Pindar as a School Author in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: The Evidence of Papyri and Medieval Manuscripts

Abstract

This paper studies the role of Pindar’s poetry in Late Antique and Byzantine education up to ca. AD 1280. Based on references to Pindar in ancient and Byzantine authors, and the number and content of papyri and medieval manuscripts, it traces the gradual narrowing of the school syllabus from Pindar’s entire oeuvre to the Epinicians (Victory Odes) in the fourth century AD and eventually a Byzantine ‘selection’ of only the Olympians and Pythians. It also examines select papyri and manuscripts for signs that they served educational purposes. It is argued that, as in the case of many ‘classical’ Greek authors and texts, the transmission of Pindar’s works, and their reception in Late Antiquity and Byzantium, cannot be separated from their use in schools.