Pindaro Pítica 11 y Orestia

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Pindar's Pythian 11 and the Oresteia : Contestatory Ritual Poetics in the 5th c. BCEAuthor(s): Leslie KurkeSource: Classical Antiquity, Vol. 32, No. 1 (April 2013), pp. 101-175Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/ca.2013.32.1.101.

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LESLIE KURKE

Classical Antiquity. Vol. 32, Issue 1, pp. 101175. ISSN 0278-6656(p); 1067-8344 (e).Copyright 2013 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please

direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of

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DOI:10.1525/CA.2013.32.1.101.

Pindars Pythian 11 and the Oresteia:

Contestatory Ritual Poetics

in the 5th c. BCE

The scholiasts offer two different dates for the Pythian victory of the Theban Thrasy-

daios celebrated in Pindars eleventh Pythian ode: 474 or 454 . Following several

older scholars, I accept the latter date, mainly because Pindars myth in this poem is a

mini-Oresteia, teeming with what seem to be echoes of the language, plotting, and se-

quencing of Aischylos trilogy of 458 , as well as allusions to the genre of tragedy

in general. Yet even those scholars who have argued for such a dialogue between these

two works are at something of a loss to explain it, except as Pindars admiring homage

to the genius of Aischylos. Such accounts reveal the inadequacy of a reading that as-

sumes a narrowly literary system of intertextuality. In order to account for this inter-textual, intergeneric dialogue, we need instead to recognize the embeddedness of choral

lyric and tragedy within their social and cultural contexts, and their differential relations

with neighboring systems such as cult ritual. I will argue that Pindar implicitly chal-

lenges the tendency of Attic tragedy to displace and appropriate for its own purposes

cults that properly belong to other Greek cities. Pindar, in contrast, in Pythian 11 em-

phasizes the locality and specificity of different communities relations to the heroes of

myth and cult as an important part of traditional choral and civic harmonia. Thus I will

argue that these two texts are engaged in a contestatory ritual poetics about the local-

ity and propriety of cult and its relation to the community as mediated through different

choral forms.

Earlier versions of this paper were delivered at conferences at the University of Chicago, YaleUniversity, and the Classics Triennial at Cambridge University in spring and summer 2011. Im

grateful to audiences in all three venues for lively discussion; for the Triennial, thanks especially

to Simon Goldhill for the original invitation; to Johannes Haubold and Richard Seaford for their

thoughtful responses; and to Froma Zeitlin for chairing the panel. I owe a particular debt of gratitude

to the following, for reading earlier version(s) and offering detailed comments and criticisms: G. B.

DAlessio, Mark Griffith, Barbara Kowalzig, Richard Martin, Boris Maslov, Donald Mastronarde,

Nigel Nicholson, Nikolaos Papazarkadas, Jim Porter, Oliver Taplin, and Peter Wilson. Thanks also

to Classical Antiquitys two anonymous readers, who challenged my thinking and saved me from

many errors. Those that remainerrors of fact or of judgmentare mine; I have perhaps not heeded

enough the warnings of these generous readers.

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Volume 32 / No. 1 / April 2013102

Pindars eleventh Pythian ode, composed for a Theban victor Thrasydaios,

is given two possible dates by the scholiasts (presumably derived from Pythian

victor lists): a Thrasydaios won, they tell us, in 474 and in 454 .1 Scholarly

debate has raged between these two dates, especially since the myth of the poemis (oddly) a mini-Oresteia: Orestes spirited away by his nurse Arsinoe from the

murderous Klytemnestra; her killing of Agamemnon and Kassandra; Orestes

eventual return and revenge on Klytemnestra and Aigisthos (P.11.1737). As an

issue for the unity and logic of the poem, the relevance of this grim myth to a

Theban athletic victor has always been a critical problem. At the same time, at

the intertextual level, the two possible dates (and striking dictional similarities

between the two texts) have tantalizingly raised the possibility of some relation to

Aischylos Oresteia of 458: was Aischylos influenced by Pindars earlier lyric

version, or does Pindars version show the distinctive imprint of Aischylos tragic

rendition?2

The issue of intertextuality and the relative priority of the Oresteia and Pythian

11 is, to be sure, an old and well-worn topic of scholarly debate, but we are now in

a position to address the question itself and especially its implications in new

ways. I will argue here that there are good reasons, both literary and historical,

for accepting the later date offered by the ancient scholia for Pindars ode (454)

and assuming a meaningful intertextual dialogue between Aischylos trilogy and

Pythian 11. In order to make this argument, I will recuperate and build on certain

older formalist literary readings as well as a particular historicist reading. For

the former: those critics who seem to me to be the most sensitive literary readers

(e.g., John Finley, John Herington, Thomas K. Hubbard) date Pythian 11 after

the Oresteia based on verbal patterns within these two texts, and Heringtons

arguments, in particular, have never been properly addressed or rebutted. For

the latter: C. M. Bowra long ago argued for the later dating of Pythian 11 based

on the more plausible fit between the complex political situation of the 450s

and this Theban odes striking Spartan coloring. Bowras arguments likewise

have largely been ignored, but, as one recent critic notes, they have never been

refuted.3 I consider both these scholars or groups of scholars right about the

1. ThusInscr.A, Inscr.B (2: 254 Drachmann); cf. Title (2: 253 Drachmann). For full discussionof the two dates, the confusion of the scholia, and scholarly arguments that have been pro ffered on

either side, see Appendix I. My minimal assumption for the purposes of this discussion is that the

internal evidence of P.11 and the (rather confused) scholia can be reconciled with either date, 474

or 454 .

2. At the current time, the majority of scholars prefer the earlier date: thus Wilamowitz 1922:

25963, van Groningen 1931, von der Muhll 1958, Burton 1962: 61, 7273, Young 1968: 2n.2,

Slater 1979: 68, Most 1985: 15, Prag 1985: 7779, Instone 1986: 86, Robbins 1986, Finglass 2007:

1117. A substantial minority of scholars prefer the later date: thus Farnell 1932.2: 22224, During

1943, Bowra 1936, 1964: 402405, Finley 1955: 16064, Herington 1984, Hubbard 1990, 2010,

Kurke 1998. Bowras arguments for the later date are mainly historical (see below); but he and all the

other scholars listed also detect echoes of AischylosOresteiain Pindars poem and therefore date it

to 454.

3. Thus Hubbard 1990: 350n.22.



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:Pindars Pythian 11 and the Oresteia 103

relative dating, but the sticking point or problem for all approaches that argue

for the later date for Pythian 11 is how to motivate or explain the intertextual

dialogue they detect. Thus, the literary formalists and Bowra can only offer by

way of explanation that Pindar must have composed his ode under the strongimpression made on him by Aischylos trilogy.4 At the same time, these two

different approaches have been unable to reconcile in any convincing way the

literary and historical/political features they identify in Pindars ode. Thus most

of the formalist critics simply ignore the question of historical context, while

Bowra has no way of reconciling what he sees as the pro-Spartan agenda of

Pythian 11 with its extended intertextual dialogue with Athenian tragedy. These

fundamental weaknesses in the literary formalist and old historicist treatments,

and their disconnect, crucially expose the need for a new approach to this

old question.

In fact, no one has yet properly re-examined the issue since the performancerevolution in studies of archaic and classical Greek poetry.5 In a turn to per-

formance dating back to at least the 1970s, scholars have come to recognize

that it is essential to locate all our preserved Greek poetic texts in their specific,

local performative contextsreligious, social, political, and economic.6 For all

poetic texts in this period were composed for performance and embedded in

social life. In the ancient Greek context, this also means reconceiving the cat-

egory of genrethe set of audience expectations that shape and constrain each

individual compositionas crucially conditioned by occasion and performance

context. Much of the inspiration for this performative turn derived from cultural

and symbolic anthropology, and followed in the wake of a shift from the practice

of political and social history to that of cultural history within the discipline of

history in the 1970s and 80s.7

Thus, the performative turn necessitates a return to history, but history of a

different kind. The question of the intertextual dialogue of Pythian 11 and the

Oresteia also needs to be revisited in the wake of the shift from old historicist

to new historicist/cultural history paradigms within the field of Classics. Old

historicist approaches were generally reflectionist, assuming that events happened

4. For the strong impression made on Pindar by Aischylos trilogy, see Farnell 1932.2: 224,Bowra 1936: 14041, During 1943: 116, Finley 1955: 162, Herington 1984: 146, Hubbard 1990:

35051, 2010: 192 (quote from Farnell).

5. This may seem a paradoxical claim given that P.11 is the subject of a recent book-length

commentary (Finglass 2007); but see dAlessios review of Finglass (DAlessio 2010: 24), noting

Finglass general lack of attention to performance issues.

6. The scholarly literature here is enormous; for major contributions to the performative turn in

Greek studies, see Calame 1977, 1997; Rosler 1980; Herington 1985; Gentili 1988; Martin 1989;

Krummen 1990; Nagy 1990, 1996; Winkler 1990; Kurke 1991, 2005, 2007; Stehle 1997; Goldhill

and Osborne 1999; Wilson 2000, 2003; Peponi 2004, 2007; Kowalzig 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007a,

2007b; Ferrari 2008; Bierl 2009.

7. For significant antecedents within cultural and symbolic anthropology, see Geertz 1973,

1983; Turner 1974; Bourdieu 1977, 1990; for the shift from political/social history to cultural

history, see Connor 1987, Sewell 1999.



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Volume 32 / No. 1 / April 2013104

out in the world, while texts were mere secondary phenomena that responded to or

reflected them. These approaches tended to focus on the poet as a biographical

individual, and on the level of event history (histoire evenementielle)the

specific political events of this or that particular year. New historicism, incontrast, sees texts themselves as events: poems in performance act in the world,

intervening ideologically to wield political influence and to alter the configuration

of culture. This model thus posits an ongoing dialectical interaction between texts

and the world. In such a system, genre, crucially conditioned by occasion, is not

merely a literary category; if texts in performance act in the world, then there is

also a politics of literary form. In addition, new historicism or cultural history

tends to focus on reception rather than on the poet as a biographical individual

or point of production. Thus this method asks, what work (social, religious, and

political) are these poems doing in performance? How do they contribute to or

alter the ongoing forging of ideology for the performers who sang and dancedthem, and for the audiences who witnessed? Finally, this approach tends to focus

on the level of processes of structural change in historyso somewhere between

event history and the longue duree. New historicism tends to be particularly

interested in moments of epochal shift or discontinuity in (e.g.) identity formation;

shifting ideologies of self and community; exchange systems; or the constitution

of hierarchies, both within communities and between them.8

This shift in prevailing scholarly paradigms will allow us to move beyond

older literary approaches to the question of the relation of the Oresteia and

Pythian 11, while it will also enable a more effective reconciliation of literary

and historicist methods and models. Older literary formalisms, I would contend,

are predicated on an anachronistic bracketing off of a self-contained domain

of art or literature within society. Thus critics like Farnell, Bowra, Finley,

Herington, and Hubbard are engaged in reading practices that the Russian critic

Jurij Tynianov long ago characterized as the history of generals, referring to

a literary history that simply strings together in chronological order the great

authors of the canon, engaged in a conversation outside of time.9 It is thus

symptomatic that, at its most extreme, this version imagines Pindarreadinga text

of theOresteiaand composing Pythian 11 under the strong impression made on

him by Aischylos masterpiece.10

For the Russian critics committed to a project

8. For brief accounts of newhistoricismor cultural poetics in relation to Classics, seeDougherty

and Kurke 1998: 112, 2003: 119. For the notion of a dialectical interaction between texts and

the world, see Jameson 1981.

9. Tynianov 1978: 66 (this is the English translation; Tynianovs essay was published originally

in 1929).

10. For the assumption that Pindar read a text of the Oresteia, see Bowra 1936: 140; for the

strong impression made on Pindar by Aischylos trilogy, see scholars cited in n.4 above. The recent

objection of Finglass 2007: 1416 to this formalist style of reading oddly fails to reject this paradigm,

but simply inverts its relative chronology. Thus for Pindar to be a strong poet, a fully autonomous

poetic genius, according to Finglass, he cannot be subjected to the in fluence of Aischylos text;

instead P.11 must pre-date the Oresteiaand the influence go in the other direction.



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they called Historical Poetics, one way to get beyond the history of generals

was to use genre and the evolution of genre to explode the boundaries of the canon

of great authors. In addition, for Tynianov in particular, what characterizes the

literary system in any period is its set or orientation toward contiguoussystems like the verbal forms of social conventions. Whatever the literary

systems historical evolution, Tynianov argued, it must be understood as mediated

through literatures relation to neighboring cultural systems. Tynianovs notion

of the set or orientation of the literary system to contiguous cultural systems

provides a strikingly apt model for archaic and classical Greece, where literature

itself does not exist as such, but poetic texts are simply the scripts or libretti for

elaborate performances embedded in social life. More particularly, choral poetry

in this period is always performed in a religious context, so that cult ritual would

seem to be an essential neighboring or contiguous system to consider. So, while

I want to build on thefine literary observations of earlier formalist critics, a focuson genre, performance, and the relation of both texts to neighboring cultural

systems like cult ritual will allow for a better account of the motivations for

intertextual dialogue between them.11

In addition, the shift in perspective to performance and cultural history/new

historicism gives us the tools to rebut another literary approach characteristic

of many older scholarly treatments of the relative dating of Pythian 11 and the

Oresteia. This is a traditional Quellenforschung approach, mainly espoused by

scholars who prefer the earlier dating for Pythian 11 (474). These scholars deny

any influence or relation between the two texts, claiming that both Pindar and

Aischylos drew independently on a common source or sourcesmost frequently

identified as Stesichoros lyricOresteia.12 This approach is likewise predicated on

an anachronistic bookish or text-based model of culture that assumes a tradition

that is stable and inert, but in contrast to the history of generals, it casts authors as

powerless pawns in thrall to that tradition.13 For critics who espouse this position

it seems to be enough to say that Pindar and Aischylos tell this myth in this way

because they are following Stesichoros. But such a model is utterly inadequate

to the kind of performance tradition in which all these texts participated. Under

such conditions, even following a tradition is a choice that has significance and

meaning in a particular performance context. That is to say, in a performanceculture, tradition is never inert. Stesichoros himself presumably had specific

11. I acknowledge that, in one respect, Tynianovs terms are slightly misleading, since religious

practice through choral performance is not in fact a neighboring system to the texts of Greek lyric;

this is instead a single complex cultural system in which choral lyric participates.

12. Thus von der Muhll 1958: 146, Prag 1985: 7778, Instone 1986: 8789, Robbins 1986,

and more cautiously, Finglass 2007: 16.

13. Or differentially: thus Robbins 1986 claims that Aischylos (and the other tragedians) can

innovate, while Pindar must remain faithful to the mythic tradition. Likewise Prag 1985: 7778

acknowledges that Stesichoros may have had political motivations in locating his Oresteiain Sparta,

but contends that Pindars version has no politics; he is simply following Stesichoros.



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Volume 32 / No. 1 / April 2013106

contextual motivations for choosing one version over another, or innovating

within a myth, even if the fragmentary state of our evidence does not allow

us to see these clearly.14 By the same token, the striking verbal parallels between

Pindars version and Aischylos (long recognized by scholars) must force us to askwhy, given how much else seems to have been in Stesichoros 2,000-line Oresteia,

Aischylos and Pindar should have chosen to allude to almost exactly the same

bits? The fact that they did so suggests that the two texts have a significant relation

to each other even if both borrow from Stesichoros. Thus a more productive model

might be that of triangulation: in such a living, ongoing performance tradition,

it is almost certain that both Pindar and Aischylos borrowed from and were in

dialogue with Stesichoros version and others, but the existence of such common

sources in no way absolves us of the responsibility as critics to attend to the

particularities of the intertextual relationship of the two later texts to each other. 15

Thus I will argue that the complex interrelations of the Oresteiaand Pythian11 demand a new kind of historicist reading to make sense of them. Within a new

historicist or Historical Poetics paradigm,genreand the contestatory dialogue of

genres will provide key concepts for mediating between formalist and old his-

toricist readings. And such an approach will pay further argumentative dividends,

for it will allow us to see a view from elsewhere, as it were. In a now classic essay,

Froma Zeitlin analyzed the representation (or perhaps better, appropriation) of

Thebes as a topos or commonplace on the Athenian tragic stage: how Thebes

offered an other place wherein Attic tragedy could safely confront and explore

issues of the unstable boundaries of self and society, the collapse of distinctions,

the dysfunction of family relationships, and the impossibility of escaping the pull

of a destructive mythic past.16 All this Zeitlin taught us to recognize as the cluster

of issues characteristic of an imaginary Thebes on the Athenian tragic stage. I

would like here to invert the terms and consider a possible Theban response to

Athens and specifically to Athenian tragedy in one epinikian ode of Pindar. What

might Attic tragedy look like from the other sidefrom the perspective of the

more traditional choral milieu of Pindars Thebes?

In the first part of this essay, I will present the strongest possible case for

the later dating of Pythian 11 based on intertextual echoes of the Oresteia in

particular or tragedy in general. In Part II, I will then shift to consider howwe might understand such intertextual echoes, including various di fferent kinds

14. Thus cf. Bowra 1934: 11617, suggesting that Stesichoros location of the Atreids in Sparta

was motivated by Spartan political policy (on which, see below pp. 14143) and Burnett 1988,

arguing that Stesichoros particular adaptation of the Eteokles-Polyneikes story is tailored to a

Western, colonial context.

15. For a sensible general treatment of Stesichoros influence on theOresteia, see Garvie 1986:

xvii-xxii, and (with particular attention to the issue of Aischylos satyr play and the whole tetralogy),

Griffith 2002: 23754.

16. Zeitlin 1990; see also Zeitlin 1993. For more recent critique of Zeitlins stark structuralist

opposition of Athens and Thebes as self and other, see Roselli 2011: 14445.



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of historical framing. I will touch on the level of event history with a brief

summary of Bowras arguments, and then offer three speculative passes that

attempt historically situated readings of the intertextual dialogue of genres. I

will consider first a significant difference in the ideological poetics or poeticideology of epinikion and tragedy. Second, I will focus on what Tynianov called

the set or orientation of the two genres tragedy and epinikion in relation to

a specific neighboring cultural systemthat of religion, charting the choral

contestation of tragedy and epinikion in their efforts to constitute different cult

networks. Finally (and most tentatively), Ill explore what seems to be Pindars

own meta-poetic or meta-ritual critique of the genre of tragedy in its relation to

cult locality.17

I

So let us start with the myth of the poem (and here I provide the full text

as a basis for discussion):18

,

20

.

25

.

17. So of course I am still talking about generals, Pindar and Aischylosand this is almost

unavoidable when we are dealing with Greek texts, since all we have left is the canonbut (at least

for myfirst two passes here) I am trying to get at what their armies (genres?) may have been up

to behind their backs, as it were, as they imagined they were leading. Admittedly, with my final

(meta-poetic/meta-ritual) reading, Im back to full-blown authorial intent, so Im not sure this would

be approved of by either card-carrying new historicists or Historical Poeticists. But at least this is

still about genre, and I cant help feeling that Pindar is incredibly self-conscious about genre in its

interaction with the world.

18. Unless otherwise noted, quotations of Pindar follow Snell-Maehler 1997; the text of Finglass

2007: 6468 offers only very minor divergences from Snell-Maehler. Here and throughout, all

translations are my own unless otherwise noted.



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Volume 32 / No. 1 / April 2013108

. 30 ,

,

. , , 35

.

P.11.1737

. . . [Orestes], whom his nurse Arsinoe removed from grievous trickery,as his father was being slain under the mighty hands of Klytemnestra,

when she conveyed with grey bronze the Dardanid daughter of Priam,Kassandra, together with the soul of Agamemnon, to the shadowy shore

of Acheron, pitiless woman that she was. Was it then Iphigeneia slaugh-

tered upon the Euripos, far from her fatherland, that stung her to rouse

her anger, heavy in its execution? Or did the beddings by night lead her

astray, mastered in another mans couch? But this straying [wrongdoing]

is most hateful for young wives and impossible to conceal on account

of other peoples tongues; and fellow-citizens speak evil. For blessed-

ness/prosperity holds no less envy, and the one of lowly ambition roars

invisibly. And so he died himself, the hero, son of Atreus, at glorious

Amyklai, when he came there in time, and he caused the death of the

maiden seer, when over Helen he had loosed the houses of the Trojans,burnt, of their luxury. But he, [Orestes], young head, came to the old man

Strophios, who inhabited the foot of Parnassos; but with late Ares he slew

his mother and set Aigisthos amidst slaughters.

I will be less concerned here with the problem of the relevance of the poems

myth, since I am basically in agreement with David Youngs argument that the

myth offers a series of negative exempla of the evils and misfortunes of the lot of

tyrannies that Pindar explicitly abjures in a generic first-person sequence later

in the ode (P.11.5058). Thus the poet endorses on behalf of the victor and his

family middling status within the city as opposed to the precarious, violent, and

much-resented heights so well illustrated by the saga of the House of Atreus.19

19. By and large, Youngs has become the standard interpretation of the myth of P.11 in modern

Pindar scholarship; see Young 1968: 126, followed by Newman 1979, Nisetich 1980: 4849, Prag

1985: 78, Hubbard 1990 (though recanted to some extent in Hubbard 2010), Kurke 1991: 21418,

1998: 16263. Young thereby refutes the older autobiographical or allegorical readings of the poem

offered by Wilamowitz and Bowra. According to Wilamowitz, the poem dates to 474, and the myth

and lines 5058 represent Pindarsself-defense against Theban criticism for hanging out with Sicilian

tyrants (so Pindar is Klytemnestra [!] as victim of hostile citizen gossip); according to Bowra, the

poem dates to 454, and the myth refers to the tyranny of Athens over Thebes/Boiotia (so Athens,



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To a great extent, the question of the relevance of the myth and of Pythian 11s

possible intertextual relation with the Oresteiaare separate, independent issues.

Thus Young himself in 1968 was happy to follow von der Muhlls argument for

the early dating of the poem, so as not to have to encumber or complicate his NewCritical reading with issues of intertextuality. But, as other scholars have noted,

Youngs interpretation is entirely reconcilable with the later date for the poem, and

a postulated intertextual relationship with Aischylos trilogy.20 And yet in another

sense, these two issues are inevitably connected, since there are themes, rhetorical

strategies, and even diction within Pindars myth that seem anomalous and invite

comparison with Aischylos version or tragedy in general. There has been a

trend in scholarship on Pythian 11 since Young to attempt to offer more positive

interpretations of Pindars mythinterpretations that in general symptomatically

elide or ignore what is anomalous, in order to recuperate the myth of this poem

as a normal or typical epinikian myth. It thus seems necessary to consider andcritique these more recent interpretations (at least briefly), for by so doing, we

will develop a clearer sense of those elements that remain opaque or recalcitrant

within Pindars mythic narrative.21

One strategy for recuperating the myth of the poem is that of W. J. Slater,

who focuses on the verbal and thematic ring formed by (16) and (34), both applied to the guest-host relationship of Orestes and the Phokian

house of Strophios and Pylades. Slater then invokes the real world practice

of Pythian victors being hosted and feasted by the Delphian authorities at the

site of the games, to argue that Orestes in this respect serves as a positive model

for the Theban victor Thrasydaios, who himself went off to Delphi, won at the

games, and enjoyed hospitality there before returning home again.22 There are

two objections to be made to this interpretation: (1) Hosting at Delphi would then

be a feature of every Pythian victors experience, so that, on this reading, the

myth of Pythian 11 could be inserted with equal relevance into any Pythian ode.

That is to say, this account does not allow us to explain why this myth occurs

in this poem. (2) But in fact, Slaters account ignores most of the mythic narrative

Pindar supplies, especially the prominence of Klytemnestra; the questions about

her motivation; and the gnomic sequence to which these questions in turn give

as polis tyrannos, is Klytemnestra, ripe for tyrannicide). Wilamowitzs interpretation is followed

by von der Muhll 1958, Burton 1962: 7173.

20. Young 1968: 2n.2, citing with approval von der Muhll 1958. For scholars who follow

Youngs interpretation of the myth, but date the poem to 454, see Hubbard 1990, Kurke 1998.

21. In addition, of course, those who think the myth is typical are much less likely to be

willing to look outside the poem to motivate or account for elements within it.

22. Slater 1979: 6368. Slaters case for this real world practice is in fact not that strong,

based on P.5.31, (of the charioteer, not the victor), and what he claimsis an analogous practice at Olympia. See now Currie 2011: 301308, for thorough discussion of

the ancient practice ofhestian ten panegurin (hosting the festal assembly). As Currie effectively

demonstrates, such hospitality conventionally went the other waythe victor hosting the entire

assembly at a festival like the Olympics.



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Volume 32 / No. 1 / April 2013110

rise (ll. 1730).23 Thus as an explanation for the myth of the poem, Slaters

interpretation ignores most of the distinctive content and emphasis of Pindars

narrative.24

A second and more popular argumentative strategy for recuperating Pindarsnarrative as a typical epinikian myth is to claim that Orestes serves as a positive

analogue for the victor Thrasydaios as the good son of his father, who returns

home to avenge Agamemnon and thereby restore honor to his paternal hearth.25

Most scholars who make this argument assimilate Pindars myth to the story of

Orestes in theOdyssey, frequently invoked by different characters as a paradigm

or role model for the young, inexperienced Telemachos.26 But this analogizing to

the Odyssey narrative in fact exposes what is strikingly different or anomalous

about Pindars version. For while the various inset narratives of the story in

the Odysseyoffer different weightings or emphases on the relative responsibility

for the killing of Agamemnon between Aigisthos and Klytemnestra, those thatbring Orestes as avenger into the tale always make Aigisthos the planner and

actor in the killing of Agamemnon. Thus, of the eleven separate mentions of

the killing of Agamemnon in the Odyssey, six (all in the Telemachy of Books

14) are about Orestes taking vengeance, with Orestes serving as an explicit or

implicit role model for Telemachos (Od. 1.2943, 1.298300, 3.19398, 3.248

52, 3.30312, 4.51247). Contrariwise, in the five remaining passages where

Klytemnestras involvement in the plot or the murder of Agamemnon features

(with different degrees of responsibility attributed to her in these five), there is

no mention of Orestes vengeance (Od. 4.9092, 11.387461, 24.2029, 24.93

97, 24.192202). All these passages in fact serve a different function, pointing

the contrast between the marriage of Agamemnon and Klytemnestra and that of

Odysseus and Penelope (or, in one instance, that of Menelaos and Helen; Od.

4.9092).27 In other terms, in the Odyssey, Klytemnestras involvement in the

23. Slater 1979: 6566 attempts to defuse the problem of the gnomic sequence by arguing

that these gnomes have no ultimate relevance; see further discussion below pp. 12224. In addition,

Slaters discussion is particularly tendentious in insisting that Kassandra is ain Pindars versionof the myth, whose killing therefore participates in his dominant schema ofxeniahonored vs.xenia

corrupted: [Kassandra] could not have been raped by Ajax in Pindars version, and her status isnot that of a slave; Pindar does not say she is entitled to the rights of hospitality but takes it for

granted (1979: 67n.11).

24. This is not to deny entirely the importance of the theme ofxeniafor this clearly is an

element of Pindars narrative and could be combined with other elements for a fuller interpretation

of the myth. For different versions of such an approach, see Most 1985: 2426, Hubbard 2010.

25. Thus Egan 1983: 194200, Instone 1986, Robbins 1986: 25, Sevieri 1999: 83110, Finglass

2007: 4347. To some extent, almost all these scholars agree with Young insofar as they recognize

that Klytemnestra and Aigisthos serve as negative paradigms of bad, tyrannic behavior, but they split

on whether Agamemnon himself, as well as Orestes, is wholly positive or more problematic.

26. Thus (e.g.) Instone 1986: 8889, Robbins 1986: 2, Sevieri 1999: 8687, 90, Finglass 2007:

108.

27. Thus correctly on the different functions the story serves in different parts of the Odyssey,

see Garvie 1986: x-xi.



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murder and Orestes vengeance are in perfect complementary distribution. Thus

the Odyssey sedulously avoids telling these two parts of the story together, with

the result thatOrestes matricide is never narrated. Particularly revealing for this

elision isOdyssey3.30410, Nestors narrative of the events to Telemachos andPeisistratos:

, . , , , .

Od. 3.30410

For seven years [Aigisthos] ruled over Mykenai rich in gold after he

killed the son of Atreus, and the people were subjected beneath him. But

in the eighth year there came as an evil for him shining Orestes back from

Athens, and killed the slayer of his father, tricky-contriving Aigisthos,

who slew his glorious father. And indeed [Orestes], having killed him,

feasted the burial for the Argives of his hateful mother and cowardlyAigisthos.

In this remarkable passage, the text acknowledges the death of Klytemnestra as

well as that of Aigisthos, but entirely finesses the question of who killed her. This

sneaky textual equivocation long ago led Carl Robert to the bizarre suggestionthat Klytemnestra must have killed herself out of shame and despair, but that is to

read too literally a moment that is all about a complex ideological occlusion.28

As the ancient scholia already recognized, Homeric epic generally avoids tales

of intra-familial killing; here the decorum of epic does not allow the narrative

of the matricide.29 In like manner, Homeric epic never narrates the sacri fice of

Iphigeneia, and debate still rages among scholars about whether the story was

known to Homer or not.30

28. Robert 1881: 16263. As Garvie 1986: xi notes, The suggestion that she may havecommitted suicide hardly deserves serious consideration.

29. Cf. Scholia A ad Iliad9.456 (quoted by Garvie 1986: xii, n.9): . For the same point made by moderncritics, see Griffin 1977: 44, Garvie 1986: x-xii, Seaford 1994: 1113, 36062. Thus the earliest

extant literary reference to the matricide is Hesiod, Ehoiai fr. 23a MW, lines 2830; Stesichoros

presumably also narrated the matricide, but this episode is not among the extant fragments.

30. My suspicion is that the story of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia was known to Homer, based on

Agamemnons (apparently unmotivated) hostility to Calchas at Il. 1.106108. But note that in both

the Kypria(according to Proklos summary, p. 104 Allen) and in the Hesiodic Ehoiai(Paus. 1.43.1 =

fr. 23b MW), Artemis miraculously saves Iphigeneia/Iphimede from sacrifice; in addition, in the

Ehoiai , the goddess makes her immortal. In fact, as Lloyd-Jones 1983: 95102 notes, Iphigeneia

is not actually killed in any extant literary version before those of Pindar and Aischylos, while

Griffith 2002: 24247 suggests that even in the Oresteia, the satyr play Proteus that followed the



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Volume 32 / No. 1 / April 2013112

The point is that in a situation in which multiple different versions of the

myth were clearly available, if Pindars goal were to tell a story about Orestes

as good son of his father returning home to set things right (a chip off the old

block, as Robbins puts it admiringly), why not foreground Aigisthos as thedoer of the deed?31 Indeed, why should Pindar choose to mention Klytemnes-

tra and the matricide at all, much less make her so extraordinarily prominent?

And why include any mention of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, which would

seem to complicate the issues of right and wrong, and offer some extenuation

for Klytemnestras crime?32 Those scholars advocating for this positive ver-

sion of the myth claim that there is nothing problematic or negative in Pin-

dars representation of Orestes vengeance.33 But this is to ignore the mo-

ment at which Pindar elaborately breaks off from the poems myth (precisely

at the mention of Orestes killing of his mother and Aigisthos), as well as the

poets apparent agitation at this moment of break-off (on both of these pointsmore below).

Finally, yet another scholarly strategy to recuperate the Orestes of the myth as

a wholly positive analogue for the victor is to focus on the adjective Pindar applies

to the Delphic navel-stone in the poems first triad, (P.11.9), and tomake this epithet imply a whole theodicy in the subsequent myth. On this account,

implies that Delphic Apollo himself commanded and supports Orestesjust vengeance.34 The problem here is that there is no mention of Apollo or his

oracles within the myth itself, though Pindar evinces no hesitation in other mythic

narratives about telling us that a hero was led or guided in some endeavor by a

god.35 Indeed, as many other scholars have emphasized, the myth of Pythian 11 is

strikingly bare of divinities or divine intervention, except for late Ares at its

end.36 This absence of divinity is again a topic to which I shall return.

tragic trilogy may have taken this version back, as it were, following the older poetic tradition of

Iphigeneia saved from sacrifice and whisked offby Artemis to some exotic locale.

31. For the availability of multiple, different versions of the myth already in Homers time,

see Garvie 1986: ix-xxv; for support of this contention based on the material record, see Davies

1969, Prag 1985. Quote from Robbins 1986: 4.

32. It will not do with Burton 1962: 66, Sevieri 1999: 9394, and Finglass 2007: 43, 95, 98

to argue that the structure and syntax of lines 2225 mean that Pindar is choosing the second optionas the answer (with following gnomes); this misses the point that the poet did not have to mention the

sacrifice of Iphigeneia at all, but chose to include it.

33. Thus Sevieri 1999: 85, 102104, 10910, Finglass 2007: 4344.

34. Thus already Wilamowitz 1922: 261; see also Egan 1983: 19495, 199, Robbins 1986: 3,

Sevieri 1999: 104.

35. Cf. (e.g.) O.6.6180; O.7.3133, 3943; O.8.3133; O.13.6578; P.4.2037, 5356, 259

62; P.5.6062, 7576; P.9.5156a; P.10.4446; P.12.1819, 2223; N.5.3437; I.6.4950.

36. For this point, see Farnell 1932.2: 224, Burton 1962: 63, Most 1985: 2324, Finglass 2007:

46, Hubbard 2010: 194, and especially Athanassaki 2009: 45265, who argues that the presence

of Apollo and Apolline values in thefirst and third triads of P.11 strikingly contrasts with his marked

absence from the poems myth. Egan 1983: 19598 suggests one more version of Orestes as a

positive analogue for the victor: Orestes as an athlete (cf. Golden 1998: 95103). But for this (as

Finglass 2007: 4546 notes), there is absolutely no evidence in the text of P.11.



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By this survey I hope not only to have demonstrated what is inadequate

about attempts to read Pindars myth positively, but also to have highlighted what

seems genuinely anomalous within the mythic narrative in relation to audience

expectations for a typical epinikian myth. For such moments that seem aberrantor out of place may be tracers for another genre embedded within epinikion.37 So

at this point, let me shift to the intertextual issue. Scholars have long noted striking

dictional parallels between the two texts, which strongly suggest some kind of

relationship between them. But, by themselves, these verbal parallels cannot tell

us the direction of influence; Pindar may be echoing Aischylos, or Aischylos

Pindar.38 I want therefore to focus instead on the level of genre, for there seem to

me to be two moments in the poem at least that reference or gesture toward tragedy

in general or the Oresteia in particularmoments that are otherwise completely

anomalous within epinikion and in fact gratuitous within the development of the

poem itself.The first of these moments is the poets posing the question of Klytemnestras

motivation for killing Agamemnon when he has already launched into the myth:

.

P.11.2225

. . . pitiless woman that she was. Was it then Iphigeneia slaughtered upon

the Euripos, far away from her fatherland, that stung her to rouse her

anger, heavy in its execution? Or did the beddings by night lead her

astray, mastered in another mans couch?

L. R. Farnell already in 1932 noted that this narrative strategy, including the two

unanswered questions about Klytemnestras motivation, was aberrant for Pindar:

There is no parallel elsewhere in his works to this method of handling

an epic tale. . . . In fact, ll. 2230 can be best explained if we assume

that Pindar wrote them under the strong impression made on him by the

Agamemnonof Aeschylus, where the Iphigeneia sacrifice is a prominent

motive and is made the ground of this casuistic problem: whether it

accounted for and extenuated the guilt of Klutaimnestra?39

37. For a similar argument, see Kurke 1988.

38. During 1943 meticulously catalogues the dictional parallels; see also Hubbard 1990 for

close dictional parallels between the gnomic sequence of P.11.2530 and several choral passages of

the Agamemnon(on which more below). Both During and Hubbard assume that Pindar is influenced

by Aischylos, but this assumption is critiqued by Finglass 2007: 1112.

39. Farnell 1932.2: 224; cf. Bowra 1936: 140.



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Volume 32/ No. 1 / April 2013114

Farnells intuition was picked up and developed by John Herington, who ob-

serves that the posing of searching questions that remain unanswered about the

motivation for wrongdoing is unparalleled not just in Pindar but in all extant

non-dramatic lyric poetry through the end of the fifth century , whereas thisis precisely the stuffof tragedy. In addition, Herington points out that Pindars

questions briefly resume and replicate in the order in which they are presented

the structuring logic of the entireAgamemnon, where (as he notes) each of the two

possible motives figures prominently in lyric and dialogue, and is then capped

by a dramatic visual epiphany: first, what Herington calls the Troy-sequence by

the triumphant entrance of Agamemnon, accompanied by Kassandra, in a chariot;

second, the Atreus-sequence by the appearance of the gloating Aigisthos at the

end of the play. Herington concludes:

. . . in fact essentially the same pair of questions is asked about the moti-vation of the same individual, Clytaemnestra, in Aeschylus Agamemnonof 458 B.C. In that play the questions, so far from being posed in a brief

and as it were detachable passage, dominate the structure of the entire

work; and so far from being forgotten the moment they are uttered, they

demand the remainder of a great trilogy for their solution. . . . On the

evidence that we now possess. . .I would submit that the question of the

relative priority of the Agamemnon and the Eleventh Pythian answers

itself. The possibility that Aeschylus might have structured his greatest

masterpiece around a couple of totally uncharacteristic lines thrown out

for some inexplicable reason by Pindar in or shortly after 474 B.C. seems,to put it temperately, remote.40

Unlike thisfirst moment of generic anomaly that seems to point toward tragedy,

the second has (to my knowledge) gone completely unremarked by scholars,

though it is also odd or unusual in context. This is Pindars break-off formula

from the myth:

40. Herington 1984: 14045, quotation from p. 145. The anomalousness of these questions

within Pindars mythic narrative is in fact further supported by Youngs inability to account for

them in his otherwise compelling interpretation of the myth: Young 1968: 20 can only suggestthat these questions represent the contentof the mutterings of the evil-speaking fellow citizens

( , P.11.28), gossiping about Klytemnestra. Finglass 2007: 1113 attempts torebut Heringtons argument, but seems to me crucially to misunderstand Heringtons point about

these unanswered questions: thus Finglass compares the two unanswered questions here to questions

of fact like those at Bacch. 19.2936; but what Herington is focusing on is the question of an

individuals motivation raised and left unresolved. As Mark Griffith points out to me, the closest

parallel for such unanswered questions about a characters motivation outside of tragedy is Iliad

9.537 (referring to Oineus fatal error in not making a sacrificial offering to Artemis): (either he forgot or he didnt think of it). But this, I would contend, is a very differentmatter: in thefirst place, the two alternatives are almost synonymous (so we might read this instead

as a kind of Homeric redundancy); in the second place, this is a sin of omission rather than a sin

of commission/ motivation for terrible crime, and a brief moment rather than emphatic questions that

occupy several lines.



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, , ,

, , , , {} ,

P.11.3844

Indeed, friends, have I been whirled along a path-shifting crossroads,

though I was going a straight road before?41 Or has some wind cast me

outside my sailing, like a seagoing skiff? Muse, it is your task, since you

have contracted to furnish your voice silvered for a wage, to set [it] in

motion at different times in different ways, now, at any rate, either forhis father Pythonikos or for Thrasydaios.

To be sure, a break-off through the imagery of traveling or sailing is quite

characteristic of epinikion in its moment of transition back from mythic nar-

rative to praise of the victor and his house. Thus scholars have cited as paral-

lels for this passage Pythian 10.51, Nemean 3.2627, Nemean 4.6972, Bacch.

5.176, and Bacch. 10.5152.42 But what is in fact unparalleled in Pythian

11 is (1) the image of the crossroads () and (2) the doubling of thebreak-offformula (since in this instance the poet actually offers us two differ-

ent imagesfirst the crossroads, then a skiff blown off course at sea). Every

other Pindaric example offers sailing imagery in the break-off formula, where

in each case it participates in a larger system of imagery within the poem as

a whole. The Bacchylidean examples give us road imagery, but still no par-

allel for the crossroads.43 And, of course, we dont need the crossroads here

41. I follow Instone 1986: 89 and Finglass 2007: 66, 11011 in taking P.11.3839 as the

first of two questions (with appropriate punctuation). Here and throughout, I translate triodos as

crossroads, although I am well aware that the English term is unsatisfactorily foursquare in

contrast to the Greek. I acknowledge that fork in the road or place where three roads meet doa better job of capturing the image implicit in the Greek, but I will stick to crossroads, simply

in order not to have to use a whole phrase each time.

42. Thus Young 1968: 5 with n.2, Race 1980: 56, Egan 1983: 199n.32. All three scholars

also cite as a parallel P.10.16, but note that, while this is a break-off, it is not a transition back

from myth to praise of the victor, nor does it deploy travel imagery.

43. The closest parallel is Bacch. 10.5152: / ;(Why, having straightened a long tongue, do I drive outside of the road?). But here, notice, the

poet has driven off the roadthere is still no suggestion of a choice of paths at a crossroads. It

is also worth noting that the crossroads image does not occur in any of the rich array of parallel

return from digression passages assembled by Race 1980. For the argument that the imagery of

these break-off passages generally participates in a larger system of imagery within the poem as

a whole (wherein the poet is imagined to be traveling to the myth and returning therefrom), see

Kurke 1991: 4961.



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Volume 32 / No. 1 / April 2013116

at all; without it, the image of the ship blown off course would be entirely

conventional.44

I would suggest that the image of the crossroads is another gesture toward

tragedy. For it is worth noting the precise moment in the myth at which this highlyemotional and abrupt break-off occurs: the poet has just mentioned Orestes

killing of his mother and Aigisthos. It is almost as if the mention of a childs

murderous violence against a parent conjures up reflexively, inevitably that most

famous crossroads of allthesomewhere in the neighborhood of Thebesor Delphi where Oidipous met and unknowingly slew his own father.45 And, of

course, this story of the doomed Oidipous within the House of Laios was a staple

of the Athenian tragic stage, so we need not suppose a speci fic allusion to any

particular play that treated the Theban saga.46 Still, it is an intriguing fact that

the only extant fragment of more than a single word likely to derive from one

of the lost tragedies of Aischylos Theban trilogy of 467 actually contains the

44. The treatment of Race 1980: 45 is revealing in this regard, since he discusses only the

ship image (for which there are good parallels) and never mentions the image of the crossroads. He

thereby makes clear how completely gratuitous the crossroads image is within this doubled break-off.

As far as I can tell, Burton 1962: 6869 and Bowra 1964: 315 alone acknowledge that this is a double

break-off, combining two images, the boat and the road. Bowras explanation: The myth has

a fierce, even tragic character, and Pindar must return to the gaiety of the present celebration. He

manages to do so by changing his tone with reference to himself and putting the grave temper of

the myth behind him. Cf. Burton 1962: 69, who regards the image of the skiffblown off course

as humorous. I have to admit that I dont find anything particularly gay (in Bowras sense) about

the crossroads image.

45. The objection might be made that the in fact conjures up the myth of Oidipous,but it is a myth familiar from other literary sources than tragedyespecially from the well-known

epic Oidipodeia, the first of the four epics of the Theban Cycle, and from sixth-century lyric. But

it is a fallacy to assume that a single unitary myth of Oidipous existed in all its details separate

from multiple different instantiations in spoken tales, literary texts, and visual representations which

were also subject to change and development over time; for the complexity and variety of different

versions of the Oidipous story before Sophokles, see Robert 1915, De Kock 1961, 1962, Edmunds

1983, 1985, Rusten 1996. The point is, with so little preserved of the earlier epic and lyric versions,

we do not really know how prominently these versions featured the fateful meeting of father and

son at a crossroads. It is clear, however, that the encounter at the crossroads played a prominent

part in tragic versions of the story (for which, see discussion in text).

The closest parallel for this metaphorical use ofis Thgn. 911:

(where the poet expresses his indecision between two paths of lifetospend like theres no tomorrow, or to be thrifty and make his property last). But, as Finglass 2007:

109 notes, the image in Theognis is somewhat different, since the metaphorical turning has not yet

occurred. I would add that it is the peculiar cluster of mention of killing of a parent, the, thelack of conscious control implied in, and the strange adjectivethat makes theimagery of Pindars break-offso resonant of Oidipous and tragedynone of which finds a parallel in

the Theognidean usage.

46. Given the stature of the Theban epics, it seems likely that they provided source material

for tragic reworking in the forty to fifty or so years of tragic competitions before Aischylos presented

his version, but our evidence about Athenian tragic performances in the early fifth century is so

exiguous that we cannot be sure. Thus, we have almost no titles preserved for the earliest tragic

playwrights, but one wonders (for example) about the contents of 160 plays attributed by the Suda

to Choirilos; Snell suggests that this means 40 tetralogies (Snell 1971: 66 ad Choirilos Test. 1).

But note West 1989: 254n.16, who contends that the Sudas figure of 160 dramas for Choirilos is



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word , in the context of a description of the place where Oidipous andLaios met:

, .

Aischylos fr. 173 N2 = fr. 387a Radt47

We were going along the wheel-driven crossroads of a split way, where we

crossed the Potnian meeting-places of three roads [i.e., the convergence

of three roads at Potniai].

Some scholars have objected to the extreme redundancy of these lines, with

their four words for roads, double mention of three, and two different terms to

designate the crossroads or split way, suspecting corruption in the paradosis.48

Karl Reinhardt, by contrast, contended that this redundancy was a deliberate way

of marking and making vivid this location, suggesting that these lines may have

served to introduce a messenger speech about the killing of Laios that revealed

the truth in all its horror to Oidipous. On this account, the crossroads as the site

of Oidipous killing of Laios may have been given extraordinary prominence in

Aischylos tragic version.49

I am thus suggesting that the resonant place where three roads meet might

have had a particular association with tragic drama already by the mid-fifth

centuryin this sense akin to what Oliver Taplin and Peter Wilson have argued

for the Erinyes after 458: the Erinyes seem to have become, after the Oresteia,something of a symbol of tragedy, an emblem of its tragic horrors. It is quite

possible that this is the result of the impact of the Oresteia itself.50 So notice:

even though Erinyesfigure in earlier poetic treatments, both epic and lyric, they

can come to be a symbol of tragedy in subsequent literary texts and visual

iconography. Here it may be objected that this is because Aischylos put the

scarcely credible given the much lower numbers offered by the same source for Thespis (4 plays)

and Phrynichos (9 plays). For epic versions as a source for early tragedy, see Herington 1985: 6770,

12844, Seaford 1994: 36062. We do know of at least four otherfifth-centuryOidipous tragedies

composed and performed (besides those of the big three)by Achaios, Nikomachos, Philokles,and Xenokles (all based on titles reported in the Suda and Hesychius; see Snell 1971 for Testimonia).

All four of these playwrights were probably active in the second half of the fifth century.

47. I reproduce the text of Radt 1985, who follows Bruhn in reading in the lastline instead of the mss (printed by Nauck). In addition, Nauck followed Valckenaer inattributing this fragment without hesitation to Aischylos Oidipous(the second play of the trilogy of

which the Seven Against Thebes was the third); Radt 1985 more cautiously categorizes it among

the Incertarum Fabularum, pointing out that it might have occurred in the Laios(thefirst play of

the trilogy) just as plausibly as in the Oidipous. As we shall see below, Nauck had an additional

reason for attributing it to theOidipous; in either case, the fragment is likely to come from Aischylos

Theban trilogy of 467 .

48. Thus (e.g.) Wilamowitz 1958: 126; Hutchinson 1985: xix.

49. Reinhardt 1966: 35253, 1979: 117, 256n.21.

50. Taplin and Wilson 1993: 176.



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Volume 32/ No. 1 / April 2013118

Erinyes on the stage as live actors, and that that makes all the difference. Yet

we might claim a similar visualization or literalization for the triodos, since, as

Oliver Taplin has observed, The Greek stage is, in a sense, the place where three

roads meet. For Taplin, this is literally as well asfiguratively true, because of thethree entrances (eisodoi) to theorchestra.51

Certainly the Oidipous story came to carry a special resonance later as

emblematic of tragedy itself. For this one might even think of the moment of

revelation in SophoklesOidipous Tyrannos, where the chorus of Theban elders

react by designating Oidipous aof human suffering (OT1193), but itwas certainly the case by the time of the fourth-century comic poet Antiphanes,

complaining that it is much easier to compose tragedy than comedy, since all you

have to do is mention Oidipous and the spectators know the whole story:

The art of tragic composition is fortunate in every way, since, in the firstplace, the stories are well known to the spectators, even before anyone

says anything, so that the poet need only remind them. Thus Oidipous, and they know all the rest: his father Laios, his

mother Jokaste, who his daughters and sons were, what this one will

suffer, what he did.

Antiphanes fr. 189 KA, ll. 1852

But do we have any evidence for this marked association of Oidipous in general,

and the crossroads in particular, with tragedy already in the mid-fifth century?

Tantalizingly, theOresteiaitself may provide such evidence, for Aischylos seemsto allude to key features of the Oidipous story in the parodos of the Agamemnon:

,

51. Taplin 1982: 157. See also the wonderful elaboration of this point by George Steiner, in

the discussion after Taplins paper (ap. Taplin 1982; p. 181): Whereas Hercules choice between

tworoads is characteristic of the binary typology of choices between virtue and vice, light and dark,

life and death etc., a triadic configuration, as we find it in the Oidipous myths and on the Greek

stage, points to what is structurally, topologically and existentiallyundecidable. It almost defines the

recursively ambiguous, perplexing and formally indefinite ending of certain great tragic conflicts

and their representations. Hecate of thetrivia, the burial of suicides at the junction of three-roads,

intimate some almost archetypal association between triodoi and the tragic. The very fact that the

third road is the one which leads backward, is key to the Oidipous myth. As Vernant says, this

is a myth of fatal homecoming (italics in original). On the triodos and tragedy, I have also found

helpful and suggestive Halliwell 1986, Rusten 1996, Taplin 2010.

52. For other places where Oidipous becomes paradigmatic for tragedy, cf. PlatoLaws8.838c,

Plut.Mor. 348f49a.



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, .

Ag. 7282

But we, uncommissioned, with aged body, left out of the defense-forcethen, wait behind plying strength equal to a childs upon staffs. For as

the young marrow leaping up within breasts is equal to that of an old man

and Ares is not in his place, so the hyper-aged, with its foliage already

withering, goes on three-footed ways, and he [the old man], no strongerthan a child, wanders, a dream appearing in daytime.

Scholars have long recognized that the self-characterization of the Argive elders

here alludes to the riddle of the Sphinx in its evocation of two of the three

different stages of human life and its reference to old men going three-footed

(, 80) with the support of staffs ( , 75).53

But commentatorsgenerally offer no explanation for this echo; we might imagine that it serves to

contribute to the riddling, oracular tone that is so marked a feature of the parodos,

thereby anticipating especially the old mens lyric narrative of the bird omen and

its interpretation (ll. 10457).54 This may well be, but why evoke this specific

riddle? In addition, it is striking that the chorus language, while echoing the riddle

of the Sphinx, also fleetingly conjures an image of the crossroads by the phrase

.55 With this typically pregnant and polysemous Aischyleanphrase, the chorus manages to evoke simultaneously both of Oidipous two great

crimeshis parricide at the crossroads and his solving of the riddle of the Sphinx,

whose reward was his incestuous marriage with his mother. Indeed, we mighteven push further the link between this riddling self-identification, with its echoes

of Oidipous, and the chorus lyric narration of the omen to the Atreidai, which

begins, of course, with another self-identification and assertion of their special

authority:

Ag. 10410656

I am empowered to cry aloud the auspicious command met on the roadthe command of men in their prime; for still from the gods the age that

has grown together with me breathes down upon me persuasion of songs

as my [warlike] strength.

53. Thus (e.g.) Robert 1915.1: 57, Thomson 1938.2: 13, Fraenkel 1950.2: 50.

54. Thanks to Mark Griffith for this point.

55. Thanks to Peter Wilson for calling my attention to this passage.

56. This is, of course, a textually vexed passage; the text offered here mainly follows that of

Fraenkel 1950.1: 96, except that I read rather thanat l. 105 (with Thomson 1938,Page 1975, West 1998). For the interpretation and translation of the complex phrase

, I follow Thomson 1938.2: 1415, Denniston and Page 1972: 77.



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Here, echoes , while suppliesthe third term gapped from the chorus earlier evocation of the Sphinx riddle

men in their prime. This set of echoes, I would suggest, subliminally associates

this fateful bird-sign that leads to kin murder (father of daughter) with Oidipouscrossroads and thefirst irrevocable action of his tragedy.

Finally, it is striking that this double evocation of Oidipous occurs at the

moment that the chorus of Argive elders first introduces itself in the parodos of

the first play of the trilogy. If we are willing to see a meta-theatrical element in

this chorus self-references (as some scholars have suggested), it is almost as if

Aischylos chorus of Argive old men establish and ground their tragic authority

by the conjuration of Oidipous.57 Thus Aischylos own allusions to the Oidipous

story in theAgamemnonparodos may suggest that the crossroads and the riddle of

the Sphinx had already come to emblematize tragedy tout courtby the mid-fifth

century. So, to be clear: I am not insisting on a specific echo of Aischylos Thebantrilogy of 467, since it seems likely that there would have been other earlier

tragedies based on the Oidipous myth.

A possible allusion to tragedy in would also enrich our understandingof the striking adjective that modifies the crossroads in Pythian 11, the Pindaric

hapax. The path-shifting crossroads where, it turns out, the poetspersona may have taken a wrong turn even though he thought he was following

a straight roadwhat better image for the fateful action of Oidipous, as for

the quandary ofhairesisof tragic characters in general?58 To have made a major

life choice and be pursuing its ramifications, entirely unaware of having done

sothis is the very essence of the tragic dilemma. Thus we might say Pindar

maps out a generic topography, in which epinikion represents the straight road

of praise, while tragedy is figured by the unstable and terrifying landscape of the

path-shifting crossroads.59

57. For a meta-theatrical aspect to this chorus self-references, see Taplin and Wilson 1993, esp.

p. 170 on the parodos; cf. Pucci 1992: 51516, DAlessio forthcoming.

58. Again, although I am not insisting on a specific echo of Aischylos lines from 467, we might

note that the first element in Pindars unique compound is built on a dialect form of

the same verb used in line 3 of the Aischylean fr. 387a Radt (cited above, p. 117; ). Inaddition, it may be significant that Orestes in the Choephoroiuses a very similar image of driving

offthe course in the episode immediately after his killing of Klytemnestra, at the moment he begins

to go mad: In order that you know, since I dont know in what way it will end, just as if with horses I

twist the reins outside the course ( /;Cho. 102223)Cf. the response of the chorus at Cho. 105152, What are these fancies that whirl you? ( . . . ;), which Garvie 1986: 346 takes to be an image drawn from a storm atsea. If we accept Garvies interpretation of the latter passage, Orestes matricide and its attendant

madness/pursuit by the Furies generate in quick succession the images of driving off the road and

being whirled in a storm at sea (i.e., the two images Pindar uses in his break-offfrom the myth of

P.11). Thanks to Mark Griffith for all these points.

59. Relevant here also is the wonderful observation of DAlessio 2010: 5 that the specific terms

of Pindars invocation of the Muse lay bare the device of lyric narration (I would say, ofepinikian

narration). To my knowledge, scholars never pause to ask why Pindar should choose to refer to



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I would finally note that both these moments that seem distinctly to allude

to or conjure up tragedy are flagged by a phrase beginning a new antistrophe

that scans as a self-contained iambic metron: at line 22 introduces the

two unresolved questions of the queens motivation, while the exclamation , at line 38 immediately precedes the image of the path-shifting crossroads.John Herington, who noted this metrical effectas it were an iambic metron

clipped out of the choriambic dimeter which begins each strophe/antistrophe in

this songalso points out that it occurs only three times in the entire ode (the

third being the poems opening invocation ). That is to say, in bothcases (P.11.22, 38), a passage I would identify as an allusion to tragedy based

on its content or imagery is marked in performance by an isolated phrase that

sounds a few notes of a tragic iambic trimeter.60

Indeed, once we recognize these two marked allusions, it is hard to resist the

impression that Pindars entire complex lyric web of myth and gnome resonateswith the poetry of AischylosOresteia, especially that of the haunting and doom-

laden choruses of theAgamemnon. We might consider in this respect the gnomic

sequence embedded in the myth of Pythian 11, whose logic and connections have

long troubled scholars:

the contractual obligation that is a distinctive feature of epinikion right here; I would suggest that

this is intended to draw the contrast as sharply as possible between tragedy (evoked by )and epinikion. So, notice, that the one other place Pindar refers explicitly to the epinikian contract

(I.2.111) also occurs in the context of a generic contrast (with the monodic paideioi humnoi of

the older poets Alkaios, Ibykos, and Anakreon, in a passage where Pindar seems to be quoting or

alluding to at least two of the three); on all this, see Woodbury 1968, Kurke 1991: 24146.

60. Herington 1984: 139n.6. Of these three instances, Herington wants to isolate and focus

on just in l. 22, but his metrical observation can instead be used to link together thetwo phrases at l. 22 and l. 38 and argue for their common resonance of tragic meter. In fact, a

stop at the end of the first metron after enjambement (that would correspond to a phrase like ) is extremely rare in tragic iambic trimeter: thus Denniston (1936: 7379) and Griffith (1977:9799) count a total of three major stops and nine minor stops in this position after enjambement

in the six genuine plays of Aischylos (of which three and two, respectively, occur in the Oresteia). In

addition, Garvie (1986: 336) notes three more examples of a stop at the end of the first metron without

enjambement in the previous line: Cho . 233, 481, 523, the last two mitigated, as Garvie notes, by a

vocativejust like , at P.11.38. It may be significant that of the three occurrences of

a major stop after enjambement in this position in the Oresteia, two occur in speeches of Orestes inthe episode immediately after his killing of Klytemnestra: Cho. 994, 1023, the latter (strikingly)

on the wordin Orestes image of twisting the reins outside the course (cited above, n.58).The single occurrence of this phenomenon with a major stop in theAgamemnon is Klytemnestras

cruel sexual slur on Kassandra,(Ag. 1443).It must also be acknowledged that the final long alpha of clearly marks it as a lyric,

rather than a tragic trimeter form, as does the style of musical performance; nonetheless this does

not, I think, invalidate the aural evocation of tragic rhythm. For a lyric parallel for the dramatically

deferred enjambed to the first line of the antistrophe, cf. Aes. Cho. 46, ,significantly deferred to the end of a three-line sentence and enjambed to a new line. (On this parallel,

see Finglass 2007: 12, noting that these two significantly placed phrases seem too similar to be

the product of chance. But there is no indication of which came first). Finally, for, notealso the rare metrical effect by which the poet lengthens the last syllable, bestowing on the word

an unusual metrical emphasis.



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25

. . 30 ,

,

.P.11.2434

Or did the beddings by night lead her astray, mastered in another mans

couch? But this straying [wrongdoing] is most hateful for young wives

and impossible to conceal on account of other peoples tongues; for

fellow-citizens speak evil. For blessedness/prosperity holds no less envy,

and the one of lowly ambition roars invisibly.61 And so he died himself,

the hero, son of Atreus, at glorious Amyklai, when he came there in time,

and he caused the death of the maiden seer, when over Helen he had

loosed the houses of the Trojans, burnt, of their luxury.

The sequence of gnomes in lines 2830 once drove W. J. Slater to resort to the

claim that Pindaric gnomes are like stepping stones across a river; they serve

simply to get the poet from Point A to Point B and otherwise leave no residue

of significance or semantic function.62 This is an argument from desperation,

but it is, I would contend, telling that it is precisely this gnomic sequence that

inspired Slaters extreme position. For we are used to certain kinds of shifting

or ambiguity within Pindaric gnomes in relation to their context, but this sequence

feels different somehow.63 It is, I would suggest, modeled on the peculiar kind

of ambiguity and referential complexity we associate with Aischylean choruses

especially those of the simultaneously befuddled and visionary Argive elders of

the Agamemnon. Thus notice that P.11.28, , initially refersto Klytemnestras adultery, but then, over the next two lines (pivoting on the

ideas of and ) the focus of civic hostility wavers and shifts, until

61. In the translation and interpretation of l. 30 I follow Hubbard 1990 vs. Gerber 1983. Gerbers

interpretation seems to me to ignore the semantic content of, and to underestimate the functionof this gnome within the logic of the entire poem.

62. Slater 1979: 6566.

63. For analysis of specific forms of Pindaric ambiguity in gnomic sequences, see Illig 1932: 61

and Hubbard 1985: 14345 (on the shifting from subjective to objective reference in gnomes, or

vice versa).



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with lines 3134, the ominous patronymic and the elaboration of theruthless destruction of Troy for its wealth attach this weirdly free- floating citizen

resentment to the conquering Agamemnon himself.

In this sequence Pindar boldly and brilliantly reenacts in compacted form thewhole lyric development of the first stasimon of the Agamemnon, which starts

with the chorus victory cheer (Ag. 355402), only to modulate through their

lyric remembrance of Helenflitting offto Troy and the emptying of her beautiful

images of erotic , to the grim image of Ares, gold-changer of corpsesand all that follows from that:64

440 -

- .

- , 445

, - -, - . 450

, -

. 455

, 460

Ag. 43762

But Ares, gold-changer of corpses and the one who holds the scales of

the spear balanced in battle, sends to their dear ones, fired from Ilion,

dust heavy with tears in exchange for a man, cramming the containers

with the ash easily packed. And they groan, praising a manthis one

as skilled in battle; that one that he fell nobly amidst slaughtersfor the

sake of another mans woman. These things someone barks in silence, and

envious pain creeps surreptitiously against the avenging sons of Atreus.

64. Text follows Page 1975; there are only minor divergences in West 1998.



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But those beautiful [young men] hold graves of Iliadic earth, there around

the city-wall, and enemy [land] has hidden those who possess it. But the

utterance of the citizens is heavy with anger, and it pays the debt [owed]

of a curse ratified by the people. And my anxious thought waits to hearsomething hidden in darkness, since the gods are not without regard for

those who have killed many. . . .

Here we have burning and Troy, then the imperceptible shift from the citizens

praise of their own men ( ) to hostile, envious () mutteringagainst the Atreidai for the terrible costs of war. This montage of civic resentment

then leads to the chorus slow, dawning realization that the gods are not without

regard for those who have killed many (Ag. 46162), eventuating in turn in their

panicked back-pedaling and ultimate rejection of Klytemnestras proclaimed news

of the successful capture of Troy (Ag. 47587).65

In addition, we might note the way in which the very general phrasing of

lines 2527But this straying is most hateful for new wives and impossible

to conceal on account of other peoples tongues ( )applies not just to Klytemnestras adultery with Aigisthos, but to Helens original

straying with Paris (especially given the way in which the word attaches so damningly and so insistently to Helen in the powerful movement

of the first stasimon of the Agamemnon). But, to be clear: within Pindars own

mythic narrative, this weird double reference, conflating Helen and Klytemnestra,

is entirely gratuitouswe might almost say subconscious or subterranean. It is

perhaps only intertextually significant; for by this brief, shimmering evocationof Helen behind Klytemnestra, Pindars sequence reenacts even more closely the

fateful and terrible balancing between Helen and the Argive dead Aischylos first

stasimon performs. Finally, it is worth noting that the collapse or conflation of

Klytemnestra and her adulterous sister is itself an Aischylean lyric topos that

pervades the choruses of theAgamemnon.66

Thus, as with the unanswered questions of motivation posed at lines 2225,

the shifty, morphing gnomic sequence of lines 2830 seems peculiarly Aischylean.

And both moments together, I would contend, rebut the scholarly resort to

65. Farnell 1932.2: 224 and Hubbard 1990: 34851 connect this gnomic sequence in P.11 with

the peoples envy and hostility as articulated in the first stasimon of the Agamemnon; Hubbard also

cites Ais. Ag. 1030, [] (which he interprets somewhat differentlyfrom Fraenkel ad loc.). For Pindars strategically placed, cf. also Ag . 78385, the chorusincredibly ominous first address to the returning Agamemnon as sacker of Troy, offspring of Atreus.

66. For the applicability of this gnome to Helen as well as Klytemnestra, see Newman 1979:

59n.1, Sevieri 1999: 101; for the Aischylean conflation of the

Pindaro Pítica 11 y Orestia

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