¹ Pind. Pyth. 2.52–6; references to the text of Pindar follow the Teubner edition of H. Maehler (Leipzig 1987/1989). The translation follows W.H. Race's Loeb edition (Cambridge, MA 1997), except that I have rendered πιαινόμενον more literally. All translations from Pindar in this paper follow Race (albeit with minor modifications).

² For scholarly discussion of the ode, see Gerber, D.E., Lustrum 31 (1989) 226–36.Google Scholar The following will be cited by author's name in the present paper: Bell, J.M., ‘God, man, and animal in Pindar's Second Pythian’, in Gerber, D.E. (ed.), Greek Poetry and Philosophy. Studies in Honour of Leonard Woodbury (Chico 1984) 1–31Google Scholar; Burton, R.W.B., Pindar's Pythian Odes (Oxford 1962)Google Scholar; Carey, C., A Commentary on Five Odes of Pindar (New York 1981)Google Scholar; Gantz, T.N., ‘Pindar's Second Pythian: the myth of Ixion’, Hermes 106 (1978) 14–26Google Scholar; Gildersleeve, B.L., Pindar: Olympian and Pythian Odes (New York 1890)Google Scholar; Kirkwood, G., Selections from Pindar (Chico 1982)Google Scholar; Kurke, L., The Traffic in Praise (Ithaca, NY 1991)Google Scholar; Lloyd-Jones, H., ‘Modern interpretations of Pindar: the Second Pythian and Seventh Nemean Odes’, JHS 93 (1973) 109–37Google Scholar = Greek Epic, Lyric an Tragedy. The Academic Papers of Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Oxford 1990) 110–53; Miller, A.M., ‘Pindar, Hieran and Archilochus’, TAPA 111 (1981) 135–43Google Scholar; Most, G.W., The Measures of Praise (Hypomnemata 83, Göttingen 1985)Google Scholar; Nagy, G., The Best of the Achaeans. Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (Baltimore 1979) 222–42 (esp. 224–5)Google Scholar; Steiner, D., ‘Indecorous dining, indecorous speech: Pindar's First Olympian and the poetics of consumption’, Arethusa 35 (2002) 297–314.Google Scholar

³ Miller (n.2) has been the most influential recent treatment; cf. also Lloyd-Jones (n.2) 121–3 = 129–31, and Most (n.2) 89–90.

⁴ An important exception is Steiner (n.2), who explores the affinities between trangressive behaviour at dinner and the language of abuse with particular reference to Ol. 1; see also Worman, N., ‘Odysseus, ingestive rhetoric, and Euripides' Cyclops’, Helios (September 2002) 101–25.Google Scholar Seminal for both of these papers is the discussion of Nagy (n.2) 222–42.

⁵ We might compare the way in which Pindar uses and manipulates the conventions of martial elegy in Isthm. 7: see Young, D.C., Pindar Isthmian 7. Myth and Exempla (Leiden 1971) 20Google Scholar (and passim). At Ar. Ran. 1471 there is a much broader use of this technique when Dionysus uses Eur. Hipp. 612 against its author. Similarly Plato transforms Aristophanes into a comic figure by giving him a case of hiccups (Sym. 185c).

⁶ Fraenkel on Aesch. Ag. 276 speaks of ‘fatty degeneration’. On the range and meaning of the verb, see also G. Thomson's lengthy note on Aesch. Ag. 276 (The Oresteia of Aeschylus (rev. edn, Amsterdam 1966) 2.28).

⁷ In this paper I am using gluttony in the narrow sense of unrestrained — and fundamentally selfish — desire for food and drink (the most prominent adjective is μάργος: see n.38, below). Less relevant to my argument is the figure of the ὀψοφάγος, who is devoted to eating expensive delicacies: ‘the opsophagos is thus a particular type of glutton, a man who is not only greedy but greedy for the most expensive food …’ (Olson, S.D. and Sens, A., Archestratos of Gela (Oxford 2000) 1)Google Scholar. The preoccupations of the ὀψοφάγος were charged with social significance in the Classical period, and have figured prominently in recent discussions of the social history of the fourth century BC: see Davidson, J., ‘Fish, sex and revolution in Athens’, CQ 43 (1993) 53–66Google Scholar, and id., Courtesans and Fishcakes (London 1998) 3–35. Of course, there are occasions when the gourmet is also a gourmand: see Olson and Sens on Archestratus fr. 22. 1–2

⁸ See (e.g.) Saïd, S., ‘Les crimes des prétendants, la maison d'Ulysse et les festins de l'Odyssée’, Études de littérature ancienne (Paris 1979) 9–49Google Scholar; Schmitt-Pantel, P., La cité au banquet. Histoire des repas publics dans les cités grecques (Rome 1992)Google Scholar; Slater, W.J., ‘Sympotic ethics in the Odyssey’, in Murray, O. (ed.), Sympotica (Oxford 1990) 213–20.Google Scholar

⁹ See Garland, R., In the Eye of the Beholder (Ithaca, NY 1995) 135Google Scholar. It is also relevant to note in this regard the padded bellies of figures in vase-paintings that have been connected with comic performance: see (with reference to further discussion) Seeberg, A., ‘From padded dancers to comedy’, in Griffiths, A. (ed.), Stage Directions. Essays in Ancient Drama in Honour of E. W. Handley (BICS Suppl. 66, London 1995) 1–12Google Scholar; Smith, T.J., ‘Dancing spaces and dining places: Archaic komasts at the Symposion’, in Tsetskhladze, G.R.et al., Periplous. Papers on Classical Art and Archaeology Presented to Sir John Boardmann (London 2000) 309–19.Google Scholar I have not seen Gourevitch, D. and Grmek, M., ‘L'obésité et ses représentations figurées dans l'antiquité’, Archéologie et médecine (= VIIème Rencontres internationales d'archéologie et d'histoire d'Antibes, Juan-les-Pins 1987) 355–67.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Pericles is named along with Lycambes as the object of Archilochus' invective by Arist. Or. 46 (2.380.21 Dindorf: printed by West ad loc.)

¹¹ Translated by Gerber, D.E., Greek Iambic Poetry (Cambridge, MA 1999)Google Scholar. The precise constitution of the text and number of lacunae are uncertain: see Bossi, F., Studi su Archiloco (2nd edn, Bari 1990) 181–3.Google Scholar Athenaeus also cites a number of comic passages on the uninvited guest: see Wilkins, J., The Boastful Chef. The Discourse of Food in Ancient Greek Comedy (Oxford 2000) 71–2Google Scholar; cf. also Bury on PI. Sym. 174b.

¹² Hom. Od. 18.2–4. For Irus as a figure associated with blame and blame-poetry, see Nagy (n.2) 228–32; Suter, A., ‘Paris and Dionysos: Iambos in the Iliad’, Arethusa 26 (1993) 1–18Google Scholar; Thalmann, W.G., The Swineherd and the Bow. Representations of Class in the Odyssey (Ithaca and London 1998) 102–3Google Scholar; Steiner (n.2) 299; for Irus’ associations with the suitors, see Levine, D.B., ‘Odyssey 18: Iros as a paradigm for the suitors’, CJ 77 (1982) 200–4.Google Scholar For γαστήρ as an abusive term, see West on Hes. Theog. 26; further bibliography in Arnott's introductory note to Alexis fr. 215 K-A. Cf. also n. 19 below (on γάστρων).

¹³ νεικείων in line 9 seems to align Irus with the language of blame; see Steiner (n.2) 297.

¹⁴ Odysseus is also driven by his γαστήρ, but his need is genuine, and in this way Irus serves as a foil to the returning hero. See Russo on 18.44 for the γαστήρ-motif in connection with Odysseus; Pucci, P., Odysseus Polytropos. Intertextual Readings in the Odyssey (Ithaca, NY 1987) 173–87Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Eumaeus makes the point explicitly at 14.417, ἄλλοι [i.e. the suitors] δ’ ἡμέτπρον κάματον νήποινον ἔδουσιν. With νήποινον, cf. ποίνιμος at Pyth. 2.17 (see below). Thalmann (n.12) 102 writes, ‘Shepherds, beggars, and other dependents or peasants must always be concerned with getting enough food for subsistence, as aristocrats do not; theirs is consumption of surplus. And so it is with the suitors and their perpetual eating.’ See also Seaford, R., Reciprocity and Ritual (Oxford 1994) 58Google Scholar, on the suitors’ conduct as indicative of a lack of reciprocity.

¹⁶ At Od. 11.185–187 Telemachus is described as ‘apportioning equal feasts, in which it is fitting that a man of authority partake’ (δαῖτας ἐΐσας / δαίνυται, ἃς ἐπέοικε δικασπόλον ἄνδρ’ ἀλγύνειν), but these feasts are complemented by reciprocal invitations (πάντες γὰρ καλέουσι). It is in this light that Telemachus can reproach Antinous for preferring ‘to eat much more himself than give to another’ (αύτὸς γὰρ φαγέμεν πολὺ βούλεαι ἢ δόμεν ἄλλῳ, Od. 17.404). On the meaning of the phrase δαῒς ἐΐση, see Seaford (n. 15) 48–9. At Od. 1.226 Athena remarks of the feasting of the suitors, οὐκ ἔρανος τάδε γ' ἐστίν; on ἔρανος S. West observes (ad loc.), ‘a dinner to which all contribute …, ruled out by the general extravagance and lack of restraint’. For the importance of reciprocal obligations in early Greek discussions of feasting, see Gerber on Pind. Ol. 1.38 (ἔρανος); Donlan, W., ‘Reciprocities in Homer’, CW 75 (1982) 137–75, at 164.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Achilles has just called Agamemnon οἰνοβαρής (225), which also suggests gluttony; from this exchange Duris of Samos infers a general truth (FGrHist 76 F 15):ἦν τὸ παλαιὸν τοῖς δυνάσταις ἐπιθυμία τῆς μέθης. Hesiod calls the kings ‘gift-devouring’ (δωροφάγοι) in the Works and Days (38–9, 263–4); on the derogatory force of the word, see West on 39.

¹⁸ Il. 1. 149, 158. Agamemnon is also called κυνώπης (159), which may connote gluttony as well as shamelessness: see Graver, M., ‘Dog-Helen and Homeric insult’, CA 14 (1995) 41–61.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Alcaeus seems also to have reproached Pittacus with the abusive epithet γάστρων (fr. 429e Voigt), a reproach which recurs at Ar. Ran. 200; cf. also γάστρις at Plato Com. fr. 219 K-A with Austin and Olson on Ar. Thesm. 816, and γαστρώδης at Ar. Plut. 560. The name Gastrodore at Anacr. fr. 48.3 Gentili = PMG 427.3 (Page prints the name as second declension) may also have been abusive. Prof. R.D. Griffith makes the interesting suggestion that Pittacus' voracity explains his association with the grain-mill in PMG 869.

²⁰ See Rösler, W., Dichter und Gruppe (Munich 1980) 191–204Google Scholar; Liberman, G., Alcée (Paris 1999) 1.61–2Google Scholar. Thuc. 1.17.1 records a similar complaint against the tyrants: τὸ ἐφ' ἐαυτῶν μόνον προορώμενοι ἔς τε τὸ σῶμα καὶ ἐς τὸ τὸν ἴδιον οἶκον αὔρειν. It is striking to observe the emphasis on the satisfaction of bodily needs. Obesity also occurs in accounts of later rulers (in particular as an indication of the deleterious effects of τρυφή): see Athen. 12.549ff. (especially the passages taken from Nymphis, FGrHist 432 F 10, and Posidonius fr. 58 Edelstein-Kidd² = 126 Theiler).

²¹ In addition to the passages cited above, see Archil. fr. 167 West²; Hippon. frr. 26, 114c, 118, 128 West² (for a different view of fr. 128, see Faraone, C. A., CA 23 (2004) 209–45).Google Scholar There are also numerous later passages from comedy: see Taillardat, J., Les images d'Aristophane (2nd edn, Paris 1965) 94–6Google Scholar; Wilkins (n.11) 69–70; Olson and Sens (n.7) li; cf. Fisher, N. in Harvey, D. and Wilkins, J. (eds), The Rivals of Aristophanes (London 2000) 355–96Google Scholar, esp. 372ff.; Steiner (n.2) 298ff. Gluttony is often a conspicuous feature of the κόλαζ or παράσιτος in comedy, the edax parasitus (Ter. Haut. 38, Eun. 38; Hor. Epist. 2.1.173): see Nesselrath, H.-G., Lukians Parasitendialog (Berlin and New York 1985) 88–121Google Scholar; Damon, C., The Mask of the Parasite (Ann Arbor 1997) 25–9Google Scholar; for the figure, see Diggle, J., Theophrastus: Characters (Cambridge 2004) 181–2Google Scholar (with reference to earlier literature). It is also noteworthy that the name of the eponymous ‘hero’ of the Margites seems to be derived from μάργος; cf. Nagy (n.2) 259. On the significance of the word μάργος, see n.40 below.

²² On this poem, see Lloyd-Jones, H., Females of the Species. Semonides on Women (London 1975)Google Scholar; Pellizer, E. and Tedeschi, G., Semonides: Testimonia et Fragmenta (Rome 1990) 119–55Google Scholar; Osborne, R.G., ‘The use of abuse: Semonides 7’, PCPS 47 (2001) 46–64Google Scholar; Morgan, T., ‘The wisdom of Semonides fr. 7’, PCPS 51 (2005) 72–85.Google Scholar For a general view of the poem, see also my discussion in Gerber, D.E. (ed.), A Companion to the Greek Lyric Poets (Leiden 1997) 72–8.Google Scholar

²³ It is an assumption of this poem that women were, to a much greater extent than men, dominated by their appetites (especially for food and sex), and this is a common ancient view. According to Plato Com. f.105 K.-A, without constant punishment a woman is ὑβριστον … χρῆμα κἀκόλαστον; cf. also Pomeroy on Xen. Oec. 7.6, and the general remarks by Just, R., Women in Athenian Law and Life (London 1989) 163–4.Google Scholar

²⁴ ἔργον is used here with some irony: eating would not normally be classed among ἔργα, which are productive, not indicative of consumption. For the ἔργα of women, cf. Il. 9.128, 390; Od. 20.72, 22.422.

²⁵ For the gluttony of the ass, cf. Ar. Vesp. 1306, Pl. Phaed. 81e6; Steiner (n.2) 298–9. The ass was also notoriously randy, cf. Archil, fr. 43 West² (with ὀτρυγηφάγος perhaps suggesting gluttony as well); see Bömer on Ov. Fasti 1.391; Courtney on Juv. 9.92.

²⁶ Commentators illustrate this line by citing Ter. Eun. 491 and Catull. 59.1–3. In the celebrated epode against Lycambes, Archilochus told the Aesopic fable of the fox and the eagle (1 Perry), in which the eagle brings destruction on itself by stealing a smouldering offering from an altar (cf. frr. 179–80 West²). Also relevant is the abusive term βωμολόχος: see Wilkins (n.11) 88–90.

²⁷ For the comparison with the suitors, see my remarks in Gerber (n.22) 77. Hesiod launches a similar attack on women at Theog. 594–9: they are like the drones in a beehive that merely consume the toil of others (599, ἀλλότριον κάματον σφετέρην ἐς γαστέρ’ ἀμῶνται). It is noteworthy that the suitors are accused by Eumaeus of devouring ‘our κάματον’ (Od. 14.417, quoted n.15). One of the complaints made against the athlete by the speaker of Eur. fr. 282 Kannicht is that gluttony (γνέθου τε δοῦλος νηδύος θ’ ἡσσημένος, 5) prevents him from increasing the inherited οἶκος; on the gluttony of athletes, cf. also A. Sens on Theocr. 22.115 (Theocritus: Dioscuri (Hypomnemata 114, Göttingen 1997) 154–5).

²⁸ See Köhnken, A., Die Funktion des Mythos bei Pindar (Berlin and New York 1971) 30–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who compares the passage with Pyth. 2.55–6.

²⁹ Chares fr. 2 Jäkel (p. 29) = 3 Young (p. 117). For the tradition to which this passage belongs, see Arnott, W.G., Alexis: The Fragments (Cambridge 1996) 613.Google Scholar On the language of line 2, cf. Hippon. fr. 118.2 West², καὶ γαστρὸς οὐ κατακρα[τεῖς; Men. Mon. 425 Jäkel, καλόν γε γαστρὸς κἀπιθυμίας κρατεῖν. The reference to δαπάνη ἄκαιρος seems to allude to the willingness of the ὀψοφάγος to pay any price for delicacies: cf. (e.g.) Archestratus fr. 16.2–3 Olson-Sens = 146.2–3 SH, τὸν κάπρον [‘boar-fish’] … ὠνοῦ … / κἂν ἰσόχρυσος ἔμ.

³⁰ See Michelini, A., ‘ΥΒΡΙΣ and plants’, HSCP 82 (1978) 35–55, at 36Google Scholar; Helm, J.J., ‘Koros: from satisfaction to greed’, CW 87 (1993) 5–11Google Scholar; for discussion and further bibliography, see also Mülke, C., Solons politische Elegien und lamben (Munich and Leipzig 2002) 114–15, 198–9.Google Scholar

³¹ Although the precise date of Pyth. 2 is uncertain, it has often been placed close to Ol. 1 (476 BC). For recent discussion, Gentili, B.et al., Pindaro: le Pitiche (Verona 1995) 44–7Google Scholar; cf. the detailed survey in Gantz (n.2) 14–19.

³² For the version of the myth of Tantalus assumed here, see Griffith, R.D., ‘The mind is its own place: Pindar, Olympian 1.57f.’, GRBS 21 (1986) 5–13.Google Scholar For detailed discussion of this passage, see Steiner (n.2) 306–8.

³³ Gerber (ad loc.) compares the progression ὄλβος - ὕβρις - ἄτη in the treatment of Ixion at Pyth. 2.26–8.

³⁴ Gerber (ad loc.) argues that κόρος is suggestive of gluttony here; see also Verdenius, W.J., Commentaries on Pindar 2 (Leiden 1988) 29Google Scholar; Steiner (n.2) 307.

³⁵ For γαστρίμαργος, cf. Irus' γαστέρι μάργη at Od. 18.2 (quoted above)

³⁶ See Gerber on κλιθείς (92); cf. more generally Slater, W.J., CJ 72 (1977) 200–1Google Scholar, for the sympotic imagery of the poem.

³⁷ For δίκη and praise in Pindar, cf. Nem. 3.29, ἕπεται δὲ λόγῳ δίκας ἄωτος, ἐσλὸν αἰνεῖν; for the text, see the appendix in Pfeijffer, I.L., Three Aeginetan Odes of Pindar (Leiden 1999) 630–8Google Scholar (though he seems curiously uninterested in the significance of δίκη here).

³⁸ It is noteworthy that the adjective μάργος and its congeners bring together ideas of greed, lust and gluttony: see Friis Johansen and Whittle on Aesch. Suppl. 741 (‘This word [μάργος] and its derivatives, which can cover almost any kind of madness or fury, usually imply a violent appetite for something, the nature of which is often indicated by the context’). That one word can reflect this range of meaning indicates that these ideas were closely connected in Greek thought. For the close connection between gluttony and sexual desire, see Hippon. fr. 118 West² with the remarks of Rosen, R.M., TAPA 118 (1988) 29–41Google Scholar, at 40; Gerber, D.E., HSCP 82 (1978) 161–5.Google Scholar

³⁹ This general view of χάρις is argued at length by MacLachlan, B.C., The Age of Grace (Princeton 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who discusses Pythian 2 on pp. 119–23; see also Most (n.2), especially 68–76; Kurke (n.2) 67–8.

⁴⁰ For a detailed discussion of the figure of Cinyras in the ode, see Currie, B., Pindar and the Cult of Heroes (Oxford 2005) 258–95.Google Scholar

⁴¹ For the text printed here (Spigel's ποίνιμος instead of the manuscript reading ποί τινος), and the transitive sense of ἄγει, see Cingano's note ad loc. in Gentili et al. (n.33). On the meaning of ὀπίζομαι, see Burkert, W., Mus. Helv. 38 (1981) 195–204Google Scholar, at 200–1 = Kl. Sehr. 1.95–104, at 102–3.

⁴² Hieron's victory is supported by Artemis and Hermes (7–10), and Cinyras is a favourite of Aphrodite and beloved by Apollo (16–17). Apollo's propitious affection (προφρόνως ἐφίλησ') is reflected in φίλων … ἀντὶ ἔργων of line 17. Hamilton, J.T., Soliciting Darkness. Pindar, Obscurity, and the Classical Tradition (Cambridge, MA 2003) 66–7Google Scholar, notes the unusually rich profusion of gods invoked in Pyth. 2.

⁴³ For Paris as ζεναπάτης, see Nisbet-Hubbard on Hor. Carni. 1.15.2. Also essential to ζενία is the idea of reciprocity: see (e.g.) Seaford (n.15) 7–8.

⁴⁴ Hamilton (n.42) 67, says that Chiron, a figure prominent elsewhere in Pindar, was believed to be among the offspring of Kentauros, but in myth Chiron is set apart from the other Centaurs by virtue of his birth from Cronus and Phillyra: see Titanomachia fr. 10 Bernabé = 9 Davies (= ΣA.R. 1.554 [pp. 47–8 Wendel] = Souidas, FGrHist 602 F 1); Pherec. fr. 50 Fowler = FGrHist 3 F 50; Ap. Rhod. 2.1231–41, an extensive narrative (see Fränkel, H., Noten zu den Argonautika des Apollonios (Munich 1968) 317–18Google Scholar). As is regularly the case, the connection with Cronus suggests something better than whatever is possible under the reign of Zeus.

⁴⁵ I have here emphasized the portion of the myth treated by Pindar. The scholiasts on Pyth. 2.40b (2.38–40 Drachmann) and Ap. Rhod. 3.62 (p. 218 Wendel), reflecting a tradition that seems to have been derived from Pherecydes (fr. 51 Fowler = FGrHist 3 F 51), offer a fuller version of the myth, from which it is clear that Ixion's murder of his father-in-law Eioneus involved a similar failure of χάρις: he married Dia with the promise to give her father gifts, but instead of honouring this obligation Ixion treacherously murdered Eioneus.

⁴⁶ On the Pindaric concept of φυά, see Gundert, H., Pindar und sein Dichterberuf (Frankfurt 1935) 15–19Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ See Bell (n.2) 12 on their isolation. It may be noteworthy that in Ol. 1 the crimes of the father, Tantalus, are not reflected in his son.

⁴⁸ On Pindar's view of φυά, inherited traits sometimes skip a generation (cf. Nem. 6.8–11). Kentauros' offspring, the centaurs, seem thus to reflect the φυά of their grandfather, although Pindar does not develop the point. Their most conspicuous rôle in myth is as rapists, with Eurytion attempting to rape the bride of Perithous (disrupting a feast in the process), and Nessus assailing the wife of Heracles: see Seaford (n.15) 54–9.

⁴⁹ There is a possible parallel at Pyth. 8.21–24: ἔπεσε δ' οὐ Χαρίτων ἑκὰς / ἁ δικαιόπολις ἀρεταῖς / κλειναῖσιν Αἰακιδν / θιγοῖσα νᾶσος. These lines describe the appearance of the island in a way possibly reminiscent of the ‘birth’ of Rhodes (Ol. 7.62–3); πίπτω is used of birth at Il. 19.110 (Hera deceiving Zeus over the birth of Heracles), ὅς κεν ἐπ' ἤματι τῷδε πέση, μετά ποσσὶ γυναικός. Although an interesting way of looking at the Pindaric passage, this understanding strikes me as doubtful. Commentators regularly see the familiar metaphor of the lot in ἔπεσε, and I would argue that Pindar is here saying that it is the lot of Aegina never to be far from the Charites and all that they represent (cf. the description of the Hyperboreans at Pyth. 10.37–8, Μοῖσα δ' οὐκ άποδαμεῖ / τρόποις ἐπὶ σφετέροις).

⁵⁰ See my paper, ‘Anactoria and the Χαρίτων ἀμαρύγματα: Sappho fr. 16.18 Voigt’, QUCC n.s. 32.2 (1989) 7–15.

⁵¹ In discussing the passage commentators usually ignore the scholion on 78a (2.44 Drachmann), which sets the phrase in a sexual context: ἄνευ οἱ χαρίτων· ἀντὶ τοῦ ἔζω συνουσίας. χαρίζεσθαι γὰρ κυρίως λέγεται τὸ συνουσιἀζειν. The scholiast illustrates the point by citing Theopompus Com. fr. 30 K-A, Ar. Eq. 517, and Sappho fr. 49 Voigt. For this sense of χαρίζεσθαι, see Henderson, J., The Maculate Muse (2nd edn, New York and Oxford 1991) 160Google Scholar, who also discusses the sexual sense of χάρις; cf. Thgn. 1303, ἐμοὶ δὲ δίδου χάριν with Vetta ad loc.

⁵² Lust and gluttony were similar sorts of appetites: see n.38.

⁵³ See Bell (n.2) on animal imagery in the poem.

⁵⁴ See generally Bundy, E., Studia Pindarica (Berkeley 1962; repr. 1986) 1.10–11Google Scholar (73 on Pyth. 2.52–6), and Thummer, E., Die isthmische Gedichte (Heidelberg 1968) 1.125–7Google Scholar. For the present passage, see Miller's influential paper (n.2); cf. Lloyd-Jones (n.2) 122 = 129.

⁵⁵ It seems likely that the plural κακαγοριᾶν means ‘instances of slander’, not slander as an abstract idea. For the force of plural abstract nouns, cf. Schwyzer, Gr. Gram. 2.43; Smyth, Greek Grammar §§ 1000, 1001; Hummel, P., La syntaxe de Pindare (Louvain and Paris 1993) 53–4Google Scholar (§38). Developing a point made by Graver (n.18) 58, Steiner (n.2) 301 sees δάκος as implicitly canine, but this seems to be going too far from the text; Pyth. 2 is a poem with an extraordinary number of precise references to animals — the epilogue is a virtual menagerie — and it seems likely that the poet would have made an allusion to dogs explicit, if such had been his intentions (cf. Thgn. 347–9). The vagueness of δάκος is surely deliberate, and it allows the passage to be connected with the later passage on foxes (see below).

⁵⁶ Although understood by some to mean ‘strong, violent’ (e.g. Slater, Lexicon s.v.), the basic sense of ἀδινός is, as Most (n.2) points out (88 with n.69), ‘abundantly present’ and so, in the present passage, ‘incessant’. Most also seems correct in holding that ἀδινός is applied to δάκος by enallage. On the meaning of the adjective, see further Erbse, H., Beiträge zum Verständnis der Odyssee (Berlin 1972) 189–91.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ See Blundell, M.W., Helping Friends and Harming Enemies (Cambridge 1989) 26–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁸ The lacuna at the end of line 15 has not been supplemented satisfactorily, although the sense is clear. In addition to the suggestions recorded in West's apparatus, it is relevant to note here Bossi's κακο[ῖς δακεῖν, which raises the possibility that Pindar's δάκος κακαγοριῖν is an allusion to a specific passage of Archilochus: see Bossi (n. 11) 107.

⁵⁹ In this way Ixion and Archilochus can both be seen as exemplars of failed reciprocity. For the latter, see Kurke (n.2) 100–1, who stresses Archilochus' selfishness: ‘… because he is unwilling to share with others the poetic nourishment of praise, no one else will share his substance with him’.

⁶⁰ Many scholars, however, have attempted to define Archilochus' ἀμαχανία. Poverty or a lack of material resources have been suggested (cf. Lloyd-Jones (n.2) 122 = 130; Cingano in Gentili et al. (n.31) ad loc). Miller (n.2) 140 sees poetic hardship: ‘… a kind of poverty of poetic resource, a sterility or barrenness of inventio’. This view has been influential: see the survey in Held, G.F., ‘Archilochus’ Ἀμαχανία: Pindar, Pythian 2.52–56 and Isthmian 4.1–3’, Eranos 101 (2003) 30–48, at 30–1Google Scholar (this paper argues against Miller in favour of a vague ‘sociopolitical’ sense). It might be tempting to see Archilochus’ ἀμαχανία as the result of his diet of hatred (so Steiner (n.2) 305), but this may be reading too much into the text; Pindar merely states that ἀμαχανία constitutes the circumstances in which Archilochus was seen.

⁶¹ Cf. Arist. Poet. 1448b25: διεσπἀθη δὲ κατὰ τὰ οίκεῖα ἤθη ἡ ποίησις· οί μὲν γὰρ σεμνότεροι τὰς καλὰς ὲμιμῦντο πράξεις καὶ τὰς τῶν τοιούτων, οί δὲ εύτελέστεροι τὰς τῶν φαύλων, πρῶτον ψόγονς ποιοοῦντες, ὣσπερ ἓτεροι ὕμνονς καὲέὣὶ έγκώμια. It is likely that Aristotle would have included Archilochus among the composers of ψόγος: see Rankin, H.D., AC 46 (1977) 165–8Google Scholar; Halliwell, S., Aristotle's Poetics (Chapel Hill 1986) 270Google Scholar n.27. See also Lefkowitz, M.R., The Lives of the Greek Poets (Baltimore 1981) 26–7.Google Scholar

⁶² Despite the differing quantities of the second alpha in ἀμαχανία and ἂμαχος, it is tempting to suggest that Pindar is playing on the similarity of the two words, implicitly suggesting a false etymology. Both words can be applied to persons and things that are ‘irresistible’ (cf. LSJs.vv.).

⁶³ Cf. Archil, frr. 174.2, 185.5, 201 West². The first two passages derive from Archilochus' treatment of the Aesopic fables of the eagle and the fox (1 Perry) and the fox and the monkey (81 Perry). For Archilochus' identification of himself with the fox, see PI. Resp. 2.365c and Dio Chrys. Or. 55.10; cf. Brown (n.22) 64 with n.79.

⁶⁴ Note the emphasis on profit in the following lines (78ff.). It is striking that the description of Archilochus is followed by a reflection on wealth (56). The gluttonous (and canine) Agamemnon is also described as κερδαλεόφρων at Il. 1.149 (see above).

⁶⁵ We might compare the deleterious effects of the κακοῦργος λόγος of the κόλαξ; in Diph. fr. 23.1–3 K-A (cf. Men. Col. 85–94 Sandbach = C190–9 Arnott).