Use the following persistent identifier: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Pindars_Homer.1990.
14. Pindar’s Homer
§1. As a lyric poet who flourished in an age when emerging patterns of individual power within the Greek polis had already established corresponding patterns of individualism, marking the poet as well as the poet’s powerful patrons, Pindar was an author. [1] As a figure who served to connect the heroic past with the present, he was a master of the mode of discourse known as the ainos. In this discourse the poet’s references to the present identified him as much as his patrons. But this identification had to be expressed in terms of the past, in terms of Homer and the age of heroes. [2] And the question remains: what exactly was Homer to Pindar?
§2. To begin, Pindar’s lyric poetry seems to make no distinction between the heroes of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey on the one hand and the heroes of other epic traditions, most notably those of the so-called Epic Cycle, on the other. Within but the briefest space, for example, in Olympian 2.81–83, Pindar’s words recount how Achilles vanquished three heroes, Hektor (81–82), Kyknos (82), and Memnon (83). Whereas Hektor was the main opponent of Achilles in the Iliad, Kyknos figured prominently as his antagonist in the Cyclic Cypria (Proclus, p. 105.2–3 Allen) and Memnon, in the Aithiopis (Proclus, p. 106.1–7). One expert on Pindar remarks about Olympian 2.81–83: “These lines illustrate Pindar’s indebtedness to the post-Homeric epics: from the [Cypria] he draws the episode of the slaying of [Kyknos], and from the Aithiopis of [Arctinus] he derives the translation of Achilles and his slaying of Memnon, a story that haunted Pindar’s {414|415} imagination, for he recurs no less than six times to Memnon in the odes.” [3] Instead, what I propose to emphasize is that Pindar’s lyric poetry treats Cyclic heroes as equivalents of Homeric heroes. At Isthmian 5.39–42, for example, the victims of Achilles are enumerated as Kyknos (39), Hektor (39), Memnon (40–41), and Telephos (41–42); the last of these figures is yet another hero of the Cycle (Cypria/Proclus, p. 104.5–7 Allen). Again at Isthmian 8.54–55, Memnon and Hektor are equated as heroic opponents of Achilles. [4] Even more, Pindar’s lyric poetry seems at times not to distinguish the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey from the authorship of the Cycle. From Pindar F 265 SM (by way of Aelian Varia Historia 9.15), for example, it appears that Pindar’s words had ascribed the Cypria to Homer. [5] Similarly the words of Callinus (F 6 W) explicitly ascribed the epic Seven against Thebes tradition to Homer, according to Pausanias 9.9.5, who rates this epic as a poem so superior that it is second only to the Iliad and Odyssey (ibid.). [6]
§3. This poetic convention, as practiced by Pindar, of equating the themes of Homeric and Cyclic epos may at first seem surprising in view of the clear differences between these two poetic traditions. The nature of these differences, as also the reasons for them, has already been formulated: the Cycle is more localized, less Panhellenic, than the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey. [7] The fact that Pindaric song refers to epic traditions that cross over from the Homeric to the Cyclic, traditions of varying stages in the development of epic, suggests that Pindaric reference is diachronic, stretching across the span of development in epic traditions. The fact that the diachronic differences in the epic medium are not sorted out by Pindaric song implies that Pindar’s own medium contains within itself the metamorphoses of epic. If indeed the different epic heroes from different epic phases are treated as multiforms, parallel variants, then it follows that different epic phases are likewise mere {415|416} multiforms from the standpoint of Pindar’s poetics. I am proposing then that there is in Pindaric song an ongoing nondifferentiation of epic traditions—traditions that we see otherwise attested only in their already differentiated forms, for example, the Iliad as distinct from the Odyssey, or, more generally, Homeric poetry as distinct from Cyclic poetry. [8]
§4. Pursuing this line of thinking, I shun the common opinion that the Pindaric references to the traditions that survived in the Cycle are merely borrowings from the Cycle. [9] Rather I suggest that Pindar is drawing upon a continuum of epic tradition. I suggest in addition that Pindar’s tradition can draw upon such a continuum because it actually contains Homer’s tradition within itself.
§5. In support of this suggestion that the diachronic mode of Pindar’s references to epic reveals something about the diachronic relationship of Pindar’s own medium to epic, we have already had recourse to the references of Pindar’s lyric tradition to itself and to epic, where the medium of epic is conventionally treated as an outgrowth of Pindar’s own traditional medium. [10] The lyric poetry of Pindar represents epic as extending into the epinician ainos of Pindar, thereby presenting itself as the ultimate authority of tradition. [11]
§6. The relationship between the Pindaric tradition and the Homeric is also apparent on the level of metrics. In the case of Pindar we have seen that the heritage of his rhythmical repertory centers on the so-called dactylo-epitrite meters, as attested in the Dorian tradition of Stesichorus, and on the Aeolic meters, as attested in the Aeolian tradition of Sappho and Alcaeus. [12] Of Pindar’s epinician songs, roughly half (twenty-three) are composed in Doric dactylo-epitrite meters, and half (twenty) in Aeolic meters. [13] There is one solitary occurrence, Olympian 2, of a song composed in distinctly Ionic meters. In considering the half-and-half proportion of Doric dactylo-epitrite and Aeolic meters in Pindar, we may note an important analogue in the dactylic hexameter of epic, which can be explained as a synthesis of dactylo-epitrite and Aeolic metrical traditions. [14] Roughly half of the hexameters in Homeric poetry are built with phraseology where the main word break (“) occurs immediately after the sequence – ⏔ – ⏔ –, which can be traced back {416|417} to dactylo-epitrite patterns, and roughly another half where it occurs after the sequence – ⏔ – ⏔ – ⏑, which can be traced back to Aeolic patterns. [15] These two sequences, – ⏔ – ⏔ – ” and – ⏔ – ⏔ – ⏑ “, account for the main caesura, or word break, in 99% of Homeric hexameters. [16] To restate in terms of the colon, [17] the cola of the hexameter as defined by the so-called masculine caesura (– ⏔ – ⏔ – “) seem to be built from the cola of dactylo-epitrite meters as attested in Pindar and of prototypical dactylo-epitrite meters as attested in Stesichorus. As for the cola defined by the so-called feminine caesura (–⏔ – ⏔ – ⏑ “), these in turn seem to be cognate with the cola that we find in the so-called Aeolic meters of Pindar, as also in the Aeolic repertory of Sappho and Alcaeus.
§7. Thus the two metrical patterns that combine as one in Homeric diction, namely, the dactylo-epitrite and the Aeolic, are still by and large separate and autonomous in the diction of Pindar. To put it more strongly: Pindar’s lyric poetry still preserves the separateness of the prototypical components of epic poetry.
§8. The dactylo-epitrite heritage of dactylic hexameter, however, is not specifically Doric, as in the case of Stesichorus or Pindar. The poetry of Archilochus, a prominent representative of Ionic traditions, is distinguished by metrical building blocks that can be described as cognate with those of the Doric dactylo-epitrite. [18] In other words there is an Ionic as well as Doric tradition of dactylo-epitrite patterns. Still, in the wake of the overlap between Doric dactylo-epitrite patterns and the Ionic patterns that are cognate with them, the term Ionic, as applied to the lyric poetry of Pindar, tends to be restricted to categories not covered by Doric. In other words Ionic is a default category in describing the metrics of Pindar. Thus Olympian 2 is the only Pindaric composition where the meters can be described as overtly Ionic because it is the only Pindaric composition where the meters are exclusively Ionic. I would summarize the hierarchy of Pindar’s metrical heritage as follows: dominant Doric, recessive Aeolic, and residual Ionic. It seems to me that this proportion of Doric/Aeolic/Ionic meters in Pindaric composition corresponds to the dialectal synthesis of Pindaric diction: again we see a pattern of dominant Doric, recessive Aeolic, and residual Ionic. [19] {417|418}
§9. The proportions of this metrical and dialectal synthesis in Pindaric song correspond to the hierarchy established by the traditional story of Terpander’s coming to Sparta (Hellanicus FGH 4 F 85; Pindar F 191 SM). [20] The background for this story is a story, originating from the native Aeolic tradition of the Lesbian poets, that claims Terpander as the ancestor of this same Aeolic tradition (Sappho F 106 V). We know from the attested diction of Sappho and Alcaeus that this Aeolic tradition is actually a blend of two dialects, dominant Aeolic synthesized with recessive Ionic. [21] A similar description seems apt for the meters of Sappho and Alcaeus: a synthesis of dominant Aeolic and recessive Ionic (where the Ionic is cognate with the meters of Anacreon and even Hipponax). This blend in traditions as represented by Terpander, that is, dominant Aeolic synthesized with recessive Ionic, is then further blended in the Doric context of Sparta. As myth has it, Terpander brings with him to Doric Sparta the Aeolic traditions of Lesbos. [22] Thus the story of Terpander’s arrival at Sparta accounts for the final and definitively dominant stage, the Doric, in the traditional diction of figures like Alcman and even Pindar. [23]
§10. Another way to approach the relationship between the traditions of Pindar and Homer is to compare them both with other traditions that reveal close affinities with both. What follows is a brief survey of a few such traditions, including those of Stesichorus, Theognis, Archilochus, Alcaeus, and Sappho. This survey, it is hoped, will yield a final overview of the effects of Panhellenism on the heritage of ancient Greek song and poetry.
§11. Let us begin with Stesichorus. On the level of form, the dactylo-epitrite meters of Stesichorus are clearly related to what we see in roughly one-half of Pindar’s metrical repertory. [24] Also the way in which these dactylo-epitrite meters of Stesichorus frame traditional phraseology is clearly related to the way in which roughly half of the verses in Homeric poetry are built, that is, where the main word break occurs immediately after the sequence – ⏔ – ⏔ – (“masculine” caesura). [25] Paradoxically the dactylo-epitrites of the earlier figure, Stesichorus, seem to be less conservative at least in one respect than those of the later figure, Pindar, in that the rules of Stesichorean meter are moving in the direction of epic by tolerating the substitution of ⏔̆ – ⏑ ⏑ – ⏑ ⏑ – – for ⏓ – ⏑ ⏑ – ⏑ ⏑ – –. [26] {418|419}
§12. The comparison of Homer and Pindar with Stesichorus is also pertinent on the level of theme: the repertory of themes to be found in the more localized Cycle, as distinct from the more Panhellenic Iliad and Odyssey, is remarkably parallel to what we find in the compositions attributed to Stesichorus. Given that the lyric poetry of Stesichorus is related to that of Pindar on the level of form, [27] we may pursue the question, what is Homer to Pindar, by considering the affinities of Stesichorus and Pindar on the level of theme, and, further, the relationship of their shared lyric tradition to the concept of epic in general and Homer in particular.
§13. A singularly useful point of departure is the Stesichorean rendition of the Helen story, which contrasts its own adherence to one particular localized version with the syncretism of the Homeric Helen tradition of the Iliad and Odyssey. In the Stesichorean version Homer is blamed for representing Helen as having allowed herself to be seduced by Paris: the Homeric version, which says that Helen went with Paris all the way to Troy, is specifically rejected (Stesichorus PMG 193.2–5), as is what seems to be the Hesiodic version, which says that she went as far as Egypt, while her eidōlon ‘image-double’ was taken to Troy (Stesichorus PMG 193.5–7, 12–16). [28] The rejected story about the eidōlon ‘image-double’, with the detail concerning the voyage of Paris and Helen to Egypt (cf. Stesichorus PMG 193.15-16 in conjunction with Hesiod F 176.7 MW), affirms the seduction of Helen since the actual adultery of Paris and Helen traditionally took place during their voyage from Sparta to Egypt (cf. Iliad III 445). The celebrated theme of the palinōidiā ‘recantation’ of Stesichorus has to do with the story that told how this poet had previously blamed Helen, like Homer and Hesiod, by virtue of telling stories about her that were parallel to theirs, only to recant later and then be rewarded with the restoration of his eyesight, which had been taken away by the supernatural powers of Helen as punishment for defamation (Isocrates Helen 64, Conon FGH 26 F 1.18, Plato Phaedrus 243a, Pausanias 3.19.11). [29]
§14. It could be argued that the words of the recantation, as a composition, actually presupposed the story of how Stesichorus was blinded and how he then had a change of heart: this way the restoration of vision would be a {419|420} given of the composition, that is, something that is ostensibly caused by the dramatized here and now of the recantation. The recantation of Stesichorus, featuring the restoration of his vision, not only denies the Homeric tradition but also reaffirms another tradition that happens to acknowledge explicitly the thought patterns associated with the cult of Helen as a local goddess. According to Pausanias 3.19.11, the story of Helen and the blinding of Stesichorus is a tradition stemming from the city-state of Kroton, also shared by Himera, the traditional provenience of Stesichorus; in this version Helen abides on the sacred Island of Leuke, as consort of Achilles, through the agency of the gods; from there she sends word to Stesichorus that he compose a recantation. Thus the recantation of Stesichorus seems to be a theme that also reaffirms the traditions native to Kroton and Himera. More important for the moment, the recantation of Stesichorus presupposes the distinctness of Stesichorus and his lyric poetry from the likes of Homer and his epic poetry, in light of another tradition claiming that Homer himself had been blinded as punishment for his having defamed Helen through his story of Helen at Troy (Life of Homer VI 51–57 Allen; Plato Phaedrus 243a). [30]
§15. This juxtaposition of Homer and Stesichorus within the tradition of Stesichorus is important in understanding a genuine distinction between two traditions of poetry. The central point of reference, even for Stesichorus, is Homer and the version of Homer in telling the story of Helen. We have already noted the juxtaposition of Homer and Stesichorus in traditional references, such as Simonides PMG 564 and Isocrates Helen 64–65, which I interpret to imply the appropriateness of conventionally juxtaposing performances of Homeric and Stesichorean poetry at given festivals. [31]
§16. The variability of the Helen story in fact served as a touchstone in ancient controversies over the attribution of given compositions to Homer. For example, Herodotus has to go out of his way to argue, apparently against beliefs held within certain traditions in his own time, that the poet of the Cypria is not Homer (2.116–117). Herodotus makes his argument on the grounds that the Cypria has Paris and Helen sail directly, within the space of three days, from Sparta to Troy (2.117). The version of the Cypria known to Herodotus is different from the one summarized by Proclus, where we do find the elaboration of one sidetracking: a storm sent by Hera blows Paris and Helen off course and they land at Sidon, but then they sail from there directly to Troy (Cypria/Proclus, p. 103.9–12 Allen). In contrast the Homeric poems, as Herodotus points out, allow for at least two sidetrackings, one at Sidon and one in Egypt (2.116, quoting from Iliad VI 289–292 and Odyssey iv 227–230, 251–252), though these sidetrackings are clearly subordinated by the narrative (as Herodotus also points out: 2.116.1). It is the more complex pattern of {420|421} the Homeric poems, where one level of narrative is being subordinated to another, as contrasted with the more simple pattern of the Cypria, that convinces Herodotus that the poet of the Cypria cannot be Homer. Since “Homer” allows for variation in the Helen story and the poet of the Cypria does not, Herodotus infers that the latter cannot be “Homer.” The greater tolerance for variation is for me a sign of relatively wider Panhellenism. [32]
§17. In contrast with the complex and diplomatic pattern of subordination that characterizes Homer as the most Panhellenic in outlook, the story affirmed by Stesichorus in his Helen song is relatively simplex and uncompromising: Helen did not go to Troy, and that particular story about her is simply not etumos ‘genuine’ (Stesichorus PMG 192.1). In other words the versions of Stesichorus and the Cycle are comparable to each other by virtue of being less complex, less synthetic, than the version of Homer. In accommodating a version that pictures Helen on the sacred Island of Leuke as consort of Achilles (Pausanias 3.19.11), the tradition of Stesichorus is parallel to the less Panhellenic traditions of the Cycle: in the Aithiopis, the abode of Achilles after immortalization is this same sacred place, Leuke (Proclus, p. 106.15 Allen). This sacred place anchors the epic of the Aithiopis to the local cults of Miletus and its colonies. [33]
§18. Besides this specific kind of thematic parallelism between Stesichorus and the Cycle, we may note that even the general organizing subjects of Stesichorean poetry coincide with those of the Cycle: for example, Stesichorus is credited with a composition called the Destruction of Ilion (PMG 196–205), [34] and another called the Nostoi (PMG 208–209), corresponding respectively to the Cyclic Destruction of Ilion, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus, and the Nostoi, attributed to Agias of Trozen. Such convergences are especially significant if the poetry of Stesichorus is indeed closely related to a prototype of the poetry of Pindar. [35] What the experts have been used to perceive as Pindaric borrowings from the Cycle are more likely to be genuine inheritances from traditions preserved in actual prototypes of Pindaric song, as represented by Stesichorean song.
§19. Another indication that the tradition of Stesichorus is less Panhellenic than the Homeric and Hesiodic is to be found in the measuring of the truth value of the preferred version of the Helen myth in terms of the concept etumo- ‘genuine’ (Stesichorus PMG 192.1): in Hesiodic poetry, by contrast, a plethora of local versions that are false but seem etuma ‘genuine’ (Theogony 27) is contrasted with an ostensibly unique and absolute Panhellenic {421|422} version that is described as alēthea ‘true’ (28). [36] Still another indication of the more local nature of Stesichorean lyric poetry is the privileging of the visual metaphor for poetry: the figure of Stesichorus has his vision restored by Helen, whereas Homer does not (again, Plato Phaedrus 243a). Homeric poetry, in contrast, is marked by the privileging of the auditory metaphor, at the expense of the visual: the inability of the poet to see is a guarantee of his ability to go beyond personal experience and thus to hear the true message of the Muses, which is the kleos ‘glory’ (from verb kluō ‘hear’) of Homeric poetry (Iliad II 486). [37]
§20. The emphasis on the metaphor of seeing in Stesichorean lyric poetry, setting it off from the metaphor of hearing in the epic poetry of Homer, is akin to the semantics of historiā, with its awareness of local testimony grounded in local traditions. With its more localized orientation, Stesichorean lyric poetry can identify itself as δαμώματα Χαρίτων ‘the public local performances of the Kharites’ (Stesichorus PMG 212.1). The reference to Kharites or “Graces,” divine incarnations of kharis, [38] underlines the relationship between the composition and its immediate audience, the local nature of which is conveyed by dāmōma, the act of ‘making public’, which I translate here as ‘public local performance’ in light of its derivation from dāmos (dēmos) in the sense of ‘local community’. [39] Such local performances, however stylized, properly take place through the agency of the chorus, and we have noted the centrality of the chorus as the formal expression of a local community. [40] We may note as well the pertinence of the very name of Stesichorus to this formal expression: Stēsi-khoros means ‘he who sets up the chorus’. [41]
§21. The essence of Stesichorean lyric poetry is not that a given local version, as ordinarily formalized in the song of the chorus, has won out over the Panhellenic version, as formalized in the poetry of Homer. Rather it may be described as a local version in the process of making a bid for Panhellenic status. Such a description fits the lyric poetry of Pindar as well. A typical Pindaric composition presents itself as local in foundation, expressed through the performance of the chorus, and as Panhellenic in intent, expressed through the links of the song with the Homeric world of heroes. But the actual poetry of Homer must be made to look too compromising in face of the uncompromising standard proclaimed by Pindaric song. What we have already observed in the case of Stesichorus applies to Pindar as well: his tradition too puts a strong emphasis on its association with the visual metaphor, {422|423} as distinct from the auditory metaphor that marks the Homeric tradition, and an equally strong emphasis on the truth-value of local traditions grounded in cult, as distinct from the synthetic complexities attributed to Homer. Just as the voice of Stesichorus in his Helen song proclaims that his version of the logos ‘tale’ of Helen is etumos ‘genuine’ by virtue of claiming that the Homeric version is the opposite (Stesichorus PMG 192.1), so also the voice of Pindar, as it proclaims in Nemean 7 its mission to praise what is noble, claims the control of a kleos ‘glory’ that is etētumon ‘genuine’ (verse 63). [42] Earlier in the same song, the logos ‘tale’ of and by the crafty Odysseus, as retold with commensurate craft by Homer, is described as going beyond the bounds of alētheia ‘truth’, to which most men are “blind” without the “vision” that is implicit in Pindar’s lyric poetry, an uncompromising unified vision that defends the true value of heroes from the compromising complexities of mūthoi ‘myths’, which are the “hearsay” of Homer:
ἐγὼ δὲ πλέον’ ἔλπομαι | λόγον Ὀδυσσέος ἢ πάθαν διὰ τὸν ἀδυεπῆ Ὅμηρον· | ἐπεὶ ψεύδεσί οἱ ποτανᾷ <τε> μαχανᾷ σεμνὸν ἔπεστί τι· σοφία δὲ κλέπτει παράγοισα μύθοις. τυφλὸν δ’ ἔχει | ἦτορ ὅμιλος ἀνδρῶν ὁ πλεῖστος. εἰ γὰρ ἦν | ἓ τὰν ἀλάθειαν ἰδέμεν, οὔ κεν ὅπλων χολωθεὶς | ὁ καρτερὸς Αἴας ἔπαξε διὰ φρένων | λευρὸν ξίφος
Pindar Nemean 7.20–27
I think that the tale [logos] of Odysseus is greater than his experiences [pathā], [43] all because of Homer, the one with the sweet words. Upon his lies [pseudea] and winged inventiveness there is a kind of majesty; [poetic] skill [sophiā], misleading in myths [mūthoi], is deceptive. Blind in heart are most men. For if they could have seen the truth [alētheia], never would great Ajax, angered over the arms [of Achilles], have driven the burnished sword through his own heart.
§22. The fame of the great hero Ajax, grounded in the local hero cult of the Aiakidai on the island of Aegina, [44] setting of Pindar’s Nemean 7, is threatened by the mūthoi ‘myths’ of Homeric poetry and rescued by the alētheia of Pindaric song. [45] The local tradition, as represented by Pindar, is {423|424} making its bid for Panhellenic status by paradoxically laying claim to the kind of absolute alētheia already claimed by Panhellenic poetry. In the process, Pindaric song is dismissing Homer as a perpetuator of mūthoi. In using this word, Pindaric song turns back to the very foil used by earlier Panhellenic poetry in dismissing various uncompromising localized versions slated for displacement by way of synthetic compromise. [46] This is not to say that the poetics of Pindar can dismiss epic itself: Homer is being slighted here only to the extent that he is being accused of becoming a perpetuator of the words of Odysseus; we should note that the figure of Odysseus, whenever he is being quoted by epic, speaks not in the mode of epic but rather as a master of multiple meanings, a man of craft whose discourse is described by epic itself as ainos (Odyssey xiv 508). [47]
§23. This point brings us back to Pindar, whose own lyric medium is called, by the medium itself, ainos (e.g., Olympian 6.12). [48] As a master of the ainos, Pindar is obliged to be direct and truthful toward his near and dear, the philoi, but at the same time he is entitled to be indirect and deceitful toward his enemies, the ekhthroi (e.g., Pythian 2.83–85). [49] The voice of Pindar, the voice of the ainos, can indignantly condemn the multiplicity and deceitfulness of mūthoi that led to the undoing of the hero Ajax, as we have just seen in the use of the word mūthoi at Nemean 7.23 (and the same situation holds at Nemean 8.33). At the same time it can espouse multiplicity and deceitfulness for the purpose of decoying the unrighteous ekhthros ‘enemy’.
§24. There is a particularly striking example of the proclaimed multiplicity of the ainos in a Pindaric song where the wise words of the hero Amphiaraos, who is being represented in the act of instructing his son Amphilokhos, are being directly quoted. The hero’s words of instruction center on the image of an octopus:
ὦ τέκνον, ποντίου θηρὸς πετραίου | χρωτὶ μάλιστα νόον | προφέρων πάσαις πολίεσσιν ὁμίλει· | τῷ παρεόντι δ’ ἐπαινήσαις ἑκὼν | ἄλλοτ’ ἀλλοῖα φρόνει
Pindar F 43 SM
My son, associate with all the various cities by making your mind [noos] resemble, most of all, the coloring of the animal who lives in the sea, clinging to rocks. Have on your mind different things at different times, being ready and willing, for the occasion, to make ainos [= verb ep-aineō]. [50] {424|425}
There is a close parallel in the poetry of Theognis, another of the poetic figures whose traditions we are considering as points of comparison with the traditions of Pindar and Homer. In this parallel from Theognis, the central image is again that of an octopus, as the voice of the poet issues the following instruction:
πουλύπου ὀργὴν ἴσχε πολυπλόκου, ὃς ποτὶ πέτρῃ
τῇ προσομιλήσῃ, τοῖος ἰδεῖν ἐφάνη.
νῦν μὲν τῇδ’ ἐφέπου, τοτὲ δ’ ἀλλοῖος χρόα γίνου.
κρέσσων τοι σοφίη γίνεται ἀτροπίης
τῇ προσομιλήσῃ, τοῖος ἰδεῖν ἐφάνη.
νῦν μὲν τῇδ’ ἐφέπου, τοτὲ δ’ ἀλλοῖος χρόα γίνου.
κρέσσων τοι σοφίη γίνεται ἀτροπίης
Theognis 215–218
Have the temperament of a complex octopus, who
looks like whatever rock with which he is associated. [51]
Now be like this; then, at another time, become different in your coloring.
I tell you: skill [sophiā] is better than being not versatile [atropos]. [52]
looks like whatever rock with which he is associated. [51]
Now be like this; then, at another time, become different in your coloring.
I tell you: skill [sophiā] is better than being not versatile [atropos]. [52]
To be atropos ‘not versatile’ is the opposite of polutropos ‘versatile in many ways’, epithet of Odysseus (Odyssey i 1), who is actually compared in epic to an octopus (Odyssey v 432–433), and whose qualities of resourcefulness and versatility are being implicitly advocated by the poetics of Theognis as a key to the survival of values worth saving even in disguise, as the figure of the speaker is moving from city to city. We see in the symbol of the octopus the very essence of ainos.
§25. The ainos is multiple, outwardly ever-changing as the poet moves from city to city, like the disguised Odysseus who tests the inner value of the many different people whom he meets in his travels. [53] Each person who is encountered by Odysseus after his homecoming in Ithaca is effectively being challenged to look beyond the hero’s outer appearance as a debased beggar and to recognize his inner reality as a noble king whose authority is eventually being reestablished in the Odyssey, a process that parallels the eventual reconstitution of the very identity of Odysseus through a series of encounters {425|426} with the population of Ithaca. [54] Thus the ainos is also singular, inwardly constant, bearing a true message that is hidden amidst a plethora of possible false interpretations. [55] We may compare the fable of “The Fox and the Hedgehog” as attested in Archilochus F 201 W, where the fox is said to know (verb oida) many things, while the hedgehog knows ἓν μέγα ‘one big thing’. This traditional dichotomy between the multiplicity of the fox and the unitarianism of the hedgehog can be used in support of emending the textually corrupt phrase πολλῶν γνουσαν ἔτι in Theognis 670, which can be read as πολλῶν γνοὺς ἓν ἔτι ‘for I know one thing far better than many other things’. [56] This one thing that is known, introduced by οὕνεκα at Theognis 671, is a riddle concerning the crisis of the Ship of State beset by a seastorm of social strife (671–680). [57] When the image of the Ship of State concludes, the poem refers to it as an ainigma ‘riddle’:
ταῦτά μοι ᾐνίχθω κεκρυμμένα τοῖς ἀγαθοῖσιν
Theognis 681
Let these things be riddling utterances [= ainigmata], hidden by me for the noble [agathoi].
§26. As we contemplate these words, it is pertinent to observe the context of sophiā ‘skill’ in Theognis 218, the same passage that bears the symbol of the octopus (215–218), and I quote an earlier observation of mine: “This word recalls the epithet sophos ‘skilled’ applied to the man who can foresee impending misfortunes like some mantis ‘seer’ [Theognis 682] [58] —a man who speaks in the mode of an ainigma ‘riddle’ (681) about a ship beset by a storm at sea.” [59] In this context the same man, the figure of Theognis, is represented as a model of righteousness who had lost his khrēmata ‘possessions’ and finds himself in distress as he associates with the agathoi ‘noble’ (Theognis 667–670, with khrēmata at 667 and agathoi at 668; cf. 649–652). Implicit here is the model of Odysseus, the hidden king in beggar’s disguise, intrinsically noble but extrinsically debased through impoverishment, who finds himself in distress as he associates with the extrinsically noble but intrinsically base suitors who are usurping his own realm. Moreover, the figure of Theognis, who hides his own intrinsic nobility with the extrinsic debased-ness of impoverishment as he tests the worth of others (Theognis 649–652), {426|427} is directly compared to the figure of Odysseus himself (Theognis 1123–1125). [60]
§27. In short the medium of the ainos may espouse the same tactics as those used by Odysseus and reported by the medium of epic. The difference is, the medium of epic may represent the medium of the ainos, as when the tactics of Odysseus are being narrated, but it cannot be ainos itself. [61] In contrast, a medium like that of Pindar is ainos and, as such, it claims the authority to judge what is being represented by epic, praising what is noble and blaming what is base. The ainos of Pindar’s lyric tradition claims control over epic, as if it represented a more definitive principle of poetics. Whereas epic can just hear, the ainos claims to see as well. Whereas epic is Panhellenic, a delocalized synthesis of native traditions, the ainos purports to be both Panhellenic and local, grounding its Panhellenized truth-values in the legitimacy and authority of native traditions, which shift from city to city and which are the context for the here and now of performance.
§28. This function of the ainos, as proclaimed by the poetics of Pindar, is traditional, shared by the older poetics of Stesichorus. True, these two traditions of lyric poetry are strikingly different in some respects, as we see from the contrasting principles of thematic compression in the typical Pindaric composition on the one hand and on the other of expansion, veering toward epic dimensions, in the typical Stesichorean composition. Still they are strikingly similar in their social purpose, which is to instruct and thus maintain the prestige of a given community by way of selecting those Panhellenic values that reinforce its local interests. Like Pindar, Stesichorus is an exponent of the ainos.
§29. In fact the Stesichorean ainos can assume the specialized form of a fable, as we see from as many as four attested stories reporting various situations where the figure of Stesichorus warns a given city against violence or tyranny. [62] In one of these, as reported by Aristotle Rhetoric 1394b35 (Stesichorus PMG 281b), Stesichorus warns the people of Locri that they should not be hubristai ‘men of hubris’, and his words are described as ainigmatōdē ‘like ainigmata [riddling utterances]’ (ibid.). We may compare the words of warning to the people of Megara, as encoded in the celebrated image of the ship threatened by a storm at sea, in Theognis 667-682, where the poetry refers to its message as ταῦτά μοι ᾐνίχθω ‘let these words of mine be ainigmata [riddling utterances]’ (681). [63] Aristotle (ibid.) specifies the image used by Stesichorus in his words of warning to the people of Locri: it is a theme from the world of fable, a riddling reference to tettīges ‘cicadas’ {427|428} singing on the ground (χαμόθεν; instead of trees, as in Hesiod Works and Days 583). In another reference to the same theme, within the larger context of a discussion of metaphor, Aristotle describes this same fable-image as an example of τὰ εὖ ᾐνιγμένα ‘well-made ainigmata [allusive utterances]’ (Rhetoric 1412a22). We should note that the figure of the tettīx ‘cicada’ is a symbol of the poet specifically within the format of the ainos, as in the case of Archilochus F 223 W. [64]
§30. Another of the four aforementioned stories where the figure of Stesichorus warns the people of a given city in the form of a fable, that is, in a specialized aspect of the ainos, is the story of “The Horse and the Deer,” reportedly narrated by Stesichorus to the people of Himera on the occasion of their choosing Phalaris as tyrant of their polis (Aristotle Rhetoric 1393b8; Stesichorus PMG 281a). [65] This particular fable is cited by Aristotle as a direct parallel to the fable of “The Fox and the Hedgehog,” reportedly narrated by Aesop to the people of Samos on the occasion of their impending execution of a “demagogue” (Aristotle Rhetoric 1093b22; Aesop Fable 427 Perry). [66] In yet another of the four stories, as reported by Conon FGH 26 F 1.42, Stesichorus is again telling the people of Himera the fable of “The Horse and the Deer,” and the word used here by the source to designate the fable is actually ainos (1.42.1), but this time the fable is directed not against Phalaris but another Sicilian tyrant figure, Gelon, who is portrayed as making overtures to the people of Himera (ibid.). [67] Finally, in a fragment of a story reported by Philodemus On Music, p. 18 Kemke, Stesichorus is pictured as putting a stop to discord among the people of a city, by singing in their midst, just as Terpander had reputedly done in Sparta (ibid.); in another mention of this parallelism between Stesichorus and Terpander, Philodemus describes the social discord as stasis (On Music, p. 87).
§31. Such evidence illustrates the fundamental meaning of ainos, as I have defined it from the start: “An affirmation, a marked speech-act, made by and for a social group.” [68] As for the social group by which and for which the ainos is encoded in Archaic Greek poetry, it is clearly the polis. Thus, for example, the figure of Theognis, as an exponent of the ainos, can be portrayed as the lawgiver of his own city (Theognis 543–546, 805–810) [69] or as {428|429} the kubernētēs ‘pilot’ of the Ship of State caught in the crisis of a seastorm of social strife (667–682). [70] In this context of the storm besetting the Ship of State, the righteous man is represented as having lost his own khrēmata (Theognis 667). Such a righteous man, exponent of the ainos, is conventionally alienated from the polis of his own time and place. He can be in despair about ever having the chance to witness, in his lifetime, the tisis ‘retribution’ of Zeus (Theognis 345) against the unjust men who forcibly seized his khrēmata ‘possessions’ (346) and who seem to go unpunished. These unjust men turn out to be the false philoi who have betrayed the just man, the one who navigates like a kubernētēs ‘pilot’ (Theognis 575–576). [71] These are the men who seize khrēmata by force (Theognis 677) as they depose the kubernētēs (675-676) in the Ship of State afflicted by the seastorm of social strife. [72] Clearly the loss of khrēmata ‘possessions’ by the righteous man (667), speaker of the ainigmata ‘riddles’ concerning the Ship of State (681), is linked to the forcible seizure of khrēmata by the unrighteous (677), who have mutinied against the kubernētēs ‘pilot’ (675–676) and who have thereby caused the breakdown of the kosmos ‘social order’ (677). In Pindar’s Isthmian 2, this same word khrēmata is used in a context where one of the Seven Sages, [73] in reaction to his personal loss of both property and friends (11), exclaims bitterly: χρήματα χρήματ’ ἀνήρ ‘Man is nothing more than khrēmata! Yes, khrēmata!’ (ibid.). Another variation on this bitter reaction is quoted in the lyric poetry of Alcaeus (F 360 V), again in a context where the Sage, named here as Aristodemos of Sparta, is bewailing the equation of self-worth with purely material value. [74]
§32. The poet’s negative outlook on his own situation, as he stands bereft of his possessions and betrayed by his friends, translates ultimately into a positive message, a genuine teaching, for the polis. Thus Pindar’s quotation of the Sage’s bitter words, to the effect that man is nothing but material possessions, that is, khrēmata (Isthmian 2.11), is followed by the following direct address to the recipient of Pindar’s words of praise and instruction: ἐσσὶ γὰρ ὦν σοφός ‘for you are skilled [i.e., in decoding these words]’ (2.12). That the hearer of poetry or song must be sophos ‘skilled’ in decoding its words is a mark of the ainos. [75] As is evident in the poetry of Theognis, the alienation that marks the poet’s own there and then on the level of narrative becomes transformed, as a teaching, into the integration that ostensibly marks the audience’s here and now on the level of the ainos conveyed by the narrative. [76] In the polis of the past, the setting of the narrative, the figure of the {429|430} poet decries the ongoing destruction of the social order, the kosmos (κόσμος δ’ ἀπόλωλεν Theognis 677); in the polis of the present, however, which is the audience of the ainos conveyed by such narrative, the same word kosmos means simultaneously both the sum total of its inherited social order (e.g., Herodotus 1.65.4, in the case of Sparta) and the cohesion of its poetic tradition, which upholds that social order (e.g., Pindar F 194 SM, in the case of Thebes). [77] The themes of Theognis will be sung time and again by future generations of youths, in the integrative atmosphere of feasts and symposia, ‘in good kosmos’ (εὐκόσμως 242). [78]
§33. With this background, we turn from the traditions of Stesichorus and Theognis to those of Archilochus, as we explore further points of comparison between the lyric of Pindar and the epic of Homer. In particular, let us consider the relationship of Archilochus to the island-communities of Paros and Thasos. The poet was traditionally represented as a founder of a colony of Paros on the island of Thasos (Delphic Oracle no. 232 Parke/Wormell). We may note in passing a similar tradition about the iambic poet Semonides: he was reputed to be a founder of a colony of Samos on the island of Amorgos (Suda 360.7). [79] The key to understanding the importance of these traditions is the historical fact that the prevailing pattern of Greek colonizations in the Archaic period was to reduplicate the society of the mother polis in the daughter polis, even to the extent of hierarchically balancing different social strata in the daughter polis to match existing social differences in the mother polis. [80] In the case of the daughter polis at Thasos, we would expect the story of its foundation to be a reenactment, as it were, of the foundation of the mother polis at Paros. Meanwhile, the poet, as a vehicle for the education of the polis in ancestral values, becomes a representative of the polis; again I refer to the tradition about Archilochus as a chorus teacher of the polis. [81]
§34. As a representative of the polis, Archilochus becomes a founder of a duplicated Parian society at Thasos, simply by virtue of Archilochean poetry. Archilochus becomes an expression of the function of his poetry. In that sense he is generic. So too are the other characters who figure in the Archilochus tradition. There is, for example, Lukambēs (as in Archilochus F 38 W), whose name is connected with the very notion of iambos ‘iamb’. [82] Also there is Kharilāos (Archilochus F 168.1 W), whose name suggests the programmatic notion of ‘mirth’ for the community. [83] Further, the mother of {430|431} Archilochus is reportedly a ‘slave-woman’ called Enīpō (Critias 88 B 44 DK in Aelian Varia Historia 10.13), whose name is formed from the noun enīpē, meaning ‘reproach’ and specifically applicable to blame poetry. [84] The father of Archilochus is Telesikleēs (e.g., Archilochus T 2 Tarditi), whose name combines the notion of poetic fame or kleos with the notion of rites as conveyed by the element telesi– (related to telea ‘rites’). [85] Similarly an earlier ancestor of Archilochus is Tellis, husband of one Kleoboia, who is reputed to have introduced the rites of Demeter to Thasos (Archilochus T 121 Tarditi by way of Pausanias 10.28.3); [86] we are reminded of the Archilochus fragment where the poet is represented as participating in the rites of Demeter and Kore (F 322 W). As for Kleoboia ‘having poetic fame [kleos] for cows’, the name corresponds to the myth where the young Archilochus meets the Muses, who trade him a lyre, and the skill of poetry that goes with it, for the cow that he is tending (Mnesiepes Inscription, Archilochus T 4.27–30 Tarditi). [87]
§35. In the local myth Telesikles, the father of Archilochus, ‘announces’ the colonization of Thasos, but Archilochus leads it. The story goes (Oenomaus, Archilochus T 116 Tarditi) that Telesikles consults the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, where he is told:
ἄγγειλον Παρίοις, Τελεσίκλεες, ὥς σε κελεύω
νήσῳ ἐν Ἠερίῃ κτίζειν εὐδείελον ἄστυ.
νήσῳ ἐν Ἠερίῃ κτίζειν εὐδείελον ἄστυ.
Delphic Oracle no. 230 PW
Announce to the Parians, Telesikles, that I order you
to found a sunlit city on the island of Aeria [= Thasos].
to found a sunlit city on the island of Aeria [= Thasos].
The narrative goes on to say explicitly that had Telesikles not ‘announced’ the command of the Oracle, Archilochus would not have led a colonizing expedition to Thasos and Thasos would never have been colonized by Paros (Oenomaus ibid.). In a variant (again Oenomaus: Archilochus T 114 Tarditi), Archilochus himself consults the Oracle, after having lost his property {431|432} ἐν πολιτικῇ φλυαρίᾳ ‘in the course of some political foolishness’ (Oenomaus ibid.), and he is told directly to colonize Thasos:
Ἀρχίλοχ’ εἰς Θάσον ἐλθὲ καὶ οἴκει εὐκλέα νῆσον
Delphic Oracle no. 232 PW
Archilochus! Go to Thasos and colonize that island of good kleos.
In yet another variant (Oenomaus, Archilochus T 115 Tarditi) [88] the Oracle says to Telesikles that Archilochus will be immortalized in poetry:
ἀθάνατός σοι παῖς καὶ ἀοίδιμος, ὦ Τελεσίκλεις,
ἔσσετ’ ἐν ἀνθρώποις
ἔσσετ’ ἐν ἀνθρώποις
Delphic Oracle no. 231 PW
Your son, Telesikles, will be immortal, a subject of song among men.
It is clear that the fame of Archilochus is linked with the theme of his colonizing Thasos, a theme that is also dramatized in his poetry.
§36. Why exactly does Archilochus colonize Thasos? It is because he lost his possessions in civil strife (Archilochus T 114 Tarditi). We may compare the implicit theme of civil strife in the story of the foundation of Syracuse, Archilochus F 293 W. This brings us back to the central themes of Theognis 667–682, the riddling passage about the loss of a man’s khrēmata ‘possessions’ (667) and about the crisis of the Ship of State beset by a seastorm of civil strife (671–680), all told in the mode of an ainos. [89]
§37. Despite the self-identification of any piece of Archaic poetry or song with the polis of its origin, the strategy of the ainos requires, already in the Archaic period, an impact that is Panhellenic as well as local. Although the poet of the ainos may be addressing specifically the people of the polis, the prestige of the moment is meant to be overheard, as it were, by all Hellenes. This double-sidedness is particularly evident in the poetry of Theognis, who in the space of a single verse identifies himself as a citizen of one particular polis, Megara, while at the same time proclaiming his own Panhellenic fame (Theognis 23). [90] It is also evident that this poetry associates the uncertainties of audience reception with the here and now of performance in Megara (Theognis 24–28, 253–254), and the certainty of audience acceptance with the future of many reperformances throughout the cities of the Hellenes (19–23, 237–252, where we may note the plethora of future tenses). [91] {432|433} Retrospectively we may say that the format of ainos in the poetics of Theognis represents Panhellenic poetry, but even this representation must be translated into the concept of local performances for local audiences, albeit in the future. [92]
§38. The essential point about the pre-Classical phase of the ainos in particular and of Greek lyric poetry in general is that local or epichoric poetry is already becoming Panhellenic through diffusion. In the case of Theognis, for example, we see local Megarian traditions becoming international, that is, inter-polis, by way of the polis. In this case internationalization of the native poetic tradition goes so far as to filter out the native Dorian dialect of Megara. [93]
§39. In the earlier phases of attested Greek lyric poetry, the price of Panhellenization is that the identity of the poet as composer becomes progressively stylized, becoming ever further distanced from the reality of self-identification through performance. The key to loss of identity as a composer is loss of control over performance. [94] Once the factor of performance slips out of the poet’s control, even if the performers of his poetry have a tradition of what to say about the poet as a composer, nevertheless, the poet becomes a myth; more accurately, the poet becomes part of a myth, and the mythmaking structure appropriates his identity. [95]
§40. At times it is hard to tell whether a given Archaic Greek poet is engaged in a given social function or whether it is his composition, performed and continually recomposed by others, that continues to perform that social function. In the case of Alcman, for example, we have seen indications that his choral productions kept being performed at the Spartan festival of the Gymnopaidiai for centuries after the era identified with this poet. [96] What may seem to us uncanny, as we examine the text of Alcman’s surviving compositions, is that we can detect traces of self-reference beyond one single historical occasion. Specifically the persona of the poet seems to be referring to himself as being present at performances throughout the ages, continually fulfilling the social function of educating young girls to sing and dance in a chorus. [97] Not only is Alcman’s lyric poetry re-created for each performance, but the figure of the creator himself keeps returning as a sort of eternal khorēgos ‘chorus leader’. [98]
§41. In a place like Sparta of the Classical period, one begins to wonder if there is any current activity at all in the craft of poetry and song that is not a {433|434} matter of recomposing earlier models. [99] The testimonia concerning a figure like Tyrtaeus of Sparta, for example, suggest that his poetry alone was sufficient for a wide variety of performance occasions (e.g., Philochorus FGH 328 F 216 in Athenaeus 630f; Lycurgus Against Leokrates 106–107).
§42. There is a parallel phenomenon in the poetry of Theognis. The poet is dramatized as being present at crucial stages in the history of his city, Megara, though the local color is consistently screened out in favor of a generalized Panhellenic highlighting. [100] We see the phenomenon of the continually reconstituted poet, who is continually present at the events of his city. But the poet’s impact is Panhellenic, even though the vantage point is the here and now of one particular locale. [101]
§43. In the Archaic period, then, there are indeed poets of the polis. But they are from the very start more Panhellenic than local. They may be exponents of one polis, but the polis itself makes these poets Panhellenic figures, by way of diffusion in recomposition. The diffusion of a poetic tradition may be represented in myth by way of a poet’s travels. The ultimate example is the figure of Homer, who is pictured in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo as traveling throughout the cities of humankind (174–175). [102]
§44. Approaching the end of this retrospective survey of Panhellenism in Archaic Greek lyric, we arrive at perhaps the most subtle example, the case of Sappho and Alcaeus. Here too, as with the other traditions that we have examined, we find the claim to Panhellenic or catholic status. For example, the expression πέρροχος ὠς ὄτ᾽ ἄοιδος ὀ Λέσβιος ‘outstanding like the poet from Lesbos’ in Sappho F 106 V, words of praise for Terpander as the ‘poet of Lesbos’ who is supreme among poets, [103] presupposes the international status of Terpander, as we see from the parallel theme in a proverb associated with the traditions of Sparta, μετὰ Λέσβιον ᾠδόν ‘second in rank only to the poet from Lesbos’ (Suda s.v.). [104] By implication Sappho’s lyric poetry stems {434|435} from the traditions of the first-ranking poet of lyric, Terpander. In the Dorian tradition of Pindar, we have seen a comparable acknowledgment of Terpander, but here the stress is on the Dorian layer of the tradition, which was superimposed on the Aeolian layer of Terpander’s native Lesbos when he came to Sparta (Pindar F 191 SM). [105] This superimposition is reflected in the dialectal layering of Pindaric diction: dominant Doric, recessive Aeolic, and residual Ionic. [106] But there are earlier stages of superimposition reflected in the dialectal layering of Sappho and Alcaeus: dominant Aeolic synthesized with recessive Ionic. [107] We may add the testimony of Cologne Papyri 5860, where Sappho is described as the ‘educator’ of the aristai, the female élite, of Lesbos and Ionia. To say that Sappho is an ‘educator’ is a prosaic way of saying that her assumed role, through her lyric poetry, is that of khorēgos ‘chorus leader’, speaking both to and about members of an aggregate of female characters who are bound together by ties that correspond to the ties that bind a chorus together. [108] The ties that bind together the circle of Sappho are not local but international, that is, inter-polis, as we see from the reference to her being an ‘educator’ of the élite in Lesbos and in Ionia at large. The stance of the poet is local, even personal, but the impact is Panhellenic, in that the self-expression of the lyric poetry is not exclusive, understandable only for the local community. The local color is shaded over except insofar as any detail may already have a claim to Panhellenic fame. The Panhellenic impact of Sappho and Alcaeus accounts for the reports of performances at symposia of compositions attributed to them (e.g., Plutarch Sympotic Questions 622c in the case of Sappho, Aristophanes F 223 Kock [= 235 KA] in the case of Alcaeus). [109]
§45. From this overview of the effects of Panhellenism on the traditions of Archaic Greek song and poetry, we have by now seen a wide range of developments:
- ongoing recomposition of nonlyric poetry by way of rhapsodes in formal contexts such as festivals [110]
- ongoing recomposition of lyric poetry, that is, song, by way of choruses performing in formal contexts such as festivals [111] {435|436}
- ongoing recomposition of both kinds of poetry in less formal contexts, most notably symposia. [112]
§46. The information that has been assembled in this survey encourages me to stand by a theory that I articulated in an earlier work, on the poetry of Theognis: [113] the figure of the Archaic poet represents a cumulative synthesis of a given city-state’s poetic traditions. The major advantage to this theory is that the poetry of a given poet like Archilochus or Theognis may then be appreciated as a skillful and effective—maybe even beautiful—dramatization of the polis through the ages. The major disadvantage on the other hand is that the notion of a historical figure called, say, Archilochus or Theognis, may have to be abandoned. This is not to say, however, that the persona of the poet does not inform the entire corpus of his or her poetry. The poetry or song actually brings to life the integral and lively personality of one man or one woman, whose complex identity is perhaps the one constant in the changing world of his or her beloved city. If this theory is tantamount to calling the Archaic poet a “myth,” then so be it, provided that myth can be understood as a given society’s codification of its own traditional values in narrative and dramatic form.
§47. In the earlier phases, then, of Greek lyric poetry, the trend of Panhellenization entails an ongoing recomposition of not only the poetry but also the identity of the poet, which is appropriated by the poetry. But things are changing in the later phases of Greek lyric poetry, in the era of Pindar and such contemporaries as Simonides and Bacchylides. This is the era when the system of reciprocity within the community at large, as represented by the polis, is breaking down. [114] It is an era when individuals can achieve the power to overreach the polis itself, and the pattern of overreaching extends to the realm of song. As I have argued, such power includes the specific power to arrest the ongoing process of recomposition by the polis, so that both poetry and poet can become Panhellenic and yet remain unchanging, unchanged. In this brave new world, the craft of song is ever in danger of shifting from an expression of community to an expression of the individual. That individual is the expressing poet on the one hand and the expressed patron, the “great” man of overarching power, on the other. The power of the individual is a potential threat as well as a boon to the community. In the real world, the “great” men who are being praised are the potential tyrants and quasityrants that are being generated by the aristocracy. In the ideological world of a poet like Pindar, in contrast, the aristocracy remains an ideal that must resist the degeneration that breeds tyrants. That ideal is still expressed through Pindar’s traditional medium, the ainos. The ainos is not only Panhellenic. {436|437} Unlike epic, which is exclusively Panhellenic, a delocalized synthesis of native traditions, the ainos purports to be both Panhellenic and local, grounding its Panhellenized truth-values in the legitimacy and authority of native traditions, which shift from city to city and which are the context for the here and now of performance. The tyrant may attempt to use the ainos for his own political ends, but the ainos of a poet like Pindar is also a world apart, drawing its strength from the values of the heroic past that is Pindar’s Homer.
§48. In claiming that the form of Pindar contains diachronically the form of Homer, we need never forget the radical differences between Pindar and Homer. If we think of the medium, then Pindar represents song and dance performed by a chorus, while Homer is epic, performed by rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’. If we think of the author, then Pindar is a historical person of the fifth century, whereas Homer seems to be a myth-made personification, a stylized retrojection into the dark ages antedating recorded history. The point of contact can be symbolized in the medium of the kitharōidos ‘lyre singer’. The diachronic self-references of Homeric poetry, on the one hand, picture the epic poet as a lyre singer. [115] The choral compositions of epinician poets like Pindar, on the other hand, can be reperformed at symposia as solo pieces that are self-accompanied on the lyre. [116] In fact such solo performance was the ultimate sign of education, of direct access to the true old values. [117] The meeting point between Homer and Pindar survives in the medium of the kitharōidos, which reflects the complex patterns of transition from choral to solo performance.
§49. The presence of heroic narrative in Pindar is the continuation of a living tradition, not the preservation of references to lost epic texts. As for things Homeric, they do not necessarily survive in Pindar as the Homer that we know—even if Pindar calls them Homer’s tradition—because the two traditions of Homeric poetry and Pindaric song, though they are cognate with each other, each have their own momentum and direction of development. This is not to say that Pindaric song cannot “cite” Homer. But the form in which Homer is “cited” is a transformation of Homer, in metrical frames that are basic to Pindar’s form though admittedly cognate with Homer’s form. The Homeric themes are also transformed within the poetic requirements of Pindar’s cognate medium. From the lofty vantage point of Pindaric song, Homer is Pindar’s Homer. Pindaric song is both staying in the present and reaching back into the past within itself. It does not have to go outside for the purpose of bringing the epic inside. Epic is within it, and from it epic shall forever flow.
Footnotes
[ back ] 1. Ch.6.
[ back ] 2. Ch.6, Ch.7.
[ back ] 3. Farnell 1932.21. Cf. Stoneman 1981, especially Ch. 2§26.
[ back ] 4. While taking into account these passages, Nisetich 1989.70–72 nonetheless argues for “Pindar’s preference of the Iliad over the poems of the epic cycle” (p. 70). I prefer to say, instead, that Pindar’s tradition, evolving as it does well into the fifth century, is therefore responsive to the evolution of epic tradition, crystalized at a much earlier stage. The basic fact in the evolution of early Greek epic tradition is that the Iliad and Odyssey achieved a preeminence over the Cycle: see Ch.2. Accordingly, we may expect cases where this preeminence is reflected in Pindaric references to epic. The point remains, however, that there are also cases where Pindar’s wording makes no distinction between versions proper to the Iliad and those that we find in the Cycle (as Nisetich concedes at pp. 71–72).
[ back ] 5. Nisetich, p. 73n2, concedes that we may indeed have here a case where the authorship of the Cycle is being attributed by Pindar to Homer, but he insists that Pindar would still have thought the Iliad to be superior to the Cypria. I prefer a different perspective: if indeed we understand Aelian correctly, and Pindar’s words had really referred to Homer as the poet of the Cypria, I would interpret this reference to mean that Pindar’s tradition accepts the rhapsodic tradition of performing the Cypria as the genuine Homeric tradition.
[ back ] 6. See Chs. 1§10, 2§44, 2§49.
[ back ] 7. Cf. Ch. 2§27 and following.
[ back ] 8. On the notion of evolutionary differentiation in Homeric and Hesiodic poetry, see Ch. 2§3, 2§6.
[ back ] 9. Cf. again Farnell 1932.21.
[ back ] 10. Detailed discussion at Ch. 7§3 and following. For reinforcement from the self-references of epic, see Ch. 6§89 and following.
[ back ] 11. Cf. Ch. 7§3 and following.
[ back ] 12. Cf. Ch. 1§54 and following.
[ back ] 13. In reaching these figures, I am counting Isthmian 3 and 4 as one composition; also I am including the fragmentary Isthmian 9. In Olympian 13, there is an exceptional case of coexistence between dactylo-epitrite and Aeolic, with Aeolic modulating into dactylo-epitrite.
[ back ] 14. Cf. Appendix §27 and following.
[ back ] 15. In the survey of Archaic hexameters by West 1982.36, the overall ratio of occurrences in word breaking shaped – ⏔ – ⏔ – ” and – ⏔ – ⏔ – ⏑ ” is respectively 3:4. On the dactylo-epitrite and Aeolic associations of the patterns – ⏔ – ⏔ – ” and – ⏔ – ⏔ – ⏑ ” respectively in hexameter, see Appendix §27 and following.
[ back ] 16. West ibid. gives the following statistics for the nonoccurrence of the main caesura: 1.4% in the Iliad, 0.9% in the Odyssey.
[ back ] 17. On this term, see Appendix §2.
[ back ] 18. Cf. Appendix §19–20.
[ back ] 19. On the dialectal hierarchy of dominant Doric and recessive Aeolic in Pindaric diction, see Palmer 1980.123–127. On the Ionisms in Pindar, see, for example, Palmer, p. 125. These Ionisms need not be interpreted as direct borrowings from “Homer” but rather as reflexes of an Ionic tradition cognate with the Homeric.
[ back ] 20. On which see Ch. 3§7, 3§21.
[ back ] 21. On the evidence for Ionic in Lesbian poetic diction, see the summary in Bowie 1981.136.
[ back ] 22. Cf. Ch. 3§21.
[ back ] 23. I cite again, for an overview of the dialectal texture of choral lyric traditions, Palmer 1980.119–130.
[ back ] 24. Cf. Ch. 14§3.
[ back ] 25. Cf. Ch. 14§6. Roughly another half of Homeric hexameters is taken up by phraseological patterns where the main word break occurs immediately after the sequence – ⏔ – ⏔ – ⏑ (“feminine” caesura).
[ back ] 26. Cf. Appendix §27 and following.
[ back ] 27. Cf. Ch. 1§54 and following.
[ back ] 28. Cf. Cingano 1982.32. On the eidōlon ‘image-double’ of Helen at Troy (Stesichorus PMG 193.5 and 14), see also Hesiod F 358 MW. On the faulting of Helen for being seduced by Paris, see also Stesichorus PMG 223 in conjunction with Hesiod F 176.7. Cf. Kannicht 1969 I 38–41.
[ back ] 29. Kannicht 1969 I 28–29 argues, from the wording of Isocrates Helen 64, that the blaming and the recantation would have taken place not in two separate poems but within a single poem, where Stesichorus shifts from blaming to recantation. Cf. also Woodbury 1967. In the discussion that follows, I propose to build on this argument by positing a dramatized change of heart within the framework of the composition. For other sources concerning the recantation of Stesichorus, see Cingano 1982.22–23, who argues that Stesichorus was traditionally credited with two, not one, recantations offered to Helen.
[ back ] 30. Other references in Cingano, p. 31n42.
[ back ] 31. Cf. Ch. 1§12.
[ back ] 32. Cf. Ch. 2§27 and following.
[ back ] 33. Ibid.
[ back ] 34. For an updated repertory, see Stesichorus SLG 88–147.
[ back ] 35. Cf. Appendix §27. I avoid saying that the lyric poetry of Stesichorus is a direct prototype of the lyric poetry of Pindar. Similarly I avoid saying that the lyric poetry of Sappho and Alcaeus is another direct prototype.
[ back ] 36. See Ch. 2§32.
[ back ] 37. Fuller discussion in N 1979.16–17.
[ back ] 38. See Ch. 2§27.
[ back ] 39. See Chs. 2§10, 9§1.
[ back ] 40. Cf. Ch. 5§10, 5§14. Cf. Burnett 1988.129–147, with special reference to Stesichorus.
[ back ] 41. Cf. Ch. 12§46.
[ back ] 42. Quoted at Ch. 6§2. Commentary in N 1979.222–223. For an instance of etumos ‘genuine’ as applied to logos, in the sense of ‘what men tell’, see Pindar Pythian 1.68, where we note that the collocation includes the verb diakrīnō in the sense of ‘discriminate’ what is genuine from what is false.
[ back ] 43. This word can be understood in the context of Odyssey i 5: polla … pathen algea ‘he experienced many pains’. The multiplicity of Odysseus’ experiences is thematically pertinent. On the convention of juxtaposing a single absolute alētheia ‘truth’ with a multiplicity of mūthoi ‘myths’, which are deceptive, see Ch. 2§28 and following.
[ back ] 44. Cf. Ch. 6§56.
[ back ] 45. It is typical of Panhellenic poetics to juxtapose a single absolute alētheia ‘truth’ with the multiplicity of mūthoi ‘myths’, which are deceptive because they are mutually contradictory, like the lies of Odysseus; see N 1982.47–49. Also Ch. 2§27 and following.
[ back ] 46. Cf. Ch. 2§27 and following.
[ back ] 47. Further discussion in N 1979.231–242, especially Ch. 8§28.
[ back ] 48. N 1979.222–223.
[ back ] 49. N, pp. 241–242. Cf. Hubbard 1985.99–100.
[ back ] 50. These “quoted” words of Amphiaraos to Amphilokhos are described as a parainesis by Athenaeus 513c; cf. also the cognate passage, composed in dactylic hexameters and not attributed to any specific author, cited by Athenaeus 317ab. In this passage, the word that designates the different communities is not polis but dēmos (on which see Ch. 2§10).
[ back ] 51. The verb prosomileō ‘associate with’ anticipates a person or community of persons as an object, as at Theognis 31-32, but here the language of the tenor (“a person associates with a certain kind of company”) crosses over into the language of the vehicle (“just as an octopus clings to a certain kind of rock”). For the terms tenor and vehicle: Richards 1936.96. Cf. Steiner 1986, especially p. 2. Further application of Richards’ terms in Petegorsky 1982.
[ back ] 52. This passage is cited by Athenaeus 317a, as a parallel to the anonymous passage in dactylic hexameters “quoting” the instructions of the hero Amphiaraos to his son Amphilokhos.
[ back ] 53. Cf. Ch. 8§23 and following, especially Ch. 8§29.
[ back ] 54. Cf. N 1979.231–237; also 1983.36 (with p. 52n5) and 1985.75–76.
[ back ] 55. Ibid.
[ back ] 56. See van Groningen 1966.265. We may compare Sophocles Electra 690: ἓν δ’ ἴσθι ‘I want you to know this one thing’.
[ back ] 57. Cf. Ch. 6§6.
[ back ] 58. On the implication of a mantis at Theognis 682, see the commentary by N 1985.24–25.
[ back ] 59. N, p. 76.
[ back ] 60. Extensive discussion in N 1985.74–81.
[ back ] 61. Cf. Ch. 6§2 and following, especially Ch. 6§89.
[ back ] 62. There is a list in West 1971.302–303. On the ambivalence of the ainos in either warning about tyranny or on other occasions praising given tyrants as “kings,” see Ch. 6§53 and following.
[ back ] 63. See Ch. 6§6; also N 1985.22–24.
[ back ] 64. N 1979.302.
[ back ] 65. As Lefkowitz 1981.34 points out, Phalaris was tyrant of Akragas, not Himera. But perhaps the story here concerns an invitation issued by one city to the tyrant of another, as in the story about Stesichorus and Gelon, to be discussed presently.
[ back ] 66. This fable of “The Fox and the Hedgehog” is cognate with what we find in Archilochus F 201 W, discussed at Ch. 14§26.
[ back ] 67. We may compare the stories about Aesop and his warnings to the people of Samos, by way of fables directed against the tyrant Croesus of Lydia: Ch. 11§17 and following.
[ back ] 68. Cf. Ch. 1§26; also Ch. 6§2.
[ back ] 69. Commentary in N 1985.36–38.
[ back ] 70. Commentary in N, pp. 22–24, 63, 64–68.
[ back ] 71. Commentary in N, pp. 67–68, 71.
[ back ] 72. N, p. 71.
[ back ] 73. On the theme of the Seven Sages, see Ch. 8§43.
[ back ] 74. See Ch. 12§6.
[ back ] 75. See Ch. 6§4.
[ back ] 76. This point is argued at length in N 1985.27–46.
[ back ] 77. See Ch. 5§14.
[ back ] 78. For the corresponding negative situation, where social disorder is marked by the absence of kosmos at a feast, see Solon F 4.10 W.
[ back ] 79. Cf. Schmid 1947.17.
[ back ] 80. See Figueira 1981.192–202, especially p. 199. Also p. 71.
[ back ] 81. See Ch. 13§33.
[ back ] 82. N 1979.248–252.
[ back ] 83. N 1979.258–259 (and 91–93).
[ back ] 84. Further discussion, with bibliography, in N 1979.247–248. The lowly social status of Enipō makes Archilochus a nothos ‘bastard’, the product of socially unequal parents; as such, his persona resembles that of Kyrnos, the prime recipient of loving admonition in the poetry of Theognis. As I argue at length in N 1985.51–60 (cf. also Ch. 6§66), the name Kurnos conveys the notion of ‘bastard’, in the transcendent sense of one who is debased by material excess, the name simultaneously conveys the notion of ‘prince’, as an appropriate designation of a Heraclid (N, p. 33). Thus the very name Kurnos is a riddle, an ainos.
[ back ] 85. Cf. West 1974.24.
[ back ] 86. From Pausanias’ description (10.28.3) of the painting of Polygnotus located in the Lesche of the Knidians (and I emphasize that Polygnotus was a native of Thasos), we note that Kleoboia is represented as offering a kibōtos ‘box’ to Demeter; she is shown crossing the Acheron in a boat, along with Tellis.
[ back ] 87. Cf. N 1979.303; also Ch. 12§50n141.
[ back ] 88. This variant is also attested in the Mnesiepes Inscription, Archilochus T 4 II 43–57 Tarditi.
[ back ] 89. Cf. Ch. 14§25.
[ back ] 90. Commentary in N 1985.29.
[ back ] 91. Detailed discussion at N, pp. 34–35; p. 35§17n1, 2 on the future tenses of Theognis 19–23, 237–252.
[ back ] 92. Cf. Ch. 12§69.
[ back ] 93. Cf. Ch. 2§3.
[ back ] 94. Cf. Ch. 2§51.
[ back ] 95. Ibid.
[ back ] 96. Cf. Ch. 13§33.
[ back ] 97. Cf. Ch. 12§58 and following.
[ back ] 98. See ibid.
[ back ] 99. We may note in this connection the absence of any Pindaric epinician celebrating a Spartan.
[ back ] 100. N 1985.30–36.
[ back ] 101. Cf. Ch. 12§58 and following.
[ back ] 102. N 1979.8; also at Ch. 12§71 and following.
[ back ] 103. Cf. Ch. 14§9.
[ back ] 104. Under the entry μετὰ Λέσβιον ᾠδόν in the Suda, it is explained that the proverb refers to the story that the Spartans invited, from among all the kitharōidoi ‘lyre singers’, those from Lesbos first (τοὺς Λεσβίους κιθαρῳδοὺς πρώτους προσεκαλοῦντο); that when the polis of Sparta was in disorder, an oracle told them to send for the singer from Lesbos; when Terpander arrived at Sparta, he put an end to the stasis ‘social strife’ (ibid.). On Terpander as kitharōidos, see Ch. 3§8. We may note another detail under the same entry in the Suda: tradition has it that Terpander came to Sparta while in exile from Lesbos on account of a blood guilt. This theme may imply hero cult in the making, as in the myth about Oedipus at Colonus, where the hero is exiled from Thebes on account of his blood guilt and is thereafter purified at Athens, in response to which the hero donates to the Athenians his own corpse as the talisman of his represented hero cult at Colonus; cf. Ch. 6§58.
[ back ] 105. Cf. Ch. 3§21.
[ back ] 106. Cf. Ch. 14§9.
[ back ] 107. Ibid.
[ back ] 108. Cf. Ch. 12§58. On the role of khorēgos ‘chorus leader’ as educator of the community, see the discussion of Alcman at Ch. 12§16 and following; also of Archilochus at Ch. 13§30 and following.
[ back ] 109. Cf. Ch. 3§48. Cf. the mythopoeic visualization of Terpander as he sings at the sussitia ‘common meals’ of the Spartans (Suda s.v. μετὰ Λέσβιον ᾠδόν).
[ back ] 110. For example, Ch. 2§6 and following.
[ back ] 111. For example, Ch. 12§12 and following (Alcman), Ch. 12§46 (Stesichorus).
[ back ] 112. For example, Ch. 3§48, 3§51, 3§54, 3§55, and following.
[ back ] 113. N 1985.33–34.
[ back ] 114. Cf. Ch. 6§77 and following.
[ back ] 115. Cf. Ch. 1§13 and following.
[ back ] 116. Cf. Ch. 3§55 and following.
[ back ] 117. Ibid.