Between stone and song: Deinomenid victories in agonistic epigrams and epinician odes

This paper aims at investigating the relationship between epinician odes and agonistic epigrams composed to celebrate the victories of Sicilian aristocrats. As is well known, Sicilian tyrants appreciated several forms of self-promotion and celebration, including the epinician song commissioned to a professional poet and the erection of a monument in a Panhellenic sanctuary, which normally also featured an inscribed epigram. For example, in 468 BC Hieron, when he gained his last grandiose victory at Olympia, commissioned Bacchylides the Epinician 3 and the sculptor Onatas a bronze monument with an inscribed epigram (17 Ebert) to celebrate it; the runner Ergoteles of Himera commissioned Pindar Olympian 12 for his victory at Pytho in 470 BC and a statue with a four-line epigram for his last victory at Olympia in 464 BC. In both cases, I will examine the differences and the similarities between the language and the ideology of both poetic forms, in relationship with the expected audience / context of performance. More comparisons between Pindar’s Sicilian odes and other agonistic epigrams (e.g. Polyzalos’ dedication at Delphi) will contribute to elucidate the complex web of relations between the two contemporary and rival genres, in order to show the reciprocal influences.