Plates Plate 1. A fresco from the so-called Palace of Nestor in Pylos suggests that as early as Mycenaean times, poetry in performance has been conceived of as being in flight. Drawing by Valerie Woelfel, after a reconstruction by Piet de Jong. Plate 2. Red-figure skyphos attributed to Macron (Louvre G146), depicting Agamemnon leading away Briseis (side A). Neither side A nor side B (Plate 3)… Read more
Conclusion. “In Appearance Like a God”: Textual Criticism and the Quest for the One True Homer Aristarchus athetized at least seven passages of three verses or more in Iliad 20 alone. Each athetesis gives us insight into an editor who was struggling to account for a mythological and poetic tradition that was multiform and at times contradictory. Some passages cause issues with narrative continuity, some passages Aristarchus… Read more
Chapter 4. The Lost Verses of the Iliad: Medieval Manuscripts and the Poetics of a Multiform Epic Tradition In this chapter we skip ahead many centuries, to the medieval manuscript tradition. The medieval manuscripts are our best source of information about the texts known to the Hellenistic scholars who were in charge of the library of Alexandria, including Zenodotus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, and Aristarchus. The scholia in… Read more
Chapter 3. “And Then an Amazon Came”: Homeric Papyri In the previous chapter we saw that the earliest witnesses to the text of the Iliad, in the form of early quotations, are multiform. Additional verses and variations within verses are not uncommon, and the attested variations are often of a demonstrably formulaic nature, by which I mean they are perfectly in keeping with what we know of… Read more
Chapter 2. Sunt Aliquid Manes: Ancient Quotations of Homer A multitextual approach to Homeric epic acknowledges and even embraces an expected amount of variation between performances of oral poetry. Because this multiformity was generated within a system, the attested variations enable us to appreciate the poetry of the Homeric epics on more than just the level of a single performance. By adopting a multitextual approach, we can,… Read more
Chapter 1. “Winged Words”: How We Came to Have Our Iliad Our Iliad consists—to quote a well-known Homeric formula—of “winged words” (ἔπεα πτερόεντα). An image in a Bronze Age fresco from Pylos suggests that as early as Mycenaean times, poetry in performance was conceived of as being in flight (Plate 1). [1] As we have seen, the nature of the Iliad—as a… Read more
Introduction How many ways are there to tell the story of Troy? A passage from Iliad 20 makes me wonder just how flexible the Homeric tradition might be. At the beginning of book 20, Zeus calls the gods to an assembly. He tells them that they may now join the battle taking place before the walls of Troy on whichever side they wish, something that he had… Read more
Preface This book is dedicated to my friend and collaborator in all things, MARY EBBOTT σύν τε δύ᾽ ἐρχομένω καί τε πρὸ ὃ τοῦ ἐνόησεν ὅππως κέρδος ἔῃ The occasion of the writing of this book is the completion of the Homer Multitext project’s digital edition of the Venetus A manuscript of the Iliad (http://www.homermultitext.org), the culmination of eighteen years of… Read more
Bibliography of Frequently Cited Works Bethe, Erich. 1929. Homer: Dichtung und Sage, 2: Odyssee. Kyklos. Zeitbestimmung nebst den resten des troischen Kyklos. Leipzig. Diels, H. 1921. Der antike Pessimismus. Berlin. Dihle, Albrecht. 1970. Homer-Probleme. Cologne. Griffin, Jasper. 1977. “The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 97:39–53. [= Oxford Readings… Read more
Appendix 4. Testimonia T1 Aelian Aelian Var. Hist. 9.15 (p.106 Dilts) λέγεται δἑ κἀκεῖνο πρὸς τούτοις, ὅτι ἄρα ἀπορῶν [scil. Ὅμηρος] ἐκδοῦναι τὴν θυγατέρα ἔδωκεν ἀυτῆι προῖκα ἔχειν τὰ ἔπη τὰ Κύπρια. καὶ ὁμολογεῖ τoῦτο Πίνδαρος (fr. 265 Sn.). The further point is made that Homer, being at a loss as to how to give his daughter away in marriage, gave as dowry for her… Read more
