Chapter 13. Unattainable Wishes: The Restricted Range of an Idiom in Epic Diction εἰ γὰρ ἐγὼν ὣςεἴην ἀθάνατος καὶ ἀγήρως ἤματα πάντα τιοίμην δ’ ὡς τίετ’ Ἀθηναίη καὶ Ἀπόλλων,ὡς νῦν ἡμέρη ἥδε κακὸν φέρει Ἀργείοισι Iliad VIII 538-541 If only I wereimmortal and unaging for all days to come,and if only I were honored just… Read more
Chapter 12. Mythical Foundations of Greek Society and the Concept of the City-State The kinship terminology of the various Indo-European languages, as outlined in Emile Benveniste’s Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes (1969), shows clearly that the basis of Indo-European social organization was the tribe. [1] For the word “tribe,” I find the working definition of Montgomery Watt, in his study… Read more
Chapter 11. Poetry and the Ideology of the Polis: The Symbolism of Apportioning Meat Φιλόχορος δέ φησιν κρατήσαντας Λακεδαιμονίους Μεσσηνίων διὰ τὴν Τυρταίου στρατηγίαν ἐν ταῖς στρατείαις ἔθος ποιήσασθαι, ἂν δειπνοποιήσονται καὶ παιωνίσωσιν, ᾄδειν καθ’ ἕνα <τὰ> Τυρταίου· κρίνειν δὲ τὸν πολέμαρχον καὶ ἆθλον διδόναι τῷ νικῶντι κρέας Philochorus FGH 328 F 216 from Athenaeus 630 f Philochorus says that the Spartans,… Read more
Chapter 10. On the Death of Actaeon The myth of Actaeon the hunter is famous from the version in Ovid Metamorphoses 3.13 and following, where Artemis literally turns Actaeon into a stag. The hapless victim is then torn to shreds by his own hounds. One critic has claimed that the same theme recurs in Stesichorus PMG 236. [1] This fragment… Read more
Chapter 9. Phaethon, Sappho’s Phaon, and the White Rock of Leukas: “Reading” the Symbols of Greek Lyric In the arcane Greek myths of Phaethon and Pinion there are latent themes that help resolve three problems of interpretation in Greek poetry. The first of these problems is to be found in the Parthaneion of Alcman (PMG 1). It concerns a wondrous horse conjured up in a… Read more
Chapter 8. Sêma and Nóēsis: The Hero’s Tomb and the “Reading” of Symbols in Homer and Hesiod The word semiotic—and se mantic, for that matter—may be perceived in a new light if we look again at its Greek origins. The basic form in Greek is sêma ‘sign’, a neuter action-noun built on a root-verb that is no longer attested in the language. There is… Read more
Chapter 7. Thunder and the Birth of Humankind In the myth making traditions of a wide variety of societies, there is a convergent pattern of thought concerning the origin of fire: that a stroke of thunder can deposit fire into trees or rocks and that this fire of thunder is extracted whenever friction is applied to these materials. [1] Oftentimes… Read more
Chapter 6. The King and the Hearth: Six Studies of Sacral Vocabulary Relating to the Fireplace In the Electra, of Sophocles, Clytemnestra dreams that Agamemnon has come back from the dead to the realm of light (417-419; ἐς φῶς 419). The king seizes the skêptron ‘scepter’ (σκῆπτρον 420) that had once been wielded by him, but which is now held by the usurper Aegisthus (420-421),… Read more
Chapter 5. The Death of Sarpedon and the Question of Homeric Uniqueness It has been argued often, and in many ways, that the poetry of Homer is unique, transcending his poetic heritage. The point of departure for this presentation is a confrontation with one such argument, concerning the meaning of the Homeric expression kléos áphthiton ‘fame…imperishable’ at Iliad IX 413, cognate with the Indic expression… Read more
Chapter 4. Patroklos, Concepts of Afterlife, and the Indic Triple Fire The rituals occasioned by the Funeral of Patroklos, as narrated in Iliad XXIII, have been compared with the royal funerary rituals of the Hittites. [1] The parallelisms in details and in ideology suggest a common Indo-European heritage, in view of additional comparative evidence available from the Indic traditions. Read more
