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“Those Whom Zeus Does Not Love”: Plato and Pindar on the Concept of Poikilia

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LUX: Studies in Greek and Latin Literature
This chapter is in the book LUX: Studies in Greek and Latin Literature

Abstract

The concept of poikilia (“variegation/intricacy”) permeates the work of diverse poets and genres. Its significance in Greek aesthetics was not lost on Plato, in whose hands poikilia becomes a derogatory term. In the Republic, in particular, poikilia becomes a correlate of Greek poetry and describes the diminished level of cognition and existence (Doxa). The paper argues that we can identify already in the Pindaric odes a certain aspect of poikilia that shares conceptual affinities with the Platonic one.

Abstract

The concept of poikilia (“variegation/intricacy”) permeates the work of diverse poets and genres. Its significance in Greek aesthetics was not lost on Plato, in whose hands poikilia becomes a derogatory term. In the Republic, in particular, poikilia becomes a correlate of Greek poetry and describes the diminished level of cognition and existence (Doxa). The paper argues that we can identify already in the Pindaric odes a certain aspect of poikilia that shares conceptual affinities with the Platonic one.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Abbreviations XIII
  5. List of Figures XVII
  6. Introduction: Lucia Athanassaki, φαεννὸν ἄστρον 1
  7. Part I: Greek Epic and Lyric
  8. Three Homeric Puzzles 9
  9. Sappho and the Ethereal: A Reading of Sappho fr. 2 27
  10. Choruses of Young Women and (Homo)erotic Ritual Poetry: Sappho Again 51
  11. Geryon, Stesichoros, and the Vase-Painters Revisited 67
  12. Sympotic Gazes, eros, and Commitment: Ibycus 287 PMG 105
  13. Two Ancient Greek Babies: Simonides 543 PMG, Iliad 6.466–473 123
  14. Singing into Being 139
  15. The Archilochus Diet: Comedy and Empty Calories in Pythian 2 155
  16. Pausanias on Corinna and Pindar 175
  17. The Good Old Days: Pederastic Nostalgia from Theognis to Theocritus 181
  18. How Real is Sympotic Prayer? 199
  19. Penis or Phanes? Αἰδοῖον in OF 8 (P. Derv. xiii.4) 215
  20. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus on the Difficulty of Being Good (Carm. I.2.9, ed. Migne) 251
  21. Eros, Love Elegy, and Epic Artistic Contests in the Subtext of Cadmus’ Pastoral Singing in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca 1 263
  22. A Tree Named for Friendship: Reading Homer’s phylia through Nonnus 275
  23. Pindar’s Poetic Art and George of Pisidia’s Bellum Avaricum 291
  24. Part II: Greek Drama
  25. The Sleep of the Furies in Aeschylus’ Eumenides as a Dramatic Device 313
  26. Torture’s Untruths: Tragic Visions of Testimony under Duress 329
  27. Towards a Renewed Panhellenism: Iliadic Resonances and Epinician Panegyric in Euripides’ Andromache 351
  28. Myth and Supplication: Thetis in Euripides’ Andromache 381
  29. Happy Citizens in Euripides 399
  30. “What Shall I Do?”: Choice-making and Sophocles’ Philoctetes 411
  31. Part III: Greek Prose
  32. Shaping Female Ritual Leadership in Greek Literature 427
  33. The Language of Same-sex Love in Ancient Greece 445
  34. Rhetorical Portrayals of Metics in Lysias 471
  35. On Fourth-century Demagogues: Demosthenes and Others 493
  36. A Missing Person at the Banquet? A New Emendation (Xen. Symp. 1.4) 509
  37. The Construction of Space in Plato’s Phaedrus: A Phenomenological Approach 521
  38. “Those Whom Zeus Does Not Love”: Plato and Pindar on the Concept of Poikilia 539
  39. “Correcting” Pindar in the Laws: A Platonic Defense of νόμος πάντων βασιλεύς 559
  40. Put the Blame on Her: The Case of Nanis and the Fall of Sardis 577
  41. Polybian Temporalities 595
  42. A Man for All Genres: Alexander in Plutarch 611
  43. Emotions Related to Vices and Diseases in Plutarch 627
  44. Fragments of Wisdom? The Manipulated Use of the Citations by the Authors of the Second Sophistic 647
  45. What Does Ixion Represent? The Treatment of His Story from Pindar to Julian 661
  46. A Hippopotamus is a Horse Designed by a Committee 671
  47. Part IV: Latin Literature
  48. The Price of Desire: Narrative Conflict in Plautus’ Casina 709
  49. Horace’s Roman Odes: A Book within a Book? 727
  50. The Poetics of the Roman Triumph 745
  51. Fatum, Memory, and Gender in Roman Epic 763
  52. The Fallibility of the Human Condition in Petronius’ Satyricon 75.1 and 130.1 779
  53. Epilogue
  54. An Appreciation of Lucia Athanassaki from the International Plutarch Society 797
  55. List of Contributors 799
  56. General Index 807
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111448282-030

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Abbreviations XIII
  5. List of Figures XVII
  6. Introduction: Lucia Athanassaki, φαεννὸν ἄστρον 1
  7. Part I: Greek Epic and Lyric
  8. Three Homeric Puzzles 9
  9. Sappho and the Ethereal: A Reading of Sappho fr. 2 27
  10. Choruses of Young Women and (Homo)erotic Ritual Poetry: Sappho Again 51
  11. Geryon, Stesichoros, and the Vase-Painters Revisited 67
  12. Sympotic Gazes, eros, and Commitment: Ibycus 287 PMG 105
  13. Two Ancient Greek Babies: Simonides 543 PMG, Iliad 6.466–473 123
  14. Singing into Being 139
  15. The Archilochus Diet: Comedy and Empty Calories in Pythian 2 155
  16. Pausanias on Corinna and Pindar 175
  17. The Good Old Days: Pederastic Nostalgia from Theognis to Theocritus 181
  18. How Real is Sympotic Prayer? 199
  19. Penis or Phanes? Αἰδοῖον in OF 8 (P. Derv. xiii.4) 215
  20. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus on the Difficulty of Being Good (Carm. I.2.9, ed. Migne) 251
  21. Eros, Love Elegy, and Epic Artistic Contests in the Subtext of Cadmus’ Pastoral Singing in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca 1 263
  22. A Tree Named for Friendship: Reading Homer’s phylia through Nonnus 275
  23. Pindar’s Poetic Art and George of Pisidia’s Bellum Avaricum 291
  24. Part II: Greek Drama
  25. The Sleep of the Furies in Aeschylus’ Eumenides as a Dramatic Device 313
  26. Torture’s Untruths: Tragic Visions of Testimony under Duress 329
  27. Towards a Renewed Panhellenism: Iliadic Resonances and Epinician Panegyric in Euripides’ Andromache 351
  28. Myth and Supplication: Thetis in Euripides’ Andromache 381
  29. Happy Citizens in Euripides 399
  30. “What Shall I Do?”: Choice-making and Sophocles’ Philoctetes 411
  31. Part III: Greek Prose
  32. Shaping Female Ritual Leadership in Greek Literature 427
  33. The Language of Same-sex Love in Ancient Greece 445
  34. Rhetorical Portrayals of Metics in Lysias 471
  35. On Fourth-century Demagogues: Demosthenes and Others 493
  36. A Missing Person at the Banquet? A New Emendation (Xen. Symp. 1.4) 509
  37. The Construction of Space in Plato’s Phaedrus: A Phenomenological Approach 521
  38. “Those Whom Zeus Does Not Love”: Plato and Pindar on the Concept of Poikilia 539
  39. “Correcting” Pindar in the Laws: A Platonic Defense of νόμος πάντων βασιλεύς 559
  40. Put the Blame on Her: The Case of Nanis and the Fall of Sardis 577
  41. Polybian Temporalities 595
  42. A Man for All Genres: Alexander in Plutarch 611
  43. Emotions Related to Vices and Diseases in Plutarch 627
  44. Fragments of Wisdom? The Manipulated Use of the Citations by the Authors of the Second Sophistic 647
  45. What Does Ixion Represent? The Treatment of His Story from Pindar to Julian 661
  46. A Hippopotamus is a Horse Designed by a Committee 671
  47. Part IV: Latin Literature
  48. The Price of Desire: Narrative Conflict in Plautus’ Casina 709
  49. Horace’s Roman Odes: A Book within a Book? 727
  50. The Poetics of the Roman Triumph 745
  51. Fatum, Memory, and Gender in Roman Epic 763
  52. The Fallibility of the Human Condition in Petronius’ Satyricon 75.1 and 130.1 779
  53. Epilogue
  54. An Appreciation of Lucia Athanassaki from the International Plutarch Society 797
  55. List of Contributors 799
  56. General Index 807
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