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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. Intro -- Table of Contents -- Illustrations -- Abbreviations -- PART I: SHARED WORLDS -- 1 Introduction -- Plan of this book -- Greek athletics: the background -- The athletic, equestrian, and musical events at the festivals -- Epinikian (victory) odes -- The function of the epinikian ode: Pindar and modern anthropology -- Performance and audience -- Pindar and Thucydides: introductory -- Thucydides, Pindar and 'unitarianism' -- Dates -- The shared athletic milieu -- 2 Could Thucydides have known Pindar and did he? -- A personal meeting between Thucydides and Pindar? -- Did Thucydides know Pindar's poetry? -- 3 Content and Outlook -- Introductory remarks -- Hesychia -- Pindar and kingship theory -- Medicine, the politician as doctor -- Hope -- justice and the stronger man -- love of what is distant -- Patriotic death -- ephemerality of life -- Intelligence and inborn excellence -- Ambition -- stasis -- Political outlook -- 4 Religion, Myths, Women, Colonization -- Introduction -- The afterlife -- immortality -- Personified abstractions -- Myths: women -- Colonial myths -- Dorieus of Sparta and the 'lost clod of earth' -- Myths as ways of rejecting or upstaging historical claims -- Kinship diplomacy -- Mixed colonial realities -- Myths of possession -- 5 People, Places, Prosopography, and Politics -- Introduction: prosopography, Pindar, and Bacchylides -- Individuals and places (A): the wide sweep (places other than Aigina, Sparta, Kyrene, Athens) -- Individuals and places (B): Aigina, Sparta, Kyrene, and Athens -- Provisional conclusions -- Politics and panhellenic sanctuaries -- PART II: THUCYDIDES PINDARICUS -- 6 Introduction to Part II -- Vocabulary and parallels -- Authors: why just Pindar? -- The plan of Part II -- 7 The Clearest Example of Thucydides Pindaricus: 5. 49-50.4, the Olympic Games of 420 BC.
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