Pindar, Hieron and the Persian Wars: History and Poetic Competition in Pythian 1, 71 – 80

Abstract

In Pi. Pyth. 1, 71 -80 the battles of Himera and Kyme, in which the Deinomenid rulers of Syracuse defeated the Carthaginians and Etruscans in 480 and 474 BC, are equated with the battles of Salamis and Plataea. In particular, the idea of a supreme effort for preserving Greek freedom, frequent in contemporary poetic celebrations of the Persian Wars, is transferred to the western conflicts. This paper reviews the textual evidence and argues that Pi. Pyth. 1, 71 -80 perhaps specifically recalls Aeschylus' description of Salamis in Persai (353 -432) and the praise of the Spartans in Simonides' Plataea Elegy (frr. 11 + 13 IEG 2 ). Pindar's ostensible aim of raising Hieron's pan-Hellenic profile therefore acquires a second dimension: the Deinomenids not only achieved military successes equivalent to those of the mainland Greeks, but they also deserve to be praised on the same literary terms.