[3] In Pindar's ode, he was cited for winning the Pankration thrice: as a boy at Megara, as a young man at Epidaurus; and, at Nemea during his advanced years.
[5] Dutch classical scholar Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer has suggested that the ode indicates that Aristocleidas won his victory without using the services of a professional trainer, which would have been fairly unusual at the time.
Other scholars, such as Nigel James Nicholson, disagree with this interpretation and go so far as to say the ode may even be metaphorical, not representing a contemporaneous athletic victory, but a political one.
This would be similar to the eleventh Nemean Ode, in which Pindar celebrates the election of Aristagoras to the local prytaneion (a governing body) while also referencing his athletic triumphs as a young man.
[6][7] The Neoplatonist philosopher Iamblichus refers to a "Aristocleidas of Tarentum", who lived around the 5th century BCE, who was an adherent of Pythagoreanism, and about whom no more is known.