LITMIR.BIZ

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second paian, to Abdera, is a fascinating, if fragmentary, piece which closely binds the genre of paian with military bravery. Without considering the whole piece, which is over one hundred verses, let us grapple with the opening verses. The address is clearly to Abderus (Ἄβδηρε, 1), and it is phrased in the manner of hymnic address, that is, Abderus is given his divine genealogy—son of the Naiad Thronia and Poseidon.⁷⁷ His military credentials are immediately invoked by the epithet χαλκοθώραξ, “of the bronze breastplate” (1). Thus the paian does not address the city of Abdera directly, but rather the eponymous hero, who is a half-god, being the son of Poseidon. Then comes a first-person statement, possibly by the poet Pindar himself, or possibly by a representative member of the singing chorus. “This paian in your honour I am pursuing with this Ionian company beside Derenian Apollo and Aphrodite.”⁷⁸ The latter phrase tells us that the paian will be performed at a local sanctuary in Abdera, one combining the worship of a local identity of Apollo, and Aphrodite. The beginning of the sentence is full of difficulties. I take [σέ]θεν with [παι]ᾶνα as a genitive of possession: “your paian” or “a paian to you,” while William Race prefers “beginning with you.” Then comes Ἰάονι λαῶι, a dative which the Loeb editor takes as “for the Ionian people” but I prefer an instrumental sense “with this Ionian company.”⁷⁹ In other words the poet announces that he will sing Abderus, the eponymous hero of Abdera, through or by means of a company of Ionian paian singers. Either way, we have here a cult song for Apollo Derenos and Aphrodite which foregrounds Abdera, the place. Lozynsky could identify at least four separate “stakeholders”: the gods, the poet, the singers, and the audience.⁸⁰

      After a lacuna of fourteen lines we take up the thread when a voice announces that “I inhabit this fertile Thracian plain” (paraphrase) “… I am a young city; but still, I gave birth to the mother of my mother who had been struck by fire.”⁸¹ Pindar riddles deliberately. This is mantic language, deliberate obfuscation. Race prefers to take νεόπολις as “I am of a young city,” but others differ, with them me.⁸² I think Abdera herself must be speaking and saying “I am a young city.” The riddle with the bearing of the mother’s mother is normally explained with reference to Teos, the mother city of Abdera, which was ransacked by the Persians but then reestablished by the colonists from Abdera. The locals might understand the enigma; difficult for anyone not in the know. There follows a gnōmē about courage producing peace, then the paianic ephymnion ἰὴ ἰὲ Παιάν, ἰὴ ἰέ· Παιὰν / δὲ μήποτε λείποι (“may Paian never wane”). This paian was composed by Pindar for a ritual celebration (as we have said) but it maintains the genre’s links with war. As an army advanced in formation singing the paian,⁸³ no doubt designed to put courage in the hearts of the phalanx and fear in the enemy, so here we have the supreme literary development of what may have started as a mere chant. Pindar has pushed the genre to the limits in a way which brought him fame and much money.⁸⁴ Of time (following the successful foundation of Abdera) Pindar says literally: “may steadfast time treading mightily not tire for me hereafter” which perhaps means “may things remain good in future.” My point is the hieratic style which Pindar uses to achieve the semnotēs, elevated dignity, suited to paianic prayer.⁸⁵ The final prayer (104–108) is that Abderus (masculine again) should be victorious in battle.⁸⁶ Wilamowitz opined that Pindar did not in any sense write “normal” Greek.⁸⁷ Perhaps the mantic style was supposed to speak directly from, and to, Apollo.

      Conclusion

Can we pull the strings of what has been said together? The first thing is that religion encompassing the gods’ and humans’ place in the world,⁸⁸ prayers to these gods, stories about them and their children, their worship in traditional places and ways, is ubiquitous in archaic Greek lyric. We must assume that belief corresponded to action: no prayer or sacrifice without belief in that deity, that is, in the deity’s power to harm or help. Gods must sanction poetry like anything else. Hence the desire to “begin with the gods” (ἄρχεσθαι θεοῦ) in any composition, either in the form of a prayer or a miniature hymn (Simonides Plataia).⁸⁹ Here verse imitates ritual: the poem is offered, like a physical agalma, with a prayer at its head.⁹⁰ The themes of heroic epic still play a large part, as we have seen, in lyric, either as a source of comparison (Telephos) or as a poetic material in its own right (Stesichorus). The gods have become more personal (Sappho) or politically engaged in stasis (Alkaios). Dionysos (Anakreon) and Aphrodite (Sappho again), whom we have not examined, dominate the world of the symposium, both of men and women. Pindar is exceptional both in the length of his compositions and his sophistication; Bacchylides equals his length but his compositions in the traditional fields of paian and dithyramb do not match Pindar’s semnotēs, elevation.⁹¹ These last two are the only true representatives of cult lyric, as their trained choruses performed at the great cult centers of Greece. As such they represented their city-states (Kowalzig) and performed with an agenda suiting both home city and place of performance (Lozynksi). It is vital to remember that all compositions we have been considering were meant for oral performance (Depew) before an audience whose constitution we can sometimes only guess at. Sappho’s works were “hits” still sung in later centuries.⁹² We must never forget, either, the agonistic quality of many Greek poems. Whether explicitly or not, the poet usually wanted to win, or win praise.

      FURTHER READING

      Many Greek hymns are collected in Furley and Bremer 2001, along with a discussion of their conventions and the wider hymn-culture in which they originate. Much work has also been done on the paian: see in particular Ford 2006, and on Pindar’s paianes in particular Rutherford 2001. Pindar’s cult poetry more broadly is collected in Snell and Maehler 1975 vol. ii. On the dithyramb, see Kowalzig and Wilson 2013a. On the intersection between myth, history, and cult, see Kowalzig 2007, and for the relationship between lyric and Homeric perspectives, see Nagy 1990a.

      Notes

      1 1 Even if someone is a practicing Christian, the “pagan” gods seem merely quaint. There have been classicists who have expressed sympathy with the ancient gods: Jane Harrison, for example, Robert Graves (in a way), Walter F. Otto.

      2 2 An example: the annual climbdown from a cliff face to harvest gannet eggs by the Faraoh Islanders may be explained by them (emic) by the desire to harvest nourishing eggs; the outsider (etic) will prefer to explain the ritual as some kind of rite de passage, as similar eggs may be obtained from hens. Cf. Morris 1993: 15–45.

      3 3 Latacz 2004.

      4 4 See Burkert 1987.

      5 5 Minchin 2011: 17–35.

      6 6 See further Hägg 1996.

      7 7 One may consult Versnel’s essay “Did the Greeks Believe in Their Gods?” (2011: 539–559). He argues against the “ritualists” that there was such a thing as “believe in the gods” in ancient Greece: p. 552: “On the other hand, the fact that Greek religion was basically a matter of ritual action in no way implies the consequence that Greeks did not believe in (the existence) of their gods;” same page: “Stating that Greek religion is ritualist and at the same time that ‘the Athenians did not believe in their gods’ is either nonsense or a kind of sophistry run wild.”

      8 8 Cf. Depew 2000: 59–79; 254–263.

      9 9 Furley and Bremer 2001.

      10 10 As Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1921 said: “Die gottesdienstliche Poesie der alten Zeit ist verloren.”

      11 11 As (young) people today share on social media lyric poets then shared in their group of flesh-and-blood friends.

      12 12 For more cf. Garland 1994.

      13 13 Dignas and Trampedach 2008.

      14 14 For example in the Birds 959–992 (chresmologue); Peace 1046–1126 (Hierokles); Knights 961–1111 (Kleon and Sausage-Seller vie

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