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PAYBACK TIME: METAMORPHOSES OF DEBT AND COMMODITY IN PINDAR'S OLYMPIAN 10

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2020

Vayos Liapis
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Extract

The beginning of Pindar's Olympian 10 for Hagesidamos of Lokroi Epizephyrioi, winner of the boys’ boxing contest at the Olympic games of 476 bce, revolves, untypically, around ideas of debt, interest, and repayment:

      Τὸν Ὀλυμπιονίκαν ἀνάγνωτέ μοι
      Ἀρχεστράτου παῖδα, πόθι φρενὸς
      ἐμᾶς γέγραπται· γλυκὺ γὰρ αὐτῶι μέλος ὀφείλων
      ἐπιλέλαθ’. ὦ Μοῖσ’, ἀλλὰ σὺ καὶ θυγάτηρ
      Ἀλάθεια Διός, ὀρθᾶι χερί
      ἐρύκετον ψευδέων                    5
      ἐνιπὰν ἀλιτόξενον.
      ἕκαθεν γὰρ ἐπελθὼν ὁ μέλλων χρόνος
      ἐμὸν καταίσχυνε βαθὺ χρέος.
      ὅμως δὲ λῦσαι δυνατὸς ὀξεῖαν ἐπιμομφὰν
      τόκος. ὁράτω νῦν ψᾶφον ἐλισσομέναν
      ὁπᾶι κῦμα κατακλύσσει ῥέον,               10
      ὁπᾶι τε κοινὸν λόγον
      φίλαν τείσομεν ἐς χάριν.
    8 καταίσχυνε Boeckh : καταισχύνει codd. 9 ὁράτω Fennell : θνατῶν codd. : ὁράτ’ ὦν Schneidewin : ὀνάτωρ Hermann : ἀνάτως (uel ἀνατί) Erbse

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 67 , Special Issue 1: Aristocracy and Monetization , April 2020 , pp. 5 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2020

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Footnotes

An early draft of this article was presented at a 2018 Classical Association panel on ‘Aristocracy and Monetization’ convened by Gianna Stergiou, to whom, as well as to Richard Seaford, I am grateful for valuable feedback. My thanks also go to Simon Hornblower, Agis Marinis, and Maria Pavlou for comments which improved the article. None of the above are responsible for the use I have made of their advice, or for any errors of fact or judgement. Translations are mine, unless otherwise indicated.

References

1 For a defence of Fennell's ὁράτω, see Barrett, S. W., Greek Lyric, Tragedy, and Textual Criticism. Collected Papers, ed. West, M. L. (Oxford, 2007), 61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Contrary to some ancient commentators, who maintained that the τόκος is in fact the ensuing Ol. 11 (e.g. Σ1b on O. 10), modern scholarly consensus rightly affirms that the ‘interest’ is to be found in the quality of Ol. 10 itself; see e.g. Bundy, E. L., ‘Studia Pindarica: (i) The Eleventh Olympian Ode; (ii) The First Isthmian Ode’, University of California Publications in Classical Philology 18.1 (1962), 1Google Scholar n. 4, and 33; Barrett (n. 1), 55.

3 See principally Bundy (n. 2) 10–11, 54–9; Kurke, L., The Traffic in Praise. Pindar and the Poetics of Social Economy (Berkeley, CA, 2013; corrected reprint of the 1991 edition) 85–90Google Scholar, 93–4, with earlier bibliography.

4 For the language, cf. Ar. Nub. 19–20. See also B. L. Gildersleeve, Pindar. The Olympian and Pythian Odes, second edition (New York, 1890), 214; W. J. Verdenius, Commentaries on Pindar, vol. II. Olympian Odes 1, 10, 11, Nemean 11, Isthmian 2 (Leiden, 1988), 55; B. Gentili, C. Catenacci, P. Giannini, and L. Lomiento, Pindaro. Le Olimpiche (Milan, 2013), 556. Contra D. Steiner, ‘Catullan Excavations: Pindar's Olympian 10 and Catullus 68’, HSCPh 102 (2004), 282; R. Thomas, ‘Fame, Memorial, and Choral Poetry: The Origins of Epinikian Poetry – an Historical Study’, in S. Hornblower and C. Morgan (eds.), Pindar's Poetry, Patrons, and Festivals. From Archaic Greece to the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2007), 151–2; D. Fearn, ‘Kleos Versus Stone? Lyric Poetry and Contexts for Memorialization’, in P. Liddel and P. Low (eds.), Inscriptions and Their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford, 2013), 248–9; D. Fearn, Pindar's Eyes. Visual and Material Culture in Epinician Poetry (Oxford, 2017), 12–13. These scholars argue (improbably, I think) that the victor's name is imagined in the form of an inscription, perhaps from a dedicatory statue's base (see N. Nicholson, The Poetics of Victory in the Greek West. Epinician, Oral Tradition, and the Deinomenid Empire [Oxford, 2016], 119) or from a victors’ list.

5 Quotations from G. Kromer, ‘The Value of Time in Pindar's Olympian 10’, Hermes 104 (1976), 421, 422.

6 Verdenius (n. 4), 55, 57; Kurke (n. 3), 202–3. See also L. Woodbury, ‘Pindar and the Mercenary Muse: Isthm. 2.1–13’, TAPhA 99 (1968), 531: ‘An obsession with fees is the least likely of themes for a Pindaric proem’; G. Nagy, ‘The “Professional Muse” and Models of Prestige in Ancient Greece’, Cultural Critique 12 (1989), 141; Steiner (n. 4), 278.

7 Kromer (n. 5).

8 Kurke (n. 3), 86 (my emphasis).

9 Translations from W. H. Race, Pindar, vols. i–ii (Cambridge, MA, 1997), ii.41 and i.373, respectively. For συνθέμενος / συνέθευ denoting the poet's contract in the above passages, see M. M. Willcock, Pindar. Victory Odes. Olympians 2, 7 and 11; Nemean 4; Isthmians 3, 4 and 7 (Cambridge, 1995), 106–7; B. Gentili, P. A. Bernardini, E. Cingano, and P. Giannini, Pindaro. Le Pitiche (Milan, 1995) 660; cf. B. Gentili, ‘Verità e accordo contrattuale (σύνθεσις) in Pindaro, fr. 205 Sn.-Maehl.’, IClS 6 (1981), 219. For the question of the poets’ commission and payment, see S. Hornblower, ‘Greek Lyric and the Politics and Sociologies of Archaic and Classical Greek Communities’, in F. Budelmann (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Lyric (Cambridge, 2009), 39–44; for a more sceptical approach to assigning economic motives to the poets’ activity, see H. Pelliccia, ‘Simonides, Pindar and Bacchylides’, in Budelmann (this note), 243–4.

10 In fact, the latter passage is quoted elsewhere by Kurke herself (n. 3), 210, as evidence for Pindar's awareness that his own poetry is not exempt from mercenary motives.

11 Kurke (n. 3), 208–22. See also Woodbury (n. 6), 540.

12 See, e.g., B. V. Head, Historia Numorum. A Manual of Greek Numismatics, second edition (Oxford, 1911), 101–4; N. K. Rutter, ‘The Coinage of Italy’, in W. E. Metcalf (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage (Oxford, 2012), 137–8. For a concise history of Lokrian coinage, see T. Fischer-Hansen, T. H. Nielsen, and C. Ampolo, ‘Italia and Kampania’, in M. H. Hansen and T. H. Nielsen (eds.), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis (Oxford, 2004), 277, with earlier bibliography.

13 See Inventory of Greek Coin Hoards, <http://coinhoards.org>, accessed 12 November 2019 (henceforth IGCH), 1880 (buried c.490 bce); Nicholson (n. 4), 111 with n. 39.

14 See IGCH 1881 (buried c.480 bce), 1886 (c.470 bce), 1887 (c.470 bce). For a numismatic history of those regions, see Fischer-Hansen, Nielsen, and Ampolo (n. 12), 266 (Kaulonia), 269–70 (Kroton), 281–2 (Metapontion), 289 (Poseidonia), 298–9 (Sybaris), 302 (Taras), 303 (Temesa).

15 Rutter (n. 12), 128–9.

16 See, e.g., F. Mezger, Pindars Siegeslieder (Leipzig, 1880), 428; P. J. Nassen, ‘A Literary Study of Pindar's Olympian 10’, TAPhA 105 (1975), 225–6; W. Mullen, Choreia. Pindar and Dance (Princeton, NJ, 1982), 202. The point is argued in detail by Kromer (n. 5), 428–9.

17 Cf. e.g. Ol. 2.6, 8.21–30, 9.15–16, 13.6–8; Nem. 4.12–13, 11.8; Isthm. 5.22. See also Bundy (n. 2), 25 n. 58; Verdenius (n. 4), 63, on O. 10.13 (Ἀτρέκεια).

18 See e.g. Gentili et al. (n. 4), 559–60 ad 13/14.

19 See fr. 205.2: ὤνασσ’ Ἀλάθεια (‘Queen Truth’); Ol. 2.92, 6.89–91, 13.11–12, 98–100; Pyth. 4.279.

20 See G. Norwood, Pindar (Berkeley, CA, 1945), 111–12; D. L. Burgess, ‘Pindar's Olympian 10: Praise for the Poet, Praise for the Victor’, Hermes 118.3 (1990), 274. Contra Verdenius (n. 4), 62 ad 13 (γάρ); Gentili et al. (n. 4), 559 ad 13/14.

21 See Bundy (n. 2), 24–5. Cf. Ol. 11.16–19, composed for the same occasion as Ol. 10; Pyth. 5.114–15 (Arkesilas is both ἔν τε Μοίσαισι ποτανός, ‘soaring on the wings of the Muses’, and ἁρματηλάτας σοφός, ‘a dexterous charioteer’); Ol. 13.22–3 (in Corinth ἐν δὲ Μοῖσ’ ἁδύπνοος, | ἐν δ’ Ἄρης ἀνθεῖ, ‘there blossoms the sweet-breathing Muse, there [blossoms] Ares’).

22 E.g. Ol. 1.111–12, 3.4; Pyth. 1.58–9; Nem. 3.1; Isthm. 8.5a–6; and many other examples.

23 The song as arrow or javelin: Ol. 1.111–12; 2.83–5, 90; 9.5–8; 13.93–5. The song as bow: Ol. 2.89; 9.5; Nem. 6.28. The song as chariot (of the Muses): Ol. 1.110; 6.22–4; Pyth. 10.65; Isthm. 8.61. See further M. Simpson, ‘The Chariot and the Bow as Metaphors for Poetry in Pindar's Odes’, TAPhA 100 (1969), 437–73; M. R. Lefkowitz, ‘The Poet as Athlete’, Journal of Sport History 11.2 (1984), 19–20, 21 = First-Person Fictions. Pindar's Poetic ‘I’ (Oxford, 1991), 163, 165; W. Fitzgerald, Agonistic Poetry. The Pindaric Mode in Pindar, Horace, Hölderlin, and the English Ode (Berkeley, CA, 1987), 20–1. All these metaphors are of Indo-European ancestry: M. L. West, Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford, 2007), 41–3, 45.

24 See Gildersleeve (n. 4), 215: ‘The Locrians have honesty. I am honest. They love song. I sing. They are warlike. I will tell of war.’

25 Lefkowitz 1984 (n. 23), 18–24 = Lefkowitz 1991 (n. 23), 161–8.

26 See e.g. Ol. 6.22–7; Nem. 4.35–41, 91–6; Pyth. 10.64–6; Lefkowitz 1984 (n. 23), 19–20, 23 = Lefkowitz 1991 (n. 23), 163, 167; T. K. Hubbard, The Pindaric Mind. A Study of Logical Structure in Early Greek Poetry (Leiden, 1985), 23.

27 Lefkowitz 1984 (n. 23), 23 = Lefkowitz 1991 (n. 23), 168.

28 On the distinction between vertical and horizontal homosociality see further N. Hammarén and T. Johansson, ‘Homosociality: In Between Power and Intimacy’, SAGE Open (Jan.-Mar. 2014), 1–11.

29 See Fitzgerald (n. 23), 117.

30 For this line in its context see the quotation at the beginning of section 2 above.

31 On Stesikhoros’ version of the myth, and on its presumable innovations (Herakles’ flight, Athena's intervention), see M. Davies and P. J. Finglass, Stesichorus. The Poems (Cambridge, 2014), 465–8.

32 H. Lloyd-Jones, ‘Lykaon and Kyknos’, ZPE 108 (1995), 41–2 = H. Lloyd-Jones, The Further Academic Papers of Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Oxford, 2005), 55–7, with further bibliography on the earlier scholars from whose arguments his own thesis developed. On the supposed associations of the Kyknos story with Lokroi, see also T. K. Hubbard, ‘Ρindar's Κύκνεια μάχα: Subtext and Allusion in Olympian 10. 15–16’, MD 23 (1989), 139–40.

33 See H. J. Rose, ‘Herakles and Kyknos (Pindar, O.X. 15)’, Mnemosyne, ser. 4, 10.2 (1957), 115.

34 Ibid., 111.

35 Fitzgerald (n. 23), 20. Contra Hubbard (n. 32), 138; Barrett (n. 1), 62–3.

36 See also Hubbard (n. 32), 141–2; Burgess (n. 20), 275–6; J. Kabiersch, ‘Humor bei Pindar: ein Deutungsversuch zu τόκος (Pind. Ol. X,9)’, Hermes 127.3 (1999), 370–1.

37 Nassen (n. 16), 229–30; Kromer (n. 5), 432; Fitzgerald (n. 23), 120.

38 P. Agócs, ‘Performance and Genre: Reading Pindar's κῶμοι’, in P. Agócs, C. Carey, and R. Rawles (eds.), Reading the Victory Ode (Cambridge, 2012), 216; cf. 51: ἐν πρωτογόνωι τελετᾶι (‘at that first-created festival’); 58: σὺν Ὀλυμπιάδι πρώται (‘with the first Olympic festival’).

39 Agócs (n. 38), 217, and see further 212–18.

40 Fitzgerald (n. 23), 123; see also Burgess (n. 20), 277–8.

41 See also H. Spelman, Pindar and the Poetics of Permanence (Oxford, 2018), 196–203.

42 ὅ τ’ ἐξελέγχων μόνος | ἀλάθειαν ἐτήτυμον | Χρόνος; translation from Race (n. 9), i.169.

43 On the role of Time, see also H. Erbse, ‘Bemerkungen zu Pindars 10. olympischer Ode’, in M. von Albrecht and E. Heck (eds.), Silvae. Festschrift für Ernst Zinn zum 60. Geburtstag (Tübingen, 1970), 31–4 ≈ H. Erbse, Ausgewählte Schriften zur Klassischen Philologie (Berlin and New York, 1979), 100–2; Nassen (n. 16), 232; Mullen (n. 16), 185–208 (passim); Fitzgerald (n. 23), 121–2; Steiner (n. 4), 293–4; Agócs (n. 38), 216–17; M. Pavlou, ‘Khronos, Cronos, and the Cronion Hill: The Spatialization of Time in Pindar's Olympian 10’, CHS Research Bulletin 2.2 (2014), esp. §11, <http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:PavlouM.Chronos_Kronos_and_the_Kronion_Hill.2014>, accessed 13 November 2019.

44 See Fitzgerald (n. 23), 122. For the etymology of ἀλήθεια (<ἀ+λήθη), see P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des mots, second edition (Paris, 1999), 618. For the etymological play between ἐπιλέλαθ’ and ἀλάθεια, see Pavlou (n. 43), §10.2.

45 See e.g. Pl. Resp. 555e–6a; Arist. Pol. 1258b5–7; and the extended pun on τόκος = ‘offspring’/‘monetary interest’ in Ar. Thesm. 839–45. And see Mullen (n. 16), 202.

46 See Fitzgerald (n. 23), 30–1, 123; Burgess (n. 20), 273, 279.

47 On the Pindaric idea of immortality ensured by both offspring and poetry, see H. Boeke, The Value of Victory in Pindar's Odes. Gnomai, Cosmology and the Role of the Poet (Leiden, 2007), 66–9.

48 See Kurke (n. 3), 89–94 (quotation from p. 89).

49 See further B. MacLachlan, The Age of Grace. Charis in Early Greek Poetry (Princeton, NJ, 1993), 10–11, 37, 66, 113 n. 38, 131, 136 (quotation from p. 11); see also C. Brillante, ‘Charis, bia e il tema della reciprocità amorosa’, QUCC, n.s. 59.2 (1998), 20–4, with further bibliography. Cf. Pyth. 1.75–7, with Nagy (n. 6), 136, 138.

50 Cf. the promise of ‘friendly gratification’ (φίλαν…χάριν) at 12; charis as gratitude at 17–18; and the epinikian song itself as an instantiation of charis at 78, not only because it transforms into graceful song the attractive splendour of the Olympic victory but also because it embodies the relationship of reciprocal gratification between the victor and his community, as well as between the victor and the poet. See Kurke (n. 3), 91. On Pindar's own songs as χάριτες, see Isthm. 1.6; 3.8.

51 The exemplum of Ganymede's immortalization on account of his beauty is referenced in Hom. Il. 20.232–5; Hom. Hymn Aphr. 202–6.

52 See Gentili et al. (n. 4), 576. For possible paederastic nuances here as a reflection of the relationship between Hagesidamos and his trainer, Ilas, see T. K. Hubbard, ‘Pindar's Tenth Olympian and Athlete–Trainer Pederasty’, Journal of Homosexuality 49.3–4 (2005), 137–71; see also Nicholson (n. 4), 162, 188. On epinikian celebration of the physical beauty of victorious athletes, see Boeke (n. 47), 115–22; R. Rawles, ‘Eros and Praise in Early Greek Lyric’, in L. Athanassaki and E. Bowie (eds.), Archaic and Classical Choral Song. Politics, Performance and Dissemination (Berlin, 2011), 146–8; L. Athanassaki, ‘Recreating the Emotional Experience of Contest and Victory Celebrations: Spectators and Celebrants in Pindar's Epinicians’, in X. Riu and J. Pòrtulas (eds.), Approaches to Archaic Greek Poetry (Messina, 2012), 187–91. On the erotic aspects of Greek athletics, see T. F. Scanlon, Eros and Greek Athletics (Oxford, 2002).

53 A. Appadurai, ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in A. Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things. Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, 1986), 23.

54 On the singularization of commodities, see I. Kopytoff, ‘The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process’, in Appadurai (n. 53), 73–7.

55 See Bloch, M. and Parry, J., ‘Introduction: Money and the Morality of Exchange’, in Parry, J. and Bloch, M. (eds.), Money and the Morality of Exchange (Cambridge, 1989), 23–8Google Scholar. For applications of their concept of transactional orders on ancient Greek society, see, e.g., Reden, S. von, Exchange in Ancient Greece (London, 1995), 3–4Google Scholar, 96, 172; Kurke, L., Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold. The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece (Princeton, NJ, 1999), 14–22Google Scholar, 31–2, 89, 99–100, 105, 126, 150–9, 222–3, 237–9, 284–96; Seaford, R., Money and the Early Greek Mind. Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy (Cambridge, 2004), 13–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Appadurai (n. 53), 21.

57 See Fitzgerald (n. 23), 29–30. For competitive reciprocity in early Greece, in the light of comparative anthropological material, see Wees, H. van, ‘Greed, Generosity and Gift-Exchange in Early Greece and the Western Pacific’, in Jongman, W. and Kleijwegt, M. (eds.), After the Past. Essays in Ancient History in Honour of H. W. Pleket (Leiden, 2002), 341–78Google Scholar.

58 On embeddedness in premodern societies, see Polanyi, K., The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston, MA, 2001 [1944]), 45–58Google Scholar. Polanyi's ‘embedded vs disembedded’ dichotomy is confirmed by anthropological data: see, e.g., Evans-Pritchard, E. E., The Nuer. A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People (Oxford, 1940), 90Google Scholar: ‘One cannot treat Nuer economic relations by themselves, for they always form part of direct social relationships of a general kind’; also Sahlins, M., Stone Age Economics (Chicago, IL, 1972), 86Google Scholar: ‘A great proportion of primitive exchange, much more than our own traffic, has as its decisive function this latter, instrumental one: the material flow underwrites or initiates social relations.’ See also White, L. A., The Evolution of Culture. The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome (New York, 1959), 237–60Google Scholar.

59 All quotations are from Sahlins (n. 58), 194.

60 For the idea, see Eur. Alc. 782: βροτοῖς ἅπασι κατθανεῖν ὀφείλεται (‘all mortals must pay the debt of death’); Eur. Andr. 1272; Nep. Reg. 1.5: morbo naturae debitum reddiderunt (‘with their death they repaid their debt to nature’).

61 See also Fitzgerald (n. 23), 28–9.

62 Withholding that quality would be an instance of φθόνος (‘envious resentment’), occasioned, as often in Pindar, by the victor's outstanding achievement. On epinikian phthonos see Kurke (n. 3), 169 with n. 1 (with earlier bibliography); Athanassaki (n. 52), 199–202, 204–7, 212, 214. The possibility of withholding praise out of phthonos is evoked, and repudiated, in Isthm. 5.24–5: μὴ φθόνει κόμπον τὸν ἐοικότ’ ἀοιδᾶι | κιρνάμεν ἀντὶ πόνων (‘do not begrudge mixing appropriate boast into your song as a reward for [athletic] labours’). Even if it is repudiated, however, the possibility of begrudging praise is still one to be reckoned with.

63 Bourdieu, P., Outline of a Theory of Practice, transl. Nice, R. (Cambridge, 1977), 179CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 180 (emphasis in original).

64 Ibid., 180–1.

65 Ibid., 183.

66 On the relationship of mutual interdependence between the praise poet and the recipient of the praise (including in matters related to debt and its repayment), see also Fitzgerald (n. 23), 25; Burgess (n. 20), 278, 281.

67 See Weiner, A. B., Inalienable Possessions. The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving (Berkeley, CA, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, e.g. 6–7, 10, 26, 33, 36–7. For a case study of valuable, highly aestheticized objects made by skilled artisans (in the eastern Solomon Islands of the south-western Pacific), which are beyond the potential of exchangeability and thus outside the commodity network, see W. H. Davenport, ‘Two Kinds of Value in the Eastern Solomon Islands’, in Appadurai (n. 53), 95–109. For a case study of inalienable possessions in Pueblo societies, see Mills, B. J., ‘The Establishment and Defeat of Hierarchy: Inalienable Possessions and the History of Collective Prestige Structures in the Pueblo Southwest’, American Anthropologist 106.2 (2004), 238–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Bloch and Parry (n. 55), 23. All quotations in the remainder of this paragraph are excerpted from Bloch and Parry (n. 55), 23–7.