SOURCE: "On Myth and Action in Pindar." Arethusa, Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall, 1971, pp. 119-35.

In the excerpt below, Vivante examines action in Pindar's odes as expressing fulfillment of mythic forms rather than individual feats.

… If … we turn to ancient Greece, we find a very peculiar situation. Right at the beginning of its civilization there is a pervasive mythology whose roots, as Nilsson showed, sink deep into the Mycenaean past. And, what is more, this mythology has a strong hold on literature. The poets drew from it, generally, their material for the portrayal of human action. Whereas in the European Middle Ages historical events were consciously transformed into legends, the reverse process seems to have occurred in early Greece: legends were brought down to a human measure. Recorded memory had receded; but a powerful mythical imagination had reduced into a series of lifelike representations the compact mass of tribal history...