PYTHIAN 12 IN PERFORMANCE

This poem was composed for Midas of Acragas, victor in the auletic contest at Delphi in 490. It presents an aition of the ‘many-headed nomos’, invented by Athena from the lament of the Gorgons when Medusa was vanquished by Perseus. At 22–3 Athena is described as naming the nomos she has created: ἀλλά νιν ɛὑροῖσ’ ἀνδράσι θνατοῖς ἔχɛιν, | ὠνύμασɛν κɛϕαλᾶν πολλᾶν νόμον. The aetiologizing here picks up on the previous mention of the snakes’ heads (ὑπό τ’ ἀπλάτοις ὀϕίων κɛϕαλαῖς, 9),Footnote ⁴ but 22–3 may also refer to the musical accompaniment of the performance. Aulos accompaniment would obviously be appropriate for a celebration of an aulete; indeed, it is hard to imagine the aulos not being used for this poem, whether accompanied by other instruments or not.Footnote ⁵

Our sources give tantalizingly brief evidence for the use of nomoi. Ps.-Plutarch, De musica 1133F mentions that Stesichorus ‘made use of’ the so-called ‘Chariot nomos’:

Given that Stesichorus was not known as a composer of auletic nomoi, this suggests that ‘its identifiable features were transferable to a different musical medium’, in the case of Stesichorus, to solo performance on the cithara.Footnote ⁷ The scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs 1282, commenting on a passage in which Euripides alludes to Aeschylus’ penchant for drawing on citharodic melodies (μὴ πρίν γ’ ἀκούσῃς χἀτέραν στάσιν μɛλῶν | ἐκ τῶν κιθαρῳδικῶν νόμων ɛἰργασμένην, 1281–2), make a similar claim about Aeschylus’ musical practice: Τιμαχίδας γράϕɛι, ὡς τῷ ὀρθίῳ νόμῳ κɛχρημένου τοῦ Αἰσχύλου καὶ ἀνατɛταμένως.Footnote ⁸ The sources tell us nothing about how poets ‘use’ nomoi, but they alert us to the possibility of the use of nomoi by other poets. It is clear from the sources that nomoi were melodic sequences which could be adapted to different performance modalities. West calls them ‘traditional patterns in which music was cast … schemes used for the singing of all kinds of verse’.Footnote ⁹ Their rhythmic and melodic flexibility would have allowed them to be expanded upon, rearranged and varied according to the needs of the particular composer or performer. There is a connection here with the modalities of performance which Armand D'Angour has recently suggested were operative in the Archaic and Classical periods, chiefly a type of melodizing practice which consisted in applying a given set of notes in different ways to different lines according to the pitch profiles of the words to which the melody was set. Musical training was not a matter of learning melodies specifically tailored to individual poems, but rather learning to apply a given note group, rather than fixed sequence, to variant word structures.Footnote ¹⁰

Ps.-Plutarch, De musica 1133D discusses the ‘many-headed nomos’, ascribing its invention to the semi-legendary Phrygian aulete Olympus and reporting that it was dedicated to Apollo. The scholiast on Pythian 12.39c identifies this nomos with the one whose invention and naming by Athena is described at 12.22–3.Footnote ¹¹ The situation is complicated by the presence in the tradition of the ‘Athena nomos’, described at De musica 1143B–C. Given the fluidity and imprecision with which nomoi were classified in later antiquity,Footnote ¹² and the role ascribed to Athena in Pythian 12 as the inventor of the ‘many-headed nomos’, it seems reasonable to suppose that ‘Athena nomos’ and ‘many-headed nomos’ are different names for the same piece, a conflation which arises from their structural similarity and from Athena's prominent role in both, with ‘Athena nomos’ perhaps acting as a gloss on the more obscure name.Footnote ¹³ This identification is reinforced by the attribution of both nomoi to Olympus. I suggest that it was this nomos, on which Pindar drew for the musical accompaniment of Pythian 12.

A poem centred around Athena's invention of the aulos might be expected to make use of a well-known melodic and rhythmical structure associated with the goddess, allowing the poem to draw on the musical associations of such a piece. While the details of how Pindar may have made melodic use of the nomos are irrecoverable, it is possible to see traces of this appropriation in the rhythmical structure of Pythian 12. Ps.-Plutarch's description of the Athena nomos includes the following reference, as part of a discussion of rhythmical combinations and their ethical effects:

The central point of interest for my discussion is Ps.-Plutarch's account of the rhythmical modulation involved in the Athena nomos. This modulation was obviously a key structural element of the piece, as Ps.-Plutarch's later comments on its ethical effect make clear: ἡ γὰρ καλουμένη ἁρμονία ἐν τῷ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς νόμῳ πολὺ διέστηκɛ κατὰ τὸ ἦθος τῆς ἀναπɛίρας (‘the so-called harmonia in the nomos of Athena is very different in character from the opening section’).Footnote ¹⁶ The final line of the strophe of Pythian 12, notated E – e – by Snell, can also be analysed as a trochaic trimeter (– u – x – u – x – u – x):

I suggest that this line mimics the trochaic modulation in the Athena nomos. The penultimate syllable of each line is accented, so would probably have been sung to a higher pitch than the final syllable, which (perhaps combined with a slight stress on the higher note) would have emphasized the trochaic effect. It is unclear exactly how trochaic the nomos was; the trochaic trimeter of the above lines may be an exact replication of one found in the nomos, or may be loosely similar.

Pythian 12 is one of the most rhythmically repetitive of Pindar's epinicians. As analysed by Snell, D – D is repeated twice (s2 and 4), and – D – E occurs three times (s3, 5 and 6). While intrastanzaic and intratriadic repetitions are by no means uncommon in Pindar, Pythian 12 is the only dactylo-epitrite ode to contain a threefold repetition of a metrical line within a stanza or a triad, and the only ode to contain two different such repetitions.Footnote ¹⁷ One effect of these repetitions is to throw the trochaic modulation at s8 into greater relief. It is probable also that the repeated lines drew on the rhythm of the paeon epibatos and provided a suitable frame for the deployment of a melody related to that used in the paeonic section of the Athena nomos.Footnote ¹⁸ It is questionable how strongly such a trochaic modulation would have been felt by an audience, but I suggest that the effect would have been marked when combined with an accompanying melodic shift. This provides an additional reason for taking the Athena nomos and the many-headed nomos to be the same piece; if Pindar used the Athena nomos as the melodic and rhythmical basis for Pythian 12, it would hardly make sense for him to narrate the aetiology of another melody. In sum: Pythian 12 was (probably) a choral piece,Footnote ¹⁹ accompanied by the aulos, perhaps in concert with a stringed instrument, whose melodic and rhythmical structure drew on, and reconfigured, that of the Athena nomos.

In order to better understand this appropriation, I shall examine the Athena nomos further. Strabo's account of the musical contests at Delphi includes a description of the Πυθικὸς νόμος, an auletic nomos in five parts which was mimetic of Apollo's killing of the Python.Footnote ²⁰ Several factors combine to suggest that the Pythikos nomos and the Athena/many-headed nomos were structurally parallel in many respects.Footnote ²¹ They were both solo pieces for aulos and both, if we accept Pythian 12.22–3 as an aetiology of the Athena/many-headed nomos, mimetic of a foundational mythical event. It seems certain that the Pythikos nomos, like the Athena nomos, involved rhythmical modulations; Pollux's account mentions that the section representing the triumph of the god was called spondeion, while Strabo mentions the use of iambic and dactylic rhythms for the section representing the battle. Both nomoi exploited the mimetic capacities of the aulos: the Pythikos included high-pitched whistling noises representing the συριγμοί of the dying monster, while the scholia to Pythian 12 explain the etymology of the ‘many-headed nomos’ as related to the hissing sounds made by the Gorgons’ snakes, indicating that a similar mimetic effect was at work there.Footnote ²² If we accept the parallelism between the Pythikos nomos and the Athena/many-headed nomos, we can, even in the absence of any information about melodization,Footnote ²³ gain certain insights into Pindar's compositional techniques and their effects.

The sequential narrative structure of the nomos has been displaced; the modulation from paeonic to trochaic rhythm described by Ps.-Plutarch, which presumably occurred only once in the nomos, has become in Pindar's poem a structure of repetition, which is emphasized by the monostrophic pattern. This structural shift must have had a marked effect. Our ignorance of the melody limits our understanding of this shift, but it is probable that the effect would have been one of containment, the sequential narrativity of the nomos being subordinated to the strict architecture of the monostrophic pattern. Moreover, the purely musical mimeticity of the nomos has been reinscribed within a structure that is also linguistic, producing a hybrid form.Footnote ²⁴ It is impossible to tell whether Pindar's composition and performance preserved any of the mimetic elements present in the nomos, but there are certain points at which such elements could have been employed. The phrase οὔλιον θρῆνον with its echoing long vowels has an onomatopoeic feel which could have been emphasized musically, perhaps by the use of melismata, whereby one syllable was set to two notes. It is also possible that τὸν παρθɛνίοις ὑπό τ’ ἀπλάτοις ὀϕίων κɛϕαλαῖς | ἄϊɛ λɛιβόμɛνον δυσπɛνθέϊ σὺν καμάτῳ was accompanied by musical phrases or effects, such as high-pitched notes, which reflected the meaning.Footnote ²⁵ The word break after κρᾶτα in 16 falls after the trochee of the second metron; the jerkiness of the rhythm provides a pointed rhythmical correlative to the act of beheading, which may well also have been emphasized by the instrumentation. Likewise the description at 20–1 of the physicalities of sound production (καρπαλιμᾶν γɛνύων) and of its emotive and emotional qualities (ἐρικλάγκταν γόον) lends itself to instrumental interpretation and emphasis.

MUSIC AND TEXT

These interrelations of music and text point towards the wider interpretative consequences of the use of the nomos. The aition narrated in Pythian 12 is not the only one related to the invention of the aulos and aulos playing. Perhaps the better-known story is that of Athena and Marsyas, in which Athena, having invented the instrument, rejects it on account of the distortion of her facial features caused by playing it, whereupon it is taken up by Marsyas.Footnote ²⁶Pythian 12 is our first source for the ‘Athena and the Gorgons’ aition, but it is unclear how original this mythopoeia was.Footnote ²⁷ Crucially, Pindar describes the origin of aulos playing not only as the invention of an instrument and of an art in general, as is the case in the other aitia, but as the origin of a particular piece, the ‘many-headed nomos’. One motivation for the mythological grounding of this piece could be that it was the very piece with which Midas was victorious in his performance at the Delphic contests.Footnote ²⁸ Whether or not this was the case, the paradigmatic association of a single piece with the origins of aulos playing as a whole has the effect of marking the whole art with the characteristics of a particular moment of divine invention. By means of this totalizing redescription, Pindar validates his composition (and Midas’ victory, if it was indeed the ‘many-headed nomos’ with which he won) by associating it with the paradigmatic moment of αὐλητική par excellence. This also has the effect of juxtaposing the musical and circumstantial individuality of Pindar's use of the nomos with its general cultural importance.

While recent readings of the poem have analysed the text's sociological implications with regard to the disputed place of the aulos in Greek musical culture of the time, and in relation to contemporary debates about musicopoetic style,Footnote ²⁹ I want to focus here on the role of the poem's interrelations of text and musical and rhythmical features. The complexity of these interrelations emerges from the fact that the accompanying instrument is the subject of the discourse. This involves an audience in a mimetically double structure, wherein the aulos, both as a concept and as a concrete part of the performance, is redescribed by the verbal narrative, while simultaneously providing the musical frame within which the words of the text are understood. This doubleness is particularly notable in the descriptions of the musicality of the aulos at 6–11 and 19–21, descriptions which mark both the originary moment of creation, in implicit opposition to the Athena/Marsyas narrative, and the musicality of the present performance. The music to which the audience listens during the performance is subjected to a transformation which reaches back into the mythical past and simultaneously acts on the present.

The poem's multiple mimeticity (Pindar imitating Athena imitating the Gorgons, to which we can now add the musical and rhythmical mimesis and reconfiguration by Pythian 12 of the Athena nomos) has often been noted by scholars;Footnote ³⁰ what has been less appreciated is the dual status of the mimetics staged by the poem as both production and imitation. Given that the mythical episode narrated in Pythian 12 must predate Pindar in some form, as does the nomos upon which the poem's musical and rhythmical structure drew, it is clear that the ode does not dramatize itself as a purely originary production of what it imitates, but as a reconfigurative intervention into the tradition. In this sense, Pindar's creative use of the nomos parallels Athena's act of creative invention. This dynamic is reflected in the blurring of figure and ground enacted by the text's mimetic structure.Footnote ³¹ At the lexical level the Gorgons’ οὔλιος θρῆνος is both the ground which makes Athena's foundational mimesis possible, and a figuration of the present performance; as a musical texture it functions as an echo heard through the redescribed aulos music of the performance, and as its mythical antecedent. The Gorgon's lament is figured as unapproachable (cf. ἀπλάτοις ὀϕίων κɛϕαλαῖς, 9) as something which requires Athena's technological intervention to become assimilable to human experience. This is furthered by the semantics of οὔλιος, which in addition to ‘baneful’ or ‘destructive’ can also mean ‘frequently repeated’.Footnote ³² I would suggest that the oscillation of these meanings contributes to a sense of the Gorgons’ Unheimlichkeit.Footnote ³³ This process is reinforced at the musical level by the musicality of the aulos in performance, whose sound is a mediated, partial representation of its mythical antecedent; there is clearly a difference, as well as a similarity, between the aulos to which an audience listens and the Gorgons’ lament. If we accept the argument that Athena's ‘weaving’ (8) of the Gorgons’ threnos also combines it with the cry of victory uttered by Perseus at 11,Footnote ³⁴ then Athena's mimesis is dramatized as a mode of combination and reconfiguration, wherein each of the elements, the lament and the victory cry, contributes to a whole that is different from either of them individually. The poem enacts mimesis as simultaneously a presencing and a displacement, as a practice which makes a cultural event available and also dramatizes its otherness.Footnote ³⁵

There is a strong stress on continuity as well as on difference and distance. Emphasis is placed, for instance, on the continuity between Athena's foundational act and the current conditions of auletic performance: ɛὗρɛν θɛός· ἀλλά νιν ɛὑροῖσ’ ἀνδράσι θνατοῖς ἔχɛιν (22). The auletic art is envisioned here as an embodying continuity of Athena's practice, in which the physical contingencies of performance assume a symbolic value by means of their connection with their mythical precursor.Footnote ³⁶ This detailing of the physicalities of performance is furthered by the description of the instrument (λɛπτοῦ διανισόμɛνον χαλκοῦ θαμὰ καὶ δονάκων, 25) which some scholars have read as referring to contemporary developments in the design and construction of auloi.Footnote ³⁷ The personification of the reeds at 27 as πιστοὶ χορɛυτᾶν μάρτυρɛς reinforces the rhetoric of embodiment; the reeds’ ‘witnessing’ gives them an anthropomorphic character. The use of θαμά also marks Pythian 12 as part of a continuity of performances. But the dynamic by which performance functions as an embodiment of the foundational act is not one of a simple ascription to the present performance of the energies and value attendant on their precursor. As argued above, mimesis is presented, both musically and textually, as a practice of presencing and distancing, a dynamic which is reflected in the description of the perpetuation of the nomos. At 23 (ὠνύμασɛν κɛϕαλᾶν πολλᾶν νόμον) the act of naming, the act of linguistic mediation, is dramatized as central to the perpetuation of the specified musical practice. This deployment of naming, as well as invoking the bestowal of a name as an act of empowerment,Footnote ³⁸ proleptically metaphorizes the appropriation in which Pythian 12 engages by utilizing the melodic frame of the Athena nomos in a new rhythmical (and linguistic) structure. Athena's act of naming is figured as the precursor of the (re)naming in which the poet engages; again, this gesture is both mimetic and productive. Moreover, the use of θαμά, together with the physical details of 25, stresses the individuality of the performance, and thus the singular nature of each performance as a transient, unrepeatable event, the precise contingencies of which cannot be replicated. The embodied continuity of cultural practice is offset by the singular performance events which constitute it.

It might seem paradoxical that Pythian 12 should dramatize the discovery of αὐλητική by means of a mimetic action (Athena's) which imitates an event (the Gorgons’ lament) which is only partially appropriable by human activity, of which a performance can only be an indirect echo. But such a strategy serves to glorify the aulos by stressing its strangeness, and in turn emphasizes the power of the art, and of the individuals capable of utilizing it. The narrative's foregrounding of alterity, and of the singularity both of Athena's foundational act and, by implication, of the performance itself, provides an indirect correlative to the power of fate and the divine, invoked at 29–32, as a force incapable of being comprehended or anticipated by mortals (30) and capable of unforeseen and transformational interventions into men's lives (ἀɛλπτίᾳ βαλών | ἔμπαλιν γνώμας, 31–2). The performance maintains and enacts the dual status of the mythical founding, and the mythical fabula in general, as both other and culturally assimilated. The determining role played by the musical aspect of the performance now shows up more clearly; musical accompaniment enacts the embodiment of the Gorgons’ lament, while also stressing, by means of its place within the reconfigured structure of the nomos, its constructedness and the human arts – technical, compositional and performative – needed to realize it.

PYTHIAN 2 AND THE CASTOREION

Composed for Hiero of Syracuse, this poem is of uncertain date and poses considerable difficulties of interpretation. In an attempt to shed light on some of these problems, I shall make an argument about the poem's musical and rhythmical structure, and the significance that these elements may have had for the poem's reception in the volatile political climate of contemporary Syracuse. I begin with lines 67–71:

Although almost every word in this sentence is problematic, the chief problem is whether τόδɛ μὲν … μέλος … τὸ Καστόρɛιον δ’ refer to different compositions or to the same piece. There are claims to be made for both positions. On the one hand, τόδɛ μὲν … μέλος … τὸ Καστόρɛιον δ’ would seem to broach an opposition between two separate pieces.Footnote ³⁹ But there are problems with this. First, Pindar's use of μέν … δέ is very idiosyncratic,Footnote ⁴⁰ and second, while the placement of μέν and δέ would seem to indicate an opposition between the pronoun and noun which precede them, the syntax complicates this opposition, with τόδɛ … μέλος being the subject of πέμπɛται, while τὸ Καστόρɛιον is the object of ἄθρησον. Moreover, in all of the other passages where Pindar refers to the musical accompaniment of a poem, the reference is always to the present performance.Footnote ⁴¹ Reading the passage as referring to a different piece would make it the only occasion in Pindar of a reference to a specific performance beyond the present one. This was the reading of the scholia, which see τὸ Καστόρɛιον as a reference to a hyporchema composed for Hiero (frr. 105a–b).Footnote ⁴² Given the difficulty of the sentence, however, there are good grounds for seeing this as a misinterpretation of the function of the μέν … δέ clause.

The above considerations have led a succession of commentators since Boeckh to see τὸ Καστόρɛιον as a reference to Pythian 2.Footnote ⁴³ In line with the syntactical shift described above, Boeckh read the opposition as πέμπɛται μὲν τόδɛ μέλος, ἄθρησον δὲ τὸ Καστόρɛιον. Christopher Carey elaborates on this position, citing Nemean 4.9–13, Isthmian 2.43–6 and Bacchylides 5.6–12 as comparanda for the opposition between despatch of a poem and its reception. He also cites examples of usages of μέν … δέ in Pindar which do not imply contrast between the compared elements.Footnote ⁴⁴ Bruno Gentili objects that ‘in questo caso la struttura sintattica (μέν … δέ), più che evedenziare due aspetti della stessa cosa … sembra voler contraporre due carmi diversi’, denying the force of the examples quoted by Carey and followed by Most.Footnote ⁴⁵ Gentili is in a sense right to raise doubts about the validity of Carey's examples because, while they all demonstrate non-adversative use of μέν … δέ, none provides a precise parallel in that none involves an opposition of two conceptually aligned signifiers, as is the case with Pythian 2.67–71. The exception in Carey's list is Pythian 2.48: τὰ ματρόθɛν μὲν κάτω, τὰ δ’ ὕπɛρθɛ πατρός, where the coordinated elements both refer to parts of the body; still, this is not a precise comparandum for Pythian 2.67–71, because although Carey is right to use it as an example of the compared elements in μέν … δέ clauses not being those which fall immediately before the two particles (the comparanda here are not ματρόθɛν and τὰ δ’ ὕπɛρθɛ but τὰ … κάτω and τὰ δ’ ὕπɛρθɛ, with secondary opposition between ματρόθɛν and πατρός), the conceptuality of the opposition, as between upper and lower parts of the body, clarifies the syntactical variation. Similarly at Pythian 2.63–5 the force of the opposition is given not so much by the word order (the opposition is not νɛότατι μὲν … βουλαὶ δέ) as by the conceptual determination of the comparanda by the adjective πρɛσβύτɛραι.

While Carey's exempla show that μέν … δέ need not have oppositional force in Pindar, they do not necessarily bear on Pythian 2.67–71. While I would follow Carey in seeing the main opposition as between πέμπɛται and ἄθρησον, I would also argue that, pace Gentili, there is a contrast between τόδɛ μέλος and τὸ Καστόρɛιον, not as different entities, but at the level of their qualification. The opposition is between τόδɛ μέλος qua ‘Phoenician merchandise’Footnote ⁴⁶ and the Castoreion qua musical structure. This is reinforced by the word order: the fact that κατὰ Φοίνισσαν ἐμπολάν falls between τόδɛ μέν and μέλος implies that the qualification of the noun is as much the subject of the opposition as the noun and pronoun. The μέν and δέ clauses thus refer to different aspects of the poem, the former to the text as authored, valued, transported, the latter to its aspect in performance.Footnote ⁴⁷

The lines refer back to 3–4 (ὔμμιν τόδɛ τᾶν λιπαρᾶν ἀπὸ Θηβᾶν ϕέρων | μέλος ἔρχομαι), where μέλος is used metaphorically and is seen rather through a double lens. First, there is the straightforward metaphorical reference to the present performance. Second, however, λιπαρᾶν ἀπὸ Θηβᾶν ϕέρων μέλος, as well as referring literally to the arrival of the poet/chorus, is also a figurative reference to what precedes the performance, its commission, conceptualization, design, composition, rehearsal, etc., a sense given by the implicit reference of ϕέρων to actions which precede the performance and to the poem being ‘carried’ in a state which precedes its state in performance. This implicit opposition is reinforced by the geographical opposition between the poem's starting point (Thebes) and its performance location (Syracuse).Footnote ⁴⁸ The actions which precede the performance are collapsed into the present by means of the present participle, and are thus almost completely elided. I would suggest, however, that the implicit opposition at 3–4 between μέλος as ‘song in performance’ and those of its aspects which precede performance is expanded at 67–71.

What exactly is meant by 69–71? Commentators have tended to take τὸ Καστόρɛιον as a metaphorical term for an epinician commemorating a chariot victory,Footnote ⁴⁹ based on Castor's association with horses. Frequently cited as parallels for this usage are Olympian 1.100–3 (ἐμὲ δὲ στɛϕανῶσαι | κɛῖνον ἱππίῳ νόμῳ | Αἰοληΐδι μολπᾷ | χρή), Pythian 5.5–9 (ὦ θɛόμορ’ Ἀρκɛσίλα … σὺν ɛὐδοξίᾳ μɛτανίσɛαι | ἕκατι χρυσαρμάτου Κάστορος) and Isthmian 1.15–16 (ἐθέλω | ἢ Καστορɛίῳ ἢ Ἰολάοι’ ἐναρμόξαι νιν ὕμνῳ). I shall return to Olympian 1.100–3 later; for the moment, it should be noted that there is a crucial difference between the second two passages and Pythian 2.67–71, namely the employment in the latter of the definite article to qualify the reference to the ‘Castor song’. The references in Pythian 5 and Isthmian 6 are generic; in the former, Castor is appealed to as a patron of horsemanship, while in the latter the sense of ἢ Καστορɛίῳ ἢ Ἰολάοι’ … ὕμνῳ is ‘a song about Castor or Iolaus’, a song about famous charioteers.Footnote ⁵⁰ The employment of the definite article at Pythian 2.69 gives the phrase a specificity of meaning not present in the other passages.Footnote ⁵¹ I suggest, therefore, that τὸ Καστόρɛιον refers to the use by Pindar of the ‘Castor song’ as the rhythmical and melodic basis for Pythian 2. But while the reference is not just to ‘a song about Castor’ but rather to a specific musicopoetic appropriation, this does not mean that Castor's association with horsemanship is not an important aspect of the text.Footnote ⁵²

The Castoreion was a marching tune which accompanied the Spartans on their way into battle and was played on the aulos.Footnote ⁵³ Here the significance of ἐν Αἰολίδɛσσι χορδαῖς is important.Footnote ⁵⁴ The primary meaning of χορδαῖς in this passage is ‘strings’, anticipating the reference to the ἑπτακτύπου ϕόρμιγγος at 70–1.Footnote ⁵⁵ The rarity of the usage, combined with the specific reference to the lyre's seven strings/notes at 70–1, strongly suggests that these lines refer specifically to the physicality of the lyre. Thus ἐν Αἰολίδɛσσι χορδαῖς means ‘on Aeolian strings’, i.e. a melody in the Aeolian mode played on the lyre. This meaning is reinforced by reading χάριν ἑπτακτύπου ϕόρμιγγος as ‘a grace/glory of the seven-stringed lyre’, taking χάριν in apposition to τὸ Καστόρɛιον.Footnote ⁵⁶ This appositional use adds to the rhetoric of the passage by highlighting the instrumental transposition at work in Pindar's composition; whereas the Castoreion is normally an aulos piece, or rather a version of it, here it has become ‘a grace of the phorminx with its seven notes’, although accompaniment utilizing both instruments cannot be ruled out. These lines, then, have a threefold musicological significance. They signal the use of the Castoreion as part of the rhythmical and melodic texture of the poem, and more importantly draw attention to the details of the musical transposition that the poem enacts. Whereas the Castoreion was normally played on auloi, here a variation on it is being played on the phorminx. To this might be added the supposition that the Castoreion was normally played in the Dorian mode, and thus that Pindar's appropriation of it may have involved a modal alteration, but this is far from secure.Footnote ⁵⁷

As in the case of Pythian 12, it is possible to argue that Pindar's use of a nomos as part of an epinician has left traces in the rhythmical structure of the text. Pollux 4.78 informs us that the Castoreion was played ὑπὸ τὸν ἐμβατήριον ῥυθμόν, an anapaestic rhythm, as a passage from Valerius Maximus makes clear.Footnote ⁵⁸ I suggest that the anapaestic character of several of the verses in Pythian 2 is evidence of Pindar's use of the Castoreion. The rhythmical character of a text alone is not sufficient grounds for positing such a connection (all the D/e odes, for instance, could be described as anapaestic in character), but in the case of Pythian 2 the anapaestic rhythms and the reference to τὸ Καστόρɛιον discussed above are mutually supportive. Furthermore, if we posit for the performance of the Castoreion at Sparta a fairly simple rhythmical structure based on the anapaest, a character necessitated by its use as a marching piece, we can see in Pythian 2 an integration of this rhythm into a much more complex structure.Footnote ⁵⁹ Comparison can be made with PMG 856 and 857, which are Spartan marching songs in anapaestic rhythm. The Castoreion would presumably have formed the melody for these pieces.

In both of these pieces the anapaestic metron is the basic unit of composition, and the rhythm is relatively simple. Particularly notable in 856 is the caesura falling after the second biceps in every line, giving a markedly repetitive feel and suitable for singing while marching.Footnote ⁶⁰ In the case of Pythian 2, however, the use of anapaestic rhythm is more complex. I shall now discuss the rhythmical character of the verses most important to our argument, as well as the significance of the metrical similarities, often noted, between Pythian 2, Olympian 1 and Nemean 3.

Particularly important are P2s3 and s4:

Itsumi comments as follows on the metrical shape of these lines: ‘[a]s in the five dactylic verses of O9e … word-end between two shorts within these sequences is, in general, avoided. As a result the rhythm feels square. We may imagine that a certain solemnity was given by this movement.’Footnote ⁶¹ To this may be added that the anapaestic character of 3, 27, 35, 59, 75 and 83 is strengthened by word break falling after the first two long syllables. Sentence end after the second anapaest in 83 reinforces this effect.

Again, the anapaests are emphasised by word break after the third anapaest in 4, 36, 60, 76 and 84: 36 is particularly notable in this regard, having caesura after the first and third anapaests. Another notable feature is that word break precedes the final u u – u – in all but one of the verses (4, 12, 28, 36, 52, 76 and 82), and is augmented at 52 by caesura.

While the above lines may be regarded as strongly anapaestic, there are other verses where the deployment of anapaestic rhythms is less marked. P2s6, which Itsumi notates – – u uu u – u – u u – u u – and analyses as – e² u D, is unique in Pindar, being the only time that D occurs as the second unit after link anceps. Word break preceding – u u – u u – predominates, as at 6, 14, 30, 54 and 78, but a more anapaestic feel is given by word break preceding the final two anapaests at 38 and 62. Also notable is the form u u u – u u –, which occurs at P2s2, 7, e1a, 2 and 3. At P2e1a Itsumi analyses it as a reversed glyconic, in the other cases as a resolved reverse dodrans. There are only ten verses in Pindar in which reverse dodrans with resolved initial position, as analysed by Itsumi, occurs, four of them in Pythian 2.Footnote ⁶² In total, the phrase u u u – u u – occurs twenty six times in Pindar, six of them in Pythian 2, more than in any other poem (there are three in Pyth. 6, two in Pyth.5 and four in Nem. 7).Footnote ⁶³ Furthermore, the rhythms of P2e1a–3: these are the only examples in Pindar of expanded aeolic cola followed by reverse dodrans,Footnote ⁶⁴ and at P2e2 word break always precedes the phrase u u u – u u –, although the same phrase does not receive the same emphasis in the other lines. Such cola, while capable of being analysed as unrelated to anapaestic rhythms, would easily have lent themselves to conjunction with a melody based on anapaestic phrases.Footnote ⁶⁵ According to my argument, Pindar's rhythmical appropriation of the Castoreion for Pythian 2 involves a complex expansion of anapaestic rhythms, and the combination of these with other non-anapaestic elements. There is a certain contrast between the musical and rhythmical techniques at work in the two poems I have examined; whereas Pythian 12 involved the transposition of a sequential mimetic piece into a highly formalized monostrophic structure, a transposition which must have involved a certain simplification of the mimetic aspects of the nomos, Pythian 2 works through an expansion and complication of the piece on which it draws.

This is particularly obvious with regard to the long sequence in single short movement found at P2s1 (uu u uu u – u – u – u uu u –), which obviously has a character very different from that of the anapaestic movements analysed above. A similar single short movement is found at O1s8, one of several metrical similarities between the two poems; there are also parallels between Pythian 2 and Nemean 3.Footnote ⁶⁶ These parallels raise the question of possible melodic links between the poems; if the melody of Pythian 2 drew on that of the Castoreion, did Olympian 1 and Nemean 3 take their melodies from the same source? While there is little evidence to support such a claim in the case of Nemean 3, a reasonably strong case can be made for saying that Olympian 1 did so; as well as the rhythmical similarities between the poems, they were both written for the same victor, and there is the musical reference at Olympian 1.100–3 ἐμὲ δὲ στɛϕανῶσαι | κɛῖνον ἱππίῳ νόμῳ | Αἰοληΐδι μολπᾷ | χρή. Some commentators have taken ἱππίῳ νόμῳ to be synonymous with the Castoreion, on the grounds of Castor's association with horses. The phrase could, however, mean nothing more specific than ‘a song for an equestrian victory’. The rhythmical structure of Olympian 1 is not as markedly anapaestic as that of Pythian 2,Footnote ⁶⁷ but this might be indicative of a more oblique rhythmical and melodic appropriation of the Castoreion. As a piece of Spartan music with a strong military resonance and a link, through the figure of Castor, with horsemanship, the Castoreion would certainly have fitted thematically with the myth of Pelops.Footnote ⁶⁸ Use of the Castoreion is possible for both poems, but more likely in the case of Olympian 1.

THE POLITICS OF PERFORMANCE

Commentators have often noted the prominence of the political aspect of Pythian 2, but attention to the use of the Castoreion allows us to approach this element of the poem from a different angle. First, I want to address anew the vexed question of unity.Footnote ⁶⁹ Approaching Pythian 2 as a melodic and rhythmical structure as well as a textual one allows us a fresh perspective on this issue. The recurring rhythmical patterns, and a recurring melody (varied according to pitch accent from stanza to stanza), not to mention the recurrent movements of the dancers,Footnote ⁷⁰ would have endowed the lexical movements of the text in performance with a strong sense of continuity. A musical and rhythmical unity cannot be seen as equivalent to or substitutive for the kind of unities that scholars have often sought to find in Pindaric texts – those of theme, motif and occasion – but an awareness of music and rhythm does allow us to see the text as being marked throughout by these aspects. It would surely be important for Pythian 2 if, for instance, the same melodic structure was employed for the address to Syracuse and Hiero at 1–8 and for the criticism of slanderers at 73–80. The melodic frame encourages associations between the two passages in spite of their lexical differences. The melody would have had different resonances in each case; in the former it could be seen as reinforcing Hiero's glory, in the latter as in contrast with the vain actions of the slanderers (76–7). The production of meaning is an interplay of text and music wherein each element marks the other with its associations.

Why does Pindar draw such specific attention to his use of τὸ Καστόρɛιον δ’ ἐν Αἰολίδɛσσι χορδαῖς? The reference could be seen as a technical aggrandizement, drawing attention to the text's (and the composer's) musical sophistication. The reference to the Castoreion at 69 is metaphorical; Pythian 2 is not the Castoreion itself, but an expansion and recontextualization of it. The apparent directness of the reference paradoxically stresses the indirectness of Pindar's musical appropriation, while also bringing the Castoreion’s social and mythical associations to the fore. The reference also has a role in mediating between, and highlighting, the contrast figured in the text between praise poetry and the poetry of blame, of which Archilochus is the prime example.Footnote ⁷¹ By drawing on the Castoreion for the musical and rhythmical structure of Pythian 2, Pindar associates his composition with the military and social excellence of the Spartans and Castor's role as a mythical paradigm of horsemanship, and the explicit reference to the Castoreion qua musical schema balances the use of Archilochus as a negative exemplum and the refusal of κακηγορία at 53–6. The musical and rhythmical aspect also resonates with the use of Cinyras and Ixion as exempla.Footnote ⁷² Cinyras is deployed at 15–17 as a positive foil for Hiero, as a figure who has won the praises of his citizens (15–16) because of his excellence and his close relations with the gods (16–17) and is presented as a paradigm of correct reciprocal relations.Footnote ⁷³ The role of the Castoreion melody in the poem enables a further set of associations, between Castor and Cinyras and between Castor and Hiero. There is also an implicit contrast between the melody's marking the text with the association of Castor the paradigmatic horseman and the Centaurs, whose physical perversion is a correlative to Ixion's crimes (42–9), and which offers a counterpoint to Hiero's divinely sanctioned horse taming (7–8).Footnote ⁷⁴ The obliqueness of these links figures the laudandus against the referential and associative capaciousness of the performance. The melos also has a role to play in the criticism of slanderers at 76–80. There is controversy over the particular referents of these lines; I take them to refer to political tensions at Syracuse generally, or the possibility of them, rather than to any particular individuals.Footnote ⁷⁵ The poem not only advances statements about such things, engaging in an argument about different types of citizenship and advancing a model of the ideal citizen at 81–8, where the value of honest straightforward communication is stressed in opposition to the slanderers (ἐν πάντα δὲ νόμον ɛὐθύγλωσσος ἀνὴρ προϕέρɛι, 86), but also, by means of its disposition of text and music, presents itself as a rebuttal of social disharmony, as the interplay of aesthetic elements performs a figural cohesion. The performance is an image of the cohesion that the slanderers threaten.

The use of the Castoreion in Pythian 2 should also be seen against the background of Hiero's use of population relocations as a means of securing and reinforcing his power, and the related deployment of doricizing elements in other cultural productions of this period. Particularly relevant here is the mention of Hiero moving settlers from Syracuse and the Peloponnese into Naxos and Aetna in the mid 470s.Footnote ⁷⁶ This is taken up by Pindar's dorianizing figuration of Aetna in Pythian 1: τῷ πόλιν κɛίναν θɛοδμάτῳ σὺν ἐλɛυθɛρίᾳ | Ὑλλίδος στάθμας Ἱέρων ἐν νόμοις ἔκτισσɛ (61–2). While we may not want to accept the argument that this is a specific legal reference to the Aetnaean constitution being based on that of Sparta,Footnote ⁷⁷ the text certainly works to affirm Aetna's Dorian, and specifically Spartan, character and figures Sparta as paradigmatic of political and social orderliness.Footnote ⁷⁸ A similar dynamic is at work in Pythian 2. Although the situation is complicated by the lack of certainty about the date and location of the performance, Pindar's use of the Castoreion may be seen as a musical enactment of Hiero's validation of Doric institutions, operative at both mythical and the socio-historical levels.

The poem's musical and rhythmical elements, however, do not lend themselves to being reduced to a straightforward correlative of a given set of socio-political conditions, but make better sense as an idealized event which performs an oblique and reconfigurative intervention into those conditions. Two aspects of the poem are of cardinal importance in this respect. First, the use of music as part of a performance to project an idealized figuration of socio-political harmony;Footnote ⁷⁹ this is not only a formal aspect of the poem, but would surely also have been operative in terms of the social circumstances of the performance. The socio-political significance of a group of Syracusan citizens singing a modified version of a Dorian melody as part of a strongly political poem would surely not have been lost on an audience. Second, however, there is a more purely formal level of musical operation which complicates the performance's social resonances and resists allegorization as a straightforward ideological representation. As has been often noted,Footnote ⁸⁰Pythian 2 is, even by the standards of epinicians, a problematically multivalent text, involving sharp changes of tone and lexis and deploying a wide range of rhetorical tropes, from conventional invocations and myths to the referencing of Archilochean animal fables.Footnote ⁸¹ One effect of this lexical and narrative multivalence is to dramatize the role of music as a mediating and harmonizing force, whose framing of the text links its different aspects and forms a totality, the coherence of which is irreducible to, and parallel to, the textual. The poem's rhythmical and musical structure becomes a referent of the shifts and disjunctions of the text. Another related aspect of the combination of music and text is its highlighting of the singular disposition of different cultural materials which the performance engages, stressing the status of the performance as a unique cultural event. The performance both comments on the political and preserves, or attempts to preserve, a formalized distance from it. Its musico-poetic figuration of social harmony insists on its own singular status, while also arrogating to itself, by means of its gnomic statements, its references to the past and its musical appropriations, a wider cultural authority.