The Victory Odes of Pindar

The Victory Odes of Pindar
  http://blog.oup.com/2012/07/the-victory-odes-of-pindar/

As the Olympic Games kick off tomorrow, Mayor of London Boris Johnson has
ensured that London 2012 retains its ties to the ancient world. Trained as
a classicist and fond of reciting Latin (particularly in debate), he
commissioned an ode by Armand D’Angour

http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/arts_at_oxford/120723.html

in the style of the Ancient Greek poet Pindar
 <http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199553907.do>,

 which was recited at the Olympic Gala at Royal Opera House on July
24th. Oxford University classicist Dr Armand D’Angour’s Olympic Ode
will be installed at the Olympic Park in East London, but you can
discover Pindar’s verses on
the blog today. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction by Stephen Instone
to The Complete Odes by Pindar, translated by Anthony Verity:

The victory odes are divided into Olympians, Pythians, Nemeans, and
Isthmians after the four great ‘panhellenic’ games that were open to all
Greeks. All athletics games in ancient Greece were part of a religious
festival in honour of gods or heroes. The Olympic games were the oldest and
most prestigious, held in Elis in the western Peloponnese in honour of
Zeus. There had been a sanctuary to Zeus there even before the traditional
date for the founding of the games (776 BC). Athletics competitions
provided an additional way of honouring the god, the winner owing his
victory to the help of the god and in consequence thanking the god. The
festival lasted five days and took place, as nowadays, every four years. On