Pythian 6.1-54

My comments on this song of Pindar, Pythian 6, which celebrates the victory of a four-horse chariot team sponsored by Xenokrates of Akragas in the chariot race of 490 BCE at the Pythian Festival in Delphi, will be tied to other comments, planned for further postings, on four other songs of Pindar: Olympian 2 and 3; Isthmian 2; and a skolion addressed to Thrasyboulos (Fragment 124). All five songs are relevant to the Emmenidai, a lineage of tyrants who ruled in various cities of Sicily in the early fifth century BCE. The figure of Thrasyboulos, son of Xenokrates, is of special relevance. Even the name of Thrasyboulos is relevant to the glory that is being conferred on him by the medium of Pindar. The element thrasu+ ‘bold’ of his name conveys the idea of impulsiveness in action, while the element +boulos ‘planning’ conveys the idea of restraint by way of deliberation before taking action. I argue that the original naming of Thrasyboulos by his family had already programmed him from birth to be modeled on the epic hero Antilokhos, who once upon a time followed the advice of his father Nestor by acting in a way that combined impulsiveness and restraint on the occasion of driving Nestor’s chariot in the Chariot Race as narrated in Iliad 23: first Antilokhos acted impulsively by executing a reckless maneuver in overtaking the chariot team of Menelaos, but then he acted with admirable restraint by not losing his temper when the older man insulted him in anger over a loss that was rightly blamed on the recklessness of the younger man: instead, Antilokhos engaged in wise deliberation, resulting in a coming to terms with Menelaos. I have published in other comments an analysis of this narrative about Antilokhos. The poetic paradigm of Antilokhos as a model for Thrasyboulos applies also to the fatal occasion, narrated at P.6.28–51, when Antilokhos impulsively rescues the life of his own father by neglecting to deliberate within himself about his own safety. The death of Antilokhos, as narrated here , was also narrated in a part of the epic Cycle, the Aithiopis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus, as we read in the plot-summary of Proclus p. 106 lines 4–6 (ed. Allen 1912). And there is a passing reference to the death of Antilokhos in O.04.186–188. I have published elsewhere an analysis of the overall narrative about this heroic. The death of Antilokhos was narrated also in the visual arts. A most striking example is a battle scene depicted in the relief sculpture of the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi, where we see Achilles battling with Memnon and Aeneas over the possession of the dead body of Antilokhos. I show here a reconstructed version of that relief sculpture, featuring a close-up of the fighting over the dead hero’s body. In this particular reconstruction, an attempt has been made to restore the original colors painted on the stone.

The expression ὕμνων θησαυρός ‘treasury [thēsauros] of songs [humnoi]’ at P.6.7–8, referring to the songs that glorify Xenokrates and the whole lineage of the Emmenidai, is surely relevant to the relief sculpture of the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi, which as we have just seen accentuates the death scene of Antilokhos. Just as the verbal art of song memorializes this heroic death in Pythian 6, so too the visual art of relief sculpture memorializes it on the exterior surface of the Siphnian Treasury. A ‘treasury of songs’, revealing a poetic architecture of its own, corresponds to the songs that are visualized in the relief sculpture of the Siphnian Treasury. On this point, I recommend the article of Kenneth D. Shapiro (1988) about the relief sculpture adorning the Treasury of the Siphnians at Delphi.