Gnomai as a source of cosmological reflection -- The nature of gnomai according to modern scholarship -- Ancient thinking on gnomai -- The "true point" of gnomai -- The gnomic expression of cosmology in Pindar -- Definitions and assumptions -- The elemental forces : fate, God, nature and man -- The human condition -- Man in society -- Cosmology in action : an analysis of selected odes -- Olympian 12 : an immigrant and his adopted city -- Isthmian 4 : creating for an ill-favoured victor -- Olympian 13 : praising an ambitious family -- The poet as mediator of cosmology -- Isthmian 4 : the poet modifies a cosmological premise -- Olympian 13 : the poet demonstrates cosmological principles -- Cosmology and the poet in short odes -- Olympian 9 and Nemean 3 : the poet assumes different attitudes to a central cosmological tenet.