Blog Post #5: Victory Odes

Blog Post #5:

                The victory odes are the vessel in which heroes or victors are immortalized. With some reasonable proportion of the ancient Greek population being illiterate, song is the only form to spread news and keep a historical record of events. Here, the victory odes find their place as the means to record the deeds of extraordinary men. Prestige is brought on during one’s lifetime because mortality has a finite end. Bacchylides states how “man is not allowed to shake off hoary old age and once again recover blooming youth” (Bacchylides, Ode 3) examining how time follows a directional vector with no way to return. Prestige and power are only possible, and therefore admired since mortality is obviously finite. He expresses how “one must for the sake of truth give praise, with both hands thrusting envy aside, if anyone among mortals is successful” (Bacchylides, Ode 5). Bacchylides is suggesting that if any mortals are capable of feats similar to the gods, praise must be bestowed as they were capable to accomplish a heroic feat with the limitations of mortality. The gods are revered for their mythological feats throughout all these poems, but their powers and abilities are limitless. If mortals can even come close to such feats, then they should be able “not to hide [their] towering piles of wealth beneath a shrouding cloak of darkness” (Bacchylides, Ode 3). The vanity and prestige of these individuals is not distasteful because they have amassed their wealth from heroic deeds that may rival the gods’ abilities. Odes are a testament to provide the common people proof of these heroes’ superiority and may seemingly excuse vain or flashy behavior. The ode is entirely capable of immortalizing the individuals due to the nature of poetry, but it is the comparison to the gods that justifies the use of poetry for this purpose.