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Thucydides and Pindar: Historical Narrative and the World of Epinikian Poetry

Online ISBN:
9780191719424
Print ISBN:
9780199249190
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Thucydides and Pindar: Historical Narrative and the World of Epinikian Poetry

Simon Hornblower
Simon Hornblower
Professor of Classics and Ancient History, University College London
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Published online:
1 September 2007
Published in print:
7 October 2004
Online ISBN:
9780191719424
Print ISBN:
9780199249190
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This book discusses a relationship between Thucydides and Pindar not so far acknowledged in modern scholarship. It 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 the book 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.

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