' in Pindar's First Olympian Ode Author(s): Francis Cairns Reviewed work(s): Source: Hermes, 105. Bd., H.

2 (1977), pp. 129-132 Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4476002 . Accessed: 18/05/2012 05:45
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"EPQY IN PINDAR'S FIRST OLYMPIAN ODE It is well understood that the stock Pindaric themes of X&pL4 and e'Upyea ' are of central importance in Olympian i. The myth in the ode is balanced between the contrasting pair, father and son, Tantalus and Pelops. Tantalus is made an immortal by the gods (63f.); and he is privileged to be admitted on equal terms to the table of the gods, whom he is able in turn to invite to an epmvoqand 41ot,3xaZaeZnvx (38f.). He repays the kindness of the gods and the great honour they give him (54f.) with ingratitude: he robs the gods' table of the very nectar and ambrosia they used to make him immortal and gives these to his inferior human friends (6off.). On the other hand Pelops takes the initiative in benefiting the god Poseidon by his erotic complaisance (40ff.). This benefit Poseidon later repays with gratitude by giving Pelops a chariot and horses with which to win the hand of Hippodameia (86bff.). In this respect Olympian i resembles Pythian 2, another ode in honour of Hieron, where a pair of mythical characters also illustrate the same theme:
ov&x Tnov eupyeTocv &xy (oX,L0Loczq Cotzoptvouq rLvzaOo

(Pythian 2, 24f.).

In Pythian 2 the treatment of Kinyras is an example of the correct mode of behaviour and Ixion is an example of base ingratitude. It is clear too that in Olympian i Pelops was intended to be identified closely with Hieron of Syracuse. They are both victors in a chariot race; and Pindar stresses that a god is Hieron's personal protector and friend (io6ff.), an emphasis which directs the audience's mind strongly towards Poseidon's patronage of Pelops. A modern reader might expect that, because of this identification, Pindar would have wished to play down the homosexual side of the relationship between Poseidon and Pelops. But the reverse happens: Pindar specifically emphasises that Pelops was carried off to serve the same purpose for Poseidon as Ganymede served for Zeus (44f.). When Pelops later prays to Poseidon, he is described in terms frequently (and ruefully) found in homosexual contexts to emphasise that the -t&?c xocX6ghas passed beyond puberty, ai)d so is no longer an object of male desire but (like Pelops) fit for
* I am indebted to Professor K. J. DOVER and Mr. J. G. HOWIE for advice on this note but they do not necessarily subscribe to its conclusions. 1 On these themes in Pindar see e. g. E. L. BUNDY, Studia Pindarica II, University of California Publications in Classical Philology, Vol. i8 No. 2, pp. 85-91.
Hermes, 105. Band, Heft 2 (1977)

Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH, D-6200 Wiesbaden

I30

FRANCIS CAIRNS

marriage2. Again Pindar not only makes Pelops speak openly of the ?'MoX

relationKu7npLocs (75) but he makes these the whole basis of the XypLt Mdpoc ship between the pair (76f.). Finally the ring-ccmpositionand linguistic responsionof cqoXLo a6p (75) at the beginningof Pelops' speech and Tr) a
&L3oL np&otv pL?<ocv (85) at the end is highly significant. Its function is to make it quite plain that the beautiful boy Pelops' erotic services and the god of horses Poseidon's generosity with horses are the two sides of the same coin. The only precaution Pindar takes in this area is to make it clear that Pelops does grow up and that it is the adult victor Pelops with whom the victor Hieron has direct points of comparison. It would be wrong to suggest that Pindar's contemporaries were squeamish about homosexuality3. But it is unlikely that Pindar would have emphasised quite so strongly the sexual side of the Pelops-Poseidon relationship unless it contributed independently to his main theme of xcpL4/e' pY?af. There is evidence that it did. At one point in Plato's Phaedrus Socrates castigates the behaviour of a lover who is only interested in the physical attractions of his beloved (24oe 8 ff.). Such a lover is not only unpleasant when the affair is going on but when it is over he forgets all the promises he made to his beloved. Then when it is time to repay his beloved (&'wrvWLv), he puts him completely out of his mind. The beloved asks for recompense (x&pLvabroue rxv to6-r), remindinghis formerlover of what was done and said, but the latter pays lioheed. Socrates' strictures on this behaviour are neither idiosyncratic nor philosophic. Rather they represent the contemporary moral and social outlook, as is shown by two furtherpassages of the Phaedrus. These are parts of Phaedrus' version of a speech supposed to have been composed by Lysias. Since Plato could hardly have attributed to his living contemporary Lysias views totally alien to him and since in fact the Platonic Lysias presents his views as ones currently accepted, the two passages show that early fourth century society took this ethical approach to homosexuality. The whole speech of Lysias was aimed at proving the paradoxical thesis that someone not in love with a beautiful boy should be indulged by the boy in preference to someone who did love him. The suitor who is in love, says Lysias in the first passage (232e 3ff.), will for the most part be attracted by the physical charms of the boy, not his character. Hence it will not be certain that the two will remain friends after the suitor's desire has gone. On the other hand where the suitor is not in love with the boy, the benefits confcrred will strengthen their friendship and be a pointer to future benefits.
(Statyllius Flaccus); Cp. e. g. AP. I2, 12 (Flaccus); 24 (Tullius Laureas); 25-27 30 (Alcaeus); 31 (Phanias); 33 (Meleager); 35 (Diocles); 36 (Asclepiades of Adramyttium); 39 (Rhianus); I I6, I9I (Strato). 3 For a recent view see K. J. DOVER, B. I. C. S. ii, I964, PP. 3I ff.; Arethusa 6, I, I973, PP. 59ff.
2

"Epco,in Pindar's First OlympianOde

I3I

In the second passage the same theme recurs. A boy should not indulge the man who desires him most, but the man who can best repay the indulgence when the boy is older and who will remainthe boy's friendfor life: aX"Imctg
ayp6opa aeop?vot xopEc6aOo=, &Xx? roZL patkx OU T0q4 7paOXlT0OUaL tOVOV, &a k T5 TOZq aUVvoqL?VoL4 XZOPLV
zpoaTXeL OU Tozq
oua T&V oaLoL4 [1eVW oaQL GT?V 'PkpV Gq TYq 6n)Paq q cL7aoxOcuaOVTOCL, OuX? OQua OLTLVS5 7p?6UT?pq paCLeVOL 7rpO

&toao5vLou
7PYt0

yevoTOV5

&yocO&$Uv rM&baoX0uCLV.

O'L &L

&?~~~Xou4
cpXOLq 4Y eao VOU4

O LXLVeq

0CVTZUVOjeVOL 7rpOq &T7r0CVr0Cq CLGM)OV~X

OLtLVeq o7L rCUaCp?ou e

rtUOW6VOL j6

5-

?e7LO[laq 'OC?Px0pa &p?'v

7rP6?0aLv

0VrouaLV, au

()pc

TOT? TYV )v&Xv

Crn?Lovt

(233e 5-234b i). The same attitude also appears, positively expressed, in Plato's Symposium

in the speech of Pausanias (i8id 3-5), and at two places in Xenophon's Symposiumt(8, I4; 8, 30f.). These texts show that this view was current in the fourth century B. C. But how far does it go back? Early Greek lyric and elegiac poetry had a strong interest in homosexual themes 4. The very nature of the homosexual relationship being discussed is that one party confers a favour on the other without reciprocal pleasure. This favour must naturally have been conferred in many cases in the expectation of future matching benefits. Because the ideal is firmly rooted in ordinary experience, it is likely a priori that it occurred in lost portions of early lyric and elegy. But we are not reduced to a priori arguments. There is a piece of indirect but powerful positive evidence. In Theocritus Idyll 29 (a third century text) a neglected lover makes a long and emotional appeal to his beloved. He then outlines the outcome if the beloved will indulge him:
.7, ( , ocvLXo toV

eX, yeVUV ,cVapelV

,,

?xxx?OLaL 7XCt0'

'AXCLU'LoL9XoL

(lines 33f.).

But if the beloved remains obdurate, the outcome will be different:

r,
cs

a,

0Uae,%CeV'q

OC,Xtu

O,

1 ,w,

7CpOO.XOLQLp X?, 7C0waMeVO

;i

7t6?X

00

(lines 39f.).

Theocritus thus alludes to the same ethical view and, like Xenophon
Symposium 8, 3I, uses as an example of conformity to it the friendship between

Achilles and Patroclus. But the context in which the view is presented is
highly informative. Idyll 29 is written in Aeolic dialect and in a metre used

in early lyric poetry5. Like the other idylls in the same group (28-30) it is a deliberate Theocritean attempt to recreate some aspects of the world of
4Most notably Theognis, Anacreon, Ibycus and (in the area of female homosexuality) Sappho; but also Alcaeus (cf. D. PAGE, Sappho and Alcaeus pp. 294f., whose scepticism 5 See Gow ad. Ioc. is quite unjustified) and Solon (Frr. I2; I3 D).
9*

132

FRANCIS

CAIRNS:

"Epco4in Pindar's First Olympian Ode

Sappho and Alcaeus6. The occurrence in it of this ideal of homosexual love is a convincing evidence as we could hope to have that Theocritus had met the ideal in early Greek lyric. If this is so, the notion that it was a lover's duty to repay his beloved's X?'jp by remaining the friend and grateful benefactor of his beloved after the boy had reached manhood was already part of the lyric tradition in Pindar's day. "Ep&g therefore ha, an important role in Olympian i. The notion that Hieron is beloved of a god is strengthened by his mythical equivalent being the plhysicalbeloved of Poseidon; but more importantly it reinforcesthe ;ocp c epyea6o0 theme found in other elements of the ode because the love and friendship of Pelops and Poseidon conform to an accepted ethical pattern involving just these concepts. The practical importance of favours and gratitude in the court of a tyrant such as Hieron is obvious. Unable to bind his subjects and ministers to himself by legal (r patriotic ties, a Greek tyrant was forced to rely on personal bonds. Like a miniature Great King, he depended for his continuation in power on his conferment of favours and on the due gratitude of their recipients'. The theory underlying the throne had to be kept firmly in the minds of the courtiers. The more ethical and mythical reinforcements of the theme Pindar could find, the better he was able to meet his patron's purposes8.
-

University of Liverpool

FRANCIS CAIRNS

6 I have explored some archaic lyric features of Idyll 28 in 'The Distaff of Theugenis Theocritus Idyll 28', Mus. Phil. Lond. (forthcoming). 7For near-contemporary interest in the Great King's careful record of favours and counter-favours see e. g. Hdt. 8, 85 with How and WELLS ad. loc. 8 According to Xenophon, Hiero himself had, at some point in his life, a boy beloved, Dailochos (Hier. I, 33). But although this fact might explain Hieron's personal interest in homosexual myths, it has little to do with Olympian i as a public poem.