E.'s work provides an insightful contribution to Pindaric scholarship, focusing on the way in which the Theban poet participated in the construction of ‘theologies of mortality’ – as in the title. E. locates her work between new historicist approaches to epinician poetry (e.g. E. Krummen, B. Kowalzig, V. Lewis) and recent studies on ancient Greek religion and myth (e.g. E. Eidinow, J. Kindt and R. Osborne). She aims at restoring what she calls the ‘vertical axis’ (p. 3) of epinician poetry, that is the way in which the poetic voice shapes, or reshapes, the relationship between mortals and immortals. While scholars have extensively explored the ‘horizontal axis’ (p. 3) of Pindaric odes, by situating the performance within the cultic and religious dimension of the laudandus and his community, Pindar's original and personal contribution to the articulation of religious landscapes and ideas seems overlooked. Contrary to B. Currie, who argues for a project of ‘heroization’ that the poet and the laudandus share in order to achieve a literal immortality of the latter, E. proposes to understand the relationship between immortality and mortality in the epinician odes in its complexity and ultimately as Pindar's religious programme to promote ‘theologies of mortality’.
E. focuses on heroic and religious figures in the Pindaric corpus that ‘catalyze’ (p. 197) the tension between mortal and immortal experiences. These liminal characters navigate the boundaries that separate gods from humans, thus participating in the construal of a secular theology that reaffirms the importance of epinician praise and immortality through fame. Pindar – E. claims – often achieves this purpose by presenting biographies of characters who either experience both the status of mortals and immortals (e.g. Herakles and the Dioskouroi) or whose contemporary status appears blurred and ambiguous (e.g. Amphiaraos and Asklepios).
Chapter 2 is devoted to Herakles, the hero who notoriously achieves the extremities of the human world – the Pillars – and, eventually, embraces the immortal condition of a god through apotheosis. Contrary to other scholars, E. considers Herakles’ arrival at the Pillars rather than his apotheosis as the mythical counterpart of the glory of the laudandus. In Isthmian 4 the victor Melissos and Herakles are assimilated for their Theban origins. The worship of Herakles at Thebes permeated its community's life and urban space. Pindar's narrative highlights the contrast between this local and tangible dimension and the rather abstract and atemporal one of Herakles’ apotheosis. In Nemean 3 and 4 Herakles relates to the family of the victor, the Aiakids, for their ancient bonds of mutual hospitality. His portrayal as ‘quintessential victor and divine patron’ (p. 71) prevails on the narrative of the apotheosis once again.
Chapter 3 highlights the theology of mortality that emerges from the Pindaric etiological account of the myth of Kastor and Polydeukes, athletic patrons of the Argives. According to traditional accounts, Zeus arranged for the Dioskouroi to live, in alternate periods, in the condition of gods and mortals. But Pindar, in Nemean 10, recasts the traditional narrative by introducing the detail of Zeus giving Polydeukes the possibility to choose to become immortal. Polydeukes’ existential crisis and final decision to opt out from such a privileged destiny reorient the narrative towards a theology of mortality.
The Dioskouroi appear again in Chapter 4 along with Herakles in E.'s analysis of Olympian 3, a victory ode dedicated to the tyrant of Akragas, Theron. The twins make their appearance as banquet guests at the Theoxenia of Akragas, a ritual that probably represents the occasion of this victory song. Herakles, instead, is portrayed while he accomplishes his journey to the Hyperboreans to take the sacred olive tree and transplant it to Olympia. Pindar innovatively makes the Dioskouroi Herakles’ successors at Olympia (p. 143), thus reinforcing the connection between Akragas and Olympia and between Theron, the hero and the twins. This connection, however, serves the purpose of praising human excellence from a perspective that is well-grounded in space and time at Akragas, exalted by the cultic proximity of the Dioskouroi and the mythical exemplum of Herakles’ extraordinary deeds.
Chapter 5 describes the liminal position of Amphiaraos within the Pindaric narratives of Nemean 9 and Pythian 8. The hero, Argive seer and warrior, while fighting among the Seven against Thebes, is abruptly swallowed with his chariot and horses in a chasm that Zeus opens in the earth. While he continues living hidden in a subterranean reality, therefore isolated from the community of both men and gods, Adrastos, a local Sikyonian hero and founder of the Pythian games, takes centre stage in the narrative of the ode (p. 165), along with Hector, another example of heroic excellence and immortality secured through poetry. In Pythian 8 Pindar ‘reorient[s]’ (p. 193) the figure of Amphiaraos into the economy of epinician poetry, by recovering his role as father of Alkmaion and the mythical narrative voice of his son's praise: he remains, again, a liminal figure at the edges of the human world of fame.
Another liminal character, Asklepios, is the protagonist of Chapter 6. Pythian 3, a victory ode dedicated to the sick tyrant Hieron of Syracuse, records the myth of Asklepios and his birth from the god Apollon and the mortal Koronis. The latter, after her union with Apollon, prefers a relationship with a human to the privilege of a divine wedding. Both Koronis and her son Asklepios are presented as negative exempla. The unproportioned ambitions of the hero/doctor Asklepios, who tries to recall a dead man from the underworld, contrast with the flourishing worship he enjoyed from the fifth century bce onwards as a god. Pindar resolves the tension between the two statuses of Asklepios by leaving the cletic hymn to the god, which is encapsulated in the epinician ode, unanswered. This narrative choice reflects, once again, the predominance of epinician immortality over real immortality.
E.'s last chapter proposes seeing Nemean 6's gnomic sentence spanning lines 1–7 as a further invitation to understand the ephemerality of human nature within the economics of the epinician ode: immortality achieved through glory and valuable deeds represents the only viable form of immortality for mortals. Nemean 6, then, corroborates Pindar's ‘theological project of orientation’ (p. 249) that is at work in the other examined passages of the corpus. In the frame of this project Pindar represents a conspicuous voice that participates in the construction of religious meanings within the landscape of the fifth-century world. The nature of her work, E. states (p. 249), claims an interdisciplinary approach by necessity. Indeed, it is only by putting the odes in conversation with material culture, local ritual and international festivals that we can fully appreciate the emergence of a distinguished theological meaning.
The only counterexample that we find in the Pindaric corpus of victory songs – E. argues – is the story of Pelops and Tantalos in Olympian 1. Pindar decides to move away from the traditional mythological account that portrayed the gods while eating Pelops’ shoulder at a banquet organised by his father Tantalos. The Pindaric version proposes a different outcome for Pelops, namely to enjoy the rest of his life on Mount Olympus with Poseidon. The achievement of an immortal status, however, rapidly fails as soon as Tantalus reveals his secret, thus pushing himself and his son back to the realm of mortality. I agree with E. that Olympian 1 does not propose a theology of mortality; rather it focuses on the negative exempla of Pelops and Tantalos without providing the counterpart of human achievements and fame. However, I suggest, Pindar's corrective intervention in the traditional myth of Pelops and Tantalus acknowledges, even if not a theology of mortality, a theological creative power in the poetic voice of Pindar.
E.'s work happily restores to the Theban poet his overlooked role of religious ‘thinker’ and calls for a redefinition of epinician poetry as an active instrument that can be employed in the construction of theological meanings and carry religious significance for the local community.
