Pindar was born in 518 bce near Thebes, and though his work is the best preserved of any of the choral poets, as usual we know very little about the details of his life. His last dated poem (Pythian 8) was written in 446, when he was at least 72.
Though he wrote many other kinds of works — hymns, paeans, dithyrambs, etc — it is his epincian odes, composed to celebrate victors in the Panhellenic games, that come down to us. The odes are named by the games the victor won in: Olymian, Pythian, Nemean and Isthmian.
For more details, see the Perseus Encyclopedia article on Pindar. UC Berkeley has made available a digital version of Bundy's famous Studia Pindarica.
Pindar writes in the choral doric dialect (there is a small introduction for that). In the commentaries I'll note the Ionic or Attic forms when necessary.
- Olympian 1 by Chad Bochan (May 2005)
- Olympian 11 (June 2005)
- Olympian 14 (April 2005)
- Isthmian 2 (August 2007)