“Pindar Mythologus and Theologus,” offers a methodological introduction to the central themes and approaches of the monograph. After articulating the case for recognizing theology in the victory odes and reviewing earlier approaches to immortality in the epinician corpus, it offers an orientation to the methodologies of lived religion, approaches to Pindar’s epinician myths, and an evaluation of contemporary conceptions of mortality and immortality with an emphasis on hero cult. As a contrast to the subsequent case studies of figures who blur the boundary between mortality and immortality, an analysis of Pelops in Olympian 1 establishes an example of exalted mortality in Pindar. An overview of the following case studies rounds off the chapter.

The Introduction has three aims. First, it offers a new interpretation of the Seikilos epitaph, one of the most important musical documents from the ancient world. The chapter shows that we can use the Seikilos epitaph as a model for reading carpe diem. Second, the Introduction offers a short history of the carpe diem motif from Homer to late antiquity, analysing its key features and function. Third, the Introduction lays out the methodological framework of the thesis: it is argued that close analysis of the carpe diem motif can advance our understanding of presence, performance, and textuality. These themes have been central to literary studies in Classics and beyond.

Chapter 3 analyses the carpe diem motif in Horace from an innovative angle. It argues that we gain a better understanding of the motif if we read it against the background of Horace’s literary criticism in the Ars Poetica. In the Ars Poetica, Horace compares a language’s lexical development to leaves falling from a tree: while some words disappear, old ones return. Both the image of leaves and the understanding of time as cyclical are also part of Horace’s poetry of carpe diem. The chapter shows that the poems as well as the individual words of which they consist evoke present enjoyment. The chapter combines innovative work on Horace’s literary criticism with new interpretations of some of Horace’s most famous Odes, including the ode to Leuconoe, C. 1.11. The chapter reveals the importance of Horace’s choice of words for his poetics of presence.

“The Dioskouroi in Existential Crisis,” deals with Nemean 10 and its extended mythical narrative. That myth is an aitiology of the entry of Kastor and Polydeukes into immortality, framed as a choice made by Polydeukes between claiming immortality for himself or sharing both mortality and immortality with his brother. I argue that Pindar’s epinician aitiology intervenes in and revalues enduring ambiguities surrounding the relationship of the Dioskouroi to mortality and immortality by valorizing Polyedeukes’ perspective, which privileges the parameters of mortal experience. This case study emphasizes the resonances evoked by the structure of the ode itself between the disorientation of the Dioskouroi from mortal experience and from the surrounding contexts of the ode.

Chapter 1 starts by tracing the archaeology of carpe diem. Rather than speculating about the origin of a motif that is already attested in Akkadian and Egyptian sources, this chapter looks at the Greeks’ own discourse of the past and how they constructed the origins of the motif. The focus of the chapter is the hedonistic epitaph of the legendary last king of Assyria, Sardanapallus. Greeks were fascinated with this foreign carpe diem text which seemed to precede their own history. In fact, however, it was by misunderstanding this foreign monument that they recreated its text; lurking behind Sardanapallus’ Assyrian orgy are Greek banquets and the present tense of performative Greek lyric. The chapter shows that the Sardanapallus epitaph allows for fascinating insights into Greek ways of reading epigrams. As the chapter discusses the reception of the Sardanapallus epitaph in authors such as Callimachus, Crates, Chrysippus, Alexis, and Rabirius, it shows how one of Epicurus’ detractors forges a false link between Epicurus and carpe diem, when he changes one word of the epitaph.

“Asklepios and the Limits of the Possible,” interrogates Asklepios’ presence in Pythian 3 through the lens of interwoven generic frameworks, arguing that these function as a critical lens for the depiction of Asklepios’ changing cultic status and its activation within Pindar’s theological project. I focus on the ode’s extended Asklepian myths, arguing that they that they alternate between depicting Asklepios as an embodiment of failed human overreach and failure and as a superhuman healer by oscillating between the structures of negative epinician exemplum and cult hymn. These interwoven Asklepian identities require the ode’s recipient, an ailing Hieron of Syracuse, to understand his own aspirations and limitations in light of Asklepios’ identities, divided into mortal and immortal strands by Pindar’s modeling. The ode encourages Hieron, as mortal worshipper, to seek Asklepios’ healing, while himself aspiring, as epinician victor, to immortality in song.

Chapter 5 looks at passages of carpe diem within longer texts, such as satires of Horace and Juvenal, Petronius’ Satyrica and Vergil’s Georgics. As carpe diem poems are read and re-read, they become independent textual objects: they can be inserted just about anywhere but never lose their lyric splendour. Thus, Vergil applies the carpe diem motif to a context as humble as cattle-breeding, while both Seneca and Samuel Johnson ignore the context and treat this section as vatic wisdom. This chapter analyses how such excerpts relate to Latin satire, which bastardised other texts, to late antique anthologising, medieval florilegia, and early modern commonplace-books. The chapter also proposes a new model for understanding textual allusions and intertexts in classical literature. Finally, the chapter argues that clichés are important features of classical culture that are worthy of close study.