analysis of the Pindaric retelling of the Tantalos story - while steering away from the explicit theme of cannibalism, it still bears its signature: besides the image of 'digesting' (O.01.055), there is also that of 'boiling' one’s youthful vitality for an excessively long time (as fresh meat loses its vitality from overboiling) – Pelops is pictured using this image in the context of asking Poseidon for the gift of a chariot team and declaring to the god his desire to risk death in his quest for the hand of Hippodameia; comment on the theme of death as an aetiological analogue of initiation into adulthood in both the 'false' (Pelops in the cauldron) and the 'true' story (Pelops in the chariot race)