SOURCE: "Performing Pindar's Odes." Classical Philology, Vol. 84, No. 4, October, 1984, pp. 283-93.

In the following excerpt, Burnett argues that a chorus sang and danced Pindar's odes.

It has been suggested in several places recently that we have been wrong to suppose a choral production for all of Pindar's epinician odes. One scholar, in fact, now assures us that—barring evidence to the contrary—we should assume of any Pindaric ode that it was meant for the solo voice. Furthermore, "evidence to the contrary" is recognized only if it appears within the song in question, and it is found to be virtually nonexistent. Passages in which Pindar might seem to refer to the singing of his chorus are explained in two ways: they refer either to impromptu group activities that were associated with, but quite separate from, the performance of the epinician ode, or to the behavior of a group...