The Choral Architecture of Pindar’s Eighth Paean

Abstract

This paper argues that the interplay between the narrative and performance of Pindar’s eighth paean embeds it within the physical environment of Delphi, at the site of the Alcmaeonid temple for which it was composed. The use of choreographic and musical images to describe the temple’s mythical predecessors merges with the chorus’s own choreia, which thus has a doubling effect, visually and acoustically overlaying the Alcmaeonid temple with these older structures in a complex interaction of real and imagined space.