This form of culture, which had to irremediably lose ground as a result of the new currents, was inspired in general – from whatever part of the world – by the choral lyric poets who lived between the century. VI and V, like Simonides of Ceo, Bacchilides and especially Pindar of Thebes. They continued the tradition of Alcmane and Stesicoro; they carried their songs in public ceremonies, religious feasts and national games; they drew material not so much from contemporary reality as from the patrimony of myths, memories and heroic legends, which were considered as a source of useful teachings and as the basis of the noblest and most perfect education. In fact, the Doric culture was entirely aimed at the veneration of the past; she was austere and religious; taught to appreciate essentially the physical value, in which he saw reflected the image of true moral value; he considered virtue linked with the nobility of birth and as a gift from God. Choral lyric poets, out of attachment to tradition and above all for the needs imposed by the customs and ceremonies to which their songs were addressed, drew largely on these archaic ideals: they drew on them even when by the pressure of the times or by their own nature they were pushed to mix them with different tendencies, with influences of ionic rationalism and perhaps with seeds of sophistical thought.
Simonides (according to the fragments and testimonies) is the one in which the new currents, breaking the envelope of tradition, managed to penetrate further: hence he, a choral poet, appears to us in some aspects as a precursor of the sophists. He lived mostly in the princes’ courts; in his youth he still participated in the glories of Polycrates in Samos and of the Pisistratids in Athens; then it was from the Alevades in Thessaly and from the Dinomenidi in Syracuse: but he knew how to adapt to changes in age and conditions; he looked with sympathy at the progress of the Athenian civilization; it suffered the impression of the Persian wars and was the herald of the Greek victory. His muse, essentially fickle and pervaded by light spirituality, allowed them to sing about everything and everyone.
On the other hand, the purest interpreter, and one would almost say the prophet, of Doric tradition and education is Pindar: of whom we can judge with all the greater foundation as he is the only Greek lyricist of which a good number is preserved. of entire compositions (the four books of the Epinei, divided according to their destination at the Panhellenic festivals: Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, Nemee). Although he lived up to the Periclean age, however, due to his way of thinking and poetry, he completely falls into the age prior to the Persian wars. Little sensitive to the great events of contemporary history, his attention and his sympathy di lui are directed not towards Athens, but towards Sparta, towards the aristocratic and monarchical institutions on which he sees reflected the ideal image of the past. Even when he realizes that his humanity di lui does not agree with the new trends that arise alongside him, he nevertheless tries to resolve the conflict in a kind of confident and serene equilibrium. His poetic world is made up of the old heroic-mythological heritage that the choral lyric had inherited from Homer and Hesiod: to which he applies a strong imprint of idealization, animating and sublimating it then principles of that noble and austere ethic which was especially in honor among the Doric populations. He relives the material of myths, not passively, but with depth of feeling and with faith: he relives it to propose it as a norm of life, to draw from it the light of beauty and wisdom. The principles of religion, morality and gnomics, to which Pindar essentially aims, do not remain for him mere abstractions, but merge in the heart of the imagination, are transformed into mythical figurations of unsurpassed representative efficacy. On this depends his greatness and originality di lui as a poet. he relives it to propose it as a norm of life, to draw from it the light of beauty and wisdom. The principles of religion, morality and gnomics, to which Pindar essentially aims, do not remain for him mere abstractions, but merge in the heart of the imagination, are transformed into mythical figurations of unsurpassed representative efficacy. On this depends his greatness and originality di lui as a poet. he relives it to propose it as a norm of life, to draw from it the light of beauty and wisdom. The principles of religion, morality and gnomics, to which Pindar essentially aims, do not remain for him mere abstractions, but merge in the heart of the imagination, are transformed into mythical figurations of unsurpassed representative efficacy. On this depends his greatness and originality di lui as a poet.
