From Resolving Stasis to Ruling Sicily: A Reading of Herodotus 7.153-167 in an Epinician Context.

When the Greek embassy visits Sicily to convince Gelon to support their cause against the Persian threat, Herodotus begins the Sicilian logos with the story of a man named Telines, an ancestor of the Deinomenid tyrants, Gelon and Hieron. This paper first argues that by resolving the stasis in Gela and securing the civic priesthood of the chthonic goddesses for his descendants Telines prefigures Gelon's rise to power as tyrant in Sicily. Next, it demonstrates that kingship and the priesthood of Demeter and Persephone are closely linked in Deinomenid ideology in epinician poetry, which provides a crucial backdrop for Herodotus' portrayal of Gelon. Finally, the paper examines subtle references to the cult of Demeter and Persephone in Herodotus' account and proposes that Herodotus' descriptions of the Deinomenids offer a cautionary tale in support of practices that uphold the boundaries between inherited priesthoods and political power in fifth-century Athens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]