Pindar's odes for Aeginetan victors revolve around two major Aeginetan virtues: inborn excellence (phya) and generous guest-friendship (xenia). The latter virtue is, of course, one of the most pervasive themes in Pindar's poetry, in which the poet's relationship with his patrons is presented in terms of guest-friendship, with the odes themselves as the poet's gift to his guest-friends. As for the former virtue, the Aeginetans’ inborn excellence is implicit in the mythic section of almost all Aeginetan odes, which focuses on the line of Aiakos, the progenitor of two of the greatest Greek heroes, Achilles and Ajax. In view of this almost exclusive emphasis, one might be forgiven for assuming that the Aiakidai were the mythical progenitors of the Aeginetans. However, this is simply not true, as Pindar himself was fully aware: in fact, the Aeginetans were a Doric tribe whose ancestry was no more remarkable than that of other Doric cities; at best, they could claim the Aiakidai as their ancestors only metaphorically.
This article will explore Pindar's reasons for singling out Aeginetan xenia and phya for praise, and his strategies in pursuing this objective. Its main thesis will be that xenia is shorthand for the Aeginetans’ commercial activities, and that the poet's praise of Aeginetan phya is a veiled reference to their wealth.
Aegina, a land of commerce
In archaic Greece, as in later eras, traditional aristocracies consisted of landowning elites who could (typically) claim distinguished descent. The valuation of land ownership as the aristocratic source of wealth par excellence was evidently associated with the idea of landed property as permanent and safe, with its inheritability strictly within the genos (‘kin’), and with the fact that it was by far the most important source of wealth overall.Footnote 1 In traditional aristocratic ideology, inherited land wealth is interconnected with inherited excellence.
The topography of Aegina did not favour the presence of landowning aristocrats, as it was a rocky island without any (significant) arable land. It appears that, in the archaic period, Aeginetan elites based their status not on landed property but on wealth acquired mainly through long-distance trade. This view was contested, most importantly by Geoffrey de Ste Croix, who argued that Aeginetan elites were not a mercantile aristocracy but a small landowning class, and that, at least until the mid-fifth century, trade was practised mainly by poor citizens and, to a greater extent, by metics.Footnote 2 However, de Ste Croix's argumentation was fully and persuasively refuted by Thomas Figueira, who has shown that Aegina was ruled by a commercial aristocracy from as early as the sixth century.Footnote 3 I do not propose to rehearse Figueira's argument in any detail, though I shall invoke its main points in support of my view that Aegina's upper class based its wealth mainly on sea trade.
Strabo (8.6.16), citing Ephoros (FGrHist 70F176), notes that the poverty of Aegina's soil led its inhabitants to become sea traders, so much so that Aegina became the first Greek city to issued silver coins.Footnote 4 The Aeginetan coin emblem, the amphibious sea-turtle, would appear to allude precisely to the occupation of the island's inhabitants: as well as living on the dry land of Aegina, the Aeginetans were masters of the sea. The duality of the Aeginetans also underlies the story of the quarrel between Phokos and his brothers Peleus and Telamon (Paus. 2.29.8–10). Phokos, the eldest son of Aiakos and of the Nereid Psamathe, was a seal-like creature, who belonged exclusively neither to land nor to water.Footnote 5 His killers, Peleus and Telamon,Footnote 6 were sons of the dryad Endais, creatures of the earth. The myth encapsulates the opposition between life on dry land (Peleus, Telamon) and amphibious life (Phokos). Eventually, however, according to Pausanias (2.29.9–10), the defeated Phokos was the only Aiakid to receive honours in the vicinity of the Aiakeion, while Peleus and Telamon were sent into exile by their father, Aiakos. In other words, the quarrel between earth and sea has no real victor.
Ephoros’ description of Aegina as small and barren is in contrast with the fact that the island was one of the richest Greek cities of the archaic period. Given its dearth of land resources, its prosperity must surely be attributed to trade. Around 490 bc, the Aeginetan navy was the second largest in Greece, and the island was involved in long-distance trade, its main commodity being vases manufactured in Athens but carried to overseas markets.Footnote 7 According to Herodotus (4.152), one Sostratos of Aegina, son of Laodamas, was involved in commercial activities and acquired incomparable wealth. According to Murray, this Sostratos is to be associated with the Sostratos mentioned in a 500 bc inscription found in Gravisca (SEG 28.775), which runs: ‘I am of Aeginetan Apollo, Sostratos had me made, son of…’. The full extent of this inscription's significance becomes apparent when we take into account the large number of Attic vases produced between 535 and 505 bc which bear the stamp ΣΟΣ(ΤΡΑΤΟΣ). It would appear that Sostratos was not only a successful trader, but also – thanks to the size of his trade activities – a founder of a trading house in Aegina.
Apart from the various sources cited by Figueira, Pindar himself provides evidence supporting the view that Aegina was no stranger to commerce and that its upper class drew their status from wealth acquired through trade. The extent to which the poet uses naval imagery in the Aeginetan odes suggests an awareness of where the wealth of his laudandus (the person glorified in the ode) came from. Indeed, the majority of the Aeginetan odes are filled with nautical images and road metaphors.Footnote 8 I shall discuss here only two examples which seem the most compelling. First, in Nem. 6.32, composed for the young athlete Alkimidas, Pindar calls the Bassidai, the victor's Aeginetan family, ναυστολέοντες, that is, shipowners who provide (as if it were a ship's cargo) material for their own praise. It would not be far-fetched to assume that the metaphor alludes to the family's profession.Footnote 9 Second, in Nemean 5, Pindar uses the image of a merchant ship as a metaphor for the value of his poetry. The opening lines of the poem compare the art of the sculptor with the poet's art:
Unlike a stationary statue, Pindar's song is able to sail away from Aegina and set itself in motion (cf. Isthm. 2.45–6). That is, unlike the artwork for which Aeginetan sculptors were famous in mainland Greece,Footnote 11 Pindar compares his poem to merchandise that travels by sea, on vessels like the holkas or the akatos. As Dougherty explains, ‘a holkas is strictly a sailing vessel capable of stowing surprisingly large amounts of cargo’, while ‘an akatos is an oared galley, somewhat smaller than a trireme, that could carry dispatches, passengers, or cargo’.Footnote 12 Far from being a random choice, the items mentioned here (statues, vessels) allude, I believe, to Aegina's main areas of economic activity, namely sculpture and sea trade. In particular, statues (agalmata) were top-rank goods, whose circulation was restricted to members of the traditional aristocracy, and were thus to be seen as a privileged form of symbolic capital reserved mainly to the closed-system economy favoured by aristocrats. This restrictive system was opposed to the market economy which Pindar uses as a metaphor for his own art, which he compares to the merchant ships that leave from Aegina to carry its merchandise abroad and to return to Aegina with a profit. Likewise, the poet's song sets sail from Aegina, as if on a merchantman, to broadcast the victor's fame far and wide and to bring back the profit of enhanced glory for the victor's family. Significantly, nautical imagery (‘hoist the sails to the topmost yard!’) recurs at the end of the ode (52) in the context of epinikian praise no longer directed to the laudandus himself but to his grandfather Themistius: it is as if the ode, rather like a holkas or an akatos, sails out full of praise for one member of the family but comes back bringing fame, like so much accumulated profit, for the entire family.
Another very important element of the Aeginetan odes is their emphasis on the aristocratic institution of xenia, a theme which occurs in almost all of these odes. Indeed, the hospitality displayed by Pindar's Aeginetan patrons is frequently presented as typical of the island itself.Footnote 13 Aegina's hospitality is praised far more than that of any other place,Footnote 14 and it is the most important aspect of Pindar's characterization of the island as an aristocratic utopia. In particular, Aeginetan hospitality is viewed as part and parcel of its inhabitants’ righteousness;Footnote 15 after all, Aiakos, the Aeginetans’ fictional ancestor, was famed for his justice, especially towards strangers (see also e.g. Bacchyl. 12.4–6, 13.95).
One of the myths related to Aiakos seems particularly relevant in this respect. At a time when drought had afflicted Greece, the Delphic oracle advised envoys that Zeus would not hearken to their prayers unless Aiakos himself made the appropriate ritual supplication.Footnote 16 In response to envoys from every Greek city coming to Aegina and asking him for his salutary assistance, Aiakos offers a sacrifice and a prayer to Zeus Hellanios, whereupon it starts raining. Kowalzig suggests that the myth of Aiakos’ prayer for rain on behalf of all Greeks is an allusion to Aegina's nodal position in intermediary trade and to its status as guarantor of hospitality and legal protection towards foreign merchants.Footnote 17 While this is an attractive hypothesis, it rests on slim evidence, and it may be preferable to limit ourselves to remarking that the emphasis on Aeginetan xenia, especially in view of the mythic image of the supremely righteous Aiakos, serve to underline the island's suitability to commerce.Footnote 18
This aristocratic virtue of xenia also includes the poet's relationship of guest-friendship with his patrons, a relationship often presented as rooted in mythical kinship. As Pindar claims (Isthm. 8.17), Theba was Aigina's twin sister, both of them being daughters of the Boiotian Asopos. In addition, the cooperation of Theban and Aeginetan heroes ‘is a leitmotif in Pindar's Aeginetan odes’.Footnote 19Isthmian 6 is a famous example of the parallelism between the mythological heroes’ relations of xenia and those between Pindar and his Aeginetan patrons.Footnote 20 The ode begins with a sympotic scene in which the song is compared to a libation (1–3) or rather to three distinct libations: the first is for Pytheas’ victory in the Pythian Games, the second for Phylakidas’ victory, and the third for a future success. What is important is the fact that the poet pours his own poetic libation upon Aegina (8–9), an act that not only alludes to the place of performance but also invests Aegina with a divine role in helping Lampon's offspring achieve future success. From line 19 onwards, the poet moves to the topic of Aegina's greatness, with the image of the song being poured upon the Aiakidai as a shower of praises engaging the audience's collective emotions (19–27). At first, the praise is said to come from Thebes to Aegina (20–2), but the following line makes it clear that it comes along ‘countless roads’, for the fame of the Aiakidai is spread even beyond the land of Hyperboreans and the springs of the Nile. Likewise, Pindar's song travels from the present to the past and from the specific laudandus to the Aiakidai in general. Thus, it is an eternal song that links the present with the mythical past, and Aegina with the whole world.Footnote 21
The reference to the Aiakidai is followed (as in Nem. 5.9) by a mythological section. The poet gives a synoptic picture of the great achievements of Telamon and Herakles, underlining their close relationship. The important moment of the myth is when Herakles finds Telamon dining (35–6).Footnote 22 Herakles raises his cup upwards to the sky to pour out a libation to Zeus (41–2) and prays for a mighty son to be born to his guest-friend. The god's response is immediate: Zeus sends the king of birds, his eagle (50), to indicate that he will fulfil the prayer, whereupon Herakles states that the future child should be named Aias after Zeus's eagle (aietos).Footnote 23 Just as Herakles’ prayer refers not only to the past but also to the present and future, so Pindar's praise of the fame of the Aiakidai encompasses both the present and the past. In view of the poem's opening sympotic reference (1–9) and the fact that both libations concern offspring, the implication should be clear: the sons of Lampon are paralleled with Ajax.
Towards the end of the ode, Pindar states that he will praise the achievements of Phylakidas, Pytheas, and their uncle, Euthymenes, ‘in the briefest terms’ (59).Footnote 24 The final lines make it clear that the victor and his victorious brothers are Pindar's guests, to whom the poet offers water from the Theban spring of Dirke. The Psalychiadai clan will enjoy fame in the future: the family's victorious athletes ‘refresh the clan of the Psalychiadai with the finest dew of Graces’ (62–3). The present (Phylakidas’ victory) meets the past (Herakles’ libation for Ajax) and the future (Phylakidas’ and his brothers’ fame) under the aegis of Mnemosyne (75).
The victor's phya, his inborn excellence that leads to success, was predicted by a xenos (Herakles) and will be preserved for the future thanks to another (Pindar). But is this phya aristocratic?
Aeginetan phya and the economy of the oikos
In Pindar, the word physis occurs only twice (Nem. 6.5; Isthm. 4.49), on both occasions in the sense of ‘bodily form’.Footnote 25 However, its synonyms are found in the entire Pindaric corpus.Footnote 26 Rose has noted that in twenty-four out of the surviving forty-four odes Pindar stresses the importance of the victor's excellence as an inheritance from the heroes of his homeland.Footnote 27
In the Aeginetan odes, Pindar takes every opportunity to connect the victor with his family's past.Footnote 28 The only Aeginetan odes that make no reference to family members other than the father-patron are Nem. 3, 7, and 8; of these, Nem. 7 and 8 do at least name the victor's clan. What is more, phya, as Rose has noted, is usually emphasized when the victor appears to have inherited his virtues and values from the founding heroes of his homeland.Footnote 29 As we saw earlier, Pindar's recurrent references in the Aeginetan odes to the Aiakidai may give the false impression that they were the ancestors of the Aeginetans; however, the poet makes it clear that none of the Aiakidai remained on the island, as they were scattered around Greece.Footnote 30 On the contrary, Pindar repeatedly stresses the Doric identity of the Aeginetans; interestingly, almost all of his references to Doric identity and customs are to be found in the Aeginetan odes.Footnote 31 In Olympian 8.30, the Aeginetans are termed Δωριεῖ λαῷ (‘Doric people’), and the same term is also used in Pyth. 8.20 and Isthm. 9.4.
In particular, Isthmian 9.1–8, although fragmentary, is an important source for understanding this aspect of Pindaric Aegina:
Famous is the story of Aiakos, and famous too is Aegina, renowned for her navy. By the destiny of the gods the Doric army of Hyllos and of Aigimios came and founded her. Her citizens live in obedience to their rule, transgressing neither divine law nor justice due to strangers. As for their excellence, they are like dolphins in the sea, and wise stewards of the Muses and of athletic contests.
The ode summarizes all the characteristics of Aegina in a few lines: the mythic hero Aiakos, the important navy of Aegina (an allusion to its trade), love of athletics and music, Doric identity derived from Hyllos and Aigimios, and xenia.Footnote 32 The same characteristics also appear in Paean 6 (123–31), in Nemean 3.1–3, with its emphasis on xenia and Doric identity, and in Olympian 8.15–30, with its focus on the Aeginetans’ nautical pursuits, the importance of xenia and justice among them, and their Doric identity, customs, and laws. In other words, distinguished ancestry, or social status associated with descent from local heroes, does not seem to play a significant role in Pindar's construction of praise for his Aeginetan patrons (one may profitably contrast here his emphasis on Theron's ancestry in Ol. 2.10–15).
And yet, despite this downplaying of Aeginetan heredity, there is no denying Pindar's emphasis on Aeginetan ‘inborn excellence’, or phya. In three odes (Nem. 5, I sthm. 5 and 6) composed for Lampon's sons, who belonged to the elite Psalychiadai clan,Footnote 33phya is the link that connects the individual with his clan, his city, and the economy of the island. In Nem. 5.3–8, the εὐρυσθενής (‘mighty’) Pytheas is said to have achieved a personal victory that adds to the greatness of his polis, but the emphasis is clearly on Pytheas’ family identity and thus on his oikos (direct line of descent): he is the son of Lampon and an important mother (4–6). In addition, the ode includes a catalogue of prior family victories: Euthymenes, a brother of Pytheas’ mother, was victorious at Nemea and Megara (39–46); and Themistios, his mother's father, won a double boxing crown at Epidauros (50).Footnote 34 The ode's mythical section also concerns heroes who were brothers, and the whole ode is rich in terms that denote family relationships (υἱός [‘son’] ματέρ᾽ [‘mother’], πατέρος [‘father’], υἱοί [‘sons’], ἀκοίταν [‘wife’], πατρός [‘father's’], γαμβρόν [‘son-in-law’], συγγενής [‘relative’], ὁμόσπορον [‘from the same parent’]).
In Isthmian 6, composed for Pytheas’ brother Phylakidas, who won at the boys’ pankration, the family also has a very strong presence.Footnote 35 The sympotic atmosphere and the image of the ‘second bowl’ (δεύτερον κρητῆρα; 2) suggest that the ode may have been preceded by a re-performance of Nemean 5 on the same occasion; it certainly encourages the audience to recall Nemean 5 and the family victories recounted therein. It is in this context that Pindar mentions the victorious generation of Lampon (Λάμπωνος εὐάθλου γενεᾶς; 3) and expresses hope for a third success for Lampon's family at Olympia (7–9). In lines 10–18, Pindar puts forward the idea that one who spends money on noble deeds attains a godlike life, full of honour and happiness. This idea applies primarily not to the victorious athlete himself but to his father, Lampon (15–16), who financed his son's achievements and has commissioned the ode. After the mythological section, in which Herakles wishes for Telamon to have a mighty son (see also above), Pindar once again brings to the fore the victories of Lampon's oikos – that is, those of Pytheas, Phylakidas, and Euthymenes (57–8, 60–2). Clearly, the entire family, rather than just the victor, is to be exalted through its connection to the mythic past. The role of the oikos in the ode is significantly enhanced when the victor's father, Lampon himself, is cast in the trainer's role:Footnote 36
In devoting industry to his deeds, Lampon holds in particular honour that saying of Hesiod, which he quotes and recommends to his sons, as he brings to his own city an adornment all share and is beloved for his acts of kindness to foreigners, pursuing due measure in judgement and holding fast to it; his tongue does not stray from his thoughts; you would say that among athletes the man is a bronze-taming whetstone from Naxos compared to other stones.
The impression, artfully created by Pindar, that Lampon was his sons’ coach is simply not true. What Lampon imparts to his son is not athletic skill or training but sound moral advice and the example of his own morality, including moderation, good judgement, and control over one's tongue (71–2).Footnote 37 Pindar presents Lampon ‘in the act of impersonating, through this quotation, Hesiod's parainetic stance: Lampon himself παραινεῖ’.Footnote 38 According to the Hesiodic saying alluded to here, success needs ‘care’, ‘attention’, and ‘industry’ – principles adhered to by the whole family.Footnote 39 By misleadingly suggesting that Lampon may have been his son's trainer, Pindar compensates for the lack of athletic honour on the father's side of the family, and allows Lampon to share in the glory of athletic victory by praising his moral excellence rather than his athletic skill. Thus, the victories hymned become a common possession for the whole oikos, including members such as Lampon, whose side of the family lacks a tradition of athletic victory.
Isthmian 5 is the third and final ode commissioned by Lampon. It was composed c.478 bc for Phylakidas, the youngest son, who was trained by his brother and won at the Isthmian Games.Footnote 40 In the first epode, Pindar lists all the victories won by Lampon's sons and Kleonikos’ grandsons (including at the Isthmian and Nemean Games),Footnote 41 and explicitly mentions (in 54–8) the family (γενεάς) of Kleonikos, Lampon's father: anyone wanting to compete in the games should learn from Kleonikos’ line that family glory comes from hard work (literally, since the victors themselves took part in physically demanding events) and expenditure (δαπάναι). Thus, the phya of Lampon's victorious oikos is directly connected to the financial prosperity of his family line, so much so that their ability and willingness to spend money for athletic success is presented as part of the family's phya, their natural predisposition to excellence.
As will have become apparent by now, in the Aeginetan odes we are faced with a complex construction of phya. The victors’ hereditary virtues and values, inherited literally and metaphorically from the past, are manifested both in their athletic prowess and in their xenia. In the absence of inherited or inborn athletic excellence, victory in the Panhellenic Games requires monetary expenditure: despite not having a distinguished athletic past, Lampon is highly praised for his phya, because, as well as being the father of victorious sons, he is a patron who lavishes personal funds on his sons’ training. Both roles engage his phya; as a result, a commercial element is added to the traditional notion of inherited excellence.
The praise of the oikos and its members’ phya is in turn amalgamated into the praise of the whole island, its heroes, land, and citizens. In Nem. 5.7–8, Pytheas is said to bring glory to the Aiakidai and to his ‘mother city’ (ματρόπολιν) of Aegina.Footnote 42 Pindar here exploits the Aeginetan mythic genealogy which made Aiakos the son of Zeus and the nymph Aegina (see also Nem. 8.6–8), so that he can manipulate the ambiguity between Aegina the mother-nymph and Aegina the mother-island (the two are distinguished in Pyth. 8.98–100, where Pindar prays to the nymph to safeguard the city).Footnote 43 In particular, Aegina is personified as a mother possessed of characteristically aristocratic virtues: she is hospitable (φίλαν ξένων ἄρουραν; 8) and glorious (εὐκλέα νᾶσον; 15), and has ‘children’ who strive for ‘noble prizes’ (47). In a number of central ways, she serves as a counterpart to Pytheas’ natural mother, a parallelism which surely is meant to resonate with all Aeginetans, since they too are the children of the same noble mother, Aegina. The ratification of the communal character of the victor's achievement comes with the gnomē (a gnomic statement alluding to a general moral principle) of lines 40–1: Πότμος δὲ κρίνει συγγενὴς ἔργων πέρι|πάντων (‘Inherited Destiny decides the outcome of all deeds’), a gnomē strategically wedged between the mythical account of Peleus’ noble deeds (respect for xenia and rejection of Hippolyta's love) and the account of the family's victories.
Pindar reinforces the connection between the victor and his island by offering a prayer in which he asks the gods to grant Aegina ‘seafaring renown’ (ναυσικλυτάν; 9) and ‘brave inhabitants’ (εὔανδρον; 9).Footnote 44 This prayer transcends the immediate interests of Lampon's oikos to encompass the entire Aeginetan community; the citizens are conscious of their strong connection with seafaring, and the poet declares that the whole city pursues noble deeds (47). Pindar emphasizes the Aeginetans’ common origin (ὁμόσπορον ἔθνος; 43), thereby implying that the victor's nobility does not derive solely from his oikos, but also from the nobility of his community. The overarching theme of Aegina's nobility, in turn, leads to the question of the provenance of its wealth, a question which Pindar addresses by presenting Aegina's successful trade as the outcome of the prayer offered by the great ancestors of the Aeginetans (9). These two qualities that characterize Aegina – successful maritime trade and a population of ‘good’ men – correspond to the two (contradictory) elements of the Aeginetan aristocracy, which derives its wealth and status from trade but also needs the sort of hereditary legitimation implied in εὔανδρον, precisely because their status as wealthy individuals was not a consequence of their phya. This interplay is part of the ‘geometrical metaphor’ used by Bourdieu to describe the interrelation between symbolic and material capital, an interrelation that may be seen as ‘a double half-rotation returning to the starting-point, i.e. a conversion of material capital into symbolic capital itself reconvertible into material capital’.Footnote 45 In Bourdieu's analysis, material and symbolic capital are the two poles of a single continuum, rather than of a dichotomy, and symbolic capital is but ‘a transformed and thereby disguised form of physical “economic” capital’.Footnote 46 In the case of Pindar's Aeginetan laudandi, wealth derived from maritime trade is convertible into cultural capital (athletics, lavish expenditure, symposia, commissioned songs, and so forth), which serves as the hallmark of aristocratic distinction.Footnote 47
What is more, the convertibility of material wealth into, specifically, phya, or ‘inborn excellence’, evokes the importance of what Bourdieu has called the ‘idolatry of nature’: a set of social conventions promoting ‘the well-grounded illusion that the value of symbolic goods is inscribed in the nature of things, just as interest in these goods is inscribed in the nature of men’. Such conventions are intended ‘to prevent the economy from being grasped as an economy, i.e. as a system governed by the laws of interested calculation, competition, or exploitation’.Footnote 48 In this context, phya is the aristocratic projection and sublimation of basic production and exchange relations. Pindar, who is composing for a fee, praises his patron by attributing to him ‘inborn excellences’, which are entirely contingent on the latter's expenditure. In other words, a short-term transaction (a song in exchange for a fee) is disguised as a long-term transaction, which is shown to have far-reaching implications for the construction of Aegina's social order and of its mythic past.Footnote 49
Conclusion
The Aeginetan odes constitute a special category of Pindaric epinikia. The prominent citizens of Aegina based their claims to aristocratic status on wealth derived from maritime trade rather than from land ownership. It was this wealth that allowed them to practice traditionally aristocratic pursuits such as participation in the Panhellenic Games (though not in the prestigious chariot races, since the island's poor land resources were unfavourable to horse-breeding). Although they could not claim glorious mythic or heroic ancestry, they are nonetheless praised by Pindar for their phya, a quality capacious enough to include often, as we have seen, the ability for lavish expenditure or even the (honourable but hardly ennobling) spatial proximity to a god. Aeginetan phya is also connected with xenia in ways which are not always clear but which involve the transmission of certain ‘excellences’ from the guest-friend to his host's offspring, thus allowing xenia to be brought into a sort of causal relationship with phya. Two typical aristocratic qualities, namely phya and xenia, are therefore deftly manipulated in order to become applicable to a commissioning audience consisting of non-traditional aristocrats. The wealth of the Aeginetans was the reason they could exercise the habits of traditional aristocrats.
Deprived as they were of the most important symbols of aristocracy (land, inheritance, and horses), the Aeginetans participated in the Panhellenic Games as a way of establishing their ‘aristocratic’ credentials, not only for local audiences, but also for Panhellenic ones. A victory in the Panhellenic Games was an excellent opportunity for prominent citizens of Aegina to promote themselves, as well as their oikos, and their island community as proper aristocrats.
