Notes on the Homeric House

Abstract

The critics and commentators who read these notes will probably object that I have not paid sufficient attention to the earlier literature on the subject. I must admit that I have not read Gerlach's paper, which is not accessible in Alexandria, but I have read at one time or another most of the recent papers on the Homeric house from Myres' paper in the Journal of Hellenic Studies to that of Palmer lately published in the Transactions of the Philological Society.* I think that practically all of what was written on the Homeric house before the excavations of Schliemann at Tiryns should now be disregarded. Further since most of that written since the excavation of Tiryns follows the erroneous or ‘traditional’ interpretation of the two megara at Tiryns as a men's and as a women's megaron, it also need not now be taken into account. Palmer's paper makes a great advance, but he did not have the opportunity of knowing the House of Columns at Mycenae. I have therefore as regards earlier literature confined myself to Homer himself and standard editions like those of Monro, Leaf, Merry, and Stanford, and have read the newer translations of the Odyssey, the Loeb version and those of T. E. Shaw and E. V. Rieu. If I have missed anything of importance I can only plead that Alexandria of to-day does not possess the same library facilities as Ptolemaic Alexandria.