Introduction This book studies the performance of Homeric poetry in Greece from the archaic period to Hellenistic and Roman imperial times. I focus on the rhapsode—on the changing nature of his training and recitation. My underlying claim is that a diachronic understanding [1] of this professional and his craft is possible only when he is seen in his archaic cultural connection to… Read more
1. Dictation Theories and Pre-Hellenic Literacy 1.1 Statement of the Problem The enduring fascination of the Homeric poems attests to their undeniable artistic integrity. These are not haphazard products, cobbled together unredacted by one or more editors from independently preexisting songs. The architecture of their themes and plot construction evince sophisticated long-distance correspondences that I would not hesitate to label prolepses and analepses. The patent artistic… Read more
2. Dictation Theories and Archaic Art Even as recently as 2001, when he published his Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad, M. L. West remained guarded and somewhat vague in his speculations about the circumstances that accompanied the (first) writing of the Iliad. On a few matters he had forcefully stated his opinion: “[f]ixity could come only when a text was written down”; “[a]pparently each epic was… Read more
3. The Technology of Writing Favoring a very early, ninth-century BC origin and writing of Homeric poetry, [1] Ruijgh 1995 defended the view of a commensurately early derivation of the Greek alphabet ca. 1000 BC. [2] Hence, he pronounced the rightly famous argumentum ex silentio by Carpenter 1933 of no probatory value, because early writing substrates were perishable (wood, papyrus, and parchment)… Read more
4. The Euboian Connection 4.1 The Cultural Argument This book argues for the central role of Athens in the performance-driven fixation of the Homeric text. Because my argument turns on the dominance of Athens, what Nagy 2001 has called the Panathenaic “bottleneck,” I must take some time to review a competing alternative to Athens that has grown increasingly popular during the last thirty years. This alternative goes… Read more
5. Archaic Inscriptions before 650 BC A collection of the earliest inscriptions down to 650 BC is conveniently found in Powell 1991:119–186. [1] In this chapter I review the linguistic evidence they contribute and confirm that it agrees with the chronology established above. I will only comment on features that are relevant to my inquiry and will largely pass in silence over the ones that are unproblematic. Read more
6. Early Homeric Scholarship and Editions In this section I wish to examine two arguments for an early, sixth-century written fixation of the Homeric poems. One has an Athenian emphasis, as we might expect from the evolutionary model. This model posits a definitive textual stage for the Iliad and the Odyssey, centralized in Athens, from the middle of the sixth century to the middle of the fourth,… Read more
I.7 Particle index ἀλλά as priming act in Her. 8.108.4 IV.5 §63 marking dispreferred responses in A., S., E., and Ar. III.4 §54 reflecting explicitly subjective discourse in A., S., E., and Ar. III.2 §§64-68 ἄρα accessing the discourse memory in Hom. II.4 §§38-41, §§50-53; II.5 §§51-62 distribution in A., S., E., and Ar. III.2 §96 marking epistemic stance in… Read more
Index Locorum Aelius Herodianus General Prosody 515-520: I.2§78n164. Aeschylus Agamemnon 10: III.2§52n121, 14: III.2§53n124, 32: III.2§52n121, 76: III.2§54n130, 105: III.2§52n121, 122: III.2§24n46, 134: III.2§52n122, 154: III.2§52n122, 192: III.2§24n46, 205: III.2§24n46, 214: III.2§52n122, 218: III.2§24n46, 222: III.2§54n130, 228: III.2§24n46, 248: III.2§24n46, 254: III.2§54n130, 259: III.2§52n121, 264: III.4§29n56, 267: III.2§53n124, 268: III.4§46n108, 268: III.5§44n80, 269: III.2§85n201, 269: III.4§42n95, 270: III.4§48n114, 271: III.2§56n134, 274: III.4§35n70, 275-281: III.3§91t22, 276: III.2§85n201, 278: IV.2§104n166, 278: III.4§35n70,… Read more
II.1 Introduction §1. Homer and Pindar [1] represent the earliest and most important poetic genres of Archaic and Classical Greece: epic and lyric. Similar to drama, epic and lyric performance was social, interactive, and often ritual. There was a rhythm to Homeric epic and a melody to Pindaric song that is lost to us, which can at best be approximated with the aid of meter. Read more
