Religion constitutes a vital element of Pindaric poetry and ancient Greek lyric overall. Not only do religious and festive occasions frame the primary context of poetic performances, but the exploration of the intricate, multifaceted relationships between the human and divine worlds emerges as a dominant theme of poetic speech, exerting a far-reaching and crucial impact on the cultural-ideological mindset of its recipients. The exegetical vitality of the religious theme in Pindar, with its significant role in shaping cosmological-theological and ethical outlooks, reaches its peak in Hanne Eisenfeld’s 2022 monograph Pindar and Greek Religion: Theologies of Mortality in the Victory Odes, published concurrently with the editorial process of the study under review. More generally, explorations of religion in Pindar’s poetry have gone hand-in-hand with historical and cultic contextualization,[1] framing the poems as springboards within their festive and performative settings.
Marinis’ monograph, the culmination of a research trajectory on Pindar and Greek lyric pursued since his doctoral studies, investigates the relationship between Pindaric poetry and religion from a perspective that complements and advances earlier and contemporary scholarship on this issue. Rather than centering on historical-religious contexts or the poet’s mythical treatment of heroes and deities, Marinis offers a broad analysis of religion as a foundational element in the poetics of Pindaric lyric. With an analytical perspective that can be described as complementary to that of many prior studies, including Eisenfeld 2022, which examine Pindaric myths as primary vehicles for the articulation of theological-religious ideas,[2] Marinis’ investigation concentrates on the enunciative patterns and pragmatic functions of Pindar’s language. Specifically, Marinis’ primary focus is on references to and invocations of the gods, gnomic statements, and poetic self-referential declarations, as a field of inquiry into how Pindar’s poetic voice “shapes his stance vis-à-vis the audience and the divine world” (p. 10) and raises thoughts, reflections, and claims regarding his poetic office and the artistic value, communicative potential, and cultural-ideological and social relevance of his lyric. By highlighting the interaction between religion and the communicative structures of poetry, Marinis’ study proposes to enhance our understanding of Pindar’s verbal artistry and his claimed role as an influential shaper of religious, intellectual, and aesthetic sensibilities.
Marinis’ introduction provides a clear and comprehensive overview of how the religious element manifests in Pindar’s poetry, outlining both the study’s methodological framework and the volume’s structure. This introductory survey of the relationship between Pindaric poetry and religion unfolds along a key macro-distinction in the interpretation of Pindar’s poetic corpus: cultic hymns on the one hand, and epinician odes on the other. What becomes immediately evident from these pages is the impressive structural clarity of the work, effectively summarized at the end of the introduction. Already at this stage, the reader encounters a highly detailed synthesis of the study’s progression, highlighting its pivotal moments, central arguments, and key conclusions. Following this concise and insightful introduction, Marinis divides his inquiry into four chapters, each examining how religious themes – and their poetological implications – are articulated within Pindar’s cultic songs and epinician odes.
In Chapter 1, Marinis primarily focuses on epinician lyric, offering a thorough discussion on themes related to the definition of the victory ode as a genre and its relationship with religion. Marinis’ analysis centres on two key terms, κῶμος and ὕμνος. Marinis offers a nuanced and expansive interpretation of κῶμος, moving beyond its association with specific modes of performance to highlight its broader meaning as ‘celebration’.[3] Moreover, drawing on contemporary performance theories,[4] Marinis underscores how κῶμος emphasizes the nature of epinician performance/celebration as an ‘event’: a unique, unrepeatable, and immersive experience that blurs the boundaries between performers and audience, creating “a ‘threshold experience’ capable of ‘transforming’ those who participate in it” (p. 27). This discussion on the ‘eventness’ of epinician celebration, which I found particularly insightful and engaging, is partly in tune with recent scholarly contributions that have fruitfully applied the philosophical conceptualization of ‘event’ to the interpretation of Greek lyric texts.[5] While κῶμος highlights the nature of the epinician as publicly performed poetry, ὕμνος conveys a more abstract and elevated conception of song, which, especially when both terms are juxtaposed, is explicitly positioned as logically and chronologically preceding its performative enactment. The relationship between κῶμος and ὕμνος, therefore, underscores the dual configuration of the epinician ode as both a literary text and script for (re)performance(s). Additionally, the wide-ranging meaning of ὕμνος as praise song for both divine or human addressees, alongside the imagery of the κῶμος’ reception/acceptance by the gods, reinforces the religious foundation of epinician celebration. These terms together frame the ‘vertical’ expansion of the epinician’s scope, including both human and divine recipients, beyond the limited definition of the genre as mere praise of human achievements. This multi-faceted discussion on the generic peculiarities and inclusive potential of epinician poetry, and its projection towards future dissemination and reperformance, also involves a reassessment of the long-debated issue of Pindar’s poetic ‘I’. Marinis’ discussion thoughtfully emphasizes the intrinsic malleability of Pindar’s speaking subject, capable of enacting various roles and potentially extending its range of inclusion (an ‘I/we’ potentially encompassing both the song’s performers and its recipients), while simultaneously highlighting the poet’s self-conscious persona as both composer of the song and ‘mastermind’ of the whole performance/celebration.
Chapter 2 explores how Pindar frames his relationship with the deities responsible for poetic inspiration and artistic creation, the Muses, and the various ways this relationship is articulated in cultic and epinician songs. While in cultic songs the religious aspect is clearly emphasized, with the poet’s self-depiction as appointed by the Muses to serve as a prophet and mediator between gods and humans, in epinician lyric the relationship with the goddesses becomes more nuanced, fluctuating between different levels of divine involvement in the creative process. This highlights the poet’s growing awareness of his own active role as creator, and presents poetic composition as a realm of dynamic negotiation between human effort and divine intervention/assistance. This leads to an innovative Pindaric conception of poetic creation, one that equally diverges from the Homeric conception of ‘double determination’ and the Hesiodic once-and-for-all Dichterweihe. This cluster of ideas is particularly highlighted through the association of poetry with various forms of visual arts and artisanship, which also prompts reflection on the analogies and differences between these distinct modes of creation: in this regard, Marinis stresses Pindar’s reluctance to fully appropriate the vocabulary of τέχνη, to emphasize a broader conception of poetry as a κόσμος, a compositional unity consisting of multifarious elements (also including specifically technical components) and “requiring a higher skill to attain its ultimate shape” (p. 73). Also, images like the “chariot of the Muses” display the idea of synergic cooperation between poet and goddesses, and, alongside the vocabulary of εὕρησις or the metaphor of the bow, underscore the idea of poetic creation as a goal-oriented process. Particularly appreciable are Marinis’ comments on the poem’s configuration as ἄγαλμα (p. 71), conceived in its tight combination of material and textual components (“the complex ‘statue plus inscription’”): this ultimately emerges as a means for emphasizing the twofold nature of lyric song as text and performance, and showcasing its “capacity to construct a reciprocal relationship with the gods” and ensure its potential renewal through performative re-enactment.
In Chapter 3, Marinis goes on to explore Pindar’s broader connection with divinity, including theological figures not directly associated with poetic creation. This broader theological scope enriches the religious density of Pindar’s poetic practice, challenging interpretations that reduce the poet-Muse relationship to mere metaphor. Pindar’s poetic engagement with the gods is thus integrated into a broader religious system, governed by the fundamental ethical principles of justice (δίκη) and truth (ἀλήθεια). Marinis particularly underscores the development of a conception of poetic truth that places responsibility on the poet towards both his human and divine interlocutors. This marks a departure from the Hesiodic conception of poetic truth and falsehood (Th. 26-9), where the Muses are represented as sources of both. This innovative approach to poetic truth aligns with a growing sense of authorial self-awareness. Marinis examines how these ideas shape Pindar’s poetic practice, particularly in epinician passages where the poet overtly confronts dilemmas concerning the choice of discursive subjects that may be not only inappropriate for the achievement of epinician praise, but also, and more importantly, incompatible with the poet’s theological and ethical outlook. Religion, therefore, emerges as a fundamental criterion determining the poet’s compositional and enunciative choices. More generally, Marinis successfully provides a deep and broad insight into how Pindar himself actively constructs the religious mindset of his recipients, and demonstrates his ability to offer thoughtful readings of significant, much-debated Pindaric texts such as Olympian 9 and Olympian 1.
After exploring how Pindar weaves multilayered relationships with the divine realm, situating himself within a broad cosmological-theological framework, Marinis demonstrates a concrete application of the extended social scope and destination of Pindaric lyric, showing how these connections with the divine are mapped onto a concrete Panhellenic geography. In Chapter 4, Marinis investigates Pindar’s engagement with the historical-religious landscape of the Greek world, presenting it as a backdrop for the development of a Panhellenic religious outlook, placed above the particularities of local and civic cults: a wide-ranging perspective that was embedded within the devotional experience of Pindar’s contemporaries, regardless of the actual existence of any formal institutionalization, and which, in a virtuous circle of mutual influence, was actively shaped by the authoritative voice of literary figures like Pindar into a self-conscious religious mindset. By examining invocations to the gods, mainly Zeus, and the lexical/enunciative patterns employed to frame these invocations, Marinis highlights how Pindar positions the gods as transcending specific geographical places associated with their worship, which are ultimately presented as part of a broader religious/cultic framework. The elaboration of a Panhellenic religious perspective, in addition to stressing Pindar’s authoritative role as a shaper of shared religious and ideological mindsets, ultimately lays the groundwork for promoting the projected spatial dissemination of Pindaric songs beyond their primary local contexts. The shaping of the poetic persona as an authoritative mediator between divine and human domains, and among multiple Greek geopolitical communities, culminates in what Marinis identifies as a pivotal text that synthesizes the key topics and issues explored throughout the monograph: Pindar’s Paean 6, performed at the Delphic Theoxenia. In addition to illuminating how the paean’s rhetoric and imagery effectively enact the development of a Panhellenic religious perspective, and a balanced negotiation between the two main geopolitical communities involved in the poem (Delphians and Aeginetans), Marinis offers a valuable analysis of the paean’s controversial performative circumstances, and convincing arguments for attributing its entire execution to a single Delphic chorus.[6]
Overall, this study represents a valuable contribution to contemporary scholarship on Pindar and Archaic-Classical Greek lyric, while also offering an accessible introduction for non-specialists to the major interpretative issues related to this complex, captivating literary figure. It skillfully balances a critical approach that mediates not only between traditional historicist and formalist methodologies, but also between historical/performative contextualization and the exploration of the literary quality of lyric and its potential Nachleben, a theme increasingly emphasized in recent Pindaric criticism. The monograph offers insightful discussions of textual and interpretative problems concerning the analyzed passages, demonstrating a solid and confident command of Pindaric language, style, and imagery, along with a deep familiarity with both earlier and contemporary secondary literature. The extensive notes at the end of each chapter address a wide range of interpretative and philological issues, striking an effective balance between exhaustiveness and readability. The comprehensive bibliography further attests to the depth and breadth of the monograph’s scholarly groundwork.
References
Budelmann, F., Phillips, T. 2018 (eds.). Textual Events: Performance and the Lyric in Early Greece. Oxford.
Currie, B. 2005. Pindar and the Cult of Heroes. Oxford.
Eckerman, C. 2010. ‘The Κῶμος of Pindar and Bacchylides and the Semantics of Celebration’, CQ 60: 302-312.
Eisenfeld, H. 2022. Pindar and Greek Religion: Theologies of Mortality in the Victory Odes. Cambridge.
Kowalzig, B. 2007. Singing for the Gods: Performances of Myth and Ritual in Archaic and Classical Greece. Oxford; New York.
Krummen, E. 1990. Pyrsos Hymnon: festliche Gegenwart und mythisch-rituelle Tradition als Voraussetzung einer Pindarinterpretation (Isthmie 4, Pythie 5, Olympie 1 und 3). Berlin.
Marinis, A. 2018. “Pindar’s Sixth Paean: Conceptualizing Religious Panhellenism”, in A. Kavoulaki (ed.), Πλειών. Papers in Memory of Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood. Rethymnon: 145-177.
Schechner, R. 1985. Between Theater and Anthropology. Philadelphia.
Schechner, R. 2003. Performance Theory. London.
Schechner, R. 2020. Performance Studies. An Introduction. London.
Turner, V. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago.
Turner, V. 1974a-b. ‘Social Dramas and Ritual Metaphors” / “Pilgrimages as Social Processes’, in Id. (ed.), Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors. Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca; London: 23-59 / 166-230.
Turner, V. 1982. From Ritual to Theatre and Back: the Human Seriousness of Play. New York.
Notes
[1] E.g. Krummen 1990; Currie 2005; Kowalzig 2007; also Eisenfeld 2022.
[2] Moreover, while Eisenfeld examines Pindar’s treatment of mythical/cultic heroes as a vehicle for theological reflections on human nature and mortality, Marinis’ analysis focuses on Pindar’s conception of the divine, and its influence on shaping the poet’s identity/role and the dynamics of poetic creation.
[3] For this broader conception of κῶμος as ‘celebration’, see e.g. Eckerman 2010.
[4] See Turner 1969, 1974a-b, 1982; Schechner 1985, 2003, 2020.
[5] The studies collected in Budelmann-Phillips 2018.
[6] A hypothesis already discussed in Marinis 2018.