It is my endeavour in this paper to connect literary and philosophical texts with each other which all articulate the relation of the good sovereign to the supreme god. I try to show that despite the difference in age and genre these texts have some traits in common: the motiv of the eye looking benignly upon and/or bringing fertility to land and people, and the metempsychosis with the arrival of the king from the god and/or his return to the divine (...) sphere. I suggest that the recurrence of these motifs cannot be accidental and might reveal some continuity of tradition. Although the nature of such conceptual development is bound to be very complex and its starting point hard to trace, I nevertheless argue for a Pythagorean origin for the metempsychosis and the eye of the king, attested by Empedocles and Pindar, which mixed with the old belief of the king assuring fertility, as evidenced in Homer. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a fully intended and carefully tailored allusion in Plato’s Phaedrus to Pindar’s Pythian 1 with the pivotal image of Typho. The analysis of verbal and conceptual links leads to a better appreciation of the nuances in the Platonic passage, including a hitherto utterly unexplored layer of the text, its musical metaphoricity. On this level several main themes of Plato’s thought, such as the problem of singleness vs. manyness, musical ethos and criticism, converge in an (...) extraordinarily dense expression. (shrink)

The list of Apollo's virtues in the second hymn of Callimachus describes, in the context of the appearance of the god, a mysterious healing substance which trickles from the hair of the patron of medicine. Hymn 2.38–41:αἱ δὲ κόμαι θυόεντα πέδῳ λείβουσιν ἔλαια⋅οὐ λίπος ᾿Απόλλωνος ἀποστάζουσιν ἔθειραι,ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὴν πανάκειαν⋅ ἐν ἄστεϊ δ᾽ ᾧ κεν ἐκεῖναιπρῶκες ἔραζε πέσωσιν, ἀκήρια πάντ᾽ ἐγένοντο.Apollo's hair distils flagrant drops of unguent to the ground: Apollo's curls shed no oil but panacea itself. In the city where (...) those dewdrops fall to earth, all things are safe. (shrink)

Das Widerspiel von mythischer und historischer Zeit ist ein wesentliches Merkmal der antiken Zeitauffassung, wie sie uns in reinster Form die antike Literatur widerspiegelt. Es stellt auch einen wichtigen Unterschied zu unserer modernen Zeiterfahrung dar, sodass die angelegentliche Untersuchung jeder Spielart dieser παλίντονος ἁρμονίη von Mythischem und Historischem einer Herausforderung gleichkommt, die Eigenart antiker Zeitauffassung verstehen zu lernen. Auf den folgenden Seiten geht es um diese Problematik in einem einzigen Gedicht einer bestimmten Gattung eines begrenzten Zeitalters: Das Zeitalter ist die (...) Hochblüte des Hellenismus, die Gattung die Hymnendichtung, das Gedicht der Hymnos auf Artemis des Kallimachos. (shrink)

This article aims to present an overall interpretation of a poem by Callimachus that centres on the dead Ptolemaic queen Arsinoe II. Firstly the position of the Ektheosis Arsinoes in Callimachus’ œuvre, the genre to which it belongs and its structure will be investigated. This leads to the analysis of the highly allusive character of the work (above all to Hesiod, Ibycus, Simonides and Pindar as well as to hymnic poetry). In addition, realia (the historical background) and textual difficulties arising (...) from the fragmentary transmisson will also be treated. The appendix discusses a hitherto unnoticed testimony to the poem’s reception in the Roman epicist Ennius. (shrink)

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

Every Pindaric ode poses the question of literary unity, which is a main issue of Pindaric scholarship. But every ode presents a specific form of unity. The ways of achieving unity in the Sixth Olympian, one of Pindar’s most accomplished poems, are the chief concern of this paper. I argue that unity in O. 6 comes about by a metaphoric correspondence between the poet (Pindar) and the prophet (Hagesias, the victor, and Iamos, the mythic protagonist). This constellation is based on (...) two significant aspects, which are typical of both prophet and poet: the moment of inspiration and of the utterance (of the oracle viz. poem). These aspects are emphasized in vv. 58-70 concerning Iamos, the prophet, and in vv. 82-91 (the main stumbling block in the interpretation of the poem) with regard to the poet Pindar. These metaphors of prophetic-poetic activity permeate the whole ode. (shrink)

This article argues for an allusion in Virgil's Eclogue 4 to one of Pindar's victory odes. It will be suggested that this Pindaric pretext is viewed by the Latin poet through a Callimachean perspective which adds to it further layers of significance. Consequently, the evidence will be discussed for reading the allusion in terms of royal ideology which places Virgil's poem in the tradition of Hellenistic ruler-encomia.