This chapter considers the end point of the Ascension, the arrival of Christ at the gates and eventual entry into heaven. It examines the rhetorical strategies that two authors used to establish the spatial and thus the symbolic relationships of the Ascension to two historical-mythical events in the life of Christ: the Harrowing of Hell and Christ's Entry into heaven. The chapter argues that Bede and the Trinity homilist depict the Harrowing and Christ's Entry as events that are centrally defined by the crossing of boundaries in a spatial sense. It symbolizes the inherently liminal theology of the Ascension. The chapter shows that the Ascension functions as narrative origin multiple times in Bede's hymn and TH 19, for Christ's ascending movement and his Entry into heaven do not immediately succeed the Harrowing.

An overview of what is known about the life and times of Hipparchus. Ancient testimony shows that he was born in Nicaea in Asia Minor, and worked latterly in Rhodes, but other details of his life can only be inferred from considerations of the intellectual milieu of his time, together with an examination of his astronomical observations, as detailed by Ptolemy. From these a possible timeline of his life is sketched out.

A detailed introduction to the notional star catalogue of Hipparchus, using such information as may be extracted from the CPAE and other ancient sources. Subjects discussed are the coordinate information provided by Hipparchus, the rationale for the inclusion of certain stars, and what may regarded as a suitable astronomical epoch for the catalogue. This is determined to be the winter of 139/138 BCE. Also discussed are the various difficulties of interpretation of the star descriptions given by Hipparchus and their possible resolutions. The whole discussion is set within the context of a modern, highly accurate precession model.

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book begins with the footprints of Christ that mark the beginning of the Ascension, soared to the heights of heaven and travelled into the lives of Anglo-Saxon Christians. It focuses on to a different model of imagining the significance of the Ascension and of explaining its theology: Cynewulf's metaphor of the 'sea of this life' at the conclusion of Christ II. The book describes the disappearing Christ in Anglo-Saxon art. The images and motifs chosen to teach Ascension theology are marked as both abstract and concrete. It elucidates a different aspect of how patristic teachings were transmitted, adapted, and disseminated to Anglo-Saxon audiences. Sustained diachronic studies of Anglo-Saxon theology can widen the view outwards from important and much-studied theologians, such as Bede and Ælfric.

This chapter surveys Pindar’s reception from the poet’s own lifetime until the Byzantine period. Four ‘moments’ of that reception are singled out from that very rich reception history. First, Plato, whose citations and evocations of Pindar were to prove crucial for the subsequent critical tradition; second, the Alexandrian grammarians who created a corpus of seventeen books of poems, and the poets (Callimachus, Theocritus, Apollonius) who reflected that new engagement with Pindar in their poems; thirdly, the critical treatises of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the poetry of Horace, both produced at Rome in the Augustan period; and finally (and most briefly), Plutarch and the authors writing in Greek prose under the Roman Empire.

This chapter offers a reading of Pythian 10, Pindar’s earliest extant epinician ode. It considers the place of the myth in the poem and focuses on Pindar’s foregrounding of moments of transgression (thematic and syntactical), together with the looping or circular imagery and architecture of the ode.

Pindar the thinker’ is not a common notion in his criticism; some stubborn prejudices may account for this state of affairs, as well as misleading modern connotations of the word thinker. He was in fact one of the great minds of his day, a sophos of the first rank. This chapter explores his thought in two spheres of activity – politics and religion – and seeks to identify his unique contribution to and outlook on these topics (which were closely interrelated in Greek life). Pindar’s lavish use of gnomai (maxims) affords a convenient guide to both because Greek thought often took gnomic form, and the interpretation and adaptation of traditional wisdom were the mark of the sophos. The paper also charts Pindar’s connections with writers we tend now to label the Greek philosophers.

A set of constellation tables, presented in a modern format by constellation name and Bayer designation (together with Flamsteed and Hipparcos numbers). This is constructed using the techniques outlined in Chapter 12. Each of the approximately 570 stars that are mentioned in the CPAE is catalogued, together with both its Hipparchan and modern coordinates (equatorial and ecliptical), which are retrodicted to the epoch of 139/138 BCE. Full references to the CPAE are given.

Book 1 of the CPAE. Introduction. Aratus and Eudoxus compared. The northern constellations. The constellations of the tropics and the equator. Aratus and Attalus compared. The axial tilt of the Earth. The northern constellations 1. The northern constellations 2. The northern constellations 3. Aspects of the zodiac. The southern constellations. The circles of the sky. The constellations of the tropics and the equator. The constellations of the ‘arctic circle’. Analysis by colures.