Notes on Pindar's Dithyrambs

Notes on Pindar’s Dithyrambs Enrico Emanuele Prodi, Oxford Abstract: Il presente articolo argomenta che il fr. 85 M. di Pindaro proviene dal ditirambo citato da schol. Pind. Ol. 3.25c Drachmann (fr. 71 M.) (parte I), quindi esamina il significato e i sottesi del fr. 83 M., prima isolatamente e poi in relazione al fr. 75 M., al quale è stato attribuito per congettura (parte II). Dopo aver mostrato il vero significato di ἐν … τῶι πρώτωι τῶν διθυράμβων in schol. Pind. Ol. 3.25c Drachmann (parte III), propone che il fr. 75 M. possa essere stato posto in apertura al primo libro dei Ditirambi pindarici e che i frr. 71 e 85 M. si possano ricondurre allo stesso componimento (parte IV). Keywords: Pindar, dithyrambs, fragments, Boeotia, ecdotics. I Frr. 71, 85 M. In the thirteenth Olympian, Pindar enlists the dithyramb in a parade of Corinthian inventions (vv. 18–22):1 ταὶ Διονύσου πόθεν ἐξέφανεν σὺν βοηλάται χάριτες διθυράμβωι; τίς γὰρ ἱππείοις ἐν ἔντεσσιν μέτρα, ἢ θεῶν ναοῖσιν οἰωνῶν βασιλέα δίδυμον ἐπέθηκ’; Whence did the delights of Dionysos appear with the ox-driving dithyramb? Who then added the restrainer to the horse’s gear or the twin kings of birds to the temples of the gods? (transl. Race) A scholion references two other places where Pindar linked the invention of the dithyramb with different localities (schol. BCEQ 25c, I p. 361 Drachmann): Section I of this article was first presented as part of a lecture at Venice International University on 13th March 2018. I am grateful to all participants in the discussion that followed, especially Ettore Cingano and Stefano Vecchiato. Fragments of Pindar are cited according to Maehler 1989 (“M.”). 1 Commentators since scholl. BDEQ 26b, BCEQ 26c, I p. 362 Drachmann must be right that the reference is to Arion, who was the first to compose and produce a dithyramb in Corinth and was part of the tyrant Periander’s entourage (Hdt. 1.23–4; Aristotle too according to Procl. Chrest. 43 Severyns ap. Phot. Bibl. p. 320a Bekker): see e. g. D’Angour 1997, 348; Ieranò 1997, 171; Lomiento in Gentili et al. 2013, 596–597; Briand 2014, 181; Spelman 2018, 256. * Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 Notes on Pindar’s Dithyrambs ὁ Πίνδαρος δὲ ἐν μὲν τοῖς ὑπορχήμασιν ἐν Νάξωι φησὶ πρῶτον εὑρεθῆναι διθύραμβον, ἐν δὲ τῶι πρώτωι τῶν διθυράμβων ἐν Θήβαις, ἐνταῦθα δὲ ἐν Κορίνθωι. Pindar says in the Hyporchemes that the dithyramb was first invented in Naxos, in the first of the Dithyrambs in Thebes, and here (sc. in this passage) in Corinth. This notice appears in the Teubner Pindar among both the Dithyrambs (fr. 71 M.) and the Hyporchemes (fr. 115 M.). It seems to have escaped general notice that there is another possible fragment from the same composition as fr. 71, namely fr. 85 M. This fragment is preserved in slightly different forms by one manuscript of the lexicon falsely attributed to St Cyril and by some of the Byzantine Etymologica, perhaps deriving from Herodian (Περὶ παθῶν 643, II p. 375 Lentz).2 In all these texts it is part of a longer entry on διθύραμβος. Here follows the relevant part of the versions preserved by cod. Vindob. phil. gr. 319 of Cyril (first published by Bergk 21853, 246) and by the Etymologicum Genuinum (AB 53, p. 23 Calame) and Gudianum (d marg., II p. 363 De Stefani):3 ὁ Πίνδαρος λυθίραμμόν φησι αὐτόν· καὶ γὰρ ὁ Ζεὺς τικτομένου (Vecchiato: τικτόμενος cod.) αὐτοῦ ἔκραζεν “λῦθι λῦθι ῥάμμα”. Pindar calls him lythirammos, because Zeus, when he (sc. Dionysus) was being born, kept screaming “unstitch, unstitch the seam!” ὁ δὲ Πίνδαρός φησι λυθίραμβον· καὶ γὰρ Ζεὺς τικτομένου αὐτοῦ ἔκραζεν “λῦθι ῥάμμα, λῦθι ῥάμμα”· λυθίραμβος καὶ διθύραμβος κατὰ τροπὴν καὶ πλεονασμόν. A possible alternative is Didymus’ Περὶ λυρικῶν ποιητῶν (IV 9 Schmidt = XXXIX Coward-Prodi), which dealt with the lyric genres and their characteristics (including, crucially, the etymology of their names) and is known to have been among the sources of the Byzantine Etymologica. Didymus was also a source of Proclus’ Chrestomathy, which preserved a version of these materials, though without the ascription to Pindar (42 Severyns ap. Phot. Bibl. p. 320a Bekker). On Didymus’ treatise see Grandolini 1999; Prodi 2020, 22–23. 3 The other Etymologica that preserve versions of the same entry are that of Simeon (EF δ 260, p. 107 Baldi), the Etymologicum Magnum (p. 274 Callierges/col. 789 Gaisford), and the Μεγάλη γραμματική (CPV δ 260, p. 107 Baldi). All of these align more or less closely with the text given by the Genuinum, for the relevant part of which an apparatus can also be found in Baldi ad loc. The ‘Etymologicum Angelicanum’ still cited by van der Weiden 1991, 227 and Lavecchia 2000, 72 as a separate witness belongs to an interpolated recension of the Gudianum: Reitzenstein 1897, 87–89; Cellerini 1988, 27. — The relationship between the Vienna ms. of Cyril and the Etymologica is unclear. Reciprocal contamination is known to have occurred between some mss. of the Vatican recension of Cyril (v) and the Etymologicum Gudianum (Reitzenstein 1897, 84–90; Naoumides 1979, 111–113; Cellerini 1988, 26–27), but the Vienna ms. belongs to the Laurentian recension (g), teste Naoumides 1979, 116. The available evidence would point to this gloss being an interpolation originating in the etymological tradition (the reverse is a less attractive possibility if this gloss is a unicum in the mss. of Cyril), but in the absence of further information about the text of the Vindobonensis and its position in the complex and still underexplored transmission of Cyril, a definite conclusion is out of reach. 2 Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 195 196 Enrico Emanuele Prodi Pindar says lythirambos, because Zeus, when he (sc. Dionysus) was being born, kept screaming “unstitch the seam, unstitch the seam!”; lythirambos and dithyrambos by change and addition. [Πίν]δαρος δέ φησιν ὅτι τίκτων αὐτὸν ἐπεβόα ὁ Ζεὺς “λῦθι λῦθι ῥάμμα”, ἵνʼ ἦι λυθίραμμος4 καὶ ἐν τροπῆι διθύραμβος. Pindar says that, when giving birth to him (sc. Dionysus), Zeus kept yelling “unstitch, unstitch the seam!”, which makes lythirammos and, with a change, dithyrambos. The fragment clearly belongs within a mythical aetiology of the dithyramb, just as the scholion said of fr. 71 M. The episode is that of Zeus giving birth to Dionysus from his thigh; his entreaty to “unstitch the seam” (lythi rhamma) which held the unborn god is said to have given the song, and the god himself, its name. Dionysus’ birthplace was famously disputed already in antiquity. The first Homeric Hymn to Dionysus lists five alternatives – including Naxos and Thebes (vv. 2, 5) – before branding them as lies and asserting the god’s birth in Nyse, which the poet places in the southernmost part of Phoenicia.5 But the localisation of Nysa/Nyse – a place more mythical than real which provided a convenient folk etymology for the god’s name – was itself contested. ὄρος οὐ καθʼ ἕνα τόπον, says Hesychius before listing fifteen possible locations, including Naxos (ν 742 Latte). πόλεις πολλαί, goes Stephanus of Byzantium, introducing a numbered list of ten which includes Naxos and Boeotia (ν 83 Billerbeck). A D-scholion to the Iliad proffers nine, neatly divided between mountains (including the Nysai in Naxos and Boeotia), cities, and islands (Ζ 133/Ys van Thiel2 ). As the D-scholion observes, the ἠγάθεον Νυσήϊον of Iliad 6.133 must be located in Thrace even though the poet does not say so explicitly; the Homeric Hymn, as we saw, places Nyse in Phoenicia; Herodotus, in Ethiopia (2.146.2, cf. 3.97.2). Pindar too said that Dionysus was born and raised on mount Nysa (fr. *85a M.), but the Etymologica that transmit this piece of information (perhaps once again going back to Herodian: Περὶ ὀρθογραφίας, II p. 492 Lentz)6 do not specify where the mountain may have been or wheth- As De Stefani notes and the photographs confirm (https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Barb.gr.70), it is unclear whether prior to being damaged d had λυθίραμμος like the Vienna Cyril or λυθίραμβος like the Genuinum and the other Etymologica. 5 Line-numbers of the Hymn are taken from West 2003, which takes account of the papyri. West 2011, 34–39; 2012, 238–239 dates it very early – to the mid-seventh century at the latest – in the belief that it influenced the Iliad and other Homeric Hymns. Dihle 2002 makes a case for a date not before the Hellenistic age; this, however, becomes impossible if Hunter and Fuhrer 2002, 172–173 are correct that Callimachus alluded to the opening of Dionysus in that of his own Hymn to Zeus, implying that the former was older and suggesting that the scholar-poet knew a collection of Homeric Hymns which opened with Dionysus. 6 Genuinum AB 54, p. 23 Calame; Magnum, p. 277 Callierges/col. 797 Gaisford. The mythological material – but not the crucial ὡς Πίνδαρος – is also present in the Gudianum (d marg., II p. 367 De 4 Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 Notes on Pindar’s Dithyrambs er Pindar gave any indication to that effect in the poem – which may or may not have been the same poem as fr. 85 M.7 So we cannot be certain where Pindar located the episode he narrated in fr. 85 M. ‘Where’ in geographical, but also in bibliographical terms. Maehler edits the fragment among the Dithyrambs, following a tradition that goes back to the eighteenth century;8 the lack of an asterisk before the number indicates certainty on his part as to the attribution to that book. But while it stands to reason that an aetiology of the dithyramb should be narrated in a dithyramb, there is no testimony or proof of this fact. Indeed, the Pindaric scholion quoted at the beginning of this article shows that the origin of the dithyramb could be told in poems assigned to different genres: epinicians, dithyrambs, hyporchemes. However, such tellings can happen in very different ways. The reference in Olympian 13 is nothing more than the intimation, in the shape of a rhetorical question, that the dithyramb originated from Corinth: no narrative element; no myth. Whether the reference to the Naxian origin of the dithyramb in the Hyporchemes (fr. 115 M.) was similarly a brief allusion or a more extended mythical narrative such as could have accommodated fr. 85 M. is impossible to say with certainty. The island did have substantial Dionysiac connections,9 so it may have made sense for a Naxian (?) hyporcheme to make the best of them regardless of context, with or without a mythical narrative being involved. If one such narrative was involved, the episode of Dionysiac myth that one most readily associates with Naxos today is the rescue of Ariadne by the god and his cortège; the first ever dithyramb can easily be imagined to have been sung on that joyful occasion. But Naxos was one of the candidates for Dionysus’ birthplace too, from the Homeric Hymn (v. 3) to Diodorus (5.52.2), not to mention the possible Naxian location of Nysa. This leaves the door open to the possibility that fr. 85 M. may belong to the Hyporcheme of fr. 115 M.10 The different thesis advocated here – that fr. 85 M. may have belonged to the Dithyramb of fr. 71 M. – is not altogether new. It was adumbrated by Schroeder in his 1914 editio minor of Pindar, where he lumped together the known fragments of Stefani), Simeon and the Mεγάλη Γραμματική (EF, CPV δ 277, p. 111 Baldi), and ‘Zonaras’ (col. 508 Tittmann). 7 The same poem according to Spelman 2018, 193. 8 Schneider 1776, 46; cf. Boeckh 1821, 585 “Haud dubie ad Dithyrambos pertinet”. 9 References in RE XVI (1935) 2085 s. v. Naxos 5 (R. Herbst); Simantoni-Bournia 2006, 89–93. Dionysus has been identified (however conjecturally) as the titular deity of the archaic temple excavated at Hyria in the 1980s: Gruben and Lambrinoudakis 1987, 613–614; Lambrinoudakis 1989, 341– 343; Simantoni-Bournia 2000, 217. 10 Stefano Vecchiato advocated this thesis both in the discussion that followed the lecture mentioned in the opening note and subsequently in a paper of his own presented at the Celtic Conference in Classics in St Andrews on 12th July 2018. I am grateful to him for allowing me to cite his argument. Spelman 2018, 193 links fr. 85 M. with fr. *85a M. (Dionysus’ birth in Nysa) while claiming that frr. 71 and 115 M., like O. 13.18–19, pertain to “certain changes” which the dithyramb later underwent; but any link between frr. 85 and 85a M. need not be mutually exclusive with one between frr. 71 and 85 M. Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 197 198 Enrico Emanuele Prodi what we now call the second Dithyramb (frr. 70b, 81 M.) and frr. 80 and 84–*86 M. under the heading “ΘΗΒΑΙΟΙΣ cl fr 71”.11 After the publication of P.Oxy. XIII 1604, whose fr. 1 is a crucial witness for the ‘second Dithyramb’ and for its stated focus on Heracles,12 the combination of all these became untenable; when revising his editio maior in 1923, Schroeder restricted the link with fr. 71 M. – still presented as a mere comparison – to frr. 85 and *86 M.13 Snell restricted the comparison further, to fr. 85 M. alone.14 This meagre “cf. fr. 85” in the apparatus to fr. 71 M. – there is nothing in the opposite direction, curiously – is all that survives of Schroeder’s hypothesis down to the most recent Teubner.15 This suggested comparison was never elaborated upon or explained, and it seems to have gone entirely unremarked outside the Stuttgart–Leipzig axis except for three words in a footnote by Wilamowitz.16 Neither of the recent commentaries on the Dithyrambs authored by van der Weiden and Lavecchia connects the two fragments; following a hypothesis of Del Corno’s, Lavecchia instead links fr. 71 with frr. 72–*74 M., which narrate the myth of Orion.17 But there is a good chance that fr. 85 M. does come from the Dithyramb mentioned in the scholion to Olympian 13. There are several reasons why a composition that must have included a fairly detailed narrative of Dionysus’ birth and the aetiology of the dithyramb may have belonged to the Dithyrambs. The first and most obvious is the content of the myth. From the ancient editor’s standpoint – Schroeder 21914, 298–300. The title assigned to the poem by its ancient editor – referring, as is the rule for dithyrambs, to the content of its mythical narrative – is Ἡρακλῆ̣ς ̣ ἢ Κέρβερος Θηβαίοις; on the true reading of the papyrus see Prodi 2016, 1164. Further evidence for the Heraclean theme comes from P.Oxy. XXXII 2622 fr. 1 (fr. dub. 346 M.) and the commentary to the same verses in PSI XIV 1391 fr. B. The connection between these two papyri was recognised by Lobel 1967, 65; that between them and the ‘second Dithyramb’, also first suggested by Lobel 1967, 63, has been corroborated by Lavecchia 1996, see also id. 2000, 106–108. 13 Schroeder 61923, 550. The supplementum of the next editio minor, Schroeder 31930, 344–347, makes no mention of our fragments. A connection between fr. 71 M. and the ‘second Dithyramb’ is revived (in aptly dubitative fashion) by Sutton 1989, 36, but given that poem’s subject-matter it seems less likely that a narrative of the birth of Dionysus could also fit there. 14 Snell 11953, 239. 15 Maehler 1989, 82. 16 Wilamowitz 1922, 345 n. 3. 17 Del Corno 1974, 108–109; Lavecchia 2000, 274–276. The link stems from the erroneous belief that ἐν … τῶι πρώτωι τῶν διθυράμβων and διθυράμβων πρώτωι in the citations of (respectively) frr. 71 and 72 M. indicate not the first book of the Dithyrambs but the first poem in it, which would necessarily make frr. 71 and 72 M. into fragments of the same poem. This supposition was already criticised by Sutton 1989, 35. For discussion and bibliography see section III. — Hornblower 2004, 145–156 follows Lavecchia in taking frr. 71–74 M. together but argues intriguingly, following a suggestion by Hamilton 1990, 213, that they represent a Chian, not a Theban poem. Like Kleingünther 1933, 136 before him, he is probably right that Thebes is not the only place where the dithyramb could have been given a Theban origin (p. 152); but if one dismisses the spurious link between fr. 71 M. and frr. 72–74 M., his argument in favour of a Chian context for the latter group of fragments becomes stronger. See however the counterarguments of Olivieri 2011, 128 n. 54. 11 12 Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 Notes on Pindar’s Dithyrambs from the standpoint of genre as a critical and bibliographical tool – a poem narrating the aetiology of the dithyramb would probably have been a prime candidate for classification in the Dithyrambs. From the standpoint of the poet and of his immediate audience – genre as a nexus of occasion, function, tradition – a dithyramb is where it would have made most sense for such a myth to be sung. Compare on the one hand fr. 128c M. = 56 Cannatà Fera, the opening of a Threnos where an evocation of paeans and dithyrambs (vv. 1–4) serves to focus attention on various forms of lament and of the mythical grief underpinning them, with an evident mise en abyme of the song’s own genre (4–12); on the other hand fr. 70b M., a Dithyramb that opens with an explicitly Bacchic revel on Olympus (vv. 6–23) which is said to constitute the speaker’s knowledge (5) and appears to function as an authorising parallel for the Bacchus-honouring dithyrambic performance in which he is engaged.18 If the song to which fr. 85 M. belonged was itself a dithyramb, it will have situated itself, implicitly or explicitly, as a successor to that first mythical dithyrambic performance that arose from Zeus’ words at Dionysus’ birth. Another plausible reason for fr. 85 M.’s pertinence to the Dithyrambs are its Dionysiac connections. While already in the early fifth century not all dithyrambs had much to do with Dionysus, at least on the textual level, the genre did nonetheless maintain a notional – and, in many cases, a ceremonial – link with the god.19 The ‘second Dithyramb’ is again a useful term of comparison: its core was a mythical narrative concerning Heracles’ journey to the underworld (frr. 81, *249a–b, dub. 346 M.),20 but the frame is, or forcefully beckons to be understood as, Dionysiac (fr. 70b M.).21 Conversely, Dionysiac themes are remarkably uncommon in the extant Pindar outside the Dithyrambs.22 Bear in mind also the long-standing Lavecchia 2000, 133–135; 2013, 69. Cf. Ol. 13.18–19 cited above; frr. 70b, 75 M.; A. fr. 355 Radt. See Lavecchia 2013 and D’Alessio 2013, arguing against Fearn 2007, 165–181. On Dionysus in Pindaric dithyramb see Privitera 1970, 122–130; Zimmermann 22008, 62–63; in Pindar more generally, Olivieri 2011, 123–160. 20 See n. 12 above. 21 See Lavecchia 2000, 108–125; 2013, 68–75. 22 Much like Privitera 1970, 120–122 (contrast Olivieri 2011, 123), Hamilton 1990, 214 argues that “Dionysus has a place in Pindar’s odes … as well as his dithyrambs”, but in truth it is a small and unprepossessing place. Out of 45 complete Epinicians, not one has a Dionysiac myth as its main narrative, only brief and mostly perfunctory references. In Ol. 2 a gnome on how joys can overturn sufferings is exemplified by Semele’s death and subsequent divinisation, whereupon her son is said to love her (22–28; Pindar’s choice of a sequence of Theban myths is relevant to the asserted Theban origin of the laudandus Theron’s family). The “delights of Dionysus” are evoked in Ol. 13.18–19 while praising Corinth for the invention of the dithyramb; he is functional to a statement about dithyrambs also in the catalogue of genres in fr. *128c M. = 56 Cannatà Fera (Threnoi). The roll-call of Theban glories that opens Isth. 7 duly name-checks him (3–5), as does the one at the beginning of the first Hymn (fr. 29.5 M.). In Pyth. 3.96–9, Semele’s death and her intercourse with Zeus are briefly mentioned as an illustration of her father Cadmus’ mixed fortunes; Dionysus himself does not appear. His only occurrence in the Paeans is in a circumlocution for wine (4.25 = D4 Rutherford); likewise in fr. *124.3 M. (Encomia) and seemingly in frr. 153 and 248 M. too (incerti generis). As remarked by Wilamowitz 1922, 274 n. 2, fr. 236 M. (incerti generis) is the only certain attestation of a Dionysiac-themed 18 19 Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 199 200 Enrico Emanuele Prodi association between the dithyramb and the birth of Dionysus specifically, from its evocation in Euripides’ Bacchae (519–521, emphasising the Theban location of the event) to Plato’s Socrates, who nonchalantly equates the dithyramb with Διονύσου γένεσις (Leg. 3.700b), and from the anonymous epigram that qualifies Dionysus as διθυραμβογενῆ (Anth. Pal. 9.524.5) to the rich tradition of folk etymology to which fr. 85 M. itself belongs.23 Finally, the other identifying characteristic that was ascribed to dithyrambs in antiquity was the presence of extended narrative.24 Granted, dithyrambs were certainly not the only genre of which this was true. We do not know enough about hyporchemes to exclude that they, too, may have contained mythical narratives, as many of the genres practised by Pindar did. Nevertheless, the presence of a seemingly extended mythological narrative may have been, if not a determining, at least a facilitating criterion for the attribution of the composition containing fr. 85 M. to the Dithyrambs. When all these factors are combined together, there is a fairly strong case for fr. 85 M. to be assigned to the Dithyrambs and, as a result, identified with fr. 71 M. II Fr. 83 M. Pindar’s fellow Boeotians did not have a reputation for fine intellect. A slur likening them to swine is recorded by several sources and finds its earliest extant attestations in two passages of Pindar.25 One is from the sixth Olympian (87–90): ὄτρυνον νῦν ἑταίρους, Αἰνέα, πρῶτον μὲν Ἥραν Παρθενίαν κελαδῆσαι, myth in Pindar – beside our fr. 85 M., that is. It may well have come from a Dithyramb, too: the dolphins who “did not leave their man-loving life” (but keep dancing around ships?) would be a splendid analogy for the fifty choreutes who danced in a circle while singing Pindar’s poem. (See now the much more thorough argument by Lightfoot 2019; I thank the editors for allowing me to add this reference at proof stage.) The one securely non-dithyrambic instance where one may have reason to imagine a significant role for the god is fr. 115 M. (Hyporchemes) discussed above. The Dionysiac overtones of the epithet θυιαιγίδ’ in ‘Pae.’ 13.13 = S5 Rutherford (really a Prosodion, see D’Alessio 1997, 32–34; 1999, 16–17) are less obvious to me than they are to Rutherford and Irvine 1988, 51 or Ferrari 1991, 388; D’Alessio 1997, 33 and 1999, 18 is right to be cautious. The case for a Dionysiac context (but of what sort and extent?) would be stronger if one accepted the supralinear ε in the papyrus and took it to indicate correction into the hapax εὐιαιγίδ’, as divined by D’Alessio 1999, 17– 18, but I cannot confidently exclude that what the corrector meant was εὐαιγίδ’ (not Dionysiac, and probably wrong). 23 See Ieranò 1997, 159–164; on the passage from the Laws, Schöpsdau 1994, 510. 24 Cf. Pl. Resp. 3.394c; [Plut.] De mus. 1134e; P.Oxy. XXIII 2368 (CLGP I 1.42 Bacchylides 4) col. i 9– 13; schol. Ar. Av. 918b Holwerda. See Ieranò 1997, 322–325; D’Alessio 2013, 119–121; on the passage from the Republic, Peponi 2013, 355–359. 25 For other sources and a discussion see Tosi 162007, 192–193; Gentili in Gentili et al. 2013, 160; and the apparatus to Cratin. fr. 77 Kassel–Austin. Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 Notes on Pindar’s Dithyrambs γνῶναί τ’ ἔπειτ’, ἀρχαῖον ὄνειδος ἀλαθέσιν λόγοις εἰ φεύγομεν, Βοιωτίαν ὗν. Now, Aineas, urge your companions first to celebrate Hera the Maiden, and then to know if with truthful words we escape the age-old taunt of “Boiotian pig”. (transl. Race, adapted) The second is fr. 83 M., a line from the Dithyrambs quoted by the scholia to that passage (schol. B(C)EQ 152, I p. 188 Drachmann) as well as by Strabo (7.7.1) and Galen (Protr. 7.7): ἦν ὅτε σύας Βοιώτιον ἔθνος ἔνεπον There was a time when they called the Boiotian people pigs (transl. Race) Recent commentators have little to say about the possibile context and function of this line beyond noting its relevance to the common slur on the Boeotians’ alleged stupidity.26 “Perhaps”, remarks van der Weiden, “this is wishful thinking on Pindar’s part who thereby wanted to suggest that in his own time the reproach was not heard anymore”, unlike other instances of the slur, which make no such temporal distinction.27 But rather than wishful thinking, we should see this verse as rhetorical strategy. The imperfect ἦν suggests that the broader passage contrasted a past time when the Boeotians were reputed to be uncultivated with a present time when, evidently, this charge could no longer be sustained. In a Pindaric composition, such a contrast is unlikely to be a matter of pure chronology – the days of old vs. modern times – detached from the reality of the song.28 Rather, ‘now’ must be specifically the time of the present song, that is to say, the present song itself.29 One thinks once again of fr. 70b M., where the ropey dithyrambs of old (πρίν, v. 1) are contrasted with Pindar’s enthusiastic new performance, which ‘knows’ the Dionysiac τελετά taking place in the halls of Olympus (vv. 5–8). There, too, the contrast is not between the past and the present as such, but between the present song and a past denoted by its absence;30 a device to give lustre to Pindar’s song by contrasting it with an explicitly inferior foil. The point being made in this way in Van der Weiden 1991, 224–225; Lavecchia 2000, 286. Van der Weiden 1991, 224. 28 Here and in the following paragraphs I refer to the ‘song’ for simplicity’s sake. The reader should keep in mind that what is at issue in cases like these is not the words alone, or the words and the music, but the totality of the performance in its audible and visible concreteness. For a similar caveat see Kurke 2012, 221; on the importance (and cost) of costume and other ‘scenic’ materials in dithyrambic performances see Wilson 2000, 86–88; 2003, 168 and n. 22. 29 So Wilamowitz 1922, 274; Sevieri 22010, 208. 30 So already Privitera 1970, 124; Lavecchia 2000, 131; now also Spelman 2018, 144–145. 26 27 Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 201 202 Enrico Emanuele Prodi fr. 83 M. will have been much the same as in the passage of Olympian 6 quoted above: there is an old prejudice against Boeotians, but we are proving it wrong here and now with the fine skill that we are displaying.31 Galen, who, like the scholiast, brought together the two passages, similarly understood them both as references to Pindar’s song: ἀξιῶν ὅλου σχεδὸν ἔθνους τὸν ἐπ’ ἀμαθίαι ψόγον ἀπολύεσθαι διὰ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ μουσικήν, ‘wishing to refute the charge of ignorance against almost his entire nation through his own mousike’ (Protr. 7.7). A corollary is the relevance of Boeotia to the song. One explanation for it could be that the performing chorus may be Theban, like that of fr. 70b M.; compare vv. 22–30 of that ode, where the Theban origin of the persona loquens is linked to that of Dionysus, with a clear authorising function. But there is an alternative: that the reference is not to the chorus’ origin, but to Pindar’s.32 The obvious parallel is, once again, the passage in Olympian 6, where φεύγομεν (v. 90) refers neither to the performing chorus nor, probably, to the shadowy Aineas (who likewise does not seem to have been a Theban),33 but to a poetic first person. One should also keep in mind that the ‘choice herald of skilled words’ that is the persona loquens of fr. 70b M. (ἐξαίρετο[ν] κάρυκα σοφῶν ἐπέων, vv. 23–24) may just as well be the poet, too.34 A reference to the poet rather than to the chorus would become inescapable if Wilamowitz was right to hypothesise that fr. 83 M. comes from the same poem as fr. 75 M.35 The latter is an Athenian poem (v. 4) which can only have been composed for an Athenian chorus to perform. A poetic first person has been plausibly discerned already in the opening of the ode, fr. 75 M. itself (vv. 7–8, 13, perhaps 12).36 Fr. 83 M. may perhaps have come from the coda; its metrical pattern is not 31 Aptly, ἀρχαῖον at Ol. 6.89 intimates that the swine slur is both long-standing and outdated; see also Hutchinson 2001, 416. 32 A third possible hypothesis, namely that the relevance of Boeotia for the purpose of this line comes from the content of the myth, is precluded by the conclusion reached above on the place of fr. 83 M. within a contrast between past and present. By definition, a mythical narrative is set in the past, so it cannot have been utilised as an argument to glorify the present song in opposition to the past. This of course does not preclude that the ode may have indeed contained a Boeotian-related myth; for just one such hypothesis see section IV. 33 Adorjáni 2014, 48–51, esp. n. 68, reviewing the evidence that connects the name Aineas with Arcadia; Hornblower 2004, 183–184. 34 So Grenfell and Hunt 1919, 31; Wilamowitz 1922, 343; Bowra 1964, 6–7; Privitera 1970, 124, 127; Tsagarakis 1977, 130–131; Kirkwood 1982, 326–327; van der Weiden 1991, 78–79 and passim; Lavecchia 2000, 169–172; Zimmermann 22008, 47, 49; Sevieri 22010, 202, 204; Olivieri 2011, 146–149; Spelman 2018, 145. 35 Wilamowitz 1922, 274. 36 So in modern times Wilamowitz 1922, 274; van Groningen 1955; Bowra 1964, 63; Privitera 1970, 128; Kirkwood 1982, 327–328; Lavecchia 2000, 267–268; Hutchinson 2001, 365; Zimmermann 2 2008, 54–55, 57. Van der Weiden 1991, 195–196 is more hesitant. No obstacle to this interpretation can be found in μελπόμεν‹οι›, conjectured by Hermann 1817, 300 at v. 11 (μέλπομεν FMV and the epitome, μέλπε P): the plural subsumes both the poet and the chorus, and the act of dancing in choral performance is ascribed even to the poet alone elsewhere (Isthm. 1.7 χορεύων, in a passage that fore- Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 Notes on Pindar’s Dithyrambs found exactly in fr. 75 M., suggesting that, if it does belong to the same poem, it will have occurred in an epode. Whatever the exact position of fr. 83 M., and whether the persona loquens was the poet or not, on this interpretation we have a poem praising itself and its author while explicitly rebutting a long-standing, widespread slur before an audience who will have been well acquainted with it – and arguably not unsympathetic to its implications. Furthermore, the metapoetic reference to choruses approaching Semele at the end of the proem (fr. 75.19 M.) invites a link between Pindar’s Thebanness and Dionysus’, bestowing on the poet a further layer of authorisation. III ‘The first of the Dithyrambs’ Scholars have debated for centuries the precise meaning of the phrase ἐν … τῶι πρώτωι τῶν διθυράμβων in schol. Ol. 13.25c Drachmann (section I). In theory, two interpretations of the ‘first of the Dithyrambs’ are possible: the first poem (with a word like μέλει or ἄσματι implied) or the first book (βίβλωι vel sim.).37 What has suggested the first to some is the phrasing of the scholion, which gives a number for the Dithyrambs but not for the Hyporchemes. Since both the Dithyrambs and the Hyporchemes had two books each38 (the argument goes), if the scholiast had wanted to indicate the book where the respective passage was found, he would have done so for both the Dithyrambs and the Hyporchemes, not only for the former; the fact that he did otherwise indicates that he meant instead the first ode of the Dithyrambs, while in the Hyporchemes the passage was in an ode other than the first.39 (As the evidence of papyri shows, in ancient poetry books the individual poems were not numbered sequentially, as they are in modern editions, so the only immediately recognisable position was the first.40 ) But such an argument grounds the authorial function of the speaking ‘I’). But D’Alessio 1991, 105 suggests μελπόμεν‹ος› in order to retain the transmitted ἔμολον at v. 12 (expunged by Hermann but defended by Farnell 1932, 415), which forestalls the problem altogether; the same does μελπέμεν proposed by Boeckh 1821, 576–577. As Lavecchia 2000, 266 points out, καλέομεν at v. 10 (with which Hermann’s μελπόμεν‹οι› would have to agree) has a much broader referent than the performer(s) alone. D’Alessio and Boeckh’s conjectures are thus superior to Hermann’s; which of the two is the true one is harder to say (Lavecchia’s argument against D’Alessio’s is somewhat literal-minded). 37 Poem: e. g. Schneider 1776, 46; Wilamowitz 1922, 345; Lehnus 1973, 398–400. Book: e. g. Boeckh 1821, 584; Grenfell and Hunt 1919, 27; Sutton 1989, 35; Filoni 2007, 75–76; cf. Turyn 1948, 290 and already Sylburg 1594, 157 on fr. 72 M. 38 The list of Pindar’s works in the Vita Ambrosiana, I p. 3 Drachmann has two books for each; the one in P.Oxy. XXVI 2438 gives two books to the Dithyrambs (col. ii 36) and only one to the Hyporchemes (39). However, the latter falls one book short of the canonical total of 17 (which is known to both biographies as well as to Suda π 1617, IV p. 133 Adler), suggesting that the person who copied the papyrus mistakenly gave the Hyporchemes one book fewer than their due: Gallo 1968, 77–78. 39 Lehnus 1973, 398–400. 40 There are in fact some numbered references to poems other than the first (collected in n. 50 below), but they are very few and, unsurprisingly, they refer to poems near the beginning of the Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 203 204 Enrico Emanuele Prodi from stylistics, however logical in the abstract, is intrinsically precarious in a text whose present aspect is the result of centuries of excerption and epitomation, at several removes from any ‘original’ (itself a problematic term in this context).41 Conversely, usage tips the scales decisively towards the other interpretation: that πρώτωι in the scholion indicates the first book. ἐν τῶι πρώτωι τῶν παρθεν‹ε›ίων in schol. REΓLh Ar. Ach. 720 Wilson (fr. 94d M.) has also been taken as a reference to the first poem of the Partheneia, rather than the first book,42 but the odds are against it: the corresponding expression ἐν τῶι β΄ τῶν παρθεν‹ε›ίων in the Vienna palimpsest of Herodian, cod. hist. gr. 10 (fr. 94e M.),43 must mean the second book, not the second poem. As Filoni points out, ἐν τῶι α̣΄ [τῶ]ν προσοδί[ω]ν φέρεται in the marginal scholion to the ‘third triad’ of Paean 6 in P.Oxy. V 841 (schol. D6 124, p. 304 Rutherford) likewise has to mean ‘it is transmitted in Book 1 of the Prosodia’: in the Prosodia – just as in the Paeans, as far as one can tell from the papyrus – the piece was a self-standing composition, not part of another poem.44 The reference to Didymus’ ὑπομνήματι τῶι πρώτωι τῶν παιάνων Πινδάρου in Ammon. Diff. 231 Nickau (fr. 68 Braswell = 8172 Coward-Prodi) does not shift the balance of the question, despite intimations to the contrary.45 True, Pindar’s Paeans only took up one book,46 which precludes interpretation as a “commentary to the first book”, but Ammonius’ words will not mean “the commentary to the first of Pindar’s Paeans” – in whichever sense – unless τῶι πρώτωι is emended into the genitive;47 and if one does this, the result- book: the second and the third. Contrast the scholia metrica to Pindar’s Epinicians, the only case known to me of a (relatively) ancient Greek text numbering odes continuously from the beginning to the end. These, however, are not citations like the ones we are concerned with, in that they are meant to be read together with the text in the first place. 41 Similarly Filoni 2007, 75, blaming “una incoerenza dello scriba”. 42 So Schneider 1776, 18 and the other scholars mentioned by Lehnus 1973, 397 n. 14 (with their opponents listed in n. 13). An extended argument in that direction, including the parallel with our scholion, is provided by Lehnus 1973, 397–400; the contrary view is advocated by Filoni 2007, 75–76 and confirmed by the parallels listed in these paragraphs. 43 Text as published by Hunger 1967, 20; note that the text printed by Maehler is incorrect, based on Hunger’s list of citations in the ms. (p. 5) rather than on his actual edition of the passage. I am grateful to Stefano Vecchiato for alerting me to this problem and for sharing with me his ongoing research on fr. 94e M. 44 Filoni 2007, 75–76. That the piece was a self-standing poem in the Prosodia is strongly suggested not only by the scholion itself but also by P.Oxy. XXVI 2442 fr. 86, which probably preserves a morsel of its first line, of the title above it, and of the end of the preceding poem: D’Alessio 1997, 37 n. 92, see also Prodi 2013, 54. What suggests the same in the case of the Paeans is the presence of an asteriskos denoting poem-end after the ‘second triad’ and of a poem-title next to the beginning of the ‘third’ in P.Oxy. V 841. 45 Cited in this connection by Lehnus 1973, 397–398; taken for a reference to the first poem already by Wilamowitz 1922, 185. 46 P.Oxy. XXVI 2438 col. ii 37; Vita Ambrosiana, I p. 3 Drachmann. 47 So emends Wilamowitz 1922, 185. Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 Notes on Pindar’s Dithyrambs ing idea that Didymus wrote a whole hypomnema on one poem is so strange as to caution against the emendation in the first place.48 Similar references by number and title are attested for other lyricists too, and they always indicate book-numbers: Ἀλκμὰν ἐν α΄ μελῶν (PMGF 14(a).3 = fr. 4.3 Calame ap. Erotian. p. 63 Nachmanson), Σαπφώ … ἐν τῶι πέμπτωι μελῶν (fr. 101 Voigt ap. Ath. 9.410d), παρ’ Ἀλκαίωι … ἐν δευτέρωι μελῶν (fr. 417 A Voigt = 312 Liberman ap. Poll. 4.169, 10.113, pp. I 251, II 224 Bethe), Ἴβυκος … ἐν πέμπτωι μελῶν (PMGF 285 ap. Ath. 2.57 f), Ἀνακρέων ἐν τῶι β΄ τῶν μελῶν (PMG 353 ap. Et.Gen. AB 125, p. 37 Calame = EM p. 593 Callierges/col. 1693 Gaisford, cf. PMG 352 ap. Ath. 15.671d), Σιμωνίδης ἐν δευτέρωι ἰάμβων (Semon. fr. 11 West = 3 Pellizer– Tedeschi ap. Ath. epit. 2.57d), Ἱππῶναξ ἐν τῶι πρώτωι τῶν ἰάμβων (fr. 42 West = 7 Degani ap. schol. Nic. Th. 633, p. 237 Crugnola, fr. 123 West = 12 Degani ap. Poll. 4.169, I p. 251 Bethe, cf. 10.113, II p. 224 Bethe), ἐν … τῶι δευτέρωι τῶν Ἱππώνακτος ἰάμβων (fr. 118a West = 15 Degani ap. Poll. 10.19, II p. 195 Bethe), and more. Compare the colophon of Sappho’s Book 1 in P.Oxy. X 1231 fr. 56 ΜΕΛΩΝ Α and the title of an uncertain book of Alcaeus across the verso of P.Oxy. XXIII 2358 ΑΛΚΑΙΟ[Υ] ΜΕΛΩΝ ̣ .49 To sum up: whenever its referent can be determined, the phrase ἐν (τῶι) [numeral] (τῶν) [title] means “in the nth book”, not “in the nth poem”. The usage of a form of words as a set phrase, with an established meaning specific to that phrase, trumps the other possible meanings that the form of words in question could theoretically have on the basis of its constituent words and their grammatical relations. We thus do not expect ἐν τῶι πρώτωι τῶν διθυράμβων, which the usage just discussed beckons be understood as “in the first book of the Dithyrambs”, to be used to mean anything other than that. The few explicit citations of the first poem in a book confirm this expectation e contrario by using other, unambiguous expressions for this purpose. The opening of the first Hymn of Pindar is ἀρχαί … τῶν Πινδάρου τοῦ μελοποιοῦ ὕμνων (fr. 29 M. ap. schol. φU Luc. 58.19, p. 225 Rabe); Anacreon’s hymn to Artemis is τὸ πρῶτον Ἀνακρέοντος ἆισμα (PMG 348 ap. Heph. Poëm. 4.8, p. 68 Consbruch); an extract from the first ode in Book 2 of Alcman’s Partheneia can be introduced as ἐν ἀρχῆι τοῦ β΄ τῶν παρθενείων ἀισμάτων (PMGF 16 ap. Steph. Byz. ε 137, II p. 170 Billerbeck–Zubler); For a discussion of the problem see D’Alessio 1997, 45–46; Filoni 2007, 72–75; Braswell 20172, 258–259. Filoni intriguingly proposes deleting ὑπομνήματι as an intrusive gloss and understanding ἐν τῶι πρώτωι as a reference to the first book, not however of Pindar’s Paeans (which would be nonsense, for the reasons given above) but of Didymus’ commentary, which on this interpretation will have been so long as to comprise several volumes. This is not an impossible contention given what we know of the author: as we read in the colophon of P.Berol. inv. 9780 recto, Didymus’ On Demosthenes devoted three whole books to the Philippics, and this was a work in Attic which required very little linguistic or stylistic comment, unlike Pindar’s poetry. The sort of brachilogy that turns “in the commentary to X” into “in X” is well attested in ancient scholarly writings, see Käppel 1992, esp. 46. But one wonders if Filoni’s persuasive interpretation of the sense really requires textual intervention, cf. the examples of ἐν τῶι [numeral] ὑπομνήματι indicating “the nth book” in Strabo and Galen cited by Braswell 20172, 258–259 n. 351. 49 Either Book 1 (Α) or Book 4 (Δ), given the traces: Lobel 1956. 48 Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 205 206 Enrico Emanuele Prodi the first ode in Book 1 of Alcaeus is τὴν πρώτην ὠιδήν ἐν τῶι πρώτωι Ἀλκαίου (fr. 307 Voigt ap. Heph. Poëm. 3.6, p. 66 Consbruch; again ἡ πρώτη and τῆς … πρώτης ὠιδῆς in the A scholia, p. 169 Consbruch).50 Note how τοῦ β΄ and τῶι πρώτωι in the last two examples need no qualification to be understood as the number of the book. IV The first Dithyramb? So, all that schol. Ol. 13.25c Drachmann tells us is that the aetiology of the dithyramb (frr. 71 + 85 M., as argued in section I) was found in Book 1 of the Dithyrambs.51 It says nothing about what the first poem in that book might have contained. But there may nonetheless be a piece of evidence for the identification of the opening poem of the Dithyrambs if one is willing to look elsewhere. Fr. 75 M. survives thanks to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who quotes it as an example of the “austere” style of composition (Comp. 22.11). In this section of the Περὶ συνθέσεως (ch. 21–24), Dionysius discusses three ways of joining words into sentences (ἁρμονίαι): the austere (αὐστηρά, 22), the polished (γλαφυρά, 23), and the well-blended (εὔκρατος, 24).52 For each of the first two he gives examples from both poetry and prose. Those of the austere style are fr. 75 M. of Pindar and the opening of Thucydides’ Histories (1.1.1–1.2.2); those of the polished style, the first poem in the first book of Sappho (fr. 1 Voigt) and the opening of Isocrates’ Areopagiticus (1–4). The last three of these four passages can be placed with certainty within their respective book: they all constitute its very beginning. This fact raises the prospect that fr. 75 M. too may have been a beginning: that of Pindar’s Dithyrambs. While the citation context in Dionysius cannot be said to be definitive proof that the poem of which fr. 75 M. was the opening was the first Dithyramb,53 it is an The same goes for the few explicit citations of poems in places other than the first: the second ode (τὴν δευτέραν, fr. 308 Voigt) in Book 1 of Alcaeus in the passage of Hephaestion just cited; the third (ἡ δὲ τρίτη, fr. 343 Voigt = 308 A Liberman) in P.Oxy. XXXV 2734 (CLGP I 1.1 Alcaeus 15) frr. 1 + 12; the second ode of Alcman (ἐν τῆι δευτέρα ὠιδῆι, PMGF 2) in Hdn. Fig., RhG III p. 101 Spengel; the second poem (β’ τέτακται) in an uncertain book of Sappho in PSI Com. 6 7 (Prauscello 2005 suggests Book 1); and indeed the second Psalm (ἐν τῶι ψαλμῶι … τῶι δευτέρωι) in Acts 13:33. 51 Likewise for fr. 72 M. (EM p. 460 Callierges/col. 1317 Gaisford), which accordingly there is no reason to join to ours, as advocated by Lehnus 1973, 398 and Lavecchia 2000, 274–276 and accepted by Hornblower 2004, 145, 152; see further n. 17 above. The same conclusion will apply to fr. 94d M. (schol. REΓLh Ar. Ach. 720 Wilson) cited above, from Book 1 of the Partheneia. 52 I borrow the English translation of these three terms from Usher 1985, 167. 53 Cf. the next section (ch. 25–26), on “how language without metre is made to resemble a beautiful poem or lyric, and how a poem or song is made similar to beautiful prose” (transl. Usher). It examines four principal examples: the opening of Demosthenes’ Against Aristocrates (23), the beginning of Book 14 of the Odyssey, the first few lines of the prologue of Euripides’ Telephus (fr. 696 Kannicht), and Simonides’ Danae fragment (PMG 543 = fr. 271 Poltera). Of all these, the only one which does not certainly constitute the beginning of a book – a fortiori, since it does not seem to come from even the beginning of a poem – is the last one. So, whereas one cannot institute a rule that Dionysius 50 Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 Notes on Pindar’s Dithyrambs important piece of circumstantial evidence which future editors would do well to consider. In an earlier article I suggested that the first Dithyramb may nevertheless have been fr. 71 M., even though this conclusion was not imposed by the text of the scholion, and that the poem in question may have been composed for Pindar’s home city of Thebes, as had long been surmised by others.54 If the argument presented in the previous paragraph hits the mark, the first Dithyramb – fr. 75 M. – was an Athenian rather than a Theban poem. But, if we put aside Thebes as the location of the performance, it is not impossible that frr. 71 + 85 M. come from that first Dithyramb nonetheless. Vv. 8–13 of fr. 75 M. intimates that the subject of the poem will be Dionysus, and v. 19 hints that Semele – who was not a cult figure in fifth-century Athens – will play a role in the narrative.55 Taken together, these two elements suggest a myth centred on the birth of Dionysus,56 such as we also infer from frr. 71 + 85 M.57 That myth, combined with the aetiology of the dithyramb, would make the poem a very fitting one to open the book of the Dithyrambs, as the earlier article argued. Furthermore, if Wilamowitz was right to assign fr. 83 M. to the same composition as fr. 75 M., then that composition made explicit reference to Thebes in an encomiastic context which suggests a reference to the person of the poet (section only cites extensively from the beginning of books, in this part of Comp. he does so much more often than not. Especially in a section exploring styles which are ascribed to authors rather than to particular passages, such as the one under discussion (ch. 21–24), it makes argumentative sense for Dionysius to have illustrated his point with (ostensibly) the first bit of text which came his way rather than with a specially selected example, thus forestalling any suspicion of cherry-picking the evidence. 54 Prodi 2017, 568–569. Fr. 71 M. had ben localised in Thebes by, among others, Wilamowitz 1922, 345; Puech 31961, 155 n. 3; Lehnus 1979, 45; and, dubitatively, Lavecchia 2000, 276. This assumption was challenged by Kleingünther 1933, 136 (a Dithyramb of Pindar could have discussed the birthplace of the dithyramb as a matter of literary history, without interference from local patriotism) and Hornblower 2004, 152 (suggesting a Chian context for frr. 71–74 M. together, but see n. 17 above). 55 On the connection between Semele and dithyrambs – arguably occasioned by the genre’s specific connection with the birth of Dionysus, and not always predicated on the actual telling of a myth centred around Semele – see Ieranò 1997, 162–165. 56 So already Sutton 1989, 39, who conjectures Σεμέλη as the poem’s title. 57 A further point is admittedly a stretch, but not too great a stretch to mention. In fr. 75.7–10 M., the persona loquens claims to be ‘proceed[ing] from Zeus with splendor of song secondly to that ivyknowing god, whom we mortals call Bromios and Eriboas’ (transl. Race). According to one attractive interpretation, first proposed by Boeckh 1821, 578 and adopted by some modern scholars – e. g. Keyßner 1932, 11; Puech 31961, 153 n. 3; Race 1997, II 311 n. 2; Wilson 2003, 169–170; Neer and Kurke 2014, 564–566 – the reference is to the trajectory of the song from Zeus (Διόθεν, v. 7), the first god to be evoked, to Dionysus, mentioned second (δεύτερον, v. 8). A possible connexion with fr. 85 M. is that the latter fragment tells how Dionysus was born from Zeus and how the name of the dithyramb – which is also one of Dionysus’ own names – arose from the words Zeus uttered on that occasion. If the two fragments belonged to the same composition, it would be easy for the audience to understand retrospectively those few lines in the opening as not only describing performatively the train of thought of the opening itself, but also as foreshadowing the content of the mythical narrative that followed. Museum Helveticum 78/2 (2021) 194–211 | DOI 10.24894/2673-2963.00026 207 208 Enrico Emanuele Prodi II). Such a reference may have been self-contained, like the similar one in Olympian 6; but it may also have been connected to something else in the poem, like the self-reference by the Theban persona loquens in fr. 70b M. If the latter is true in our case, one can easily imagine that the poem demonstrated its Boeotian author’s unswinelike skill not only with the evidence of its own mousike but also by associating him, via his home city, with the birth of its genre’s patron deity and with that of the genre itself. Correspondence: Enrico Emanuele Prodi Magdalen College Oxford OX1 4AU United Kingdom [email protected] Bibliography Adorjáni, Zs. (2014) Pindars sechste olympische Siegesode, Leiden/Boston. Bergk, Th. (21853) Poetae lyrici Graeci, Lipsiae. Boeckh, A. 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