OLIGARCHIC HESTIA: BACCHYLIDES 14B AND PINDAR, NEMEAN 11

DAVID FEARN, Assistant Professor in Greek Literature MA, MSt, DPhil (Oxford)
Journal of Hellenic Studies 129 (2009) 23−38

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Abstract: This article uses recent findings about the diversity of political organization in Archaic and Classical Greece
beyond Athens, and methodological considerations about the role of civic Hestia in oligarchic communities, to addsharpness to current work on the political contextualization of Classical enkomiastic poetry. The two works considered here remind us of the epichoric political significance of such poetry, because of their attunement to two divergent oligarchic contexts. They thus help to get us back to specific fifth-century political as well as cultural Realien.
Xenophanes of Kolophon famously challenged the right of successful athletes to receive lavish public honours. In fr. 2 W he complained that he was more worthy of receiving such rewards, being the man of true sophiê.1 A major objection was that such athletes were dined at public expense in the prytaneion.2
Xenophanes’ focus on athletics and civic honours provides useful background to two texts discussed in detail here, Bacchylides 14B and Pindar’s Nemean 11.3 In both cases the connection between athletic prowess and civic administration criticized by Xenophanes is very close indeed, since both poems celebrate former athletes as public officials in oligarchic conditions, invoking Hestia as goddess of the civic hearth as they do so.
I. GENRES AND TITLES
Pindar’s Nemean 11, with its title ‘For Aristagoras of Tenedos, Magistrate’ supplied by Boeckh,
was positioned at the end of the Alexandrian book of Nemeans after Nemean 10,4 and considered
as epinikian by some, but not by others.5 Aristophanes’ decision to locate the poem at the end of
the book indicates that even he was not particularly happy with its epinikian status within the
Pindaric edition. Despite its obvious athletic content, Aristagoras’ athletic achievements are in
the past; the event which Pindar is commissioned to celebrate is an inauguration into civic office,
not a current victory.(…)

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