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This article concerns the period 479 BC – 470 BC.
Bacchylides was a Greek lyric poet. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets, which included his uncle Simonides. The elegance and polished style of his lyrics have been noted in Bacchylidean scholarship since at least Longinus. Some scholars have characterized these qualities as superficial charm. He has often been compared unfavourably with his contemporary, Pindar, as "a kind of Boccherini to Pindar's Haydn". However, the differences in their styles do not allow for easy comparison, and translator Robert Fagles has written that "to blame Bacchylides for not being Pindar is as childish a judgement as to condemn ... Marvell for missing the grandeur of Milton". His career coincided with the ascendency of dramatic styles of poetry, as embodied in the works of Aeschylus or Sophocles, and he is in fact considered one of the last poets of major significance within the more ancient tradition of purely lyric poetry. The most notable features of his lyrics are their clarity in expression and simplicity of thought, making them an ideal introduction to the study of Greek lyric poetry in general and to Pindar's verse in particular.
Aegimius was the Greek mythological ancestor of the Dorians, who is described as their king and lawgiver at the time when they were yet inhabiting the northern parts of Thessaly.
Alpheus or Alpheios, was in Greek mythology a river and river god.
In Greek mythology, Euphemus was counted among the Calydonian hunters and the Argonauts, and was connected with the legend of the foundation of Cyrene.
Hiero I.
Pindar was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. 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." His poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least until the 1896 discovery of some poems by his rival Bacchylides; comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of only the poet himself. His poetry, while admired by critics, still challenges the casual reader and his work is largely unread among the general public.
The Pythian Games were one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. They were held in honour of Apollo at his sanctuary at Delphi every four years, two years after the Olympic Games, and between each Nemean and Isthmian Games. The Pythian Games were founded sometime in the 6th century BC. In legend they were started by Apollo after he killed Python and set up the oracle at Delphi. They continued until the 4th century AD.
Typhon, also Typhoeus, Typhaon or Typhos, was a monstrous serpentine giant and one of the deadliest creatures in Greek mythology. According to Hesiod, Typhon was the son of Gaia and Tartarus. However, one source has Typhon as the son of Hera alone, while another makes Typhon the offspring of Cronus. Typhon and his mate Echidna were the progenitors of many famous monsters.
In Greek mythology, Ixion was king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly.
The Battle of Cumae is the name given to at least two battles between Cumae and the Etruscans:
In Greek mythology, Enceladus was one of the Giants, the offspring of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Sky). Enceladus was the traditional opponent of Athena during the Gigantomachy, the war between the Giants and the gods, and was said to be buried under Mount Etna in Sicily.
Pindarics was a term for a class of loose and irregular odes greatly in fashion in England during the close of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century. Abraham Cowley, who published fifteen Pindarique Odes in 1656, was the poet most identified with the form though many others had composed irregular verses before him. The term is derived from the name of a Greek archaic poet, Pindar, but is based on a misconception since Pindar's odes were in fact very formal, obeying a triadic structure, in which the form of the first stanza (strophe) was repeated in the second stanza (antistrophe), followed by a third stanza (epode) that introduced variations but whose form was repeated by other epodes in subsequent triads. Cowley's Resurrection, which was considered in the 17th century to be a model of the 'pindaric' style, is a formless poem of sixty-four lines, arbitrarily divided, not into triads, but into four stanzas of unequal volume and structure; the lines which form these stanzas are of lengths varying from three feet to seven feet, with rhymes repeated in no order. It was the looseness of these 'pindarics' that appealed to many poets at the close of the 17th century, including John Dryden, Aphra Behn, and Alexander Pope, and many lesser poets, such as John Oldham, Thomas Otway, Thomas Sprat, John Hughes and Thomas Flatman.
Anaxilas or Anaxilaus, son of Cretines, was a tyrant of Rhegium in Magna Graecia. He was originally from Messenia, a region in the Peloponnese.
The epinikion or epinicion is a genre of occasional poetry also known in English as a victory ode. In ancient Greece, the epinikion most often took the form of a choral lyric, commissioned for and performed at the celebration of an athletic victory in the Panhellenic Games and sometimes in honor of a victory in war. Major poets in the genre are Simonides, Bacchylides, and Pindar.
In a poem by the Greek poet Pindar, Angelia (Ancient Greek: Ἀγγελία is mentioned as a daughter of the Greek messenger-god Hermes, where she is understood as "message" personified.
Pherenikos was an Ancient Greek chestnut racehorse victorious at the Olympic and Pythian Games in the 470s BC. Pherenikos, whose name means "victory-bearer", was "the most famous racehorse in antiquity". Owned by Hieron I, tyrant of Syracuse, Pherenikos is celebrated in the victory odes of both Pindar and Bacchylides.
Pindar's Eighth Nemean Ode is an ancient Greek epinikion celebrating a victory of Deinias of Aegina. The poem's exact occasion is uncertain, but a success in the diaulos race at the Nemean games is presumed to be the athletic contest in question. While its presumptive date of composition is 459 BC, the poem is known for its treatment of the Aeacidae and the suicide of Ajax.
Olympian 4, 'For Psaumis of Camarina', is an ode by the 5th century BC Greek poet Pindar.
Olympian 6, 'For Hagesias of Syracuse', is an ode by the 5th century BC Greek poet Pindar.
