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2 results

  • Chapter 6 - Asklepios and the Limits of the Possible

  • Hanne Eisenfeld, Boston College, Massachusetts
  • Book:
    Pindar and Greek Religion
    Published online:
    18 November 2022
    Print publication:
    01 December 2022, pp 200-239

  • Summary

    “Asklepios and the Limits of the Possible,” interrogates Asklepios’ presence in Pythian 3 through the lens of interwoven generic frameworks, arguing that these function as a critical lens for the depiction of Asklepios’ changing cultic status and its activation within Pindar’s theological project. I focus on the ode’s extended Asklepian myths, arguing that they that they alternate between depicting Asklepios as an embodiment of failed human overreach and failure and as a superhuman healer by oscillating between the structures of negative epinician exemplum and cult hymn. These interwoven Asklepian identities require the ode’s recipient, an ailing Hieron of Syracuse, to understand his own aspirations and limitations in light of Asklepios’ identities, divided into mortal and immortal strands by Pindar’s modeling. The ode encourages Hieron, as mortal worshipper, to seek Asklepios’ healing, while himself aspiring, as epinician victor, to immortality in song.

Pindar and Greek Religion
  • Theologies of Mortality in the Victory Odes
  • Hanne Eisenfeld
  • Published online:
    18 November 2022
    Print publication:
    01 December 2022
  • Pindar's victory songs teem with divinity. By exploring them within the lived religious landscapes of the fifth century BCE, Hanne Eisenfeld demonstrates that they are in fact engaged in theological work. Focusing on a set of mythical figures whose identities blur the boundaries between mortality and immortality (Herakles, the Dioskouroi, Amphiaraos, and Asklepios), she newly interprets the value of immortality in the epinician corpus. Pindar's depiction of these figures responds to and shapes contemporary religious experience and revalues mortality as a prerequisite for the glory found in victory. The book combines close reading and philological analysis with religious historical approaches to Pindar's songs and his world. It highlights the inextricability of Greek literature and Greek religion, and models a novel approach to Greek lyric poetry at the intersection of these fields.