Pindar was a poet of ancient Greece, significantly later than Homer but not quite as late as the famous tragedians. He (and others) wrote odes to commemorate athletic victories at the Olympic games, the Pythian games, and other such competitions. Apparently, the Greeks liked these poems very much, and Pindar was often paid very well for composing an ode either for a victorious local noble or for a local noble who sponsored a victorious athlete.
This may seem somewhat silly to us, like something between making a living writing poetry for commercials and giving movie roles to professional athletes, but the Greeks did not see things this way. The games were very important politically, and a nobleman's participation was probably something akin to a United States politician's travels around his/her constituency during an election year. So writing poems about athletic victories was thought to be more of noble occupation and less like selling out.
Unfortunately, Pindar's odes are not a fun read in modern times. They jump between unexplained references to myths and Greek social practices that were certainly familiar to the intended audience but are often very confusing to today's readers, even when those readers are Classics majors. Those who can read Greek have also noted that the language used in the odes is often very hard to interpret. Finally, it can be dissatisfying to the reader to follow a poem that can be summed up as:
- This great noble from that city is very good.
- He is responsible for a great victory at this specific event.
- He also throws great parties to poets who write about him. (I'm honestly not exaggerating this.)
- This relates to a great myth about him or his city.
- And this other myth.
- Many more myths.
- And this is why he's such a great athlete or sponsor.
But, while Pindar may be a less enjoyable read than Plato, Homer, or even Aeschylus, he does give a lot of obscure tidbits of information to those who are willing to study him deeply, since many of the myths and customs he mentions are otherwise completely unknown. This gives Classics people things to write books and papers about.