Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History

This book is a comprehensive examination of Olympic victor lists. The origins, development, content, and structure of Olympic victor lists are explored and explained, and a number of important questions, such as the source and reliability of the year of 776 for the first Olympics, are addressed. Olympic victor lists emerge as a clearly defined type of literature that is best understood as a group of closely related texts. This book offers a fresh perspective on works by familiar writers such as Diodorus Siculus and a sense of the potential importance of less-well-known authors such as Phlegon of Tralleis.

1. An introduction to Olympic victor lists; 2. Hippias of Elis and the first Olympic victor list; 3. Olympionikon Anangraphai and standard catalogs of Olympic victors; 4. Olympiad chronographies; 5. Olympiad chronicles; 6. Conclusion.