CHAPTER 23
Christopher Brown
Pindarum quisquis studet aemulari,
Iulle, ceratis ope Daedalea
nititur pennis uitreo daturus
nomina ponto.
monte decurrens uelut amnis, imbres
quem super notas aluere ripas,
feruet immensusque ruit profundo
Pindarus ore …
Anyone, Iullus, who strives to compete with Pindar relies on wings that have been waxed with Daedalus’ skill, and is destined to give his name to a glassy sea. Like a river rushing down a mountainside, swollen by rains above its normal banks, Pindar boils and surges immeasurably on with his deep booming voice …
(Rudd)
It may seem odd to begin a discussion of Pindar with a quotation from Horace, but the portrait of Horace’s lyric predecessor in Odes 4.2 was enormously influential, very quickly becoming the standard way of talking about the reception of the poet. Quintilian, for example, in his brief survey of Greek lyric poetry writes, “Pindar is far the greatest, for inspiration, magnificence, sententiae, figures, a rich stock of ideas and words, and a real flood of eloquence.”1 The image of the river naturally leads to Horace’s ode, and Quintilian continues, “Horace rightly thinks him inimitable for these reasons.”
The purpose of this chapter is not so much to challenge Horace’s grand view of Pindar as to give it some depth, for along with Horace’s suggestion of a certain kind of brilliance came disdain, a tendency to see the raging river as, in fact, rather shallow. Even Wilamowitz, author of one of the most influential books on the poet, finds Pindar’s world unattractive to us and the poet himself to be lacking in substance (“Er selbst ist kein reicher Geist”),2 and this will ultimately be seen to reflect our failure as interpreters of the poet rather than any intrinsic quality of his poetry.
Biography
Pindar is generally believed to have been born in Cynoscephalae in Boeotia ca. 518 BC, and the date of his death is placed ca. 446 BC, not too long after the composition of Pythian 8. Although there is some uncertainty about the names of his parents, especially his father, he seems to have belonged to a distinguished aristocratic family. We also have a reference to a wife, Megacleia, daughter of Lysitheus and Calline, along with a son, Daiphantos, and two daughters, Protomache and Eumetis. Throughout his career Pindar received commissions from most parts of the Greek world, and thus the world-view implicit in his poems is truly pan-Hellenic. In this light, he is a noteworthy complement to the tragic poets, with whom Pindar is often compared, for their world is very much that of democratic Athens.
There is the illusion of a rich biographical tradition concerning Pindar.3 Scholars often point to passages in the odes that can be understood as supporting the accuracy of these details. There are numerous anecdotes in later ancient authors and the entry in the Suda (π 1617 Adler), a Byzantine encyclopedia dating from the late tenth century, but pride of place must go to the five biographical sketches, the Vitae, that are transmitted in the medieval manuscripts of the odes, which have been augmented by a fragmentary life on papyrus (POxy 2438 = FGrH 1132F 1). Despite this abundance, however, the only fact of Pindar’s life that is accepted as certain is that Pindar was Theban. Scholars have long realized that ancient biographies of poets were typically constructed from an authors’ works, with poetic details, in some cases refracted through the lens of comedy, presented as facts of a poet’s life.4 There is also a tendency to attach familiar story-types to well-known poet. For example, the Ambrosian Vita recounts that when Pindar, as a child, fell asleep from exhaustion on a hunting trip near Mt. Helicon, a bee built a honeycomb in his mouth. The Vita attributes this story to the Peripatetic Chamaeleon (fr. 32a Wehrli = 34B Martano) and the local historian Ister (FGrH 334F 77),5 and it is possible that the details go back to a poem by Pindar; bees and honey are common symbols of poetry in ancient literature (Waszink 1974). That the story is set near Mt. Helicon, however, may suggest that the story has been influenced by the tradition of Hesiod’s poetic encounter (Theogony 22–35), and it is noteworthy that there is a similar association of honey with Sophocles.6
The Alexandrian Edition
Pindar was numbered among the Nine Lyric poets,7 and his surviving poetry was collected at Alexandria and edited according to the standards of the day. We have little or no idea of how his work survived before this time. The story told by the Rhodian historian Gorgon, that Olympian 7 was inscribed on the walls of the temple of Lindian Athena in letters of gold (FGrH 515F 18 = Schol. Pind. Ol. 7 tit., 1.195.13 Dr.), may reflect the fact that many poems were preserved by individual families and communities.8 At some point texts were brought to the Library in Alexandria, where scholars arranged them in terms of genre and produced what became the standard edition of the poet in later antiquity. The Ambrosian Life states that Pindar wrote 17 books, and offers a list:
Hymns
Paeans
Dithyrambs (2)
Prosodia (2)
Partheneia (2)
“Separated from the Partheneia”
Hyporchemes (2)
Encomia
Lamentations
Epinicians (4)
These terms seem to reflect the Alexandrian classification of lyric poetry, perhaps devised by no less a figure than Aristophanes of Byzantium, and they recur in later lists.9 These genres all underline Pindar’s role as a poet of praise; there is no evidence for the poetry of blame, no iambos or invective.10 In fact, Pindar opposes himself to Archilochus, the paradigmatic poet of invective and blame (ψογερός, Pyth. 2.55). Apart from the four books of Epinicians, no other work of Pindar survived complete and was transmitted to the modern world through a manuscript tradition of its own. There are, however, numerous fragments, particularly papyrus fragments of the Paeans and Partheneia, on the basis of which we are able to form some impression of Pindar’s work as a whole.11 In classifying lyric poetry according to genres, Proclus divided poems into three categories: those addressed to the gods, those addressed to men, and those addressed to both gods and men. Such distinctions may seem helpful and relevant to the Pindaric corpus, as edited by the Alexandrians, with the list beginning with poems addressed to the gods and concluding with poems addressed to men. But Proclus’ division is overly schematic, and obscures Pindar’s tendency to see men in relation to gods. Olympian 2, for example, is an Epinician that opens by invoking ἀναξιφόρμιγγες ὕμνοι (“hymns that rule the lyre”), and then asks:
τίνα θεόν, τίν’ ἥρωα, τίνα δ’ ἄνδρα κελαδήσομεν;
What god, what hero, and what man shall we celebrate?
The poem that follows answers these questions by celebrating the human victory of Theron in the Olympian competition presided over by the god Zeus and founded by the hero Heracles. Alexandrian scholars may have looked to the texts of the poets for the names of genres and other generic markers—Pindar notably refers to ἐπινίκιοι ἀοιδαί (“Epinician songs,” Nem. 4.78)—but his poetry resists any tidy system of classification.
Pindar was recognized throughout antiquity as one of the great lyric poets, and the papyri attest to the fact that he continued to attract readers, but it is also clear that the text was not easy, and an interpretative tradition grew up around it. This bulk of this is lost, but the odes are transmitted with a rich set of scholia that contain traces of the ancient tradition of exegesis.12 These traces are regularly the products of a long process of epitomization and paraphrase that renders their meaning and origins obscure. Much may go back to the influential commentary by Didymus, who relied heavily on the work of Alexandrian scholars, but there is also a wide range of other material; some of it of little value.13 The scholia remain, nonetheless, fundamental to the interpretation of the poet, and regularly constitute a point of departure for modern scholarly analysis.
The Epinicians
The Epinicians alone survived into the modern world and were transmitted by a medieval manuscript tradition. It is not clear why these poems alone survived. Eustathius writes that the Epinicians “also circulate especially on account of their greater focus on humanity and brevity and because they are not very obscure—at least in comparison with the other (poems).” (Intr. § 34, p. 28.13–28.15 Kambylis, οἳ καὶ περιάγονται μάλιστα διὰ τὸ ἀνθρωπικώτεροι εἶναι καὶ ὀλιγόμυθοι καὶ μηδὲ πάνυ ἔχειν ἀσαφῶς κατά γε τά ἄλλα.) This suggests that in Eustathius’ judgment at least the Epinicians lend themselves more readily to interpretation than do other poems in the ancient corpus.14
As the name suggests, the Epinicians were composed to celebrate victory in the games. The four books are arranged according to the relevant competition, beginning with the most prestigious, the games at Zeus’ shrine at Olympia, then in order of descending status to the Pythian Games at Delphi, the Nemean Games, and finally the games in honor of Poseidon at Isthmia. Within each book there is also a rough attempt at a ranked order, beginning with the four-horse chariot race, the event of the highest status, and then events of lesser importance (e.g., Pythian 12 was prompted by the victory of an aulos-player). This arrangement is not completely consistent. Olympian 1, which commemorates Hieron’s Olympic victory with a single racehorse, should follow Olympians 2 and 3, but we are told that the poem was placed at the beginning of the collection by Aristophanes of Byzantium “on account of its containing the praise of the competition and the story of Pelops, who competed first at Elis” (Vita Thom. 1.7.15 Dr.). It is also possible that some poems have been classified incorrectly. Pythian 3, for example, resembles other Epinicians formally, but appears to be a poem of consolation rather than a celebration of victory.15
The odes are all constructed in triads, a matching strophe and antistrophe followed by a metrically distinct epode. This allows for considerable flexibility in length: poems can be as short as a single triad (Pythian 7) to the extraordinary Pythian 4 with its 13 triads, running to nearly 300 lines. The typical ode, however, is about 100 lines in length and is composed of about four triads. Metrically, the odes fall into three classes, with some overlap: aeolic, iambic, and dactylo-epitritic.16 Pindar’s metrical practice and the analysis of individual poems has received considerable attention, and the Teubner edition contains a helpful analysis for each poem that reflects current thinking about lyric meter. There are still uncertainties and disagreements among scholars; some poems seem to resist metrical analysis. Olympian 1 is a conspicuous example: it is without doubt the best-known of the Epinicians, but a precise metrical analysis has proved to be elusive.17
The meters of the odes are typical of what is commonly called choral poetry, and, consequently, choral performance has long been assumed by most scholars, reflecting the view that early Greek lyric was either choral or monodic. That assumption, however, has been challenged, and it now must be admitted that both modes of performance are possible.18 Choral performance would suit public or communal celebrations, while performance by a solo singer would be appropriate to performance at small-scale, private occasions, such as symposia.19 The importance of occasion for early Greek poetry has long been recognized; it was a facet of the oral nature of early Greece that saw the dissemination of poetry in terms of occasion. But more recent scholarship has shown us that we must think in terms of both performance and reperformance.20 On this view, poems were not intended for a single performance, but were performed again and again. Such performances were not only important for the survival of these texts, but were anticipated as an element in their composition. In the case of Pindar’s odes it is possible that both modes of performance were possible. Furthermore, it is not unlikely that the same ode was performed differently in different settings. For example, a chorus at a communal victory celebration, and then solo performances at symposia. At the center of these questions is the matter of voice, the first-person references in the poem.21 Scholars have generally taken these as embodying the voice of the poet, but does the mode of performance influence how we understand them? Is there a choral “I” as well as a poet’s “I”? When Pythian 9 begins with an emphatic first-person statement (ἐθέλω, “I wish,” the first word of the poem), does it make any difference if the poem is sung by a chorus or a soloist?
In the odes there is considerable flexibility with respect to the use and arrangement of their various constituent parts. It is hard to say that there is a “typical” ode; they are all distinctive, and yet there are certain features that are common enough to be surveyed.
The odes regularly open with a striking rhetorical flourish that catches the audience’s attention. The most famous of these is that of Olympian 1(1–8):
ἄριστον μὲν ὕδωρ, ὁ δὲ χρυσὸς αἰθόμενον πῦρ
ἅτε διαπρέπει νυκτὶ μεγάνορος ἔξοχα πλούτου ·
εἰ δ᾽ ἄεθλα γαρύεν
ἔλδεαι, φίλον ἦτορ,
μηκέτ᾽ ἀελίου σκόπει
ἄλλο θαλπνότερον ἐν ἁμέραι φαεν-
νὸν ἄστρον ἐρήμας δι᾽ αἰθέρος,
μηδ᾽ Ὀλυμπίας ἀγῶνα φέρτερον αὐδάσομεν.
Best is water, while gold, like fire blazing
in the night, shines preeminent amid lordly wealth.
But if you wish to sing
of athletic games, my heart,
look no further than the sun
for another star shining more warmly by day
through the empty sky,
nor let us proclaim a contest greater than Olympia. (Race)
These lines are an example of a rhetorical figure called a priamel, which occurs frequently in early Greek poetry.22 It works by setting out a series of detached statements in such a way as to bring special emphasis to the last. A priamel may be explicitly contrastive. For example, Sappho’s celebrated statement of what is “the most beautiful thing on the black earth” (fr. 16 Voigt/Campbell) enumerates the views of others (οἰ μὲν … οἰ δὲ … οἰ δὲ …) before giving her own judgment (ἔγω δὲ …). For Sappho, this is at once a statement of fact and, as the poem continues, a provocation. Pindar, by contrast, sets out three examples of what is best and creates a sliding scale of excellence by treating each one at greater length. The Olympic games are thus strikingly aligned with the preeminent substances of water and gold, and they are given pride of place by the amplitude of Pindar’s description.23 These opening lines no doubt caught the attention of the audience, and it is no surprise to find them echoed by Bacchylides in his ode for Hieron’s chariot victory in 468 (3.85–92). They also move deftly into the praise of the victory of Hieron and the aetiological myth that tells of the foundation of the chariot race at Olympia.
In some cases the opening stands apart from the rest of the poem. A noteworthy example is Olympian 7, which begins with an elaborate simile (1–7):
Φιάλαν ὡς εἴ τις ἀφνειᾶς ἀπὸ χειρὸς ἑλών
ἔνδον ἀμπέλου καχλάζοισαν δρόσωι
δωρήσεται
νεανίαι γαμβρῶι προπίνων
οἴκοθεν οἴκαδε, πάγχρυσον, κορυφὰν κτεάνων,
συμποσίου τε χάριν κᾶ-
δός τε τιμάσαις ⟨ν⟩έον, ἐν δὲ φίλων
παρεόντων θῆκέ νιν ζαλωτὸν ὁμόφρονος εὐνᾶς ·
As when a man takes from a rich hand a bowl
foaming inside with dew of the vine
and presents it
to a young bridegroom with a toast from one home
to another—an all-golden bowl, crown of possessions—
as he honors the joy of the symposium
and a new alliance, and thereby with friends
present makes him envied for his harmonious marriage… (after Race)
Developed similes, a hallmark of epic style, are rare in Pindar’s poetry.24 Here the simile may suggest similarities between a bridegroom and a victorious athlete,25 but the image of the lavish gift prepares us for the poet’s statement about the value of his song, and, moreover, underlines the poet’s authority (7–10):
καὶ ἐγὼ νέκταρ χυτόν, Μοισᾶν δόσιν, ἀεθλοφόροις
ἀνδράσιν πέμπων, γλυκὺν καρπὸν φρενός,
ἱλάσκομαι,
Ὀλυμπίαι Πυθοῖ τε νικών-
τεσσιν.
… so I too, by sending the poured nectar, gift of the Muses
and sweet fruit of the mind, to men who win prizes,
gain the favor
of victors at Olympia and Pytho. (Race)
Unlike the beginning of Olympian 1, the simile does not provide a direct link to the victory of Diagoras, but it does enhance the value of the ode as a gift from the Muses, and this emphasizes the authority of the poet, a point of some significance in a poem in which the myth is strikingly “corrected” by the poet (20–21, ἐθελήσω … ξυνὸν … διορθῶσαι λόγον). We can also compare the invocation of the lyre at the beginning of Pythian 1 or the architectural metaphor that opens Olympian 6. These are all passages that implicitly make similar claims of poetic authority, and this is but one way of beginning a victory-song. The passages that we have looked at are among the most striking instances, but elsewhere the opening flourish is nonetheless striking (e.g., addresses to the personified cities of the victors at Olympian 8 and Pythian 2), and even where Pindar seems to avoid a characteristic flourish, as at Pythian 9, its absence is an arresting gesture in itself.
The purpose of the victory-odes is to celebrate the achievements of a victor. Pindar finds a number of ways of doing this, and it is likely that the odes were commissioned by the victor or his family (or possibly friends), and, furthermore, it is likely that the poet was given some guidance on matters that were considered relevant to the occasion. This is what is often referred to as the “program” of the ode.26 Accordingly, we find the praise of the trainer Melesias in Olympian 8, a poem commemorating the victory of an Aeginetan boy wrestler, in which the text suggests a close connection between the trainer and the family.27 At Isthmian 2.20–28 there is the praise of the charioteer Nicomachus, who drove the chariot for the victor. It seems likely that these details were part of the program that Pindar received; behind other victories there are almost certainly trainers and charioteers who are passed over in silence.
Pindar does not focus on the victor in isolation. The recognition of achievement requires context. Pindar regularly spends some time on the occasion of the victory, specifying the particular competition, and an acknowledgement of the relevant deity or deities under whose auspices the contest took place. He is clearly aware of the hierarchy that puts the so-called crown games at the top and local competitions farther down the list. It is for this reason that the Olympic games can be equated with gold (Ol. 1.1) and Olympic crowns can be made of gold (Ol. 8.1).28 The victor must also be named, typically alongside his father and larger family. The victor’s city is also important, and there are poems in which the personified city becomes an actor in the mythic narrative (e.g., Ol. 6 and Pyth. 9).
Of central importance is the family of the victor. This is perhaps especially the case in the many odes for boy-victors from Aegina, in which the victors’ achievements are regularly seen in relation to the accomplishments of their fathers and uncles. For Pindar success at the games is an expression of inherited excellence—his term is φυά—that was passed from father to son, a view which would be congenial to the aristocratic bias of his patrons.29 Genealogy constitutes a prominent strand of early Greek literature, and it would have been an attractive feature of Pindar’s poetry. One thinks of Nestor’s account of his embassy to Phthia when Peleus “rejoiced greatly in his own house as he questioned me, asking of the lineage and parentage (γενεήν τε τόκον τε) of all the Argives” (Il. 7.127– 128), or of the report that Hippias said that the Spartans at Olympia “listened with the greatest pleasure” (ἥδιστα ἀκροῶνται) to the generations of heroes and men (and settlements).30 Genealogy is also the central organizing principle of much of Hesiodic poetry, upon which Pindar and other lyric poets drew.31
The influence of Hesiodic poetry is also evident in the Epinician victory-catalogue. Despite the strictures of later writers, the poetic catalog (or list) is a vital feature of early Greek poetry.32 Such passages are remarkably flexible, ranging from what appear to be versified lists to sequences in which items are developed by additional narrative detail. In the Theogony we can compare the catalog of Nereids or that of the children of ocean (240–263, 337–345), lists of names and epithets loosely strung together, with the list of the monstrous progeny of Phorcys and Ceto (270–336), in which the individual monsters are in a number of cases given details that evoke their role in heroic myth. Pindar has adapted this form to present a summary of the victor’s athletic career, and shows considerable mastery in manipulating its rhetoric. An interesting example occurs in the Ninth Pythian (76–92):
ἀρεταὶ δ᾽ αἰεὶ μεγάλαι πολύμυθοι ·
βαιὰ δ᾽ ἐν μακροῖσι ποικίλλειν
ἀκοὰ σοφοῖς · ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὁμοίως
παντὸς ἔχει κορυφάν. ἔγνον ποτὲ καὶ Ἰόλαον
οὐκ ἀτιμάσαντά νιν ἑπτάπυλοι
Θῆβαι…
Great achievements are always worthy of many words,
but elaboration of a few themes amid lengthy ones
is what wise men like to hear, for deft selection conveys
the essence of the whole just as well. Seven-gated Thebes
once recognized that Iolaus too did not dishonor him… (Race)
Pindar introduces this section with a gnomic passage encapsulates the poetic challenge before him: to summarize deeds that deserve many words in a small compass. There follows the first item, a victory at the Theban Iolaia, but rather than continue with the victor’s successes Pindar picks up the reference to Iolaus by inserting the aetiology of the games and moving naturally to the praise of Iolaus’ brother Heracles. He then returns to the victor Telesicrates’ earlier successes at Aegina and Megra (the hill of Nisus):
Αἰγίναι τε γάρ
φαμὶ Νίσου τ᾽ ἐν λόφωι τρὶς
δὴ πόλιν τάνδ᾽ εὐκλέιξας,
σιγαλὸν ἀμαχανίαν ἔργωι φυγών ·
… for at Aegina
and at the hill of Nisus full three times, I avow,
you glorified this city
by escaping silent helplessness through your effort.
In this way Pindar avoids the potential monotony of a simple list (and a short one at that) and manages to entwine Telesicrates’ career with that of the greatest of Greek heroes.33
Another noteworthy feature of Pindaric poetry is the use of gnomai (γνῶμαι), typically concise statements of general truths. It goes without saying that such statements were enduringly popular among the Greeks, and examples can be found throughout Greek literature.34 They were not simply a phenomenon of literature, but likely a persistent fact of public life in inscribed form, reminding passers-by of the currency of traditional wisdom.35 Pindar’s use of them was twofold. The substance of his gnomai gave expression to a world-view that was fundamentally shared by Pindar and his patrons. In this Pindar is somewhat reminiscent of Theognis in promoting and reinforcing the aristocratic values of the elite (e.g., Ol. 2.86–8):
σοφὸς ὁ πολλὰ εἰδὼς φυᾶι ·
μαθόντες δὲ λάβροι
παγγλωσσίαι κόρακες ὣς ἄκραντα γαρύετον
Διὸς πρὸς ὄρνιχα θεῖον.
Wise is he who knows many things
by nature, whereas learners who are boisterous
and long-winded are like a pair of crows that cry in vain
against the divine bird of Zeus.
Line 86 could have been a self-standing gnomē, appealing to the aristocratic sense of the importance of “genetic” inheritance, but Pindar emphasizes the point by adding the detail about those who lack the appropriate φυά, and the comparison with the futility of a pair of crows crying against Zeus roots the sentiment in a religious hierarchy that puts Zeus at the top.36 These lines also perform the other function of gnomai in facilitating the movement between the various sections of the poem.37
For modern readers the mythic sections of the Epinicians are the best known, and Pindar stands as one of the most important—and most interesting—sources for early myth.38 Not all poems have a mythic narrative. Pythian 5 focuses on Arcesilas and the colonial history of Cyrene, although that poem may have been accompanied by Pythian 4, which has the longest myth in Pindar.39 In Isthmian 7 the usual mythic narrative seems to have been replaced a eulogy of the victor’s dead uncle. But in most of the odes Pindar uses traditional myth in a sophisticated and often subtle way. His mythic narratives are not mere ornament; they are carefully chosen and used to serve his poetic purposes. In general, the odes forge a connection between the present moment of victory and the mythic past. This is particularly clear in a poem like Olympian 7, composed for the great Rhodian boxer Diagoras, where Pindar sets out a striking triptych of myths that trace the history of the island from it birth to its colonization. The stories are carefully nested, each within the other, and each one takes a step back toward the beginning, and then we move toward the present with its celebration of victory. Stories concerning individual heroes often make connections with the victor. In Olympian 1 the story of Pelops is an aition for the games, but Pindar uses the theme of hospitality to link the hero with the victor, Hieron of Syracuse. In Olympian 6 the account of the birth of Iamus is part of the victor’s family history, and his descent from Pitana, the personification of the victor’s hometown, gives the Iamids an autochthonous connection with their native soil.
In composing his myths Pindar drew on a variety of sources. Epic was clearly central, and there is evidence to suggest that he made extensive use of the Epic Cycle, but he seems to have avoided using details from our Iliad and Odyssey, despite the fact that he seems strongly aware of Homeric language.40 Bacchylides seems to have taken a different view, since his thirteenth ode draws heavily on the Iliad. Local traditions and the interests of his patrons may also have influenced Pindar’s choices in myths. All but one of the Aeginetan odes contain stories of the Aeacids,41 and among the Syracusan odes those composed for Hieron favor dark myths that emphasize crime and punishment. In Ol. 2 in place of a standard myth we have an eschatology that may reflect the special beliefs of the victor Theron of Acragas.42
Pindaric Criticism
Pindar is generally considered to be a difficult poet, and interpreting his odes constitutes an on-going challenge to scholars.43 The challenges exist on almost every level, ranging from minute questions of language and meaning to larger issues of structure and interpretation. To illustrate the former let us turn to Nemean 4.60– 65, a passage that concerns the “courtship” of Peleus and Thetis:
ἄλαλκε δὲ Χείρων,
καὶ τὸ μόρσιμον Διόθεν πεπρωμένον ἔκφερεν·
πῦρ δὲ παγκρατὲς θρασυμαχάνων τε λεόντων
ὄνυχας ὀξυτάτους ἀκμάν
καὶ δεινοτάτων σχάσαις ὀδόντων
ἔγαμεν ὑψιθρόνων μίαν Νηρεΐδων.
…but Chiron averted it,
and he carried out the destiny fated by Zeus.
After thwarting the all-powerful fire,
the razor-sharp claws of boldly devising lions
and the points of fiercest teeth,
he married one of the lofty-throned Nereids. (Race)
Cheiron saves Peleus from a murder plot, and thus he is able to carry out what was fated by Zeus, namely marrying Thetis. She resisted, but, like the young wrestler in whose honor the poem was composed, Peleus triumphs by wrestling the shape-shifting goddess into submission. What seems unclear in this passage is the subject of the verb in line 61 (ἔκφερεν, “carried out”). Most scholars, including Race in the translation printed above, assume that the subject must be Peleus, but the Greek, which simply links the two clauses without any clearly- articulated change of subject, seems more naturally to encourage us to assume that it is Cheiron who carries out what is fated, with a change of subject to Peleus in the following line marked by δέ. This is indeed a small—perhaps seemingly trivial—point, but ultimately it affects how we understand the role of Cheiron in the myth. Pindar seems to have had a fascination with the centaur, and Cheiron occurs in a number of odes, most strikingly in the famous colloquy with Apollo in Pythian 9 and the haunting counterfactual opening of Pythian 3. Could Pindar be implying a more significant role in the marriage that will some day yield his pupil Achilles? In Nem. 3, which also tells of the young Achilles, Cheiron “gave in marriage” (νύμφευσε, 56) the daughter of Nereus and raised her mighty son, and Alcaeus seems to say that the marriage was consummated in the “home” of Cheiron (fr. 42.9 Voigt/Campbell).44 In this way an apparent triviality can subtly alter our reading of a myth. In some cases, such linguistic points can have larger implications. For example, in Ol. 1 scholars have debated the force of ἐπεί in line 26. Is it temporal or causal? Either one is possible, and the decision can affect how we understand Pindar’s radically-altered story of Pelops.45
So far as the larger interpretative issues are concerned, Pindaric scholars have been much preoccupied with the question of unity. We have surveyed above some of the salient (and often seemingly disparate) elements of Pindar’s Epinicians. What has proved elusive is to determine how these elements cohere to produce a poetic whole. The most influential approach has argued that the poems were organized around a single idea, commonly called a summa sententia or Grundgedanke, and variations on this view, such as focusing on repeated words or phrases rather than ideas, have persisted until the middle the last century.46 Accordingly, unity in a Pindaric ode was found by reading the poem in light of its gnomai, with all else relegated to a subordinate position. The result of this is that Pindar seemed to have nothing of consequence to say. Norwood infamously wrote that the poet could “think like a child and sing like an archangel.”47 This approach now seems unhelpfully reductionist, and it fell away after the appearance of Bundy’s Studia Pindarica of 1962. In its way, Bundy’s work has been as revolutionary with respect to the interpretation of Pindar as was Milman Parry’s on our understanding of Homeric epic. On Bundy’s view, Epinician poetry must be understood in terms of its function as praise poetry. Details that had once been seen as religious, personal, philosophical, political, or historical must now been understood as elements of an elaborate rhetoric of praise. Bundy’s emphasis on praise has been important and a healthy corrective to the preoccupations of earlier scholars, but the approach that he spawned has also proved to be reductionist; Pindaric song became decidedly one note.
History has also been a long-standing feature of Pindaric criticism. In addition to the search for the summa sententia, scholars read the odes with a view to both overt and covert historical references. Allusions to Pindar’s rivals and to intrigues in court abounded. This approach, which is basically biographical in focus, begins in ancient scholarship as preserved in the scholia. The publication of Bundy’s work coincided with growing suspicion of biographical readings of ancient poetry, and it no long seemed appropriate to think that the purpose of reading the poems was to reconstruct the life of the poet.48 But Bundyism (as it is often called) has proved to be limited, and a historically informed approach has returned. Rather than focus narrowly on biographical details, scholars are now prepared to see Pindar’s work as a vital element in the social and intellectual history of early Greece that embraces both literature and material culture.
FURTHER READING
The vast literature on Pindar has been made more accessible by the labors of D. E. Gerber, who has published the exhaustive Gerber 1969, as well as an annotated survey of work from 1934 to 1987 in Lustrum 31 (1989) 97–269 and 32 (1990) 7–292. This has been extended to cover up to 2007 by A. Neumann-Hartmann in Lustrum 52 (2010) 181–463. Additional work can be found online at https://sites.rutgers.edu/greeksong/bibliography.
The most-widely used Greek text of Pindar is the Teubner edited by Snell and more recently by Maehler (1987). The constitution of the Greek text is judicious, but the apparatus criticus is often unhelpfully austere; a more generous collection of material can be found in Turyn’s edition (1952). The numerous linguistic challenges of reading Pindar have attracted commentators, and there are many annotated editions, especially detailed treatments of individual odes or selections of odes. Special mention can be made of the comprehensive treatment of corpus of Epinicians in the series published under the auspices of the Fondazione Lorenzo Valla (Gentili et al. 1995 and 2013; Cannatà Fera 2020; Privitera 1982). There are also numerous translations. Race’s prose translation in the Loeb series (1997) is notable for its accuracy and clarity. Verse translations are variable in quality and generally poor, but a conspicuous success is that by Nisetich 1980.
Good general overviews of Pindar can be found in Race 1986 and Lloyd-Jones 1982. Kurke 1991 has been an influential work in promoting a socially- and historically-aware reading of the poet, as was the unexpected combination of Pindar and Thucydides in Hornblower 2004. Most recent work has been more narrowly on specific issues or groups of odes: for example, poems for Aeginetan victors (Burnet 2005; Fearn 2011a), or the poems composed for western Greeks (Morgan 2015; Nicholson 2016a; Lewis 2020). Along with the growing emphasis on social, political, and economic history illumination has been found in archaeology and material culture (Fearn 2017; Neer and Kurke 2019). These approaches have been accompanied by an interest in the ancient reception of the poet’s work, especially in terms of an ongoing tradition of performance (or reperformance) of the poems (Spelman 2018) and the influence of Pindar on later poetry (Kampakoglou 2019; Phillips 2016).
Notes
1 Quint. 10.1.61 (trans. D. A. Russell). On the later influence of Horace’s portrait of Pindar, see Fraenkel 1957: 435.
2 Wilamowitz 1922: 463.
3 It is perhaps surprising to note that Pindar is now the only Archaic or Classical poet for whom there is no convenient collection of testimonia. Such a collection would be a very useful tool for scholars.
4 See Lefkowitz 2012.
5 Cf. POxy 2451B, fr. 1 = Cham. fr. 34A Martano.
6 See T 108–114 Radt. Ar. fr. 598 K-A may indicate that the story was derived from comedy (cf. Schol. Soph. OC 18a Xenis = T 110 Radt, and Pearson 1917 on Soph. fr. 155).
7 For the establishment of a canon of lyric poets, see Hadjimichael 2019.
8 It is also possible that Paean 8 was stored, perhaps inscribed on a temple wall, at Delphi. See Rutherford 2001: 214.
9 Similarly, P. Oxy. 2438 (ed. Gallo 1968 = FGrH 1132F 1.36). See also the genres listed by Proclus in his Chrestomathy (ap. Pho. Bibl. 319b-320a, 5.159 Henry). A somewhat different list is found in the Suda article on Pindar (π 1617 Adler), which adds to the above Bacchic songs, “throning” songs (ἐνθρονισμοί) and laurel-carrying songs (δαφνηφορικά). Although the idea of “throning songs” is obscure (the word occurs only here), these terms may refer to particular poems or types of poem classified under the larger generic headings of the Alexandrian edition. We know, for example, that a laurel-carrying song was included among the poems “Separated from the Partheneia” (fr. 104b). Aristophanes of Byzantium has sometimes been seen as an editor of Pindar, but many scholars are skeptical that his work went any farther than classification (cf. fr. 381 Slater, p. 61 Nauck): see Irigoin 1952: 35–50; Negri 2004: 19–23 and 169–174; against, Braswell 2011: 105 n. 283.
10 For praise as a fundamental mode of poetry in the Indo-European tradition, see West 2007: 63–66; Meusel 2020.
11 Rutherford 2001 is fundamental here. It is perhaps fair to observe that a detailed commentary on the fragments would provide a welcome complement to the long tradition of exegetical work on the Epinicians.
12 On the scholia, see Lefkowitz 1991: 147–160; Dickey 2007: 38–40. They are most accessible in the edition by Drachmann (see Dr. in the list of abbreviations). There is a project underway to produce a French translation of and commentary on the scholia, of which two volumes, on Ol. 1 and 2, have so far appeared: see Daude et al. 2013.
13 See Braswell 2013. In light of the importance of his Homeric commentaries, it is regrettable that the commentary on the Epinicians by Eustathius is not extant. All that survives is the Introduction: see Kambylis 1991a; Negri 2000; Neumann-Hartmann 2019.
14 μηδὲ … ἔχειν ἀσαφῶς suggests that the poems are not characterized by ἀσάφεια (“obscurity”): see Kambylis 1991b: 45 n. 129, for Eustathius’ use of the term.
15 See Robbins 1990.
16 See West 1982: 61; Wilamowitz 1921: 418. For the non-dactylo-epitritic odes, see Itsumi 2009.
17 See the agnostic presentation of the ode’s metre in Gerber’s commentary (Gerber 1982: xvi, with the remarks on viii): see also Wilamowitz 1921: 415–416 (refined by Verdenius 1988: 1); Dale 1969: 64–69; Itsumi 2009: 141–153. That Pindar uses the phrase Αἰοληΐδι μολπᾶι (102) has encouraged scholars to classify the ode among the Aeolic poems, but contemplation of that phrase has only deepened the confusion: see Itsumi 2009: 142 n. 3.
18 The only passage that suggests an opposition between μονωιδία and χορωιδία is Pl. Laws 764d-e, but that passage is not about genres, but the education of solo- and chorus-singers: see Pfeiffer 1968: 282–283. For the larger question, see Davies 1988 and Lefkowitz 1991: esp. 191–201; Morrison 2007a: 43–45.
19 For performance and reperformance at symposia, see Athanassaki 2016a: 85–112; Currie 2017: 187–188. Theognis sees the diffusion of his poems to Cyrnus in a similar way (237–243).
20 See (with reference to further literature) Morrison 2007b: 11–19; Agócs, Carey, and Rawles 2012; Budelmann 2017; Spelman 2018.
21 See the fundamental work by Lefkowitz 1991 (which reprints her seminal 1963 article).
22 This useful term, derived from praeambulum, was introduced into the criticism of Greek literature by Dornseiff 1921: 97–102. The standard modern study is by Race 1982; cf. Fraenkel 1950: 2.407 n. 3; Gerber 1982: 3–5.
23 Pindar uses a similar strategy in the contemporary Ol. 3 (42–44), in which water and gold are contrasted with the preeminence of Theron’s achievement. Here the contrast with the final element is made explicit (μὲν … δὲ … νῦν δὲ…).
24 In addition to the present passage, there are five in the Pindaric corpus, although not all of these comparisons are as clearly marked as such as the opening of Ol. 7 (Ol. 10.86–90, Pyth. 2.79–80, Nem. 3.80–82, 6.9–11, fr. 107a). One might also add Ol. 6.1–3, a passage that “blends simile and metaphor,” according to Farnell 1932 : ad loc. See also Dornseiff 1921: 97, on “comparison without as” (“Vergleich ohne wie”).
25 See Brown 1984.
26 See Schadewaldt 1928: 8.
27 See Nicholson 2005: 135–166. Melesias seems to have been a notable figure on Aegina, and is acknowledged again at Nem. 4.93–96 and 6.64–66: see Cannatà Fera 2020: 377.
28 We might contrast the end of Isth. 7 in which the poet prays to Apollo for a Pythian victory, a more prestigious achievement.
29 The most useful discussion of φυά in Pindar is Gundert 1935: 15–26. Pindar recognizes that there are times when success skips a generation or appears at irregular intervals (Nem. 6.9–11 and 11.39–42).
30 Pl. Hipp. mai. 285d = Hipp. 86 A 11 DK = FGrH 6 T 3.
31 See D’Alessio 2005. On the Hesiodic background, Fowler 1998; Stamatopoulou 2017.
32 Cf. Quint. 10.1.52 (= test. 125 Most), “Hesiod rises to heights only rarely, and the large part of him is taken up with names” (raro adsurgit Hesiodus magnaque pars eius in nominibus est occupata).
33 A similar strategy is at work in Pyth. 8, in which the victory catalog is broken up and varied by narrative expansion. See Bundy 1962: 1.69–74.
34 There is a useful survey by G. Thür, DNP s.v. Gnome.
35 Aristotle, Eth. Eud. 1214a5 records that a version of Thgn. 256–257, often referred to as τό Δηλιακὸν ἐπίγραμμα, was inscribed over the entrance to the shrine of Leto on Delos. See Selle 2008: 47–49.
36 The scholiasts (on 154b, 157a, 158c, [1.99 Dr.]) understood the dual in γαρύετον as an allusion to Pindar’s rivals, Bacchylides and his uncle Simonides, but the dual is now commonly understood as a traditional story-telling device. See Kirkwood 1981.
37 See Thummer 1968: 1.131–132.
38 There is no comprehensive modern study of Pindar’s myths, but see Köhnken 1971; Segal 1986.
39 See Braswell 1988: 1–6.
40 See Rutherford 2015b. For Homeric coloring and influence on Pindar, see Sotiriou 1997. While Pindar seems not to have used Homeric epic in a direct way, it is possible that he used episodes as models. See the interesting discussion by Krischer 1981, who argues for a Homeric model for the passage in which Pelops appeals to Poseidon (Ol. 1.74–87).
41 The exception is Pyth. 8, which draws its myth from the epic Thebaid. It is striking to note that the Aeacids are quickly named in the closing lines “as if in reparation” (Burnett 2005: 230).
42 See Lloyd-Jones 1985.
43 The history of Pindaric criticism (up to Bundy) has been influentially surveyed by Young 1964; cf. Lloyd-Jones 1973 and 1982. For more recent discussion, see Silk 2012.
44 On the meaning of the verb νυμφεύω, see Diggle 1970: on Eur. Phaeth. 236f.
45 See Gerber 1982: ad loc.; Köhnken 1983.
46 Norwood 1945, who argued for unifying “symbolism,” was perhaps the last influential attempt read the odes this way.
47 Norwood 1945: 184.
48 Dover 1964 was important in causing scholars to turn away from literary biography. Lefkowitz 2012 has been influential.