As evinced in its title, this book, a collection of articles published by H. from 1979 to 2020, presents itself as a reflection on the workings of Pindar's epinician poetry. The book is divided into two parts, the first comprising five studies on the construction of individual poems, the second two studies on transversal themes in Pindar's epinician corpus.

H. centres his first essay on the tenth Pythian and the fourteenth Olympian and analyses their connection with a local, Boeotian culture. His analysis of Pythian 10 educes a ternary structure from the poem, while his treatment of the fourteenth Olympian delineates a different textual coherence, binary rather than ternary in nature. From such observations on the framework of the two odes H. shows how an overarching structure does not preclude free poetic ‘inspiration’. This allows H. to respond to anti-unitarian scholarship as well as to formalist approaches that attempt to salvage Pindar's unity at the cost of grounding it in pure convention.

The second chapter, more specific in its scope, seeks to explain a syntactic difficulty in Olympian 2 (vv. 53–6) by reference to the ode's thematic structure, which displays a movement from pain to happiness. The lines, he explains, present an opposition between two possible results of ‘virtue-adorned wealth’, one positive and one negative, the latter of which can be avoided through knowledge of the future. It is in consideration of the global structure of the ode (as well as of fr. 150 S-M) that H. proposes his interpretation of τὸ πάν (Ol. 2.85) as ‘the whole of being’. A short appendix on the meaning of τῶν τε καὶ τῶν (Ol. 2.53), ripe with Pindaric correspondences, closes the chapter. Again, although H. seldom makes this explicit, the chapter, originally published in 1981, stands in opposition to ‘rhetorical conventions’ as the primary means of structural analysis, an approach best represented by E.L. Bundy's 1962 Studia Pindarica.

The third chapter, also concerned with Olympian 2, focuses on Pindar's description of a ‘paradise’. H. tasks himself with showing how Pindar's rendition of the Isles of the Blessed is both situated within an epic tradition and influenced by the intellectual currents of his own day. H. puts forward the daring hypothesis that the main difference lies in Pindar's inclusion of the four elements, which is due, he claims, to an Empedoclean influence. This influence H. further finds in the presence, within the ode, of the twin notions of φιλότης and νεῖκος. However, his contention that Pindar's Olympian 2 contains Empedoclean material is undermined by issues of chronology that H. does not address: even by accepting an early dating for the ode (476 bc), Empedocles would then scarcely be over the age of twenty (perhaps H. uses the dating of G.F. Unger [1884], which places Empedocles before 520 and the publishing of his poem before 472 bc).

In the fourth chapter, first published in 1983, H. engages in the narratological analysis of Pythian 4 as compared to Bacchylides’ Ode 11. H. exposes the chronological structure of the fourth Pythian, from which he abstracts a simple pattern formed by a first, small-scale analepsis, which is then followed by chronological narration, itself leading into a second, deeper analepsis, where another and final chronological narration leads back into the present. The same method, applied to Bacchylides, yields a simpler structure, based on a single and more straightforward analepsis. Pindar's first-person statements, H. remarks, do not only possess a structural function (as exposed by M.R. Lefkowitz), but also serve to emphasise the presence of a poet as a token of truthfulness.

The rather short fifth chapter, originally published in 2005, examines the use of the lyric ‘I’ in Pindar's Pythian 4. H. opposes to formalist approaches a reading of Pindar's ‘I’ as a statement of a first-hand relationship with and personal interest in Cyrene. But he also links the first-person statements in this poem to a necessity of the genre, that is, the goal of reuniting the three figures of Pindar, Arcesilas and Damophilos in ‘the immortality of song’.

Part 2 opens with an article, first published in 1985, on the notion of time in Pindar. H. begins by exploring ‘chronological disparities’, that is, differences between Pindar's narration and a strict, chronological one. These disparities, H. explains, range from a minimal form, where they are rather inconspicuous, to a maximal form, where Pindar affirms their presence with first-person statements. H. shows how the maximal form serves to showcase the role of the poet and how ruptures in strict chronology tend to create an atemporal present. Syncopation, H. then stresses, serves to foreground the poet. H. further claims that Pindar associates divine power with his own control of narrative time. H. concludes that syncopation is not governed by any rule but depends on the context of each ode. Although H.'s analyses are precise and extensive, the chapter lacks both problematisation and a clear thesis.

The last chapter, published in 2019, is a study of Pindar's strategies to affirm his attachment to both Thebes and Greece in the aftermath of the Persian Wars. Within the epinicia, H. makes a distinction between those celebrating Thebans, those celebrating other Greeks and those written during the Persian Wars. In Isthmian 3 and 4 (two Theban poems) H. finds a parallel between Ajax's misfortunes, as redeemed by Homer's poetry, and Thebes’ own misfortunes, redeemed by Pindar. Among poems written for other Greeks and containing Theban material H. finds in Isthmian 8 that Aegina is a stand-in for Thebes; in Isthmian 5 the mention of musical instruments is claimed to be an allusion to the foundation of Thebes with the help of Amphion's phorminx. Pythian 3 makes a connection between Hiero's kidney stones and Thebes’ troubles. Then follows a survey of poems written during the Persian Wars, where Pindar does not seem to defend the reputation of Thebes. A short conclusion ends the chapter by pointing out the different methods used by Pindar for defending Thebes. H. does not shy away from historical-allegorical interpretation, something made explicit by his references to Wilamowitz's own method, to which he seems sympathetic. The notion of a conventional lyric ‘I’ as separate from the author or, in Barthes’ terms, the distinction between narrator and author, is ignored, while biographical information is freely derived from the poems. The conclusion of this article is ultimately that Pindar does possess certain strategies to praise Thebes; this chapter is entirely descriptive and has no clear thesis.

The coherence – or, to speak in terms familiar to Pindaric criticism, the unity – of this volume could be put into question, as a quick glance at H.'s bibliography will reveal that the volume contains each and every article of his on Pindar. However, there seem to be overarching themes and preoccupations that permeate these articles spanning four decades. H.'s research is not for those distrustful of the practice D.C. Young famously termed ‘historical allegory’. Indeed, H. owes very little to Bundy or to the anthropological school; his historical interpretation is not that of New Historicism. H. situates himself within a certain school of thought regarding the interpretation and the performance of Pindar – the ‘Urbino-school’ centred around B. Gentili, whose historical and topical approach was starkly opposed to Bundy's and Bundyists’ ‘encomiastic relevance’. Though H., in his composed and understated prose, prefers to operate at the level of close analysis rather than propose wide-reaching theses, this book offers a welcome addition to scholarship by its use of thematic analysis and G. Genette's narratology. For Pindar's readers who are more familiar with Anglo-German historiography it will provide a good entryway into the French and Italian traditions.