I THE CRUX AND THE SOLUTION

In 1998, I suggested a new text for a notably corrupt passage in Pindar's Isthmian 5.Footnote ¹ This article is in effect a sequel to that earlier discussion. In the 1998 article, I proposed, inter alia, that the modern vulgate text of I. 5.58, ἐλπίδων ἔκνισ’ ὄπιν, is indefensible and the product of scribal corruption in antiquity, and that chief among the indefensible products of corruption there is the supposed secular use of ὄπις, as if used to mean something like ‘zeal’. This (as I hope to have demonstrated) is a sense for which there is no good evidence in classical Greek, where ὄπις always has a delimited religious denotation, meaning either (a) ‘gods’ response’, ‘divine retribution’, or else (b) ‘religious awe’ or ‘reverence’ towards the gods, through fear of that response or that retribution. If we discount I. 5.58 itself (and likewise the focus of the present article, O. 2.6), all the pre-Hellenistic attestations can be straightforwardly listed under these headings: (a) Il. 16.388 θεῶν ὄπιν οὐκ ἀλέγοντες, Od. 14.88 ὄπιδος κρατερὸν δέος, Hes. Theog. 221–2 θεαὶ . . . | . . . ἀπὸ τῷ δώωσι κακὴν ὄπιν, Pind. P. 8.71–2 θεῶν δ’ ὄπιν | ἄφθονον αἰτέω, sim. Od. 20.215, 21.28, Hes. Op. 187, 251, 706, along with, seemingly, a fragmentary fifth-century Thessalian verse inscription, CEG 1.120.1 Hansen; (b) Hdt. 9.76.2 θεῶν ὄπιν ἔχοντας, 8.143.2. In addition, one other instance can be interpreted as either (a) or (b), or in effect both: Od. 14.82 (of the suitors) οὐκ ὄπιδα φρονέοντες . . . οὐδ’ ἐλεητύν.Footnote ² In all cases, though, ‘gods’ are specified, usually as a dependent genitive with ὄπις, or else separately but in the near context.Footnote ³ Hellenistic and later occurrences of the word are few, and (as I argued in 1998) hints there of a secular reading can actually be taken to reflect misunderstandings based on, precisely, the early corruption in I. 5.Footnote ⁴

In reviewing the evidence, I noted that the closest thing to an apparent parallel for the supposed secular sense of ὄπις is another corrupt Pindaric sequence, this one in O. 2, in praise of Thero of Acragas. After quoting the text as printed by Snell–Maehler (O. 2.5–7), I offered some comments on the passage:

By way of clarification, I would now add that ὄπις itself is not a common word, and is used only in restricted grammatical cases (chiefly the accusative),Footnote ⁷ which makes the unattested ὄπι/ὄπῑ still more problematic, while the genitival relationship assumed by Hermann's ὄπι . . . ξένωνFootnote ⁸ only serves to highlight the anomalousness of a ‘reverence’ felt not for mighty gods (θεῶν ὄπιν ἔχοντας, Hdt. 9.76.2) but for vulnerable humans. Traditional Greek respect for strangers/guests indeed reflects, or is correlative to, the ultimate commitment to Zeus xenios (πρὸς . . . Διός εἰσιν . . . | ξεῖνοι, Od. 6.207–8), but feeling, or expressing, ὄπις for xenoi is as unlikely in this era as worshipping xenoi as gods themselves.Footnote ⁹

Meanwhile, in an aside in my earlier discussion, I added:

For this corrupt passage in O. 2, I now propose a solution: not, as it turns out, a new solution. That is: this article will champion and elucidate one of the numerous existing proposals for the passage.Footnote ¹¹ I start by first assuming the prima facie plausibility of Hermann's ξένων, not, indeed, because of its proposed connection with the hypothetical ὄπῑFootnote ¹² but on metrical grounds. In the sequence ξένον ἔρεισμ’, the final syllable of ξένον must be heavy, (cor)responding to the final syllables of Ἀλφεοῦ (13), φιλεῖ (26), τελευτάσομεν ῥ- (33), πρέπει (46), δεδαιδαλμένος φ- (53), εὐορκίαις (66), δενδρέων (73), φυᾷ (86), πόλιν φ- (93). ξένον, before ἔρεισμ’, would be ᴗ ᴗ, whereas ξένων gives the requisite ᴗ –.Footnote ¹³ This ξένων, however, is not to be regarded as a textual emendation. It is a recognition that here, as elsewhere in Pindar, we have surviving traces of his use of the pre-Ionic alphabet,Footnote ¹⁴ in which Ο is indifferently ο or ω. And, as will soon be apparent,Footnote ¹⁵ Hermann's ξένων is clearly right, as against the substantial implausibility of his ὄπῑ—a problematic form of a wordFootnote ¹⁶ in a problematic sense—which the discussion that follows will show to be yet more implausible.Footnote ¹⁷

Putting ὄπῑ aside, now, we can more profitably focus on the issue of the triadic structure, ABC τε. Such a sequence, though it would be rash to call it impossible, is certainly suspect. On closer inspection, though, the sequence is seen to be not ABC τε at all but something even more suspect. The point is that, on reflection, the C (the sequence ἄωτον ὀρθόπολιν with which the sentence ends) cannot be regarded as a single phraseological unit, as the attested usage of ἄωτος/-ον makes clear. I have reviewed the usage of this curious word on two previous occasions: in 1974, by way of explaining how limited is its supposed association with ‘flowers’;Footnote ¹⁸ and in 1983, in a discussion of its iconymic status, as a verse word ‘obsolete in the speech-community’, a word that has ‘lost its denotations’ and has no straightforward reference, but only ‘a few faint scattered connotations’.Footnote ¹⁹ Let us now reconsider the usage of the word, from yet another perspective.

The word ἄωτος/-ον occurs twenty-eight (or very possibly twenty-nine) times in pre-Hellenistic Greek. In Homer the word is attested five times, with reference to wool or linen cloth: Il. 9.661, 13.599, 13.716, Od. 1.443, 9.434. The seeming coherence of that usage implies that in ἄωτος/-ον we have a rare example of a subsequent iconym whose original (pre-iconymic) meaning we seem to knowFootnote ²⁰—even if it is not at all obvious that our understanding of the post-Homeric outcomes is thereby enhanced. Those other twenty-three (or twenty-four) occurrences are all fifth-century, twenty of them in Pindar, and in all cases the word is used as if it meantFootnote ²¹ something elusively complimentary in the range of ‘the best’, ‘the paragon’, ‘the consummation’, ‘the glory’, ‘the glorious product’, ‘the glorious reward’. In all cases, too, the word belongs to a phrase with a dependent genitive noun, as if ‘the paragon of . . .’, ‘the glorious product of . . .’, ‘the glorious reward for . . .’.Footnote ²²

The occurrences fall into two groups. In the larger group (a), the dependent genitive noun signifies a non-personal abstraction, or more concrete entity, indifferently singular or plural, with the genitival relation itself variable: in ‘Antigenes’, 1.3 Page FGE (= Simon. 148 Bergk⁴), ῥόδων ἀώτοις; and in Pindar, μουσικᾶς ἐν ἀώτῳ O. 1.15, ἵππων ἄωτον O. 3.4, στεφάνων ἄωτον γλυκύν (Pindar?) O. 5.1, χειρῶν ἄωτον . . . ἐπίνικον O. 8.75, στεφάνων ἄωτοι O. 9.19, ἱερὸν εὐζοίας ἄωτον P. 4.131, ἄωτος ὕμνων P. 10.53, Ἰσθμιάδων . . . κάλλιστον ἄωτον N. 2.9, δίκας ἄωτος N. 3.29, γλώσσας ἄωτον I. 1.51, ζωᾶς ἄωτον . . . τὸν ἄλπνιστον I. 5.12, ἄωτον . . . στεφάνων I. 6.4, σοφίας ἄωτον ἄκρον I. 7.18, Χαρίτων ἄωτον I. 8.16a, μέλιτος ἄωτον γλυκύν fr. 52f.59 S–M (= Pae. 6). In this group, however, the genitive, though variable, is never partitive. Thus, in O. 3.4, for instance, the ἄωτον ‘of the horses’ is not (e.g.) ‘the best of the horses’ but (something like) ‘the glorious tribute to the achievement of the horses’, namely Pindar's poetic ‘tribute’, while in P. 10.53 the ἄωτος ‘of songs’ is (something like) ‘the glorification arising from, or consisting in, this ode’; the ‘Antigenes’ is comparable (‘roses that glorify’).

In the second, smaller, group (b), the whole phrase refers to a person or persons; the genitive is always partitive; and the genitive noun itself is always in the plural (or else the noun or the plurality are implicit): in Pindar, ναυτᾶν ἄωτος P. 4.188, ἡρώων ἄωτοι N. 8.9, γενναίων ἄωτος fr. 6b(f) S–M, ἄωτος ἡρώων fr. 111a.7 S–M;Footnote ²³ in Bacchylides, Ἀθανᾶν <εὔ>ανδρον ἱερᾶν ἄωτον 23.1 S–M (where ‘Athens’ is in effect metonymic for ‘Athenians’, and the supplement is Lobel's); and in Aeschylus, ἄωτον (sc. Ἀργείων) Supp. 666.Footnote ²⁴ Here, clearly, belongs the instance at O. 2.7, πατέρων ἄωτον, while (the probable twenty-ninth attestation of the word) Page plausibly conjectured another instance at Aesch. Pers. 978, Περσᾶν τὸν ἄωτον.Footnote ²⁵

The anomalousness of the supposed unitary phrase in O. 2, πατέρων ἄωτον ὀρθόπολιν, comes into view when we scrutinize the structures of the phrasing in the post-Homeric passages. In most of the occurrences we find simple two-term phrases, ἄ. + genitive noun, as in δίκας ἄωτος (group [a]: N. 3.29) or ναυτᾶν ἄωτος (group [b]: P. 4.188). In four instances from the first group, ἄ. is additionally qualified by a simple intensifying adjective, hardly descriptive of the purported object (vel sim.): ἱερὸν εὐζοίας ἄωτον (P. 4.131), Ἰσθμιάδων . . . κάλλιστον ἄωτον (N. 2.9), ζωᾶς ἄωτον . . . τὸν ἄλπνιστον (I. 5.12), σοφίας ἄωτον ἄκρον (I. 7.18). In (Pindar's?) O. 5.1, the qualifying adjective, in effect intensifying, is marginally more descriptive—στεφάνων ἄωτον γλυκύν—while the same adjective occurs at fr. 52f.59 S–M: μέλιτος ἄωτον γλυκύν. In that last instance, one might still see the qualifier as intensifying, though it would make more sense to read it as metonymic (transferred epithet), semantically attachable to the genitive noun: the μέλι is literally γλυκύ. In the fragmentary sequence at Bacchyl. 23.1, from the second group, there is another metonymic transference—Ἀθανᾶν <εὔ>ανδρον ἱερᾶν ἄωτον—where it is Athens itself that is full of ‘good men’ and the Athenians themselves (implied in the name of the city) who actually are those ‘good men’. Then, in one Pindaric passage from group (a), O. 8.75, an adjectival metonymy is operative on a more elaborate basis: χειρῶν ἄωτον Βλεψιάδαις ἐπίνικον—where a ceremonial crown is ‘victorious reward for hands . . .’, that is, (in full) ‘glorious reward for hands that produced victory <in the wrestling competition> for <a new honorand from> the Blepsiad clan’.

The seeming collocation in O. 2.7, πατέρων ἄωτον ὀρθόπολιν, is different in kind from any of these instances. The adjective is neither intensifying nor metonymic: it makes a new point, and its referent lies wholly outside the genitive phrase. It is not the ‘fathers’ who make, or keep, ‘the city upright’ but Thero, the honorand and focus of the praise: he is ὀρθόπολις. As such, though grammatically and positionally attachable to the ἄωτον phrase, the adjective is logically and semantically separate, and is thus, and would surely be felt as, a separate and self-contained item of praise. In effect, then, the weighty compound adjective ὀρθόπολιν would constitute a fourth, final member of the list: δίκαιον . . . , ἔρεισμ’ . . . , . . . ἄωτον, ὀρθόπολιν. Compare, for instance, the similarly weighty compound adjective that constitutes the final member of a shorter list at O. 13.4–5: τὰν ὀλβίαν Κόρινθον, Ἰσθμίου | πρόθυρον Ποτειδᾶνος, ἀγλαόκουρον. But if ὀρθόπολιν is a separate member, the list as it supposedly stands is now wholly anomalous: ABC τε D—a sequence much more improbable than ABC τε itself. Is such a counter-intuitive sequence ever attested in classical Greek? There is certainly nothing like it in Pindar, and no sign of anything like it elsewhere.Footnote ²⁶

The obvious implication is that Pindar's τε does not connect two members (supposedly the last two members) of the list but two items within a single member. That is: the accepted division of phrases is wrong, and the accepted punctuation misleading.Footnote ²⁷ Pindar's list ends not Ἀκράγαντος, | εὐωνύμων τε πατέρων ἄωτον ὀρθόπολιν but, rather, Ἀκράγαντος | εὐωνύμων τε πατέρων ἄωτον, ὀρθόπολιν.Footnote ²⁸ From which it follows that the division assumed for the previous member is wrong as well: so, not . . . ξένων, ἔρεισμ’ Ἀκράγαντος, | εὐωνύμων τε πατέρων ἄωτον (where ξένων goes with the as yet undetermined word[s] preceding), but ξένων ἔρεισμ’, Ἀκράγαντος | εὐωνύμων τε πατέρων ἄωτον.

All of which leaves us with a shorter problem-sequence to come to terms with: not (let us now confine ourselves to Pindaric capitals)Footnote ²⁹ ΟΠΙΔΙΚΑΙΟΝΞΕΝΟΝ (that is, following Hermann, . . . ξένων) but a seemingly self-contained phrase, or equivalent, ΟΠΙΔΙΚΑΙΟΝ, which (to restate) must be metrically ᴗ – ᴗ – –. Here ὀπί (ᴗ ᴗ, not ᴗ –) is out of the question, while the hypothetical ὄπῑ, now without an explanatory genitive, is even less plausible than it was with one.Footnote ³⁰ The solution is to posit a simple scribal slip, ΟΠΑΙΔΙΚΑΙΟΝ > ΟΠΙΔΙΚΑΙΟΝ—which, it will become apparent, must have occurred in antiquity itselfFootnote ³¹—and restore the text with a self-contained elliptical clause, ὅπᾳ δίκαιον.

This solution, as I have indicated, has been anticipated in earlier scholarship. Bergk's apparatus criticus, in the second edition of his Poetae Lyrici Graeci (1853), notes that MS G contains the gloss (‘supra’) ὅπως, καθώς, on which he comments: ‘unde elicias γεγωνητέον, ὅπα [sic] δίκαιον, ξένον vel ξένων ἔρεισμ’, Ἀκράγαντος εὐωνύμων τε πατέρων κτλ.’Footnote ³² Then in Bowra's OCT (1935/47), the apparatus criticus records: ‘ὅπᾳ Mair coll. gl. G ὅπως, καθώς’.Footnote ³³ Although ὅπᾳ (sic) is demonstrably right,Footnote ³⁴ neither Bowra nor Bergk thought well enough of it to print it in the text, but Bergk—however unconvinced himself—correctly divined the knock-on effect for the division of the two phrases that follow (albeit not the separate issue about the division of the items at the end of the sentence).Footnote ³⁵

A few words on MS G: Gottingensis philol. 29 (mid thirteenth century). In his account of the history of Pindar's text, Irigoin ([1952], 170–6) makes it clear that G is an important and independent witness, and that its scholia include ‘scholies de type ancien’ ([1952], 172, 174), along with additional material from the Byzantine scholar Manuel Moschopoulos ([1952], 172). The gloss under discussion must itself be ‘ancien’, reflecting an earlier text with ΟΠΑΙ/ὅπᾳ: it is surely inconceivable that any medieval scholar would have independently offered a new gloss, ὅπως, καθώς, on a text with ΟΠΙ (whether read as ὀπί or as ὄπι)—whereas one notes that elsewhere in Pindar a straightforwardly attested (if grammatically rather different) ὅπᾳ attracts the scholiastic gloss ὅπως likewise.Footnote ³⁶ In the relevant (first) volume of his Scholia Vetera in Pindari Carmina (1903), Drachmann makes no mention of G's gloss, though citing G for the lines immediately following.Footnote ³⁷ In his preface (I, page ix), he explains: ‘codicem [sc. G] non totum contuli (quod nunc paenitet)’. Drachmann's relative inattention to G has no doubt contributed to the subsequent inattention to the crucial gloss; it remains regrettable (‘quod nunc paenitet’).

And now the important evidence of P.Oxy. 1614 (= Π¹ in Snell–Maehler: fifth or sixth century a.d.). In the transcription by the editors, Grenfell and Hunt, the relevant portion of this papyrus reads:Footnote ³⁸

Like the medieval manuscripts of O. 2, then, the papyrus has ΟΠΙ (and ΞΕΝΟΝ),Footnote ³⁹ from which it follows that our corruption is early and belongs to the era of undivided capitals. No less noteworthy: from ΕΡΕΙΣΜ’ to ΟΡΘΟΠΟΛΙΝ, the word-groupings on the papyrus correspond to those assumed in modern scholarship. That is: the essentially colometric layout of words on the papyrus (presumably Alexandrian in origin) no doubt facilitated erroneous presumptions about sense division—in line with modern (mis)understandings (ἔρεισμ’ with Ἀκράγαντος;Footnote ⁴⁰ ὀρθόπολιν with ἄωτον).

What are the palaeographical implications of our restoration? In scribal activity, almost anything can be miswritten as almost anything else, but across the centuries, both in antiquity and later in the Middle Ages, some errors are much more common than others. And ΑΙ > Ι is not especially common, and certainly less common than (for instance) ΑΙ > Α. Very relevantly, though, given the evident antiquity of the corruption, ΑΙ > Ι is reasonably well attested in ancient capitals (see [i] below). The slip is hardly so complicated as to call for special explanations, but in O. 2 more than one such explanation is readily available in the event. The misreading of ΟΠΑΙΔΙΚΑΙΟΝ as ΟΠΙΔΙΚΑΙΟΝ would seem to involve a kind of anticipatory haplography from the syllables immediately following (-ΠΑΙ-ΔΙ-ΚΑΙ- > -ΠΙ-ΔΙ-ΚΑΙ-), while, after γεγωνητέον, a sequence ΟΠΙ (as if ὀπί, ‘voice’) could of course feel speciously natural;Footnote ⁴¹ then again, ὅπᾳ δίκαιον, though perfectly Greek and eminently Pindaric in spirit, is not familiar as a specifiable Pindaric phrase (see [ii] below).

[i] ΑΙ > Ι. Examples from antiquity, both from papyri and, earlier, from inscriptions, include a range of types and contexts. In Eur. Bacch. 1096, for instance, P.Oxy. 2223 (first century a.d.) has ΚΡΑΤΙΒΟΛΟΥΣ for ΚΡΑΤΑΙ- (see Diggle, OCT). Compare three non-literary examples from papyri cited by Mayser–Schmoll 1.1² (1970), 86: ΕΓΜΕΤΡΗΣΙ (for -ΣΑΙ), P.Cair.Zen. 59317.2 (a letter of the third century b.c.); ΕΛΙΟΥ (for -ΑΙΟΥ), UPZ 35.11 (a letter of the second century b.c.); ΑΠΟΣΤΑΤΙΣ (for -ΑΙΣ), P.Teb. 888 (a wine account of the second century b.c.). Compare two examples from inscriptions: ΧΑΜΙ (for ΧΑΜΑΙ), SEG 26.1115.1 (Megarian inscription from Selinus, early fifth century b.c.), and ΦΙΔΡΙΟΥ (for ΦΑΙΔ-), SEG 28.155.8 (Attic inscription, c.300 b.c.). Likewise, for the record, one might note some random minuscule miscopyings (but copyings from uncials?) elsewhere in Pindar: O. 9.96, ΛΥΚ<Α>ΙΟΥ, cod. H (see Turyn's apparatus criticus, on his O. 9.103); P. 3.78, ΜΕΛΠΟΝΤ<Α>Ι, codd. CV; P. 11.57, ΓΛΥΚΥΤΑΤ<Α>Ι (that is, γλυκυτάτᾳ), cod. V.

[ii] Pindar's ὅπᾳ δίκαιον is an elliptical parenthetic clause, approximately equivalent to the δίκα phrase at P. 9.95–6, αἰνεῖν . . . | παντὶ θυμῷ σύν τε δίκᾳ, or the semantically comparable one-word adverb at O. 3.7–9, χρέος . . . | . . . πρεπόντως . . . με γεγωνεῖν: ‘in a way worthy of [the laudandus]’, as Verdenius (ad loc.) renders πρεπόντως there. Pindaric praise is required to be, and is often specified as, ‘worthy’.Footnote ⁴² ὅπᾳ itself is attested as a conjunction elsewhere in Pindar (O. 10.56, N. 3.25), albeit not in a precisely equivalent construction.Footnote ⁴³ Pindar has no aversion to the given kind of elliptical clause: compare εἰ δυνατόν at N. 9.28. Then, in fifth- and fourth-century Greek in general, the neuter adjective δίκαιον, with ellipse of the copula, is a well-attested usage:Footnote ⁴⁴ Democr. 265 καὶ γὰρ δίκαιον οὕτως, Eur. Cyc. 150 δίκαιον (as a one-word sentence), Hippoc. Prorrh. 2.12 Potter καὶ γὰρ δίκαιον οὕτως, Lys. 20.30 ἀλλ’ οὐ δίκαιον, Pl. Grg. 463c οὐ γὰρ δίκαιον. Equally well attested is the equivalent usage in dependent clauses with conjunctions equivalent to ὅπᾳ/ὅπῃ: Timocreon 2 PMG ὡς ἐοικὸς καὶ δίκαιον,Footnote ⁴⁵ Eur. Hipp. 1307 ὥσπερ οὖν δίκαιον, Antipho 3.4.10 ὥσπερ ὅσιον καὶ δίκαιον, Pl. Leg. 659b ὥς γε τὸ δίκαιον. Meanwhile, ὅπᾳ/ὅπῃ itself features in comparable abbreviated clauses with other neuter adjectives: Pl. Phlb. 50e ὅπῃ σοι φίλον, Xen. An. 2.1.19 ὅπῃ δυνατόν, 6.4.3 ὅπῃ ἐλάχιστον.Footnote ⁴⁶ Furthermore, in intriguing relation to Pindar's usage, there is a legal formula, attested in Doric treaties recorded by Thucydides, where ὅπᾳ itself introduces a clause with δίκαιον in the superlative. At Thuc. 5.79.3 we find the sequence ὅπᾳ κα δικαιότατα κρίναντας τοῖς ξυμμάχοις (the parties agree to ‘decree as shall stand most with equity towards the confederates’), and at 5.77.6 ὅπᾳ κα δικαιότατα δοκῇ τοῖς Πελοποννασίοις (‘as . . . shall by the Peloponnesians be thought [most] reasonable’).Footnote ⁴⁷ Compare (without any form of δίκαιον) this, from the mid fifth-century Gortyn Law Code: ὄπᾳ κα <νύ>νανται κάλλιστα (Solmsen–Fraenkel, 40.12, 31). In Pindar's text, all in all, ὅπᾳ δίκαιον is an eminently plausible sequence; its precise tone and its other implications can be considered in more detail later.Footnote ⁴⁸

II COMMENTARY

The overall logic of the sentence is characteristically Pindaric: in the light of his victory, Thero is to be acclaimed as . . . something else as well: great host, fine representative of Acragas and his family, supreme statesman. ‘Pindar sometimes acclaims an athletically successful subject, both as such and also, simultaneously, on other grounds’ (Silk [2012], 356–7)—as e.g. at I. 1.32–8 (ibid.), O. 7.15–17, O. 13.1–3, I. 2.12–17, I. 4.2–3. The ἕνεκα phrase in 5 virtually amounts to ‘in the context of’, like e.g. the ἕνεκεν at N. 10.3: cf. LSJ s.v. ἕνεκα I.2, Gerber on ἕνεκεν at O. 1.99 and Slater (1969), 176 on the same passage, s.v. ἕνεκεν.

τετραορίας . . . νικαφόρου: ‘victorious chariot’ as metonymic inversion for ‘chariot victory’—privileging the more concrete (chariot) over the less (victory). Cf., more elaborately, N. 1.7 ἅρμα δ’ ὀτρύνει Χρομίου . . . ἔργμασιν νικαφόροις ἐγκώμιον ζεῦξαι μέλος (‘Chromios’ chariot prompts me to yoke a song of celebration for victorious deeds’) and, more generally, Pindar's instinct for concrete metonyms: P. 1.66 κλέος ἄνθησεν αἰχμᾶς (with ‘spear’ for ‘fighting spirit’: Slater [1969], 22, s.v. αἰχμά, c); P. 9.12 γλυκεραῖς εὐναῖς (‘beds’ for ‘acts of love’) (on these two passages, cf. Matzner [2016], 67–8, 60–1). Contrast the ‘abstract for concrete’ manoeuvres at e.g. O. 1.95 (with Gerber ad loc.), O. 10.72 (with Verdenius ad loc.).

γεγωνητέον: the earliest datable attestation (476 b.c.) of any verbal form in -τέος/-τέον. Such forms are predominantly Attic and only come into view ‘in der attischen Blütezeit’: Kühner–Gerth 2.1.447 (see 2.1.447–8; cf. Schwyzer [1939–71], 1.810–11; Moorhouse [1982], 171–2). In Attic the earliest datable uses (467 b.c.) are in Aesch. Sept. (499 φυλακτέον, 600 κομιστέος), and in Attic tragedy most of the occurrences (like those two) are in dialogue. Outside Attic, uses are rare in verse: Thgn. 689 πημαντέον (earlier than our passage?), Orph. 21.7 DK τλητέα. Non-Attic prose-uses include (e.g.) Hdt. 1.120.6 προοπτέον, Hippoc. Flat. 1 ἰητέον, Hippoc. Vict. 1.27 διακτέον, Hippoc. Acut. 18 (= 6 Littré) τιμωρητέον. ‘Distinctly prosaic’, suggest Buck–Peterson (1944), 530, but the instances in Aeschylus (above) and the common occurrence of -τέον in Sophocles (e.g. Aj. 1140 θαπτέον, OT 628 ἀρκτέον) and Euripides (e.g. Hipp. 491 διιστέον, Or. 769 οἰστέον: the latter in recitative) indicate that this is a very questionable characterization.

The three accusatives (ἔρεισμ’, ἄωτον, ὀρθόπολιν) are governed by γεγωνητέον in the double-accusative construction common with verbs of praise in Pindar's odes: we acclaim x as y. Likewise, γεγωνέω at P. 9.3–4 Τελεσικράτη . . . γεγωνεῖν | ὄλβιον ἄνδρα, διωξίππου στεφάνωμα Κυράνας, and similarly (e.g.) αἰνέω at O. 4.14–16, ἐπαινέω at O. 13.1–3, κελαδέω at I. 1.52–4. Commentators and others are reluctant to acknowledge the construction (LSJ is silent in all such cases), seemingly taking the y as appositional to the x (or to the sentence: cf. e.g. Carey on P. 9.3–4, above).Footnote ⁴⁹ Slater (1969), 105 correctly has ‘c. acc. dupl.’ for P. 9.3 (s.v. γεγωνέω) and (page 275) for I. 1.54 (s.v. κελαδέω), but not for the other instances cited above, including our O. 2 passage.

ὅπᾳ δίκαιον: as our earlier findings indicate (pages 504 and 506–7 above), the restored phrase, vouched for by the gloss in MS G, is an isolated expression in Pindar, but comparable with (e.g.) the simpler σὺν . . . δίκᾳ at P. 9.96 (αἰνεῖν . . . | παντὶ θυμῷ σύν τε δίκᾳ καλὰ ῥέζοντ’). The sentiment that this particular acclamation is ‘worthy’ and ‘appropriate’ is echoed at O. 3.9, in the parallel ode for the same victory: πρεπόντως . . . γεγωνεῖν.Footnote ⁵⁰ In Pindar, ‘appropriate’ praise for the laudandus is frequently signalled as such, as it is again later in O. 2 itself: πρέπει τὸν Αἰνησιδάμου | ἐγκωμίων τε μελέων λυρᾶν τε τυγχανέμεν (46–7). The principle is asserted in general terms in one of his encomia: πρέπει δ’ ἐσλοῖσιν ὑμνεῖσθαι (fr. 121 S–M).

With the compressed clause, compare εἰ δυνατόν at N. 9.28 (with Braswell ad loc.)—another isolated expression in Pindar, like ὅπᾳ δίκαιον here—and the parallel compressions like Xenophon's ὅπῃ δυνατόν (An. 2.1.19) and Timocreon's ὡς ἐοικὸς καὶ δίκαιον (2 PMG) cited above (page 507). The seeming allusion to legal formulas (ὅπᾳ κα δικαιότατα . . . : ibid.) invests Pindar's praise of Thero with a distinctive authority: the praise is not just ‘appropriate’ but also, somehow, has the force of law. In Pindar, δίκα is often associated with praise: cf. again P. 9.95–6 αἰνεῖν . . . | σὺν . . . δίκᾳ (likewise Bacchyl. 13.201–2 αἰνείτω σοφὸν ἄνδρα | σὺν δίκᾳ), along with (e.g.) O. 6.12 αἶνος . . . ἐν δίκᾳ, N. 3.29 ἕπεται . . . λόγῳ δίκας ἄωτος, ἐσλὸν αἰνεῖν. Yet, here it is as if he is insisting on the wider connotations of δίκα/δίκαιος and specifically on a reciprocal implication that Thero's own actions and achievements are themselves ‘lawful’ and ‘just’ (note the corollary at N. 5.14, αἰδέομαι μέγα εἰπεῖν ἐν δίκᾳ τε μὴ κεκινδυνευμένον).

The tone of the sequence γεγωνητέον, ὅπᾳ δίκαιον is not easy to assess. The -τέον is clearly a modernism,Footnote ⁵¹ and ὅπᾳ δίκαιον too, to judge from the distribution of comparable examples (pages 506–7 above); as a lexical item, γεγωνέω is standard usage, verse and prose, from Homer onwards (LSJ s.v.). Epicisms abound in Pindar, but one notes the absence of any specifiable epicism here (such as the imagined ὄπῑ would yield: see n. 16 above). Some of the various ellipses in which ὅπᾳ is seen to participate elsewhere look colloquial (καρυξῶ Δικαιόπολιν ὅπᾳ, Ar. Ach. 748), but there is nothing to suggest that here, and the apparent legal associations of ὅπᾳ δίκαιον certainly pull in a different direction. The predominant tone would seem to be one of contemporaneity. Thero, if not exactly, like W.S. Gilbert's Stanley, a ‘modern Major-General’,Footnote ⁵² is pre-eminently a great figure of ‘our’ time—but then, this is contemporaneity at once allied to ancestral achievement (εὐωνύμων . . . πατέρων).

Beside its role in the immediate context, δίκαιον, at the start of the ode, introduces a theme that plays an important part in the impact of the ode as a whole. In O. 2, δίκα and its cognates recur in a way that links Thero's beneficence and achievement (celebrated here) with righteous behaviour in this world and the next (ἐν δίκᾳ τε καὶ παρὰ δίκαν, 16; μείναντες ἀπὸ πάμπαν ἀδίκων, 69), with judgement in the next (κατὰ γᾶς δικάζει τις, 59) and, at the end of the ode, with the importance of poetic propriety in celebration itself (αἶνον ἐπέβα κόρος | οὐ δίκᾳ συναντόμενος, 95–6). This is the unity of ‘associative co-presence’ so characteristic of Pindar: Silk (2012), 356–64.

ξένων ἔρεισμ’: on the reinterpretation of ΞΕΝΟΝ as ξένων, see above (page 501). In Pindar's epinicians, the proper response to xenoi (which would often include the poet himself, as beneficiary of ἀνδρὸς φιλοξείνου: N. 1.19–24) is a constant theme: cf. Pavese (1966), 109 n. 16; Carey (1995), 94–5. Just as, later in the poem, Thero is φίλοις . . . | εὐεργέταν (93–4: cf. pages 511–12 below), so here he is a ‘prop’ or ‘support’ or ‘mainstay’ for xenoi. This usage of ἔρεισμα belongs to a series of semi-conventional honorific metaphors, favoured especially by Pindar, but whose original models are πύργος, ἔρκος and ἕρμα in their Homeric uses: Ἀργείοισι | . . . πύργος, of Ajax (Od. 11.555–6); ἕρκος Ἀχαιῶν, again of Ajax (Il. 3.229); ἕρμα πόληος, of Sarpedon (Il. 16.549) and the Ithacans (Od. 23.121). The ‘supportive’ source is sometimes a city (vel sim.), sometimes a man (ditto), and in Pindar—distinctively—the beneficiary may be, precisely, xenoi.Footnote ⁵³ Thus Ἕκτορα . . . Τροίας | . . . κίονα (O. 2.81–2) but also τάνδ’ ἁλιερκέα χώραν [sc. Aegina] | . . . ξένοις | κίονα (O. 8.25–7).Footnote ⁵⁴ Likewise, Thgn. 233–4 πύργος . . . δήμῳ | . . . ἐσθλὸς ἀνήρ and Alcaeus 112.10 L–P ἄνδρες . . . πόλιος πύργος, whereas in Pindar the enduring ὄλβος of Battos, more elaborately, is hailed as πύργος ἄστεος ὄμμα τε φαεννότατον | ξένοισι (P. 5.55–7). In the metaphorical uses of ἔρεισμα, the actual recipients of the ‘support’ may themselves be cities or countries, as in fr. 76.2 S–M, Ἑλλάδος ἔρεισμα (Hellas ‘supported’ by Athens), or else groups of people, as in Eur. IA 952, ἔρεισμα βαρβάρων (barbaroi ‘supported’ by Mt Sipylus), or as with the ξένων here.Footnote ⁵⁵ Elsewhere in Pindar, simpler tropes are used to characterize the relation between honorand and xenoi: at P. 3.71 Hiero is ξείνοις . . . πατήρ and at O. 13.2–3 the οἶκον of Xenophon of Corinth is ξένοισι . . . θεράποντα. Much more flamboyant is Empedocles, fr. 112.3 DK, where—as so often in Pindar—the proper response to xenoi is articulated in metaphor, and specifically the Acragantines are called ξείνων αἰδοῖοι λιμένες. In context, the phrase looks remarkably like a response to Pindar's (Appendix B, pages 516–17 below), and, as such, represents confirmation of our restored text. Further confirmation, it might well be thought, is provided by the fact that, whereas ξένων ἔρεισμα makes a distinctive point in the sequence of commendations, the supposed collocation ἔρεισμ’ Ἀκράγαντος would effectively be duplicated by ὀρθόπολιν at the end of the sentence.

In retrospect, it becomes apparent that the parenthetic ὅπᾳ δίκαιον applies, not just to the propriety of praise (γεγωνητέον) but, apo koinou,Footnote ⁵⁶ to the terms of praise now specified, especially the first one, ξένων ἔρεισμ’. The connotations of δίκαιον, that is, remain active, because (as Pindar repeatedly reminds us) ‘supporting’ xenoi is itself a matter of δίκα: O. 13.2–7 οἶκον . . . | ξένοισι . . . θεράποντα . . . [in Corinth, where] . . . Εὐνομία ναίει κασιγνήτα τε . . . | Δίκα; N. 4.12 δίκᾳ ξεναρκέϊ; I. 9.5–6 οὐ θέμιν οὐδὲ δίκαν | ξείνων ὑπερβαίνοντες. Pindar has not, indeed, invented the association: cf. Od. 6.120–1 δίκαιοι ~ φιλόξεινοι, Hes. Op. 225–6 δίκας ξείνοισι . . . δίδουσιν | ἰθείας καὶ μή τι παρεκβαίνουσι δικαίου, Aesch. fr. 196.1–2 Radt ἐνδικώτατον | . . . καὶ φιλοξενώτατον, Bacchyl. 14.23 φιλοξείνου τε καὶ ὀρθοδίκου, Eur. Alc. 1147–8 δίκαιος ὢν | . . . εὐσέβει περὶ ξένους.

Ἀκράγαντος | εὐωνύμων τε πατέρων: a typically Pindaric kind of double specification, almost a hendiadys; cf. N. 5.8 Αἰακίδας ἐγέγαιρεν ματρόπολίν τε, N. 9.14 πατρίων οἴκων ἀπό τ’ Ἄργεος, O. 3.38–9 Ἐμμενίδαις | Θήρωνί τ’ (Thero is an Emmenid).Footnote ⁵⁷ In all the examples cited, the particle τε isolates, therefore foregrounds, a proper name, as here Ἀκράγαντος: Thero (we are to agree) is the supreme representative of his city, Acragas, as well as of the Emmenids, his clan.

πατέρων ἄωτον: hyperbolic, in so far as, when used of people partitively (above, pages 502–3), ἄ. + genitive plural implies that the subject is one of the plurality: compare the hyperbolic superlatives in Soph. Ant. 100–2 (with Jebb ad loc.) or Milton's ‘fairest of her daughters, Eve’ (Paradise Lost, 4.324). The hyperbole is lessened by Ἀκράγαντος—as if ‘the finest representative of Acragas, including his own ancestors’. With Ἀκράγαντος, ἄωτον functions like its counterpart in Ἀθανᾶν . . . ἄωτον at Bacchyl. 23.1; with πατέρων, like ναυτᾶν ἄωτος at P. 4.188. On the iconym ἄωτος/-ον, its occurrences and its usage, see pages 502–3 above.

ὀρθόπολιν: the adjective goes not (aberrantly) with ἄωτον but (straightforwardly) with the underlying subject Θήρωνα, as the last item in an unconnected (asyndetic) list (pages 503–4 above); similarly O. 13.4–5 τὰν ὀλβίαν Κόρινθον, Ἰσθμίου | πρόθυρον Ποτειδᾶνος, ἀγλαόκουρον, where ἀγλαόκουρον goes with Κόρινθον, not with πρόθυρον. The adjective ὀρθόπολις is rare in the extreme: in antiquity only attested otherwise in a Pisidian verse inscription of the Roman era (BCH 23 [1899], 302), as a proper name (as in Strabo 7 fr. 16.11 Radt and Pausanias 2.5.8) and with explicit allusion to Pindar in Himerius (Orat. 38.75 Colonna) and Libanius (Epist. 288.1). Libanius’ reference (τὸν ὀρθόπολιν, εἶπεν ἂν Πίνδαρος) conveniently suggests that the compound was Pindar's coinage or, at least, effectively his property, with no independent life outside O. 2 itself. The first element, ὀρθο-, is verbal in force (Σικελίαν . . . ὀρθώσειν N. 1.15, πόλις . . . ὀρθωθεῖσα I. 5.48), like the first elements in ἀρχέπολις (of the nymph Κυράνα: P. 9.54), φερέπολις (of personified Τύχα: fr. 39 S–M), ἐρυσίπτολις (of Athena: Il. 6.305). The parallels are indicative of the high pitch of Pindar's praise of Thero in this passage.

What follows after ὀρθόπολιν is a celebration of the πατέρων: καμόντες οἳ πολλὰ θυμῷ | ἱερὸν ἔσχον οἴκημα ποταμοῦ . . . (8–9). With ὀρθόπολιν a distinct item in the list, that sequence is seen to involve a very Pindaric dislocation of the relative pronoun from its antecedent. With πατέρων ἄωτον, ὀρθόπολιν· | καμόντες οἵ . . . , compare, later in the ode (79–81), Ἀχιλλέα τ’ ἔνεικ’, ἐπεὶ Ζηνὸς ἦτορ | λιταῖς ἔπεισε, μάτηρ· | ὅς . . . In all such cases, the effect is to highlight the new topic, even at the cost of an abrasive switch (as, strikingly, in the later passage).

ΙΙΙ ECHOES

Towards the end of O. 2, at lines 93–5, Pindar picks up the topic of Thero's beneficence to xenoi: in a hundred years, no city has produced φίλοις ἄνδρα μᾶλλον | εὐεργέταν πραπίσιν ἀφθονέστερόν τε χέρα | Θήρωνος. In passing, one notes the concrete force of Thero's ‘hand’.Footnote ⁵⁸ Less noteworthy in itself: the momentary concreteness precisely matches the implicit physicality of ξένων ἔρεισμ’ in line 6. ‘Ηands’ are hardly what ‘support’ the xenoi there, but ἐρείδειν and χείρ are readily associable in Greek usage (ἔρεισμα itself is not common enough to show up the association): Il. 5.309 ἐρείσατο χειρί; 11.235 ἐπὶ δ’ αὐτὸς ἔρεισε, βαρείῃ χειρὶ πιθήσας; Od. 11.426 χερσὶ . . . σὺν . . . στόμ’ ἐρεῖσαι; Hippoc. Art. 58 τῇ χειρὶ . . . ἐρείδεσθαι, 11 τῇ χειρὶ ἐπερείδειν, 52 τῇ χειρὶ πρὸς τὴν γῆν ἀπερειδόμενοι. Meanwhile, the φίλοι to whom Thero has shown himself a εὐεργέτας in lines 93–5 doubtless are, or subsume, xenoi: cf. I. 6.70 ξένων εὐεργασίαις ἀγαπᾶται. The association of ξένος and φίλος is familiar in Greek usage more generally, from epic-era verse (Il. 6.224 ξεῖνος φίλος; Od. 1.313 φίλοι ξεῖνοι; CEG 1.453 Hansen ξένϜος τε φίλος: Ithacan inscription, c.700 b.c.) to classical prose (Xen. An. 2.1.5 φίλος καὶ ξένος; sim. Lys. 19.19, Dem. 21.110, Aeschin. 3.224) and Pindar himself (N. 5.8, 7.61–3). The echo is hardly perceptible—which tells us what? That, for Pindar, unobtrusive self-echoing is, or may be, a significant mode of composition.

A more consequential example, for present purposes, is provided by the echoes of our passage in the parallel ode, O. 3, a second celebration of the victory that is the occasion for O. 2. As with at least one other group of related poems in Pindar's epinician collection, private compositional imperatives lead the poet to recall phraseology or verbal sequences from one ode to another, far beyond any question of Lieblingswörter or, indeed, random repetition. The case in point is the three pankration odes for the brothers Pytheas and Phylacidas, N. 5, I. 5 and I. 6, where the phenomenon is surely beyond dispute.Footnote ⁵⁹ In particular, I. 5, the latest of the three, shows such striking correspondences as these, with the earlier I. 6:

‘where the χαλκο- compounds and the noun σύμμαχος (not otherwise attested in Pindar) are distinctive’.Footnote ⁶¹ With O. 2 and O. 3, it is impossible to know which ode was composed first, but that hardly matters. The point is that the two commemorations of Thero's Olympic victory contain comparable echoes (‘allusions’ would be an inappropriate characterization)Footnote ⁶² and that, as will become apparent, the echoes serve to strengthen the case for the textual restoration proposed for O. 2.Footnote ⁶³

There are, of course, substantive elements in common between O. 2 and O. 3. Not only do the poems celebrate the same victor and the same victory; they share at least one noteworthy mythological connection. Heracles figures in both odes, while, specifically, both the opening of O. 2 and the closure of O. 3 associate Thero and Heracles as great achievers: Ὀλυμπιάδα δ’ ἔστασεν Ἡρακλέης | ἀκρόθινα πολέμου· | Θήρωνα δὲ . . . | γεγωνητέον (O. 2.3–6); νῦν δὲ πρὸς ἐσχατιὰν Θήρων ἀρεταῖσιν ἱκάνων ἅπτεται | οἴκοθεν Ἡρακλέος σταλᾶν (O. 3.43–4). Much less striking, no doubt, but much more to the point, is the set of correspondences in the following two passages (the second of which subsumes that same closure), where any overt substantive connection is lacking. The first passage belongs to Pindar's remarkable depiction of the afterlife; the second, to the sequence that begins with Heracles’ foundation of the Olympic games and ends with the poet's affirmation of limits:

In the I. 5/I. 6 example, the correspondences largely involve repeated words or word-elements (πέφνον/πέφνεν), but also sound-echoes (χαλκοάραν/χαλκοχάρμαν). So too here we have κενεάν/κενεός but also νέμονται αἰῶνα/ἀγῶνα νέμειν.Footnote ⁶⁶

In this light, two other—much shorter—sequences have a special relevance. First, we have the correspondence, both in word and sound, between O. 2.6–7 Ἀκράγαντος | εὐωνύμων τε πατέρων ἄωτον, ὀρθόπολιν and O. 3.3–4 (likewise early in its ode) ὕμνον ὀρθώσαις, ἀκαμαντοπόδων | ἵππων ἄωτον, or specifically:

Here, it is arguably no coincidence that in the O. 3 sequence the ἀκαμαντο- element (like the echoic Ἀκράγαντο- in O. 2)Footnote ⁶⁷ goes closely with the ἄωτον that follows. In Pindar's authorial-compositional mind, the shape of the phrasing is determinative.

Finally, the early part of O. 3, again, has a revealing correspondence, part verbal, part semantic, with the restored phrase that is at the centre of our argument. With γεγωνητέον, ὅπᾳ δίκαιον at O. 2.6, compare πρεπόντως . . . γεγωνεῖν at O. 3.9.Footnote ⁶⁸ The latter phrasing emerges from a much more intricate sequence, indeed (O. 3.6–9):

The kinship, however, is apparent. Here, as with the ἀκαμαντοπόδων sequence, Pindar's perhaps unexpected compositional habits have given us a correspondence that tends to confirm the plausibility of a corrected text.Footnote ⁶⁹