Olympian 1

[12][14] After his "erotic complaisance", Pelops appeals to Poseidon for help, "if the loving gifts of Cyprian Aphrodite result in any gratitude" (lines 75-76);[15] the god grants him a golden chariot and horses with untiring wings (line 87); with these Pelops defeats Oenomaus in a race and wins the hand of his daughter Hippodameia, avoiding the fate of death previously meted out upon a series of vanquished suitors.

[12][13] The cultic centres of the sanctuary were the altar of Zeus, the stadium, and the tomb of Pelops, where "now he has a share in splendid blood-sacrifices, resting beside the ford of the Alpheus" (lines 90-93).

[13] According to Philostratus, after sacrifice and the laying of the consecrated parts upon the altar, the runners would stand one stadion distant from it; once the priest had given the signal with a torch, they would race, with the winner then setting light to the offerings.

[5] Hieron, "Pindar's greatest patron" and honorand in four odes and a now-fragmentary encomium,[9] is likened to a Homeric king, as he "sways the sceptre of the law in sheep-rich Sicily" (lines 12-13).

[5] Pindar incorporates the ideology of xenia or hospitality into his ode, setting it in the context of a choral performance around Hieron's table, to the strains of the phorminx (lines 15-18).

Pindar composed his victory ode for performance, in the Aeolian mode (line 102) and to the accompaniment of the phorminx : "Come, take the Dorian lyre down from its peg" (lines 17-18). [ 1 ] On this white-ground lekythos by the Achilles Painter , c. 450 BC, a female figure is seated on a rock labelled Helicon , the mountain sacred to the Muses , thus identifying her as one of the nine . She plays the phorminx while the small bird by her feet may represent accompanying song [ 2 ] [ 3 ]
Zeus flanked by Oenomaus and Pelops from the centre of the east pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia , carved from Parian marble between 470 and 457 BC; the sculptural programme is described at length by Pausanias (V.10) [1] ; the defeat of Oenomaus by Pelops provided a "legendary parallel" for the ousting from control of the festival of the Pisatans by the Eleans [ 16 ]