Homer - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Homer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Homer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Homer", "Homeric", and "Homerus" redirect here. For other uses, see Homer
(disambiguation), Homeric (disambiguation), Homerus (disambiguation)
Homer (Ancient Greek: [hmros],
Hmros) is best known as the author of the Iliad
and the Odyssey. He was believed by the ancient
Greeks to have been the first and greatest of the
epic poets. Author of the first known literature of
Europe, he had a lasting effect on the Western
canon.
Homer
Whether and when he lived is unknown.

Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years
before his own time, which would place him at
around 850 BCE.[1] Pseudo-Herodotus estimates
that he was born 622 years before Xerxes I placed
a pontoon bridge over the Hellespont in 480 BCE,
which would place him at 1102 BCE, 168 years
after the fall of Troy in 1270 BCE. These two end
points are 252 years apart, representative of the
differences in dates given by the other sources.[2]
Idealized portrayal of Homer dating to the

Hellenistic period. British Museum.
The importance of Homer to the ancient Greeks is

described in Plato's "Republic", which portrays
him as the protos didaskalos, "first teacher", of the
tragedians, the hegemon paideias, "leader of
Greek culture", and the ten Hellada pepaideukon,
"teacher of [all] Greece".[3] Homer's works, which
are about fifty percent speeches,[4] provided
models in persuasive speaking and writing that
were emulated throughout the ancient and
medieval Greek worlds.[5] Fragments of Homer
account for nearly half of all identifiable Greek
literary papyrus finds in Egypt.[6]
Born
Melesigenes, as told in PseudoHerodotus

c. 8th century BCE, according to
Herodotus
Smyrna
Died
Ios
Cause of
death
unknown illness
Residence
Smyrna, Cyme (Aeolis), Chios
Nationality
Greek
Notable work Iliad, Odyssey, Homeric Hymns,

Epic Cycle, other Homerica
Contents
1 Period
2 Life and legends
2.1 "Lives of Homer"
2.2 Etymological theories
2.3 Cultural background
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Religion
Polytheism
Era
Geometric Period
Region
Shores and islands of the Aegean

Sea
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2.4 Biographical assertions

3 Works attributed to Homer
3.1 Epics
4 Identity and authorship
5 Homeric studies
6 Homeric dialect
7 Homeric style
8 History and the Iliad
9 Hero cult
10 Transmission and publication
11 See also
12 Notes
13 Selected bibliography
13.1 Editions
13.2 Interlinear translations
13.3 English translations
13.4 General works on Homer
13.5 Influential readings and
interpretations
13.6 Commentaries
13.7 Dating the Homeric poems
14 Further reading
15 External links
Main interests Composition of oral poetry as a

travelling performer, conducting a
school for Rhapsodes, the
Homeridae, on Chios
Influences
Influenced
Period
The chronological period of Homer depends on the meaning
to be assigned to the word Homer. If the works attributed
either wholly or partially to a blind poet named Homer, were
really authored by such a person, then he must have had
biographical dates, or a century or other historical period,
which can be described as the life and times of Homer. If on
the other hand Homer is to be considered a mythical
character, the legendary founder of a guild of rhapsodes
called the Homeridae, then Homer means the works
attributed to the rhapsodes of the guild, who might have
composed primarily in a single century or over a period of
centuries. And finally, much of the geographic and material
content of the Iliad and Odyssey appear to be consistent with
the Aegean Late Bronze Age, the time of the floruit of Troy,
but not the time of the Greek alphabet. The term Homer
can be used to mean traditional elements of verse known to
Part of an 11th-century manuscript,
the rhapsodes from which they composed oral poetry, which
"the Townley Homer". The writing on
transmitted information concerning the culture of Mycenaean
the top and right side are scholia.
Greece. This information is often called the world of
Homer (or of Odysseus, or the Iliad). The Homeric period
would in that case cover a number of historical periods, especially the Mycenaean Age, prior to the
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first delivery of a work called the Iliad.

Concurrent with the questions of whether there was a biographical person named Homer, and what
role he may have played in the development of the currently known texts, is the question of whether
there ever was a uniform text of the Iliad or Odyssey. Considered word-for-word, the printed texts as
we know them are the product of the scholars of the last three centuries. Each edition of the Iliad or
Odyssey is a little different, as the editors rely on different manuscripts and fragments, and make
different choices as to the most accurate text to use. The term accuracy reveals a fundamental
belief in an original uniform text. The manuscripts of the whole work currently available date to no
earlier than the 10th century. These are at the end of a missing thousand-year chain of copies made as
each generation of manuscripts disintegrated or were lost or destroyed. These numerous manuscripts
are so similar that a single original can be postulated.[7]
The time gap in the chain is bridged by the scholia, or notes, on the existing manuscripts, which
indicate that the original had been published by Aristarchus of Samothrace in the 2nd century BCE.
Librarian of the Library of Alexandria, he had noticed a wide divergence in the works attributed to
Homer, and was trying to restore a more authentic copy. He had collected several manuscripts, which
he named: the Sinopic, the Massiliotic, etc. The one he selected for correction was the koine, which
Murray translates as the Vulgate. Aristarchus was known for his conservative selection of material.
He marked lines that he thought were spurious, not of Homer. The entire last book of the Odyssey
was marked.
The koine in turn had come from the first librarian at Alexandria, Zenodotus, who flourished at the
beginning of the 3rd century BCE. He also was attempting to restore authenticity to manuscripts he
found in a state of chaos. He set the precedent by marking passages he considered spurious, and by
filling in material that seemed to be missing himself. Neither Zenodotus nor Aristarchus mentioned
any authentic master copy from which to make corrections. Their method was intuitive. The current
division into 24 books each for the Iliad and Odyssey came from Zenodotus.
Murray rejects the concept that an authoritative text for the Vulgate existed at the time of Zenodotus.
He resorts to the fragments, the quotations of Homer in other works. About 200 existed at the time
Murray wrote. Some of these match the current texts, some seem to paraphrase them, and some are
not represented at all. Murray cites the Shield of Achilles, which also appears as the Shield of
Heracles in Hesiod. Murray concludes that the epic poems were still in "a fluid state". He presents
150 BCE as the date after which the text solidifies around the Vulgate. Of the 5th century BCE,
Murray said " 'Homer' meant to them 'the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey', but we cannot be
sure that either was exactly what we mean by those words."[8]
The earliest mention of a work of Homer was by Callinus, a poet who flourished about 650 BCE. He
attributed the Thebais, an epic about the attack on Boeotian Thebes by the epigonoi, to Homer. The
Thebais was written about the time of the appearance of the Greek alphabet, but it could have been
originally oral. The Iliad is mentioned by name in Herodotus with regard to the early 6th century, but
there is no telling what Iliad that is. Almost all the ancient sources from the very earliest appear
determined that a Homer, author of the Iliad and Odyssey, existed. The author of the Hymn to Apollo
identifies himself in the last verse of the poem as a blind man from Chios.
Nevertheless it is possible to make a case that Homer was only a mythological character, the
supposed founder of the Homeridae. Martin West has asserted that "Homer" is "not the name of a
historical poet, but a fictitious or constructed name."[9] Oliver Taplin, in the Oxford History of the
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Classical Worlds article on Homer, announces that the elements of his life are largely
demonstrable fictions.[10] Another attack on the biographical details comes from G.S. Kirk, who
said: "Antiquity knew nothing definite about the life and personality of Homer."[11] Taplin prefers
instead to speak of Homer as a historical context for the poems. His dates for this context are
750-650 BCE, without considering Murrays fluid state.
With or without Homer, according to Murray, there is little likelihood that the Iliad and Odyssey of
the early sources are the ones we know. Based on the fact that the Iliad was recited at the Panathenaic
Games, which started in 566 BCE, Gregory Nagy selects a date of the 6th century for the fixation of
the epics, as opposed to Murrays 150 BCE.[12] All of these views are only philologic. Regardless of
whether there was or was not a Homer, or whether the texts of the Homerica were or were not close
to the ones that exist today, philology alone does not shed any light on the similarities between
Mycenaean culture and the geographical and material props of the world of Homer.
Archaeology, however, continues to support the theory that much detailed information survived in
the form of formulae and stock pieces to be combined creatively by the rhapsodes of later centuries.
A number of combined archaeological and philological works have been written on the topic, such as
Denys Pages History and the Homeric Iliad and Martin P. Nilssons The Mycenaean Origin of
Greek Mythology. The linguist, Calvert Watkins, went so far as to seek an inherited ProtoIndo-European language origin for some epithets and the epic verse form.[13] If he is correct, the
stock themes and verses of rhapsodes may be far older than the Trojan War, which would, in that
case, be only the latest opportunity for an epic.
Homer cannot be presented as a single author of a set of works as they are today describing events of
history that are more or less real, apart from the obvious mythology. Homeric studies are like the
proverbial apple of philosophy. There is no beginning and no end. No matter what starting problem is
selected, it leads immediately to another. The total sum of all the problems is known as the Homeric
question, which is, of course, generic and not singular.
Life and legends

"Lives of Homer"
Various traditions have survived purporting to give details of Homer's birthplace and background.
The satirist Lucian, in his True History, describes him as a Babylonian called Tigranes, who assumed
the name Homer when taken "hostage" (homeros) by the Greeks.[14] When the Emperor Hadrian
asked the Oracle at Delphi about Homer, the Pythia proclaimed that he was Ithacan, the son of
Epikaste and Telemachus, from the Odyssey.[15] These stories were incorporated into the various
"lives of Homer",[16] "compiled from the Alexandrian period onwards".[17]
The "lives of Homer" refer to a set of longer fragments on the topic of the life and works of Homer
written by authors who for the most part remain anonymous. Some were attributed to more famous
authors. In the 20th century CE, all the vitae were gathered into a standard reference work by
Thomas W. Allen and made a part of Homeri Opera, "the Works of Homer", first published in 1912
by Oxford University Press. This edition has been informally known as "the Oxford Homer" and the
Vitae Homeri section as "the lives of Homer" or just "the lives". The relevant part of Volume V in
scholarship on the vitae is often called just "Allen" with page numbers denoting the vita.[18]
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Allen records some several vitae collected from various

sources: the Vita Herodotea, pp 192218, now known as
Pseudo-Herodotus, because probably not of Herodotus; the
Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi, pp 225238, with fragments on
218-221; the two Plutarchi vitae (now Pseudo-Plutarch), pp
238244 and pp 244245 respectively; some vitae identified
as IV (elsewhere known as Vita Scorialenses I[19]), pp
245246, V (Vita Scorialensis II), pp 247250, VI (Vita
Romana[20]), pp 250253, and finally VII, which is really
three, giving extracts from Eustathius, pp 253254 and 255,
John Tzetzes, pp 254255, and Suidas, pp 256268, now
identified as Hesychius Milesius. Nagy reorganizes the list
into eleven, Vita 1 through Vita 10, with Plutarch being
divided into 3a and 3b. In addition he adds Vita 11 from the
Chrestomathia of Proclus, pp 99102.[21] The varying and
contradictory biographical information in these sources is
termed humorously by Nagy "Variations on a Theme of
Homer" after the model of the names of certain musical
compositions.[22]
Etymological theories
Homer is a name of unknown origin, ostensibly Greek.
However, many Greek words, and especially names in the
east, where the Greeks were in contact with eastern language
speakers, were loans, approximations, or paraphrases of
foreign words. For example, Darius to the Greeks was
Drayava(h)u, "holding firm the good", to himself and the
other Old Persian speakers. Cadmus, overthrown king of
Thebes, reported to have been Phoenician, was probably seen
as an easterner, from Hebrew/Phoenician qdm, "the east".
Priam was perhaps from Luwian Priya-muwa-, which means
"exceptionally courageous. Many names have a derivation
from a foreign language but also fit or partially fit derivations
from Proto-Indo-European through Greek. There are but few
rules to assist the linguist in identifying which is the most
likely.
Homer and His Guide, by WilliamAdolphe Bouguereau (18251905),

portraying Homer on Mount Ida,
beset by dogs and guided by the
goatherder Glaucus (as told in
Pseudo-Herodotus)
Etymologies for the name Homeros reach beyond the Greek.

On the one hand, he may have a Hellenized Phoenician name.
Raphael's inspired Homer on Mount
West conjectures a Phoenician prototype for Homer's name as
Parnassus.
a patronymic, Homeridae (male progeny from the line of
Homer), *ben merm ("sons of speakers"); id est
professional tale-tellers.[23] Here the patronymic would designate the guild. In Greek, the Homer in
Homeridae would have to be in the singular, the implied single ancestor of a clan practicing a
hereditary trade. The hypothetical semitic ancestors are in the plural; where "ben" can be used for
one "father", the id- construction can never designate a plural father.
On the other hand, Proto-Indo-European etymologies are also available. The poet's name is
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homophonous with Greek (hmros), "hostage" (or "surety").[24] This word is in the Attic
dialect, and was a word in general use. In the vitae of Pseudo-Herodotus and Plutarch, it had a
relatively obscure meaning: "blind", which is interpreted as meaning "he who accompanies; he who
is forced to follow" a guide.[25] The geographic specificity of the word typically is explained by a
presumption that it was known mainly in Aeolis on the coast of Asia Minor, the locale where Homer
performed, and therefore is a word of the Aeolic dialect.[26] There is no linguistic reason other than
usage for thinking so. The letter eta brands the word as being East Greek, as opposed to the West
Greek Cretan form, which has an alpha instead. Ionic and Attic also were East Greek. Proclus'
Chrestomathia, however, explicitly says, "the tuphloi were called homeroi by the Aeolians"[27]
Throughout Pseudo-Herodotus, (hmros) is synonymous with the standard Greek
(tuphls), meaning 'blind'.
The characterization of Homer as a blind bard begins in extant literature with the last verse in the
Delian Hymn to Apollo, the third of the Homeric Hymns,[28] later cited to support this notion by
Thucydides.[29] The author of the hymn claims to be a blind bard from Chios. This claim is quite
different from the mere attribution of the hymn to Homer by a third party from a different time. The
claim cannot be false without the supposition of a deliberate fraud, rather than a mere mistake. Also,
critics have long taken as self-referential[30] a passage in the Odyssey describing a blind bard,
Demodocus, in the court of the Phaeacian king, who recounts stories of Troy to the shipwrecked
Odysseus.[31]
Despite the insistence of the surviving sources that Homer was blind, there are many serious
objections to the "blind" theory. A few of the vitae imply that he was not blind. If he could not write,
then he was illiterate and incapable of composition. A large poem would have been beyond the
capacity of human memory without the assistance of written cues. Moreover, the images in the poem
are very graphic, but a blind man would never have experienced the scenes of the images. Answers
exist to all the objections.[32] The example of John Milton, who composed and dictated "Paradise
Lost" while totally blind, demonstrates that a blind man can compose an epic. Albert B. Lord's "The
Singer of Tales", on the topic of epics sung by modern rhapsodes, shows that epics of that size have
been in fact being composed spontaneously from memorized elements in modern times. The problem
of visual cues can be solved if Homer can be presumed not to have been blind from birth, but to have
become blind, which is the point of view of Pseudo-Herodotus.
In the latter source, Homer, after losing his sight to disease, embarks on a career as a wandering
rhapsode, or impromptu composer of poems at public gatherings. Either at the beginning of his
career or early in it, he assumes a stage name, reputedly "the blind man", which declares himself to
be in the category of blind prophets, who see with inspired inner vision, but not with outer, bringing
a sort of divine glamor to the performance. Not all the vitae agree on the meaning of the name. There
is nothing biological about the Greek roots. The word is segmented Hom-eros, where Hom is from
Greek homou, "together",[33] and the second -ar- in arariskein, "join together",[34] the eta in -eros
being East Greek. The "blind" meaning joins together the blind man and his guide. Other unions are
certainly possible, provided they are attested. Gregory Nagy uses a phrase, phone homereusai,
"fitting [the song] together with the voice" found in Hesiod, a contemporary of Homer, to interpret
Homeros as "he who fits (the Song) together".[35]
Consideration of the name as a type leaves open the possibility that any rhapsode could conform to
it; that is, there was no biographic original named Homer. West says "The probability is that 'Homer'
was not the name of a historical Greek poet but is the imaginary ancestor of the Homeridai; such
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guild-names in -idai and -adai are not normally based on the name of an historical person".[23] They
were upholding their function as rhapsodes or "lay-stitchers" specialising in the recitation of Homeric
poetry.
Cultural background
William Ihne examining the sources counted as many 19
locations in classical times that claimed Homer as a citizen,
including Athens, which accepted Smyrna as Homers native
city, but insisted the city was its colony. The cause of these
multiple claims was civic competition for the honor.[36] Ihne
chose Smyrna because some of the Vitae identify the word
Homer as Aeolic, and Smyrna had an Aeolic background.
These circumstances give precedence to the longest, most
detailed vita, that of Pseudo-Herodotus, which is one of the
sources that identify Smyrna as originally Aeolian.
The Aeolians were one of the three major ethnic groups of
ancient Greece, the other two being Ionians and Dorians.
Aeolians came mainly from Thessaly, occupying also Boeotia
at an early date, after the Trojan War, in parallel to the
occupation of Peloponnesus by the Dorians. They had their
own dialect of East Greek. Hesiod as a Boeotian was a
member of the group, which is substantiated by the Aeolic
Ancient Greek coast of Anatolia
phrases related to the name of Homer found in his works. The
Aeolians colonized the northwest coast of Asia Minor, calling
[37]
their region Aeolis, and Lesbos.
The villages to which they immigrated were already populated
by the descendants of the Trojan War population. They were keeping the lore alive, according to
Pseudo-Herodotus. Aeolis extended from the coast opposite Lesbos to Smyrna on the edge of Ionia.
The Aeolian League contained 12 cities, including Smyrna. To the south were the 12 cities, or
dodacapolis, of the Ionian League. At about 688 BCE Smyrna was taken by Colophonians who had
ostensibly come to a festival there and passed into Ionian hands.[38]
The political relevance of the two leagues came to a practical end in the latter half of the 5th century
BCE when most of the cities around the Aegean joined, or were forced to join, the Delian League, a
koine implementing the hegemony of Athens. Each city must contribute men and ships or money to a
common defense force. The treasury was kept at Athens. The details and conjoined events are the
topic of Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War. Inscriptions from those times offer a basis
for the study of Aeolic. Buck distinguished three dialects, Thessalian, Boeotian, and Lesbian.[39]
The Ionian cities in Asia Minor spoke a dialect of Ionic. In the border region between Ionia and
Aeolis it was modified to include features taken from Aeolic, creating an Ionic-Aeolic mixture
similar to that of the Homeric poems.[40] For example, Chios had always been a member of the
Ionian League,[41] and yet Chian contains a few special characteristics, which are of Aeolic
origin.[42] The same sort of admixture did not occur at the Ionic-Dorian border in southwestern
Anatolia.
From the fact that Lesbian acquired more Ionic features in poetry over the course of time Janko
argues for a northward expansion of Ionian population and speech at the expense of the
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Aeolians.[43] Aeolic was gradually assimilating to Ionic, but after the 5th century BCE both began
to assimilate to the now widespread sister dialect of Ionic, Attic, and the koine that developed from it
in the Hellenistic period. Attic began to appear in the inscriptions of Ionia in the 4th century BCE
and had displaced Ionian by about 100 BCE. In 281 BC the new kingdom of Pergamon acquired the
Aeolic coast of Anatolia, separating Lesbian, which was gone from the kingdom by the 3rd century
BCE. Lesbian went on until the 1st century CE and was the last Aeolic dialect to disappear.[44]
G.S. Kirk, who tends to be somewhat skeptical concerning the biographic details given in the vitae,
at least extends a limited credibility to some basic circumstances as at all plausible. Homer is most
frequently said to have been born in the Ionian region of Asia Minor, at Smyrna, or on the island of
Chios, dying on the Cycladic island of Ios.[17] These areas were either Aeolian or partially so.
Smyrna had not yet been taken by the Ionians. Chios had been settled by pre-Hellenic tribesmen
from Thessaly, but the language remains unknown. They may have been Aeolic-speaking. The
association with Chios dates back to at least Semonides of Amorgos, who cited Iliad 6.146 as by "the
man of Chios".[45] An eponymous bardic guild, known as the Homeridae (sons of Homer), or
Homeristae ('Homerizers')[46] existed there, tracing descent from an ancestor of that name. On Ios
were used some words known to be Aeolic; for example, Homren was one of the names for a
month in the calendar of Ios.[47] The Smyrna connection is alluded to in the original name posited for
him by several vitae: Melesigenes, born of Meles", a river which flowed by that city.
The poems give evidence of familiarity with the natural details and place-names of this area of Asia
Minor;[48] for example, Homer refers to meadow birds at the mouth of the Caystros,[49] a storm in
the Icarian sea,[50] and mentions that women in Maeonia and Caria stain ivory with scarlet.[51]
However, Homer also had a geographical knowledge of all Mycenaean Greece that has been verified
by discovery of most of the sites. Wilhelm Drpfeld, the classical archaeologist,[52] suggests that
Homer had visited many of the places and regions which he describes in his epics, such as Mycenae,
Troy and more. According to Diodorus Siculus, Homer had even visited Egypt.[53]
Biographical assertions
Chios
Some vitae depict Homer as a wandering minstrel, like

Thamyris[54] or Hesiod, who walked as far as Chalkis to sing
at the funeral games of Amphidamas.[55] We are given the
image of a "blind, begging singer who hangs around with
little people: shoemakers, fisherman, potters, sailors, elderly
men in the gathering places of harbour towns".[56] The
poems, on the other hand, give us evidence of singers at the
courts of the nobility. There is a strong aristocratic bias in the
poems demonstrated by the lack of any major protagonists of
non-aristocratic stock, and by episodes such as the beating
down of the commoner Thersites by the king Odysseus for
daring to criticize his superiors. Scholars are divided as to
which category, if any, the court singer or the wandering
minstrel, the historic "Homer" belonged.[57]
Most of the 12 vitae have little concern for historicty. Scorialenses I says we only hear the report,
and do not know anything. Most therefore report several origin stories. They are typically at least in
part mythical. Whether the latter are given unfeigned credibility is not clear. For instance, Homer
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was the son of the river Meles and a nymph. Pseudo-Plutarch I, relying less on mythology, presents
an alternative genealogy that makes Homer and Hesiod cousins. The only account that presumes a
historical character and a real-life setting without resorting to mythology is the more lengthy PseudoHerodotus.
In the vita, a colonist of Cyme, Cleanax of Argos, was given custody of the orphaned Chretheis,
daughter of deceased friends and fellow colonists, by her parents before their deaths. When she
became pregnant without a husband he sent her in disgrace to the new colony of Smyrna in the
custody of a protector, a friend from Boeotia, Ismenias. Attending a festival on the banks of the
River Meles she gave birth unexpectedly to a son, whom she called Melesi-genes, river-born. A
single mother, she left the protection of Ismenias, becoming an itinerant laborer. She found work
with a schoolmaster, Phemius, processing wool he had been paid by the students. A relationship
having developed, he convinced her to live with him (syn-oikein), promising to make the boy his
own son, support and educate him.
A prodigy, the young Melisigenes was successful in school. On the deaths of Phemius and his mother
years later he inherited the school. He also opened his home hospitably to merchants passing
through. A merchant, Mentes, convinced him to leave the school and sign on as a seaman in his ship.
He is said to have made the most of his ports of call by researching each one and taking written
notes. Having contracted an eye disease he was put ashore for treatment and recovery with a friend
of the captain in Ithaca. He used the time to research the story of Odysseus. Having recovered on that
occasion, he later suffered a relapse in Colophon, losing his vision altogether.
Retiring to Smyrna he decided to pursue the recitation of
poetry. When his resources were exhausted, he went on the
road looking for opportunities. In Neonteichus, a colony of
Cyme, he stopped by chance before the shop of a shoemaker,
Tychius, and began to beg in dactylic hexameter, stringing
formulae together. Thus began a habit that he kept for the rest
of his life, of communicating in verse about ordinary matters
to advertise his skills. On this occasion he was successful.
The shoemaker opened his home and allowed him to recite in
the shop. He became for a time a fixture in Neontychus, but
unable to prosper there, he returned to Cyme. In Larissa en
route he was hired to write an epitaph for the tomb of Midas,
deceased king of Phrygia.
Izmir (Smyrna)
In Cyme he recited in the salons. He was so successful that

he asked the city council (boule) in session for support at public expense, the quid pro quo being that
he would make the city famous. One of the councilmen argued that if they were going to support
homeroi, or blind men, they would soon have a useless crowd of them in Cyme. The measure was
defeated. He subsequently departed for Phocaea, an Ionian city. He rhymed, I will endure the fate
that the god gave me when I was born, bearing defeat with a patient heart, but no longer do my limbs
wish to remain in the sacred streets of Cyme. Then he cursed the city, that no poet should be born
there to make them famous. Meanwhile, hearing of the incident, the people began to call him
Homeros, the blind man.
After frequenting the salons of Phocaea without much success, he entered into an agreement with
one Thestorides, who would support him in exchange for the title to the authorship of his work.
Thestorides wrote down the current works as they were orally composed. After a time he abandoned
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Phocaea, breaking the support agreement, and went clandestinely to Chios to found a school there,
reciting Homers verses as his own. Some merchants informed Homer that his verses were being
recited on Chios under another name. Attempting to find passage to Chios Homer was turned down
by some fishermen but was taken by some woodcutters to the beach at Erythraea opposite. From
there he found passage with other fishermen, who landed him at an unnkown beach.
The location was the Troad, near Mount Ida. Homer, following the sound of goats, was beset by the
herd dogs, and rescued by the herder, Glaucus. After a night of regaling Glaucus with verses by the
campfire, Homer was introduced to his master the next day, who hired him as a tutor for his children.
He became successful for the first time, composing many of the poems. Hearing of his fame,
Thestorides abandoned the school at Chios. Crossing to the island, Homer founded another,
prospered, married, had two daughters, and wrote the Iliad and Odyssey. Going on tour to mainland
Greece he stopped at Samos for the festivals there. Heading for Athens in the spring his ship was
blown to Ios. While waiting for favorable winds he grew ill and died. The author then goes on to
make a case that Homer was Aeolian, not Ionian. He gives the date of his birth as 622 years before
Xerxes, which if true would make his mention of writing anachronist if the writing was in the Greek
alphabet.
Works attributed to Homer

The attribution of a work is not the same meaning as a known authorship, the difference being an
element of doubt. The Greeks of the sixth and early fifth centuries BCE understood by the works of
"Homer", generally, "the whole body of heroic tradition as embodied in hexameter verse".[58] The
entire Epic Cycle was included. The genre included further poems on the Trojan War, such as the
Little Iliad, the Nostoi, the Cypria, and the Epigoni, as well as the Theban poems about Oedipus and
his sons. Other works, such as the corpus of Homeric Hymns, the comic mini-epic
Batrachomyomachia ("The Frog-Mouse War"), and the Margites, were also attributed to him. Two
other poems, the Capture of Oechalia and the Phocais were also assigned Homeric authorship.
Epics
Herodotus mentions both the Iliad and the Odyssey as works of Homer.[59] He quotes a few lines
from them both, which are the same in todays editions. The passage quoted from the Iliad mentions
that Paris stopped at Sidon before bringing Helen to Troy. From the fact that the Cypria has Paris
going directly to Troy from Sparta, Herodotus concludes that it was not written by Homer. The
doubting process had begun.
In Works and Days, Hesiod says that he crossed to Euboea to contend in the games held by the sons
of Amphidamas at Chalcis.[60] There he won with a hymnos and took away the prize of a tripod,
which he dedicated to the Muses of Mount Helicon, where he first began with aoide, song. One of
the vitae, the Certamen, picks up this theme. Homer and Hesiod were contemporaries, it says.
They both attended the funeral games of Amphidamas, conducted by his son, Ganyctor, and both
contended in the contest of sophia, wit. In it, one was required to ask a question of the other, who
must reply in verse.
Unable to decide, the judge had them each recite from their poems. Hesiod quoted Works and Days;
Homer, Iliad, both as they are now, but neither poem can have been the modern. Hesiod cannot
have described beforehand the very event in which he was participating. The Iliad is supposed to
have been written already. It is not called that, however. The victory was given to Hesiod because his
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poem was about peace, but Homers, about war.

After the contest, Homer continued his wandering, composing and reciting epic poetry. The
Certamen mentions the Thebais, quoting the first line, which differs but little from the first line of
the Iliad as it is now. It had 7000 lines, as did the subsequent Epigoni, with a similar first line. The
Certamen qualifies the attribution to Homer with some say . Subsequently he wrote the
epitaph for Midas tomb, for which he got a silver bowl, and then the Odyssey in 12,000 lines
(todays is 12110). He had already written the Iliad in 15,500 lines (todays is 15693). Just these
three epics alone are 34,500 lines, word-for-word, we are asked to believe, without reference to the
rest of the prodigious Epic Cycle. Then he went to Athens, and to Argos, where he delivered lines
559-568 of Book 2 of the Iliad with the addition of two more not in the current version. Subsequently
he went to Delos, where he delivered the Hymn to Apollo, and was made a citizen of all the Ionian
states. Going finally to Ios he slipped on some clay and suffered a fatal fall.
The term Epic Cycle (Epikos Kuklos) refers to a series of ten epic poems written by different
authors purporting to tell an interconnected sequence of stories covering all Greek mythology.
Themes were selected from them for Greek drama as well. The name appears in the Chrestomathia
of Eutychius Proclus, a synopsis of Greek literature, known only through further abridged fragments
written by Photios I of Constantinople. No etymology was given. Evelyn-White hypothesizes that
they were written round the Iliad and Odyssey and had a clearly imitative structure.[61] In this
view Homer need have written no more than the Iliad, or the Iliad and Odyssey, with the Homeridae
responsible for all the rest. The unity of theme and structure came from the close association of the
authors in the guild or school.
Proclus does not subscribe to the authorships of the Certamen. He provides the names of other
authors where they were available in his sources. These 10 epics, of which only Photius
abridgements of Proclus synopses survive, and scattered fragments of other authors in other times,
are as follows. First and oldest, the War of the Titans (Titanomachia), eight fragments, is said to
have been written by either Eumelus of Corinth, floruit 760-740 BCE, or Arctinus of Miletus, floruit
in the First Olympiad, starting 776 BCE.[62]
The Theban Cycle consists of three epics:[63] Story of Oedipus (Oidipodeia), 6600 lines by
Cinaethon of Sparta, floruit 764 BCE;[64] Thebaid (Thebais), attributed to Homer;[65] and Epigoni
(Epigonoi), attributed to Homer.[66] The Trojan Cycle consists of six epics and the Iliad and Odyssey,
eight in all:[61] Cyprian Lays (kupria) in 11 books, attributed to either Homer, Stasinus, a younger
contemporary of Homer, or one Hegesias;[67] Aethiopis (Aithiopis) in five books, sequent of the
Iliad, which is a sequent of Cypria, by Arctinus;[68] Little Iliad (Ilias Mikra) in four books by
Lesches of Mitylene, floruit 660 BCE;[69] Sack of Ilium (Iliou Persis) by Arctinus;[70] Returns
(Nostoi) by Agias of Troezen,[71] floruit 740 BCE; and Telegony (Telegonia), by Eugammon of
Cyrene, floruit 567 BCE.[72]
Identity and authorship

The idea that Homer was responsible for just the two outstanding epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey,
did not win consensus until 350 BCE.[73] While many, such as Gregory Nagy, find it unlikely that
both epics were composed by the same person,[74] others, such as W. B. Stanford,[75] argue that the
stylistic similarities are too consistent to support the theory of multiple authorship. One view which
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attempts to bridge the differences holds that the Iliad was composed
by "Homer" in his maturity, while the Odyssey was a work of his old
age. The Batrachomyomachia, Homeric Hymns and cyclic epics are
generally agreed to be later than the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Most scholars agree that the Iliad and Odyssey underwent a process
of standardisation and refinement out of older material beginning in
the 8th century BCE. An important role in this standardisation
appears to have been played by the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus, who
reformed the recitation of Homeric poetry at the Panathenaic festival.
Many classicists hold that this reform must have involved the
production of a canonical written text.
Other scholars still support the idea that Homer was a real person.
Since nothing is known about the life of this Homer, the common
Statue of Homer outside the
jokealso recycled with regard to Shakespearehas it that the
Bavarian State Library in
poems "were not written by Homer, but by another man of the same
Munich
name."[76][77] Samuel Butler argues, based on literary observations,
that a young Sicilian woman wrote the Odyssey (but not the
[78]
Iliad),
an idea further pursued by Robert Graves in his novel Homer's Daughter and Andrew
Dalby in Rediscovering Homer.[79]
Independent of the question of single authorship is the near-universal agreement, after the work of
Milman Parry,[80] that the Homeric poems are dependent on an oral tradition, a generations-old
technique that was the collective inheritance of many singer-poets (aoidoi). An analysis of the
structure and vocabulary of the Iliad and Odyssey shows that the poems contain many formulaic
phrases typical of extempore epic traditions; even entire verses are at times repeated. Parry and his
student Albert Lord pointed out that such elaborate oral tradition, foreign to today's literate cultures,
is typical of epic poetry in a predominantly oral cultural milieu, the key words being "oral" and
"traditional". Parry started with "traditional": the repetitive chunks of language, he said, were
inherited by the singer-poet from his predecessors, and were useful to him in composition. Parry
called these repetitive chunks "formulas".
Exactly when these poems would have taken on a fixed written form is subject to debate. The
traditional solution is the "transcription hypothesis", wherein a non-literate "Homer" dictates his
poem to a literate scribe between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE. The Greek alphabet was introduced
in the early 8th century BCE, so it is possible that Homer himself was of the first generation of
authors who were also literate. The classicist Barry B. Powell suggests that the Greek alphabet was
invented c. 800 BCE by one man, whom he calls the "adapter," in order to write down oral epic
poetry.[81] More radical Homerists like Gregory Nagy contend that a canonical text of the Homeric
poems as "scripture" did not exist until the Hellenistic period (3rd to 1st century BCE).
New methods also try to elucidate the question. Combining information technologies and statistics
stylometry analyzes various linguistic units: words, parts of speech, and sounds. Based on the
frequencies of Greek letters, a first study of Dietmar Najock[82] particularly shows the internal
cohesion of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Taking into account the repartition of the letters, a recent
study of Stephan Vonfelt[83] highlights the unity of the works of Homer compared to Hesiod. The
thesis of modern analysts being questioned, the debate remains open.
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Homeric studies
The study of Homer is one of the oldest topics in scholarship, dating back to antiquity. The aims and
achievements of Homeric studies have changed over the course of the millennia. In the last few
centuries, they have revolved around the process by which the Homeric poems came into existence
and were transmitted over time to us, first orally and later in writing.
Some of the main trends in modern Homeric scholarship have been, in the 19th and early 20th
centuries, Analysis and Unitarianism (see Homeric Question), schools of thought which emphasized
on the one hand the inconsistencies in, and on the other the artistic unity of, Homer; and in the 20th
century and later Oral Theory, the study of the mechanisms and effects of oral transmission, and
Neoanalysis, the study of the relationship between Homer and other early epic material.
Homeric dialect
The language used by Homer is an archaic version of Ionic Greek, with admixtures from certain
other dialects, such as Aeolic Greek. It later served as the basis of Epic Greek, the language of epic
poetry, typically in dactylic hexameter.
Homeric style
Aristotle remarks in his Poetics that Homer was
unique among the poets of his time, focusing on a
single unified theme or action in the epic cycle.[84]
The cardinal qualities of the style of Homer are well
articulated by Matthew Arnold:
[T]he translator of Homer should above all be
penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his
author:that he is eminently rapid; that he is
eminently plain and direct, both in the
evolution of his thought and in the expression
of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his
words; that he is eminently plain and direct in
the substance of his thought, that is, in his
matter and ideas; and finally, that he is
eminently noble.[85]
Homer in the company of Calliope, the Muse of
epic poetry (replica of Roman Imperial mosaic,
c. 240 CE, from Vichten)
The peculiar rapidity of Homer is due in great

measure to his use of hexameter verse. It is
characteristic of early literature that the evolution of
the thought, or the grammatical form of the sentence, is guided by the structure of the verse; and the
correspondence which consequently obtains between the rhythm and the syntaxthe thought being
given out in lengths, as it were, and these again divided by tolerably uniform pausesproduces a
swift flowing movement such as is rarely found when periods are constructed without direct
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reference to the metre. That Homer possesses this rapidity without falling into the corresponding
faults, that is, without becoming either fluctuant or monotonous, is perhaps the best proof of his
unequalled poetic skill. The plainness and directness of both thought and expression which
characterise him were doubtless qualities of his age, but the author of the Iliad (similar to Voltaire, to
whom Arnold happily compares him) must have possessed this gift in a surpassing degree. The
Odyssey is in this respect perceptibly below the level of the Iliad.
Rapidity or ease of movement, plainness of expression, and plainness of thought are not
distinguishing qualities of the great epic poets Virgil, Dante,[86] and Milton. On the contrary, they
belong rather to the humbler epico-lyrical school for which Homer has been so often claimed. The
proof that Homer does not belong to that schooland that his poetry is not in any true sense ballad
poetryis furnished by the higher artistic structure of his poems and, as regards style, by the fourth
of the qualities distinguished by Arnold: the quality of nobleness. It is his noble and powerful style,
sustained through every change of idea and subject, that finally separates Homer from all forms of
ballad poetry and popular epic.
Like the French epics, such as the Chanson de Roland, Homeric poetry is indigenous and, by the
ease of movement and its resultant simplicity, distinguishable from the works of Dante, Milton and
Virgil. It is also distinguished from the works of these artists by the comparative absence of
underlying motives or sentiment. In Virgil's poetry, a sense of the greatness of Rome and Italy is the
leading motive of a passionate rhetoric, partly veiled by the considered delicacy of his language.
Dante and Milton are still more faithful exponents of the religion and politics of their time. Even the
French epics display sentiments of fear and hatred of the Saracens; but, in Homer's works, the
interest is purely dramatic. There is no strong antipathy of race or religion; the war turns on no
political events; the capture of Troy lies outside the range of the Iliad; and even the protagonists are
not comparable to the chief national heroes of Greece. So far as can be seen, the chief interest in
Homer's works is that of human feeling and emotion, and of drama; indeed, his works are often
referred to as "dramas".
History and the Iliad

The excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik in the
late 19th century provided initial evidence to scholars that
Greece according to the Iliad
there was an historical basis for the Trojan War. Research
into oral epics in Serbo-Croatian and Turkic languages,
pioneered by the aforementioned Parry and Lord, began convincing scholars that long poems could
be preserved with consistency by oral cultures until they are written down.[80] The decipherment of
Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris (and others) convinced many of a linguistic continuity
between 13th century BCE Mycenaean writings and the poems attributed to Homer.
It is probable, therefore, that the story of the Trojan War as reflected in the Homeric poems derives
from a tradition of epic poetry founded on a war which actually took place. It is crucial, however, not
to underestimate the creative and transforming power of subsequent tradition: for instance, Achilles,
the most important character of the Iliad, is strongly associated with southern Thessaly, but his
legendary figure is interwoven into a tale of war whose kings were from the Peloponnese. Tribal
wanderings were frequent, and far-flung, ranging over much of Greece and the Eastern
Mediterranean.[87] The epic weaves brilliantly the disiecta membra (scattered remains) of these
distinct tribal narratives, exchanged among clan bards, into a monumental tale in which Greeks join
collectively to do battle on the distant plains of Troy.
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Hero cult
In the Hellenistic period, Homer was the subject of a hero
cult in several cities. A shrine, the Homereion, was devoted
to him in Alexandria by Ptolemy IV Philopator in the late 3rd
century BCE. This shrine is described in Aelian's 3rd century
CE work Varia Historia. He tells how Ptolemy "placed in a
circle around the statue [of Homer] all the cities who laid
claim to Homer" and mentions a painting of the poet by the
artist Galaton, which apparently depicted Homer in the aspect
of Oceanus as the source of all poetry.
A marble relief, found in Italy but thought to have been
sculpted in Egypt, depicts the apotheosis of Homer. It shows
Ptolemy and his wife or sister Arsinoe III standing beside a
seated poet, flanked by figures from the Odyssey and Iliad,
with the nine Muses standing above them and a procession of
worshippers approaching an altar, believed to represent the
Alexandrine Homereion. Apollo, the god of music and
poetry, also appears, along with a female figure tentatively
identified as Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses. Zeus, the
king of the gods, presides over the proceedings. The relief
demonstrates vividly that the Greeks considered Homer not
merely a great poet but the divinely inspired reservoir of all
literature.[88]
The Apotheosis of Homer, by

Archelaus of Priene (marble relief,
possibly 3rd century BCE, now in the
British Museum)
Homereia also stood at Chios, Ephesus, and Smyrna, which were among the city-states that claimed
to be his birthplace. Strabo (14.1.37) records an Homeric temple in Smyrna with an ancient xoanon
or cult statue of the poet. He also mentions sacrifices carried out to Homer by the inhabitants of
Argos, presumably at another Homereion.[89]
Transmission and publication

An account of the transmission of the Iliad from oral tradition
through wax pad, papyrus, parchment, to paper (editio
princeps) is given by Nioletseas M.M[90] Though evincing
many features characteristic of oral poetry, the Iliad and
Odyssey were at some point committed to writing. The Greek
script, adapted from a Phoenician syllabary around 800 BCE,
made possible the notation of the complex rhythms and
Telling Homer's Tales.
vowel clusters that make up hexameter verse. Homer's poems
appear to have been recorded shortly after the alphabet's
invention: an inscription from Ischia in the Bay of Naples, c. 740 BCE, appears to refer to a text of
the Iliad; likewise, illustrations seemingly inspired by the Polyphemus episode in the Odyssey are
found on Samos, Mykonos and in Italy, dating from the first quarter of the seventh century BCE. We
have little information about the early condition of the Homeric poems, but in the second century
BCE, Alexandrian editors stabilized this text from which all modern texts descend.
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In late antiquity, knowledge of Greek declined in Latin-speaking western Europe and, along with it,
knowledge of Homer's poems. It was not until the fifteenth century CE that Homer's work began to
be read once more in Italy. By contrast it was continually read and taught in the Greek-speaking
Eastern Roman Empire where the majority of the classics also survived. The first printed edition
appeared in 1488 (edited by Demetrios Chalkokondyles and published by Bernardus Nerlius, Nerius
Nerlius, and Demetrius Damilas in Florence, Italy).
One often finds books of the Iliad and Odyssey cited by the corresponding letter of the Greek
alphabet, with upper-case letters referring to a book number of the Iliad and lower-case letters
referring to the Odyssey. Thus 200 would be shorthand for Iliad book 14, line 200, while 200
would be Odyssey 14.200. The following table presents this system of numeration:
Iliad
book no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Odyssey
See also
Achaeans
(Homer)
Achilles
Aeneid
Aoidos
Ancient
accounts of
Homer
Aristarchus of
Samothrace
Bibliomancy
Catalogue of
Ships
Cyclic Poets
Dactylic
hexameter
Deception of
Zeus
Epic Cycle
Epic poetry
Epithets in
Homer
Geography of
the Odyssey
Greek
mythology
Hector
Historicity of the
Iliad
Homer's Ithaca
Homeric Greek
Homeric nod
Homeric
Question
Homeric
scholarship
Ithaca
Life of Homer
(PseudoHerodotus)
List of
characters in the
Iliad
Odysseus
Peisistratos
(Athens)
Rhapsode
Shield of
Achilles
Sortes Homerica
Tabula Iliaca
Telemachy
The Golden
Bough
(mythology)
Trojan Battle
Order
Trojan War
Trojan War in art
and literature
Troy
Troy VII
Venetus A
Manuscript
Zenodotus of
Ephesus
Modern scholars
Richard Bentley
Ioannis Kakridis
Adolf Kirchhoff
Geoffrey Kirk
Karl Lachmann
Walter Leaf
Albert Lord
David Binning
Monro
Karl Otfried
Mller
Gilbert Murray
Gregory Nagy
Gregor Wilhelm
Nitzsch
Milman Parry
Barry B. Powell
Heinrich
Schliemann
William Bedell
Stanford
Jean-Baptiste
Gaspard d'Ansse
de Villoison
Alan Wace
Martin Litchfield
West
Ulrich von
WilamowitzMoellendorff
Friedrich August
Wolf
Notes
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1. Herodotus 2.53.
2. "Vita Herodotea", Chapter 38. An analysis can
be found in Graziosi 2002, pp. 98101 A
summary of the main traditional dates and
sources can be found in Smith, William;
Marindin, G.E. (1919). A classical dictionary of
Greek and Roman biography, mythology and
geography, by Sir William Smith. Revised
throughout and in part rewritten by G. E.
Marindin. London: J. Murray. pp. 422425.
3. Paragraph 595c lines 1-2, paragraph 600a line
9, paragraph 606e lines 1-2, respectively. The
references are collected and interpreted in Too,
Yun Lee (2010). "Chapter 3, Section V". The
Idea of the Library in the Ancient World.
Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
4. Griffin, Jasper (2004). "The Speeches". In
Fowler, Robert. Cambridge Companion to
Homer. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. p. 156.
5. Nnlist, Ren (2012). "Homer as a Blueprint
for Speechwriters: Eustathius Commentaries
and Rhetoric" (http://grbs.library.duke.edu
/article/viewFile/14331/3771). Greek, Roman,
and Byzantine Studies 52: 493509.
6. Finley 2002, pp. 112 Finley's figures are based
upon the corpus of literary papyri published
before 1963.
7. A summary of the sources and an analysis of
textual uniformity can be found in Murray
1960, Chapter 12 The Text of Homer From
Known to Unknown.
8. Murray 1960, pp. 297298
9. West, Martin (1999). "The Invention of
Homer". Classical Quarterly 49 (364).
10. Taplin, Oliver (1986). "2 Homer". In
Boardman, John; Griffin, Jasper; Murray,
Oswyn. The Oxford History of the Classical
World. Oxford; New York: Oxford University
Press. p. 50.
11. Kirk, G.S. (1985). The Iliad: A Commentary.
Volume I: books 1-4. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. p. 1.
12. Nagy, Gregory (2001). "Homeric Poetry and
Problems of Multiformity: The "Panathenaic
Bottleneck". Classical Philology 96: 109119.
doi:10.1086/449533 (https://dx.doi.org
/10.1086%2F449533).
13. Watkins, Calvert (1995). How to Kill a Dragon:
Aspects of Indo-European Poetics
(https://archive.org/stream
/HowToKillADragonAspectsOfIndoEuropeanPoetics
/Watkins1995_Indo_EuropeanPoetics#page
/n3/mode/2up). New York; Oxford: Oxford
University Press; Internet Archive.
14. Lucian, Verae Historiae 2.20, cited and tr. in
Graziosi 2002, p. 127
17 of 23
15. Parke, Herbert W. (1967). Greek Oracles. UK:

Hutchinson Educational. pp. 136137 citing the
Certamen, 12. ISBN 0-09-084111-5.
16. Stoessl, F. (1979). " 'Homeros' ". Der Kleine
Pauly: Lexikon der Antike in fnf Bnden: Bd.
2. Mnchen: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag.
p. 1202.
17. Kirk, G.S. (1965). Homer and the Epic: A
Shortened Version of the Songs of Homer.
London: Cambridge University Press. p. 190.
ISBN 0-521-09356-2.
18. Allen, Thomas W., ed. (1912). Homeri Opera
(in Latin and Ancient Greek). Tomus V:
Hymnos Cyclum Fragmenta Margiten
Batrachomyomachiam Vitas Continens. Oxonii:
Typographeo Clarendoniano.
19. The name means any vita located on a
manuscript at the Real Biblioteca del
Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial,
"Royal Library of the Monastery of Saint
Lorenzo of Escorial", Royal because it is in the
king's palace, El Escorial, near Madrid. The
palace was once a monastery.
20. So-called because the main manuscript is at the
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma,
formerly known as the Biblioteca Nazionale
Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II.
21. Nagy 2010, p. 29
22. Nagy 2010, p. 133
23. West, M.L. (1997). The East Face of Helicon:
West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and
Myth. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 622.
24. Liddell & Scott 1940,
(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper
/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%
3Aentry%3Do(%2Fmhros)
25. Chantraine, P. (1968). "Homer". Dictionnaire
tymologique de la langue grecque (in French).
vol. 2 (34). Paris: Klincksieck. p. 797. This
long-standing view is the one adopted by many
Greek etymological dictionaries. See also the
word history as the name Homer in Liddell &
Scott 1940,
3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*o%3Aentry+group%
3D33%3Aentry%3D*%28%2Fomhros)
26. Silk 1987, p. 4. Silk generalizes to "Aeolicspeaking districts", but the only district
mentioned in Pseudo-Herodotus is Cyme
(Aeolis). Still, he did perform over the entire
area, according to the source, and many cities
of the region claimed to be his native city.
27. Allen p. 99.
28. Homeric Hymns 3:1723
29. Thucidides, The Peloponnesian War 3:104
30. Graziosi 2002, p. 133
31. Odyssey, 8:64ff.
30/06/15 02:33
32. Beecroft, Alexander (2011). "Blindness and

Literacy in the Lives of Homer"
(http://www.academia.edu/647687
/BLINDNESS_AND_LITERACY_IN_THE_L
IVES_OF_HOMER). Classical Quarterly 61.1:
118. doi:10.1017/S0009838810000352
(https://dx.doi.org
/10.1017%2FS0009838810000352).
3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*o%3Aentry+group%
3D41%3Aentry%3Do%28mou%3D)
3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*a%3Aentry+group%3
D295%3Aentry%3Da%29rari%2Fskw)
35. Nagy 1979, pp. 296300
36. Smith 1876, Homerus
37. Smith 1876, Aeolis
38. Smith 1876, Smyrna
39. Buck 1928, pp. 147156
40. Beaumont, Lesley (2013). "Smyrna". In
Wilson, Nigel. Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece.
New York: Routledge.
41. Smith 1876, Chios
42. Buck 1928, p. 143
43. Janko 1982, p. 178
44. Browning, Robert (1983). Medieval & Modern
Greek (2nd ed.). Cambridge: University of
Cambridge. p. 51.
45. Semonides (1989). "Fragment 19". In West,
Martin L. Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante
Alexandrum cantati (2nd ed.). Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
46. Gilbert Murray, The Rise of the Greek Epic, p.
307
3Aentry%3D*(omhrew%2Fn)
48. Scott, John Adams (1965). The Unity of Homer.
New York: Biblio & Tanner Publications.
pp. 48.
49. Iliad 2.45963
50. Iliad 2.1446
51. Iliad 4.142
52. "Troja und Ilion" and "Alt-Ithaka: Ein Beitrag
zur Homer-Frage, Studien und Ausgrabungen
aus der insel Leukas-Ithaka"
53. The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus,
Book I, ch. VI.
54. Iliad, 2.595
55. Hesiod, Works and Days, 6545; Nilsson,
Martin P. (1972). Homer & Mycenae.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
pp. 207ff.
18 of 23
56. Latacz, Joachim; Holoka, James P., tr. (1996).

Homer: His Art and His World. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press. p. 29.
57. Graziosi 2002, p. 134
58. Murray 1960, p. 93
59. 11.116.
60. Lines 646-662.
61. Evelyn-White 1914, p. xxx
62. Evelyn-White 1914, pp. 481482
63. Evelyn-White 1914, p. xxix
64. Evelyn-White 1914, pp. 484485
65. Evelyn-White 1914, pp. 485487
66. Evelyn-White 1914, pp. 486489
67. Evelyn-White 1914, pp. 489507
68. Evelyn-White 1914, pp. 506509
69. Evelyn-White 1914, pp. 508519
70. Evelyn-White 1914, pp. 520525
71. Evelyn-White 1914, pp. 524529
72. Evelyn-White 1914, pp. 530532
73. Gilbert Murray: The Rise of the Greek Epic, 4th
ed. 1934, Oxford University Press reprint 1967
p. 299
74. Gregory Nagy: "Homer the Preclassic", passim
75. W. B. Stanford, "The Ulysses Theme", Ann
Arbor Paperbacks, 1968, p. v
76. "Classics in the History of Psychology -Baldwin (1913) Volume I, Preface"
(http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Baldwin/History
/preface.htm#f4). yorku.ca.
77. http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books
/lit/literarystudies/LiteraryBlunders/chap7.html
78. Butler, Samuel (1897) The authoress of the
Odyssey : where and when she wrote, who she
was, the use she made of the Iliad, and how the
poem grew under her hands London:
Longmans, Green
79. "Mary Ebbott "Butler's Authoress of the
Odyssey: gendered readings of Homer, then and
now," (Classics@: Issue 3)"
(http://chs.harvard.ed/chs/files
/classics_issue3_ebbott.pdf) (PDF).
80. Adam Parry (ed.) The Making of Homeric
Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry,
Clarendon Press, Oxford 1987.
81. "Signs of Meaning" Science 324 p. 38, 3 April
2009, reviewing Powell's Writing and citing
Powell's Homer and the Origin of the Greek
Alphabet CUP 1991
82. Najock, Dietmar (1995). "XXXI, 1 4". Letter
Distribution and Authorship in Early Greek
Epics (http://promethee.philo.ulg.ac.be
/RISSHpdf/Annee1995/Articles/DNajock.pdf)
(PDF). Revue informatique et Statistique dans
les Sciences Humaines. pp. 129154.
83. Vonfelt, Stephan (2010). "Archologie
numrique de la posie grecque"
(http://graphoscopie.free.fr/corpus/Arch.pdf)
(PDF). Universit de Toulouse.
30/06/15 02:33
84. Aristotle, Poetics, 1451a 1629. Cf. Aristotle,

"On the Art of Poetry" in T.S. Dorsch (tr.),
Aristotle, Horace, Longinus: Classical Literary
Criticism, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1965 ch. 8
pp. 4243
85. Matthew Arnold, 'On Translating Homer'
(Oxford Lecture, 1861) in Lionel Trilling (ed.)
The Portable Matthew Arnold (1949) Viking
Press, New York 1956 pp. 204228, p. 211
86. Dante has Virgil introduce Homer, with a sword
in hand, as poeta sovrano (sovereign poet),
walking ahead of Horace, Ovid and Lucan. Cf.
Inferno IV, 88
87. Gilbert Murray, The Rise of the Greek Epic,

Clarendon Press, Oxford 1907, pp. 182f.,
slightly expanded in the 4th. ed. (1934) 1960
pp. 206ff.
88. Morgan, Llewelyn, 1999. Patterns of
Redemption in Virgil's Georgics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press), p. 30.
89. Zanker, Paul, 1996. The Mask of Socrates: The
Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity, Alan
Shapiro, trans. (Berkeley: University of
California Press).
90. Nikoletseas, M. M. (2012) The Iliad - Twenty
Centuries of Translation. pp 19-40. ISBN
978-1469952109
Selected bibliography
Editions
Texts in Homeric Greek
Demetrius Chalcondyles editio princeps, Florence, 1488
the Aldine editions (1504 and 1517)
Th. Ridel, Strasbourg, c. 1572, 1588 and 1592.
Wolf (Halle, 17941795; Leipzig, 1804 1807)
Spitzner (Gotha, 18321836)
Bekker (Berlin, 1843; Bonn, 1858)
La Roche (Odyssey, 18671868; Iliad, 18731876, both at Leipzig)
Ludwich (Odyssey, Leipzig, 18891891; Iliad, 2 vols., 1901 and 1907)
W. Leaf (Iliad, London, 18861888; 2nd ed. 1900-1902)
William Walter Merry and James Riddell (Odyssey ixii., 2nd ed., Oxford, 1886)
Monro (Odyssey xiii.xxiv. with appendices, Oxford, 1901)
Monro and Allen (Iliad), and Allen (Odyssey, 1908, Oxford).
D.B. Monro and T.W. Allen 1917-1920, Homeri Opera (5 volumes: Iliad = 3rd edition,
Odyssey = 2nd edition), Oxford. ISBN 0-19-814528-4, ISBN 0-19-814529-2, ISBN
0-19-814531-4, ISBN 0-19-814532-2, ISBN 0-19-814534-9
H. van Thiel 1991, Homeri Odyssea, Hildesheim. ISBN 3-487-09458-4, 1996, Homeri Ilias,
Hildesheim. ISBN 3-487-09459-2
M.L. West 19982000, Homeri Ilias (2 volumes), Munich/Leipzig. ISBN 3-598-71431-9,
ISBN 3-598-71435-1
P. von der Mhll 1993, Homeri Odyssea, Munich/Leipzig. ISBN 3-598-71432-7
Interlinear translations
The Iliad of Homer a Parsed Interlinear, Handheldclassics.com (2008) Text ISBN
978-1-60725-298-6
English translations
This is a partial list of translations into English of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
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Augustus Taber Murray (18661940)

Homer: Iliad, 2 vols., revised by William F. Wyatt, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard
University Press (1999).
Homer: Odyssey, 2 vols., revised by George E. Dimock, Loeb Classical Library,
Harvard University Press (1995).
Robert Fitzgerald (19101985)
The Iliad, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2004) ISBN 0-374-52905-1
The Odyssey, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1998) ISBN 0-374-52574-9
Robert Fagles (19332008)
The Iliad, Penguin Classics (1998) ISBN 0-14-027536-3
The Odyssey, Penguin Classics (1999) ISBN 0-14-026886-3
Stanley Lombardo (b. 1943)
Iliad, Hackett Publishing Company (1997) ISBN 0-87220-352-2
Odyssey, Hackett Publishing Company (2000) ISBN 0-87220-484-7
Iliad, (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-08-3
Odyssey, (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-06-7
The Essential Homer, (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-12-1
The Essential Iliad, (Audiobook) Parmenides (2006) ISBN 1-930972-10-5
Barry B. Powell (b. 1942)
"Iliad", Oxford University Press (2013) ISBN 978-0199326105
"Odyssey", Oxford University PressI (2014) ISBN 978-0199360314
"Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: The Essential Books", Oxford University Press (2014)
ISBN 978-0199394074
Samuel Butler (18351902)
The Iliad, Red and Black Publishers (2008) ISBN 978-1-934941-04-1
The Odyssey, Red and Black Publishers (2008) ISBN 978-1-934941-05-8
Herbert Jordan (b. 1938)
Iliad, University of Oklahoma Press (2008) ISBN 978-0-8061-3974-6 (soft cover)
General works on Homer

Carlier, Pierre (1999). Homre (in French). Paris: Les ditions Fayard. ISBN 2-213-60381-2.
de Romilly, Jacqueline (2005). Homre (5th ed.). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
ISBN 2-13-054830-X.
Fowler, Robert, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to Homer. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 0-521-01246-5.
Latacz, J.; Windle, Kevin, Tr.; Ireland, Rosh, Tr. (2004). Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution
of an Old Mystery. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926308-6. In German, 5th
updated and expanded edition, Leipzig, 2005. In Spanish, 2003, ISBN 84-233-3487-2. In
modern Greek, 2005, ISBN 960-16-1557-1.
Monro, David Binning (1911). "Homer" (https://archive.org/stream
/encyclopaediabrit13chisrich#page/626/mode/1up). In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopdia
Britannica 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 626639.
Morris, Ian; Powell, Barry B., eds. (1997). A New Companion to Homer. Leiden: Brill.
ISBN 90-04-09989-1.
Nikoletseas, M. M. ( 2012). The Iliad - Twenty Centuries of Translation. ISBN
978-1469952109
Powell, Barry B. (2007). Homer (2nd ed.). Malden, MA; Oxford, UK; Carlton, Victoria:
Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-5325-6.
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Vidal-Naquet, Pierre (2000). Le monde d'Homre (in French). Paris: Perrin.

ISBN 2-262-01181-8.
Wace, A.J.B.; F.H. Stubbings (1962). A Companion to Homer. London: Macmillan.
ISBN 0-333-07113-1.
Influential readings and interpretations

Auerbach, Erich (1953). "Chapter 1". Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western
Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11336-X. (orig. publ. in
German, 1946, Bern)
de Jong, Irene J.F. (2004). Narrators and Focalizers: the Presentation of the Story in the Iliad
(2nd ed.). London: Bristol Classical Press. ISBN 1-85399-658-0.
Edwards, Mark W. (1987). Homer, Poet of the Iliad. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press. ISBN 0-8018-3329-9.
Fenik, Bernard (1974). Studies in the Odyssey. Hermes, Einzelschriften 30. Wiesbaden:
Steiner.
Finley, Moses (2002). The World of Odysseus. New York: New York Review of Books.
ISBN 978-1-59017-017-5.
Nagy, Gregory (1979). The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek
Poetry. Baltimore; London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Nagy, Gregory (2010). Homer: the Preclassic. Berkeley: University of California Press.
ISBN 9780520950245.
Commentaries
Iliad:
P.V. Jones (ed.) 2003, Homer's Iliad. A Commentary on Three Translations, London.
ISBN 1-85399-657-2
G. S. Kirk (gen. ed.) 19851993, The Iliad: A Commentary (6 volumes), Cambridge.
ISBN 0-521-28171-7, ISBN 0-521-28172-5, ISBN 0-521-28173-3, ISBN
0-521-28174-1, ISBN 0-521-31208-6, ISBN 0-521-31209-4
J. Latacz (gen. ed.) 2002, Homers Ilias. Gesamtkommentar. Auf der Grundlage der
Ausgabe von Ameis-Hentze-Cauer (18681913) (6 volumes published so far, of an
estimated 15), Munich/Leipzig. ISBN 3-598-74307-6, ISBN 3-598-74304-1
N. Postlethwaite (ed.) 2000, Homer's Iliad: A Commentary on the Translation of
Richmond Lattimore, Exeter. ISBN 0-85989-684-6
M. M. Nikoletseas, 2012, The Iliad - Twenty Centuries of Translation.. ISBN
978-1469952109
M.W. Willcock (ed.) 1976, A Companion to the Iliad, Chicago. ISBN 0-226-89855-5
Odyssey:
A. Heubeck (gen. ed.) 19901993, A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey (3 volumes;
orig. publ. 19811987 in Italian), Oxford. ISBN 0-19-814747-3, ISBN 0-19-872144-7,
ISBN 0-19-814953-0
P. Jones (ed.) 1988, Homer's Odyssey: A Commentary based on the English Translation
of Richmond Lattimore, Bristol. ISBN 1-85399-038-8
I.J.F. de Jong (ed.) 2001, A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey, Cambridge.
ISBN 0-521-46844-2
Dating the Homeric poems

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Janko, Richard (1982). Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns: Diachronic Development in Epic
Diction. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 0-521-23869-2.
Further reading
Buck, Carl Darling (1928). The Greek Dialects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Evelyn-White, Hugh Gerard (tr.) (1914). Hesiod, the Homeric hymns and Homerica. The Loeb
Classical Library. London; New York: Heinemann; MacMillen.
Ford, Andrew (1992). Homer : the poetry of the past. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
ISBN 0-8014-2700-2.
Graziosi, Barbara (2002). Inventing Homer: The Early Perception of Epic. Cambridge
Classical Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kirk, G.S. (1962). The Songs of Homer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon (Revised ed.). Oxford:
Clarendon Press; Perseus Digital Library.
Murray, Gilbert (1960). The Rise of the Greek Epic (Galaxy Books ed.). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Schein, Seth L. (1984). The mortal hero : an introduction to Homer's Iliad. Berkeley:
University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-05128-9.
Silk, Michael (1987). Homer: The Iliad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 0-521-83233-0.
Smith, William, ed. (1876). A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol.
I, II & III. London: John Murray.
External links
Works by Homer (https://www.gutenberg.org/author
Wikimedia Commons has
/Homer) at Project Gutenberg
media related to Homer.
Works by or about Homer (https://archive.org
/search.php?query=%28subject%3A%22Homer
Wikiquote has quotations
%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Homer
related to: Homer
%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Homer
%22%20OR%20title%3A%22Homer%22%29
Wikisource has original
%20OR%20%28%22century-century
works written by or about:
%22%20AND%20Homer%29) at Internet Archive
Homer
Works by Homer (http://librivox.org/author/765) at
LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Homer; Murray, A.T. The Iliad with an English Translation (https://archive.org/details
/iliadmurray01homeuoft) (in Ancient Greek and English). I, Books I-XII. London; New York:
William Heinemann Ltd.; G.P. Putnam's Sons; Internet Archive.
The Chicago Homer (http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/homer/)
Daitz, Stephen (reader). "Homer, Iliad, Book I, lines 1-52" (http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu
/iliad1.htm). Society for the Reading of Greek and Latin Literature (SORGLL).
Heath, Malcolm (May 4, 2001). "CLAS3152 Further Greek Literature II: Aristotle's Poetics:
Notes on Homer's Iliad and Odyssey" (http://web.archive.org/web/20080908005656/http:
//www.leeds.ac.uk/classics/resources/poetics/poet-hom.htm). Department of Classics,
University of Leeds; Internet Archive. Retrieved 2014-11-07.
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Bassino, Paola (2014). "Homer: A Guide to Selected Sources" (https://livingpoets.dur.ac.uk

/w/Homer:_A_Guide_to_Selected_Sources). Living Poets: a new approach to ancient history.
Durham University. Retrieved November 18, 2014.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Homer&oldid=669047605"
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Whether and when he lived is unknown.

Idealized portrayal of Homer dating to the

The importance of Homer to the ancient Greeks is

Melesigenes, as told in PseudoHerodotus

Smyrna, Cyme (Aeolis), Chios

Notable work Iliad, Odyssey, Homeric Hymns,

Shores and islands of the Aegean