Thucydides and Pindar: Historical Narrative and the World of Epinician Poetry (review)

Simon Hornblower opens this book with an echo of Abraham Crowley's observation that the translator of Pindar is one madman translating another. For Hornblower, it is his scholarly aim that seems mad (iii). Yet his aim is simple and worthwhile. In Hornblower's words, "My book tries to place Thucydides, the prose historian of war and politics, next to Pindar and to show that the overlap between their two worlds was considerable" (37). He argues that Thucydides' subjects and information come from the same world as Pindar's laudandi (262). The strangeness arises from the task's innovation; modern historical and literary studies have devoted little attention to this comparison (354). Antiquity, however, had another view, and the reader is reminded that Dionysios of Halikarnassos compared these authors as examples of his "austere style" (354–72). This comparison provides Hornblower's impetus. Although this might have been set out earlier (it is given in passing only on page 5), in the end, Hornblower achieves his goals. The resulting study will be useful to all students, who will walk away having considered something novel.

The book has two parts. Part 1 suggests that themes addressed by Thucydides and Pindar demonstrate that their worlds overlapped. This part begins with an introduction to athletics, epinician poetry, and scholarly trends on both authors. Chapter 2 speculates on a possible meeting between the historian and the poet. The substance of the study begins in chapters 3 and 4, which compare the content, politics, and historical backgrounds of these authors. These chapters discuss concepts such as stasis and Hesychia and the use of myth and women in both authors. A shining moment is chapter 4, with its emphasis on the reality of mixed (multi-city) colonial endeavors by early Greeks and the problems such a reality presents. The detailed prosopographical reading of Pindar in chapter 5 is perhaps the book's most useful section. Hornblower shows that Pindar's laudandi and their families often are those who are in Thucydides' history. Overall, part 1 presents much useful material that should be consulted alongside Hornblower's commentaries on Thucydides in the study of fifth-century history.

Part 2 builds on the conclusions that Pindar and Thucydides moved in similar worlds and attempts to show that this overlap allows us to read Thucydides intertextually with Pindar. Chapter 7 starts with Thucydides' depiction of the Olympic games of 420 B.C.E. (5.49–50.4.4). For Hornblower, this depiction is Pindaric in its presentation and thus is intertextual. This approach is then applied more broadly to Thucydides. Chapters 8–11 consider the statements of method, excursuses, speeches, and narrative by both authors and suggest that in these areas, too, Thucydides is Pindaric. Chapter 8 best reveals the study's limits. The chapter suggests that Pindar's method of showing causation with a number of unadjudicated alternatives makes him similar to the prose historians in narrative technique. Yet, for this comparison Herodotus, not Thucydides, is the benchmark. Moreover, this shared approach does not really amount to intertextuality. The crowning moment of this analysis is the reading of Thucydides books 6 and 7 in chapter 11. For Hornblower the structure and the innovative use of language in this narrative establish Thucydides as the prose Pindar. The reader can decide whether the Thucydidean hapax ảγώνισις, for example, establishes him as a "great linguistic innovator" like the wordsmith Pindar (340–42). Such analysis is thought provoking, but many will doubt that wordsmithing equals intertextuality. The book ends with its most compelling evidence for its comparison. Chapter 12 addresses the stylistic comparison made by Dionysios Halikarnassos, and its conclusions are astute. Both authors are difficult for modern students, and they were so for an ancient audience as well; it is this difficulty which justified the ancient comparison and allows us to understand how each author confronted similar worlds.

There are few errors. A troubling one appears...