Abstract

It used to be a commonplace that Bacchylides made profligate use of epithets to adorn his poetry, and not always in an appropriate fashion. More recently, there has been a healthy reaction against this attitude, with attempts to seek more subtle relationships between epithets and the contexts in which they occur. Recent study of poem 17 has concentrated on the conflict of character between Theseus and Minos, and the structure of the Ode, but the epithets have received some attention.