This workmanlike edition of the exiguous remains of Pindar’s dithyrambs sits firmly in the Northern European tradition of exact scholarship: honest, rigorous, lean, independent and detailed. The 240 pages on 50 readable lines aim at specialists, particularly papyrologists and text critics, but have enough of general interest to be in any university library. The book begins with a 30 page discussion of the dithyramb in general and Pindar’s dithyrambs in particular and then proceeds fragment by fragment, giving first text and then commentary. It ends with a bibliography and three pages of indices (places discussed, Greek words, subjects and names).
The general discussion of the dithyramb improves on Pickard-Cambridge by addressing a range of topics independent of chronology (contents, musical aspects, rhythm and dance, style and vocabulary, performance), but the results are exiguous. The development is still seen to be linear whereas the variety of paeans suggests we should distinguish at least three co-existing types: informal dithyramb, contest dithyramb, cult dithyramb. The Sicyonian choruses to Dionysus are not discussed, nor is the distinction between dithyramb and nome. The good idea of a non-Dionysiac dithyramb could have been supported by fuller discussions of the Thargelia, the pyrriche and the Deliaka of Simonides, while the intriguing idea of “solo parts executed by professional artists” could have been amplified. The way virtually every poet is associated with (or against) innovation is not stressed, and the Pratinas fragment is discussed without clear issue (“it may have been part of a satyr play … or a dithyramb”). Reliance on late and tendentious sources sometimes leads to odd assertions (“originally there must have been formal criteria to distinguish the various genres,” citing Plato Laws). ἀναβολή is translated “dithyrambic prelude” despite its use in epic. The argument against Arch. fr.120 being a dithyramb (“the way in which the first person speaks about himself is not compatible with a cult song”) is circular and fits ill with the author’s repeated demonstration of a bardic “I” in dithyramb.
The section on Pindar’s dithyrambs is much more useful and detailed, particularly the full discussion of the four characteristics of Dionysius’ austere style as exemplified by the dithyrambs of Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides in opposition to Sappho fr.1, Dionysius’ example of the smooth style. In addition we learn that typical contents of the Pindaric dithyramb include: mention of spring time, mythic narrative, praise of the city, the poet’s art but not gnomai. (Missing here is the use of the schema Pindaricum p.69, the adjective Βρόμιος p.38, the relation between myth and locale p.39, and the use of the word τελετά, downplayed on p.67 despite the emendation of fr.346b5.) I would have liked something on dialect and on the myths, apparently confined to Perseus (70a, 70d) and Heracles/Meleager/Kalydon/Orion (70b, 70d/f, 70d/g, 72-74), with a passing reference to Hektor (70d/a). Also, Ares/war marches through the commentary without explanation (pp.73-4, 117-18, 218; n.b. θωραχθείς fr.72) and even some puzzlement (“it is difficult to understand what the function of a Battle cry could be” 217). More important, the discussion of the dithyrambic “I” is relegated to individual notes (49, 78, 195) even though the author (unwittingly?) offers a fundamental challenge to the usual interpretation of the dithyrambic “I” as choral. Performance is assumed to be at a Dionysiac festival, despite the considerable evidence to the contrary, and so Argive fr.70a is assigned to the Agriania about which all we know is that it an Argive festival for one of the Proteids (or simply a festival for the dead) and that it is the name for contests in Thebes, and Theban fr.70b is assigned either to a putative Theban Agriania or the Lysioi Teletai. The discussion of the text which ends this section tells us that in P.Oxy. 1604 the title of 70a was added later, which is good to know, and that fr.2 “has been considerably corrected,” though I cannot locate the fragment in the book.
The text is extremely generous: all relevant papyri are given in full, no matter how scrappy (e.g. 24 teeny fragments of fr.70d from P.Oxy 2445, omitted by Maehler). We find a diplomatic transcript with apparatus in the case of papyri (i.e., all but fr.75) and double apparatus for the text, the usual one for conjectures and emendations and another one for the scholia or testimonia (given in full). In the case of fr.75 this means a full page of testimonia (in 7 point type) for two lines of text. Translation and metrical analysis follow. I could find no major changes from Maehler (1989), but a number of small ones: new readings of a letter or space (70b26; 70d12; 70d/h11), dotted letters omitted (70a3, 6, 21; 70b4, 25; 346d3, 4; 70c5, 9, 10, 26; 70d35, 47; 70d/a7) and supplements, even from the scholia, omitted (70a10, 17; 70b22, 27, 28, 30; 346b1; 70d3, 8; 70d/a3, 14; 70d/b10; 70d/e2). Also the supplement Γοργόν[ων at 70a5 is rejected; the title of 70b is “Heracles” not “descent of Heracles”; there is no break in 70b5 before NEA (“it is possible that 4-5 are not opposed in meaning to 1-3 … we have in 23 a turning point”); in 70b11 δάις is read not δαίς (“it seems to me questionable to change the long syllable into two shorts, when both the metre and the scribe demand otherwise”); in 70b14 ξύν is read not σύν (“such a short period would be unprecedented in Pindar … [though] Pindar does not seem to use ξύν elsewhere”). Fr.249