Cultic Space and Dithyrambic Performance in Pindar's Fragment 75

This paper concerns the performative context of Pindar’s fragment 75 as represented in Pindar’s text. The traditional interpretation of the song as performed in the agora is challenged by analysing the invocation to the Olympian gods which opens the fragment. The deictic features of the text and the evidence about the City Dionysia make plausible a performance in the Sanctuary of Dionysus Eleuthereus. Furthermore, the processional nuances and the verbs of movement are to be explained as part of a peculiar occurrence of the ‘arrival motif’: Pindar shapes the lyric ‘I’ as an eminent singing and dancing persona, ideally coming from Zeus and able to individuate the right moment to sing for Dionysus. By pointing both at the Sanctuary of Dionysus and at other reference points in Athens, Pindar places the performance in the Athenian space and qualifies it both as part of a recurrent event and as a specific and meaningful moment.