Analysis
In his epinikian odes, of which forty-five survive, grouped under the names of the four great Panhellenic festivals—the Olympia, Pythia, Nemea, and Isthmia—Pindar strives to express what has often been labeled as the Panhellenic ideal. To understand what this means, it is vital to realize that ancient athletic competitions were primarily events of religious and cultural significance, rather than simple displays of physical prowess. The victory ode would originally have been written more or less on the spot by the poet commissioned for the purpose and performed on the evening of the contest; most of Pindar’s, however, were composed after an interval of some time and then delivered to the home city of the victor. In such an ode, the victorious athlete was celebrated as the finest specimen of male virtue available and was associated with the realm of the divine through his achievements. Thus, while it often comes as a surprise to modern readers, an epinikian ode has little to say about the particular athlete’s appearance or how he won his victory crown.
In his poems, Pindar strives to express the religious and cultural traditions that all Greeks shared as a common heritage. The unifying concepts included the two great poems of Homer, the Iliad (c. 750 b.c.e.; English translation, 1611) and Odyssey (c. 725 b.c.e.; English translation, 1614), the mythological tradition of stories about the gods and heroes, and the centrality of such holy places as Delphi, with its oracle of Apollo. Thus every ode contains a large mythological component, often focused on one major figure, such as Heracles, Jason, Apollo, or Perseus, but the stories are rarely told in a conventional, straightforward narrative form. Fleeting references to well-known events are combined with more detailed descriptions of minor incidents or complicated allusions to obscure, lesser-known parts of the myth. Chronological disruption is frequent, so that the end of the story may be mentioned before earlier parts of the tale are told. One of Pindar’s favorite devices is to mix into his mythological material some references to the home city of the athletic victor in order to involve the victor’s achievement with the great deeds of past heroes.
The epinikian ode extols the virtues, or the outstanding qualities, which have enabled the athlete to achieve his victory in whatever event he competed, be it wrestling, boxing, running, or the pentathlon. Certain key terms appear again and again, the most important of which is arête: in Greek, this covers a range of meanings, including “courage,” “excellence,” and “skill.” It is the excellence of spirit that has brought the athlete to the rewards of the highest skill a mortal can reach. Such excellence—which the poet believes he shares—at the same time requires an appropriate sense of modesty and restraint in order to avoid incurring the jealousy or anger of the gods. Pindar also speaks much of such praiseworthy attributes as loyalty, filial devotion, and respect for the gods. His poems are the product of a basically conservative outlook, one which has reverence for traditional institutions and religious practices. They are also tied to the aristocratic elements of Greek society, which were increasingly threatened by ideas about democracy and wider political participation. He often comments, for example, on the superiority of inborn or inherited qualities to those skills which can be taught or learned.
While the ideas expressed in Pindar’s poems are derived from a common storehouse of Panhellenic and aristocratic ideology, the language in which they are expressed is unique in the ancient world. At the root of Pindar’s skill as a poet is his mastery of all...
(This entire section contains 2232 words.)
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the varied meters in which Greek lyricists composed. His metrical forms and versification are extremely complex and were imitated by later poets, such as the Roman poet Horace. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to reconstruct the music or dances that were an integral part of the original performance.
The other remarkable element of the Pindaric ode is its language, especially in regard to word choice and word placement. Imaginative vocabulary and vivid metaphors run throughout the poems, and he is the master of the striking juxtaposition and the surprising turn of phrase. The focus of the poem shifts quickly, often unexpectedly, so that a general impression of speed and vitality is created. At the same time, the elaborate sentence structure, numerous asides and interjections, and difficult grammar all contribute to a sense of fluidity. It could be said that Pindar’s poetry is “experienced” rather than “understood” as it unfolds.
Each epinikian opens with an invocation of the Muses or some other divinity and moves to praise the individual victor and his city and family. Then comes the mythical content, which usually takes up the central part of the poem. The piece concludes with further praise of the victor or his homeland, as well as some praise of the poet himself, and some tribute to the presiding god of the festival, such as Zeus or Apollo. Although there are some variations, this pattern holds for the overwhelming majority of the odes.
Readers, ancient and modern, have reacted with varying enthusiasm to the Pindaric mode of expression. The ancients were fascinated by the notion that Pindar quarreled with his fellow Boeotian, the celebrated female poet Corinna, over style and content; she is reputed to have criticized him for “sowing with the whole sack” of myths, rather than concentrating on one story, as she appears to have done in her own, sparely written, poetry. After Pindar, the epinikian form all but disappears. The world for which he wrote was changing rapidly, and, to a considerable degree, he was already looking back nostalgically to an era and a value system whose zenith had passed.
Olympian Ode 1
First published: 498-446 b.c.e. (English translation, 1656)
Type of work: Poem
Celebrating Hieron of Syracuse’s victory in the horse race at the Olympia, Pindar offers advice on rulership via the myth of Tantalus and Pelops.
Olympian 1, which opens the collection of Pindar’s forty-five victory odes, sets the template for all of his subsequent poems in this genre. It was produced to celebrate the victory in the horse race at the Olympia of Hieron of Syracuse in 476 b.c.e. At this time, Hieron was master of most of the Greek settlements on the island of Sicily and was establishing himself as a patron of the arts, especially poetry. Pindar, who was invited to Syracuse in 476, was an eyewitness to the magnificence of Hieron’s court and to his benevolent, if autocratic, rule. Olympian 1 is a response to what he saw and contains a mixture of praise and advice to the victor.
The ode opens with the famously impenetrable phrase “Best of all is water” and celebratory remarks on the Olympic festival and its patron deity, Zeus. Then Pindar moves to praise of Hieron and his city of Syracuse as worthy subjects for poetic song, along with the horse who was ridden to victory, Pherenikos (“Victory-bringer”). By interweaving references to Olympia and Sicily and deploying a connected series of metaphors and images, Pindar is able to link Hieron and his present-day actions with a long tradition of historical and mythical events.
After the introduction, the central part of the poem consists of the myth of Tantalus and Pelops, which Pindar retells in his own unique fashion. His purpose is to sanitize the story of its most disturbing—and, to Pindar, immoral—details, especially the notion that Tantalus tried to feed his son Pelops to the gods in a stew and that they replaced his shoulder with a piece of ivory when they put his chopped up body together again. The implication, of course, is that the gods actually ate part of his flesh before they discovered what Tantalus had done.
In Pindar’s version, this is dismissed as a mere tale invented by envious humans. Tantalus’s crime becomes the less horrifying act of stealing divine ambrosia and nectar to give to his mortal friends. Nonetheless, the behavior of Tantalus is an instance of hubris, namely an arrogant disregard for the laws of the gods. Thus the moral message of the myth is clear: One’s conduct should be guided by moderation in all things and by respect for the gods. This has direct applicability to Hieron, who although a popular and generally benign ruler, was an autocrat, or in Greek terminology, a “tyrant.” As Pindar knew well, many tyrants had turned out to be abusive and violent rulers (hence the negative connotations of the word today).
The story of Pelops’s famous chariot race for the hand of King Oenomaus’s daughter, which ultimately led to the foundation of the Olympic festival, is given only in a truncated form because Pindar has run out of time and space. He does, however, include Pelops’s prayer to the god Poseidon, which is a model of what Pindar would consider religious piety and heroic virtue. This leads readers back to Hieron, who is now praised for a second time but reminded that a god now watches over his labors. The ode concludes with an invocation of the Muse, who watches over Pindar’s poetic labors, and with a wish that he can share in friendship with the victors in the games.
Pythian Ode 1
First published: 498-446 b.c.e. (English translation, 1656)
Type of work: Poem
Hieron’s victory at the Pythia offers the opportunity to praise him as an ideal sovereign and to celebrate his military triumphs.
Pythian 1 was written to celebrate Hieron’s victory in the chariot race in the Pythia of 470 b.c.e. and as a hymn of praise on his military successes and his virtuous actions. It is addressed to Hieron of Aetna to mark his recent foundation of that new city on the eastern coastline of Sicily. By this stage, the island was under Hieron’s control, and he had defeated foreign enemies, including the Carthaginians and the Etruscans. In spite of Hieron’s harsh treatment of his political opponents within Sicily, Pindar presents him as almost the incarnation of the ideal ruler.
The ode commences with a standard address to the Muse and to Apollo’s lyre, which has the power to subdue all powers in the human and divine realms. The eagle of Zeus is imagined as sleeping to the sweet melodies of choral song, while Ares, the god of war, lays down his weapons and has soothing dreams. The mention of Zeus takes readers into the first mythological excursus, namely the story of Typhon, the fire-breathing monster who was buried under Mount Aetna after he attacked the king of the gods. Rather unusually for Pindar, the mythical elements in this ode are brief.
There follows a description of a volcanic eruption on Aetna, which must have been inspired by first-hand experience during Pindar’s period of residence on the island of Sicily. The vivid images of fire, smoke, and lava make for a dramatic scene. This leads Pindar back to the city of Aetna and Hieron’s victory at the Pythian games. He predicts that the city will win numerous victories in the future, as its athletes set sail across the sea to the great Panhellenic festivals on the Greek mainland. Apollo is asked to “make this land a mother of brave men.”
A second mythological reference occurs in the third segment of the poem, to Philoctetes, who was left to spend the Trojan war on the island of Lemnos because he was suffering from a festering wound in his foot. When he was finally brought to the battlefield, after being persuaded by Odysseus and Diomedes, he shot Paris with his arrows and shortly thereafter Troy fell to its besiegers. Pindar draws a parallel with Hieron, although its precise import is left ambiguous; perhaps it is a general reference to the growth of Hieron’s power and prestige, but one suspects there is somehow more to it than that.
Next, Pindar mentions the Greek victories in the battles of Salamis (480 b.c.e.) and Plataea (479 b.c.e.), which brought an end to the Persian invasion led by Xerxes. In the same passage, reference is made to the defeat of the Carthaginians and the Etruscans in two naval battles in which Hieron played a leading role. The implication is that Hieron’s actions were akin to those of those other heroic Greeks who “saved Hellenic civilization” from the barbarians. This leads back to Hieron’s athletic victory and Pindar’s role as the poet who is to record it in song. It is his duty to be both effective and concise in this role, he says.
Perhaps because he has been so generous with his praise of him, Pindar ends the poem by proffering some advice to Hieron. He alludes to the dangers of envy and “hidden anger,” as well as the need for the ruler’s words to be “forged on the anvil of truth.” Moderation, once again, is the key to good governance, both of one’s self and one’s subjects. Better to be remembered, like Croesus, for being generous, than, like the tyrant Phalaris, for acts of cruelty. The most important goals in the contest of life, Pindar advises, are to win good fortune and preserve an honorable name; that is the greatest victory crown of all.