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Pythian 11: did Pindar err?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

S. J. Instone
S. J. Instone
Affiliation:
University of Kent at Canterbury
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Extract

Pythian 11 is usually reckoned to be a particularly problematic Pindaric ode. I hope to show that it is not, and in the process make some points which will have a bearing on interpretation of some of Pindar's other odes. Rather than go through the whole poem step by step, I shall concentrate on the main problems and on some particular passages.

The most disputed problem is the myth. What is the relevance of the story of Agamemnon's return from Troy, his murder by Clytemnestra, and her murder by Orestes, all of which takes up the central part of the poem? The myth appears even more irrelevant because after telling it Pindar seems to acknowledge that it was a mistake to have told it in the first place. What does he mean by saying (lines 38–40) that he went off course when he told it?

The second major problem comes after the myth and again concerns Pindar's apparently veering off suddenly into irrelevance. No sooner has he catalogued the victories of the winner's family than he launches into a denunciation of tyrannies and announces his support of moderation (lines 52–3). Why does he do that?

The poem ends, after the social and political comments, with an epode devoted to Castor and Polydeuces, Spartan heroes, and the Theban hero Iolaos. Are they a sign that Pindar puts his hope in an alliance of Thebes with Sparta to win freedom from Athens? And was Pindar in the myth ‘telling us not only what Thrasydaios of Thebes the victor is, but also what he is not: he is not exposed to the kinds of peril that plagued the great house of Atreus?’

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , May 1986 , pp. 86 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1986

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References

1 Bowra, C. M., Pindar (Oxford, 1964), 154–5Google Scholar.

2 Nisetich, F. J., Pindar's Victory Songs (Baltimore, 1980), 48Google Scholar.

3 West, M. L. in Ancient Greek Literature, ed. Dover, K. J. (Oxford, 1980), 46Google Scholar.

4 The scholia: Sch. P. 11. Title ( = Drachmann ii.253.11), Sch. P. 11. Inscriptio a and Inscriptio b (= Drachmann ii.254). Bowra's interpretation of these Inscriptions (op. cit. Appendix 1), which is that the victory commemorated occurred in 454 when T. won the men's diaulos, contradicts both the scholiast's title to the poem and lines 49–50 of the poem itself (γυμν⋯ν ⋯π⋯ στ⋯διον καταβ⋯ντες; στ⋯διον in Pindar and Bacchylides always means a race the length of the stadium, and Pindar regularly includes in his victory catalogues the victory being commemorated).

5 Cf. Pi.O. 5.8, Hes. Theog. 438.

6 Compare the close metrical affinity between the end of the antistrophe and the beginning of the epode at O. 1.22–3, and between the end of the epode and the beginning of the new strophe at O. 1.58–9; in P. 5 both the first colon of the strophe and the end of the last colon of the epode consist of an iambic + cretic; in I. 8 the first and last eight syllables of each strophe are metrically identical; there is near-parallelism between end of epode and start of strophe in N. 3 and O. 2.

7 On the search for unifying factors in Pindar's epinicians see Young, D. C., Pindaric Criticism in Calder, W. M. III and Stern, J., Pindaros und Bakchylides (Wege der Forschung 134 (Darmstadt, 1970)), 2f.Google Scholar; id. ‘3 odes of Pindar’, Mnemosyne, suppl. 9 (1968), 23–6, 63–8, 101–5, 111; Lloyd-Jones, H., JHS 93 (1973), 114–15Google Scholar; id. ‘Lecture on a master mind’, PBA 68 (1982), 139–63 esp. 143–54.

8 Orestes did, of course, kill Neoptolemus at Delphi, according to Euripides (Andr. 1151), but this is not a Pindaric version of the story.

9 Lefkowitz, M., The Victory Ode: an Introduction (New Jersey, 1976), 156Google Scholar; Bundy, E. R., ‘Studia Pindarica i’, U. Cal. P. Cl. Ph. 18 (1962), 3Google Scholar.

10 For due emphasis on the heterogeneity of Pindar's odes, and on how the myths in different odes are relevant to the rest of the poem in differing ways, see Lloyd-Jones, , PBA 68 (1982), 151–3Google Scholar.

11 Cf. O. 13.106, P. 10.8, N. 2.19.

12 Cf. O. 6.74, P. 7.18–19, P. 10.20, I. 2.43.

13 Cf. P. 4.185–7, Parth. Fr. 104c.6ff.

14 For ἦρα introducing a question cf. I. 7.1ff., P. 9.37, Bacch. 5.165.

15 For ɸίλος used to address the recipient of the ode, cf. P. 1.92, N. 3.76.

16 See also Sch. N. 3.45b, Inscr. a P.4, Inscr. P. 5, Sch. P. 8.43a.

17 At a discussion in London on 11 Nov. 1983.

18 The basis for any discussion on asyndeton in Pindar is still the excursus by Dissen in his edition of Pindar (Gotha, 1843), section 1, pp. 341–8.

19 Cf. also (for the dependence of athletic success on the gods) O. 8.67, O. 10.21, O. 13.104–6, N. 6.24–6.

20 Cf. N. 8.17 σὺν θεῷ γ⋯ρ τοι ɸυτευθε⋯ς ⋯λβος ⋯νθρώποισι παρμονώτερος; also Hes. Op. 321–6 (what happens if you acquire ⋯λβος at the wrong time), Solon 6.3–4, Aes. Pers. 250–2, id. Sept. 769–71 (the dangers of too much ⋯λβος).

21 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. v., Pindaros (Berlin, 1922)Google Scholar; Gildersleeve, B. L., The Olympian and Pythian Odes (London, 1906)Google Scholar; Burton, R. W. B., Pindar's Pythian Odes (Oxford, 1962)Google Scholar.

22 For details of the less pleasant characteristics of the Sicilian tyrants, cf. Diod. Sic. 11.67 (on Hieron) ἦν γ⋯ρ κα⋯ ɸιλ⋯ργυρος κα⋯ βίαιος κα⋯ καθόλου τ⋯ς ⋯πλότητος κα⋯ καλοκαγαθίας ⋯λλοτριώτατος; id. ib. (on Thrasyboulos) ὑπερ⋯βαλε τῇ κακίᾳ [sc. Ἱέρωνα]…βίαιος γ⋯ρ ὢν κα⋯ ɸονικός…⋯ε⋯ δ⋯ μ⋯λλον τοῖς πολίταις ⋯πεχθóενος, κα⋯ πολλοὺς μ⋯ν ὑβρ⋯ζων, τοὺς δ⋯ ⋯ναɩρ⋯ν, ἠν⋯γκασε τοὺς ⋯δɩκονμ⋯νους ⋯ποστ⋯ναι; in similar vein are Solon Fr. 32W, Xenoph. Fr. 3W, Theogn. 823, 1181, 1203–4.

23 Cf. also (for the construction) Pi. N. 1.10–11, Sim. 579.7 (PMG), Tyrt. 12.43 (W), A .P. 7.448, Peek, , V.I. 1974Google Scholar.

24 Cf. Od. 23.136 ⋯ν' ⋯δ⋯ν στείχων; Archil. 185 (W) ᾔει…⋯ν' ⋯σχατι⋯ν; also Pi. Fr. 172.4–5, id. Pa. vii.12. For ⋯ν⋯ used of motion to rather than along, cf. Od. 22.239–40 ⋯ν⋯ μεγ⋯ροɩο μέλαθρον ἕζετ' ⋯ναίξασα. After the indicative ⋯πέɸυγεν, an indicative apodosis is better than ἄν + optative.

25 εὐώνυμος χ⋯ρις is χ⋯ρις that consists in a good ⋯νομα: the victor bequeathes to his family a good name, which they will take pleasure in (χαίρεɩν).

26 Lines 63–4 are best construed οἰκέοντας παρ' ἆμαρ τ⋯ μ⋯ν ἕδραισι Θ., τ⋯ δ⋯ ἕνδον Ὀ. οἰκέοντας takes two constructions, and ἕνδον governs Ὀλύμπον; ‘Olympus' denotes the gods’ settlement at the top of the mountain (not Mt Olympus itself) as probably at Hes. Theog. 37 (see West ad loc.).

27 Pindar 154.

28 Iolaos, Herakles' charioteer, was honoured at Thebes with Games (Sch. Pi. O. 7.153e, Sch. N. 4.32; cf. Pi.I. 5.32, Paus. 9.23.1, Wilamowitz, op. cit. 47, 264f.). For the Tyndarids as horsemen cf. Pi. O. 3.39 κ⋯δος εὐίππων διδόντων Τυνδαρια⋯ν and see Kölinken, A., HSCP 87 (1983), 60Google Scholar.

29 I am indebted to Professor M. L. West for the help he has given me during my work on Pindar, and I am grateful to Mr J. Griffin and Mr P. J. Parsons for their helpful criticisms of this paper.