The Principle of Alternation and the Tyrant's Happiness in Bacchylidean Epinician

Abstract

The principle of alternation, according to which human happiness is unstable and subject to change, is characteristic of the archaic world-view, as represented especially in epic and tragedy. In epinician, the principle retains its pessimistic orientation, but emphasizes by contrast the value of whatever happiness humans can achieve. Bacchylides' epinicia share this background, but his odes for non-tyrants are sparing in their use of vicissitude foil. In the two major odes (3 and 5) for Hieron of Syracuse, however, the motif of alternation appears in a somewhat different guise, in that both the negative and the positive aspects are deepened. These odes are darker in their use of vicissitude foil, yet hold out stronger hopes of overcoming vicissitude than the odes for non-tyrant victors. They present Hieron with analogues, in the form of Heracles (in 5), Croesus, and Admetus (in 3), for exceptional and greater possibilities, the possibility of overcoming vicissitude in a final and positive change of fortune, a possibility sustained by sufficient reminiscences of the language of mystery cult to allow us to make a link to Hieron's attested interest in his own post-mortem existence.

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