Thucydides and Pindar

Thucydides was one of the greatest of the ancient Greek historians and Pindar one of the greatest Greek poets, specializing in celebratory odes for victors in the great games - above all at Olympia. Simon Hornblower puts these two towering figures side-by-side for the first time, demonstrating a thematic and literary kinship.

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Simon Hornblower argues for a relationship between Thucydides and Pindar not so far acknowledged in modern scholarship. He argues that ancient critics were right to detect stylistic similarities between these two great exponents of the `severe style' in prose and verse. In Part One he explores the background of epinikian poetry and athletics, the values shared by the two authors, and religion and colonization myths, and presents a geographically organized survey of Pindar's Mediterranean world, exploiting onomastic evidence. Part Two includes an analysis of Thucydides' account of the Olympic games of 420 BC; discussions of the four components of Thucydides' history in their relation to Pindar; statements of method, excursuses, speeches, and narrative, especially the Sicilian books; and a stylistic-literary comparison of Thucydides and Pindar.