The ‘Theban Eagle’*

Richard Stoneman

doi:10.1017/S0009838800033073

The ‘Theban Eagle’*

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

Richard Stoneman

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Richard Stoneman: Affiliation:
Christ Church, Oxford

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The eagle has always been recognized as one of Pindar's most potent and characteristic images. Horace borrowed it to construct the first four stanzas of his Pindaric imitation in Carm. 4.4, and he presents both himself and Pindar as soaring birds: see Carm. 4.2.25 and 2.20, where the swan outflies Daedalus and Icarus in a way that the imitators of Pindar cannot hope to do. It is standard doctrine that Pindar often describes himself as an eagle, and that Bacchylides ‘imitates’ the notion in his fifth ode (e.g. CM. Bowra, Pindar (1964), p.l).

Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , December 1976 , pp. 188 - 197

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800033073 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1976

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References

¹ Cf. Eur. 1.T. 1104 f.,

² Perhaps there is a hint also that the fluttering of birds is an appropriate image for the dithyrambists' muddled diction.

³ He may have thought of his words as arrows rather than birds, as Homer surely did: see M. Durante, Atti d. Accad. Naz. dei Lincei, Rendiconti ser. 8.13 (1959), 3–14. See also Pratinas 708.5. P, Bacch. fr. 20B.4.

⁴ At S. Aj. 167–71 the hawk is a simile for Ajax. Eagles and hawks were not readily distinguished by the Greeks; see Thompson, D' Arcy, A Glossary of Greek Birds2 (1936), pp. 5 f. The general point is clearly similar.Google Scholar

⁵ The two beasts are combined on coins of Sinope: Imhoof-Blumer and Keller, Tierund Pflanzenbilder auf Münzen and Gemmen (1889) Taf. V 12.

⁶ See Paus. 6.20.10–12, Finley, M.I. and Pleket, H.W., The Olympic Games (1976), pp. 28 f.Google Scholar

⁷ O.1.113, N.1.25, N.4.91, Bacch.10.35 ff., Bundy Stud. Pind. I. 4–10. Cf. n.15 below.

⁸ Cf. n. 12, n.16, and Bundy, loc. cit. in next note.

⁹ ‘The Quarrel of Callimachus and Apollonius Rhodius’, CSCA 5 (1972)Google Scholar, 90, n. 113. See also Ruck, C.A.P., Hermes 100 (1972), 167 (‘the crows are obviously poets’)-168.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Wilamowitz, , Pindaros (1922), p. 251. The latest treatment of the doctrines expounded in 0.2 is by N. Demand, GRBS 16 (1975), 347–57.Google Scholar

¹¹ Cf. P.2,54 ‘for the most part.’

¹² Cf. N. 1.24 f, where I accept Fränkel's, H. interpretation (Göttinger Gel. Anzeiger, 190 (1928), 273–4) ‘Es ist dem Chromios vergönnt (durch seine im Vorangehenden geschilderte gastliche Freigebigkeit) den Neid, der rich gegen die Reichen und Mächtigen wendet, schon im Keime zu ersticken.’ Cf. Plut. de Inv. et Od. 538 aGoogle Scholar

¹³ It is at any rate better than pity: P.1.85. Cf. Plut. de Inv. et Od. 537e

¹⁴ Cf. also N.7.61 but this is cavil at the poet's incompetence.

¹⁵ Cf. P.12,28–32.

¹⁶ Other examples of this progression: 0.9.100 ff. (above); P.10.59 ff.; l.1.40 ff, where the achievements of contrasted with and then set off by a long priamel. The positive statement follows at 50–1. Cf. N.7.5 f. (followed by ‘Naming Complex’ at 7 f.).

¹⁷ Cf. P.2.61: anyone who claims that there are people who excel Hieron See n. 12 above.

¹⁸ Bundy CSCA 5 (1972), 89, n.111.

¹⁹ On ‘Brevity as an ideal of style’, see Curtius, E.R., European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, tr. Trask, W. (New York, 1953) app. XIII, pp. 487–95.Google Scholar

²⁰ Reading e.g. (Jurenka) in 196.

²¹ Bock, M., ‘Aischylos and Akragas’, Gymnasium 65 (1958), 402–50 and Taf. XIV-XVI, esp. pp. 403 f; he also cites the puzzling description of eagles as at Aesch. P. V. 803.Google Scholar

²² Ridgeway, W. read a paper to the Cambridge Philological Society in 1897 (PCPS 46–8 (1897), 14 f) on the coin types of Syracuse, in which he used a similar argument about the emblematic status of the dolphin in Pindar. He ‘proved that the dolphin was the special badge of Syracuse just as the tunny was of Cyzicus. Hence Pindar in referring to the eagle (the well-known badge of Agrigentum) and to the dolphin was deliberately warning Theron and Hiero.’ I am pleased to find support for my view of the significance of the coin types, but cannot divine what ‘warning’ it is that Ridgeway had in mind.Google Scholar

²³ But the regular meaning would make good sense: ‘The Olympic Games are best: yes, and <you have a chance since> you have won at the Panathenaea.’

²⁴ Ruck, C.A.P. (‘Marginalia Pindarica’, Hermes 100 (1972), V, ‘the poet's tardiness: N.3.80–1’ and VI ‘0.2.85–8: more crows and the date of Nemea 3’, pp. 153–69) argues (1) that the lateness is occasioned by the diversion of the song's course as far as the Pillars of Hercules. I find this fanciful. A parallel for the literal interpretation is provided by a story in Athenaeus 4. p. 152. (2) that the eagle's swiftness in reaching the point is contrasted with the quality of a man who because he ‘writes without such inspiration, is misunderstood and ineffectual’, and quotes lines 41–2. I have argued above that this passage refers to failures in general: anyway there is no need to connect it with lines 79 ff.Google Scholar

²⁵ Cf. Lloyd-Jones, H., JHS 93 (1973), 123. I think, as Erasmus Schmid did, that the focus of interest here too is the addressee and not Pindar; but cannot argue the case here.Google Scholar

²⁶ P.3.87–95. Cf. N.4.66–8, O.2.78.

²⁷ e.g. 0.12.13–15 (cocks do not shed leaves); N.6–26–9 (winds or arrows?); P.11.38–40 (winds rarely blow chariots off course).

²⁸ Cf., perhaps, O.7.49, where broadens the reference from the institutors of fireless sacrifices to the whole people of Rhodes.

²⁹ The Nemean Odes of Pindar (1890), p. 85.

³⁰ Bury further argued that this is easy to understand because Pindar sees an omen in the echo as he does in in 1.6.53; but that is another poem, and the speaker is Heracles. It is nevertheless possible that the association was familiar to the Aeginetans. But the parallel would have to be as the subject of the myth is Peleus.

³¹ Cf. P.2.50, where the eagle is an image expressing the god's swiftness.

³² I do not agree with West (ad loc.) that the words imply ‘the Muses’ favour is always beneficial (even to a king)’ (my italics). He makes the passage unnecessarily complicated. For a series of putting a simple view in antithetical terms, cf. N.6.1–4.