Myth and thepolisin Bacchylides' Eleventh Ode

Abstract

AbstractBacchylides' eleventh epinician ends not with renewed praise of the victor but with an extension to the ode's main myth which forges a link between the Arcadian cult of Artemis founded by Proetus and his daughters and the foundation of the victor's home city of Metapontum by Achaean colonists identified with the heroic captors of Troy. The culmination of the ode in praise of a successful colonial foundation, it is argued, is the key to the principles on which Bacchylides has selected and moulded the mythological elements that he deploys in the rest of the ode. Proetus' foundation of Tiryns resolves the civil strife which threatened to destroy Argos and commends colonization as a means of social and political progress; while the cult of Artemis at Lousoi, founded to expiate the Proetids' offence against Hera, emphasizes the role of marriage in maintaining the strength and solidarity of the community. The emphasis in both these myths on the divine intervention which rectifies human error links them to the experience of the victor and to the theme of the proper cultivation of the gods that is emphasized in the ode's conclusion. In constructing mythical narratives that are exemplary for the victor and his community, Bacchylides departs from mythological tradition in significant respects and in ways which suggest that the ode's argument reflects both the victor's status in the community and perhaps also the circumstances of its own performance.