# Pindar (Morice)/Chapter 10

CHAPTER X.
THEBES.—ÆGINA.
Four of Pindar's extant Odes are addressed to victors from his own native city, Thebes. These are, the Eleventh Pythian, and three out of the seven Isthmians—the first, the third, and the sixth. All, as might be expected, abound in indications of Pindar's deep attachment to his native city, and the interest which he felt in all events, at home or abroad, in which her weal was concerned. Yet, for several reasons, the frequent political allusions which these Odes contain tend rather to perplex than to enlighten us as to Theban politics in Pindar's age, and the part, if any, which the poet took in them. It so happens that we are unable to fix, with anything like certainty, the date of any one of these four Odes. It is not surprising, then, that commentators who have endeavoured to identify the events to which they seem to allude with historical occurrences known to us from other sources, should have come to widely different conclusions. Again, our existing evidences as to Theban affairs at this period are at once defective, and in many points mutually contradictory. And, for ​obvious reasons, we cannot expect to find Pindar expressing himself fully and unreservedly on burning questions of contemporary politics. His allusions are necessarily guarded, and therefore frequently obscure. Still, amid all this obscurity, a few facts seem to emerge, which throw light on Theban history and on the political views of the poet.
One such fact is the existence, in Pindar's days, of a long and bitter struggle between contending factions at Thebes—a struggle which Pindar regrets, and would fain appease. We obtain frequent glimpses of the misfortunes which the overweening pride and ambition of a portion of the Theban aristocracy drew down upon themselves and their country. We hear of banishments, of great houses suffering a temporary eclipse of their greatness, of savage feuds, and apparently—in dark and mysterious hints—of fratricidal murders, and stern reprisals on their authors. Of the selfish ambitions which produced these disastrous consequences the poet speaks with regret and with implicit condemnation; yet he never exults over their defeat. He admires and loves the illustrious Theban aristocracy; and though he deplores its faults, he feels the deepest pity for its misfortunes. He appears to seek a remedy for the evils of the time, not in the expulsion from the State of the members who had disturbed its peace, but in the general diffusion through the community (and especially the upper classes) of a tranquil, law-abiding spirit. In the ​Eleventh Pythian he contrasts the solid advantages of "the modest mean," of peaceful unassuming citizenship with the treacherous enticements of "the tyrant's lot." And in the opening of the Third Isthmian he finds his highest type of political virtue in the noble who can rise superior to the temptations of his position:—
"If crowned with high success in glorious game, Or with rich store of plenty blest, Man yet can curb within his breast The demon Pride. Oh, let his name Sound proudly in his townsmen's high acclaim."—(S.)
The ideal of life, which he suggests to his hearers, and which he would fain realise in his own case, is to dwell—honoured and beloved—among fellow-citizens, in dignified but unassuming ease, and to die in peace, bequeathing an unsullied name to a posterity who should reflect in their own lives the virtues of their parent. Thus it was, he says, that the heroes of old, Iolaus, Castor, Polydeuces, won their title to divine honours, and such is the lot in the hope of which he can look tranquilly forward to his own approaching end:—
"Now, thanks to Neptune! whose kind sway Cheers with calm our clouded day. Now will I bind my brow with wreaths, and sing. Kind Heaven, no cloud of trouble fling In wrath athwart my new-recovered peace! So may I wait Death's calm release, Wearing out my aged years Until the destined day appears."—(S.)
​Of those whom a neglect of the principles which Pindar would instil into his townsmen had involved in faction and deserved calamity, he speaks not with anger but with sympathy. He pities their reverses, rejoices in any gleam of returning prosperity, and finds in their sad experiences lessons both of consolation and of warning. Thus he alludes to a member of a noble house who had so far compromised himself in the strife of parties as to be driven to flee his city and seek a new home in the neighbouring Orchomenus:—
"On him, in storms of civil tumult wild Shipwrecked, by every furious billow tossed, Her bruised and battered child, Orchomenus—a friendly host— From the deep sea a willing welcome smiled. Now hath his inborn fate Lifted again his fall'n and sad estate, And hard experience taught his soul to learn The lore of prudent thought, her lesson sage and stern."—(S.)
Domestic feuds and the calamities of individuals were not the only evils brought upon Thebes by the factions which disturbed her commmonwealth. Through them, also, the city found itself committed to a foreign policy disgraceful in itself and disastrous in its consequences. At that momentous period, when the rapid advance of Persian invasion summoned all patriotic Greeks to rally in defence of their common fatherland, the selfish and scheming oligarchy who were for the time supreme in Thebes flung themselves ​and their city into the arms of the invader. We learn from Thucydides that this ignoble course was deeply distasteful to a considerable section of the citizens; and we find in Pindar's poems much which leads us to suspect that he shared in this matter the sentiments of the opposition. But the conciliatory attitude which he adopts towards the jarring factions of his countrymen rarely allows him so much as to hint at this unwelcome and dangerous topic. The failure of Xerxes naturally brought about the destruction of his Theban partisans; but the punishment of the actual criminals did not free the city from the discredit in which they had involved it. Athens especially never forgave the defection which had wellnigh involved her in hopeless ruin. She bent all her energies to humiliate her faithless neighbour; she stirred the subject cities of Bœotia to revolt; and ultimately she shook the influence of the city to its foundations in the campaign which swept away the flower of the Theban nobility in the disastrous battle of Œnophyta.
It has been thought that Pindar alludes to this battle in the Sixth Isthmian, addressed to Strepsiades of Thebes, an uncle of whom, the poet tells us, had fallen on the field of battle in defence of his native town:—
"Son of Diodotus, 'twas thine . . . For Thebes to yield thy young life's flowery pride. Amid the bravest to the front he flew, Where foemen pressed and hopes were few. There the fatal blow was dealt. Ah me! the speechless woe I felt."—(S.)
​At the great battle of Platæa, where the retiring Persians made their final effort to crush the forces of Greece, the Theban oligarchs had been found fighting, with bravery worthy of a better cause, in the ranks of the invaders. A reference to this struggle has been suspected in the Third Isthmian:—
"But on their home in wrath the tempest leapt, And from their hearth four hero-brethren swept."—(S.)
If the suspicion be correct, we may see in Pindar's language an illustration of the caution and tact with which he handles a perilous theme. The fall of the Theban oligarchs, fighting for their country's foes, is treated rather as an inevitable calamity than as the just penalty of their criminal schemes. The poet gazes on it with awe and pity. No word of reproach escapes his lips. He cannot defend the cause in which the warriors fell; but he buries their fault in silence.
Amid the clouds and gloom which hung over Thebes, the result of her disgraceful union with, the enemies of Greece, one ray of light appears to console the patriotic poet. He dwells with eagerness on the sympathy, resting partly on national traditions, partly on community of interests, and not least, perhaps, on common fear and dislike of Athens, which, after the Persian troubles, grew up between Thebes and Sparta. He seems to have looked upon this friendship as offering to Thebes her best hope of recovering the position which she had lost. And it is probable that those mythical traditions of his own family, which were so constantly present to his fancy, gave him an additional ​bias towards Sparta,—the state, with whose early fortunes the legends of his own ancestors, the Ægids, were so intimately associated. The sympathy, which he hails, and longs to strengthen, between Thebes and Sparta, is shadowed forth in his description of the legendary brotherhood-in-arms between the Spartan Castor and the Theban Iolaus. He describes their friendly rivalry in feats of strength, and represents them as standing out side by side in proud preeminence above the other champions of Greece, each the charioteer of a demigod, each victorious in all athletic contests:—
"Numberless they bound With conquering wreaths their temples round. This,—my own native Dirce's boast of pride: That,—the heroic chief from famed Eurotas' side."—(S.)
This description occurs in the First Isthmian. Similarly, and doubtless for the same reason, these heroes are associated together in the Eleventh Pythian—
"To greatness Iolaus grew, and Castor strong."
In the Sixth Isthmian, he enumerates among the legendary glories of Thebes, the assistance furnished by the Ægids to the founders of the Spartan kingdom. But, when this Ode was written, a cloud of disappointment seems to have overshadowed the bright hopes which he had once formed from the prospect of Spartan friendship. He hints that Sparta has forgotten the old claims of Thebes upon her love—
"But ah! the grace of days of yore Falleth on sleep, and none remembereth more."—(S.)
​In fact the Spartans proved but lukewarm friends to Thebes. Hearty support from Sparta might have averted the bitter humiliation of Œnophyta; but that support was withheld, and the Thebans found too late that they had leaned upon a broken reed.
The mythical glories of Thebes were out of all proportion to the importance of the city in later history. They carry us back into times before the Dorians had established themselves in Sparta, when Athens was not yet a city. Thebes and Argos were then the foremost powers in Greece; and the struggles between these two cities occupy in the earlier period of Greek mythology the same prominence which in the later period belongs to the Trojan war. The opening verses of the Sixth Isthmian contain a long list of the heroic memories of ancient Thebes, the birth-place of Heracles the greatest of all Greek heroes, of Dionysus the god of wine, of Tiresias the father of Grecian seership, of Iolaus—a favourite hero of Pindar's—the nephew and comrade of Heracles. There too we find mention of the "Sparti," the warrior-race who sprang from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus, first founder of the city, and from whom sundry Theban families in Pindar's own day claimed descent. The closing scene of the Argive war, the repulse of Adrastus from before the walls of Thebes, is not forgotten: and the list closes with the legend of Pindar's own ancestors, the Ægids, who helped to found the Dorian sovereignty in Sparta.
References to this series of legends abound in our poet, but they are by no means confined to the Odes addressed to Theban conquerors. Indeed, in these latter ​Odes, the element of local mythology, though never wanting, is on the whole less prominent than might have been expected, and takes the form of allusion rather than of narrative. The most important legendary episode which we find in them—that of Agamemnon's murder, and the revenge of Orestes on the assassins, in the Eleventh Pythian—is, in the form in which Pindar tells it, a Laconian legend, and has no connection with the mythology of Thebes. Possibly the contemporary troubles of his city may have to some extent distracted the attention of the poet from its past glories. Or he may have deemed these themes so familiar to his hearers, as to be sufficiently recalled to their memories by passing allusions. Whatever be the reason, it is certain that the chief passages in which Pindar dwells on Theban legends are to be found in Odes addressed to a foreign and not to a native audience.
We have seen how eagerly the poet looked to Sparta, as the ally whose support was to save his unhappy city amid its troubles, present and to come. But there was another Grecian state towards which he seems to have been drawn by a yet stronger sympathy. His attachment to the island-community of Ægina was both personal and national. He was associated with many of its citizens by the ties of warm private friendship, strengthened, it would seem, by frequent and familiar intercourse. The memory of a fancied kinship had, even in historical times, united Thebes and Ægina ​more than once in close political alliance. And, in Pindar's favourite legends, members of the heroic Æginetan house of Æacus appeared, again and again, as the chosen friends and comrades of the Theban Heracles.
No less than eleven of Pindar's extant Odes are addressed to Æginetan conquerors. In many of these he expresses what is evidently a warm and sincere admiration for the character of the people and their institutions; and his language as to the families of the victors often indicates the closest intimacy and friendship between himself and them.
The island of Ægina lies in the middle of the Saronic gulf, between the two great promontories of Attica and Argolis. It will be remembered that the Nemean festival was held in the latter district, and a large proportion of the Æginetan victories recorded by Pindar were obtained in the lists of Nemea. Ægina was a most conspicuous object in the view from Athens over the Saronic gulf; and it was in allusion to this, and to the long-standing jealousies which existed between the two states, that Pericles called Ægina "the eyesore of the Piræus." The natural features of the island were not specially attractive. It was somewhat bare and rocky. Such beauty as it possessed was due to the luminous clearness of its air, and the bold outlines of the mountain which formed its centre. But its buildings in Pindar's day were among the most magnificent in Greece; its harbour was filled with stately ships; ​and its quays, swarming with foreign traders and loaded with bales of costly merchandise, presented a lively and exciting spectacle to the visitor from the inland towns of Greece. In the age which preceded the rise of Athens, Ægina had been the foremost naval power on the Greek side of the Ægæan Sea. To the Æginetan traders was ascribed the introduction into Greece of gold and silver coin, and of a uniform scale of weights and measures. The wealth of individual citizens seems to have been enormous, and it was lavished on public objects and the encouragement of art and athleticism. Remembering Pindar's views on this point, we do not wonder to find him describing Ægina as the model state, in which, above all others, his ideals of life were realised.
The bold and commanding situation of Ægina, and the crowds of strangers who flocked to its hospitable port, seem to have produced a strong impression on Pindar's imagination. Thus he says in the Eighth Olympian—
"Heaven's command draws the sons of every land Around this isle, set in the girdling main As a pillar sublime."
In the Fourth Isthmian he addresses Ægina as "a tower, walled of old with high-climbing virtues," and so in the Fourth Nemean he describes the island as the "towering throne of the Æacids," where justice is ever ready to protect the stranger, "the light of all men's eyes." Himself a Dorian, he greets Ægina as a typical Dorian state:—
"Our Dorian home Ægina's hospitable isle."—(S.)
"From Æacus down that land have Dorians swayed."
He dwells with admiration and sympathy on the culture of the Æginetans, on their zealous and successful athleticism, on their prowess in naval warfare:—
"Who clash the spear and love the song, Training their youth to love alway The glorious fray."—(S.)
"Not banished from the Graces lies His home, in all the virtues rare Of Æacids that claimeth share. No! from that righteous island's rise Never-failing praise is hers, and songs her worth proclaim. Oft have the heroes she has borne the crown of sportive contests worn, Oft in rapid fight won fame."
"Glad am I," cries the poet in the Fifth Nemean, "that all the state strives after glory;" and in the same Ode he calls the island, "a soil well loved of strangers, mother of valiant men, and glorious in ships."
At the beginning of the Persian troubles, when Darius invaded Greece, Ægina had disgraced herself by deserting the national cause, and associating herself with the foreigner. Consequently, when the invasion was over, Athens denounced the Æginetans before ​assembled Greece, and the result was an invasion of the island by Sparta. But, in the renewal of the Persian attack by Xerxes, the Æginetans repaired their former fault by conspicuous devotion to the Grecian cause. Their island became the asylum of the expelled Athenians, and their splendid valour in the sea-fight at Salamis was rewarded, by common consent, with the first-fruits of the spoils. To this battle Pindar alludes in the Fourth Isthmian:—
"Well may delivered Salamis attest, That by the might of Æginetan hands Old Ajax' city stands."—(S.)
But the old enmity between Athens and Ægina broke out again after the close of the Persian wars. About B.C. 455 the Athenians besieged and took the capital of the island; and at last, in B.C. 429, they occupied the country, expelled the inhabitants, and terminated for ever the rivalry which had so long imperilled their own naval supremacy in Greece. This latter catastrophe, however, was after the death of Pindar. He lived long enough to see the downfall of many a noble house whose achievements he had sung; but he was spared the keener grief of witnessing the final ruin of his favourite Ægina.
Tradition derived the names of Thebes and Ægina from two sister-nymphs, Thebe and Ægina, daughters of Asopus. On the strength of this mythical connection, the Thebans had once actually invoked the Æginetans, as their next of kin, to join them in a war ​against Athens. Strange as it may seem, the appeal was successful; and the Æginetans—though at that time in alliance with Athens—responded first by sending to the Theban leaders the sacred effigies of their own native heroes the Æacids, and ultimately by themselves attacking the Athenians, without even waiting to make a formal declaration of war against them. Pindar alludes to this legend as a bond of connection for all time between members of the two states:—
"Great joy the loyal Theban fills When thy high praise, Ægina, is his theme. For twin were old Asopus' virgin daughters."—(S.)
And in the Fourth Nemean he describes the men of Thebes as welcoming the young Æginetan athlete, Timasarchus, as "a friend among friends for Ægina's sake."
But the legends of Ægina, on which beyond all others he prefers to dwell, are those associated with its great heroic house, the Æacids:—
"A mighty spell my soul constrains, Whene'er my step this glorious island treads, With voice of hymns, like dewy rains, To cherish the Æacid heroes' deeds."—(S.)
And, in fact, in every single Ode which Pindar addressed to victors from Ægina, we find some mention of the house of Æacus, and usually a detailed account of some incident in its legendary history.
This Æacus was said to have been a son of Zeus ​and the nymph Ægina, the most pious of mortals, and the first ruler of the island which bore his mother's name. Among his descendants were numbered many of the most famous heroes of antiquity—Peleus and Telamon, Achilles, Ajax, and Neoptolemus. The adventures of these supplied the poet with a copious stock of legendary material. He tells how Æacus assisted the gods Poseidon and Phœbus in building the walls of Troy; how Zeus and Poseidon—rival lovers of the sea-nymph Thetis—agreed to surrender her to a mortal husband, and selected Peleus as the mortal worthiest of such an honour. He describes the valour and untimely deaths of Ajax and Neoptolemus, the training of young Achilles in the cave of the Centaur Chiron, and the exploits by which he fulfilled the ancient prophecy that Thetis should bear a child more mighty than his father. And he dwells with especial pleasure on the tales which represented the Æacid Telamon as the chosen friend and comrade of the Thebans, Heracles and Iolaus, as foreshadowing the later alliances in war of the two sister-communities, Thebes and Ægina.
But to recapitulate in full all the countless legends of Ægina and the Æacids, as Pindar himself says, would but weary the reader. A few selected passages will suffice to give us an idea of the poet's treatment of these stories in the various Odes which he has addressed to Æginetan victors.
Here is a strophe from the Third Nemean, describing the childhood of Achilles:—
"In mighty deeds the boy Achilles played, Still homed in Chiron's fostering shade: The steel-tipped spear he threw, Swift as the wind the roaring lion slew! He tamed the tusky savage of the wild, Then laid each grim expiring brute Down at the mighty Master's feet, and smiled. So wrought the six years' child!—Diana mute Beheld with wondering joy, And great Athene gazed upon the wondrous boy."—(S.)
From Pindar's frequent enumerations of the same hero's later exploits we may select the following:—
"Soon the voice of Bards with loud acclaiming Told how by young Achilles slain, Amid the vines on Mysia's plain, The blood of vanquished Telephus was streaming. He won Atrides' ravished bride, He bridged wide Ocean for their safe return, He dashed to earth the Trojan pride, Which fain had curbed the prowess stern, The spear which thundering from afar Marshalled the mighty wave of dreadful war. Fell Hector in the unequal fight, Fell the great Memnon's swarthy might; To many a chief of noble fame He oped the gloomy gate of Proserpine."—(S.)
In the Fifth Isthmian, Heracles is described as visiting Telamon, and praying that a noble son may be born to his friend. Pointing to the memorial of his own supreme achievement, the hide of the Nemean lion which hung on his shoulders, he asks that the spirit of that mighty monster may revive in the child of ​Telamon. The prayer is heard, and Zeus sends down his messenger, the eagle, to betoken his approval. The child is born, and receives a name recalling the portent which heralded his birth—"Aias," the Eagle—a name more familiar to us perhaps in its Latinised form as "Ajax."
"'Twas at the Island-Chieftain's lordly feast The high heroic summons came— Stood in the portal high a godlike guest. No need to name his name Who wore the lion's hide, and brindled mane. With eager cheer, and welcome fain, Great Telamon the guest to greet Reached forth a bowl of nectar sweet, A bowl all beauteous to behold Foaming with wine, and rough with sculptured gold, And loudly bade the hero pour The rich libation on the sacred floor. His conquering hands he lifted high, And called the Sire, the Ruler of the Sky. 'If ever from my lips, Paternal Jove, Thou heardest vow in love, Grant me, my chief, my dearest prayer! Be born of Eribœa's womb a boy, His noble father's noble heir, And crown his happy lot with perfect joy! His be the unconquered arm in fight, Might, like this lion's might, In Nemea's vale which my first prowess slew; And as his might, his courage!'—At the words, Swooped from the sky the king of birds. With keenest joy his father's will he knew. Then spake he in a prophet's solemn tone: 'The son thou era vest shall be thine, And be his noble name, my Telamon, ​Called from yon bird divine. Wide as the eagle's be his monarch-sway; Swoop he as eagle on his prey.{{' "}—(S.)
Pindar describes with enthusiasm the exploits of Ajax in the Trojan war, and mourns over the hero's self-inflicted death. He had asserted his just claim to inherit the arms of Achilles. But the jealousy of the Greek chiefs and the cunning of Odysseus conspired successfully against the cause of right, and Ajax, baffled and maddened, fell upon his own sword:—
"'Twas bitter, envious hate That on his buried sword great Ajax flung: The hero strong of arm, unskilled of tongue, Must bow to base defeat. Artist of glozing lies, Laertes' son The golden armour won: The stealthy vote the dark injustice sped, And baffled Ajax bled."—(S.)
In the Seventh Nemean, Pindar's sympathy with Ajax leads him for once to question the veracity of Homer. He hints that as the craft of Odysseus (Ulysses) perverted the judgment of Ajax's contemporaries, so have the ignorant public of a later age been misled by the craft of Homer. As in life, so after death, Odysseus has received more than his due, and Ajax less.
Further on, in the same Ode, Pindar alludes to the melancholy fate of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, slain in a brawl with the priests of Delphi:—
"On the sacred floor His blood the sworded priest 'mid the meat-offering shed." —(S.)
​But even this catastrophe, says the poet, was designed by Fate to add new glories to the house of Æacus. The murdered Neoptolemus received heroic honours in Delphi; his spirit thenceforth abode in the sanctuary, and presided as arbiter over the Pythian contests:—
"It was decreed That in Apollo's ancient shrine Our hero of the Æacid line Should hold his bed divine. So 'mid the blaze of many an altar-flame, 'Mid the high pomp and choral glee, When the great Pythian combat came, Should his high soul the righteous umpire be."—(S.)
The famous myth of the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis appears frequently in these Odes:—
"High was that nuptial banquet, where, in pride, Sat on their orbed thrones the Lords of Heaven. The Lords of Heaven and Lords of Sea. And gifts of power and sovereignty By each great guest to his high race were given."—(S.)
Apollo and the Muses appeared to sing the "hymenæal" chant:—
"The nuptial strain the beauteous Muses sang, What time, amid the goddess-choir, With golden quill Apollo struck the seven-stringed lyre." —(S.)
In the Third Nemean, Telamon, brother of Peleus, appears as the friend of the Theban Iolaus:—
"He, comrade brave and true, With conquering Iolaus slew The steely-shafted host of Amazons."—(S.)
Æacus, the great ancestor of all these heroes, is introduced in the Eighth Olympian, in connection with the remarkable legend of the building of Troy. He came, summoned by Apollo and Poseidon, to aid them in this task. The assistance of a mortal was necessary, for Fate required that Troy should one day perish; yet perish it could not if it consisted wholly of the imperishable work of immortal gods. Accordingly, Æacus was summoned to supply a perishable element in the walls of the new city:—
"Foredoomed of Fate, from its embattled tower, When war's fell affrays Should in havock outblaze, Ruin's lurid fumes to pour."
Suddenly a. portent appeared, shadowing the fate of Troy:—
"Up-leaped upon the city's new-built wall Three sheeny snakes. Two back in ruin thrown Crashed suddenly, and perished in their fall: One rushed exulting on."
Apollo explained the portent. Descendants of Æacus should assault and take the city, breaching its walls in the only place where a breach was possible—the portion reared by his own mortal hands. By the two snakes which fell baffled from the ramparts Pindar appears to have signified the Æacids, Achilles ​and Ajax. Each endeavoured to take the city—each perished before its walls. The third snake undoubtedly represents the son of Achilles, Neoptolemus, by whose assistance the ten-years' siege was at last successfully concluded.
And here we will, at last, take our farewell of the legends of the Æacids, and of the Odes to Æginetan victor in which they are embodied.
* ↑ So Boeckh explains the mythological matter of the Eleventh Pythian.
* ↑ Pyth. ix. 59
* ↑ Isthm. vi. 37.
* ↑ Isthm. i. 36.
* ↑ E.g. Nem. i. and ix. Ol. ii. and vi. all addressed to Sicilian victors. The legends of Heracles often appear in Odes addressed to Æginetans—e.g. Nem. iii. Isthm. v.
* ↑ These are—Ol. viii. Pyth. viii. Nem. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. Isthm. iv. v. vii.
* ↑ Nem. iii. 2.
* ↑ Ol. viii. 30.
* ↑ Nem. vii. 9.
* ↑ Pyth. viii. 21.
* ↑ i.e. Salamis.
* ↑ Isthm. vii. 17.
* ↑ ib. v. 19.
* ↑ Pyth. viii. 12. cf. Isthm. v. 56.
* ↑ Isthm. vii. 47.
* ↑ Nem. viii. 23.
* ↑ ib. vii. 20.
* ↑ Nem. vii. 44.
* ↑ ib. iv. 66.
* ↑ ib. v. 41.
* ↑ Ol. viii. 33.