Blog post 5

Blog post 5

The victory ode is a very interesting genre.  Nowadays when somebody wins something, there is a small article in the a paper about them.  However, back in earlier times, a winner is immortalized and everybody knows about it.   For example, in Bacchylides’ Ode 13, which is about Pytheas’ victory in the Pankration at Nemea, it says that Pytheas’ “might is hymned by many a high vaunting girl…”.  This basically means that choirs are singing about him.  This speaks to the overall importance of champions and winners during this time period.  Not only are their poems written in their honor but people sing about them.   Another interesting aspect of the victory ode is that it can change topics very easily.  In Pindar’s Olympian 1, the poem dedicated to Hieron’s victory at the horserace, it starts out talking about how there are no games “superior to the Olympia’s” and how skillful Hieron is.  However, in later lines it goes into a story about Pelops’ youth and suggests that the widely believed story is one “with lies of cunning pattern”.  The story about Pelops takes up a large portion of the poem.   This suggests that the reason for victory odes isn’t just to honor champions, but also to tell old stories and introduce the author’s opinion to the readers.  Bacchylides’  Ode 13 transitions into a few old stories, including that of Ajax’s defeat of Hektor and Achilles’ defeat of the Dardanians.   I view these transitions to be similar to the pop culture references we see in music and poetry today.   These stories and tales that are embedded into the poetry create the potential for a larger reading audience because there are parts of the poems that speak to different kinds of people who have different interests.  There is something for everyone.   Victory odes were clearly meant to be about winners, but the addition of these other aspects widened the reading audience and helped make the names of poets like Pindar and Bacchylides more widely known, which meant more money in their pockets.