YOUNG, DAVID C., "Something Like the Gods": A Pindaric Theme and the Myth of "Nemean" 
10 , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 34:2 (1993:Summer) p.123 

"Something Like the Gods": 
A Pindaric Theme and the Myth 

of Nemean 10 

David C. Young 

'tou~ allCP<O ~<OOU~ Ka1:EXEl CPUOl~OO~ ata' 
o'\. Kat vEp9EV yT\~ 'tlll'hv 1tpO~ Z"vo~ fXOV'tE~ 
aAAo'tE !lEV ~roouo' £.EPlJIlEPOl, aAAo'tE 8' a';h£ 
'tE9vu0t. 'tlll'hv 8E AEA.OyxaOtv loa 8£010t. (Od. 11.301-04) 

Pindar's Tenth Nemean ends with the myth in which Poly­
deuces chooses, over perpetual immortal life for himself, to 
share his brother's mortality: to live-and to be dead-on 
alternate days, as in the Homeric version quoted above. 
Probably no other Pindaric myth receives such unrestrained 
praise. The following are typical comments: "This story is one of 
the most impressive narratives in Pindar. ... No paraphrase could 
do justice to the nobility of Pindar's narrative" (Race); "Es ist 
Pindars schonste Erzahlung" (Wilamowitz); "[CJe my the est 
fort beau .... " (Puech); "the noblest example of Dorian poetry 
ever written .... [PindarJ has nowhere else attained this perfection 
of austere beauty" (N orwood).l And yet Pindaric scholars have 
never reached general agreement on the purpose or meaning of 
this myth. Specific interpretations differ greatly. 

Merkelbach, among more recent interpreters, sees it as an 
aetiological illustration of the origin of the Spartan Dioscuria, 
games held in honor of the brothers. 2 Stern claims the myth 
demonstrates "the communication which exists between the 
world of men and the world of the divine."3 For Maurach, 

1 W. Race, Pindar (Boston 1986) 112; U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, 
Pindarus (Berlin 1922) 428; A. Puech, ed., Pin dare, III. Nemeenes (Paris 1923) 
128; G. Norwood, Pindar (Berkely 1945) 70 (comparing this myth to the 
"Aeginetan marbles"). Cf K. Fchr, Die Mychen bei Pindar (Zurich 1936) 137. 

2 R. Merkelbach, "Oer Anlass zu Pindars zehntcr Ncmea," Le mond grec. 
Hommages a c. Preaux (Brussels 1975) 94-101. 

3]. Stern, "The Myths of Pindar's Nemean 10," GRBS 10 (1969) 125-32 at 
125 with 129ff. 

123 



YOUNG, DAVID C., "Something Like the Gods": A Pindaric Theme and the Myth of "Nemean" 
10 , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 34:2 (1993:Summer) p.123 

124 THE MYTH Of NEMEAN 10 

following Bury, the main point of the myth is to predict a 
successful outcome of the victor's prayer for an Olympic 
victory (29-33); as Zeus fulfills Polydeuces' prayer, so he will 
fulfill Theaios'.4 Some have thought that the myth is intended to 
give a model of brotherly love. Others argue that it is meant to 
validate the principle expressed in 54, Kat 1l00V edDV meJ'Tov 
Y£Vo(;} Still others find the myth out of place here. Carne-Ross 
suggests that Pindar would never have chosen this subject for an 
Argive victor; but his victor-patron, Theaios, prescribed its use 
because of a tradition in his family's history.6 

In a somewhat marginal comment Carne-Ross suggests that 
Pindar may have seen some poetic meaning in the myth, as a by­
product of his compulsory assignment. He imagines the poet 
musing on how the Dioscuri "combine mortal and immortal." 
"It [the myth]," Pindar thinks to himself, "applies to the victor 
in a way. Like this .... The Twins-originally one mortal, the 
other immortal, now both half-mortal for ever. The vic­
tor-mortal, but with the shine of immortality that's on every 
victor."7 I wish to pursue this mortal/immortal idea further, by 
suggesting that its application to the victor may even be the 
principal import of the myth; that Pindar may have chosen this 
myth for this illustrative literary purpose. 

4 G. Maurach, "Pindars Religiositat in Nem. 10," in D. M. Kriel, ed., Pro 
munere grates. Studies Presented to 11. L. Gonin (Pretoria 1971) 117-21; J. B. 
Bury, Nemean Odes of Pindar (London 1890) 194£, also thought Zeus' 
granting Polydeuces' wish a harbinger of his granting Theaios' wish for an 
Olympic victory. 

5 Brotherly love: Puech (supra n.1) 129; C. A. M. Fennell, Pindar: Nemean 
and Isthmian Odes (Cambridge 1899) 120; trustworthiness of the gods: 
Wilamowitz (supra n.1) 429; F. Nisetich, tr., Pindar's Victory Songs (Baltimore 
1980) 280f. F. Mezger, Pindars Siegeslieder (Leipzig 1880) 463, 469, combines 
those two. There are still other interpretations of the myth. K. Crotty, Song 
and Action: Victory Odes of Pin dar (Baltimore 1982) 77f, seems, for example, 
to regard Polydeuces' devotion to Castor as paradigmatic of the epinician 
poet's devotion to his patron. The myth of Nem. 10 has always led to a variety 
of unrelated interpretations rather than consensus. 

6 D. S. CARNE~ Ross, Pindar (New Haven 1985: hereafter 'Carne-Ross') 8 off. 
After "several days simply strolling through the streets" of Argos, Carne-Ross 
imagines, Pindar had dinner with the family and suddenly found himself 
saddled with telling a myth of the Dioscuri. The style of biographical 
fabrication here is remininscent of Wilamowitz, with whom Carne-Ross 
reveals guarded but obvious sympathy (11 f, 75, 166 n.). R. Lattimore, Odes of 
Pindar2 (Chicago 1976) 166, terms the choice of a Spartan myth" curious" for 
an Argive ode. 

7 Carne-Ross 82f; but see also n.15 infra. 



YOUNG, DAVID C., "Something Like the Gods": A Pindaric Theme and the Myth of "Nemean" 
10 , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 34:2 (1993:Summer) p.123 

DAVID C. YOUNG 125 

Although archaic Greeks were aware of mortal and immortal 
aspects of such heroes of myth as Herakles and the Dioscuri, 
they rarely suggest this combination in contemporary historical 
figures. But the notion of posthumous fame as a successful 
counter to death occasionally did, in fact, bring out this very 
theme as a kind of oxymoron and metaphor. Thus Tyrtaeus says 
of the warrior who dies bravely in battle, ou8£ 1tO'tE KA£O~ 
£08AOV a1tOAA'\)'tal ou8' OVOJ.1' au'to\> aAA' U1tO yf\<: 1tEP £WV 
YlvE'tal a86:va'to~. 8 So also Simoni des sees the fame of some 
warriors (probably those who fell at Plataea) in the same 
hyperbolic way: ou8f 't£8vaO'l 8avov'tEC;, E1td O'<p' apE't1, 
Ka8u1tEp8EV Kv8atVOlO' avuYEl 8wJ.1a'to<; £~ 'At8EW. 9 These are 
strong expressions to be applied to contemporaries, hardly less 
vivid than Homer's ~WOVO'l ... 'tE8vaO't (of the Dioscuri). 
Pindar's patrons have not fallen in battle, but he often presents 
his athletic victor's achievements as parallel to those of the 
warrior, especially if the patron, as Theaios in N em. 10, has won 
in a combative event. 10 

Although critics have studied the Dioscuri myth in the 
con text of N em. 10, they have neglected its place in the Pindaric 
corpus as a whole. And they have missed the significance of the 
myth's final sentence (90, avO. 8' £ADO'EV /lfV o<p8aA/lOV, £1tEl'ta 
8f <pwvav xaAKO/lt'tpa KuO''tOpo<;), where culture as much as 
syntax dictates that the subject be Castor's brother, giving the 
myth its relevance and poetic force. 11 I begin with a review of 
the epinician context of the myth and will return to the problem 
of line 90. 

8 Tyrtaeus 12 West (9 Diehl, Prato), 31f. 
9 Simon. 9 Page (121D), 3f. Like other Simonidean epigrams, this one is 

often casually rejected as spurious and dated later than Pindar. But J. H. 
Molyneux, Simonides: A Historical Study (Chicago 1992), follows Page and 
regards this poem as genuine and "no doubt written ... in autumn 479 or 
winter 479-8" (197). 

10 See D. C. Young, Pindar Isthmian 7, Myth and Exempla (=Mnemosyne 
Supp!. 15 [Leiden 1971]) 39-43. 

11 Failure to grasp the implication of that last sentence has even led some 
scholars to take Zeus as the grammatical subject of avo. 0' EA\JO"£V. G. Huxley, 
Pindar's Vision of the Past (Belfast 1975) 21, still follows J. Sandys, Odes of 
Pindar (London 1946 [Loeb edn: 1915]) 425, Fennell (supra n.5: ad loc.), and a 
scholiast (168a Drachmann) in making Zeus the subject. 



YOUNG, DAVID C., "Something Like the Gods": A Pindaric Theme and the Myth of "Nemean" 
10 , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 34:2 (1993:Summer) p.123 

126 THE MYTH OF NEMEAN 10 

I 

Pindar several times reminds his audience pointedly that the 
victors are not gods. His comments are significant and concern 
a complex set of social attitudes and literary motifs. 01. 5.23f 
flatly states that the victor can be no god: uyu~V''ta 0' d "tU; oA13ov 
apon E~apKErov Kn:an:aat Kat EUAoytaV 1tpOan8EL;, Ill) LW"tEuan 
8EO, '¥EV£Q8at. So also at Isthm. 5.7-11 Pindar praises the athletes 
who have won KA£O~, XEpat ... ft "taX1J"ta."tl 1toowv,12 and 
continues (12-15): 

Ouo OE 'tOt ~ffias affi'tov /loDva rcot/lalvov'tt 'tOY 
aAlwHov, £uav8£l cruv OA~C? 

£l'ttS £1) rcUcrXffiv AOyOV EcrAov UKOUll. 
/lil Ilu 't£u£ Z£u£ y£v£cr8av rcUV't' EX£H;, 
£l 0"£ 'tOU'tffiV /lOlP' E~lKot'to KaAWv. 

As the final sentence shows, these passages are not real 
warnings or rebukes. Rather, they are highly complimentary 
statements, something like beatitudes, that Pindarists recognize 
as elements of the ne plus ultra theme. This theme states that the 
victor has reached the pinnacle of human achievement, beyond 
which no one can gO.13 The main point is always congratulatory 
praise. But the compliment necessarily cuts the other way as 
well: it reminds Pindar's patrons they are indeed mortal and will 
die like all humans. 

But Pindar does say that mortals-his patrons-can be god­
like. He begins N em. 6 by drawing a line between the race of 
gods and the race of men. 

"Ev uvopwv, £V 8£wv 'lEV os . EK /ltas OE rcvEO/l£V 
JlcnpOS U/lcpo't£POt· OtelP'l£t 8E rcacra K£Kpt/l£Va 
OuvaJltS, WS 'to /lEV OUOEV, 0 oE 

XUAKfOS ucrcpaAfS aiEv EOOS 
JlEVEl oupavos. UAAU 'tt rcpocrCPEPOW:V EJlrcav f1 JlE'IaV 
v60v ~'tOt cpucrtv u8avu'tOtS .... 

12 The phrase seems to derive from Od. 8.147f, OU f!Ev yap f!£lt;ov KAto~ ... 1\ 1) 

'tt 1tOOOtV tE p£~n Kat XEPOtV DO"tv. 
13 Variations of this crucial thematic line, 'don't seek to be god', are other 

cases of human limitation: 'you can't go beyond the Pillars of Herakles'; and 
so on. See E. Thummer, Pin dar, Isthmischen Gedichte I (Heidelberg 1968) 
67-81; Young (supra n.l0) 28f with n.94; W. H. Race, Style and Rhetoric in 
Pin dar's Odes (Atlanta 1990) 191-95. 



YOUNG, DAVID C., "Something Like the Gods": A Pindaric Theme and the Myth of "Nemean" 
10 , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 34:2 (1993:Summer) p.123 

DA VrD c. YOUNG 127 

The powers of the two races are wholly different-so that we 
are nothing, while the gods live forever in a safe heavenly seat.14 
But Pindar adds, as a counter to this pessimistic, nihilistic view 
of man, aAAa ... EJ.l1tUV ("But, nevertheless, we can be some­
thing like the gods through greatness, either of mind or of 
body"). Pindar then points to his patron, Alkimidas, as a 
concrete example. The same pessimism is countered by a similar 
optimism in one of Pindar's best known passages, Pyth. 8.95ff, 
where the pessimism of ETCallEPOt ... onus Qvap uv8pomos is 
quickly and strongly countered with aAA' o'tuv u'{'YAU ()l6o()o'tO<; 
EA8n, AaJ.1TCpov r:y£yyoc; ETCEO"HV av8pwv xallldAtXOc; aiwv. 

Pindar's business is to capture that brief moment of "the god­
given gleam" and "the brilliant light"-the brief moment when 
his athletes are "something like the gods"-and make it per­
manent, immortalize it in song. If those moments when a man is 
something like the gods disappear, he ends as nothing and "has 
breathed in vain." 15 But if the poet fixes those moments in the 
eternal scheme of things, then mortals can be more than mortal. 
They die but somehow live on. The forceful "stele of the 
Muses" in Nem. 8 seems something of a Pindaric metaphor for 
his song that allows a dead man to survive. For he offers it as a 
feasible alternative to the impossible attempt to return a dead 
man's soul to actual life: 16 

14 The first sentence expresses the separation of the two races, not their 
union: see P. von Kloch-Kornitz, "Die religiose Problematik in Pindars 
Nemea VI," AuA 10 (1961) 155-59. 

15 It is likely that Pyth. 8 and the words a'ty"Aa OtocroO'tos ... AaI-.l1tpOV cpeyyos 
lie behind Carne-Ross' phrase (above) "the shine of immortality that's on 
every victor." But 01. 10.91 ff suggests that this shine is lost without the poet; 
therefore the shine of immortality is not "on every victor," only on those 
celebrated in song: 

Kat amv KaM £p~ats aotoas ii-ccp, 
'Aymioa).!', £is 'AiDa O"1:a8).!ov 
aVTlP tKll'tat, KEVCCx 1tveucrat~ £1tope ).!6X8cp ~paxu 'tt 't[~P1tVOv. 

16 Nem. 8.44-47. Many recent editors print the emendation 't' £Aa<ppov for 1£ 

Aa~pov of the Mss. because Aa~PO; often occurs in pejorative contexts. With 
earlier editors, I accept the received reading, which was in the scholiast's text 
(he glosses Eumvov, for which see LSJ): for the word (" loud, boisterous") is not 
pejorative in itself, and it gives the Muses' vocal stele just the proper contrast 
with the silence of an ordinary stone. Cf Nem. 5.1-5, where Pindar's 
animated, mobile song is contrasted with another silent, stationary 
monument, the victor's statue. for Pindar's claim of preservative power in 
Nem. 8 see C. Carey, "Pindar's Eighth Nemean Ode," PCPS N.S. 22 (1976) 
26-41, esp. 37f, and J. W. Day, "Rituals in Stone: Early Greek Grave Epigrams 
and Monuments," J1-lS 109 (1989) 16-28, esp. 23ff. 



YOUNG, DAVID C., "Something Like the Gods": A Pindaric Theme and the Myth of "Nemean" 
10 , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 34:2 (1993:Summer) p.123 

128 THE MYfH OF NEMEAN 10 

ro MEYO:, 'to b' o:Z>'tt~ 'tEO:V 'l'UXUV KO/ll~o:t 
OU /lOl buvo:'tov' KEvriiv b' £A7tlbCJ)v KO:UVOV 'tEAO~' 
aEl) bE: 7t(i'tp~ XO:Pl<ibO:l~ 't£ Aappov {)7tEpEtaO:l AWOV 

MOlao:tOv .... 

II 

These topics all bear generally on Carne-Ross' comment 
(supra 124), the question of the meaning of Nem. 10, and the 
Dioscuri myth with which it closes. Pindar's patron is Theaios, a 
wrestler from Argos and a prominent athlete. 17 The poem's 
tripartite structure is not the usual one. The first part briefly 
reviews Argive heroes of myth and past Argive glories; 18 there 
follows a central section that praises Theaios and his family, 
cataloguing their many athletic victories. The last part, more than 
a third of the poem (55-90), tells the myth about the Dioscuri. 
Pindar rarely places the myth at the end of the poem. He almost 
always returns to comment on the victor's present state, that 
part of the poem which Schadewald t called the "zwei te 
Siegerlob." But here, I shall later suggest, the "zweite Siegerlob" 
is contained in the myth itself,19 

This myth reveals a typical Pindaric ring form. Before 
narrating his story, Pindar states the gist at the outset: 20 namely, 
that the Dioscuri have a life and a non-life, which alternate day 
by day (54-59); one day they spend with Zeus on Olympus, the 
next, in the underworld. Polydeuces, he says, chose (E'{AE'tO) that 

17 Besides the many victories that the catalogue mentions here, Pindar ex­
presses a hope for an Olympic victory, too (22-36). The poem's occasion is not 
wholly clear. Most scholars assume that the victory celebrated is in the Argive 
Heraia, because those are the first games mentioned (22); but scholion 1 a 
(Drachmann) notes that some ancients took the poem as a multiple epinician, 
celebrating several victories. Merkelbach (supra n.2) argues that the pertinent 
victory was in Sparta. The poem is arranged among the N emeans not as a 
Nemean, of course, but as part of the "Nemean appendix" (T. Irigoin, Histoire 
du text de Pindare [Paris 1952] 33). 

18 Cf Isthm. 7.1-23-which suggests that Theaios' achievements should be 
seen as the latest in the series of Argive glories just presented in N em. 10. 

19 So also Carne-Ross (83), who saw the structural implications of this 
interpretation: "End there-no need for the usual return to the victor." For the 
term "zweite Siegerlob" see W. Schadewaldt, Der Aufbau des pindarischen 
Epinikion (Halle 1928) 284. 

20 See L. Illig, Zur Form der pindarischen Erzahlung (Berlin 1932), and his 
explanation (esp. 57, 60) of the "KECpaNltOv." 



YOUNG, DAVID C., "Something Like the Gods": A Pindaric Theme and the Myth of "Nemean" 
10 , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 34:2 (1993:Summer) p.123 

DA VID C. YOUNG 129 

state over being wholly a god (59, 11 1tall1tUV 8d)<; EIlIlEvUt). He 
then tells the tale. There are several earlier references to the 
Dioscuri's unusual status, and other versions of the basic myth. 

The idea that the Dioscuri alternated daily between life and 
death appears first at Od. 11.301-04, the text that heads this 
paper. We may note the emphasis there on the honor that the 
Dioscuri enjoy, iau 8EOtal. Yet Homer's version is not 
Pindar's.21 And Homer explicitly states that Tyndareus was the 
natural father of both Castor and Polydeuces (Od. 11.299f). 
Hesiod apparently claimed the opposite, that both were fathered 
by Zeus. But the Cypria apparently assigned the Dioscuri to 
separate parents, Castor to Tyndareus, Polydeuces to Zeus; that, 
at least, is the natural implication of the words Kacr'trop IlEV 
8vl1'to<;, 8uva't0'U ()E Ot ulau 1t£1tpw'tUt uu'tap 0 y' &8avu't0<; 
IT 0 A'U ()E1) 1(11<;. 22 

In the matter of the Dioscuri's parentage, Pindar clearly agrees 
with the Cypria, not with Homer or Hesiod. But his sources for 
their altercation with the Apharetidae are not wholly clear. In no 
other version is Polydeuces given the choice he has in Pindar. 
Whether original with him or not, Pindar makes Polydeuces' 
choice a grand focal point. 23 The Dioscuri are attacked by Idas 

21 Homer's text is odd, suggesting that the living and the dead states both 
occur below the ground (nothing is said of Olympus); so A. Heubeck, A 
Commentary on Homer's Odyssey II (Oxford 1989) ad loc. Some difficulty 
may result from the adaptation of common epic formulae to a special situation: 
see Heubeck. 

22 Hes. fro 24 M.-W. (91 Rzach); Cypria fro 6, p.120 in T. W. Allen, ed., 
Homeri Opera V (Oxford 1912). For Proclus' summary of the version in the 
Cypria, see p.103. 

23 Proclus' summary of the Cypria reports that Polydeuces kills both Idas 
and Lynkeus, Kal. Z£u~ au'tOl~ (Dioscuri) ftEP"Il£POV VEIlEt 'tT]V o.8avaoiav. 
He says nothing of Polydeuces' choice. Apollodorus' version of the tale 
(3.11.1=3.135ff Wagner) has Idas kill Castor; Polydeuces kills Lynkeus and 
Idas smites Polydeuces on the head with a rock (1tE1:pa), knocking him down 
in a daze (or is he .. killed OJ; could OKO'tOoo here bear its modern Greek value, 
"'kill"?). Zeus then slays Idas with a thunderbolt (as in Pindar) and carries 
Polydeuces up into heaven. But Polydeuces will not accept his immortality 
while his brother is dead, so aut; o.ll<pO'tEPOtt; 1tap' TtIlEpaV Ka I. EV 8EOt~ dvat 
Kat EV 8Vll'tOtt; (sic) i!8ooK£. That feature is similar to, but not the same as, Poly­
deuces' choice in Pindar. Perhaps Apollodorus and Pindar have a common, 
unknown antecedent: the motifs and vocabulary are often similar (cf 8tOOKooV 
in both authors, and 1tE'tp091tE1:pa). If Apollodorus is merely retelling Pindar's 
own version, he has garbled many details. Besides the discrepancies noted 
above, in Pindar both Idas and Lynkeus smite Polydeuces with their father's 
tombstone (1tE'tpO~), but it has no effect; and the blow is struck to the chest, 
not the head. 



YOUNG, DAVID C., "Something Like the Gods": A Pindaric Theme and the Myth of "Nemean" 
10 , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 34:2 (1993:Summer) p.123 

130 THE MYTH OF NEMEAN 10 

and Lynkeus in a dispute over cattle. Idas deals Castor a mortal 
wound, then Polydeuces kills Lynkeus with his spear, and Idas 
falls to a thunderbolt from Zeus (60-71). Polydeuces, as he hears 
his brother's death-rattle (74), is overcome with grief and calls 
on Zeus. In tears he makes a poignant plea to Zeus, asking for his 
own death, too, if his beloved brother must die. 

With surprising directness, Zeus answers Polydeuces' call. His 
voice booms out with three short, powerful words: £OOt )..lOt 
uio<;. "You are my son." But of Castor he says: 'tOVDE D' E1t£t'tU 
1tOOt<; 01tEp)..lU 8vu'tov )..lu'tpi. 'tEi! 1t£AaOat<; o'tas£v llPwC;. Zeus 
then offers to make a deal with Polydeuces, giving him a truly 
amazing choice, a atpEOt<; (82) such as no one else before or after 
has ever had to make. "If you yourself wish to flee death and 
hated old age, live on Olympus with me and other gods, that is 
your lot. But if you really care so much about your brother, and 
mean to share everything equally with him, you may breathe 
half the time below the earth, the other half in the golden homes 
of heaven." 

It is an astounding choice: permanent immortality or dying 
millions of deaths. Nor can we ignore the implication of the 
choice. If he chooses the second alternative, Polydeuces will 
awaken every morning realizing ei ther that he is in the under­
world, or that he must descend to it later that very day. And for 
this, he must give up eternal bliss. But Pindar gives the choice 
just two lines,24 one of his most abrupt endings. When Zeus 
speaks, Polydeuces acts: 

ox; up' aUbaO"av'[oc; ou YVWjlC! bmAOav 9£'[0 ~ouAav, 
ava b' fAUO"fV jlEV o<p9aAjlOV, fnfna bE <pcovav XaAKOjlhpa 

Koo'[opoc;. 

"Polydeuces gave it no second thought, first he opened the eye, 
then the voice of bronze-armed Castor." End of poem. 

Perhaps this abruptness contributes to the scholarly judgment 
that this myth has exceptional beauty. For the sudden end tends 
to leave the audience in quiet, dazzled contemplation of all the 
wonderful things it has just heard. But there is more. No 
commentator has noticed the full import of Pindar's words in 
this last line. They are not just something that the poet tossed off 
to say, 'Polydeuces brought Castor back to life'. Rather they are 
highly charged, full of cultural-even ritual-implications and 

24 Ovid might have worked Polydeuces' monumental choice for several 
paragraphs-or pages: cf Met. 7.19-94,8.462-512. 



YOUNG, DAVID C., "Something Like the Gods": A Pindaric Theme and the Myth of "Nemean" 
10 , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 34:2 (1993:Summer) p.123 

DA VrD c. YOUNG 131 

literary echoes, given that Polydeuces actually reverses the 
normal procedure by which Greeks tended to the fresh death of 
a loved one. 

Probably the best known version appears in Plato's account of 
the death of Socrates (Phd. 118). After remarking "Crito, we 
owe a cock to Asklepios,» Socrates forthwith dies and his eyes 
become fixed: Kat 0<; 'tU o)..ljla'ta £O''tllO'£v' i.8wv 8£ 6 KPl WlV 

O'\)vEAa~£ 'to O''tolla Kat 't01><; ocpeaAllOU<;. The sight of Socrates 
lying there dead, with his eyes wide open and his mouth agape, 
is not pretty. So Crito closes them as he should, for that was the 
standard Greek practice. 

The ritual value of closing the eyes and mouth goes back to 
Homer. When Odysseus sees Agamemnon in the underworld, 
Agamemnon gives a stinging indictment of Clytemnestra. Not 
only did she kill him, but she also denied him the conventional 
procedure that a family member owes to the departed (Od. 
11.424ff): 

~ Ot: K'\')v&Tn~ YOO'Cjl{O'Ct:!, OUOE !lOl £'tAll ioyn m:p d~ 'A'iouo 
X£PO'1. Ka't' O<D8aAI10uc; fAEElY O'UV 't£ O''tou' EQEtO'at. 

Od. 24.292-96 stresses that this ritual is indeed a debt owed by 
the surviving family and friends: Laertes, thinking Odysseus lost 
and gone forever, says, 

OubE E ~ KAUUO'E n:EPlO''tEtAUO'U n:u'tUP S' ... ouS' UAOX0C; ... 
KWKUO" EV A£XE£O'O'tV EOV rcoO'tV, roc; E1tECPKEt, o<p8aAI10UC; 
Ka8£AouO'a' 'to yap YEpac; EO''t1. 8avov't(J)v.25 

The same attitudes survive in modern Greece, where the mouth 
of the deceased is often held closed by a band wrapped around 
the jaw and over the top of the head. Sometimes the eyes are 
even sewn shut. 26 

Thus the end of Nem. 10 is rich with conventional notions, 
which Pindar reverses. Instead of closing his brother's eyes and 
mouth, Polydeuces opens them: nvu ()' EA:uO'£v !lEV O<peaAllov, 

25 Cf JL 11.452-55: when Odysseus kills Sokos he boasts, J BElA.', au !lev (Jot 
y£ ]tenD P Kat ]tOWta 1!11'tUP 00-0£ KaOatpUOUo-l Oavov'tl m:p, (X A. A. , Olwvot 
cOIlTlO'tUI. rpUOUOl, m:p\. 7t'tEpa 1tUKVa ~uA.6V't£~. au'tap Ell', ct KE 8uvw, K1EPLOVOt 
y£ BlOt 'AXatoi. 

26 See L. M. Danforth, Death Rituals in Rural Greece (Princeton 1982) pll. 3 
("his lower jaw bound shut with strips of white cloth") and 6. In a modern 
Greek funeral lament "the deceased prays for rain in order to rot the silk 
threads that were used to sew his eyes shut" (107; my thanks to Robert 
Wagman for this reference). 



YOUNG, DAVID C., "Something Like the Gods": A Pindaric Theme and the Myth of "Nemean" 
10 , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 34:2 (1993:Summer) p.123 

132 THE MYTH OF NEMEAN 10 

E1tf:na O£ <jHJ)vav. And in a final masterly variation, Polydcuces 
does not open Castor's "mouth," but rather "releases his 
voice," Cj>(()va, the vital proof that Castor is alive again. 27 

By this clear reference to a conventional ritual which, when 
reversed, partially reverses the hero's death, the myth un­
derscores its immediate application, that is, Pindar's implicit 
claim that his present-day songs can reverse, in part, the deaths 
of present-day men. Carne-Ross: "It applies to the victor in a 
way"-a very concrete way. That is why Pindar could here 
forgo the return to the present situation and the "zweite 
Siegerlob," the final praise of the victor. All the high praise that 
is usually contained there this poem expresses implicitly in the 
final myth. Theaios, and other men like him, are something like 
the divine. Though mortal, they are something more than that. 
They live on. That, of course, contains a contradiction; but so 
too does the myth of the Dioscuri. And Pindar I think chose to 
present the half-life of a Dioscurus as a fitting, if rather 
exaggerated, symbol for the status of his athletic patrons, who 
achieve great things and are then celebrated and remembered in 
song. 28 They die and yet live on. Like Simonides' war-heroes 
ouo£ n:8vacrt 8av6v'tf~, or as Homer says of the Dioscuri, 
~rooucrt ... 'tf8vacrt. 

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 

February, 1994 

27 An overly literal reading here may produce a difficulty: if a dead person's 
eyes and mouth are ordinarily open and need to be closed, Polydeuces would 
not need to open Castor's. Perhaps he "frees" them from an open, fixed state; 
or we are to imagine Castor as a co-operative near-corpse, who has already 
closed them on his own. But the point is the symbolic value of the ritual 
reversed, not the actual state of the dead hero's eyes and mouth. 

28 Pyth. 3 is Pindar's major statement of the theme of 'poetic immortality'. 
The Dioscuri serve as especially apt paradigms for the athletes, for they are 
known as the athletes par excellence of mythology. Pindar also closes Pyth. 11 
with their example.