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Homer (Greek Ὅμηρος Hómēros)
Idealized portrayal of Homer dating to the Hellenistic period. British Museum.
Lived	ca. 8th century BC
Influences	rhapsodic oral poetry
Influenced	Classics (Western canon)

Homer and His Guide, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905). The scene portrays Homer on Mount Ida, beset by dogs and guided by the goatherd, Glaucus. (The tale is told in Pseudo-Herodotus).

Homer (ancient Greek: Ὅμηρος, Homēros) is an ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. The ancient Greeks generally believed that Homer was a historical individual, but some modern scholars are skeptical. No reliable biographical information about Homer has been handed down from classical antiquity, and Martin West has said that "Homer" is "not the name of a historical poet, but a fictitious or constructed name."^[1] The poems are now widely regarded as the culmination of a long tradition of orally composed poetry, but the way in which they reached their final written form, and the role of an individual poet, or poets, in this process, is disputed. For some scholars, such as Geoffrey Kirk, both poems were created by a single author whose individual genius composed them while drawing much of his material from various traditional stories. Others, such as Martin West, hold that the epics were composed by different poets. Gregory Nagy maintains that the epics are not the creation of any individual, but rather slowly evolved towards their final form over a period of centuries; in this view, they are the collective work of generations of poets. Image File history File links Emblem-important. ... Homer may refer to: // Homer, a legendary poet of Ancient Greece and supposed author of the Odyssey and the Iliad Homerism, the miming of scenes from Homers epic, common in Roman pagan festivals Homer Ledford, an instrument maker and bluegrass musician Winslow Homer (1836-1910), an American painter Homer... Photograph taken of the bust of Homer in the British Museum, London. ... The term Hellenistic (derived from HéllÄ“n, the Greeks traditional self-described ethnic name) was established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen to refer to the spreading of Greek culture over the non-Greek people that were conquered by Alexander the Great. ... London museum | name = British Museum | image = British Museum from NE 2. ... In classical antiquity, a rhapsode was a professional reciter of poetry, especially the epics of Homer, but also the wisdom-verse of Hesiod and the satires of Archilochus, among others. ... Oral poetry is a form of poetry that is transmitted orally and memorized rather than written down. ... For other uses, see Classics (disambiguation). ... The Western canon is a canon of books and art (and specifically one with very loose boundaries) that has allegedly been highly influential in shaping Western culture. ... Download high resolution version (1192x1748, 582 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (1192x1748, 582 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... William-Adolphe Bouguereau, self-portrait (1886). ... Two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida in Greek mythology, equally named Mount of the Goddess. ... Beginning of Homers Odyssey The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage of the Greek language[1] as it existed during the Archaic (9th–6th centuries BC) and Classical (5th–4th centuries BC) periods in Ancient Greece. ... Beginning of Homers Odyssey The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage of the Greek language[1] as it existed during the Archaic (9th–6th centuries BC) and Classical (5th–4th centuries BC) periods in Ancient Greece. ... The epic is a broadly defined genre of narrative poetry, characterized by great length, multiple settings, large numbers of characters, or long span of time involved. ... Sappho and Alcaeus of Mytilene, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1881). ... title page of the Rihel edition of ca. ... This article is about Homers epic poem. ... Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, which begins roughly with the earliest-recorded Greek poetry of Homer (7th century BC), and continues through the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Western Roman Empire (5th century AD... Martin Litchfield West (born 23 September 1937, London, England) is an internationally recognised scholar in classics, classical antiquity and philology. ... Oral poetry is a form of poetry that is transmitted orally and memorized rather than written down. ... Geoffrey Stephen Kirk (December 3, 1921-March 2003 ) was a British classical scholar. ... Gregory Nagy (pronounced Nahjj) is a professor of Classics at Harvard, specializing in Homer and archaic Greek poetry. ...

The date of Homer was controversial in antiquity, and is no less so today. Herodotus said that Homer lived 400 years before his own day, which would place Homer about 850 BC;^[2] but other ancient sources gave dates much closer to the Trojan War.^[3] For modern scholarship, 'the date of Homer' refers to the date of the poems as much as to the lifetime of an individual. The scholarly consensus is that "the Iliad and the Odyssey date from the extreme end of the 9th century BC or from the 8th, the Iliad being anterior to the Odyssey, perhaps by some decades."^[4],i.e. somewhat earlier than Hesiod^[5], and that the Iliad is the oldest work of western literature. In the last few decades, some scholars have argued for a 7th century date. Those who believe that the Homeric poems developed gradually over a long period of time generally give a late date for the poems; according to Nagy, the poems only became fixed texts in the 6th century.^[6] Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: Hēródotos Halikarnāsseús) was a Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC (ca. ... The fall of Troy, by Johann Georg Trautmann (1713–1769). ... Roman bronze bust, the so-called Pseudo-Seneca, now identified by some as possibly Hesiod Hesiod (Hesiodos, ) was an early Greek poet and rhapsode, who presumably lived around 700 BC. Hesiod and Homer, with whom Hesiod is often paired, have been considered the earliest Greek poets whose work has survived...

Homer's works form the groundwork of the Western Canon and are universally praised for their genius. Their formative influence in shaping many key aspects of Greek culture was recognized by the Greeks themselves, who considered him as their instructor.^[7] The Western canon is a canon of books and art (and specifically one with very loose boundaries) that has allegedly been highly influential in shaping Western culture. ...

Life and legends

Though 'Homer' is a real Greek name, attested in Aeolic-speaking areas,^[8] nothing definite is known of him. Yet rich traditions grew up or were conserved purporting to give details of the poet's birthplace and background. Many of them were purely fantastical. For example, the writer Lucian makes him out to be a Babylonian called Tigranes, who only assumed the name Homer when taken 'hostage' by the Greeks.^[9] When the Emperor Hadrian asked the Oracle at Delphi who Homer really was, the Pythia proclaimed that he was Ithacan, the son of Epikaste and Telemachus, from the Odyssey.^[10] These stories proliferated and were incorporated into a number^[11] of Lives of Homer compiled from the Alexandrian period onwards.^[12] The most common version has Homer being born in the Ionian area of Asia Minor, at Smyrna, or on the island of Chios, and dying on the Cycladic island of Ios.^[13][14] A connection with Smyrna seems to be alluded to in a legend that his original name was Melesigenes ('born of Meles', a river which flowed by that city), and of the nymph Kretheis. Internal evidence from the poems gives some support to this connection: familiarity with the topography of this area of Asia Minor's littoral obtrudes in place-names and details, and similes evocative of local scenery: the meadow birds at the mouth of the Caystros (Iliad.2:459ff.), a storm in the Icarian sea (Iliad2.144ff.), and wind-lore (Iliad2.394ff: 4.422ff: 9.5)^[15], or that women of either Maeonia or Caria stain ivory with scarlet (Iliad 4.142). ^[16] For other uses, see Lucian (disambiguation). ... Babylonia was a state in southern Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, combining the territories of Sumer and Akkad. ... Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus (January 24, 76 –– July 10, 138), known as Hadrian in English, was emperor of Rome from 117 A.D. to 138 A.D., as well as a Stoic and Epicurean philosopher. ... This article is about prophetic oracles in various cultures. ... For other uses, see Delphi (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Pythia (disambiguation). ... For other places or objects named Ithaca, see Ithaca (disambiguation). ... In Greek mythology, Jocasta, also Iocaste or Epikastê, was a daughter of Menocenes. ... Slaughter of the suitors by Odysseus and Telemachus, Campanian red-figure bell-krater, ca. ... This article is about Homers epic poem. ... Location of Ionia Ionia (Greek Ιωνία; see also list of traditional Greek place names) was an ancient region of southwestern coastal Anatolia (in present-day Turkey, the region nearest Ä°zmir,) on the Aegean Sea. ... Anatolia (Greek: ανατολη anatole, rising of the sun or East; compare Orient and Levant, by popular etymology Turkish Anadolu to ana mother and dolu filled), also called by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is a region of Southwest Asia which corresponds today to the Asian portion of Turkey. ... Smyrna (Greek: Σμύρνη) is an ancient city (today Ä°zmir in Turkey) that was founded by ancient Greeks at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. ... Chios (IPA: )[2] (Greek: , alternative transliterations Khios and Hios) is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea seven kilometres (five miles) off the Turkish coast. ... The Cyclades (Greek Κυκλάδες) are a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and an administrative prefecture of Greece. ... Cisco IOS (originally Internetwork Operating System) is the operating system used on Cisco Systems routers and some network switches (those which dont use CatOS). ... A river in moder day Turkey south of todays city of Izmir. ... title page of the Rihel edition of ca. ... Icarus and Daedalus by Frederic Leighton The Fall of Icarus (detail), by Pieter Brueghel, 1558: Icarus is seen flailing in the water, but is ignored Daedalus launches Icarus off the ledge. ... title page of the Rihel edition of ca. ... title page of the Rihel edition of ca. ... title page of the Rihel edition of ca. ...

The association with Chios dates back at least to Semonides of Amorgos who cited a famous line in the Iliad (6.146) as by 'the man of Chios'. Some kind of eponymous bardic guild, known as the Homeridae (sons of Homer), or Homeristae ('Homerizers')^[17] appears to have existed there, variously tracing descent from an imaginary ancestor of that name,^[18] or vaunting their special function as rhapsodes or 'lay-stitchers' specializing in the recitation of Homeric poetry. Semonides (or Semontoes) of Amorgos, Greek iambic poet, flourished in the middle of the 7th century BC. He was a native of Samos, and derived his surname from having founded a colony in the neighbouring island of Amorgos. ... Amorgos (Greek: Αμοργός) is the easternmost island of the Greek Cyclades island group, and the one that lies closest to the neighboring Dodecanese island group. ... An eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, who has (or is thought to have) given rise to the name of a particular place, tribe, discovery, or other item. ... The Bard (ca. ... A guild is an association of craftspeople in a particular trade. ... The Homeridae were a family, clan or professional lineage claiming descent from the legendary Greek epic poet Homer. ... In classical antiquity, a rhapsode was a professional reciter of poetry, especially the epics of Homer, but also the wisdom-verse of Hesiod and the satires of Archilochus, among others. ...

The poet's name is homophonous with homêros meaning generally 'hostage' (or 'surety'), long understood as 'he who accompanies, he who is forced to follow', or, in some dialects, 'blind'.^[19] The assonance itself generated many tales relating the person to the functions of a hostage or of a blind man. In regard to the latter, traditions holding that he was blind may have arisen from the meaning of the word both in Ionic, where the verbal form hómêreuô has the specialized meaning of 'guide the blind',^[20] and in the Aeolian dialect of Cyme, where homêros was cognate with tuphlós meaning 'blind'.^[21] The characterization of Homer as a blind bard goes back to some verses in the Delian Hymn to Apollo, the third of the Homeric Hymns,^[22] verses later cited to support this notion by Thucydides.^[23] The Cumean historian Ephorus held the same view, and the idea gained support in antiquity on the strength of a false etymology deriving his name from ho mê horôn (ὁ μὴ ὁρών:'he who does not see'). Critics have long taken 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,^[24] as self-referential.^[25] This article is about the visual condition. ... Distribution of Greek dialects, ca. ... Aeolic Greek is a linguistic term used to describe a set of rather archaic Greek sub-dialects, spoken mainly in Boeotia (a region in Central Greece), in Lesbos (an island close to Asia Minor) and in other Greek colonies. ... Cyme can refer to: Cyme, a botanical term a for a class of flower clusters (see inflorescence) characterized by the terminal flower in the cluster blooming first. ... The Bard (ca. ... The island of Delos, Carl Anton Joseph Rottmann, 1847 The island of Delos (Greek: Δήλος, Dhilos), isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, had a position as a holy sanctuary for a millennium before Olympian Greek mythology made it the birthplace of... For other uses, see Apollo (disambiguation). ... The anonymous Homeric Hymns are a collection of ancient Greek hymns. ... Bust of Thucydides residing in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Nielsen Rating. ... Ephorus (c. ... Etymologies redirects here. ... In the Odyssey, Demodocus (Greek Δημοδόκος, Demodokos) is a poet who often visits the court of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians on the island of Scherie. ... In Greek mythology, Scheria, Skhería, or Phaeacia, is an island, the land of the Phaeacians. ... For other uses, see Odysseus (disambiguation). ...

Many scholars take the name of the poet to be indicative of a generic function. Gregory Nagy takes it to mean 'he who fits (the Song)together'.^[26] Hómêréô, another related verb, besides signifying 'meet', can also mean '(sing) in accord/tune',^[27] and some argue that 'Homer' may have meant 'he who puts the voice in tune' with dancing.^[28][29] Marcello Durante links 'Homeros' to an epithet of Zeus as 'god of the assemblies', and argues that behind the name lies the echo of an archaic word for 'reunion', similar to the later Panegyris, denoting a formal assembly of competing minstrels.^[30][31] A Panegyris, also spelt Panegyry (Greek - gathering), is an Ancient Greek religious assembly. ...

The ancient lives depict Homer as a wandering minstrel, much like Thamyris^[32] or Hesiod, who walked as far as Chalkis to sing at the funeral games of Amphidamas.^[33] 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'.^[34] The poems themselves give evidence of singers at the courts of the nobility, and scholars are divided as to which category, if any, the court singer or the wandering minstrel, the historic 'Homer' belonged.^[35] In Greek mythology, Thamyris, son of Philammon and the nymph Argiope, was a Thracian singer who was so proud of his skill that he boasted he could outsing the Muses. ... Roman bronze bust, the so-called Pseudo-Seneca, now identified by some as possibly Hesiod Hesiod (Hesiodos, ) was an early Greek poet and rhapsode, who presumably lived around 700 BC. Hesiod and Homer, with whom Hesiod is often paired, have been considered the earliest Greek poets whose work has survived... Chalcis or Chalkida, Halkida, Halkis or Chalkis (Greek, Modern: Χαλκίδα, Ancient/Katharevousa: _is), the chief town of the island of Euboea in Greece, situated on the strait of the Euripus at its narrowest point. ... Hesiod (Hesiodos) was an early Greek poet and rhapsode, believed to have lived around 700 BC. Greek historians debated the priority of Hesiod or of Homer, and even brought them together in an imagined poetic contest; most modern scholars agree that Homer lived before Hesiod. ...

For more details on this topic, see Ancient accounts of Homer, Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus).

The ancient accounts of Homer include many passages in archaic and classical Greek poets and prose authors that mention or allude to Homer, and ten biographies of Homer, often referred to as Lives. ... The Life of Homer — its unknown author is referred to as Pseudo-Herodotus — is one among several ancient biographies of the Greek epic poet, Homer. ...

Works attributed to Homer

The Greeks of the sixth and early fifth centuries understood by 'Homer', generally, 'the whole body of heroic tradition as embodied in hexameter verse'.^[36] Thus, in addition to the Iliad and the Odyssey, 'exceptional' epics which organize their respective themes on a 'massive scale'^[37], many other works were credited to Homer in antiquity, including the entire Epic Cycle. 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, but this is now believed to be unlikely. Two other poems the Capture of Oechalia and the Phocais were also assigned to his authorship. However, the question of the identities of the authors of these various texts is even more problematic than that of the authorship of the two major epics. The epic is a broadly defined genre of narrative poetry, characterized by great length, multiple settings, large numbers of characters, or long span of time involved. ... Hexameter is a literary and poetic form, consisting of six metrical feet per line as in the Iliad. ... The Epic Cycle (Greek: Επικός Κύκλος) was a collection of Ancient Greek epic poems that related the story of the Trojan War, which includes the Kypria, the Aithiopis, the Little Iliad, the Iliou persis (The Sack of Troy), the Nostoi (Returns), and the Telegony. ... The fall of Troy, by Johann Georg Trautmann (1713–1769). ... The Little Iliad (Greek: Ἰλιὰς μικρά, Ilias mikra; Latin: Ilias parva) is a lost epic of ancient Greek literature. ... The Nostoi (Greek: Νόστοι; also known as Nosti in Latin; English: Returns;) is a lost epic of ancient Greek literature. ... The Cypria is one of the lost sections of the eight volume cycle that told the full story of the Trojan War. ... This is an article about the Greek myth. ... Thebes (Demotic Greek: Θήβα — Thíva; Katharevousa: — Thêbai or Thívai) is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain. ... For other uses, see Oedipus (disambiguation). ... The anonymous Homeric Hymns are a collection of ancient Greek hymns. ... (Gr. ... The Margites, a comic mock-epic of Ancient Greece, is about an idiot named Margites (Greek μάργος raving, mad; lustful) who was so dense he didnt know which parent had given birth to him. ... The Capture ... The Phocais was an ancient Greek epic widely attibuted to Homer. ...

Problems of authorship

The idea that Homer was responsible for just the two outstanding epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, only won consensus by 350 B.C.E.^[38]. While many find it unlikely that both epics were composed by the same person, others argue that the stylistic similarities are too consistent to support the theory of multiple authorship. One view which 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. (Gr. ... The anonymous Homeric Hymns are a collection of ancient Greek hymns. ...

Most scholars agree that the Iliad and Odyssey underwent a process of standardization and refinement out of older material beginning in the 8th century BCE. An important role in this standardization 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. (9th century BC - 8th century BC - 7th century BC - other centuries) (800s BC - 790s BC - 780s BC - 770s BC - 760s BC - 750s BC - 740s BC - 730s BC - 720s BC - 710s BC - 700s BC - other decades) (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium AD) Events Golden age in Armenia Assyria... This article is about the capital of Greece. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Hipparchus was one of the sons of Pisistratus who became tyrant of Athens when Pisistratus died in 527 BC. Hipparchus ruled jointly with his brother Hippias. ... The Panathenaic Games were a set of games held every four years in Athens in Ancient Greece. ... Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity as setting standards for taste which the classicist seeks to emulate. ... Canon, in the context of a fictional universe, comprises those novels, stories, films, etc. ...

Other scholars, however, still support the idea that Homer was a real person. Since nothing is known of the life of this Homer, the common joke, often recycled also in disputes about the authorship of plays ascribed to Shakespeare, has it that the poems "were not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name,"[1][2]. Samuel Butler argued that a young Sicilian woman wrote the Odyssey (but not the Iliad), an idea further pursued by Robert Graves in his novel Homer's Daughter and Andrew Dalby in Rediscovering Homer.^[39] Shakespeare redirects here. ... Samuel Butler Samuel Butler (December 4, 1835 - June 18, 1902) was a British writer best known for his satire Erewhon. ... Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, scholar, and novelist. ... Andrew Dalby (born Liverpool, 1947) is an English linguist, translator and historian who most often writes about food history. ... Rediscovering Homer is a 2006 book by Andrew Dalby. ...

Independently of the question of single authorship, there is near-universal agreement, after the work of Milman Parry^[40] 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. Milman 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 crucial words are "oral" and "traditional". Parry started with "traditional". The repetitive chunks of language, he said, were inherited by the singer-poet from his predecessors, and they were useful to the poet in composition. He called these chunks of repetitive language "formulas". Milman Parry (1902 -December 3, 1935) was a scholar of epic poetry. ... Aoidos means singer in classical Greek. ... Albert Bates Lord was a Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Harvard who, after the untimely death of Milman Parry, carried on that scholars research into epic literature. ... The epic is a broadly defined genre of narrative poetry, characterized by great length, multiple settings, large numbers of characters, or long span of time involved. ...

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. The Greek alphabet was introduced in the early 8th century, so that it is possible that Homer himself was of the first generation of authors who were also literate. More radical Homerists, such as 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). This page contains special characters. ... Gregory Nagy (pronounced Nahjj) is a professor of Classics at Harvard, specializing in Homer and archaic Greek poetry. ... The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... (4th century BC - 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC - other centuries) (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium AD) Events The first two Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome over dominance in western Mediterranean Rome conquers Spain Great Wall of China begun Indian traders regularly visited Arabia Scythians occupy... (Redirected from 1st century BCE) (2nd century BC - 1st century BC - 1st century - other centuries) The 1st century BC starts on January 1, 100 BC and ends on December 31, 1 BC. An alternative name for this century is the last century BC. (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st...

For more details on this topic, see Homeric Question.

For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ...

Homeric studies

Main article: Homeric scholarship

Reconstitution of the world described by the Odyssey

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 down to us, first orally, and later in writing. Homeric scholarship is the study of Homeric epic, especially the two large surviving epics the Iliad and Odyssey. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... This article is about Homers epic poem. ...

Some of the main trends in modern Homeric scholarship have been, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Analysis and Unitarianism (see Homeric question), which were schools of thought that emphasized on the one hand the inconsistencies, on the other the artistic unity, in Homer; and in the 20th century and later Oral Theory, which is the study of the mechanisms and effects of oral transmission, and Neoanalysis, which is the study of the relationship between Homer and other early epic material. For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ...

Homeric dialect

Main article: Homeric Greek

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 Greek is the form of Ancient Greek that was used by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. ... Distribution of Greek dialects, ca. ... Aeolic Greek is a linguistic term used to describe a set of rather archaic Greek sub-dialects, spoken mainly in Boeotia (a region in Central Greece), in Lesbos (an island close to Asia Minor) and in other Greek colonies. ... The epic is a broadly defined genre of narrative poetry, characterized by great length, multiple settings, large numbers of characters, or long span of time involved. ... Dactyllic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter) is a form of meter in poetry or a rhythmic scheme. ...

Homeric style

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.(December 2007) Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.

Aristotle in his Poetics, remarks that Homer was unique among the poets of his time for focusing on only a single, unified theme or action in the epic cycle.^[41] The cardinal qualities of the style of Homer have been well articulated by Matthew Arnold: For other uses, see Aristotle (disambiguation). ... Aristotles Poetics aims to give an account of poetry. ... Matthew Arnold Caricature from Punch, 1881: Admit that Homer sometimes nods, That poets do write trash, Our Bard has written Balder Dead, And also Balder-dash Family tree Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic, who worked as an inspector of schools. ...

'the 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'.^[42] For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). ...

The peculiar rapidity of Homer is due in great measure to his use of the 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 syntax, the thought being given out in lengths, as it were, and these again divided by tolerably uniform pauses produces a swift flowing movement, such as is rarely found when the periods have been constructed without direct 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 poetical skill. The plainness and directness, both of thought and of expression, which characterize Homer 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. Hexameter is a literary and poetic form, consisting of six metrical feet per line as in the Iliad. ... This article is about the unit of length. ... title page of the Rihel edition of ca. ... For other uses, see Voltaire (disambiguation). ... Matthew Arnold Caricature from Punch, 1881: Admit that Homer sometimes nods, That poets do write trash, Our Bard has written Balder Dead, And also Balder-dash Family tree Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic, who worked as an inspector of schools. ... This article is about Homers epic poem. ...

Statue of Homer outside the Bavarian State Library in Munich.

Rapidity or ease of movement, plainness of expression, and plainness of thought are not the distinguishing qualities of the great epic poets, Virgil, Dante^[43], 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 school, and that his poetry is not in any true sense ballad-poetry is 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. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (466x717, 93 KB) Summary Statue of Homer at the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), Munich, Germany. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (466x717, 93 KB) Summary Statue of Homer at the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), Munich, Germany. ... For other uses, see Munich (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Virgil (disambiguation). ... DANTE is also a digital audio network. ... For other persons named John Milton, see John Milton (disambiguation). ... This article is about the art form. ... Illustration by Arthur Rackham of the ballad The Twa Corbies A ballad is a story, usually a narrative or poem, in a song. ... The Chinese poem Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong (Song Dynasty) Poetry (from the Greek , poesis, making or creating) is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. ... Matthew Arnold Caricature from Punch, 1881: Admit that Homer sometimes nods, That poets do write trash, Our Bard has written Balder Dead, And also Balder-dash Family tree Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic, who worked as an inspector of schools. ... The epic is a broadly defined genre of narrative poetry, characterized by great length, multiple settings, large numbers of characters, or long span of time involved. ...

Like the French epics, such as the Chanson de Roland, Homeric poetry is indigenous, and by the ease of movement and its resulting simplicity, is 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 chosen 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 event; the capture of Troy lies outside the range of the Iliad, and even the heroes portrayed 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, Homer's works are often referred to as 'dramas'. The Song of Roland (La Chanson de Roland) is an 11th century Old French epic poem about the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (or Roncesvalles) fought by Roland of the Brittany Marches and his fellow paladins. ... For other uses, see Roman Empire (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Politics (disambiguation). ... The Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) is a software environment used to develop and implement distributed control systems to operate devices such as particle accelerators, telescopes and other large experiments. ... For the rugby club Saracens see Saracens (rugby club) The term Saracen comes from Greek sarakenoi. ... For other uses of Troy or Ilion, see Troy (disambiguation) and Ilion (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Drama (disambiguation). ...

History and the Iliad

Main article: Historicity of the Iliad

Greece according to the Iliad.

The excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik in the late 19th century began to provide evidence to scholars that there was a historical basis for the Trojan War. Research (pioneered by the aforementioned Parry and Lord) into oral epics in Serbo-Croatian and Turkic languages began to convince scholars that long poems could be preserved with consistency by oral cultures until they are written down.^[40] The decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris (and others) convinced others of a linguistic continuity between 13th century BC Mycenaean writings and the poems attributed to Homer. Map of the Troad (Troas) Map of Bronze Age Greece as described in Homers Iliad The extent of the historical basis of the Iliad has been debated for some time, and recent discoveries have fueled more discussion across several disciplines. ... Portrait of Heinrich Schliemann. ... Looking over the mound of Hisarlik to the plain of Troy. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... The fall of Troy, by Johann Georg Trautmann (1713–1769). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. ... Decipherment is the analysis of documents written in ancient languages, where the language is unknown, or knowledge of the language has been lost. ... This article is about the ancient syllabary. ... The 1950s decade refers to the years 1950 to 1959 inclusive. ... [[1]] Michael George Francis Ventris (July 12, 1922–September 6, 1956) was an English architect and classical scholar, who along with John Chadwick was responsible for the decipherment of Linear B. Michael Ventris was educated in Switzerland and at Stowe School, housed in a magnificent 18th century country house. ... This bronze ritual wine vessel, dating from the Shang Dynasty in the 13th century BC, is housed at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. ... A clay tablet with writing in Linear B from Mycenae. ...

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. However, it is crucial 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.^[44] The epic manages to weave brilliantly the disiecta membra 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. The fall of Troy, by Johann Georg Trautmann (1713–1769). ... For other uses, see Achilles (disambiguation). ... title page of the Rihel edition of ca. ... Map showing Thessaly periphery in Greece Thessaly (Θεσσαλια; modern Greek Thessalía; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. ... Greece and the Peloponnese The Peloponnese or Peloponnesus (Greek: Πελοπόννησος Peloponnesos; see also List of Greek place names) is a large peninsula in southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth. ...

Hero cult

The Apotheosis of Homer, by Archelaus of Priene. Marble relief, possibly of the 3rd century BC, now in the British Museum.

In the Hellenistic period, Homer was the subject of a hero cult in several cities. A shrine devoted to Homer, the Homereion was built in Alexandria by Ptolemy IV Philopator in the late 3rd century BC. This shrine is described in Aelian's 3rd century work Varia Historia. He described how Ptolemy had '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. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 449 × 600 pixelsFull resolution‎ (1,730 × 2,310 pixels, file size: 2. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 449 × 600 pixelsFull resolution‎ (1,730 × 2,310 pixels, file size: 2. ... Look up Apotheosis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The 3rd century BC started the first day of 300 BC and ended the last day of 201 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period. ... London museum | name = British Museum | image = British Museum from NE 2. ... Hero cult was one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. ... This article is about the city in Egypt. ... Ptolemy IV Philopator Under the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopator ( Greek: Πτολεμαίος Φιλοπάτωρ, reigned 221-204 BC), son of Ptolemy III and Berenice II of Egypt, the decline of the Ptolemaic kingdom began. ... The 3rd century BC started the first day of 300 BC and ended the last day of 201 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period. ... Claudius Aelianus (c. ... // Overview Events 212: Constitutio Antoniniana grants citizenship to all free Roman men 212-216: Baths of Caracalla 230-232: Sassanid dynasty of Persia launches a war to reconquer lost lands in the Roman east 235-284: Crisis of the Third Century shakes Roman Empire 250-538: Kofun era, the first... Oceanus, with his wife, Tethys, ruled the seas before Poseidon. ...

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/sister Arsinoe III standing beside a seated Homer. The poet is shown 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, 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 how the Greeks considered Homer not just a great poet, but the divinely inspired source of all literature.^[45] Look up Apotheosis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Arsinoe III Philopator Arsinoe III (246 BC or 245 BC - 204 BC) was Queen of Egypt (220 - 204 BC). ... For other uses see Muse (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Apollo (disambiguation). ... Mnemosyne (Greek , IPA in RP and in General American) (sometimes confused with Mneme or compared with Memoria) was the personification of memory in Greek mythology. ... For other uses, see Zeus (disambiguation). ...

Homereia also stood at Chios, Ephesus and Smyrna, which were among the city-states that claimed to be the birthplace of Homer. Strabo (14.1.37) records a 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.^[46] Chios (IPA: )[2] (Greek: , alternative transliterations Khios and Hios) is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea seven kilometres (five miles) off the Turkish coast. ... For the town in the southern United States, see Ephesus, Georgia. ... Smyrna (Greek: Σμύρνη) is an ancient city (today İzmir in Turkey) that was founded by ancient Greeks at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. ... The Greek geographer Strabo in a 16th century engraving. ... Xoanon Publishing was founded in 1992 e. ... This article is about the city in Greece. ...

Transmission and Publication

Though evincing many features characteristic of oral poetry, at some point, the Iliad and the Odyssey were committed to writing. The Greek script, adapted from a Phoenician syllabary some time in the late 8th.century BCE., could not be used to record large scale epics of this kind before trade with Egypt improved, allowing access to cheap and large quantities of papyrus. Conditions for such imports resumed and improved under Psammetichus I in the second half of the 7th.century BCE, and it is probable that sometime before 600 BCE, some version of Homer was committed to 'paper'. Such texts would have been subject to regional modifications, as scribes and rhapsodes innovated on any text at their disposal, but the relatively strong uniformity of the texts as we have them must owe something to an early edition which stabilized the epics, and ironed out variations. This probably occurred, in Athens, with the so called Pisistratean recension.^[47] Phoenician can mean: The Phoenician ancient civilization The Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician languages This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. ... Wahibre Nomen Psamtik Horus name Aaib Nebty name Neba Golden Horus Qenu Issues Nitocris I Died 610 BC Burial Sais Psammetichus, or Psamtik I, was the first of three kings of the Saite, or Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt. ... Peisistratos or Peisistratus (Greek: )[1] (ca. ... Recension is the name given to the critical revision of the text of an author, or the revised text itself. ...

In late antiquity knowledge of Greek declined in Latin-speaking western Europe, and along with it knowledge of Homer's poems. It is not until the fifteenth century that Homer's work began to be read once more in Italy. The first printed edition appeared in 1488. Late Antiquity is a rough periodization (c. ...

See also

Homeric topics

The Achaeans (in Greek , Achaioi) is the collective name given to the Greek forces in Homers Iliad (used 598 times). ... For other uses, see Achilles (disambiguation). ... Aoidos means singer in classical Greek. ... The ancient accounts of Homer include many passages in archaic and classical Greek poets and prose authors that mention or allude to Homer, and ten biographies of Homer, often referred to as Lives. ... Statue of Aristarchus at Aristoteles University in Thessaloniki, Greece Aristarchus (310 BC - circa 230 BC) was a Greek astronomer and mathematician, born in Samos, Greece. ... Bibliomancy is the use of books in divination. ... Map of Homeric Greece The famous Catalogue of Ships (νεων κατολογος) is recorded as a part of Book II (verses 494–760, PP Il. ... Cyclic Poets are epic poets who followed Homer and wrote poems and songs about the Trojan war. ... Dactyllic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter) is a form of meter in poetry or a rhythmic scheme. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Iliad. ... The Epic Cycle (Greek: Επικός Κύκλος) was a collection of Ancient Greek epic poems that related the story of the Trojan War, which includes the Kypria, the Aithiopis, the Little Iliad, the Iliou persis (The Sack of Troy), the Nostoi (Returns), and the Telegony. ... The epic is a broadly defined genre of narrative poetry, characterized by great length, multiple settings, large numbers of characters, or long span of time involved. ... Epithets in Homer. ... Events in the main sequence of the Odyssey (excluding the narrative of Odysseuss adventures) take place in the Peloponnese and in what are now called the Ionian Islands (Ithaca and its neighbours). ... The bust of Zeus found at Otricoli (Sala Rotonda, Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican) Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. ... Homeric Greek is the form of Ancient Greek that was used by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. ... Homeric nod (sometimes heard as Even Homer nods) is a proverbial phrase for a continuity error. ... For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ... Homeric scholarship is the study of Homeric epic, especially the two large surviving epics the Iliad and Odyssey. ... Homer Where was Homers Ithaca? There have been many suggestions as to where, exactly, the Ithaca of the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer was geographically located: as many, perhaps, as the theories which once fought among themselves over whether Troy ever really existed, and if so where it was. ... For other uses, see Hector (disambiguation). ... Map of the Troad (Tr