ALÊTHEIA

LSJ notes that in Homer alêtheia is used only in the sense of ‘opposite to a lie’;Footnote ⁶ thus, Homeric alêtheia has largely to do with spoken utterances.Footnote ⁷ Although the epic context may indicate a desire for sincerity or authenticity, these senses do not inhere in the word alêtheia itself.Footnote ⁸ Hesiod uses alêtheia/alêthês more diversely to characterize speakers as well as their utterances. Post-Homeric uses demonstrate its opposition to mere appearance, hence designating reality or a speaker's tendency to express what he believes (truthfulness or sincerity).Footnote ⁹ The evolution of alêtheia has largely to do with the ambiguity of its etymology: the lêthê-root negated by alêtheia has been taken to refer either to persons (‘forgetfulness’) or things (‘hiddenness’) and therefore has both a subjective and an objective dimension.Footnote ¹⁰ Whether alêtheia negates λανθάνομαι (‘I forget’) or λανθάνω (‘I escape notice’) is a subject of much debate, but in some part depends on the type of poetry in which it appears. As D. Cairns has pointed out, alêtheia usually negates λανθάνω in epinician poetry, where alêtheia often refers to the persistence of something in memory and its disclosure in ‘the immortal poetic tradition’.Footnote ¹¹

In addition to its complex associations with memory or memorialization, Pindaric alêtheia (Doric ἀλάθεια) represents a wide range of meaning that is not addressed by Slater's simple definition ‘truth’.Footnote ¹² As Komornicka explains in her extensive word studies,Footnote ¹³ Pindaric alêtheia has at least eight main aspects, which include reality and authenticity, and thus encompasses a significantly broader range than in earlier poetry.Footnote ¹⁴ Unlike his predecessors and contemporaries, Pindar speaks of truth outside of contexts of verbal accuracy and personal disposition; he proposes a reality that is antecedent and external to its verbal accountsFootnote ¹⁵ and uses the adjective alêthês to convey both accuracy and sincerity,Footnote ¹⁶ both of which are part and parcel of his epinician purpose. These two applications need not be mutually exclusive since alêthês tends to be used in contexts where Pindar claims to speak the truth, thus suggesting his disposition towards true reportage. For example, when he expresses his hope that his ‘true words’ will help him evade Boeotian stereotype (ἀρχαῖον ὄνειδος ἀλαθέσιν | λόγοις εἰ ϕεύγομεν, Βοιωτίαν ὗν, ‘if we flee with true words the old reproach “Boeotian pig”’, Ol. 6.89–90), he claims both that his words are true and, implicitly, that he is truthful.

While Pindar's priority is to praise his patron, he nevertheless validates his praise by appropriating truth as something specific to his epinician purpose. When he invokes Olympia in Olympian 8, he stresses the importance of truth to his particular task and situates it within a larger obligation:

The truth sought by seers at Olympia involves the outcome of athletic contests, which will be determined by Zeus.Footnote ¹⁷ By identifying Olympia as a place of truth and qualifying this truth as concerned with athletic ability, the poet contextualizes alêtheia and explains its relevance to his poetry. He introduces the Olympic victory of his laudandus as a manifestation of truth, thus aligning the story of the laudandus with truth and communicating his devotion to this truth simultaneously. This passage demonstrates how Pindaric alêtheia combines objective truth with his subjective obligations, for the term here primarily designates ‘how something actually turns out to be’Footnote ¹⁸ but also conveys its specific context of athletic competition and Pindar's praise duties within that context.

TRUTH PERSONIFIED

Such considerations of the athletic, occasional context of Pindar's poetry and its laudatory aims can help shed light on his more unusual uses of alêtheia, particularly in its personified forms in Olympian 10 and fragment 205. Personifications of alêtheia, which both broadly encompass reality and entail praise and obligation, reveal its multiple applications in epinician poetry.Footnote ¹⁹ In the two passages where Pindar invokes personified Truth, he declares his dual obligations to accuracy and to his patron. The first passage I will consider is a fragment quoted by Stobaeus:Footnote ²⁰

By invoking Alatheia, Pindar suggests that this passage has been composed with the aid of, and thus in obligation to, divine Truth. He adopts the stance of a truth-teller by expressing reverence for a goddess who embodies truth and will therefore aid his truthfulness.Footnote ²¹

He explains his choice to invoke Alatheia by claiming that she is the beginning of great achievement, μεγάλας ἀρετᾶς, which probably refers to athletic achievement and its subsequent poetic praise or to some mythical event that validates the athletic victory.Footnote ²² The term σύνθεσις presents a problem of clarity and has been variously interpreted ‘my good faith’,Footnote ²³ ‘pledge’,Footnote ²⁴ and as a reference to the poet's commission for composing a victory ode.Footnote ²⁵ At least two possible meanings consequently emerge: σύνθεσις refers either to the poet's promise to produce an ode or to the ode itself as a particular object of pledge. Alatheia, then, is both a testament to the poet's reliability in keeping his obligations and an assurance that the words of the poem are true, and thus works on two levels, to ensure the composition of the promised poem and to guarantee its veracity.Footnote ²⁶

Moreover, in requesting protection from Alatheia against falsehood (ψεύδει), Pindar ascribes agency to her and emphasizes the power she wields over his σύνθεσις. By personifying alêtheia in this way, Pindar situates truth as his mistress; she is controlled by neither the poet nor the Muses, unlike in Hesiod, Theogony 26–8, where the Muses' caprices determine the veracity of their utterances (ποιμένες ἄγραυλοι, κάκ' ἐλέγχεα, γαστέρες οἶον, | ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, | ἴδμεν δ' εὖτ' ἐθέλωμεν ἀληθέα γηρύσασθαι). In this inversion of the Hesiodic model, Pindar makes his own poetry distinct in its truth-telling function, a theme that appears in several other odes.Footnote ²⁷ Attribution of agency to inanimate concepts is well attested in PindarFootnote ²⁸ and illuminates the striking degree to which he differs from other poets previous or contemporary, of whom only Parmenides and Bacchylides also personify alêtheia.

In Parmenides alêtheia personified appears in a passage in which the speaker has been brought to a goddess who instructs, among other things:

This conception of alêtheia shares some similarities with Pindar's. For example, the speaker of Parmenides' poem has been conveyed to this goddess by the daughters of the Sun, who have abandoned their houses of night for the light (1.9–11). Aletheie's associations with light evoke alatheia in Nemean 7.25, where it is depicted as something visible and appears within an ode that emphasizes oppositions between light and darkness, sight and sound, as I will discuss below.Footnote ³⁰ The distinction between alêtheia and mortal opinion (βροτῶν δόξας) resembles Pindar's opposition between ‘the true account’ and the utterances of mortals in Olympian 1.28 (ἦ θαύματα πολλά, καί πού τι καὶ βροτῶν ϕάτις ὑπὲρ τὸν ἀλαθῆ λόγον δεδαιδαλμένοι ψεύδεσι ποικίλοις ἐξαπατῶντι μῦθοι), which will be the focus of the next section. Both poets express a distrust of mortal opinion or utterance and claim a preference for alêtheia. In the Parmenidean fragment, however, knowledge of both alêtheia and doxa is prescribed, while Pindar does not assert the necessity of obtaining mortal knowledge.Footnote ³¹ Furthermore, Aletheie is a passive entity and thus not on the same level as Pindar's Alatheia. Although Aletheie's possession of a heart (ἦτορ) qualifies her as a personification, she, along with doxa, is something to be learned, in contrast to the active role Pindar's Alatheia takes. Moreover, the ‘unmoved’ or ‘calm’ (ἀτρεμές) heart of Parmenides' Aletheie suggests immutability, whereas Pindar's ‘true account’ in Olympian 1.28 is defined in accordance with favourable depiction of the gods (1.35) and thus does not strongly preclude variability.

In Bacchylides Alatheia appears as a more active personification than in Parmenides:

In the first example Alatheia critically differs from Pindar's Truth in that she is merely associated with the gods but is not one of them, and she does not demonstrate the capacity for agency that we see in Pindar, fragment 205. Moreover, even without the full context it is clear that Alatheia in the Bacchylides fragment lacks the degree of syntactical proximity to poetry or poetic obligation that is present in the Pindaric fragment. In the second example, the degree to which Alatheia is even personified is in question; in Bacchylidean contexts, alêtheia here as elsewhere (see, for example, 3.96, 5.187–90, 8.19–21, 9.85–7) represents a primarily rhetorical and encomiastic truth designating praise and commemoration of a victory and does not hint at the broader claims of veracity that Pindaric alêtheia often does. The link between praise and truth, the very epinician nature of alêtheia, is very clear in Bacchylides. As Burnett notes,

Burnett even goes so far as to translate alêtheia in 13.204 as ‘remembering praise’.Footnote ³³ Pindar's Alatheia, by contrast, not only designates the praise of the poet, she also represents a prominent, defining feature of the contractual relationship between the poet and his laudandus and exerts control over the content of his poem.

While interpretation of fragment 205 is hindered by its fragmentary nature, the other Pindaric personification of alêtheia appears in a complete ode and confirms what fragment 205 suggests:

Just as in fragment 205, the poet invokes divine Truth and gives her the dual function of presiding over his obligation to the victor and ensuring the accuracy of his words, as indicated by the juxtaposition of truth and falsehood (ψευδέων, 5). He expresses his regret for neglecting his duties to the victor Hagesidamus and invokes the Muse and Alatheia to rectify his mistakes.Footnote ³⁵ As Kromer observes,

The ‘real event’ to which Kromer refers is, of course, the composition of the present ode, which validates the poet's as yet unfulfilled promise of one.

The wordplay between ἐπιλέλαθ' and Ἀλάθεια brings out the opposition between truth and forgetfulness, but a number of additional oppositions further define alêtheia and preclude a simple equation between truth and memory.Footnote ³⁷ The poet also requests the Muse and Alatheia to vindicate him from charges of violating a guest-friendshipFootnote ³⁸ and presents an opposition between Alatheia and lies (ψευδέων, that is, promises that he does not keepFootnote ³⁹) as a contrast between fulfilled oaths and empty assurances, thereby underscoring the connection between truth and obligation in his poetry. This concern about xenia situates the ode in the world of epinician poetry, where poet and patron have a relationship of obligatory yet willing reciprocity, and the poet's use of the Muse and Alatheia to ensure and validate this relationship is unprecedented. Alatheia's placement in an interpersonal relationship of any sort is an innovation that has only one precedent, in Mimnermus (ἀληθείη δὲ παρέστω | σοὶ καὶ ἐμοί, πάντων χρῆμα δικαιότατον, ‘let the truth be present between you and me, the most just possession of all’, fr. 8.1–2). Her connection to xenia helps shed light on the designation ‘daughter of Zeus’ (θυγάτηρ Ἀλάθεια Διός, Ol. 10.3–4) since Zeus is the patron god of the guest-host relationship.

By constructing Truth as a goddess that governs his poetic obligation as well as his accuracy, Pindar depicts himself as beholden to the truth while also maintaining his obligation to praise. He is further able to reconcile the two potentially opposing obligations to truth and praise by combining the rhetoric of contractual duties (ὀϕείλων, 3; ἀλιτόξενον, 6; χρέος, 8, τόκος, 9), with the language of ungrudging friendship, even using the term charis (ϕίλαν … ἐς χάριν, 12), which Leslie Kurke asserts ‘designates a willing and precious reciprocal exchange’ (emphasis mine).Footnote ⁴⁰ The emphasis on willingness in relationships of obligation recurs when Pindar reminds Hagesidamus to give thanks to his trainer (χάριν, 17), just as Patroclus did to Achilles.Footnote ⁴¹ By asking Alatheia in particular to guide this friendship, Pindar infuses loyalty into his relationship with his patron while authenticating the content of his ode.Footnote ⁴²

The embedded myth of Heracles and Augeas presents a corruption of this relationship and shows the importance of Alatheia's governance of xenia. By withholding payment from Heracles (λάτριον … μισθόν, 29), Augeas undermines the guest-host relationship through deception (ξεναπάτας, 34); these characterizations recall the monetary language the poet uses of his relationship to his patron (τόκος, 9), the earlier charge of harming a guest-friend (ἀλιτόξενον, 6), and the invocation to Truth to remedy his lapses. As Detienne notes, Pindar's poetic contemporaries were beginning to make a conscious choice between alêtheia and apatê,Footnote ⁴³ a choice that is reflected in the contrasting depictions of Augeas and the poet: the former cheats his guest-friend, while the latter baulks at charges of doing so. Like the poet and his patron, Heracles and Augeas are xenoi whose relationship is premised on payment in good faith and suffers in the absence thereof.

Pindar continues to reinforce this model of guest-friendship by faulting Augeas not only for failing to pay but also for his unwillingness to do so, in stark contrast to Heracles' willingness to perform the task: ὡς Αὐγέαν λάτριον | ἀέκονθ'ἑκών μισθὸν ὑπέρβιον | πράσσοιτο (‘so that [Heracles], a willing man, might exact his payment for service from Augeas, unwilling and powerful’, 28–30). This sentiment again recalls the spirit of willingness with which Pindar has defined his own relationship with his patron (ϕίλαν … ἐς χάριν, 12). The adjective ὑπέρβιον, here describing Augeas, echoes an earlier characterization of Heracles (τράπε δὲ Κύκνεια Μάχα καὶ ὑπέρβιον Ἡρακλέα, ‘the battle with Kyknos turned back even powerful Heracles’, 15) and emphasizes the symmetry of the guest–host relationship while further indicting Augeas for his mistreatment of an equal.Footnote ⁴⁴ Likewise, the wordplay in ἀέκονθ' ἑκών underscores the expected parity and the actual disparity between Heracles' and Augeas' dispositions by adapting instances of polyptoton that emphasize reciprocity (for example, ϕιλέων ϕιλέοντ', ἄγων ἄγοντα προϕρόνως, Pyth. 10.66; οἴκοθεν οἴκαδε, Ol. 7.4). The evocation of such phrases elucidates both the symmetrical reciprocity expected of a guest and host and the failure of Augeas to fulfill this expectation. Augeas is the archetypal corrupted guest-friend who is unwilling to keep promises to a friend of equal stature and whom Pindar hopes not to emulate.

Through Augeas Pindar illustrates a broader commitment to xenia, the obligations of which are not only between guest and host but also, and more importantly, to the gods who govern this system of hospitality. It is in this respect that Pindar further connects the mythical digression to the invocation to Alatheia. Augeas' disregard of xenia results in the destruction of his homeland and his death at the hands of Heracles (Ol. 10.34–42), who later establishes a precinct for Zeus in Augeas' former kingdom (43–5). The establishment of this sacred precinct is the ultimate response to Augeas' guest-cheating and signals the triumph not only of his cheated guest Heracles, but also of Zeus, the god whom Augeas offends and whose role as overseer of xenia has been established since the initial invocation to his daughter Alatheia.

Likewise, while the poet's duties are ostensibly to his patron first and foremost, his invocation to Truth implies an obligation partly to her, thus opening the possibility of obligations other than those to the laudandus.Footnote ⁴⁵ Later in the ode he names Zeus as his motivation for singing: ἀγῶνα δ' ἐξαίρετον ἀεῖσαι θέμιτες ὦρσαν Διός (‘The ordinances of Zeus prompt me to sing the choice contest’, 24).Footnote ⁴⁶ His obligation to his patron is set by divine rule (θέμιτες) governed by Zeus himself and is therefore part of a duty larger than the reciprocity between poet and laudandus, since failure to uphold this obligation is tantamount to defiance of Zeus. This structure of obligation reinforces the opening of the ode, where Pindar calls on Alatheia as Zeus' daughter to oversee his poetic and personal responsibilities. Alatheia presides over the poet's many interconnected obligations, to the victor and to Zeus, while validating the content of his ode. By showing the interconnectedness between truth, praise and obligation that drives epinician poetry, fragment 205 and Olympian 10 highlight the delicate balance between the dual obligations to praise and to truth that Pindar maintains. His personification of truth as the overseer of his duties creates a poetic framework in which he can fulfill his duty to produce a praise poem while precluding any charges of bias towards his patron, thus presenting a true account.

TRUTH AND PRAISE: OLYMPIAN 1

In Olympian 1 Pindar presents a further argument that truth and praise are not only complementary but even analogous to one another by depicting truth in parallel with piety. Both praise and piety present the poet with potentially conflicting obligations that he must negotiate: Pindar must avoid offending the gods or losing the goodwill of his patron, yet his poem will be ineffective and unbelievable if it appears to worship or praise blindly without adhering to the truth. In this ode he uses alêtheia in myth to inform his praise of his patron. He employs the myth of Tantalus and Pelops to make a case for piety and truth working in tandem, which in turn has implications for the outer praise narrative. He denies the traditional account of Tantalus slaughtering Pelops and feeding him to the gods and instead avers that Pelops was abducted by a besotted Poseidon. Pindar claims that the traditional myth has been shaped by the mortal tendency to believe what is pleasant:

The contrast here between various mortal communications and the ‘true account’ is underscored by the plurality of falsehoods as opposed to the singularity of truth. These falsehoods are not necessarily intentional so much as accidental, resulting from the overuse of elaborate embellishment (δεδαιδαλμένοι, 29), which has the potential to be misperceived.Footnote ⁴⁷ The credibility of such exaggerations lies in the power of Charis, which here represents poetry's charms.Footnote ⁴⁸

These lines present a problem since they criticize falsehood while also praising poetic skill, which is a potential catalyst for falsehood. Pindar does not lay blame squarely on any particular party for creating falsehood, instead presenting pseudos as a faulty perception rather than an intentional lie. He describes falsehood as a misapprehension that can be attributed as much to an audience's willingness to believe as to a poet's desire to deceive, and presents a general explanation of human credulity, focussing on both the generation and perception of falsities.Footnote ⁴⁹ As Gerber notes, ‘Even though Pindar is critical of the false tales recorded by earlier poets, he is at the same time praising the power of poetry to make “the unbelievable believable”’.Footnote ⁵⁰ Indeed, Pindar provides little explicit assurance that his own poetry does not also espouse persuasion and artistry at the expense of truth, and some have interpreted these lines as taking a playful, even noncommittal attitude to the truth. But he assures us implicitly that his poetry fundamentally differs from that of others; by stressing the singularity of the true account with the definite article τόν (28), he communicates his ability to discern what is true from what is false. Furthermore, his explanation of how poetry elicits belief demonstrates an intricate awareness both of poetry's rhetorical powers and his intention not to capitalize on them for untruthful ends.

The next sentence provides further suggestions about Pindar's perceived role: ἔστι δ' ἀνδρὶ ϕάμεν ἐοικὸς ἀμϕὶ δαιμόνων καλά· μείων γὰρ αἰτία (‘It is fitting for a man to say good things about the gods, for the blame is less’, 35). His rather blunt statement of his motivations seems to conflict with his earlier reverence for truth, yet both concerns govern his poetry and are connected by the interceding aphorism about the revelatory effects of time (ἁμέραι δ' ἐπίλοιποι | μάρτυρες σοϕώτατοι, 33–4). The conjoining of these two concerns has a number of implications, the foremost of which is that a true account is ultimately controlled by the gods it portrays, since Pindar expresses the dual concerns of providing a true account while simultaneously pleasing the gods. Line 35 has been interpreted as Pindar's unwillingness to privilege truth-telling above piety,Footnote ⁵¹ but his criticism of inaccuracy in other poetry makes it unlikely that he would risk such a criticism of his own. Rather, he asserts that his own account is both true and pious, thus implying that truth coincides with what is appropriate to say about the gods.Footnote ⁵² Pindar thus allows for embellishment of a myth whose particulars matter less than that the depiction generally favours the gods.Footnote ⁵³ His subsequent rejection of slander is superficially motivated by self-interest (ἐμοὶ δ' ἄπορα γαστρίμαργον μακάρων τιν' εἰπεῖν· ἀϕίσταμαι· | ἀκέρδεια λέλογχεν θαμινὰ κακαγόρους, ‘It is useless for me to say one of the blessed gods is gluttonous – I stand aloof. Lack of gain is often allotted to slanderers’, 52–3), but this statement must be read in the light of this earlier passage that conjoins truth and praise, thus precluding possible tension between the two.Footnote ⁵⁴

This construction of truth and piety lends credibility to the poet's praise of the laudandus, since he establishes that his concerns about blame (35) or poverty (53) are not the sole motivations for his poetry; rather, such concerns keep his poetry in line with truth, at least as he has defined it. This definition may not be altogether believable or satisfactory to modern readers,Footnote ⁵⁵ but it is one that allows for poetic obligation to coincide with truthful reporting. These juxtaposed claims of truth and piety have implications for Pindar's similar declaration of loyalty to his laudandus Hieron, since they suggest that loyalty to one's subject provides a basis for a true account. The poet's admonishments about Charis, ψεῦδος and embellishment reflect a consciousness of poetry's persuasiveness and assure us that his poem will not employ them to the same effect. He is consequently able to characterize his own ode as an embellishment of Hieron's qualities with no loss of credibility:

The language recalls his characterization of deceptive stories (δεδαιδαλμένοι, 28), but his poetry fundamentally differs in that it is informed by poetry's powers and its aims. Because he is mindful of charis and its effects and he composes poetry with a concern for his patrons, Pindar is safe from the pseudea that riddle other accounts. Whereas false accounts are created and propagated by those who are not similarly conscious of poetry's effects nor loyal to their subject, Pindar openly expresses his obligations to his patron Hieron (χρή, 103; ξένον, 103) just as he has to the gods (ἔστι δ' ἀνδρὶ ϕάμεν ἐοικὸς ἀμϕὶ δαιμόνων καλά· μείων γὰρ αἰτία, 35), obligations that will keep his poetry grounded and centred on its epinician purpose rather than distracted by aesthetic concerns.

Olympian 1 gives us insight into the character of alêtheia in epinician poetry and how the genre fashions a distinctive means for representing the truth. I have argued that alêtheia informs the poet's duty to his subject matter and that his statements about poetry intertwine truth with obligation and reconcile – indeed, even equate – the two. Olympian 1 presents a Pindaric notion of truthfulness that balances external reality – that is, an empirically verifiable circumstance or event – with internal, subjective concerns by claiming that a true account must take into consideration one's obligation to one's subject. In his praise Pindar combines the two aspects of epinician truth-telling, reality and obligation, thus lending authority to his praise poetry, for he declares his devotion to the patron while mitigating his bias, incorporating both devotion and objectivity in his poetic programme.

REALITY AND POETRY: NEMEAN 7

While Olympian 1 posits truth and praise as complementary and in some way even equivalent concepts, Nemean 7 presents a similar relationship between truth and praise by expressing the duty of all poetry to represent reality and proposing epinician as the genre best suited to this purpose. As in the previously discussed poems, alêtheia in Nemean 7 designates events and the poet's duty to relay them. The poet avoids ostensible bias and validates his truth-telling claims partly by couching his obligation to the victor within a greater one to represent the truth. The poet makes numerous claims to truth (68–9, 77–9), all the while openly expressing his own role as helper to the laudandus (33–4, 61, 75–6). He is able to reconcile his obligation to the victor with his truth-telling rhetoric by making the case that the poet's obligation to the laudandus coincides with the obligation to truth that should inform all poetry.

Nemean 7 begins with an invocation to Eleithyia as the goddess who enables human existence, which is described in terms of light and darkness (ἄνευ σέθεν | οὐ ϕάος, οὐ μέλαιναν δρακέντες εὐϕρόναν | τεὰν ἀδελϕεὰν ἐλάχομεν ἀγλαόγυιον Ἥβαν, ‘without you, we do not look upon light nor black night, nor do we gain the lot of your beautiful-limbed sister Hebe’, 2–4).Footnote ⁵⁶ The language of vision proves to be pervasive in the poem and anticipates what the poet will say about the effect and duties of poetry in relation to truth. For example, the poet later describes poetry as an illuminative phenomenon:

The alignment of poetry with light and its absence with darkness is reminiscent of the associations between light and truth in Parmenides and hints at the statements about truth and memory that will appear later in the poem. The images of light and darkness, initially designating day and night, recur as metaphors for knowledge and the lack thereof.

As Pindar delineates familiar relationships between poetry, accomplishment and memory, he describes how athletic accomplishment relies on poetry for its glorification.Footnote ⁵⁷ As recompense afforded to accomplished athletes (ἄποινα, 16), poetry is an act not only of memorialization but also of obligation,Footnote ⁵⁸ without which notable deeds effectively cease to exist. This idea of poetry as memory recalls alêtheia's etymology and points up the poet's duty to the laudandus. The opening lines describe the universality of birth and existence, which poetry then has the pivotal role of memorializing through accurate representation. When Pindar later describes blame as dark (σκοτεινόν, 61), he recalls this obfuscation that poetry ought to prevent. The invocation to Eleithyia and the image of a mirror point to two distinct but intertwined truths about poetry, that it is at once an act of creation by the poet and an obligatory act of reflection on a deed already performed.

As both something new and a representation of something old, poetry must balance its novelty with its accuracy. This sentiment is echoed in Nemean 8:

Here the poet employs the metaphor of the touchstone, which implies that his praise is verifiable.Footnote ⁵⁹ He presents accurate reporting in terms of risk rather than obligation and underscores the laudability of the victor by suggesting that his susceptibility to attack by envious people marks his membership among the good (ἐσλῶν, 22). Pindar thus constructs a situation in which praise and truthful rhetoric are synonymous, for if envy comes only to men who are esloi, the attacks of envy are actually proof of a man's laudability.

This dual conception of poetry as both creative and reflective mediumFootnote ⁶⁰ lies at the heart of Pindar's subsequent criticism of Homer, whose inflation of Odysseus' heroism is deemed deceitful and noxious:

Homer has not failed in the creative aspect of poetry, as his skill with words is demonstrable and laudable (ἁδυεπῆ, 21; ποτανᾷ τε μαχανᾷ, 22; σεμνόν, 23),Footnote ⁶¹ but the aesthetic quality of his poetry distracts the audience from the truth and thus fails in its reflective duty by presenting Odysseus in a manner disproportionate to his experiences (πλέον' … λόγον Ὀδυσσέος ἢ πάθαν, 21). Pindar's praise of Homer's creativity in terms of speech (λόγον, ἁδυεπῆ, 21) contrasts with the visual language surrounding Ajax (τυϕλόν, 23; ἰδέμεν, 25) and points up the disparity between the verbal account and truth in Homer's poetry.Footnote ⁶² Furthermore, the discrepancy between Odysseus' experience and its account (λόγον … ἢ πάθαν, 21) conflicts with the prescribed symmetry between deeds and their reportage evoked by the image of the mirror (14). Pindar criticizes Homer for lacking such symmetry, which he himself has presented as the duty of poetry. His opening lines prescribe a combination of creation and representation in poetry, a combination he deems absent in Homer.

Pindar's criticism suggests indirection rather than actual lying since pseudos (as at Olympian 1.29) can designate a number of things, for example, a perceiver's misapprehension, a speaker's intentional deception, fiction,Footnote ⁶³ or some combination of these meanings.Footnote ⁶⁴ In any case, Pindar faults Homer for not producing a narrative that accurately relays events. He seems at first to distinguish between Homer's account of Odysseus (λόγον Ὀδυσσέος, 21) and the truth (τὰν ἀλάθειαν, 25), thus pointing out an instance in which poetry has shaped memory falsely. His comments on deceptive skill (σοϕία δὲ κλέπτει παράγοισα μύθοις, 23) and the blindness of men (τυϕλὸν δ' ἔχει | ἦτορ ὅμιλος ἀνδρῶν ὁ πλεῖστος, 23–4) are directed to an audience external to but familiar with Homer's poetry, but the next sentence (εἰ γὰρ … λευρὸν ξίϕος, 24–7) indicates an internal audience. The aphorism about blindness blends Homer's audience with Ajax's,Footnote ⁶⁵ thus expanding the sphere of relevance for truth and falsehood beyond the confines of the myth. While alêtheia here designates the reality of Ajax's superiority, its context points to the need for poetry to preserve this reality; it thus refers to an objective reality as well as the poet's duty to the truth. As a poet, Pindar serves to highlight truths that will otherwise disappear and to bring praiseworthy events to the attention of his audience so that his victor will not suffer the same fate as Ajax.

Ajax's suicide is the extreme consequence of deception, as we see more clearly in Nemean 8:

This passage ostensibly explains Odysseus' offence in Nemean 7.20–7,Footnote ⁶⁶ but in neither ode does Pindar explicitly name Odysseus as the agent of pseudos (25) and parphasis (32),Footnote ⁶⁷ thus focussing not on Odysseus but on the deception itself, which results in the inaccurate bestowal of praise and blame.Footnote ⁶⁸ Furthermore, such language (ψεύδει, Nemean 8.25; πάρϕασις, 32; αἱμύλων μύθων, 33) echoes language describing Homer in Nemean 7 (ψεύδεσι, 22; κλέπτει παράγοισαμύθοις, 23) and thus likens Odysseus' rhetoric to untruthful poetry. By understating Odysseus' agency, Pindar generalizes praise as determined largely by an audience susceptible to verbal manipulation. The Greeks misjudge the relative merits of Ajax and Odysseus despite Ajax's clear superiority, the self-evidence of which is emphasized again by the language of vision: Ajax is ‘the luminous’ (τὸ μὲν λαμπρόν, 34) whereas men like Odysseus are ‘the invisible’ (τῶν δ' ἀϕάντων, 34).Footnote ⁶⁹ Since the audience is not prone to seeing even obvious truths, the implication is that poets must represent events in accordance with reality, a sentiment that echoes Nemean 7, where Pindar similarly presents a contrast between how Ajax was perceived and what he actually did, terming the latter situation ‘the truth’ (τὰν ἀλάθειαν, 25).

Although Pindar here criticizes Homer, in Isthmian 4.37–9 Homer is lauded for duly glorifying Ajax.Footnote ⁷⁰ The earlier image of the mirror (Nemean 7.14) suggests that these divergent attitudes result from Homer's inconsistency in preserving the symmetry between poetry and reality, since he praises appropriately in some cases but not in others. His glorification of Odysseus is disproportionate to the reality and thus diminishes the credibility of his praise. A possible cause of this inconsistency is that his primary concern is not praise but art, so his poetry shows no particular allegiance to his subject or to the truth.

By contrast Pindar identifies his own praise in terms of the obligations of xenia:

The comparison of his poetry to streams of water (ῥοάς, 62) recalls his earlier reference to the Muses' streams (ῥοαῖσι, 12) and verbally links Pindar's praise with the responsibility of poetry to reflect reality. Pindar also repeats the metaphor of light to emphasize his own mental clarity (ὄμματι δέρκομαι λαμπρόν, 66), thus alluding to the prescriptive opening of the ode and to the digression about Ajax.Footnote ⁷¹ As in Olympian 10.3–12, Pindar borrows imagery from the various spheres of guest–host obligation, friendship and monetary exchange (μισθός, 63) to characterize his relationship to his patron and to emphasize the fulfilment of his obligation to the laudandus.Footnote ⁷² He praises his patron (here, the victor's father Thearion) as a friend (ϕίλον, 62) but makes it clear that this friendship is couched in xenia (ξεῖνος, 61; προξενίᾳ, 65Footnote ⁷³), which obliges the praise poet to protect his patron from blame (ἀπέχων ψόγον, 61). This obligation does not preclude the accuracy of his praise,Footnote ⁷⁴ which the poet describes as ‘genuine’ (ἐτήτυμον), thus asserting both sincerity and accuracy.Footnote ⁷⁵

The key difference between Pindar and Homer, then, is that Pindar's poetry reflects an obligation to his subject and to reality. This obligation is comparable to his stance of piety toward the gods in Olympian 1.28–35, where he expresses obligation and accuracy as joint and complementary concerns. In Nemean 7 he presents a more convincing argument that poetry unrestrained by obligation cannot properly reflect reality. His criticism of Homer suggests that a truthful account is born of a relationship of obligation between poet and patron, absent in Homer's poetry, and adheres to praise that accurately reflects the kleos of the laudandus. Leslie Kurke has argued that Pindar's description of poet–patron guest-friendship involves reciprocity tantamount to equality;Footnote ⁷⁶ I would add that Nemean 7 goes a step further to propose a parallel parity between poetry and its subject matter. At least two levels of obligation are outlined in Nemean 7: there is an obligation to reflect deeds accurately since poetry is their only ‘mirror’, the sole means for knowledge of great deeds (ἔργοις δὲ καλοῖς ἔσοπτρον ἴσαμεν ἑνὶ σὺν τρόπῳ, 14), and there is the obligation that the poet has to his patron-host. Finally, Pindar takes the argument further to propose, surprisingly, that praise poetry, because its purpose is most closely tied to such obligations, is the genre best suited to communicating the truth. His promise not to ‘overstep the mark’ (ὑπερβαλών, 66) recalls his concern for symmetry between event and record, which Homer, in presenting a λόγος that exceeds Odysseus' πάθα (21), has failed to achieve.