wrong' (54-64). Pelops, sent back to earth, obtained Poseidon's help in defeating Oenomaus, king at
Olympia, in the chariot race required of his daughter's suitors (with certain death if they lost). Here again
Pindar silently rejects discreditable stories of sabotage, giving Pelops a noble appeal to Poseidon: 'but for
those who must die - who would simmer in vain an inglorious old age sitting in darkness with no portion
of all that is fair?' (82-4). By Pelops' marriage, progeny, and tomb Pindar brings us back to Olympia, its
contests, victory's lifelong reward, his own song and Hiero's pre-eminent taste and power (90-105). God
cares for Hiero, and Pindar expects to praise even sweeter successes. But 'Peer no more into the distance.
On this day may you step high, and may I have this commerce with victors, conspicuous for my skill
among Greeks worldwide' (114-16).
Although the ingredients, and some images, recur in Pindar's forty-four other victory songs, each is
rewardingly diverse, carefully matched to a different patron. Substantial fragments of his Paeans (hymns,
especially to Apollo) and some of his Dithyrambs (associated with Dionysus) show similar complexity of
thought and language: we glimpse what we have lost because these genres lack what illuminates victory
songs, Pindar's continuous manuscript tradition and Bacchylides' long papyrus. That papyrus indeed
contains six 'Dithyrambs'. Ode 17, more properly a Paean, narrates Theseus' quarrel with Minos: as in
Ode 3, direct speech is prominent. Ode 18, probably for an Athenian festival, focuses upon Theseus'
return to Athens. Its dramatic form is unique: four metrical systems are sung alternately by an unnamed
questioner and by Theseus' father, Aegeus.
Transmission has been less generous to Bacchylides' uncle, Simonides of Ceos (active C. 520 - 468 BC).
Simonides composed in all the genres just mentioned, and probably even pioneered the victory song, yet
of his melic poetry we have little. Tradition associated him with Hipparchus in Athens, the Scopads of
Thessaly, and the Sicilian tyrants, making him the first to write for money and imputing avarice. In our
longest fragment (542) Simonides addressed Scopas, arguing from maxim to maxim with un-Pindaric
patience: only god, not man, can achieve a state of virtue; man can only act well, when circumstances
permit - 'I proclaim to you -what I have discovered; and I praise and love all those who willingly do
nothing shameful; but against necessity not even gods struggle' (26-30). As often, we can only guess at
the song's genre and context. Simplicity could also mark his treatment of myth, as emerges from the
narrative of Danae and Perseus drifting in their castaway chest: 'If for you the fearful had been fearful',
she says to Perseus, 'then indeed to my words would you have turned your tiny ear. But I bid you sleep,
my babe, may the sea sleep, and may our boundless trouble sleep; and may some change of heart come
from you, father Zeus' (fr. 543. 18-23).
Antiquity admired Simonides' evocation of pathos. This was probably due less to such pieces as fr. 543 or
his encomium of Leonidas and the Spartan dead at Thermopylae (fr. 531), than to his epigrams. The
poetry hitherto considered was composed for singing or recitation, and certainly to be heard, not read. But
from the seventh century dactylic verse - initially hexameters, then hexameters or elegiac couplets - was
also used for inscribed dedications and epitaphs. The earliest distinguished poet known to have written
these was Simonides. Because his epigrams became famous, many were later ascribed to him that cannot
be his: of those that can only a few certainly are, like that on his friend Megistias, vouched for by
Herodotus (vii. 228):