Part II. Chapter 6. Measuring Authority, Authoritative Measures: Hesiod’s Works and Days [1] Observe due measure: and best in all things is the right time and right amount. [2] Hesiod, Works and Days 694 Ἥλιος οὐχ ὑπερβήσεται μέτρα· εἰ δὲ μή, Ἐρινύες μιν Δίκης ἐπίκουροι ἐξευρήσουσιν… Heraclitus fr. 94D-K … Read more
Part II. Chapter 7. Remembering Nicole Loraux Remembering Athens [1] I wish this morning to offer a few remarks on method and memory, topics that this anthology asks us to recall and rethink. In the course of these remarks I wish as well to recall explicitly the work of our co-editor Nicole Loraux, whose astonishing series of books and essays—along with those of her colleagues J.-P. Read more
[In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}” indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70 begins. These indications will be useful to readers who need to look up references made elsewhere to the printed version of this book.] Foreword This book by Professor Petropoulos is a veritable… Read more
1. Kleos and Oral History “Es Tagträumt in mir.” Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung ‘αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν Ἰθάκην ἐσελεύσομαι, ὄφρα οἱ υἱὸνμᾶλλον ἐποτρύνω, καί οἱ μένος ἐν φρεσὶ θείω,εἰς ἀγορὴν καλέσαντα κάρη κομόωντας Ἀχαιοὺςπᾶσι μνηστήρεσσιν ἀπειπέμεν, οἵ τέ οἱ αἰεὶμῆλ’ ἁδινὰ σφάζουσι καὶ εἰλίποδας ἕλικας βοῦς.πέμψω δ’ ἐς Σπάρτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα,νόστον πευσόμενον πατρὸς… Read more
2. Kleos and Oral News ‘ἐγὼ μὲν ἐξ ἐμοῦ τε κοὐκ ἄλλης σαφῆσημεῖ’ ἰδοῦσα τῷδε πιστεύω λόγῳ.’ Sophokles Elektra 885–886 Both oral history and oral tradition spring from orally transmitted messages, [1] or, to use a Homeric term, ἔπεα (literally, ‘words’). [2] As J. Vansina’s now famous analysis shows,… Read more
3. Kleos and Social Identity ‘ὦ πάτερ, ἦ τοι σεῖο μέγα κλέος αἰὲν ἄκουον,χεῖράς τ’ αἰχμητὴν ἔμεναι καὶ ἐπίφρονα βουλήν.’ Odyssey 16.241–242 “Father, truly I used to hear of your great reputation (kleos),that you were warlike with your hands and wise in counsel.” Ἐνὶ οἴκῳ ‘At Home’ In Odyssey 1.345–359, after Mentes’ departure the Little… Read more
4. The Little Prince’s Voyage on a Borrowed Ship ‘ἄτοπος δοκεῖ εἶναι Τηλεμάχου ἡ ἀποδημία.’ Scholiast ad Odyssey 1.93 (Dindorf) “Telemachos’ going abroad seems absurd.” Telemachos and Eugene Onegin Let us imagine the world Telemachos has been living in before he sets off with his small crew on a borrowed ship. [1]… Read more
5. Of Beards and Boar Hunts, or, Coming of Age in the Odyssey In Homer it is the connection with a paternal model and in general with the model of his male forebears that eventually makes a boy into a man. If the child is unconnected to his father, he is by definition νήπιος ‘childish’, as Susan Edmunds has shown. [1] Who… Read more
6. The End of the Telemachy The Culmination of Extinction? “ . . . Time past and time futureWhat might have been and what has beenPoint to one end, which is always present.” T. S. Eliot “Burnt Norton” (No. 1 of Four Quartets) If much of the emotional effect of the first 21 books of the Odyssey… Read more
Part I. The Power of Thetis: Allusion and Interpretation in the Iliad … Read more
