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alcoholic who was assassinated by one of his indignant subjects in retaliation for some violent outrage (though of course he may well have been). But whether or not Phainias' allegation was historically true, its very existence suffices to prove that during at least part of the period between Scopas' and Phainias' lifetimes Scopas was blamed by some people (certainly Phainias, probably his sources or informants), and there is no reason to disbelieve that Scopas had also been blamed by some people during Simonides' lifetime as well. For these oddities in the poem to make sense, we do not need to suppose that Scopas had committed some specific crime of which Simonides was aware (though of course this remains possible), but only that Simonides knew that some people criticized Scopas, or even that Simonides could assume that it was likely that a man of Scopas' power would have detractors. For the words Simonides uses in line 27,  ("I praise and love"), are technical terms used in the language of epinician poetry specifically to describe the relation of the poet to his patron.54 Clearly it is this relation which is the central subject matter of Simonides' ode. So far from proclaiming the virtues of democracy, it actually provides an apology for tyranny. Scopas may be blamed by some: but then again, who is not? Simonides will gladly accept the patronage of a man who only commits shameful deeds when he is compelled to do so by necessity but what tyrant has not invoked the excuse of necessity to justify the most reprehensible acts? In praising a patron criticized by some, Simonides is saying in effect, "Let us not expect the impossible. Nobody is perfect. At least Scopas has never done anything shameful unless he had to (and hence it was not shameful: and this plea excuses even the gods); for the rest he is not excessively violent and respects the laws of the city, and if I wanted to criticize there are lots of foolish people who do not even achieve this much I could blame." |
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Thus the aptest social and generic context for Simonides' poem is not a philosophical discussion of virtue and vice but the symposiastic exercise of praise and blame.55 The poem itself is best seen not as a moral treatise designed to analyze what makes a man good or bad, but rather as the theoretical reflection of a practitioner of encomiastic poetry upon his poetic practice, designed to determine what kind of patron is the proper subject for encomium.56 Since at the same time the poem seeks to justify the choice of Scopas as an appropriate object for praise, it manages to combine a theorization of encomium with the practical performance of an actual |
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54 For  cf. Pind. O. 13.2; P. 2.67, 10.69; N. 5.19; fr. 43.4; Bacch. fr. 56. For  cf. Pind. P. 1.60, 92, 2.83, 4.29, 10.66; N. 3.76; Parth. 1.11. |
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55 On the symposium as the institutional framework for much of early Greek monodic poetry, see Bowie (1986), Vetta (1983), Most (1982), Murray (1990), Rösler (1980). |
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56 Among modern scholars, Dickie (1978) 212, 32 and Schütrumpf (1987) 2223 come closest to this view. See also Crotty (1982) 3340 and now Carson (1992) 114, 120. |
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