Pindar

Pindar (c. 518–c. 438 BCE) was an ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes in Boeotia and is widely regarded as the greatest composer of choral lyric in classical Greece. He is best known for his epinician odes—songs written to celebrate victors at the Panhellenic games, including the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean festivals. Commissioned by aristocratic patrons, his poems combine praise of athletic achievement with myth, moral reflection, and religious devotion, often linking a winner’s success to divine favor and family lineage. Pindar’s surviving works are chiefly the victory odes, preserved alongside fragments of other genres.