Understanding Victory Odes

Epinicians, or victory odes, are a type of poetry used to commemorate a victor in an event in one of the ancient games. Their goal is to spread the word of the victory in order to confer the immortality of the victor. To examine the basic structures of a victory ode, we can look at Bacchylides Ode 6.

                                      Ode 6:

            For Lachon son of Aristomenes, from Keos,

        Victor in the stade race at the Olympian games

Lachon from mightiest Zeus

has with his feet obtained the best

of glories, winning beside the streams of Alpheos.

How often in the past

has Keos, nurse of vines,

been celebrated at Olympia for

      master gained in boxing and the stade race,

through songs sung by young men

whose hair is thick with wreaths.

But you are now the one to whom Ourania,

queen of music, directs a hymn by Victory’s grace,

O wind-foot son

of Aristomenes,

doing you honor with songs sung before

       your house, because by gaining mastery in the stade

            race

you brought fair fame to Keos.

Here we can see, we can see the key elements of a victory ode: the name of the victor, Lachon, the victor’s father, Aristomenes, homeland, Keos, the event they won, the stade race, which games they attended, the Olympian games, and a mention of a muse or god, Ourania. Beyond the key elements, most victory odes also include statements about how much fame the victor has brought to his homeland, here represented just as “you brought fair fame to Keos”, and some epinicians also tell of the events the victor’s homeland is famous for, Keos being famous for “boxing and the stade race. For further evaluations of epinicians, let’s look at Bacchylides’ Ode 13 and Pindar’s Nemean 5.

            With Bacchylides’ Ode 13, the reader can see the basic structures of an epinician; there is the victor’s name, Pytheas, his father, Lampon, his homeland, Aigina, the event, the pankration, which game, Nemean (mentioned farther in the poem as “honors you [Pytheas] too have attained at Nemea”), and a mention to the god “Zeus…[and] Victory hav[ing] caused golden fame to flourish…”. The reader can begin to see the link between immortality and prestige with the story Perseus (Herakles) of his “crushing…hand[s]…against the savage lion’s neck”. Perseus also founded the pankration as an event, a great prestige. The story is known throughout the land, a legend in its own right. Bacchylides suggests that Pytheas now has this power to be, like Perseus, known throughout the land, to be immortal in his own right.  The reader can also see the link between prestige and immortality through Bacchylides’ use of Zeus and the muse. Prestige, “the flowers of glory-laden Victory”, is linked to immortality because they are “beside the altar of Zeus who rules supreme”; Zeus will always be. Bacchylides also references the poem as a “crown of song”. The crown represents the prestige while the song represents the immortality that it gives the crown. In order to confer the immortality of a victor, poetry has to be able to relate to as many people as possible. In Bacchylides’ Ode 13, he uses the story of Perseus, the story of the Trojan War, talks of the wonderfulness of Aigina, and even congratulates Menandros, Pytheas’ trainer, on a job well done.

            With Pindar’s Nemean 5, the reader again can see the basic structures of an epinician: Pytheas, Lampon, Aigina, pankration, Nemean, and “heroes sprung from Zeus and Kronos and the golden Nerids, the stock of Aiakos”—victor’s name, father, homeland, event, game, and a mention to the gods/muses in that order. Here, since Pytheas is a part of the “stock of Aiakos”, the link between prestige, “he(Pytheas)…[bringing]…glory’s gift” (the wreath of flowers from the victory of the pankration), and immortality, the fact that he “sprung from Zeus and Kronos and the golden Nereids”, is easy to see. In order to relate to people (along with the fact that Pytheas is young), Pindar uses the story of Peleus denied that advances of a married woman and was rewarded with a heavenly bride. Zeus, the immortal, will reward those he sees fit with some form of prestige.

            Epinicians are more than just poetry. They can also tell you about the class and politics of the people who commissioned them. In order to compete in the ancient games, you had to be a Greek citizen, but did not have to be of a certain social status. However, victory odes were expensive. So in the case of Pytheas, son of Lampon, there are two victory odes written for him by Pindar and Bacchylides. This tells the reader that Lampon was a wealthy man, so he may have had influence over some of the politics. Only wealthy people were able to commission an epinicians and many wealthy patrons had political power in ancient Greece, so these victory odes can tell us more than what is written on the pages.