Pherenikos (Greek: Φερένικος; Latin: Pherenicus) was an Ancient Greek chestnut racehorse victorious at the Olympic and Pythian Games in the 470s BC. Pherenikos, whose name means "victory-bearer", was "the most famous racehorse in antiquity".[1] Owned by Hieron I, tyrant of Syracuse, Pherenikos is celebrated in the victory odes of both Pindar and Bacchylides.[2]

Career

In Pythian Ode III, Pindar recalls "the crowns of the Pythian Games" which Pherenikos had won previously;[3] according to the scholiasts or ancient commentators, Hieron was victorious in the single horse race at Delphi during the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh iterations of the games, in 482 and 478 BC;[4] alternatively "crowns" may simply function as a poetic plural.[2] In 476 BC, Hieron was victorious in the single horse race at Olympia; this victory is celebrated by Pindar in Olympian I and Bacchylides in Ode 5, with Pherenikos named and prominent in both;[5][6] the date is confirmed by the list of Olympian victors in Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 222, which includes a further Olympic victory for Hieron in 472, also mentioned in the scholia.[2][7] Whether Pherenikos was the winning horse also on this last occasion is unknown; if first victorious in 482, it would suggest a long career, but the shape of the course may have called for horses with experience as well as speed.[2]

Celebration

In Olympian I, the graceful Pherenikos speeds to victory beside the Alpheus, "ungoaded in the race"; giving his body freely, he elevates his master, and plants sweet thoughts in people's minds (lines 18–22).[5] In Ode 5, the "golden-maned" Pherenikos is "storm-swift" (a hapax),[2] racing like the North Wind, and his jockey by metaphor a "helmsman"; the poet swears, touching the earth, that "never yet in a race has dust raised by horses in front sullied him"; and the speeding horse brings victory to "hospitable" Hieron (lines 37–49; also 176–86).[2][6] A fragment of an encomium by Bacchylides preserved in another of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (1361) praises Pherenikos once more: victorious with his "swift hooves" at Delphi and Olympia, he brought grace to his master.[2] According to Maurice Bowra, since both poets speak of the same horse, this enables comparison of their respective approaches to the epinikion or victory ode: Bacchylides "enters thoroughly into the excitement of the race", while Pindar's concern, more than "beauty as revealed in action", is moral character and kleos.[8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Nicholson, Nigel James (2005). Aristocracy and Athletics in Archaic and Classical Greece. Cambridge University Press. pp. 99, 95–118. ISBN 978-0-521-84522-9.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Henderson, W. J. (2011). "A Race-Horse Called Pherenikos". Akroterion. Stellenbosch University. 56: 21–30.
  3. ↑ Pindar. "Pythian III". Perseus Project. Retrieved 16 July 2012.
  4. ↑ Drachmann, A. B. (1910). Scholia Vetera in Pindari Carmina (in Ancient Greek). Vol. II. Teubner. p. 5.
  5. 1 2 Pindar. "Olympian I". Perseus Project. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
  6. 1 2 Bacchylides. "Ode 5". Perseus Project. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
  7. ↑ Drachmann, A. B. (1903). Scholia Vetera in Pindari Carmina (in Ancient Greek). Vol. I. Teubner. pp. 15f.
  8. ↑ Bowra, Maurice (1964). Pindar. Oxford University Press. pp. 165f.
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