west Greek tyrants were particularly keen users of epinician.70
A third kind of marginalization that athletics and odes helped to combat was geographical distance. Athletics provided the opportunity to be seen on the mainland and to affirm a place in the interstate aristocracy. Known epinicians largely celebrate victors from the mainland or at least from nearby islands, with the obvious exception of the significant contingent of west Greek odes, but others from the geographical fringes who commissioned odes include Cyreneans (an aristocrat called Telesicrates as well as Arcesilas), the Rhodian Diagoras, and a civic official from Tenedos.71 Different kinds of marginalization overlap, with tyranny and kingship often coinciding with distance from the center and subordination to Persia. It should also be noted that Hieron did not begin the vogue for odes in the west: his commissions were preceded by odes from Pindar for Xenocrates of Acragas, odes from Simonides for Anaxilas of Messene and Rhegium, and Astylus of Croton and Syracuse, and odes from Ibycus for victors from Leontini and perhaps Syracuse.72
Epinician was also a useful means for social climbers to claim a place in the aristocracy. Whether the prizes available in local festivals would have allowed anyone from a household that could not afford to purchase any additional labor to find their way into the elite is highly unlikely, but there were many households in a typical Greek community that lay outside the aristocracy, but had sufficient wherewithal to hire labor or have tenants or slaves. The heads of these households could afford to serve as hoplites, and could, if they chose, dedicate the necessary time and resources to athletic competition.73 Some of these athletes, particularly those generating the most wealth, will have sought entry into the local elites, and commissioning an epinician was one way to claim that place. Such social mobility is difficult to trace for certain, but there are some promising candidates from among epinician’s patrons.
Chromius, the Sicilian patron of Pindar’s Nemeans 1 and 9, can be characterized as a highly competent soldier of fortune who secured great wealth, status, and prominence under Gelon and Hieron, marrying one of their sisters, racing chariots, and becoming the regent of Aetna. Some soldiers of fortune were aristocrats (as Hagesias, the victor of Pindar’s Olympian 6), but Chromius’ odes give no evidence of aristocratic forebears and make no mention of prior family athletic competition.74 Psaumis of Camarina was likely another soldier of fortune from outside the aristocracy. He amassed his wealth under Hieron, and, after the democratic ructions of the 460s, settled in the newly refounded Camarina and used his wealth to mount a major assault on the equestrian competitions at Olympia, entering horse, chariot, and mule-cart races, and winning the last two.75 Finally, the family of Argeios of Ceos, the victor celebrated by Bacchylides 1 and 2, may have sought to use athletics and epinician as a way to join the island’s elite. Much of the long first ode does not survive, but we learn from it that the victor’s father, Pantheides, provided medical care, and there is no indication of earlier athletic activity. The central myth concerned the first king of Ceos, and the ode claims that Argeios is descended from him (Bacch. 1.140–142). If this was widely considered true, the family presumably already belonged to its city’s aristocracy, but the claim of such ancestry itself, a claim impossible to prove or disprove—together with the epinician ode, the Isthmian victory, and the family’s generous hospitality—may represent a concerted effort by a family grown wealthy from providing medical care to claim aristocratic status.76
All these potentially marginalized patrons were welcomed into epinician’s club, with the result that epinician should be considered a tool for constituting a more expansive version of the interstate aristocracy, and not just reaffirming or protecting existing networks and connections (see Węcowski (Chapter 5) in this volume). Yet, although it constitutes a more expansive aristocracy, epinician promoted a profoundly aristocratic vision of excellence. Excellence is represented as something that is inborn and inherited, even in odes for those born outside the aristocracy, so that, as Peter Rose observes, “birth is the determining principle of everything worth having”: “One must walk on a straight road and contend through one’s nature. For in action strength counts, while in planning the wisdom of those whom the inborn foresight of the future follows” (Nem. 1.25–28), Pindar declares in an ode for the soldier of fortune Chromius.77 A broad trend can be seen in all athletic memorials to frame victory as a family possession and a family achievement. Victor statues almost always include the name of the victor’s father as well as the victor; many describe earlier family victories or are dedicated alongside statues of other victors from the family.78 The narratives that depict some athletes as heroes sometimes replace their mortal fathers with gods: Euthymus, the son of Astycles, becomes the son of the river Caecinus, Theogenes, son of Timosthenes, becomes the son of Heracles, and Diagoras, the son of Damagetus, becomes the son of Hermes.79 The notion of inherited excellence was articulated particularly insistently by Pindar’s odes, which repeatedly link “the specific achievement of the victor, his immediate origin in his own family, and his more remote origin in the mythically evoked heroes of his homeland, and, finally, the origin of both those heroes and the present victory in divine favor.”80
While the odes articulate an aristocratic ideology, they also address themselves to the criticisms such as those of Xenophanes that reflect a civic point of view. Victory is described as glorifying and benefitting the victor’s city, as well as the victor, his family, and the larger interstate aristocracy that epinician constitutes, almost as a kind of liturgy. The victor and his family are described as men of hard work and moderation (rather than leisure and excess) who identify with their civic community as well as their family and class. Thus Olympian 5, the ode by an unknown poet for Psaumis of Camarina, speaks of the victor as “increasing your city, Camarina” (Ol. 5.4) by his offerings and competition at Olympia, and as “setting up delicate glory for you [Camarina]” by his victory, as he announced both his father Acron and his “newly founded seat” (Ol. 5.7–8). The ode goes on to describe how he has built houses for the newly founded city, “leading out of helplessness into light this people of townsmen” (Ol. 5.14), and how those who succeed through “hard work and expenditure” (Ol. 5.15) in risky enterprises (a designation vague enough to cover both equestrian competition and town-building) are considered wise “by their fellow citizens” (Ol. 5.16). Pindar’s Isthmian 6.63–71 promotes the same vision of shared interests: the family’s victors sustain the clan of the Psalychidae and the house of the immediate victor’s maternal grandfather; yet all are pointedly located in this “god-beloved city,” and the immediate victor’s father is described as “bringing to his own town an ornament for all to share”—presumably the victories of his sons—and “beloved for his beneficence to guests, pursuing moderation in judgment and holding fast to moderation.”81 Wherever epinician looks, it sees harmony; victories may exemplify and prove the truth of aristocratic ideals, but victors serve the interests of the city as a whole.
Conclusion
In many ways the function of epinician was to convert athletic victory into political and social capital by persuading people of its value. Athletics encompassed a complicated web of festivals, disciplines, and personnel, and there were different visions of their meaning. Epinician’s vision downplayed differences between festivals and events, located its different victors in a unified, panhellenic aristocracy, and presented a harmonious vision of relations between the members of that aristocracy and their cities. This represented one particular version of athletic competition, in competition with others, and understanding the particular intervention into the complex field of athletics that epinician represents offers an excellent entrée into the key social and political dynamics of the Greek world of the late archaic and early classical periods.
FURTHER READING
The best starting point for students of the athletic context of epinician is Golden 1998, both for its discussion of the kinds of evidence available and its many insights on the political work done by athletics. Golden makes no claim to comprehensive coverage,
