BACCHYLIDES

flourished 5th century BC Greek lyric poet of the Aegean island of Ceos, nephew of the poet Simonides and a younger contemporary of the Boeotian poet Pindar, whom he rivaled in the composition of epinician poems (odes commissioned by victors at the major athletic festivals). Little was known of Bacchylides' work until the discovery in Egypt of papyrus fragments that reached the British Museum in 1896 and were published in the following year. Of the 21 poems wholly or partially restored, 14 are epinician odes and the remainder are dithyrambs (originally choric songs in honour of Dionysus that became the subject of a choral competition at the Athenian festival of the Dionysia). Other fragments, supplemented by later papyrus finds, include passages from paeans (hymns in honour of Apollo and other gods) and encomiums (songs in honour of distinguished men, performed as part of an after-dinner entertainment). A firm date is provided by Ode 5, an epinician ode written to celebrate the victory of Hieron I, ruler of Syracuse, in the horse race at the Olympian games of 476 BC. The poem implies that Bacchylides had already visited Syracuse before this date as a guest of Hieron, whose later victories in the Pythian horse race of 470 and the Olympian chariot race of 468 he celebrated in Odes 4 and 3, respectively. This brought him into direct competition with Pindar, who also celebrated two, if not all three, of these victories in Olympian i and Pythian i and ii. Pindar's uncomplimentary remarks about rival poets have been taken as referring to Bacchylides and Simonides. Bacchylides' style is simpler, if less sublime, than Pindar's; he excels in narrative and in clarity of expression. Like Simonides, Bacchylides wrote dithyrambs for the Dionysian festival at Athens, notably the unique Ode 18, which is semidramatic, taking the form of a dialogue between Theseus' father, Aegeus, and an answering chorus of followers. Literary historians differ as to how this literary form is related to the development of the Attic drama. The best text is that of B. Snell (8th ed., 1961). A translation by Robert Fagles of the complete poems was published in 1961. Additional reading Anne Pippin Burnett, The Art of Bacchylides (1985).