Family, Community and Divinity in Pindar's Victory Odes

Abstract

Andrew Morrison, in his recent chapter in Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry, proposes that there is an interesting comparison to be made between the elites of two ancient Greek communities: Akragas and Aegina. In this thesis I carry out such a comparison by examining the performances of Pindar’s victory odes (epinicia), which were staged in each of the island states in honour of athletes who achieved victory at the great games. These two societies were socially and politically distinct: at Akragas a single family, the Emmenidai, overshadowed their fellow aristocrats, whilst amongst the Aeginetan nobility no single family enjoyed predominance. By examining a selection of Pindar’s victory odes written for patrons from these communities, I explore how the performances accommodated the needs of very different patrons and audiences, and what they reveal about the social significance of the epinicia, both as specific performances and as a genre. The poet’s task was to marshal the thoughts, feelings and sentiments of the listeners and encourage the latter to attach perceptions of fame and glory to the victor. In every ode, the poet makes the case that ‘this man and his family, who stand in your midst, are glorious.’ I explore how the poet deployed myths, poetic motifs and emotionally charged words and expressions to persuade the listeners to look favourably on this case, and ask what the implications of their doing so had for their relationship with the patron and his family. In the first section of the thesis I examine five principle odes (Pyth. 6, Isth. 2, Nem. 5, Isth. 6 and Isth. 5), plus Nem. 7, exploring how the poet treated glory as a quality extrinsic to the patron and mobilised it in the minds of the listening community. In the second section I re-examine the principal five odes (plus Ol. 7), exploring the intrinsic qualities of this sense of glory, and examining how the listeners, including the patron, his family and his peers, were asked to mobilise their thoughts in order to engage with the divine. I conclude that each of the performances consolidated the audience’s expectations about the relationship between the patron and the listening community; that at Akragas this meant the ruling family claimed the greatest share of glory from the athletic victory, whereas at Aegina it was the listening community who attained the principle stake, even above that of the athlete. In both cases, however, the performances mediated a special relationship between all the listening parties and gods, which I have called ‘communion,’ whose dynamics were virtually identical at both Akragas and Aegina.