Pindar's Corinth. Space, intervisuality, and intertextual perspectives

In this paper I focus on Pindar’s epinician ode Olympian 13 and the σκόλιον/ἐγκώμιον Pind. Fr. 122 S.-M., both composed in 464 BCE for the Corinthian athlete Xenophon, with particular attention to the interpretative potential offered by the nuanced relationship between Pindaric lyric and Corinthian topography and materiality. Rather than treating poetic texts primarily as historical-archaeological evidence, I show how material culture and archaeology can serve as a valuable comparandum for framing discourse on poetic communication and its aesthetic, evocative, and commemorative potential. Additionally, I aim to demonstrate how the interactions between song and space, as well as the multifaceted relationship between literary texts and material/visual media, can function as a tool for actively shaping and emphasising intertextual connections on two levels: 1) between Pindar’s Corinthian poems; 2) between Pindar’s Corinthian lyric and earlier poetry for the city (Simonides).