Extant work of Bacchylides.

The poems, or fragments of poems, in the Bacchylides Papyrus are of two general kinds. The first thirteen pieces are epinikia. The remaining six, all relating to episodes in the story of heroes and heroines, were collectively classed by the Alexandrians as ‘dithyrambs,’ in that large sense of the term which was explained above. The number of verses represented by the continuous portions of the papyrus (including verses lost in lacunae of which the length can be determined) is 1392. If we suppose, with Blass, that the part lost at the beginning (of which small fragments remain) represents 110 verses, the total is 1502. The fragments preserved by ancient writers, and not found in the papyrus, give about 95 verses more, thus raising the approximate total to 1597. That number is only about 150 less than half the total in Pindar's extant odes and fragments, which is (roughly) about 3500.

His treatment of the epinikion.

Details of the victory.

In considering the poetical qualities of Bacchylides, we may set out from his treatment of the epinikion. A trait in which he differs from Pindar, and probably follows Simonides, is the tendency which he sometimes shows to dwell on the circumstances of the particular victory. An illustration is furnished by his fifth ode, as compared with Pindar's first Olympian, which was written on the same occasion.