Читать книгу A Companion to Greek Lyric - Группа авторов - Страница 46

In many ways the function of epinician was to convert athletic victory into political and social capital by persuading people of its value. Athletics encompassed a complicated web of festivals, disciplines, and personnel, and there were different visions of their meaning. Epinician’s vision downplayed differences between festivals and events, located its different victors in a unified, panhellenic aristocracy, and presented a harmonious vision of relations between the members of that aristocracy and their cities. This represented one particular version of athletic competition, in competition with others, and understanding the particular intervention into the complex field of athletics that epinician represents offers an excellent entrée into the key social and political dynamics of the Greek world of the late archaic and early classical periods.