Athletes in Song and Stone: Victory and Identity in Epinician and Epigram
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Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 4-11-2014 12:00 AM Athletes in Song and Stone: Victory and Identity in Epinician and Epigram Peter Miller The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Christopher G. Brown The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Classics A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Peter Miller 2014 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Classical Literature and Philology Commons Recommended Citation Miller, Peter, "Athletes in Song and Stone: Victory and Identity in Epinician and Epigram" (2014). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 1947. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/1947 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ATHLETES IN SONG AND STONE: VICTORY AND IDENTITY IN EPINICIAN AND EPIGRAM (Thesis format: Monograph) by Peter John Miller Graduate Program in Classical Studies A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Peter John Miller 2014 Abstract Ethnicity, gender, and class define the ancient Olympic athlete; in contemporary sports too, identity is constantly asserted, negotiated, and contested across these socially contingent categories. The importance of difference and identity to the body of literature associated with the ancient Olympics – especially the epinicians of Pindar and the corpus of athletic epigrams found at Olympia – has not, however, been adequately recognized. Moreover, a holistic approach to athletic verse, in which epinician and epigram are conceptually united, is still lacking, despite the clear generic affinities of these different modes of poetry and their shared conceptual space. In order to fill this gap, my dissertation argues for a comprehensive approach to athletic verse, which is founded on my recognition of the centrality of the heraldic proclamation – the angelia – to epinician and epigram. Rather than accept a transparently preserved proclamation consisting of athlete’s name, father’s name, polis, age-category (if necessary), and event, I regard the use of the angelia in athletic verse as an appropriation of the efficacy of this powerful speech act; that is, epinician and epigram do not have their generic origin in the angelia per se, but in the modulation, modification, and representation of the proclamation. My recognition of the heraldic mode of representation at the core of athletic verse opens up these usually discretely categorized genres to a novel analysis based on their modulation of the identity of the victor. Fully engaged with theoretical work stressing the performative and socially contingent nature of gender, Marxist insights on class and ideology, anthropological and sociological analyses of ethnicity, as well as recent work highlighting the occasionality of ancient Greek poetic genres, I implicitly argue for the relevance of contemporary literary ii and cultural theory, while still prioritizing contextual realities in a historical approach to understanding the representation of athletes in the poetry of the ancient Greek world. The core of my project is a series of close readings of pairs of choral and inscribed poems (CEG 1.381, 1.383, 1.393, 2.820; P. O. 8, 9, 12); this unified method foregrounds the generic commonalities between choral and inscribed athletic poetry, but also points to the representative quality of the heraldic mode, and thus the centrality of identity and the process of identification – whether derived from supposedly essential political, sexual, or socioeconomic characteristics – to the praise of the athlete. iii Acknowledgements I would first like to acknowledge my supervisor, mentor, and friend Dr. Christopher G. Brown for his assistance and diligent work on my behalf during the writing of this dissertation.To the other members of my Supervisory committee, Dr. Bernd Steinbock and Dr. Aara Suksi, I also offer my thanks, especially for their quick responses, even while they were located across the Atlantic. In addition, I would like to thank the members of my Examination committee: Dr. Don Morrow, Dr. Deborah Steiner, and Dr. Charles Stocking. My dissertation has benefited from the feedback of audiences at the University of Western Ontario, the Atlantic Classical Association annual meeting (2011, 2013), the Classical Association of Canada annual meeting (2012), Feminism and Classics VI (2012), and the Classical Association annual meeting (2013). I would also like to offer particular thanks to Dr. Joseph W. Day for generously commenting on Chapter 6, and to my “Ancient Greek Athletic Culture” students at Mount Allison University for persevering through a class that was based on much of this material. Furthermore, I owe thanks, for intellectual and moral support, to the rest of the Department (both faculty and staff), and, especially, to my fellow graduate students in Classical Studies at the University of Western Ontario. I have been supported throughout my Ph.D. by the Department of Classical Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and School of Graduate and Postgraduate Studies at the University of Western Ontario. I would also like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the J.E.A. Crake Foundation (Sackville, New Brunswick) for their substantial financial support. iv Finally, I thank my parents, Tom and Sheila Miller, and my belle-mère, Dr. Françoise Mugnier, for unstinting support. I owe the greatest debt to my friend and partner, Carla Manfredi, for innumerable hours of reading and discussion, countless miles of running and revisions, and an incalculable amount of encouragement and support: ἐπεὶ ψάμμος ἀριθμὸν περιπέφευγεν / καὶ κεῖνα ὅσα χάρματ᾽ ἄλλοις ἔθηκεν / τίς ἂν φράσαι δύναιτο; v Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi List of Abbreviations........................................................................................................ viii List of Standard Editions .................................................................................................... x Note on Transliterations and Translations.......................................................................... xi Introduction: On Identities, Athletics, and the Olympics ................................................... 1 Sport and Social Identity ................................................................................................. 1 “Identity Politics” in the Modern Olympic Games ......................................................... 5 Representing and Analyzing Ancient Athletic Identifications ...................................... 18 Chapter 1: Homer’s Athletes ............................................................................................. 23 1.1: Athletics and Social Conduct in the Funeral Games for Patroklos ........................ 25 1.2: Elite Ideology and Athletics in the Phaiakian Games ............................................ 38 1.3: Minor Competitions: The Beggars’ Fight and the Archery Contest ...................... 43 Chapter 2: Proclaiming and Dedicating Victory ............................................................... 51 2.1: The Angelia and the Heraldic Mode ...................................................................... 51 2.2: Literal and Metaphoric Dedications ...................................................................... 69 2.3: The Special Status of the Olympic Games ............................................................ 78 Chapter 3: Olympic Ideologies and Identities .................................................................. 84 3.1: Identity in the Angelia: Ideological, Performative, Citational ............................... 86 3.2: Political Identities at the Olympic Games ............................................................. 90 3.3: Sexual Identities at the Olympic Games ................................................................ 98 3.4: Socio-Economic Identities at the Olympic Games ...............................................112 Chapter 4: Arkadian Identity in Olympic Epigrams ....................................................... 123 4.1: Arkadia: Ethne and Poleis.................................................................................... 124 4.2: Dual Identity in Tellon’s Epigram (CEG 1.381) .................................................. 129 4.3: The Politics of Identity and Naming in CEG 1.383 ............................................. 137 Chapter 5: Genealogy and History: Oikos, Ethnos, and Polis in Olympian 9 ................ 147 5.1: Fathers, Family, and City in Pindar’s Odes ......................................................... 148 5.2: Epharmostos and the History of the Lokrians ....................................................