by Pindar
A third is the element of counsel. The odes are frequently interspersed with religious precepts and moral maxims: “If any man hopeth to escape the eye of God, he is grievously wrong.”
“Trial is the test of men.” Few have gained pleasure without toil.”
“Wealth adorned with virtues is the true light of man.” Sometimes a touch of satire is added: “The prosperous are deemed wise, — even by their fellow citizens.”
The great games of Greece arouse in the poet a lofty imagination that knows no local limitations, but is Panhellenic in its range. The victor whom he celebrates may be the ruler of some Sicilian colony far from the mother-land, but that ruler belongs to the Hellenic world, and the poet who praises him is himself eager to be foremost, not merely within the limits of the land of Hellas, but “among the Hellenes everywhere.”
II. THE NATIONAL FESTIVALS
The national festivals of Greece were among the most important means for awakening and fostering the national spirit. No Barbarian was permitted to take part in them. They were open solely to citizens of Greece, or of the Greek colonies; and on these occasions the colonies were eager to assert their sense of union with the mother-land. Hence the festivals were attended by visitors and competitors from every part of the Greek world, from Rhodes and Cyrene, and from the Greek cities of “Greater Hellas” and of Sicily. The national festivals attained their highest splendour during the time when the national spirit was roused by the conflicts with the Barbarians, which began about 500 and ended in 479 B.C.
On the approach of the festal occasion a sacred truce was proclaimed by heralds sent to all the Greek States. Any soldier in arms entering: Elis during the Olympian festival was treated as a prisoner of war, who could not return to his own State until he had been ransomed.
The earliest of the Greek festivals for holding athletic contests had their origin in funeral ceremonies. Such were the prehistoric games held in memory of Patroclus and Oedipus, and the Nemean and Isthmian games. Of the many local assemblies there were four which, in course of time, became of national importance. Of these four, the earliest and the latest, the Olympian and the Nemean, were in honour of Zeus, while the Pythian was connected with Apollo, and the Isthmian with Poseidon. But, in their original form, the Nemean games were founded by the “Seven against Thebes” in memory of the untimely death of the infant Opheltes, the son of the Nemean king, Lycurgus; while the Isthmian games were instituted by Sisyphus, king of Corinth, in commemoration of his nephew, the ill-fated Melicertes, who was washed ashore to the East of the Isthmus, and was afterwards worshipped as a sea-god under the name of Palaemon.
The Olympian festival was held once in every four years, and the Pythian always fell in the third year of the Olympian period. Both of these were held in August, and each of them was followed by a Nemean and an Isthmian festival, the Nemean taking place in July of the first year, and the Isthmian in April of the second year, after each Olympian or Pythian festival. It is here assumed that the order of the festivals in the age of Pindar was the same as that in 220 to 216 B.C. for which we have definite details. On this assumption, the following table shows the sequence in and after 476 B.C.
The four festivals formed a circuit, or πepiodoç, and one who had gained a victory in all is described in Greek inscriptions as a πeριοdονίκης.
The Olympian festival is said to have been founded by Heracles. The legend also told that Oenomaüs, king of Pisa, the ancient capital of Elis, compelled the suitors of his daughter to compete with him in the chariot-race, and slew all whom he vanquished. He was at last overcome by Pelops, who thus became the prototype of all Olympic victors. It was near the tomb of that hero that the games were held.
‘ The first definite fact in their history is their reorganisation by Iphitus, king of Elis, in 776 B.c. This date marked the beginning of Greek chronology, and, from 776 B.C., we have a complete list of the winners in the Olympian foot-race for nearly 1000 years, down to 217 A.D. Originally the prizes were tripods or other objects of value; but, in the seventh Olympiad, the crown of wild olive was introduced on the advice of the Delphic oracle.
Olympia, the scene of the festival, lies on the right bank of the river Alpheüs, at the point where it is joined by the torrent of the Cladeüs. To the north is the hill of Cronus, a tree-clad eminence 403 feet in height. In 776 B.C. the only building in the Olympian precinct was the wooden structure of the Hêraeum. Among the treasures of this temple was the disc recording the names of Iphitus and Lycurgus as “ founders” of the Olympic festival, and the table of ivory and gold on which the crowns for the victors were placed. There was also an altar of Zeus built up of the ashes of the victims slain in each successive festival. The excavations begun in 1874 have revealed the walled precinct known as the Altis, 750 feet long by 570 feet broad, with many remains of important buildings; also the site of the stadium, 630 feet in length, with the start and the finish of the race marked by slabs of stone about 18 inches wide extending across the breadth of the course, each slab divided at intervals of about four feet. Between the stadium and the river lay the hippodrome, with a circuit of eight stades, or nearly one mile, but the actual course traversed was six stades. The four-horse chariots ran twelve times round this course, so that the race extended to 72 stades, or nine miles.
In historic times, certainly in the age of Pindar, the festival lasted for five days, and the day of the full moon was probably the central day of the five. The festival began with a sacrifice, and ended with a feast, and the intermediate time was reserved for the athletic contests. The order of the official record of the events in the fifth century was as follows: —
(1) Single stadium foot-race; (2) double stadium foot-race; (3) long race; (4) pentathlum, or compétition in five events, foot-race, long jump, throwing the discus, hurling the javelin, and wrestling; (5) wrestling; (6) boxing; (7) pancratium, a combination of boxing and wrestling; (8), (9), (10) boys’ foot-races, wrestling, and boxing; (11) race in armour; (12) chariot-race; (13) horse-race. There was also a mule-chariot-race, which was discontinued after 444 b c.
The order in the official record was not the order adopted in the actual contests. We know that the boys’ contests were completed before the men’s; that all the foot-races fell on the same day; that a single day was devoted to the wrestling, boxing, and pancratium; that the horse-race was succeeded by the pentathlum; and that the last of all the events was the race in armour. The morning was reserved for the races, and the afternoon for the boxing, wrestling, pancratium, and pentathlum. The following has been suggested as a probable programme for the period beginning 468 B.C.
Second day. — Chariot and horse-races, and pentathlum.
Third day. — Boys’ events.
Fourth day. — Men’s foot-races, wrestling, boxing, and pancratium; and race in armour.
The Pythian Festival. — In 582 B.C. the local musical festival, held every eight years at Delphi, was transformed into a Panhellenic festival, held every four years under the presidency of the Amphictyons. The chief event in the musical programme was the Hymn celebrating Apollo’s victory over the Python. This was sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. In 582 two competitions were added, (1) singing to the flute, and (2) the solo on the flute. A victory in the latter event is commemorated in the twelfth Pythian. Playing on the lyre was added in 558. Next in importance to the musical competitions were the chariot-and horse-races. The athletic programme was the same as at Olympia, with the addition of a double-stadium and long-race for boys. The last of all the events, the race in armour, was introduced in 498.
In Pindar’s time the athletic competitions took place, not on the rocky slopes of Delphi, but on the Crisaean plain below; and the horse-races were never held anywhere else. But, about 450, a new stadium for the other events was constructed on the only level ground that was available north-west of the precinct of the temple of Apollo. Pausanias says that the stadium was “in the highest part of the city.” This stadium is conspicuous among
the remains of Delphi. “A more striking scene for the celebration of national games could hardly be imagined.”
The precise duration of the Pythian festival is unknown. It probably began with the musical competitions; these may have been followed by the athletic events; and, finally, by the chariot-race and the horse-race. The prize was a wreath of bay-leaves plucked by a boy whose parents were still alive. The chief religious ceremony was the procession which passed along the Sacred Way to the temple of Apollo.
The Isthmian festival, held near the eastern end of the Isthmus of Corinth, was probably the most largely frequented of all the Panhellenic assemblies. This was due to the fact that it was very near to a great city, and -was easily reached from all parts of the Greek world. It was only a few hours’ journey from Athens, by land or sea.
The ancient local festival in honour of Poseidon was apparently reorganised as a Panhellenic festival in 581. The sanctuary of Poseidon, where the games were celebrated, has been excavated. It was a small precinct surrounded by an enclosure, the northern side of which was formed by the great military wall guarding the Isthmus. Traces have been found of the temples of Poseidon and Palaemon. The sanctuary was lined on one side by a row of pine-trees, and on the other by statues of victorious athletes. The stadium, about 650 feet long, lay in a ravine which had once been the course of a stream. The festival began with a sacrifice to Poseidon, and, in Pindar’s day, included athletic and equestrian competitions.
The Isthmian crown was, at that time, made of celery (σελινον), — dry celery (as the scholiast explains) to distinguish it from the fresh celery of the Nemean crown.
The Nemean festival, the latest of the four, was first organised as a Panhellenic assembly in 573. The scene was the deep-lying vale of Nemea, “beneath the shady hills of Phlius.” The neighbouring village of Cleônae held the presidency of the games until 460, when this privilege was usurped by the Argives. At Nemea there was no town, but there was a hippodrome, and a stadium, the site of which is still visible in a deep ravine. There was also a sanctuary of Zeus, of which three pillars are still standing, while the grove of cypresses, which once surrounded it, has disappeared. The programme, like that of the Isthmian festival, included numerous events for boys and youths. Most of the competitors came from Athens, Aegina, and Ceôs, and from the Peloponnesus; few from Italy or Sicily.
III. THE STRUCTURE OF PINDAR’S ODES
Of the seventeen works ascribed to Pindar, only the four books of the Epinician Odes have come down to us in a nearly complete form. Each of these Odes is prompted by a victory at one of the Panhellenic festivals. The contest itself is not directly described, but it colours the metaphors and similes used in the Ode. The poet also dwells on the skill, the courage, or the good fortune of the victor, and on the previous distinctions won by himself, or his family; but even the enumeration of these distinctions, generally reserved for the end of the ode, is saved from monotony by touches of the picturesque. The athlete’s crown brings credit to his home, to his city, and his country; it is therefore open to the poet to dwell on any topic connected with the local habitation of his hero.
In every ode the poet mentions the god in whose honour the games were held, or the festival at which the ode was sung, and introduces some ancient myth connected (if possible) with the country of the victor. Thus, in the odes for Aeginetan victors, we have the glorification of the Aeacidae. Syracuse, although it has its point of contact with the legend of Arethusa, has no mythical heroes. Hence, in the first Olympian, the place of the myth is taken by the legend of Pelops and the founding of the Olympic games.
The myth is generally placed in the middle of the ode, and each ode has necessarily a beginning, a middle, and an end, with transitions between the first and second and the second and third of these portions. Thus an ode may have five divisions, and there is a technical term for each: — the beginning (άρχά) is followed by the first transition (κατατροττά), which leads up to the centre (ομφαλός), succeeded in its turn by the second transition (μιτακατατραπά), and by the conclusion. By placing a prelude (τροίμιον) just before the true beginning and another subdivision (σφραγίς, or “seal”) just before the end, we obtain seven divisions corresponding to those of the “nome” of Terpander
(fl. 700 B.C.), which has been supposed to be the model on which the Odes of Pindar are constructed.
It is further pointed out by some editors of Pindar that, in every poem, he “repeats one or more significant words in the corresponding verses and feet of his strophes, and that in these words we must look for the secret of his thought”; that this repetition is found in 38 out of the “ extant Odes, while the other six are of very narrow compass, and that “these repeated words served as cues, as mnemonic devices.”
In the earlier lyric poetry of Greece, every stanza was in the same metre, was sung to the same music, and accompanied by the same movements of the dance. Such were the stanzas of Sappho and Alcaeus, imitated in the Sapphic and Alcaic Odes of Horace. Traces of a three-fold division have, however, been found in a recently discovered poem of Alcman (fl. 657) in which two symmetrical stanzas of four lines are followed by a stanza of six in a different metre. These three divisions may be regarded as an anticipation of the Strophe, Antistrophê, and Epôdos usually ascribed to Stêsichorus of Himera (632-556). The theory that the choral Epode was added by Stêsichorus depends on the interpretation of a proverb applied to ignorant persons, ουδέ τα τρία
Στησιχόρου γινώσκεις. By some of the late Greeks this was referred to the choral “triad,” and this view was revived by J. D. Van Lennep in 1777. But the proverb is sometimes quoted without the definite article, in which case it may simply mean, “You do not know even three (verses) of Stêsichorus!”
The Ode was usually sung in a hall or temple, or in front of the victor’s home, or during a festal procession thereto. Three of the Odes, which have no Epodes (O. xiv, N. ii, and I. viii), may be regarded as processional poems.
With the possible exception of the eleventh Olympian, it is not at all probable that any one of the Odes was performed immediately after the victory. The “chant of Archilochus, with its thrice repeated refrain,” sufficed for the immediate occasion, the performance of a new ode being deferred to a victor’s return to his home, or even to some subsequent anniversary of the victory. The chorus consisted of friends of the victor. The number is unknown, and it probably varied. They spoke in the person of the poet; very rarely does the Ode give dramatic expression to the point of view of the chorus. The singing was accompanied by the lyre, or by the lyre and flute. Besides song and music, there was a third element, that of the dance. No two Odes of Pindar have the same metrical form, except the two which appear in the MSS as the third and fourth Isthmian, and the identity of metre is one of the reasons for regarding them as a single Ode.
In the Odes of Pindar there are three kinds ot rhythm: — (1) the paeonic; (2) the dactylo-epitritic; and (3) the logaoedic.
(1) — The paeonic rhythm consists of the various forms of the paeon, one long syllable combined with three short ( — U U U, or U U U — , or U U — U), and the feet which (on the principle that one long syllable is equal to two short) are its metrical equivalents, namely the crelic ( — U — ), and the bacchius ( —— U).
This rhythm is represented solely by the second Olympian and the fifth Pythian.
(2) — The dactylo-epitritic rhythm combines the dactyl ( — U U) and its equivalents, with the epitrite ( — U —— ) and its equivalents. About half of the Odes are in this rhythm: — O. iii, vi, vii, viii, xi, xii; P. i, iii, iv, ix, xii; N. i, v, viii-xi; I. i-vi.
(3) — The logaoedic rhythm, from λόγος, “prose,” and αοδιη, “verse.” In this rhythm dactyls are combined with trochees (and tribrachs). This rhythm is used in the following Odes: — O. i, iv, v, ix, x, xiii, xiv; P. ii, vi-viii, x, xi; X. ii-iv, vi, vii; I. vii, viii.
Pindar himself describes the dactylo-epitr
itic Ode, O. iii, as Dorian, and the logaoedic Ode, O. i, as Aeolian. We may assume that all the dactyloepitritic Odes are in the Dorian mode, and all the logaoedic in the Aeolian. Lydian measures are also mentioned in the logaoedic Odes, O. v 19, xiv 17, and in N. iv 45. There was therefore some affinity between the Aeolian and the Lydian measures. Lydian measures are, however, also mentioned in one dactylo-epitritic (or Dorian) Ode, N. viii 15.
The Paeonic rhythm was used in religious and serious poems, namely, the second Olympian, which includes a solemn description of the Islands of the Blest, and the fifth Pythian, which dwells on the Carneian festival and commemorates the departed heroes of Cyrene. The Dorian rhythm of the dactylo-epitritic Odes is grave and strong, steady and impressive. The poet himself said in one of his Paeans that “the Dorian strain is most solemn.” Several of the Odes in this rhythm have an epic tone and character. As examples we have O. vi (the story of the birth of Iamus), vii (the legend of the Sun-God and Rhodes); P. i (the splendid Ode on the lyre, on the eruption of Etna, and on the legend of Philoctetes), iii (on Hieron’s illness), iv (the voyage of the Argonauts), xii (Perseus and the Gorgon); N. i (the infant Hercules), viii (Ajax and Odysseus). The Aeolian rhythm was bright, full of movement, well suited for a poem on the dashing horsemanship of a Castor. There is plenty of almost playful movement in the second Pythian; for example, in the passage about the ape, and the fox, and the wolf, and about the poet floating like a cork above the net that is plunged in the brine. The Lydian measures sometimes associated with this rhythm were originally accompanied by the flute, and were also sometimes used in dirges.
IV. PINDAR’S DIALECT.
Pindar s dialect does not correspond to any language that was actually spoken in any part of the Hellenic world. It is a literary product resulting from the combination of the epic language (which is itself composite) with Doric and Aeolic elements. The Doric dialect forms the groundwork. This arises from the fact that the choral lyric poetry of Greece was first cultivated by the Dorians, and principally at Sparta, in the age of Alcman and Terpander. Stêsichorus of Himera was also a Dorian, but his poetry had close affinities with the Epic style. The true Dorian tradition was maintained by Pindar, Simonides, and Bacchylides, all of whom are called Dorian poets, though Pindar was an Aeolian of Thebes, and Simonides and his nephew Ionians of Ceôs.