Between polis and patra: the economy of agonistic kydos in Pindar's Aeginetan Odes

• Grant number: 25/00605-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: July 01, 2025
• End date: January 31, 2029
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Christian Werner
• Grantee: Ricardo Tieri de Brito
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project proposes an investigation of the economy of agonistic kydos in Pindar's epinicia commissioned for victors from the island of Aegina, with a focus on the construction of praise for the polis and patra (clan, extended family) of the victor, social forms which, along with the oikos (patrilineal lineage), share in the symbolic capital obtained through the athletic success of the laudandus. The Aeginetan odes, a significant part of the Pindaric epinician corpus, present a series of cross-references, resulting from a probable overlap of primary and secondary performance audiences. Within this subgroup, the epinicia dedicated to the sons of Lampon (N. 5, I. 5, and I. 6) stand out and will serve as the guiding thread of the investigation, as the identity of the patrons and their probable dating interval (c. 487-480 BCE) account for, on one hand, the sociopolitical context of Aegina at the beginning of the 5th century BCE - still independent and in veiled conflict with Athens - and on the other, the identifying marks of most Aeginetan odes: the age of the laudandi (generally adolescents); the contested modalities (wrestling and pankration); and the presence of the Aeacid lineage in the central mythical narratives. These features, shared by the three poems, will allow for a comparison with the other odes for Aeginetan victors, both from the perspective of intertextuality and identification of conventional material, as well as potential divergences in the treatment of athletic victory. The objective is thus to demonstrate that the corpus of Aeginetan epinicia highlights the singular position of the island's aristocracy, compared to those of Balkan Greece and Greek expansion in the Mediterranean, and that this poetic genre played a relevant role as a vehicle for promoting Aeginetan identity - both civic and aristocratic - at a critical moment in the island's history.