(Gk.; Lat. epinicium).
In ancient Greece, a choral ode in honour of a victor either in games or in battle. Such odes were written by Bacchylides, Pindar and other poets and usually fell into three parts: an account of the victory, a mythical development of the subject and a eulogy of the victor, to which were added exhortations and moral reflections. The ode was sung when the victor returned to his city, perhaps in the procession to the temple where his wreath was consecrated.
The epinikion is the point of origin of the songs of triumph frequent in operas, e.g. in Act 2 scene ii of Verdi's Aida, where Radames is acclaimed by priests and people as he enters Thebes after defeating the Ethiopians. The epinikion which constitutes the first scene of Handel's oratorio Saul (one of the few instances where the term is actually found in a libretto) tells of David's victory over Goliath. It was in the portrayal of such scenes, which required a rich panoply of choral and orchestral forces, that the potentialities of Handel's newly fashioned oratorio style were most evident.
MICHAEL TILMOUTH