Chapter 4 - Exaltation at Akragas: Herakles, the Dioskouroi, and Theron

Summary

“Exaltation at Akragas: Herakles, the Dioskouroi, and Theron,” argues that in Olympian 3 Pindar’s theological modeling brings Herakles and the Dioskouroi together with the victor, Theron, tyrant of Akragas, ininto an intricate network of divine and mortal relationships. Theron’s place within this network, as established and celebrated by the ode, praises him for his exceptional privilege and his corresponding achievement in bathing his city in piety and exaltation. This is a differently flavored theology of mortality, cut to the needs of one of the most powerful men of the Greek world, but it ultimately articulates the same distinction between Theron’s mortality and the immortality of his patrons that is modeled elsewhere in the epinician corpus by demonstrating that his privileged closeness to Herakles and the Dioskouroi is only exceptional, and thus meaningful, in light of his mortality.