Epinikia (Pindar)

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The Epinikia (also victory songs or odes ) by the Greek poet Pindar are chorus-lyric prize songs for winners of Greek agons , which were written between 500 and 445 BC. And from the 3rd / 2nd Century BC Were handed down together as a collection. They are divided into four parts, which are named after the four Panhellenic cult and competition sites of the early classical period , in which the sung athletes were victorious.

The Epinikia are the only handwritten works of Pindar, all other works are only known through quotations from other authors or isolated papyrus fragments.

structure

The Epinikia are divided according to the competition venues into

The structure comes from the first extensive Pindar edition published by Aristophanes of Byzantium , head of the Alexandria library , since 195 BC. Was made. The Epinikia were divided into four volumes according to the competition venues. Together with the other works by Pindar, which apart from fragments have not been preserved, the edition comprised 17 volumes. Because of the early collection in books, Pindars Epinikia is the only works of Greek poetry for which extensive Scholia exist. These go back mainly to Didymos Chalkenteros , but also contain older comments.

The arrangement of the groups to one another is based on the reputation and age of the Games, which is why the Olympics form the first book, followed by the Pythias, the Isthmias and the Nemeen. In the course of tradition, the last two books were exchanged, which is why the isthmia was the last book to be destroyed the most and could only be passed on incompletely. Within the books, the songs were arranged according to the importance of the disciplines. They begin with the hip agon car and horse races , followed by the gymnical agon pankration , wrestling , fistfighting , pentathlon and finally the running competitions .

There are 45 individual songs in total, although the authenticity of the 5th Olympic Ode is questionable. Their differing extent enables a division into short and long Epinikia. The short ones comprise between 20 and 50 verses and were probably performed on site at the competition venue after the victory, the long ones comprise between 90 and 120 verses and were sung in the hometown of the winners on the occasion of their return.

Content and style

The content of the songs is usually composed of five elements, although not all elements are always present, especially in the short Epinikia. The invocation of a god or a muse and information about the victor are mandatory , this is usually followed by a relatively broad narrative from Greek mythology , which takes up most of the text and relates to the addressee, his family or hometown. Another element are statements about the poet's profession and his tasks, in which the art of poetry is also compared with athletics, since both require a natural talent. Gnomes are often included, who serve as a link between different parts of the ode, at the end mostly praise of the hometown of the winner, the highlighting of victorious athletes from the family of the winner or, in boys' competitions, praise from the instructor.

The odes are written in koine , about half as dactyloepitrites , the other half in aiolic meter based on iambs and choriambs . The structure of most of the odes is triadic, consisting of a stanza , a similar antistrophe and an epode , most of which consist of five to seven such triads. Seven odes have a monostrophic structure, i.e. they consist of stanzas with the same structure. The linguistic variety and the careful elaboration ( poikilia ) in a narrowly defined topic are considered to be a special stylistic characteristic . The texts are difficult to grasp due to strong compression and rapid transitions of stylistic features.

Olympic Odes

Ode winner discipline date Treated Myth Remarks
1 Hieron of Syracuse horse race 476 BC Chr. Pelops On the same occasion, Bakchylides also wrote an Epinikion.
2 Theron of Akragas Chariot races 476 BC Chr. Elysion
3 Theron of Akragas Chariot races 476 BC Chr. Heracles and the Hyperboreans
4th Psaumios from Kamarina Chariot races with mules 456 BC Chr. Erginos
5 Psaumios from Kamarina Chariot races with mules 460 or 456 BC Chr. (?) None
6th Agesias of Syracuse Chariot races with mules 468 BC Chr. Iamos
7th Diagoras of Rhodes Fist fight 464 BC Chr. Tlepolemos
8th Alkimedon of Aegina Wrestling of the boys 460 BC Chr. Aiakos and Troy
9 Epharmostus of Opous Wrestling 466 BC Chr. Deucalion and Pyrrha
10 Agesidamos of Lokroi Fist fight of the boys 474 BC BC (?, Belated poetry) Heracles as the founder of the Olympic Games
11 Agesidamos of Lokroi Fist fight of the boys 476 BC Chr. None
12 Ergoteles of Himera Dolichos 470 or 466 BC Chr. (?) Tyche
13 Xenophon of Corinth Stadium run and pentathlon 464 BC Chr. Bellerophon with the Pegasus The only ode in which dactyloepitrites and aiolic meter are combined
14th Asopichos of Orchomenos Boys' stadium run 488 BC Chr. (?) None Monostrophic structure

Pythian odes

Ode winner discipline date Treated Myth Remarks
1 Hieron of Syracuse Chariot races 470 BC Chr. Typhon
2 Hieron of Syracuse Chariot races 475 BC Chr. Ixion It is unclear whether the ode refers to a victory in Delphi, it was arranged after the 1st Pythian Ode only because of the meaning of the addressee. The exact date is unclear and is based on philological estimates.
3 Hieron of Syracuse horse race 474 BC Chr. Asclepius It is unclear whether the ode refers to a victory in Delphi; like the second, it was ordered after the first Pythian ode because of the addressee. The exact date is unclear and is based on philological estimates.
4th Arkesilaos of Cyrene Chariot races 461 BC Chr. Argonauts The ode is the only one consisting of 13 triads.
5 Arkesilaos of Cyrene Chariot races 461 BC Chr. Battos
6th Xenocrates of Akragas Chariot races 490 BC Chr. Antilochus and Nestor Monostrophic structure
7th Megacles of Athens Chariot races 486 BC Chr. None
8th Aristomenes of Aigina Wrestling 446 BC Chr. Amphiaraos
9 Telesicrates of Cyrene Hoplitodromos 474 BC Chr. Apollo and Cyrene
10 Hippocles of Thessaly Dolichos the boys 498 BC Chr. Perseus and the Hyperboreans
11 Thrasydaios of Thebes Boys' stadium run 474 BC Chr. Orestes and Clytaimnestra
12 Midas of Akragas Aulos game 490 BC Chr. Perseus and Medusa Monostrophic structure. The ode is the only Pindar that was written for the winner of a musical agon , the competition in the aulos game was a specialty of the Pythian games.

Nemean odes

Since no registers were kept for the Nemean Games, all data are based on philological estimates.

Ode winner discipline date Treated Myth Remarks
1 Chromios from Gela Chariot races 476 BC Chr. The filial Heracles
2 Timodemos of Acharnes Pankration 485 BC Chr. None Monostrophic structure
3 Aristokleides of Aegina Pankration 475 BC Chr. Achilles with the Aiakides
4th Timisarchus of Aegina Wrestling of the boys 473 BC Chr. The Aiakides, Peleus and Thetis Monostrophic structure
5 Pythias of Aegina Pankration of the young 483 BC Chr. Peleus, Hippolytus and Thetis
6th Alkimidas of Aegina Wrestling of the boys 465 BC Chr. The Aiakides, Achilles and Memnon
7th Sogenes of Aegina Pentathlon of the boys 485 BC Chr. Neoptolemus
8th Deinis from Aigina Stadium run 459 BC Chr. Aias
9 Chromios from Gela Chariot races 474 BC Chr. Seven against Thebes Monostrophic structure, originally an appendix to the collection, the ode does not refer to the Nemean Games.
10 Theaios of Argos Wrestling 444 BC Chr. The Dioscuri Originally an appendix to the collection, the ode does not refer to the Nemean games.
11 Aristagoras of Tenedos Inauguration as Prytan 446 BC Chr. None Originally an appendix to the collection, the ode does not refer to the Nemean games.

Isthmian odes

Since no registers were kept for the Isthmian Games, almost all data are based on philological estimates.

Ode winner discipline date Treated Myth Remarks
1 Herodotus of Thebes Chariot races 458 BC Chr. The Dioscuri and Iolaos
2 Xenocrates of Akragas Chariot races 470 BC Chr. None
3 Melissus of Thebes Chariot racing and pankration 473 BC Chr. None
4th Melissus of Thebes Chariot racing and pankration 473 BC Chr. Heracles and Antaeus
5 Phylakides of Aegina Pankration 478 BC Chr. Achilles with the Aiakides
6th Phylakides of Aegina Pankration 480 BC Chr. Heracles and Telamon The specified date is considered to be saved
7th Strepsiades of Thebes Pankration 454 BC Chr. None
8th Cleandros of Aigina Pankration 478 BC Chr. Zeus , Poseidon and Thetis Monostrophic structure, the specified date is considered to be certain

Impact history

Frontispiece of an edition by Richard West from 1697

The effect of the Epinikia on the later literature is to be assessed as small, since the topic offered hardly any starting points for later generations. Horace , who processed Pindar's odes in his Carmina , already had no real access to them and misunderstood them. As the only work of ancient Greek poetry that has survived almost completely, the Epinikia came back into attention in the Renaissance and Baroque periods . With his Interpretatio Pythiorum Pindari, Philipp Melanchthon obtained a translation into Latin for the first time in the 16th century, and Zwingli praised the morality it contained. The French group of poets La Pléiade raised the imitation of the style as "Pindarize" to their own style. In the Enlightenment , the enthusiasm subsided, as one saw something in Pindar's Oden in which a lot is said but hardly anything is said. Goethe referred to them as a source of inspiration for his poem Wanderers Nachtlied , but was more influenced by the interpretation of Horace than by the odes themselves. Only Holderlin came closer to them again when he made a first translation into German.

It was not until the philology of the 19th century that the regularity of the triadic stanza structure within the various metrics was rediscovered , but in the academic dispute over “the unity of the Epinicion” it threatened to lose sight of its actual research topic. In the 20th century, the typical elements were identified, which Pindar put together in modified form to form new units.

Editions and translations

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Pindar  - Sources and full texts

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c d Rainer Nickel: Lexicon of ancient literature , p. 154.
  2. ↑ a b c Emmet Robbins: Pindaros 2 . In: The New Pauly .
  3. ↑ a b c d The data are based on the annotated editions by Herwig Maehler and Bruno Snell .
  4. ↑ a b Pausanias 6, 13, 8.
  5. ↑ Dietrich Mannsperger, Heinz-Günther Nesselrath: Pindaros, Epinikia melē . In: Kindlers Literature Lexicon