Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- Preface
- A Note on Terminology, Transliterations, and Editions
- 1 An Introduction to Olympic Victor Lists
- 2 Hippias of Elis and the First Olympic Victor List
- 3 Olympionikon Anagraphai and Standard Catalogs of Olympic Victors
- 4 Olympiad Chronographies
- 5 Olympiad Chronicles
- 6 Conclusion
- Appendices
- 1.1 Scopas
- 1.2 Tiberius Claudius Polybius
- 1.3 Aristodemus of Elis
- 2 Hippias of Elis
- 3.1 Aristotle's Olympionikon Anagraphe
- 3.2 Eratosthenes' Olympionikon Anagraphe
- 3.3 The Aristotelian Pythionikai
- 3.4 POxy II 222
- 3.5 IG II2 2326
- 4.1 The Eusebian Olympic Victor List
- 4.2 Timaeus of Tauromenium
- 4.3 Dionysius of Halicarnassus
- 5.1 Philochorus
- 5.2 Ctesicles
- 5.3 Diodorus Siculus
- 5.4 Castor of Rhodes
- 5.5 Dionysius of Halicarnassus
- 5.6 Thallus
- 5.7 Phlegon
- 5.8 POxy XVII 2082
- 5.9 POxy I 12
- 5.10 Cassius Longinus
- 5.11 Dexippus
- 6 A Catalog of Olympic Victors Before Hippias?
- 7 Aristotle on the Foundation of the Olympic Truce and of the Olympic Games
- 8 Olympiads and Pankration Victors in Thucydides
- 9 More on the Accuracy of Hippias' Olympic Victor Catalog
- 10 The Olympic Victor List and the First Messenian War
- 11 Memorization and the olympic victor list
- 12 Hippias' Calculation of the Date of 776
- 13 The Spartan King Lists
- 14 Variant Olympiad Dating Systems
- 15 Menaechmus of Sicyon's Pythikos
- 16 The Sicyonian Anagraphe
- 17 Relationships between Olympionikai
- Bibliography
- General Index
- Index Locorum
9 - More on the Accuracy of Hippias' Olympic Victor Catalog
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- Preface
- A Note on Terminology, Transliterations, and Editions
- 1 An Introduction to Olympic Victor Lists
- 2 Hippias of Elis and the First Olympic Victor List
- 3 Olympionikon Anagraphai and Standard Catalogs of Olympic Victors
- 4 Olympiad Chronographies
- 5 Olympiad Chronicles
- 6 Conclusion
- Appendices
- 1.1 Scopas
- 1.2 Tiberius Claudius Polybius
- 1.3 Aristodemus of Elis
- 2 Hippias of Elis
- 3.1 Aristotle's Olympionikon Anagraphe
- 3.2 Eratosthenes' Olympionikon Anagraphe
- 3.3 The Aristotelian Pythionikai
- 3.4 POxy II 222
- 3.5 IG II2 2326
- 4.1 The Eusebian Olympic Victor List
- 4.2 Timaeus of Tauromenium
- 4.3 Dionysius of Halicarnassus
- 5.1 Philochorus
- 5.2 Ctesicles
- 5.3 Diodorus Siculus
- 5.4 Castor of Rhodes
- 5.5 Dionysius of Halicarnassus
- 5.6 Thallus
- 5.7 Phlegon
- 5.8 POxy XVII 2082
- 5.9 POxy I 12
- 5.10 Cassius Longinus
- 5.11 Dexippus
- 6 A Catalog of Olympic Victors Before Hippias?
- 7 Aristotle on the Foundation of the Olympic Truce and of the Olympic Games
- 8 Olympiads and Pankration Victors in Thucydides
- 9 More on the Accuracy of Hippias' Olympic Victor Catalog
- 10 The Olympic Victor List and the First Messenian War
- 11 Memorization and the olympic victor list
- 12 Hippias' Calculation of the Date of 776
- 13 The Spartan King Lists
- 14 Variant Olympiad Dating Systems
- 15 Menaechmus of Sicyon's Pythikos
- 16 The Sicyonian Anagraphe
- 17 Relationships between Olympionikai
- Bibliography
- General Index
- Index Locorum
Summary
The accuracy of the early parts of Hippias' catalog of Olympic victors has been much debated. The most important and conclusive arguments are treated in Sections 2.5 and 2.6. It is also worthwhile to review briefly the other arguments that have been brought forward because some readers will be curious to know how particular issues and evidence have been treated in the scholarly literature. Debate has been driven by the attacks launched by critics against the assumption that the Olympic victor list is trustworthy, and subsequent rebuttals by its defenders. There are seven points to be considered, all of which are based on too little evidence to be conclusive one way or the other.
The first point involves Plutarch's remark about Hippias relying upon untrustworthy sources in compiling the Olympic victor list (Numa 1.4; see Section 2.1 for the text). Critics of the accuracy of the Olympic victor list see Plutarch's remark as indicative of obvious problems with Hippias' work, in part because it is taken to be representative of a long tradition of doubt going back to Eratosthenes, Timaeus, and possibly Aristotle. Defenders of the accuracy of the list see this remark as nothing more than Plutarch's own, uninformed judgment, an “embarrassed phrase” from a scholar with no real interest or expertise in chronology. Defenders of the accuracy of the list also invoke Aristotle, but as a guarantor of its reliability, based on the idea that Aristotle, who produced a version of the Olympic victor list and had access to records at Olympia, would not have put his name on an unreliable document.
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- Information
- Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History , pp. 475 - 481Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007