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The Ideal Courtier: Pindar and Hieron in Pythian 2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Richard Stoneman
Richard Stoneman
Affiliation:
Institute of Classical Studies London
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Extract

There is some audacity in adding to the formidable list of articles on Pythian 2, which raise the questions of the structure or thematic coherence of the ode, of its specific occasion and of its relation to Pindar's biography. In this paper my aim is the circumscribed one of showing how a correct analysis of the final section of the poem (lines 72–end) can lead us to a better understanding of the nature of Pindar's poetry, and of the way in which he adapts his laudatory stance to the circumstances and status of the addressee.

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , May 1984, pp. 43 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1984

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References

1 Pindaros (Berlin, 1922), p. 293Google Scholar.

2 JHS 93 (1973), 124Google Scholar; also Carey, C. J., Commentary on Five Odes of Pindar (Arno Press, N.Y., 1981), p. 49Google Scholar.

3 See Exkurs II in Schroeder, O., Pindars Pythien (Leipzig, 1922)Google Scholar.

4 Schroeder had already cited Polonius', ‘To thine own self be true; thou canst not then be false to any man’, one of the key texts of Lionel Trilling's survey of two traditions of manners in Sincerity and Authenticity (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar. The phrase finds echoes in Goethe and Nietzsche, and is at the root of the German idea of ‘Bildung’. Nearer to Pindar's world, ‘soy quien soy’ is a keynote of Spanish traditional culture, as discussed by Pitt-Rivers, J. in Peristiany, J. G. (ed.) Honour and Shame. The Values of Mediterranean Society (1966), p. 22Google Scholar; cf. p. 35, where it is expanded as ‘you are who you associate with’. Cf. also Hooker, T., Essay on Honour (London, 1741)Google Scholar.

5 Cited by Chaudhri, N. C., Scholar Extraordinary: the life of…Max Müller (London, 1974), p. 77Google Scholar.

6 cf. the advice given by Isocrates, Evagoras 80–1: μν μν οὖν ἔργον κα τν ἄλλων ϕίλων τοιατα κα λέγειν κα γράϕειν ξ ὧν μέλλομέν σε παροξύνειν ρέγεσθαι τούυων, ὧνπερ κα νν τυγχάνεις πιθυμν σο δ προσήκει μηδν λλείπειν λλ' σπερ ν τῷ παρόντι κα τν λοιπν χρόνον πιμελεῖσθαι κα τν ψυχν σκεῖν, πως ἄξιος ἔσει κα τοπατρς κα τν ἄλλων προγόνων…ἔστι δ' π σο μ διαμαρτεῖν τούτων ἄν γρ μμέ νῃς ϕιλοσοϕιᾷ κα τοσοτον πιδιδῷς σον περ νν, ταχέως γενήσει τοιοτος οἷόν σε προσήκει.

7 West, M. L., Hesiod: Works and Days (Oxford, 1978), p. 24Google Scholar.

8 loc. cit.

9 Redfield, J. M., Nature and Culture in the Iliad (Chicago, 1975), p. 129Google Scholar. There is a parallel, ‘si parva licet componere magnis’, in one of the Tswana Praise poems translated in Schapera, I., Praise Poems of Tswana Chiefs (Oxford, 1965), p. 155Google Scholar: ‘I praised a fine man, the Disperser, Phedi's brother: I said, if you want a village, first make it rain…’. Cf. also Carey, C. J., Maia n.s. 32 (1980), 148Google Scholar.

10 Casa, Giovanni della, Galateo, translated by Peterson, Robert (1576Google Scholar; reprinted 1892), p. 80.

11 Quomodo adulator…51c.

12 312c 1–dl.

13 Sect, XXIII; p. 126 in the Penguin edition.

14 op. cit. in n. ll, 69f–70b.

15 It is possible that Solon fr. 24 West was advice to Croesus, or was interpreted as such by his biographers: Lefkowitz, M., Lives of the Greek Poets (London, 1981), p. 45Google Scholar.

16 52b.

17 52f. The point is taken up in the courtesy book of Guazzo, Stefano, Civile Conversation, translated by Pettie, G. (1581Google Scholar; completed by B. Young, 1586); reprinted, ed. by C. Whibley (1925), p. 82: ‘a wise man doth never agree to the false prayses of flatterers, who resemble altogether the Fishe Polypus’. Interestingly in the present context, Guazzo also has the fox as the type of the devious courtier: ‘We must by their example give them (sc. our enemies) mery lookes, and fleer in their faces: we must play the Foxe with Foxes, and delude art, with art’ (ibid. 80–1).

18 Theognis 215–19. Cf. the recommendations of ποικιλία, 213 f., 1071 f.

19 52ab. Du Bellay, J., Les Regrets CXLIIGoogle Scholar cautions his ‘cousin’ against ‘double estre en paroles…Pour acquérir le bruit d'estre bon courtisan’.

20 I hope to develop this theme at greater length elsewhere.

21 cf. n. 34, below.

22 Salutati, Coluccio, Labores Herculis 2Google Scholar. 13; cf. Hardison, Osborne B., The Enduring Monument: A Study of the Idea of Praise in Renaissance Literary Theory and Practice (Chapel Hill, 1962)Google Scholar.

23 Schroeder characterized this section as a sphragis. On the sphragis see Kranz, W., ‘Das Verhältnis des Schöpfers zu seinem Werk in der althellenischen Literatur’, NJb 53 (1924), 65–86Google Scholar, and ‘Sphragis. Ichform und Namensiegel als Eingangs- und Schlussmotiv antiker Dichtung’, RhM 104 (1961), 3–46Google Scholar and 97–124 = Studien (1967), 27–78.

24 cf. Plut.Quomodo adulator… 74d κα δι τοτο δεῖ κα περ τν παρρησίαν ϕιλοτεχνεῖν, σῳ μέγιστόν στι κα κρτιστον ν ϕιλίᾳ ϕάρμακον, εύστοχίας τε καιρομάλιστα κα κράσεως μέτρον χούσης ε δεομένην.

25 Univ. Calif. Publ. in Class. Philol. 18 (1962), 1Google Scholar ff. and 35 ff.

26 N. 4. 39–43, with CQ n.s. 2 (1976), 192Google Scholar; N. 1. 24 with QUCC n.s. 2 (1979), 65–70Google Scholar.

27 Scholia II. 54 (naming Bacchylides).

28 Schroeder.

29 Dissen, Burton.

30 Wilamowitz.

31 For the ‘hortatory’ first person cf. N. 4. 36–43 and art. cit. in n. 26, P. 11. 54, N. 8. 35–7; Lloyd-Jones, , JHS 93 (1973), 124Google Scholar n. 96 and works cited there. Cf. also Damane, M. and Sanders, P. B., Lithoko: Sotho Praise Poems (Oxford, 1974), p. 19Google Scholar: ‘A seroki may, in his imagination, temporarily identify himself with the chief.’

32 If εἶμι is to be read here, the future is gnomic in effect, as often in English: cf. Goodwin, W. W., Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb (London, 1889), §67Google Scholar.

33 I. 2. 43, O. 6. 74–81, P. 1. 85, al.

34 Arist.Rhet. 1356a 1–7: τν δ δι το λόγομ ποριζομένων πιστέων τρία εἴδη ἔστιν… δι μν οὖν το ἤθους, ταν οὔτω λεχθῇ λόγος στε ξιόπστον ποισαι τν λέγοντα τοις γρ πιεικέσι πιστεύομεν μλλον κα θττον. Horace, Ars P. 330Google Scholar ff. asks how a man can be a good poet if his soul is corrupt: ‘an, haec animos aerugo et cura peculi cum semel imbuerit, speremus carmina fingi posse linenda cedro et levi servanda cupresso?’ See also Isoc, . Nicocles 30Google Scholar; and Russell, D. A., Criticism in Antiquity (London, 1981), pp. 81–3Google Scholar and Buchheit, V., Untersuchungen zw Theorie des Genos Epideiktikon von Gorgias bis Aristoteles (Munich, 1960)Google Scholar, sect. 3 B2.1.

35 Note 5.

36 See for example lines 323–8, loyalty even in the face of slander; 415, hard to find a loyal friend; 979–82, desire for true friendship, deeds not words.

37 On polar expressions and modes of thought in early Greek see Lloyd, G. E. R., Polarity and Analogy (Cambridge, 1966)Google Scholar. Goody, J., The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 112–14Google Scholar, argues that such pairing of opposites is characteristic of a literate culture, being based on the application of ‘formulae’. His ‘formulae’ seem however to differ from those of Milman Parry with which he equates them; in so far as polar expressions are formulaic they are relics of an oral mode of composition, analogous to those Homeric similes which abandon their point of departure to delight in their own abundance.

38 Lloyd-Jones, , The Justice of Zeus (California, 1971), p. 40Google Scholar, citing this passage and Archilochus fr. 94 (= 177 West). This is identified, like Solon's behaviour as a wolf among dogs (fr. 35 West), as the conduct of a good citizen by Lefkowitz, Mary R., The Victory Ode (New Jersey, 1976), p. 29Google Scholar; cf. The Lives of the Greek Poets (London, 1981), p. 42Google Scholar.

39 cf. Young, D. C., Three Odes of Pindar (Mnem. suppl. 9, 1968)Google Scholar.

40 ‘Hermogenes’ Prolegomena (Rhet. Graeci 4. 11 Walz): λέγεται τι τοσοτον ὠμότητι χρήσατο στε προστάξαι τοῖς Συρακοσίοις μηδ ϕθέγγεσθαι τ πράπαν λλ δι ποδν κα χειρν κα μμάτων σημαίνειν τ πρόσϕορα κα ὧν τις ν χρείᾳ γένοιτο, ἔνθεν κα τν ρχηστικν λαβεῖν τς ρχάς τῷ γρ ποκεκλεῖσθαι λόγουτοὺς Συρακοσίους μηχανντο σχήματι δεικνύειν τ πράγματα. See Freeman, E. A., History of Sicily 2 (Oxford, 1891), p. 542Google Scholar.

41 e.g. N. 3. 19–21, O. 3. 43 f.

42 It is however a commonplace that Fortune rules even the great; cf. Machiavelli, , The Prince xxv, Hor. C. 1. 35. 5–12Google Scholar.

43 This echoes the earlier dismissal of the stance of Archilochus (55), which was followed by the statement of Hieron's excellence, ploutein, etc. Here, envy is dismissed as irrelevant or short-sighted, in view of mutability.

44 On the interpretation see QUCC n.s. 2 (1979), 75–7Google Scholar; there is no consistent metaphor here: the envious do not wound themselves with a plumbline; the two images are linked by a pun.

45 On this proverb see A.Ag. 1624 and Fraenkel's note; fr. adesp. iamb. 13D.

46 P. 3. 107 ff.

47 cf. Schapera, op. cit. in n. 9, p. 245.