Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

brill.nl/mnem

Money and the Poet:

The First Stasimon of Pindar Isthmian 2
Francis Cairns
The Florida State University, Department of Classics, 205 Dodd Hall, Tallahassee, FL
32306-1510,USA
University of Cambridge, Faculty of Classics, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK
fcairns@fsu.edu
Received: March 2009; accepted: May 2009

Abstract
The rst stasimon of Pindar Isthmian 2 has long been problematic: it appears to
privilege past over present poetry and to stigmatise contemporary poets, including Pindar himself, as mercenary. This paper summarises previous solutions to
this problem, none fully satisfactory, and, after modifying the logic of the rst
stasimon, proposes the following new solution. Pindars past poetry (contrary to
the view of earlier scholarship) does not consist of monodic love songs but of
choric paidika/enkmia performed at low cost by amateur choruses of fellow
paides, whereas his present poetry is performed by professional choruses and
musicians who were expensively costumed and trained and highly paid. The
issue, then, is not the poets fees (for poets were always remunerated) but the
high costs of contemporary choric performance. Those costs do not stigmatise
Pindar as greedy, but they do further emphasise the patrons generosity in funding Isthmian 2 and its performances.
Keywords
Pindar Isthmian 2, choric poetry, remuneration, performance costs
, ,
,
,
,
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011

DOI: 10.1163/156852511X505015

22

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

.
<>
< > ,

10

.

.

The men of long ago, O Thrasybulus,

who used to mount
the chariot of the golden-wreathed Muses,
encountering the glorious lyre,
freely shot their honey-sounding hymns of love
at any boy who was beautiful and had the sweetest late
summer fruit-harvest of wooers from fair-throned Aphrodite.

For at that time the Muse was not yet

greedy for gain nor up for hire,
nor were sweet soft-voiced songs
with their faces silvered over being sold
from the hand of honey-voiced Terpsichore.
But now she bids us heed the Argives adage,
which comes . . . closest to the truth:

10

Money, money makes the man,

said he bereft at once of possessions and of lovers.
But enough, for you are wise. Not unknown is
the Isthmian chariot victory that I sing . . .
(tr. W.H. Race, Loeb Classical Text, slightly adapted)

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

23

Isthmian 21) celebrates the chariot victory of Xenocrates, whose family, the
Emmenidai,2) ruled Sicilian Acragas in the rst thirty or so years of the
fth century BC; they had already commissioned Pythian 6 and fr. 124
Mae. from Pindar. The victory celebrated in Isthmian 2 had been won
before 476 BC, but Xenocrates was dead by the time the ode was written
(around 470), so Isthmian 2 is addressed to his son, Thrasybulus. Its rst
lines (1-12) contrast the good old days and the present: formerly the
Muse was not yet a lover of gain, nor a working girl and songs were not
sold by Terpsichore; but that is how it is now. Pindar sums it all up in the
proverb Money, money makes the man.
Pindar also contrasts the poetry of the past with his own works in
Olympian 9 and Nemean 7. Olympian 9 privileges itself (1-12) over the
traditional chant in honour of the victor said to have been composed by
Archilochus (fr. 324 West). Likewise Nemean 7 implies (20-30) that
inventive poetry like Homers Odyssey rates lower than historically based
contemporary poems such as Nemean 7, which oers well-grounded
praise of the Aeacidae and of the victor and his family. These contrasts
made in Olympian 9 and Nemean 7 are unproblematic, since both redound
to the credit of Pindar and his patrons.3) But the contrast of Isthmian 2s
rst stasimon raises acute problems. To begin with, the poetry of the past
is lauded there as against the poetry of the present; then Pindar, far from
boosting his own poetry, seems to be incriminating it by classing himself
among the meretricious poets of his own day.
The Pindaric scholia oer two contradictory explanations of Pindars
odd utterance: Pindar criticizes Simonides; and Pindar asks for a
remuneration.4) Modern scholarship has agonized over this problem.
Most of the proposals published up to 1987 were summarized with full
documentation by Verdenius;5) here only the more prominent explanations need be touched on. The scholiasts idea that Pindar was attacking
1)

For otherwise undocumented statements about I. 2 in this paper reference should be

made to Verdenius 1988, 119-47.
2)
They were linked by a number of marriages to the contemporary Deinomenid rulers of
Gela, Syracuse and Aetna.
3)
N. 5.1-4s contrast between statues of victors, which stand in one place, and Pindars
epinician poetry, which can spread a victors fame far and wide, is analogous in its intent.
4)
So phrased by Verdenius (1988, 126).
5)
Verdenius 1988, 126-30.

24

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

Simonides has enjoyed little success, and rightly so. The scholias second
proposal, that Pindar is asking for a fee, has been more popular;6) and
many subsequent defences of Pindar are variations upon it, including the
inuential opinion that Pindar was trying to enhance his fee by deploying
charm, wit and attery.7) Some older scholarship indulged in bizarreries:
Pindar was apologizing for lateness in delivery,8) or he was sending the
ode as a gift,9) or Thrasybulus himself was a poet and . . . after his political
decline he tried to earn money by his poetic talent.10) Certain more
recent approaches have emphasised (rightly, of course) that poetry was a
commercial product in antiquity, and they have linked this perception
with the ideologies which they believe Pindar was propounding in Isthmian 2.11) Others have seen Pindar as praising Thrasybulus indirectly for
his generosity.12) This too is a helpful notion,13) which can contribute in
part to resolving the diculty (see below). But, despite these more recent
advances,14) the problem of Isthmian 2s rst triad still dees full solution:
the very fact that every scholar who comes afresh to the ode feels a need
to address it is sucient proof of this.
A good starting point is the logic of the initial triad. Its key concept is
sexual love: the men of old were (so Pindar claims) inspired by beautiful
boys to compose their paideioi hymnoi; but nowadays the Muse is a prostitute, and Terpsichore is a madam who sells songs with whitened faces.15)
6)

It was accepted, for example by Farnell (1930, 250) and Bowra (1964, 126).
Cf. Gzella 1971, 195, with Verdenius 1988, 128-9.
8)
Cf. Fennell 1899, 158-9 on line 12.
9)
Bury 1892, 33-4.
10)
Norwood 1945, 154-7, esp. 156as paraphrased by Verdenius (1988, 127).
11)
Hubbard 1985, 161-2; Crotty 1982, 98-102; Kurke 1991, Ch. 10; Nicholson 2000.
12)
Including Pavese (1966, 111), Woodbury (1968, 540), and Privitera (1998, 29). At
another point Woodbury valuably remarked that an obsession with fees is the least likely
of themes for a Pindaric proem (1968, 531); on this see further below.
13)
It was rejected by Verdenius (1988, 128).
14)
For another, dierent approach cf. Nagy 1989, who sees Pindar as reasserting the
transcendent nature of his compensation (141).
15)
It is unclear whether the Muse and Terpsichore are identical, or whether
(6) is a collective singular, for which cf. Schwyzer-Debrunner 1966, 41-2; and in the latter case it is not clear whether or not it is equivalent to lower-case and so simply
means songs. The last two scenarios would make the other Muses/the songs prostitutes
and Terpsichore their madam.
7)

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

25

Wilamowitz recognized that (6) means prostitute,16) and he was

perhaps right in thinking that (7) hints at .17) Bowra
added that the silver painted faces of the songs (8) are analogous to the
white-painted faces of Greek prostitutes; there may also be a reference to
payment in silver coins.18) The Pindar scholia cite Callimachus fr. 222 Pf.
/ , (For I do
not rear my Muse as a working-girl, unlike the Cean scion of Hylichus)
to explain Pindars use of and to support the notion that Pindar is
attacking Simonides. Callimachus was obviously referring to Isthmian 2,
glossing Pindars , and supporting the scholias interpretation Pindar criticizes Simonides. Callimachus was also doing something else
which seems to have gone unrecognized: his words I do not nourish a
prostitute Muse evoke the term a pimp or madam, and
they allude to Pindars characterisation of Terpsichore as a brothel-keeper.
Comparable use of sexual imagery for literary programmatic purposes is
found earlier in Theognis,19) and it is common enough in hellenistic and
Roman poetry,20) where some of its manifestations were clearly inspired
by Pindaric models. Pindars references to whores and their madam go
hand-in-hand with the other erotic elements of lines 1-8the beautiful
boys who inspire poetry in lines 3-5, and Aphrodite, who appears in
line 4. These prepare us for an erotic climax to the triad, which comes in
16)

The fact that Pindar uses the verb of his own composition of the ode at I.
2.46 (two lines before its end) does not compel us to try to assign a favourable sense to
(6). Verbal ring-composition, not conceptual parallelism, is in play here.
17)
Cf. Wilamowitz-Moellendor 1922, 311 n. 1. He referred to in Archil. fr. 208
West.
18)
The suggestion about the made-up faces of the prostitutes comes from Bowra (1964,
355-6); both it and Wilamowitzs perception (n. 17) were rejected by Verdenius (1988,
123 and n. 14 on line 6 and 123-4 on line 8), proposing re that Pindar
was referring to payment. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive. Privitera (1998,
159 on line 8) argues that Avere il volto dargento equivaleva ad avere un volto bello e
prezioso.
19)
Cf. Theogn. 1.959-62: , /
. / , /
(When I alone drank from a dark-water spring,
I thought it sweet and good. But now it is polluted, and the water mixed with solids; so
I will drink from another spring of sweet water).
20)
E.g. AP 12.43 = Callim. 2 Gow-Page; Prop. 2.23.

26

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

(11). should be understood not as friends, as it is usually

translated, but as lovers, people to love you. Pindars argument is now

complete: songs once were the product of genuine non-commercial love;
now songs are prostitutes which must be bought; that is the way of the
present world, where money is everything and where, if you are without
possessions, no-one will love you. This message is bracing and realistic, as
Pindar emphasises when he describes the adage of Aristodemus as
< > (10); and that is why, immediately after
the climax of the argument, Thrasybulus is said to be (12): he is a
man of the world and as such mature enough to understand and to accept
this message.
So much for the logic of the rst triad; but why does Pindar oer this
view of poetry, and life, in the rst place? Isthmian 2 is an odd epinikion.
Its addressee is not the victor but the victors son, the victory was won at
least ve years beforehand,21) and the victor is now dead. Epinikia could
be delayed,22) and their relation to the victory could be tenuous,23) but
Isthmian 2 is on any account one of the extreme cases.24) Thrasybulus
hadprobably for political reasonscommissioned this tribute to his
father as an epinikion rather than, say, an encomium; so Pindar needed to
produce an epinikion. It might, then, be suggested that Pindars immediate objective was to distract his original audiences attention away from
the strangeness of this particular epinikion and that Pindar achieved this
by starting with an apparent indictment of the meretriciousness of contemporary poetry. But Pindar would surely not have wanted to leave his
public with the impression that his own compositions were motivated by
avarice. And yet the proem at rst sight appears to be a guilty plea, and its
wisdom about human existence is insucient mitigation. We might
21)

Lines 43-6: , , /
, / /
(Therefore, since envious hopes hang about the minds of mortals, / let the
son never keep silent his fathers excellence / nor these hymns, for I truly / did not fashion
them to remain stationary (tr. W.H. Race, Loeb Classical Text) may be designed to deal
with the out-of-date nature of the victory.
22)
E.g. O. 10 and 11.
23)
E.g. P. 3.
24)
Cingano (1990, 222) includes it among epinikia that he considers wrongly classed as
such.

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

27

imagine that Pindars presentation of a true, if unpleasant, view of poetry

and life, backed up with a proverb attributed to a sage, was intended to
full the standard expectation that the poet should oer wisdom, so that
this passage would make Pindar a deutero-Homer, a wise teacher of mankind. But, even so, Pindar would still remain an avaricious sage instructor. Pindars apparent self-characterisation must, then, be an illusion
which Pindars audience would have recognized as such once they had
worked out what he was really saying.25) But how does Pindar go about
achieving that end?
The two types of poetry involved must somehow be the key to the solution. When Pindar talks about the present condition of poetry he is presumably referring primarily to epinikia such as Isthmian 2 itself. What,
then, are the paideioi hymnoi of line 3, with which Pindaric epinikia are
contrasted? The Pindaric scholia say that these are love-poems to boys
composed by poets like Alcaeus, Ibycus and Anacreon, and modern scholarship does not seem to challenge this statement. But the resulting contrast is somewhat problematic. Obviously Pindar cannot be saying that,
whereas the sight of a beautiful boy easily generates cost-free poetry, agonistic victories are so uninspiring that poets have no interest in composing epinikia unless cash is forthcoming. That would be an insult to his
patron and it would indeed confess Pindars own avarice. Could we, then,
understand the contrast as one between brief eusions composed artlessly
in the heat of desire and highly wrought pieces such as Pindars choric
epinikia,26) which had to be commissioned and worked on over a period
of time? The choric factor was certainly to the fore in Pindars mind when
he introduced in line 7 Terpsichore, whose connection with choric dance
is unquestionable.27) This line of interpretation would certainly help to
25)

A repeat performance was perhaps required for Pindars real message to reach his public clearly: perplexities may have been intentionally created in epinikia to stimulate
demand for such repeat performances.
26)
Heath and Lefkowitz (1991) summed up their view on the question of choric v.
monodic performance of epinikia, a view which was, I believe, convincingly rebutted by
Carey (1991)these two papers document the entire earlier controversy. The correctness
of Careys position is assumed in the present paper. See now also Cingano 2003 with an
important new understanding of the entire question.
27)
Cf. Woodbury 1968, 533 n. 7 and esp. Pl. Phdr. 259c:
(So telling

28

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

dilute the discredit which Pindar seems to accept, but again it provides a
less than satisfactory contrast. If the paideioi hymnoi are spontaneous outpourings of personal emotion, then Pindars opposition of them to
epinikia appears to lack point: a Greek audience would have known perfectly well that epinikia had to be commissioned and remunerated.28)
So, unless we are to conclude that Pindar was fabricating a straw charge
against contemporary poets, including himself, a charge which would collapse on rst reection, then a more meaningful contrast must be sought.
Could it be, then, that the paideioi hymnoi are not compositions for
monodic performance but poems in praise of beautiful boys for choric
performance? This hypothesis would perhaps make more sense of line 2
with its heightened description of the men of old mounting the Muses
chariot and having an encounter with the lyrewhich does not suggest
spontaneous declarations of love. The concept that the paideioi hymnoi are
choric is consonant with the recent work of Ettore Cingano, who has
argued that many lyric poems which modern scholarship, and perhaps
also ancient scholarship, have regarded as monodic29) were capable of, and
perhaps written for, choric performance. Among the poems which Cingano considered choric are erotic pieces such as Pindars celebrated encomium of Theoxenus of Tenedos.30)
The proposal that Pindars paideioi hymnoi were choric would link them
with what Bacchylides called when he wrote
boy-hymns ame forth (Paean fr. 4.80 Mae.) in the
public context of a city at peace;31) and the proposal nds further support
in another ancient text which appears to be discussing the same category
Terpsichore about those who have honoured her in their choruses, they make those people
dearer to her).
28)
Unease with this contrast lies behind the conclusion of Privitera (1998, 158 on line 7)
that lopposizione non tra due tipi di poesia (erotica e corale) ma tra passato e
presente.
29)
Cingano (2003) makes a very strong case against this once generally held view.
30)
Encom. fr. 123 Mae.
31)
Schol.vet. ad I. 2.1a paraphrases Pindars as . For
another view of B. Pae. fr. 4.80 Mae. cf. Maehler 2004, 234 on line 80, denying that Bacchylides are songs sung by boys, and arguing instead that, since
refers to the attraction exercised by boys, the songs must be poets love-songs for boys. But
Pi. Encom. fr. 123 Mae., if choric (see above), would oer a counter-argument, as do other
occurrences of the verb at Pi. N. 10.2, I. 7.23, Pae. frr. 52b.67 Mae., 52s.4 Mae.

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

29

of poem. A passage of Athenaeus (13.600f-601a), derived from Archytas

via Chamaeleon, claims that Stesichorus composed poems
(which in olden days were called
paideia and paidika).32) This claim follows a three-line fragment33) of
Alcman:34)


.

This gift of the sweet Muses

blest among maidens
fair-haired Megalostrata revealed.

This fragment clearly comes from a choric partheneion in which Megalostrata was the chorgos, and in which she was praised in the same terms
as Alcmans better known female chorgoi Hagesistrata and Astymelousa.35)
Presumably Athenaeus source regarded paideia/paidika as somehow analogous to, but distinct from, partheneia.36) A possible alternative hypothesis
might be that, since a can be either a boy or a girl, Chamaeleon or
Archytas were using without reference to gender. But
this notion is weakened by other ancient evidence. Athenaeus (Deipnosophistae 4.176f ) calls two types of pipe and , and [Aristotle] (Historia Animalium 581b Bekker) writes of the virginal pipe as
being higher in pitch than the boys pipe. Pollux 4.81 goes further and
tells us that maidens danced to maidens pipes and that boys sang to the
accompaniment of boys pipes. The likelihood, then, is that paideia/
paidika were similar to but dierent from partheneia. Exactly how they
were similar is unclear. In partheneia the girls praise each others beauty
and that of the chorgos, and they declare their love for her and for each
32)

is Welckers correction of the MSSs . Whether Stesichorus actually did

or did not write such poems is not the issue; for the sceptical view cf. Cingano 1990,
205-9.
33)
Perhaps needless to say, the biographical interpretations oered in Athenaeus text can
be ignored.
34)
Alcm. fr. 59 (b) 3 Davies = Campbell 1988, 434-7 (no. 59b).
35)
Cf. Marzullo 1964, 301-2; Calame 1977, I 435.
36)
On the age and sex of choruses cf. Calame 1977, I 62-70.

30

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

other.37) No certain fragments of close male analogues of partheneia survive; and it is perhaps unlikely on general grounds that they existed. But
Pindars praise of Theoxenus (Encom. fr. 123 Mae.) is extant, as are similar erotic fragments/encomia of amatory content by Pindar and others
(e.g. Pindar frr. 127 and 128 Mae.), and these may be the nearest equivalents that did exist.38) Again, the so-called New Sappho, i.e. Sappho fr.
58 Voigt in its newly enhanced form, might be either a paidikon or a
partheneion, depending on the gender of the of line 11: Sapphos
weak knees of fr. 58.15 are reminiscent of Alcmans knee problems in
one of his partheneia (fr. 26.1-2 Davies).39) Interestingly too, Pindars reference to paideioi hymnoi at line 3 of Isthmian 2 (
) itself has three points of similarity to the incipit of
that same partheneion of Alcman: ,
(no longer, maidens with honeyed tones and holy voices).
alone (cf. Olympian 11.4; Pythian 3.64) would not necessarily
suggest the performances of boys or girls; it is the combinations
( + , and + ) which create the
parallelism.40)
If, then, Pindar was thinking of the paideioi hymnoi of Isthmian 2.3 as
written for choric performance,41) his contrast was between two dierent
types of choric poem. Such a contrast allows a more plausible answer to
be given to the question why Pindar says that Terpsichore has now turned
madam. The answer has nothing to do with poets: no contemporary of
Pindar would have doubted that poets were always remunerated for their
choric works. The answer rather concerns the dierent performance cir37)

Cf. Calame 1977, I 420-49 on male and female homosexuality.

Cf. also Cingano 1990, 205-6 n. 60; Cingano 2003, 36-8.
39)
The songs which at P. 1.97-8 Pindar says will not be sung by boys in honour of Phalaris
imply that boys will sing songs to honour Hiero; although such singing has erotic overtones (cf. , 98) it honours mature men, so its scenario diers from that outlined
in I. 2.3-5. The situation depicted at P. 10.59, where a boy victor arouses erotic feelings in
maidens, is closer.
40)
Cf. also / (N. 3.4-5) and perhaps Pae. fr.
52c.12-4 Mae.
41)
In I. 2.1-5 Pindar from his authorial viewpoint writes of poets, not choruses, lauding
boys beauty and declaring love for them, although of course the poems would have been
performed by choristers and were adapted to their personae.
38)

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

31

cumstances of the old paideioi hymnoi and the new epinikia. The performers of partheneia were age-cohorts of aristocratic girls who sang and danced
locally before audiences of fellow-citizens and whose performances were
intended to show-case themselves. Presumably paideia/paidika/paideioi
hymnoi were performed by similar boy choruses. The musicians for such
performances may have been paid, but the choreutai will not have been
remunerated and they will have worn their own best clothes for the
events; hence the cost of mounting the performances will have been
limited.
However, the performance circumstances of epinikia in honour of Sicilian tyrants and leading Greek aristocrats must have been very dierent
from those of paideia/paidika/paideioi hymnoi.42) These wealthy victors
had lavished money on horses, chariots, charioteers, athletic trainers, special dietsand epinician poets.43) They must surely have demanded for
the performances of their epinikia impressive spectacles put on by welltrained, well-costumed and well-accompanied choruses. The cost will
have extended beyond musicians and costumes. There is evidence that by
around 500 BC not just musicians but at least some choreutai were being
paid:


, ,
(Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 14.617b-c)
Pratinas of Phlius, when ute-players and dancers working for hire took over
the dancing-oors, was annoyed (?) that the ute-players did not accompany
the choruses on their utes, as was traditional, but rather the choruses
accompanied the ute-players in their songs.

42)

Carey 2007, 208, not available to me when this paper was rst drafted, also argues that
Pindaric choruses were (sometimes) paid and instrumental support hired (although he
does not cite Ath. Deipn. 14.617b-c). He thinks the choristers costumes were as splendid
as those for maiden or civic choruses only when the occasion was itself civic (a distinction
inapplicable to epinikia for Sicilian tyrants); he too sees the victor or his family as paying
for everything.
43)
Carey (2007, 204-5) mentions one additional major expense, that of a feast if it
accompanied the performance.

32

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

Additional expenditure can easily be envisaged: whether fth-century

Athenian dramatists were rewarded for the part they played in training
their choruses is not attested, but some remuneration may perhaps be
assumed. Certainly the assistants who played subordinate roles in that
training were paid.44) The expectations which patrons had of epinician
poets in this area are again not known, but it may be well that some element of choric training was at times part of the poets commission. On
occasion more may have been demanded of the poet. Some of Pindars
references to travelling in his epinikia are doubtless metaphorical, but others might be real: epinician poets must surely sometimes have gone to the
victors home cities to train a chorus and perhaps to act as chorgos, and
this will have involved extra cost. If the poet himself did not fulll these
roles, he may have delegated them to professional chorgoi or trainers.
Again, poets and their substitutes going abroad could have taken professional musicians or paid choreutai with them. If they did, this would have
added substantial expense. It is sometimes assumed that all performers
were local; but were skilled choreutai really available everywhere?45) There
may even be a pointer to this area of activity in Isthmian 2 if Nicasippus,
who is asked in line 47 to deliver the epinician, is the professional trainer
or chorgos who has gone to Acragas for the performance.46) The role in
Olympian 6.87-91 of Aeneas, who is clearly a skilled choirmaster esteemed
by Pindar, might be compared with that suggested for Nicasippus in
Isthmian 2.
Later evidence from Athens shows choristers being housed, fed and
paid while in training, as well as being expensively costumed: the citys
nancial commitment to its choric culture has been described as truly
staggering.47) It seems reasonable to assume similar conditions (mutatis
mutandis) for Pindars choruses, particularly when foreign travel was
involved. However, the approach along these lines to the problem of Isthmian 2s rst stasimon raises a consequential question: if the high cost of
44)

Cf. Wilson 2000, 81-6, esp. 83.

Wilson (2000, 279-302; The Khoregia beyond Attike) surveys the available evidence. Carey (2007, 206-7) opines that experienced choreutai would have been widely
available in the Greek world, but he admits that the Athenian situation was not typical.
46)
That Nicasippus was a substitute chorgos was already suggested by Croiset (1895, 97
and n. 3).
47)
Cf. Wilson 2000, 95, and for the entire topic Part I (11-103), esp. 93-5.
45)

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

33

contemporary epinician choruses, as opposed to that of older paidic choruses, explains Pindars contrast between past and present poetry, why
does Pindar seem to make poets, not choristers, the focus of his contrast
by highlighting the poets of long ago at the very beginning of Isthmian
2? It is this emphasis, after all, which gives the impressionone shared
equally by the Pindar scholia and Pindaric scholarshipthat poets are at
the very heart of Pindars contrast, and hence that poets are the central
element in the initial dilemma presented by Isthmian 2.
As noted above, one part of the explanation is that Pindars stress on
poets involves shock strategy, an attempt to seize his audiences attention
and divert it away from the strange circumstances of Isthmian 2. But
another part-explanation is linked with the way Pindar and his public
thought about poetry. Their mind-set is revealed as Pindar moves beyond
the rst strophe of Isthmian 2. In the remainder of the rst stasimon Pindar ceases to emphasise poets and instead shifts his attention entirely to
poems: it is the Muse who is (and was not) greedy for gain and up for
hire, and it is the sweet soft-voiced songs which are sold. The continuity
and change embodied in this transition of course involves yet more skilful
sleight-of-mind on Pindars part. But underlying it is the fact that for Pindar and his public a poem was not a collection of letters on a piece of
papyrus etc. but a performance. The nature of that performance would
vary with the type of poem involved, but for the types of poem mentioned or implied by Pindar the appropriate mode of performance was
public singing and dancing by a chorus accompanied by musicians.48) For
such performances the epinician poet was principally responsible, not just
as the writer but also as the producer and prime contractor who would
have handled the cash throughout, and usually also as the trainer, and
often also as the chorgos. Pindars audience, once they had worked out
what he was actually saying in the rst triad of Isthmian 2, would have
realized that any discredit generated by lines 1-12 was shared by, if not
owned by, the professional performers, whose interests will not always
have coincided exactly with those of the poet.
At this point I take account of, and quote by permission from, an ingenious suggestion made by the anonymous referee for Mnemosyne:
48)

I.e. not reading or (subsequent) solo singing/chanting by an individual, modes of conveyance which were secondary and second best.

34

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

Is Pindar perhaps saying that choral love poetry is, in his own days, discredited because it is being paid for (unlike the love poetry of old) and that he
therefore composed an epinikion for Thrasyboulos? . . . Epinikia are, of course,
being paid for as well, but here the source of praise, the victory, is real and
cannot be bought, unlike the love of prostitutes and the praise of love poets
(a victory in the games is objective, the beauty of a person is not).

This suggestion would (as the referee pointed out) help to explain why in
Isthmian 2 Pindar chose to write an irregular epinikion six years after
the event. It could in addition be that (as the referee also noted) Pindar
is indirectly commenting on his own earlier lovers enkomion on Thrasyboulos (fr.124 Maehler).49) But I hesitate to push this line of interpretation too far. To begin with, Pindar would not have wished to imply that
his earlier praise of Thrasybulus beauty had been purely mercenary.
Again, fr. 124 Mae. was presumably composed when Thrasybulus was a
young man, and hence was an appropriate subject for an encomium lauding its subjects beauty and ability to inspire love. But Thrasybulus was at
least in his late thirties at the time of composition of Isthmian 2, and so
was no longer a pais kalos who could be eulogised as such. Nevertheless,
the indisputable reality of the victory celebrated by Isthmian 2 is the ultimate protection for its praise.
Of course there is more to be said about Isthmian 2.1-12 than has been
said above. Although these lines do not explicitly praise Thrasybulus for
assuming the expense of mounting a performance or performances of
Isthmian 2 as a tribute to his dead father and as an entertainment for his
fellow citizens, such praise must be implicit. Laudations of victors for not
shirking expenditures, which included the costs of commissioning
epinikia, mounting the performances of them and providing some audiences with accompanying feasts, are commonplace in epinikia.50) The fact
that Isthmian 2 is, as it were, a supererogatory epinikion, makes Thrasybulus generosity all the more laudable, and explains why Pindar wished to
draw sharp attention to it.
As already suggested, the primary reason for Isthmian 2s existence as a
non-epinician epinikion must be political. The deaths of both Thrasybu49)
50)

Cf. esp. line 1, and also P. 6.1-3.

For this topos cf. Verdenius 1988, 7 on O. 1.2 (with bibliography).

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

35

lus father Xenocrates and his brother Theron in the late 470s BC seem to
have left Thrasybulus in a weakened condition as their successor. So Thrasybulus may have been trying to boost his image and power at Acragas by
recalling the agonistic glories of the Emmenidae and associating them
with himself. If that was Thrasybulus strategy, it was ultimately unsuccessful since he lost his tyrannis. But at least he lived on in exile in Locri,
unlike his cousin Thrasydaeus, who was executed at Megara. So perhaps
the investments of the Emmenidai in Pindars Pythian 6, Isthmian 2 and
fr. 124 Mae. brought dividends to Thrasybulus in the end.51)

Bibliography
Bowra, C.M. 1964. Pindar (Oxford)
Bury, J.B. 1892. The Isthmian Odes of Pindar (London)
Calame, C. 1977. Les choeurs de jeunes lles en Grce archaque, 2 vols. (Rome)
Campbell, D.A. 1988. Greek Lyric, II (Cambridge, MA)
Carey, C. 1991. The Victory Ode in Performance: The Case for the Chorus, CPh 86, 192200
2007. Pindar, Place, and Performance, in: Hornblower, S., Morgan, C. (eds.) Pindars Poetry, Patrons and Festivals (Oxford), 199-210
Cingano, E. 1990. LOpera di Ibico e di Stesicoro nella classicazione degli antichi e dei moderni, AION (lol.) 12, 189-224
2003. Entre skolion et enkomion: rexions sur le genre et la performance de la
lyrique chorale grecque, in: Jouanna, J., Leclant, J. (eds.) La posie grecque antique
(Paris), 17-45
Croiset, A. 21895. La posie de Pindare, et les lois du lyrisme grec (Paris)
Crotty, K. 1982. Song and Action: The Victory Odes of Pindar (Baltimore)
Farnell, L.R. 1930-2. The Works of Pindar, 3 vols. (London)
Fennell, C.A.M. 21899. Pindar: The Nemean and Isthmian Odes (Cambridge)
Gzella, S. 1971. Problem of the Fee in Greek Choral Lyric (sic), Eos 59, 189-202

51)

I am grateful to Prof. Douglas Cairns and Mr J. Gordon Howie for their comments
and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper (to which their assent should not be
assumed), and to Dr Ewen Bowie for allowing me to read in advance of its publication his
own paper Professionalism, Commissioning and the Cash Relationship, delivered at Epinician: An International Conference on the Victory Ode, London, 5-8 July 2006; Dr
Bowie approaches the problem from a dierent angle. Finally I express my gratitude to
the anonymous referee for Mnemosyne, in particular for the important suggestion
recorded above. An abbreviated proto-version of the present paper was delivered at the
Classical Association Annual Conference in Liverpool in March 2008.

36

F. Cairns / Mnemosyne 64 (2011) 21-36

Heath, M., Lefkowitz, M. 1991. Epinician Performance, CPh 86, 173-91

Hubbard, T.K. 1985. The Pindaric Mind (Leiden)
Kurke, L. 1991. The Trac in Praise. Pindar and the Poetics of Social Economy (Ithaca)
Maehler, H. 2004. Bacchylides: A Selection (Cambridge)
Marzullo, B. 1964. Alcman fr. 59 P., Helikon 4, 297-302
Nagy, G. 1989. The Professional Muse and Models of Prestige in Ancient Greece, Cultural
Critique 12, Discursive Strategies and the Economy of Prestige, 133-43
Nicholson, N. 2000. Pederastic Poets and Adult Patrons in Late Archaic Lyric, CW 93,
235-9
Norwood, G. 1945. Pindar (Berkeley/Los Angeles)
Pavese, C. 1966. , ed il motivo della liberalit nella seconda Istmica
di Pindaro, QUCC 2, 103-12
Privitera, G.A. (ed.) 31998. Pindaro. Le istmiche (Rome)
Schwyzer, E., Debrunner, A. 1966. Griechische Grammatik, II: Syntax und syntaktische Stilistik (Munich)
Verdenius, W.J. 1988. Commentaries on Pindar, II: Olympian Odes 1,10,11, Nemean 11,
Isthmian 2 (Leiden)
Wilamowitz-Moellendor, U. von 1922. Pindaros (Berlin)
Wilson, P. 2000. The Athenian Institution of the khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage
(Cambridge)
Woodbury, L. 1968. Pindar and the Mercenary Muse: Isthm. 2.1-13, TAPhA 99, 527-42