Pindar

Summary

Pindar (518–c. 440) was an aristocratic Boeotian lyric poet known especially for his odes in honor of victors at festivals such as the one at Olympia. He wrote for rich and powerful patrons throughout the Greek world and was, on the whole, a defender of tradition. The fragment translated here comes from one of the most frequently cited poems of Greek antiquity. It is most notably cited by Herodotus (3.38, fr. 3) and by Plato, Gorgias 484b (Unknown authors, fr. 2), who quotes the first five lines and summarizes part of the remainder (cf. Laws 680b). About forty lines of the poem have been reconstructed from a recently discovered papyrus and other sources, but the original meaning is increasingly uncertain after line 20. Pindar's point appears to be that, despite the apparent injustice of Heracles' violent treatment of his two victims, the traditional glorification of Heracles' labors makes this behavior just.

The Nomos–Basileus fragment (S 169)

Custom (nomos), king of all,

of mortals and immortals,

takes up and justifies what is most violent

with a supremely high hand. As evidence,

I cite the deeds of Heracles:

for he drove the cattle of Geryon

to the Cyclopean courtyard of Eurystheus

without paying, and when they were not for sale. […]