3. Half-Burnt: The Wife of Protesilaos In and Out of the Iliad The most passionate advocacies for the art of poetry in sophisticated late periods, such as the period of Horace, turn upon the function of poetry as keeping alive, across the abysses of death… Read more
Interlude 2. A Source for the Iliad’s Structure Now that we have drawn out the performative virtues of the Iliad’s use of the Protesilaos story, let us pivot around and look again at the question of sources and intertextuality. What are we to make of the genealogical… Read more
Acknowledgements The ideas in this book were first launched in a waterlogged basement in Queens, New York City, in the spring of 2007, although our partnership had first emerged in the similarly watery surrounds of the Venice International University Seminar on Literature and Culture in the Ancient Mediterranean (2003–2004). There… Read more
Note on Text and Translations Passages from the Homeric poems are quoted from T.W. Allen’s editio maior of the Iliad (1931) and P. Von der Mühll’s Teubner Odyssey (1962) respectively. Those from Hesiod are from M. L. West’s Theogony (1966), F. Solmsen’s Works and Days (1970), and R. Merkelbach’s and… Read more
Introduction. Why Thebes? You tell the events of Thebes,he tells of the Phrygians’ battle-shouts;but I tell of my conquests.No horse has destroyed me,nor foot soldier, nor ships,but another new armystrikes me from its eyes. Anacreontea, fr. 26 [… Read more
1. Troy, The Next Generation: Politics [1] Homer’s engagement with Thebes comes to the fore as the two opposing forces prepare to do battle for the first time in the Iliad on the plain in front of Troy’s citadel. Agamemnon’s review of his troops (Iliad… Read more
2. The Labors of Herakles: Time [1] In the last chapter we saw Tydeus, one of the original Seven against Thebes, being held up as a model for his son, Diomedes, to emulate. At key points in Diomedes’ maturation in the epic the name of… Read more
3. Homer’s Oedipus Complex: Form [1] In the last chapter we saw how Herakles, while rarely mentioned explicitly in the Iliad, nevertheless casts a long shadow over the events of the epic. Haunting Achilles’ every move, Herakles stands as the hero from a bygone age. Read more
4. Doubling Down On Strife [1] In the first three chapters of this book, we have avoided attempts to reconstruct lost Theban epics in favor of identifying where Theban material occurs in Homer and exploring the ways in which Homer re-presents that material by putting… Read more
