Arguably the greatest Greek lyric poet, Pindar (518-438 B.C.) was a controversial figure in fifth-century Greece--a conservative Boiotian aristocrat who studied in Athens and a writer on physical prowess whose interest in the Games was largely philosophical. Pindar's Epinician Odes--choral songs extolling victories in the Games at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea and Korinth--cover the whole spectrum of the Greek moral order, from earthly competition to fate and mythology. But in C....