Hieron of Siracuse in Pindar's Second Pythian Ode

Abstract

This research project proposes to investigate the representation of the tyrant of Syracuse Hiero in Pindar's Pythian 2. As a piece of a larger strategy to build a public image and to legitimize the Deinomenid tyranny in Syracuse in the 5th century AD, the epinicion stood out as a vehicle able to forge or reinforce local identities intertwined with the tyrant's figure and to project the dynasty notoriety onto the Panhellenic scene.By using written, epigraphical and historiographical sources, which report the hegemony of the Deinomenids in Syracuse, as well as archeological and historical studies, we aim to contextualize the role of the epinicion, particularly Pythian 2, in the representation of Hiero as ruler by right, without prescinding a close analysis of the poem and how the economy of the ode, permeated by conventional and occasional elements and by the mobilization of topoi from other older poetic genres, builds a praise to landandus that places him as the legitimate monarch of Syracuse, during a time marked by war, political and social conflicts, population reconfiguration and consolidation of the polis as as an increasingly important political force in eastern Sicily.