The "Professional Muse” and Models of Prestige in Ancient Greece Gregory Nagy Cultural Critique, No. 12, Discursive Strategies and the Economy of Prestige. (Spring, 1989), pp. 133-143. ble URL: bttp//links jstor.org/sici?sici=0882-437 1% 28198921 %290%3A 12%3C 133%3AT%22MAMO%3E2,0,CO%3B2-R Cultural Critique is currently published by University of Minnesota Press, ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at butp:/\vww jstor.orglabout/terms.huml. ISTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hutp:/wwww jstor-org/journals/umnpress. html Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, JSTOR isan independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to ereating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals, For more information regarding JSTOR, please contaet support @jstor.org, hupulwwwjstor.ore/ Wed Nov § 13:19:00 2006The “Professional Muse” and Models of Prestige in Ancient Greece Gregory Nagy T* figure of Pindar, a poet who flourished in the first half of the fifth century B.C. (the last securely-datable poem attributed to him ‘was composed for performance in the year 446), represents a period of major crisis in the status and function of poetry in ancient Greek socie- ty. Heir to an aristocratic prestige-generating system that had linked poet and patron as one, Pindar was faced with new historical circum- stances that threatened this old system. On the one hand, the political and economic setting of his time was producing a generation of poten- tial rulers whose power could overreach the community, that is, the polis or city-state. Such rulers, in their pursuit of power, were consid- ‘ered tyrants from the standpoint of the old-fashioned community. On the other hand, the same setting spawned a corresponding generation of poets supported by the patronage of tyrants or tyrantlike personali- ties. Such poets, in their pursuit of wealth, were suspected of betraying. their tradition, reducing themselves to the status of “artisans.” These developments threatened to redefine the patron-poet rela- tionship, shifting away from a reciprocity where poem and material All parenthetical citations in the text refer to the canonical list of editions found in the Oxford Claszal Diamar. 119 by cat cm 042451 Spring 1 A gh ed 133184 Gregory Nagy compensation could serve as the vehicles through which prestige flows and towards a straightforward exchange of wealth and products be- tween two principals. Pindar’s poetry, in reacting to these develop- ments, vigorously deplores what is perceived as the degradation of the muse into a professional artisan. The very notion of a “professional Muse,” as we shall see, reflects an emerging pattern of differentiation between “artist” and “artisan” in models of prestige. Before the era of Pindar, in the pre-Classical period of Greece, there wwas as yet no differentiation between “artist” and “artisan.” From the evidence of the Homeric poems, we see that the professional poet or vides (singer) belongs to the category of the démiourgi (artisans in the istrict {démos)) (Odyssey xvii 881-85).! Other professions that belong to this category are the mantis (seer), the iat (physician), the ektin (carpen- ter), and the kénex (herald) (jid., in conjunction with xix 135). In Hesiod, Works and Days 25-26, the aiodos is juxtaposed with the tékton and the herameus (potter)? The démiourgoi are socially mobile, traveling from ‘one district (demos) to another. For an example of a cognate institution, ‘we may compare the Old Irish “people of the craft [crd),” the designa- tion for artisans, including poets, who were juridically immune as they travelled from one tribe (tuath) to another.* In fact, two of the most basic metaphors for the art of poetry in the Greek art of poetry are the crafts of carpentry (as in Pindar Pythian 3.118; cf. Pausanias 10.5.8) and weav- ing (as in Bacchylides 5.9-10 and 19.8) Old Irish cerd (craft) is cognate with Greek kerdos (craft, craftiness, profit; in the diction of poets like Pindar, hrdos refers positively to the craft and negatively to the potential craftiness of poetry (as in Isthmian 1.51 and Pythian 1.92 respectively) Homeric narrative occasionally makes distinctions between profes- sional aoidoi and what we would call “amateur” singers. For example, at the funeral of Hektor, the aaidoi are those who sing a stylized kind of 1. The word dinor (administrative district, population) in archaic Grek poetic dic tion conveys the notion of a local community with its own tradtons, customs, las, and the ike, 2. Thisis also the case with dbus (beggar) in Works and Days 25-26. Such a juntapo- sition of eds (singer) and jathor isso butt into Odie xv 881-83, 5. The Old Irish tath (tbe) as ruled by aking, is cognate withthe Umbrian tu (evita) and the German deutch ‘4. On the metaphor of carpentry, withthe specifi image ofthe making of a chariot wheel, see Rudiger Schmide, DiMung und Diclsprathe in indogermaniscerZet {Wiesbaden: Harrassowiz, 1967), 295-98,‘The “Professional Muse” 185 Iament, called the thrénas, while non-professional singers, next-of-kin to the deceased, sing a more fundamental kind of lament, called the ‘gs (Iliad 24.712-28). Correspondingly, at the funeral of Achilles, the next-of-kin, the Nereids, sing undifferentiated laments (Odyssey 24.58- 59), while the Muses sing a differentiated thrénas (24.60-61). Or again, Phemios and Demodokos in the Odyssey are poets by profession, whereas Achilles in the Iliad, as he sings the klea andrén (glories of he- oes) in his tent (9.189), is an “amateur.” Such distinctions between “amateur” and “professional” have to be viewed, however, in light of archaic concepts of value and prestige. Clearly the démiourgos gets material compensation for the services that he renders. Still, this compensation has to be honorific as well as mate- rial, parallel to the honorific compensation owed to any member of so- ciety in return for services rendered. In the archaic Greek model, the system of compensation is simultaneously reciprocal and hierarchical. With the transition from premonetary to monetary economies, how- ‘ever, there arises a crisis concerning the services rendered by artisans, with a progressive overvaluing of the material aspect of compensation on the part of the provider and a corresponding undervaluing of the honorific aspect of compensation on the part of the receiver of ser- vices. This crisis is evident in the semantic shift of the Greek word nisthos, with the inherited meaning of “honorific compensation for service performed.”* The word's heritage of agonistic reciprocity is evi- dent in the meaning of its cognate in Vedic Sanskrit midhd—"*competi- tion” or “prize won in competition.” Even in the early attestations of Greek misthos, however, we can detect a process of adjustment: the sense of compensation in misthos is already becoming limited to the work of artisans, becoming ever less appropriate for designating the contribution of the citizen to the polis or city-state This emerging split leads to the notion of “wage for an artisan” and tends to put nisthos into a negative light from an aristocratic standpoint? ‘This crisis in the semantics of value and prestige is articulated by the 5. Emile Benveniste, 1 vocabulaire ds institutions indo-uopénnes (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1969), vol. 1, Eamamie, parent, side, 168-69. 6. Edouard Will, “Notes sur MISTHOS,” in Le monde grec: Hommages& Clare Préawe, cd. J. Bingen, G. Cambier, and G. Nachtergael (Brussels: Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles, 1975), 7. Ibid , 487. He also notes the effors of Plato and Aristotle to rehabilitate the word.186 Gregory Nagy poetry of Pindar. For example, although the notion of material com- pensation for the composition of a Pindaric poem is treated as apasitive value by the poetry, as in Isthmian 2.1-18 and elsewhere, it is clear that the picture of a Muse who is philakerés (lover of profit (Redos)) and ergatis (working for wages) at Isthmian 2.6 is a foil for the even more pos- itive value of the honorific reciprocity between the poet and his sub- ject In the poetry of Pindar, the misthas (wage) of compensation for song is equated with aris, the beauty and pleasure of reciprocity be- tween the poet and the subject of his praise: “I will earn, as my wage {misthos}, the Bharis of the Athenians concerning Salamis, and of Sparta, concerning the fighting at the foot of Mount Kithairon [=Plataia)” (Pindar Pythian 1. 75-77). This more positive value of compensation is simultaneously materialistic and transcendent because it is sacred: inside the framework of Pindaric poetry, as I shall argue presently, the notion of compensation for composition is sacred so lang a it tays within the sa~- cred context of such occasions asthe celebration of an athletic victor. Outside the framework of Pindaric poetry, of course, in the real world of Pindar, compensation for the artisan, including the poet, is be- coming a purely material value." It is this outside reality that makes it possible for Pindar’s poewy to set up the “professional Muse” as a foil for its own transcendence. In this real world, the system of reciprocity within the community at large, as represented by the polis, is breaking down. It is an era when individuals can achieve the wealth and power to overreach the polis itself and when the pattern of overreaching extends to the realm of song. In this real world, the craft of song is in danger of shifting from an expression of community to an expression of the indi- vidual whose wealth and power threatens the community. This shift has been aptly described as a diverting of the poetic art ‘8. Leonard Woodbury, “Pindar and the Mercenary Muse: lnian 2.1-18," Tran dion ofthe American Phillogial Assciaton 99 (1968): 527-42; cf. also René Descat, “Tdéologie et communication dans la poésie greeque archaique,” Quaderi Urbina 38 (0981): 25-27. 9. Compare Leslie Kurke, Piday’s Oilonamia: The Howse as Organizing Metaphor in the (Odes of Pindar (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1988), who argues that the com temporary model of a “mercenary muse” at the beginning of Ithmian 2 is trans: formed, By the end, into a positive value through the appropriation of the idealized ‘old-fashioned model ofthe non-professional muse. 10. Compare Descat, “Idéologie et communication,” 26-27,‘The “Professional Muse” 187 Before the end of the [fifth] century choral poetry was divested of its traditional connections with the festivals of cult, probably by Ibycus, certainly by Simonides, and diverted to the praise of the ‘great. The change meant that the expense of the poet's fee and the choral production was assumed by a wealthy patron, with whom lay the power of decision in regard to all questions relating to the performance of the ode. The Muse, in Pindat’s phrase, had grown fond of money and had gone to work for a living." In the real world, I suggest, the great men who are being praised are the potential tyrants and quasi-tyrants that are being generated by the aris- tocracy. In the ideological world of Pindar, by contrast, the aristocracy remains an ideal that must resist the degeneration that breeds tyrants. It is the real world, to repeat, that makes it possible for Pindar’s poetry to set up the “professional Muse” as a contrast to its own transcendence. T cite Pindar Isthmian 1.47-51, with a brief catalogue of different kinds of work that earn different kinds of misthos (wages) (47); in each case, the ‘worker is working in order to feed his hungry gastér (stomach) (49); such a misttas is contrasted with the ultimate kerdas (profit) of being praised by poetry (51). In Homeric and Hesiodic poetry as well, the hungry gastér serves as a point of contrast: it is a symbol for the dependence of the poet, as itinerant artisan, on the patronage of a localized audience (Theogony 26-28, in the context of Odyssey 14.124-25 and 7.215-21), Since the praise conferred by poetry, as represented by archaic po- etry, is held to be a transcendent value, it follows that a deed worthy of praise by poetry is incompatible with wages suitable for artisans. Thus we read in Apollodorus 2.5.5 that the taskmaster Eurystheus tries to in- validate one of the Labors of Herakles, the cleaning of the stables of ‘Augeias, on the grounds that the hero had performed it for a misthos (wage); conversely, Augeias refuses to pay Herakles when he learns that the hero's labor was at the behest of Eurystheus, in other words, that this labor was one of the Labors (ibid.)." 11. Woodbury, “Pindar and the Mercenary Muse,” $35, 12, Sce Gregory Nagy, “Hesiod,” in Ancient Wier, ed. T. James Luce (New York Seribners, 1982), 47-49, 18. Commentary by’ Nicole Loraux, “Pons: Sur quelques dificultés de la peine ‘comme nom du travail” Annali del Seminario di Stu del Mondo Clasico, Naples: Archologia € Storia Antica (1982): 190-91.188 Gregory Nagy The idealized vision of compensation for poetry is preserved in Pindar’s inherited medium of the epinician or victory ode, where the athlete's deed literally demands to be requited in song, and the realiza- tion of the song in turn demands to be requited by way of a aris, a pleasureable and beautiful reciprocity that is simultaneously material and transcendent in nature. Such a vision is also preserved in epic, where this medium refers to its evolution from occasional poetry. The idealized description in Odyssey 9.3-11 of the singer's performance at an evening feast makes a programmatic reference to the spirit of ‘euphaosuné (mirth) that holds sway on such an occasion (6). In the me- dium of Pindar, the word euphrosuné (mirth) (as in Nemean 4.1) refers programmatically to the actual occasion of performing poetry and song." In the Odyssey, it is said about the euphrosuné generated by the singer's performance at the feast that there is no ‘elas, that is, no social service to be performed that has more beauty and pleasure in its rec- procity than does such an occasion; the concept of beauty and pleasure in reciprocity is expressed as a matter of Baris: “I say that there is no task [telos] that has more Rharis” (Odyssey 9.5). Such an idealized vision, in poetry, of compensation for poetry must be juxtaposed with the realities of wealth, power, and prestige in Pindar’s era, at a time when important families were generating public personalities that could and did overreach the institutions of the polis, and when the public medium of poetry was coming under the threat of being possessed by the private power of tyrants. Pindar and his ‘contemporaries or near-contemporaries, figures like Simonides and Bacchylides, made their own breakthroughs as individuals, as histori- cally verifiable persons whom we may call “authors,” by virtue of be- ing protégés of powerful families of tyrants or quasi-tyrants who forged their individuality through such public media as poetry itself. As a prime example of tyrants as patrons of Pindar, I cite the referent of Pindar’s celebrated Olympian 1, Hieron of Syracuse, whom Pindar addresses as basileus (king) (€.g., Olympian 1.28) as well turannos (tyrant) (in a non-pejorative sense: Pythian 8.85). Even as an occasional protégé of tyrants, Pindar can condemn the per- ceived evils of tyranny by invoking the inherited values of his poetic tra- dition, In particular, I draw attention to a pervasive thematic parallelism, 14, Elroy L. Bundy, Studia Pindaia (Berkeley: Universiy of California Pres, 1986), 2‘The “Professional Muse” 189 established by Pindar’s traditional poetry, between the prestige of an ath- lete’s victory at the pan-Hellenic Games and the potential of a tyrant’s power. The function of Pindar’s epinician poetry, that is, of his victory ‘odes commissioned by the families of athletes who won at the Games, ‘was to formulate this prestige for the native polis ofthe victorious athlete while at the same time warning against the potential of tyranny. ‘Whereas poets like Pindar owed their fame as historical individuals to their patrons, who commissioned poets to celebrate such prestig- ious occasions as athletic victories, their patrons, some of whom were indeed tyrants, owed their corresponding fame at least partly to these same poets, who enhanced the breakthrough of their patrons into the remote past of the heroes. The poet Ibycus talks about such a relation- ship explicitly in one of his commissioned poems, as he tells the tyrant Polykrates of the everlasting kleos (fame, prestige) that is to be conferred on him by the poet's song, which is also called kleos (Ibycus SLG 151.47- 48). The double use of kleos in this poem re-enacts the notion of reci- procity built into the word: the patron gets prestige from the praise of the poet, whose own prestige depends on the prestige of his patron in the here-and-now.'8 The Indo-European heritage of this convention is ‘evident from a comparison with Old Irish traditions of reciprocity be- tween poet and patron, which has been summed up this way by Richard Martin: “The Irish king is certified by the poet; reciprocally, the poet is maintained by the king and the tribe.” So long as the patronage of the audience is ideologically conferred by the community at large, a reciprocal relationship between poet and pa- tron can be maintained. Thus even a tyrant like Polykrates of Samos can in theory fit the Indo-European model of poetic patronage, so long as he succeeds in being perceived as the embodiment of commu- nity, the body politic, which is the essence of kingship. If, on the other hand, the tyrant is perceived as overreaching the community, which is the polis, in his maintenance of power, then the very concept of tyran- ny sets off a crisis in the poetic ideology of reciprocity. A premier example of reciprocity between poet and patron is the 15. Compare Gregory Nagy, Comparative Studies in Greck and Indic Meter (Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 1974), 250-51; Calvert Watkins, “The Etymology of Irish dian,” Celica 11 (1976): 270-77; Richard P. Martin, “Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes,” Tranactins ofthe American Phiologial Association 114 (1984): 35, 16. Martin, “Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes,” 85.140 Gregory Nagy declaration of Pindar:!? “I am a xenas. Keeping away dark blame and bringing genuine prestige (Aeos, like streams of water, to a man who is near-and-dear [philas], I will praise [=verb ained] him” (Pindar Nemean 7.61-68).8 The praise of Pindaric poetry is not restricted to the victorious men who were subjects of the poet’s here-and-now. The word Hes (fame, prestige) in Pindar’s praise poetry applies equally to the man of the present and the hero of the past, as in the following example: “It is said that kieos bloomed for Hektor near the streams of Skamandros. And near the steep cliffs that rise above Heloros, (...] this light shone upon the coming of age of the son of Hagesidamos” (Pindar Nemean 9.39- 42). Moreover, what is being praised about the man of the present, such as the athlete, is ideologically parallel to what is being praised about the hero. In the inherited diction of praise poetry, what an ath- lete undergoes in his pursuit of victory is denoted by ponos (ordeal), also called hamatos, and these very same words apply also to the life and-death struggle of heroes with their ener s, man and beast alike.'® ‘There is a parallel situation with the partial synonym acthlos, from which athlétés (athlete) is derived: besides meaning “contest” (the neu- ter acthlon means “prize won in a contest”), aethlas also means “ordeal” and is applicable both to the athletic event of the athlete in the present and to the life-and-death struggle of the hero in the past.” In decidedly not making a distinction between the Aleos due to an athlete of the present for his athletic event and the dleos due to a hero for his heroic deed, the ideology of Pindar’s praise poetry is parallel to the ideology of the athletic games in which the athletes earned their Hleos. The ideology of the games is fundamentally a religious one: each athletic festival, held on a seasonally recurring basis into perpetuity, is 17. Commentary in Gregory Nagy, The Bet of the Achaeant: Cncipts of he Heroin Ar ‘haie Greck Potry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 223. 18._A xen is someone who is bound by the ties of reciprocity between guest and hhost. Such ties are presupposed to exist bewween poet and patron. There isa funda mental discussion of sent in Benweniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-curoplennes 341; cf, Nagy, The Best ofthe Achaeans, 282-87; Watkins, “Exymology of Irish dian”; Manin, “Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes,” 85 19, Examples can be found in Gregory Nagy, “Ancient Greck Praise and Epic Po- cnr,” in Oral Tradition in Literature: Interpretation in Context, ed. John M. Foley (Colum- bia, Mo: University of Missouri Press, 1986), 92-94. 20. Ibid,The “Professional Muse” 141 predicated on the death of a hero, on an eternally important proto-ideal, as it were, for which the seasonally recurring ordeals of athletes, in prin- ciple ongoing to eternity, serve as eternal compensation. This religious ideology, clearly attested in Pindar's poetry, is matched by the religious ideology of the poetry itself: each ordeal of each victorious athlete, com- pensating for the proto-ideal of the hero who struggled and died, de- ‘mands compensation of its own in the form of song offered as praise for the athlete. The song in turn demands compensation from the victorious athlete and his family, to be offered to the composer of the song.*! This concluding link in the chain of compensation is clearly articu- lated throughout the poetry of Pindar, whenever the voice of the poet says that he owes it to his patrons to create a song (e.g., Olympian 10.8,8). This theme has been misunderstood by latter-day experts of Pindar as if it were a blatant illustration of Pindar’s “professional Muse”: when Pindar says that he owes the song to his patrons, critics misunderstand him as referring merely to a contract between patron and poet, entailing services to be performed and to be paid for.#* This is to ignore the premonetary and in some respects sacral heritage of the very concept of value in archaic Greek society. ‘The notion of compensating a poet for his “ordeal” of composing a poem is part of a ritual chain of reciprocity where the value of the com- pensation owed the poet, even ifit takes the shape of material gifts, is still transcendent inasmuch as it is considered sacred. If, however, the com- ‘munity loses its rust in the powers that be, then the compensation owed to the poet sponsored by those powers stands to lose its sacral statu. Thus the poet must not only praise his patron: he must maintain the trust of the community by reasserting the transcendent nature of his ‘compensation as proof of his links to the community as his audience. For such reassertion to be successful, the poet can set up, as a foil for his transcendent compensation, a negative value for the kind of com- pensation that is purely material in nature. Granted, we have seen that the notion of material compensation for 21. Ibid, 22. Woodbury, “Pindar and the Mercenary Muse,” gives a useful survey of the more extreme statements to the effect that Pindar is simply a poet for hire. ‘Woodbury’s own attitude is best reflected by what he says about Pindar Isnian 2.1- 13; “An obsession with fees isthe least likely of themes for a Pindaric poem” (581), 28. Fora beter understanding, begin with a careful reading of the searching analy- sis in Louis Gere, Anthropologie dela Grice antique (Paris: Maspero, 1968), 93-137.142 Gregory Nagy the composition of a Pindaric poem is generally treated as aposiive val- ue by the poetry. Still, we have also seen that the picture of a Muse who is philokerdés (lover of profit [kerdos}) and ergatis (working for wages) is a negative value in Pindar, serving as a foil for the positive value of a transcendent reciprocity between the poet and his subject. Pindar's poetry, a medium of ethical discourse, represents an inher- ited instrument of social criticism, consistently warning against the emergence of tyranny from an aristocracy that it can blame for losing its ethical foundations. Since this poetry presupposes an idealized com- munity of aristocrats with whom it can communicate, itis important to add that the historical reasons for the emergence of tyrants and quasi: rants are indeed to be found in the social context of aristocratic cir- les. In other words, the social context of aristocracy in the polis is the breeding ground of would-be tyrants, both from the external standpoint of history and from the internal standpoint of the poetry as an instrument of social criticism that warns against tyranny. In this connection, I cite one last time the testimony of Pindar’s po- ey. In Pythian 2.87-88, the polis is represented as capable of three forms of government, described as a tyranny, a democracy, “wherever there is a host of men intemperate,” or an aristocracy, “when the wise [sophoi} watch over the city.” Such a view of society reflects a poetic tra- ition, also attested in Theognis 89-52, where again we find an ideologi- cal representation of an aristocracy. Yet, despite the ideological approv- al, this aristocracy is pictured as a potential breeding ground of degen- eration, and the ethical teaching of the poem is to warn against such destruction of the aristocracy from within, which is said to be the har- binger of tyranny (89-40, 51-52). This tradition recurs with a twist, in the celebrated Debate of Consti- tutions, Herodotus 3.80-87, where the Great King of the Persians is represented as cynically restating the poetic tradition: he too describes the Greek polis as capable of three forms of government, that is, de- mocracy, oligarchy, and monarchy. The Persian king unrestrainedly refers to aristocracy as “oligarchy” (3.82.1); he is more restrained 24. Compare Zoé Petre, “Le comportement tyrannique,” Actes dela XUle Conférence Interationale d'Etudes Clasiqus, Eirene (Bucharest and Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1975), 25, See the commentary in Gregory Nagy, “Theognis of Megara: A Poet's Vision of His City,” in Thgnis of Megara: Poetry andthe Pais, ed. Thomas J Figueira and Gregory [Nagy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 42-46.‘The “Professional Muse” 143 about tyranny, which he calls “monarchy” (8.82.1,8); the superiority of the latter over oligarchy is proved, he says, by the regular pattern of a gradual shift from any oligarchy into a “monarchy” (8.82.3). The Great King’s description of this shift, however, shows that this arch-villain of the Hellenes has been tricked by the narrative of Herodotus into becom- ing a teacher of ethics, in that he is in effect unwittingly warning the aris- tocracy against the temptations of degeneracy and tyranny. In the Per- sian king's words, the supposedly predictable shift from oligarchy to “monarchy” stems from the quest for personal advantage, which leads to. movement towards “monarchy” in three stages: 1) stasis (plural) (s0- al conflicts), 2) phonoi (killings), and, finally, 8) monarkhia (monarchy) (8.82.8). These categories mark the very same concepts that are cited by the native traditions of Hellenic poetry as the stages of degeneracy and incipient tyranny, as in Theognis 50-52. In this passage, the notion of private or personal interest is expressed by way of kerdas (gain, advantage, profit) (Theognis 50). Private gain that entails public detriment leads to 1) stasis (social conflict) (Theognis 51), 2) phonoi (killings) (51), and, finally, 8) tyranny, a notion that is attenuated, here again, as monarthai (monarchs) (62). These three stages of degeneracy, as the poetry makes clear, are symptomatic of hubris (outrage) (Theognis 40, 44). In the Debate passage of Herodotus, the notion of tyranny that underlies monarchy is made ear: the Great King’s speech is preceded by an earlier speech contain- ing a calculated equation of the attenuated word monarhes (monarch) with the explicit turannos (tyrant) (Herodotus 8.80.2, 4). We have seen, then, that even the transcendent ideology of poetry recognizes the ever-present danger of tyranny, which can be generated by that very same aristocracy that it traditionally praises. By recogniz- ing the reality of tyranny, this poetry has to transcend the realities of wealth and power, which are a source of Aeas (prestige) for the tyrant in a world that expects the medium of the poet to confer such prestige. ‘We have also seen that the poet himself reciprocally stands to gain wealth and power in the process of conferring prestige. In this sense, the medium of the poet has to transcend itself in order to reject tyran- ny. By transcending wealth and power, poetry can claim its own pres- tige, making the material aspects of wealth and power, as symbolized by the “professional Muse,” the very antithesis of this prestige. 26, Tid.