ABSTRACT
Outstanding by its size and complexity and addressing the god who is thought to represent the paragon of the Greek ideal, the hymn to Apollo has elicited more scholarly debate than any other of the Homeric hymns. 1 Even the ‘Homeric question’ seems to repeat itself at a minor scale, with analysts and Unitarians taking sides. Quite a few details of the text are enigmatic, and the date and scope of the composition has remained controversial. Unique information about its author adds to the bewilderment: The poem professes to be the work of the ‘blind man of Chios’, identified as Homer as early as Thucydides, while an anonymous scholiast gives a name and a date for its composer with uncanny precision: Kynaithos of Chios, 504/1 B.C.
