains of all nine canonical Greek lyric poets, of whom only Pindar ( whose works alone survive in a manuscript tradition ) and Bacchylides ( our knowledge of whom we owe to a single dramatic papyrus find ) have fared much better.

They were arranged in nine ' books ', exemplifying the following genres ( Bacchylides in fact composed in a greater variety of genres than any of the other lyric poets who comprise the canonic nine, with the exception of Pindar, who composed in ten ):

The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets, along with Bacchylides ( his nephew ) and Pindar ( reputedly a bitter rival ).

Both Bacchylides and Pindar benefited from his innovative approach to lyric poetry and he was more involved than either of them in the major events and personalities of their times.

He is known to have written on Greek lyric poets, notably Bacchylides and Pindar, and on drama ; the better part of the Pindar and Sophocles scholia originated with Didymus.

Quintilian wrote, " Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable.

The Greeks distinguished, however, between lyric monody ( e. g. Sappho, Anacreon ) and choral lyric ( e. g. Pindar, Bacchylides ).

Early Greek lyric poetry, as represented by poets such as Sappho and Pindar, was responsible for defining the lyric genre as it is understood today in western literature.

During his exile he met with the works of Pindar, and determined to reproduce their lofty lyric passion in English.

Doric was standard for Greek lyric poetry, such as Pindar and the choral odes of the Greek tragedians.

The island of Rhodes was particularly known for its displays of mechanical engineering and automata – Pindar, one of the nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, said this of Rhodes in his seventh Olympic Ode:

Doric is the conventional dialect of choral lyric poetry, which includes the Laconian Alcman, the Theban Pindar and the choral songs of Attic tragedy ( stasima ).

" Recent discoveries, recorded on Egyptian papyrus ( notably and controversially, the Lille Stesichorus ), have led to some improvements in our understanding of his work, confirming his role as a link between Homer's epic narrative and the lyric narrative of poets like Pindar.

: In one of his surviving fragments ( fragment 64 ), the lyric poet Pindar wrote of Athens:

The poet Pindar celebrated the Alcmaeonid's temple in Pythian 7. 8-9 and he also provided details of the third building ( Paean 8.

* 474 BC: Greek poet Pindar moves to Thebes.

* 443 BC — death of Pindar, Greek poet

* 522 BC — Pindar, Greek poet

* 443 BC – Pindar, Greek poet ( b. c. 522 BC )

* 474 Pindar, Greek poet moves to Thebes from court at Syracuse

Bacchylides's image of the poet as an eagle winging across the sea was not original – Pindar had already used it earlier ( Nemean Odes 5. 20 – 21 ).

The Isles of the Blessed would be reduced to a single island by the Thebean poet Pindar, describing it as having shady parks, with residents indulging their athletic and musical pastimes.

The ruler of Elysium varies from author to author: Pindar and Hesiod name Cronus as the ruler, while the poet Homer in the Odyssey describes fair-haired Rhadamanthus dwelling there.

* The Greek poet Pindar visits Sicily and is made welcome at the courts of Theron of Acragas and Hieron I of Syracuse.

* The Greek poet Pindar moves to Thebes after two years at the Sicilian Court of Hiero I of Syracuse.

* Pindar, Greek poet ( b. 522 BC )

According to the Odes of the poet Pindar, Heracles then founded the Olympic Games:

Pindar is the first Greek poet to reflect on the nature of poetry and on the poet's role.

* Pindar: A renowned lyrical poet, he is quoted in praise of Athens ( lines 1323, 1329 ).

However, the poet Pindar did praise the courage of Herodotos of Thebes for driving his own chariot.

* Aetna: A Sicilian city founded by the Greek tyrant Hieron I, it is fancifully mentioned by the young poet ( line 926 ) while he addresses Pisthetaerus in the manner of the illustrious bard Pindar addressing Hieron ( Pindar fragment 94 ).

* Pindar: A renowned poet, he is referred to by name ( line 939 ) and his elevated style is plagiarized by the young versifier ( see remarks for Hieron I above ).

* John Wolcot ( 1738 – 1819 ), poet and satirist who wrote under the name of " Peter Pindar ", was born here.

According to ancient sources such as Plutarch and Pausanias, she came from Tanagra in Boeotia, where she was a teacher and rival to the better-known Theban poet Pindar.

The name Pindar is taken from the ancient Greek poet, whose house alone was left standing after his city was razed.

His birthplace is given as " the banks of the Cephissus " by Pindar or Hyria in Boeotia by the Megalai Ehoiai, but his later residence was Taenarum in Laconia.

78, Pan is associated with a mother goddess, perhaps Rhea or Cybele ; Pindar refers to virgins worshipping Cybele and Pan near the poet's house in Boeotia.

This is a euphemism replacing an earlier ' Inhospitable Sea ', Pontos Axeinos, first attested in Pindar ( early fifth century BCE ,~ 475 BC ).

The painting is known as Pindar and Ictinus and is exhibited at the National Gallery, London.

He has often been compared unfavourably with his contemporary, Pindar, as " a kind of Boccherini to Pindar's Haydn ", yet the differences in their styles doesn't allow for easy comparison and " to blame Bacchylides for not being Pindar is as childish a judgement as to condemn ... Marvel for missing the grandeur of Milton.

There is an ancient tradition, upheld for example by Eustathius and Thomas Magister, that he was younger than Pindar and some modern scholars have endorsed it, such as Jebb, who assigns his birth to around 507 BC, whereas Bowra, for example, opted for a much earlier date, around 524 – 1 BC.

Plutarch is the only ancient source for this account and yet it is considered credible on the basis of some literary evidence ( Pindar wrote a paean celebrating Ceos, in which he says on behalf of the island " I am renowned for my athletic achievements among Greeks " 4, epode 1, a circumstance that suggests that Bacchylides himself was unavailable at the time.

The tyrant's apparent preference for Bacchylides over Pindar on this occasion might have been partly due to the Cean poet's simpler language and not just to his less moralizing posture, and yet it is also possible that Bacchylides and his uncle were simply better suited to palace politics than was their more high-minded rival.

Bacchylides has often been compared unflatteringly with Pindar, as for example by the French critic, Henri Weil: " There is no doubt that he fails of the elevation, and also of the depth, of Pindar.

It is possible in that case that Bacchylides's image of himself as an eagle in Ode 5 was a retort to Pindar.

Ultimately, however, Bacchylides and Pindar share many of the same goals and techniques – the difference is largely one of temperament:

Pindar says that he is the right-hand man of Cronus ( now ruling Elysium ) and was the sole judge of the dead.

Pindar employed the quest for the Golden Fleece in his Fourth Pythian Ode ( written in 462 BC ), though the fleece itself is not in the foreground ; when Aeetes challenges Jason to yoke the fire-breathing bulls, the fleece is the prize: " Let the King do this, the captain of the ship!

However, Pindar scholiasts are generally considered unreliable and there is no reason to accept their account.

At scholia to Pindar, Pythia 4. 252 yet another form — Enarea ( or )— is found .</ ref > Her children were Cretheus, Sisyphus, Athamas, Salmoneus, Deion, Magnes, Perieres, Canace, Alcyone, Peisidice, Calyce, and Perimede.