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THE GREEK ὝΜΝΟΣ: HIGH PRAISE FOR GODS AND MEN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2019

Michael E. Brumbaugh
Michael E. Brumbaugh*
Affiliation:
Tulane University
*
[email protected]
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Over a hundred instances of the word ὕμνος from extant archaic poetry demonstrate that the Greek hymn was understood broadly as a song of praise. The majority of these instances comes from Pindar, who regularly uses the term to describe his poems celebrating athletic victors. Indeed, Pindar and his contemporaries saw the ὕμνος as a powerful vehicle for praising gods, heroes, men and their achievements—often in service of an ideological agenda. Writing a century later Plato used the term frequently and with much the same range. A survey of his usage reveals instances of ὕμνοι for gods, daimones, heroes, ancestors, leading citizens, noble deeds, sites and landscapes. Despite abundant evidence of Plato's own practice, studies of the Greek hymn posit an extreme narrowing of the genre in the classical period and cite the philosopher as the sole witness to, if not the originator of, this development. Two passages in particular, one from the Republic and one from the Laws, are seen to support the claim that by the fourth century b.c.e. the term ὕμνος refers exclusively to songs for gods. In Republic Book 10, we find the memorable edict on poetic censorship: ‘But we must know that of poetry only ὕμνοι for the gods and ἐγκώμια for the good must be admitted into our city.’ Laws Book 3 offers what appears to be an even more straightforward pronouncement: ‘Back then our music was divided according to its various types and arrangements; and a certain type of song was prayers to the gods, and these were called by the name ὕμνοι.’ From these two statements has arisen the consensus that Plato saw a divine recipient as the defining feature of the ὕμνος and, moreover, that this position reflects the communis opinio from at least the fourth century b.c.e. onward.

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , May 2019 , pp. 167 - 186
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

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References

1 Described by Antipater of Sidon as ‘the weighty smith of pure hymns’ (τὸν εὐαγέων βαρὺν ὕμνων χαλκευτάν, Anth. Pal. 7.34.1–2), Pindar treats the ὕμνος as broadly applicable to praiseworthy gods, heroes and men. He opens one Olympian ode thus: ‘O lyre-ruling hymns, what god, what hero, what man shall we shower with praise’ (ἀναξιφόρμιγγες ὕμνοι, τίνα θεόν, τίν᾽ ἥρωα, τίνα δ᾽ ἄνδρα κελαδήσομεν; Ol. 2.1–2); cf. Nem. 4.83–4 for deeds as the object of ὕμνος. For Pindar's use of the term ὕμνος and his epinician odes as a hybrid sub-genre, see Maslov, B., Pindar and the Emergence of Literature (Cambridge, 2015), 276–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 607a3–5: [χρὴ] εἰδέναι δὲ ὅτι ὅσον μόνον ὕμνους θεοῖς καὶ ἐγκώμια τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς ποιήσεως παραδεκτέον εἰς πόλιν.

3 700a9–b2: διῃρημένη γὰρ δὴ τότε ἦν ἡμῖν ἡ μουσικὴ κατὰ εἴδη τε ἑαυτῆς ἄττα καὶ σχήματα, καί τι ἦν εἶδος ᾠδῆς εὐχαὶ πρὸς θεούς, ὄνομα δὲ ὕμνοι ἐπεκαλοῦντο·.

4 ‘The one generic distinction Plato will not do without is between mortal and divine song’: Ford, A., Origins of Criticism (Princeton, 2002), 259–60Google Scholar. All major studies of the Greek ὕμνος advocate or at least repeat the claim that Plato defines ὕμνοι as songs exclusively for gods, including Keyßner, K., Gottesvorstellung und Lebensauffassung im griechischen Hymnus (Stuttgart, 1932), 2Google Scholar; Harvey, A.E., ‘The classification of Greek lyric poetry’, CQ 5 (1955), 157–75, at 165–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bremer, J.M., ‘Greek hymns’, in Versnel, H. (ed.), Faith, Hope, and Worship: Aspects of Religious Mentality in the Ancient World (Leiden, 1981), 193–215, at 193–4Google Scholar; Gruber, J. and Strohm, H., Synesios von Kyrene: Hymnen (Heidelberg, 1991), 21Google Scholar; Furley, W.D., ‘Types of Greek hymns’, Eos 81 (1993), 21–41, at 22Google Scholar; Burkert, W., ‘Griechische Hymnoi’, in Burkert, W. and Stolz, F. (edd.), Hymnen der alten Welt im Kulturvergleich (Göttingen, 1994), 9–17, at 9Google Scholar; Furley, W.D., ‘Praise and persuasion in Greek hymns’, JHS 115 (1995), 29–46, at 31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pulleyn, S., Prayer in Greek Religion (Oxford, 1997), 43–8Google Scholar; van den Berg, R.M., Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary (Leiden, 2001), 13–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Furley, W.D. and Bremer, J.M., Greek Hymns: Selected Cult Songs from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Period (Tübingen, 2001), 8–13Google Scholar; Ford, A., Aristotle as Poet: The Song for Hermias and its Contexts (Oxford, 2011), 74–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bouchon, R., Brillet-Dubois, P. and Meur-Weissman, N. Le (edd.), Hymnes de la Grèce antique: Approches littéraires et historiques (Lyon, 2012), 9–18Google Scholar. Notably, Pulleyn and van den Berg indicate skepticism of the standard interpretation of the evidence in Plato, but they do not discuss the evidence or refute the communis opinio. Depew, M., ‘Enacted and represented dedications: genre and Greek hymn’, in Depew, M. and Obbink, D. (edd.), Matrices of Genre (Cambridge, 2000), 59–80Google Scholar does not comment on the evidence from Plato. In his study of music in the Laws, Folch, M., The City and the Stage: Performance, Genre, and Gender in Plato's Laws (Oxford, 2015), 155–86Google Scholar rejects the sharp distinction regularly drawn between the ὕμνος and the ἐγκώμιον, demonstrates that Plato's eidographic pronouncements are far more complex than usually assumed, and concludes that ‘hymns and encomia permit flexibility of form, meter, subject, discourses, and lexica’.

5 Destrée, P. and Herrmann, F.-G. (edd.), Plato and the Poets (Leiden, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially Most, G., ‘What ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry?’, in Destrée, P. and Herrmann, F.-G. (edd.), Plato and the Poets (Leiden, 2011), 1–20Google Scholar, Peponi, A.-E. (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato's Laws (Cambridge, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Folch (n. 4) are recent examples of nuanced re-evaluations of this issue.

6 See in particular Press, G.A. (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity (Lanham, MD, 2000)Google Scholar.

7 ‘Plato in his own writings makes little effort to retain a single term for any of his most cherished concepts, such as “forms”, “knowledge”, and “wisdom”, for each of which he regularly varies his nomenclature’: Sedley, D., ‘Plato on language’, in Benson, H.H. (ed.), A Companion to Plato (Malden, MA, 2006), 214–27, at 224Google Scholar. He likewise exhibits slippage in his musical vocabulary, as Folch (n. 4), 155–86 details. Furthermore, the ἐγκώμιον was itself a genre in flux during the fourth century; see discussion below.

8 Cf. Plato's discussion of the θρῆνος in the Philebus (47e1–50c5), where he marks the song out as dangerous because it blends pleasure and pain.

9 This contrast between orthodox and unorthodox ὕμνοι is reasserted in Leg. 7.799b4–8, where the Athenian recommends expulsion for anyone who praises the gods with unsanctioned ὕμνοι.

10 For Plato, music involves a union of three distinct elements: words, harmony and rhythm; e.g. Pelosi, F., Plato on Music, Soul and Body (Cambridge, 2010), 32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Since he does not use any of these terms here, it is difficult to say whether he is making a distinction between εἶδος and σχῆμα. Writing later in the fourth century, Aristoxenus claims that the terms are interchangeable: ‘It makes no difference whether we use the term “form” (εἶδος) or the term “arrangement” (σχῆμα), for we use both of these words to mean the same thing’, Harm. 92.7. If Plato is differentiating between two discrete elements here, then we might expect εἶδος to be more general and σχῆμα to relate specifically to harmonics, which Plato elsewhere discusses in great detail. Landels, J.G., Music in Ancient Greece and Rome (New York, 1999), 100–2Google Scholar analyses Republic Book 3 (398c1–399c4), where ‘lamenting’ and ‘soft’ ἁρμονίαι are banned from Callipolis, while those suited to courage (Dorian) and persuasion (Phrygian) are allowed to remain. This passage is often cited in connection with the critique of the ‘New Music’, on which see Csapo, E., ‘The politics of the New Music’, in Murray, P. and Wilson, P. (edd.), Music and the Muses: The Culture of ‘Mousikê’ in the Classical Athenian City (Oxford, 2004), 207–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; D'Angour, A., ‘The New Music: so what's new?’, in Goldhill, S. and Osborne, R. (edd.), Rethinking Revolutions through Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 2006), 264–83Google Scholar; and LeVen, P.A., The Many-Headed Muse: Tradition and Innovation in Late Classical Greek Lyric Poetry (Cambridge, 2014)Google Scholar.

11 In their studies on genre in Plato, Nightingale, A.W., Genres in Dialogue: Plato and the Construct of Philosophy (Cambridge, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Folch (n. 4), 155–86 agree that Plato neither consistently advocates for this kind of generic purity nor does he conform to it in his own writing.

12 e.g. Leg. 653d6, 669b6, 778d7, 871a1, 889e4, 931b6, 960c4; Resp. 364a1, 463d7, 549e1; Prt. 317a6, 343b3; cf. Euthyd. 297d4; Epist. 334a7; Clit. 407a8.

13 ἐφυμνέω appears in Aesch. Pers. 393, Cho. 386, Eum. 902; Soph. OT 1275, Ant. 658, 1305, fr. 90.1, fr. 412.2; and then not again after Plato until Philo, De Agricultura 82.2; ὑμνῳδέω appears in Aesch. Ag. 990, Eur. Ion 6 and then not again after Plato until the Septuagint in Chronicles 1.25.6.

14 Leg. 829d7–e1: μηδέ τινα τολμᾶν ᾄδειν ἀδόκιμον μοῦσαν μὴ κρινάντων τῶν νομοφυλάκων, μηδ’ ἂν ἡδίων ᾖ τῶν Θαμύρου τε καὶ Ὀρφείων ὕμνων.

15 While a corpus of Orphic hymns arose sometime in the third century c.e., there is no evidence to suggest that either of these legendary poets was especially connected with songs for gods during the Archaic or Classical periods.

16 Resp. 617c3–5: ὑμνεῖν πρὸς τὴν τῶν Σειρήνων ἁρμονίαν, Λάχεσιν μὲν τὰ γεγονότα, Κλωθὼ δὲ τὰ ὄντα, Ἄτροπον δὲ τὰ μέλλοντα.

17 Cf. Resp. 383b7, where Plato uses ὑμνέω to describe Aeschylus’ composition of tragedy.

18 τούτων ἕνεκα, ἃς ᾠδὰς καλοῦμεν, ὄντως μὲν ἐπῳδαὶ ταῖς ψυχαῖς αὗται νῦν γεγονέναι, πρὸς τὴν τοιαύτην ἣν λέγομεν συμφωνίαν ἐσπουδασμέναι, διὰ δὲ τὸ σπουδὴν μὴ δύνασθαι φέρειν τὰς τῶν νέων ψυχάς, παιδιαί τε καὶ ᾠδαὶ καλεῖσθαι καὶ πράττεσθαι.

19 Leg. 665c7. Cf. Symp. 197e4.

20 τὰ δὲ [sc. τὰ τῆς ἀγαθῆς ὁμοιώματα] προφέρων εἰς μέσον ὑμνῇ καὶ ἐπᾴδῃ ταῖς τῶν νέων ψυχαῖς, προκαλούμενος ἑκάστους εἰς ἀρετῆς ἕπεσθαι κτῆσιν συνακολουθοῦντας διὰ τῶν μιμήσεων.

21 In Resp. 5.459e6–a2, mandated wedding songs reinforcing the ideologies of Callipolis are described as ὕμνοι, ‘and hymns appropriate to the marriages that take place will have to be fashioned by our poets’ (καὶ ὕμνοι ποιητέοι τοῖς ἡμετέροις ποιηταῖς πρέποντες τοῖς γιγνομένοις γάμοις).

22 Symp. 177a6–177c3. Elsewhere Plato describes the hymning of non-gods such as the mountains of Atlantis (Criti. 118b3), a place beyond the heavens (Phdr. 247c3–4) and the καλὰ ἔργα of Athens (Menex. 239b8).

23 Symp. 193c8–d1: οὗ δὴ τὸν αἴτιον θεὸν ὑμνοῦντες δικαίως ἂν ὑμνοῖμεν Ἔρωτα.

24 Plato often uses the terms ἐγκώμιον and ἔπαινος interchangeably: Capuccino, C., ‘Plato's Ion and the ethics of praise’, in Destrée, P. and Herrmann, F.-G. (edd.), Plato and the Poets (Leiden, 2011), 63–92, at 73Google Scholar.

25 ἔνιοι δὲ καὶ τὰς τῶν οἰκείων προπηλακίσεις τοῦ γήρως ὀδύρονται, καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ δὴ τὸ γῆρας ὑμνοῦσιν ὅσων κακῶν σφίσιν αἴτιον, Resp. 329b1–3.

26 τελευτήσασι δὲ προθέσεις καὶ ἐκφορὰς καὶ θήκας διαφόρους εἶναι τῶν ἄλλων πολιτῶν· λευκὴν μὲν τὴν στολὴν ἔχειν πᾶσαν, θρήνων δὲ καὶ ὀδυρμῶν χωρὶς γίγνεσθαι, κορῶν δὲ χορὸν πεντεκαίδεκα καὶ ἀρρένων ἕτερον περιισταμένους τῇ κλίνῃ ἑκατέρους οἷον ὕμνον πεποιημένον ἔπαινον εἰς τοὺς ἱερέας ἐν μέρει ἑκατέρους ᾄδειν, εὐδαιμονίζοντας ᾠδῇ διὰ πάσης τῆς ἡμέρας· ἕωθεν δ’ εἰς τὴν θήκην φέρειν αὐτὴν μὲν τὴν κλίνην ἑκατὸν τῶν νέων τῶν ἐν τοῖς γυμνασίοις, οὓς ἂν οἱ προσήκοντες τοῦ τελευτήσαντος ἐπιόψωνται, πρώτους δὲ προϊέναι τοὺς ἠιθέους τὴν πολεμικὴν σκευὴν ἐνδεδυκότας ἑκάστους, σὺν τοῖς ἵπποισι μὲν ἱππέας, σὺν δὲ ὅπλοις ὁπλίτας, καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ὡσαύτως, παῖδας δὲ περὶ αὐτὴν τὴν κλίνην ἔμπροσθεν τὸ πάτριον μέλος ἐφυμνεῖν.

27 See below for a discussion of links between the hymn and Athenian funeral orations.

28 ὁ δ’ αὖ τὰ μὲν τοιαῦτα πάντα δυναμένου τορῶς τε καὶ ὀξέως διακονεῖν, ἀναβάλλεσθαι δὲ οὐκ ἐπισταμένου ἐπιδέξια ἐλευθερίως οὐδέ γ’ ἁρμονίαν λόγων λαβόντος ὀρθῶς ὑμνῆσαι θεῶν τε καὶ ἀνδρῶν εὐδαιμόνων βίον [ἀληθῆ].

29 παντάπασιν ἀμβλὺ καὶ ἐπὶ σμικρὸν ὁρώντων ἡγεῖται τὸν ἔπαινον, ὑπὸ ἀπαιδευσίας οὐ δυναμένων εἰς τὸ πᾶν ἀεὶ βλέπειν, Tht. 174e6–175a1.

30 ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἀθυμοῦντες ἄνδρες οὔπω τρόπαιον ἔστησαν, ὦ Κριτία· προϊέναι τε οὖν ἐπὶ τὸν λόγον ἀνδρείως χρή, καὶ τὸν Παίωνά τε καὶ τὰς Μούσας ἐπικαλούμενον τοὺς παλαιοὺς πολίτας ἀγαθοὺς ὄντας ἀναφαίνειν τε καὶ ὑμνεῖν.

31 Resp. 468c10–d1: ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ καθ’ Ὅμηρον τοῖς τοιοῖσδε δίκαιον τιμᾶν τῶν νέων ὅσοι ἀγαθοί.

32 καὶ γὰρ ἡμεῖς ἔν τε θυσίαις καὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις πᾶσι τοὺς ἀγαθούς, καθ’ ὅσον ἂν ἀγαθοὶ φαίνωνται, καὶ ὕμνοις καὶ οἷς νυνδὴ ἐλέγομεν τιμήσομεν, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις <ἕδραις τε καὶ κρέασιν ἰδὲ πλείοις δεπάεσσιν>, ἵνα ἅμα τῷ τιμᾶν ἀσκῶμεν τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας τε καὶ γυναῖκας.

33 ΑΘ. μετά γε μὴν ταῦτα ὕμνοι θεῶν καὶ ἐγκώμια κεκοινωνημένα εὐχαῖς ᾄδοιτ’ ἂν ὀρθότατα, καὶ μετὰ θεοὺς ὡσαύτως περὶ δαίμονάς τε καὶ ἥρωας μετ’ ἐγκωμίων εὐχαὶ γίγνοιντ’ ἂν τούτοις πᾶσιν πρέπουσαι.

ΚΛ. πῶς γὰρ οὔ;

ΑΘ. μετά γε μὴν ταῦτ’ ἤδη νόμος ἄνευ φθόνων εὐθὺς γίγνοιτ’ ἂν ὅδε· τῶν πολιτῶν ὁπόσοι τέλος ἔχοιεν τοῦ βίου, κατὰ σώματα ἢ κατὰ ψυχὰς ἔργα ἐξειργασμένοι καλὰ καὶ ἐπίπονα καὶ τοῖς νόμοις εὐπειθεῖς γεγονότες, ἐγκωμίων αὐτοὺς τυγχάνειν πρέπον ἂν εἴη.

ΚΛ. πῶς δ’ οὔ;

ΑΘ. τούς γε μὴν ἔτι ζῶντας ἐγκωμίοις τε καὶ ὕμνοις τιμᾶν οὐκ ἀσφαλές, πρὶν ἂν ἅπαντά τις τὸν βίον διαδραμὼν τέλος ἐπιστήσηται καλόν· ταῦτα δὲ πάντα ἡμῖν ἔστω κοινὰ ἀνδράσιν τε καὶ γυναιξὶν ἀγαθοῖς καὶ ἀγαθαῖς διαφανῶς γενομένοις.

34 This attitude toward judging an individual's well-being is common in Greek thought, but most memorably expressed by Herodotus when he relates Solon's discussion of happiness with Croesus. There εὐδαιμονίη, εὐτυχίη, μακαρίζω and ὄλβος recur (1.29–33).

35 The generic status of the ἐγκώμιον is difficult to pinpoint and Plato's usage of the term is not consistent throughout the corpus. Both Plato and Aristotle use the term to describe works in verse and in prose; see Harvey (n. 4), 163–4. Some of the ambiguity and apparent redundancy may arise from the assertion of prose as a legitimate form of discourse coequal with poetry in the late fifth and fourth centuries. Gorgias blurs the lines by composing prose encomia and Isocrates asserts that he is an innovator in prose praise. On the ἐγκώμιον as a genre, see L. Pernot, La rhétorique de l’éloge dans le monde gréco-romain (Paris, 1993), 117–27 and passim; Cingano, E., ‘Entre “skolion” et “enkomion”: réflexions sur le “genre” et la performance de la lyrique chorale grecque’, in Jouanna, J. and Leclant, J. (edd.), Colloque: La poésie grecque antique (Paris, 2003), 17–45Google Scholar; Hunter, R., Theocritus: Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Berkeley, 2003), 8–23Google Scholar; and Pepe, C., The Genres of Rhetorical Speeches in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Leiden, 2013), 24–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar and passim.

36 Morgan, K.A., ‘Praise and performance in Plato's Laws’, in Peponi, A.-E. (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato's Laws (Cambridge, 2013), 265–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar offers a compelling picture of how praise discourse operates in the Laws, and Capuccino (n. 24) details the framework deployed in the Ion. Folch (n. 4), 168 cautions against an eidographic interpretation of Plato's statements regarding the ὕμνος precisely because of the way in which Plato imbeds the term within a larger evaluative framework: ‘Although Plato represents Magnesia's canon as a return to rigid aristocratic musical practice, the Laws shows that hymns and encomia are not genres in the most restricted sense, but discourses of valorization with loosely agreed-upon subjects, laden with notionally religious valence, and available within a variety of poetic forms and scenarios of performance.’

37 The correct application of praise and blame is an important topic and recurs throughout Plato; see Nightingale (n. 11), 95–132.

38 To the extent that Plato is levelling criticism against frivolous hymnic praise by prescriptively tightening the generic bounds of the ὕμνος, this may well be histrionics against a contrived or exaggerated straw man, as Plato is wont to do: e.g. Tell, H., Plato's Counterfeit Sophists (Washington, D.C., 2011)Google Scholar.

39 According to the eschatology described in the Phaedrus, this imperfection is precisely what forces immortal souls to cycle through mortal existence.

40 The redefinition of the ὕμνος as a religious genre during Late Antiquity, especially under the influence of early Christianity, is the focus of future study by the author.

41 Mayhew, R., ‘The theology of the Laws’, in Bobonich, C. (ed.), Plato's Laws: A Critical Guide (Cambridge, 2011), 197–216, at 199–204Google Scholar. Pindar, according to Currie, B., Pindar and the Cult of Heroes (Oxford, 2005)Google Scholar, embraces a similarly porous distinction between mortals and immortals in the context of his epinician praise poems, which he described as ὕμνοι. See Crotty, K., Song and Action: The Victory Odes of Pindar (Baltimore, 1982), 33–40Google Scholar for further discussion of human and divine excellence in Pindar.

42 Evidence for the epitaphios logos is heterogeneous, consisting of a complete speech that was probably delivered (Demosthenes), fragments of speeches that were also likely delivered (Pericles in 440/39, Gorgias, Hyperides), an indirectly reported speech (Pericles in 431 apud Thuc.), and imitations of the genre by Lysias and Plato. See Loraux, N., The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar; Grethlein, J., The Greeks and their Past (Cambridge, 2010), 105–25Google Scholar; and Shear, J.L., ‘“Their memories will never grow old”: the politics of remembrance in the Athenian funeral orations’, CQ 63 (2013), 511–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 2.42.2: ‘For the virtues of these men and men like them adorned the things I hymned (ὑμνέω) about the city’ (ἃ γὰρ τὴν πόλιν ὕμνησα, αἱ τῶνδε καὶ τῶν τοιῶνδε ἀρεταὶ ἐκόσμησαν).

44 The verb ὑμνέω appears only one other time in Thucydides. During his discussion of his own project at hand, Thucydides famously contrasts his account of antiquity with those given by poets and logographers (1.21.1). He uses the verb ὑμνέω to describe the poets’ memorializing speech, which he associates with aggrandizement. On the homology between ὕμνος and προοίμιον in Thucydides and other authors, see Nagy, G., Plato's Rhapsody and Homer's Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens (Washington, DC, 2002), 70–98Google Scholar.

45 τὰ μὲν κατὰ τῶν βαρβάρων τρόπαια ὕμνους ἀπαιτεῖ, τὰ δὲ κατὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων θρήνους: Gorgias, fr. 5b DK.

46 Philostr. V A 493–4.

47 Isocrates later echoes Gorgias’ point about distinguishing between celebrating wars against non-Greeks in ὕμνοι and lamenting those against other Greeks in θρῆνοι (Paneg. 158).

48 239b: ‘Time is short to go through this as is fit [sc. the deeds of our forbearers], and the poets have already made it known to all by hymning their excellence in music’ (ὅ τε χρόνος βραχὺς ἀξίως διηγήσασθαι, ποιηταί τε αὐτῶν ἤδη καλῶς τὴν ἀρετὴν ἐν μουσικῇ ὑμνήσαντες εἰς πάντας μεμηνύκασιν).

49 On the emerging canonical status of this history, see Thomas, R., Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 1989), 196–236CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 πρῶτον μὲν οὖν τοὺς παλαιοὺς κινδύνους τῶν προγόνων δίειμι, μνήμην παρὰ τῆς φήμης λαβών· ἄξιον γὰρ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις κἀκείνων μεμνῆσθαι, ὑμνοῦντας μὲν ἐν ταῖς ᾠδαῖς. In addition to those discussed here who characterize as hymnic the praise of Athens and its most outstanding citizens, Isocrates can be seen to use the terms ὕμνος and ὑμνέω of human accomplishment at the beginning and end of his career (e.g. Paneg. 158, Panath. 205).

51 πανταχῇ δὲ καὶ παρὰ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις οἱ τὰ αὑτῶν πενθοῦντες κακὰ τὰς τούτων ἀρετὰς ὑμνοῦσι.

52 The verb is regularly used in other contexts simply to mean ‘repeat’, often with a hyperbolic connotation (LSJ s.v. ὑμνέω II): e.g. Xen. Ages. 11.2; Pl. Prt. 317a, Resp. 549e, Tht. 174e. See above, p. 173.

53 Lys. 2.79–80: ‘For indeed their memory does not grow old, and their honours are the envy of all men. While they are lamented as mortal on account of their nature, they are hymned as immortal on account of their excellence’ (καὶ γάρ τοι ἀγήρατοι μὲν αὐτῶν αἱ μνῆμαι, ζηλωταὶ δὲ ὑπὸ πάντων ἀνθρώπων αἱ τιμαί· οἳ πενθοῦνται μὲν διὰ τὴν φύσιν ὡς θνητοί, ὑμνοῦνται δὲ ὡς ἀθάνατοι διὰ τὴν ἀρετήν).

54 Xenophon makes this explicit in the Memorabilia, when Arete tells Heracles (2.1.33): ‘And when their appointed end comes, [excellent men] lie not without honour out of neglect, but thrive through memory because they are hymned for eternity’ (ὅταν δ᾽ ἔλθῃ τὸ πεπρωμένον τέλος, οὐ μετὰ λήθης ἄτιμοι κεῖνται, ἀλλὰ μετὰ μνήμης τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον ὑμνούμενοι θάλλουσι).

55 πρῶτον μὲν οὖν τοὺς παλαιοὺς κινδύνους τῶν προγόνων δίειμι, μνήμην παρὰ τῆς φήμης λαβών: ἄξιον γὰρ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις κἀκείνων μεμνῆσθαι, ὑμνοῦντας μὲν ἐν ταῖς ᾠδαῖς, λέγοντας δ᾽ ἐν ταῖς τῶν ἀγαθῶν γνώμαις, τιμῶντας δ᾽ ἐν τοῖς καιροῖς τοῖς τοιούτοις, παιδεύοντας δ᾽ ἐν τοῖς τῶν τεθνεώτων ἔργοις τοὺς ζῶντας.

56 Plato's Laws is the most thorough treatment of the formative impact music has on citizens’ souls (see Prauscello, L., Performing Citizenship in Plato's Laws [Cambridge, 2014]CrossRefGoogle Scholar), but the paideutic function of praise poetry is referenced often throughout the corpus. ‘Teachers provide children the compositions of good poets to study at their benches and they make them learn by heart these works, in which there are many admonitions, many passages that are praises and encomia of the good men of old, with the aim that the child jealously imitates them and strives to become like them’: Prt. 325e–326a. See Burnyeat, M.F., Culture and Society in Plato's Republic. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 309Google Scholar.

57 Xen. Ap. 26, Hier. 11.9, Mem. 4.2.33, Symp. 8.31; Isoc. Philip 109; Aeschin. In Tim. 133; Arist. Eth. Nic. 9.10, Hymn to Hermias.

58 Isocrates likens himself to Pindar (Antid. 166). On the generic debt, see Race, W., ‘Pindaric encomium and Isokrates’ Evagoras’, TAPhA 117 (1987), 131–55Google Scholar and Hornblower, S., ‘Pindar and kingship theory’, in Lewis, S. (ed.), Ancient Tyranny (Edinburgh, 2006), 151–63Google Scholar. On the difficulty of fitting Isocrates’ extant works into traditional generic typologies, see Haskins, E., Logos and Power in Isocrates and Aristotle (Columbia, 2004), 67Google Scholar with bibliography.

59 Isocrates uses ὕμνος / ὑμνέω seven times in his extant works. All but one of these describes hymns in praise of men whose renown has been secured through song (4.158, 5.109, 9.6, 9.65, 12.205, 15.137). Occasionally, men boasting divine parentage are included in his rosters of men deserving of hymns, but most recipients are fully mortal and it is clear that this is beside the point. The outlier in this corpus refers to hymns for gods (10.60).

60 In this way, the orator describes his encomiastic project much as Lysias did in his Funeral Oration. Among his various programmatic statements, Isocrates remarks on the boldness and difficulty of attempting such a task in prose rather than in verse (9.8–11), and yet casts himself the equal of the hymnists who have conferred immortality on their honorands (9.70). In the Antidosis, written around 354/3, Isocrates laments the generations past who have left no name, though they were better than the men celebrated in song. Signalling his own importance, Isocrates (15.137) remarks that ‘the latter happened across poets and speech-writers, while the former had no one to hymn them’ (οἱ μέν, οἶμαι, ποιητῶν ἔτυχον καὶ λογοποιῶν, οἱ δ᾽ οὐκ ἔσχον τοὺς ὑμνήσοντας).

61 Even the matter of whether the gods’ goodness is absolute was the subject of much debate (e.g. Sext. Emp. Math. 287–91), and scholars often differentiate between philosophic, poetic/literary and popular theologies. On the usefulness and problems with such distinctions, see Kindt, J., ‘The story of theology and the theology of story’, in Eidinow, E., Kindt, J. and Osborne, R. (edd.), Theologies of Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge, 2016), 12–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 οἱ μὲν γὰρ σεμνότεροι τὰς καλὰς ἐμιμοῦντο πράξεις καὶ τὰς τῶν τοιούτων, οἱ δὲ εὐτελέστεροι τὰς τῶν φαύλων, πρῶτον ψόγους ποιοῦντες, ὥσπερ ἕτεροι ὕμνους καὶ ἐγκώμια.

63 In On Lyric Poets, Didymus (first century b.c.e.) considers the προσόδιον, ἐγκώμιον and παιάν as types of ὕμνοι, a catch-all term that applies to everything written for those who are outstanding, πάντα γὰρ εἰς τοὺς ὑπερέχοντας γραφόμενα, ὕμνους ἀποφαινόμεθα, ‘for we recognize as hymns all things written for those who are outstanding’. Furley (n. 4), 31 translates this as ‘for we call all forms of religious song hymns’, but there is nothing in the context to indicate that τοὺς ὑπερέχοντας should refer to gods in particular. In the scholia on Τέχνη γραμματική, the late second-century b.c.e. handbook attributed to Dionysius Thrax, ὕμνος is defined as ‘a poem that combines ἐγκώμια of gods and heroes with thanksgiving’, ὕμνος ἐστὶ ποίημα περιέχον θεῶν ἐγκώμια καὶ ἡρώων μετ’ εὐχαριστίας (Schol. Lond. 451.6). Cf. Pl. Leg. 801e. Furley and Bremer (n. 4), 9 attribute this definition to Dionysus Thrax himself, though there is no evidence for this. We cannot assign a date to this scholium, only that it will have been later than the handbook, on whose date and authenticity see Pagani, L., ‘Pioneers of grammar. Hellenistic scholarship and the study of language’, in Montanari, F. and Pagani, L. (edd.), From Scholars to Scholia: Chapters in the History of Ancient Greek Scholarship (Berlin, 2011), 17–64, at 30–40Google Scholar.

64 Though they restrict it to gods, Pulleyn (n. 4) and Depew (n. 4) see the ὕμνος as analogous to an ἄγαλμα, on which see Kurke, L., The Traffic in Praise: Pindar and the Poetics of Social Economy (Ithaca, NY, 1991), 95–6 and 104–5Google Scholar.

65 Thus, we must imagine not only a bilateral exchange between poet and honorand but also a triangulated relationship between poet, honorand and audience, as has been widely recognized in studies of praise poetry and its social function (e.g. Bergren, A.L.T., ‘Sacred apostrophe: representation and imitation in the Homeric Hymns’, Arethusa 15 (1982), 83–108Google Scholar, and Kurke (n. 64). Prauscello (n. 56) details the centrality of music in cultivating citizens in Plato's Laws.

66 Crotty (n. 41), 33–40 describes how Pindar and Simonides negotiate the same issue in epinician. Bacon, H., ‘Plato and the Greek literary tradition’, TAPhA 131 (2001), 341–52Google Scholar contextualizes Plato's efforts within the Greek literary tradition.