| Abstrakt: |
Pindar's odes for Aeginetan victors revolve around two major Aeginetan virtues: inborn excellence (phya) and generous guest-friendship (xenia). The latter virtue is, of course, one of the most pervasive themes in Pindar's poetry, in which the poet's relationship with his patrons is presented in terms of guest-friendship, with the odes themselves as the poet's gift to his guest-friends. As for the former virtue, the Aeginetans' inborn excellence is implicit in the mythic section of almost all Aeginetan odes, which focuses on the line of Aiakos, the progenitor of two of the greatest Greek heroes, Achilles and Ajax. In view of this almost exclusive emphasis, one might be forgiven for assuming that the Aiakidai were the mythical progenitors of the Aeginetans. However, this is simply not true, as Pindar himself was fully aware: in fact, the Aeginetans were a Doric tribe whose ancestry was no more remarkable than that of other Doric cities; at best, they could claim the Aiakidai as their ancestors only metaphorically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
