Pindar's Enigmatic Second Nemean

Abstract

E 2v ZOXOC nihoxog X Z U X C X~~ 6~~b o r e c p a v o t g Eptxikv ;iSq. 6x.sb 6' $v NepEa, T& 6' O )~K O~ p&oooV' hpti?po6, Atbg ayhvt. zdv, dI nohi-I OY I10BIC 'S 36 ( 19x9) and Gelzer also speculates on where it was performed, but Gerber's bibliography Stirdicx in Greek Lyric P o e t r y [1975][1976][1977][1978][1979][1980][1981][1982][1983][1984][1985] does not give the poem a separate entry at all (Olmpiun One gets 14 entries).'Wilamowitz's judgement of N e m e u n TMW was curtly dismissive: 'Es ist ein ganz schlichtes Lied'; Famell agreed, calling it 'short and slight'.' However, though it is shorter than many of Pindar's other poems, it is not obviously either simple or slight, if by simple one means straightforward and by slight not worthy of serious study. It is a puzzling poem, very condensed and allusive. In this paper I hope to unravel some of its complexities and show that it is an elegant and subtle poem that raises some interesting questions and scarcely deserves the neglect which it has received.The text printed above is taken from the Teubner edition by Snell-Maehler (8th edition, 1087). DateThe date of the poem is not known.' Fame11 wrote: 'The only evidence as to the date of this ode is the reference to the island of Salamis without any allusion to the great battle 480 B.C. This gives us a terminus ante q~e r n ' .~ (Similarily Wilamowitz with another not compelling argument.) But his conclusion does not follow, since Pindar was composing for a victor in the pankration at Nemea, not writing a history of Salamis; and the ode is a short one.A scholiast on line 1 (Sch. N . 2. la) says that the victor Timodemos won an Olympic victory immediately after this one at Nemea. Bowra' argued that since Timodemos was not among the pankration victors in the list of Olympic victors for 480-68 B.C. ( P . 0 . v y . 222, which covers 480-68 and 456-48; the names of the victors in the pankration and boxing in 480 are lost from the papyrus but given by Pausanias 6.63 and 6.1 IS), therefore the victory mentioned by the scholiast must have been before 480, and hence N . 2 earlier still. But the Olympic victory might have been in 464 or 460; so N . 2 is not necessarily to be dated to before 480. EventThe pankration was a violent sport: 'The common English translation, "trial of strength", is a polite fiction: the contestants punched, slapped, kicked, wrestled (much of the time on the ground) and eventhough illegallybit and gouged each other until one surrendered by

Πινδάρου Νεμεόνικοι

“…εἰς Farnell 1932, 252. 24 Instone 1989, 115· Sotiriou 2000 Κάποιοι µάλιστα πιστεύουν ότι το ἄκουσεν αναφέρεται στα λόγια που είπε φωναχτά ο Αίας λίγο πριν από τη µονοµαχία του µε τον Έκτορα, τα οποία θα είχε ακούσει και ο αντίπαλός του (Ἰλ. 7.191-199).…”