Homeric Scholarship Research Articles

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

L’abc della filologia nello studio di Omero in età ellenistica: sistemi di scrittura e corruttele

Abstract Through the analysis of selected passages from the Homeric scholia and an ancient hypomnema, this paper aims to show that in the Hellenistic Age the idea that literary texts had been formerly written using orthographic systems different from the current one triggered the discussion and favoured the solution of some textual issues. At the time of Aristarchus of Samothrace and Crates of Mallos the identification of potential corruptions on the basis of writing features of the exemplar was definitely one of the tools available for the textual constitution of the Homeric poems (maybe the same holds true already for Aristophanes of Byzantium). This suggests that the Hellenistic scholars based their editorial work on conceptual premises that are the fundamentals of an acquainted approach to the transmission of the texts.

Homeric scholarship in the pulpit: the case of Eustathius’ sermons

Homeric scholarship in the pulpit: the case of Eustathius’ sermons

Translating Homeric scholia: five case studies from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century

Translating Homeric scholia: five case studies from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century

Hesiod’s Verbal Craft: Studies in Hesiod’s Conception of Language and Its Ancient Reception by Athanassios Vergados

Reviewed by: Hesiod’s Verbal Craft: Studies in Hesiod’s Conception of Language and Its Ancient Reception by Athanassios Vergados George Boys-Stones VERGADOS, Athanassios. Hesiod’s Verbal Craft: Studies in Hesiod’s Conception of Language and Its Ancient Reception. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. xii + 370 pp. Cloth, $105.00 Starting from Hesiod’s “etymologies,” this work explores Hesiod’s relationship with language in general, and the language of the Greek mythological tradition in particular. In part 1 three chapters present worked examples of “etymology” in Hesiod: two mythological groups with contested histories and genealogies (the Muses, chapter 2; the Cyclopes, chapter 3), and others including Pandora in chapter 4. A significant result is that Hesiod shows himself to be more optimistic about finding stable meaning and objective truth in the study of names in the Theogony than in Works and Days where, as the slippery name “Pandora” shows, meaning can be more up for grabs. A corresponding division between these two works is discovered in the five chapters of part 2. Beginning with Hesiod’s famous “correction” of his Theogony account of Eris (in Works and Days 11–12 he says that there are two Erides, not one), Vergados asks us to see that, for Hesiod, discourse about the divine realm (in the Theogony) can achieve a greater stability than discourse aimed at the “complexities and ambiguities of the human condition in the Iron Age” (in Works and Days). “Eris” divides (in chapter 5 Vergados calls this a Begriffsspaltung), and with its division is no longer “absolute.” Further Hesiodic divisions and revisions are explored in chapter 6 and 7 (where the focus is on Dike). Chapter 8 looks at “kennings and riddles,” that is, the naming of things by riddling allusion, as when the ant is called idris, “the wise one” (Works 778). Chapter 9 looks at a case, the day called “Triseinas,” where Hesiod makes an explicit claim for the “truth” of this name (used, he says, by few; Works 818). In part 3 Vergados moves to consider Hesiod’s ancient reception as an intellectual, showing that he was spoken of in the same breath as mythographers such as Acusilaus and shares many of the characteristics of a historian like Hecataeus. His role as a voice of authority for the etymological inquiries of Plato’s Cratylus occupies chapter 11 (Vergados finds “a certain intellectual affinity” between Hesiod and the dialogue’s [End Page 644] eponym); and in chapter 12 his role in the Homeric scholia as a sort of authority—albeit not an incontestable one—is explored. The details and broad conclusions of this study are illuminating about Hesiod’s art—for example, in unpacking the “micro-narratives” embedded in the focus on names and in unwinding the tacit engagements with Homer. They also lend strong support to the trend for rehabilitating Hesiod as a serious player, even a pioneer, in the Greek intellectual tradition. Whether Vergados delivers on his promise of a Hesiodic “philosophy of language” is another question, though the aspiration clearly guides the work. The very word “etymology,” which Vergados uses for Hesiod’s interest in names, is applied in a way that leads him regularly to compare Hesiod to modern linguistic science (but Hesiod always gets “wrong” what it gets right), and also to attribute to him the view that name-origins ideally have their own philosophical authority, that is, reveal truths about the world. The more straightforward possibility that Hesiod thought that he was merely exploring the views of whoever gave his subjects their names is not considered here—although it might have given the basis for a more organic integration of the chapter on “kennings,” and it might have helped Vergados avoid some obvious missteps. Epōnumos is overtranslated as “true name”; Eris is not “relativized” because there are two “Erides” differing in moral valence (any more than “egg” is a relative term because there are good and bad eggs); Heraclitus is not “attacking” the epic poets when they use a word for “bow” that has the same written form as a word for “life.” Vergados argues that Hesiod’s ultimate aim is to establish his “authority” through what amounts to...

From Socrates to Briseis: Homeric Problems and Epistolary Fiction in Heroides 3

Abstract This paper aims to investigate the epistolary fiction in Heroides 3 in the light of ancient Homeric scholarship.1 The study of the Iliadic intertext should allow us to propose a hypothesis to identify the character who inspired Briseis's letter. By focusing on both Ulysses's strange attitude in Iliad 9 and Briseis's strange ignorance in Heroides 3, it tends to propose a new interpretation of the epistolary mode.

ARISTOTLE ON HOMER ON EELS AND FISH INILIADBOOK 21

The phrase ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες (‘eels and fish’) appears twice inIliadBook 21, in descriptions of actions involving the river Xanthus:τὸν μὲν ἄρ’ ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες ἀμφεπένοντο (203)the eels and fish dealt with him [sc. Asteropaeus].τείροντ᾽ ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες οἱ κατὰ δίνας (353)distressed were the eels and fish beneath the eddies.The context in which these verses appear is not that important here, as this combination of words itself raised an interpretative problem in the minds of some ancient Homeric scholars: why did Homer distinguish eels and fish when eels are a kind of fish? For instance, according to Aristonicus, Aristarchus flagged both passages ‘because Homer distinguished the eels from the fish’—and Homer would not have done that, is the implication, or it is puzzling that he did so, as he must have known that eelsarea kind of fish.

Towards understanding the Septuagint

There are signs in Septuagint research that a natural switch is taking place from focusing on the text of the LXX to endeavours to understand the reconstructed or retroverted text (Cook 2018). Put differently, there is a move away from text-critical research to hermeneutics. Primary evidence in this regard is, firstly, the fact that objectively more LXX topics are being researched than before. The proliferation of Septuagintal series includes Septuagint and Cognate Studies under the editorship of Wolfgang Kraus and the publication by Martin Rosel (2018), Tradition and Innovation: English and German Studies on the Septuagint, SCS 70 (Atlanta, SBL). One could say that Septuagint studies have grown into an independent field of research. Secondly, more research projects concentrating on hermeneutical interpretations are being registered. One example would be the formulation of a theology of the Septuagint. Thirdly, there has been increasing consideration of the methodology for Septuagintal research. Fourthly, a number of scholars have made significant contributions through their primary research. Emanuel Tov, JL Magnes professor emeritus at the Hebrew University, is an appropriate example. Research into the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible has been at the centre of Old and New Testament research. However, of late, there has been a proliferation of LXX research in particular. There are several reasons for this positive development. The publication programme of the LXX is advancing steadily. The impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the Septuagint and vice versa is also being investigated at various levels.1 Novel theories as to the origin of the LXX have been formulated, and a number of research projects and international programmes have appeared over the past decade.2 Basic-to-appropriate interpretation is a suitable methodology. In a recent article, I discussed a number of newly published books on the LXX (Cook 2018). Three of these on the book of Aristeas have also attracted the attention of a number of scholars recently. Other publications include Sylvie Honigman's groundbreaking 2003 monograph entitled The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria: A Study in the Narrative of the Letter of Aristeas. In 2015, Benjamin G. Wright III (2015) utilised this material (B. Ar.) in a monograph of over 500 pages. Ekaterina Matusova's book appeared in the same year (Matusova 2015). These books have different aims and intentions. Whilst Honigman focuses to a large extent on Septuagintal origins (Honigman 2003), Wright's commentary does not focus on historical questions concerning Septuagintal origins or the nature of the Alexandrian Jewish community (Wright 2015:6). Rather, Wright addresses what he sees as the most critical issues in Aristeas, to argue for particular ways of reading this book, to illuminate as much as possible and to direct readers to more specialised studies that can take them further into the topic (p. 5). He does deal exclusively with Septuagint origins in a separate publication (Wright 2015:304-326). Matusova, firstly, addresses structural issues such as the composition of the narrative; secondly, the meaning of grammatical terminology in the story of the translation; thirdly, the historical implications of the narrative and, fourthly, religious policies of the Ptolemaic era.

A Possible Aristotle-Fragment in the b-Scholion on Illiad 22.94


 
 
 The b-scholion on Iliad 22.94 attributes a claim about a venomous snake (δράκων) to Aristotle’s On Animals. Likely because there is no obvious parallel text in Aristotle’s extant works on animals, the reference tends nowadays to be dismissed as inauthentic (though it was taken much more seriously in the 19th century). Further, the Aristotle reference has been consigned to a footnote in the standard edition of the Iliad scholia. This essay reassesses the scholion and considers as possible sources a few different works of Aristotle. It also suggests that the Aristotelian material – whatever its source – was brought in by Homeric scholars to support one side of a debate over the meaning of κακὰ φάρμακα.
 
 

Una formula, tanti significati. Οἱ περί τινα negli scolî e in Eustazio

Abstract An analysis of some significant examples shows that the phrase οἱ περὶ + accusative of a proper noun employed in the Homeric scholia and in Eustathius of Thessalonica’s Commentaries was an abridged expression conveying in any specific case different information concerning the sources quoted into these texts.

SPECULATIVE FICTION, ECOCRITICISM, AND THE WANDERINGS OF ODYSSEUS

While it is dangerous to generalize about so vast a field as Homeric scholarship, it is perhaps safe to say that before the 1970s interpretation of the Wanderings of Odysseus was dominated by the larger question of theOdyssey’s moral and theological coherence, particularly as this pertains to the justice of Odysseus’ and his companions’ sufferings. The controversy between Analysts and Unitarians did much to determine how this question was asked and answered, with Analysts viewing moral incoherence as a symptom of multiple authorship and Unitarians striving to demonstrate coherence. First-generation anthropology introduced the idea that incoherence might reflect not (only) different authors, but (also) different stages of cultural development. This development was conceived mainly as an advance from primitive ‘savagery’ to more enlightened ‘humanity’, albeit with a tinge of nostalgia for savagery's more holistic ecological consciousness.

Greek Literature

It felt slightly spooky when I opened The Winnowing Oar and found a lecture by Martin West on editing the Odyssey that concludes with a pre-emptive defence of his endorsement of Aristophanes’ reading at Od. 13.158: six months earlier, in my brief review of West's edition (G&R 65 [2018], 272), I had – somewhat recklessly – described that reading as ‘reckless’. It's an excellent lecture, and well worth reading. But the Aristophanic variant still fails to convince me. This difference of opinion pales into insignificance, however, next to the textual bombshell in Franco Montanari's chapter in the same volume, on the failed embassy in Iliad 9. Applying the familiar analytic argument-schema ‘X would have mentioned Y, if Y had been in the text that X read’, I am inexorably led to the conclusion that Montanari is working from a text of Iliad 9 in which the embassy concludes with Achilles’ response to Phoenix (47). The long-standing riddle of the use of duals to describe a three-man delegation is therefore solved: Ajax was a later addition to the text. The alternative explanation, that X has chosen not to mention the one member of the delegation who (even after Achilles has pointedly declared the discussion at an end) succeeds in getting Achilles to make a positive (though deferred) commitment to coming to the rescue of his comrades (649–55), is surely too far-fetched to be credible. Montanari is a very fine scholar: but the embassy that he describes is not the one that I find in my text. Eleven other fine scholars have contributed to this Festschrift for Antonios Rengakos: I will briefly mention three chapters that particularly caught my attention. Margalit Finkelberg argues persuasively for a seventh-century fixation of the Homeric texts in the light of iconographical evidence. Jonas Grethlein, in a study of Odysseus and Achilles in the Odyssey, hopes to show (and succeeds in doing so) ‘that the relation between Odysseus and Achilles in Homeric epic is far more complex than the metapoetically charged juxtaposition of βίη versus μῆτις, which Greg Nagy's The Best of the Achaeans has made a central creed of Homeric scholarship’ (140). I agree whole-heartedly: this painfully reductive antithesis never deserved the prominence it has gained. And, as Grethlein observes, ‘the Iliadic echoes make the Odyssey into more than an adventure story: it becomes a multi-facetted narrative engaged with ethical issues’ (138). Gregory Hutchinson, who can be relied upon for stimulating thoughts expressed with precision, elegance, and wit, begins by suggesting that scholars have laid ‘too much emphasis on the production’ of the Homeric poems, ‘and not enough on the effect of the works on the audience or audiences of the time’ (145). He goes on to examine the phenomenon of repetition in the light of cognitive studies (specifically, the concept of ‘attention’) and comparative literature. Oral improvisation is acknowledged as ‘a conceivable possibility’, but ‘it may be time to turn…our primary attention…to an understanding of [the poem's] impact which best fits the text and best captures its multiplicity and power’ (167).

Textual Wanderings: Homeric Scholarship and the Written Landscape of Strabo's Geography

This article examines Strabo's attitude towards Homeric scholarship, textual emendation and the wanderings of mythical heroes. By exploring the interconnections between these themes, three broader aspects of the Geography are elucidated: the relationship between Homeric and historical truth and fiction, Strabo's self-fashioning as a late Hellenistic scholar, and the significance of interpretations of past heroic wanderings as a means of exploring present geopolitical concerns. The discussion focuses upon two particular case studies: the travels of Jason and the Argonauts and the wanderings of Aeneas. Ultimately, through this examination Strabo emerges as a liminal figure who firmly straddles the divide between the worlds of past Hellenistic textual scholarship and Imperial Greek literature.

‘I will send him to Crete, and sandy Pylos.’ A Fragment of the Cypria in the Homeric Scholia?

‘I will send him to Crete, and sandy Pylos.’ A Fragment of the Cypria in the Homeric Scholia? Benjamin Sammons At Odyssey 3.313–28, Nestor warns Telemachus not to prolong his absence from home, lest the suitors completely destroy his property, and advises the young man only to travel to Sparta in case Menelaus, who has arrived home quite recently, may have news of Odysseus. Nestor’s admonition: ‘tarry not, but travel to Sparta and then return home,’ may have struck some ancient readers as needless, since this was Telemachus’ plan all along. Or was it? One scholion claims that the passage ‘convinced Zenodotus to substitute “Crete” for “Sparta” in all passages about Telemachus’s journey’1 and goes on to cite alternative lines for 1.93 and 1.285 with just this change. Line 1.93: πέμψω δ’ ἐς Σπάρτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα (‘I will send him to Sparta and sandy Pylos’), becomes πέμψω δ’ ἐς Κρήτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα (‘I will send him to Crete and sandy Pylos’). Line 1.285: κεῖθεν δὲ Σπάρτηνδε παρὰ ξανθὸν Μενέλαον (‘then to Sparta and blond Menelaus’), becomes κεῖθεν δ’ ἐς Κρήτην τε παρ’ Ἰδομενῆα ἄνακτα (‘then to Crete and lord Idomeneus’).2 I quote lines 1.284–86 below for the full context. πρῶτα μὲν ἐς Πύλον ἐλθὲ καὶ εἴρεο Νέστορα δῖον,κεῖθεν δὲ Σπάρτηνδε παρὰ ξανθὸν Μενέλαον· [End Page 201] ὃς γὰρ δεύτατος ἦλθεν Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων. (1.284–86) First go to Pylos and question godlike Nestor,then to Sparta and blond Menelaus.For he [Menelaus] was the last of the bronze-clad Achaeans to comehome. According to the view ascribed to Zenodotus, Athena intended Telemachus to travel from Pylos to Crete in order to inquire about his father from Idomeneus. This was the plan she proposed to Zeus (1.93), this her command to the young hero (1.284–85). Nestor, having heard about this itinerary ‘offstage’, dissuades Telemachus from the lengthy journey to Crete and successfully redirects him to Sparta and Menelaus.3 The proposed journey to Crete then never takes place. As Stephanie West notes (2003:304), the detailed explication of Zenodotus’ reasoning is mere guesswork, since Zenodotus left no commentary. In fact, it seems as though a minor difficulty concerning 3.313 (that is, why Nestor should advise a course of action already resolved upon) is exploited to craft an explanation for some very strange variants for 1.93 and 1.285, in what ancient scholars took to be the edition of Zenodotus. Yet it is fanciful to suppose that Zenodotus introduced such problematic variants to deal with such an easy problem,4 and there is no evidence that Zenodotus or anyone else tried to change the text systematically, as the scholion alleges.5 Moreover, the whole explanation reflects a misunderstanding of exactly what Zenodotus bequeathed to his successors; for while ancient scholars seem to have imagined that Zenodotus created something like a critical edition of his own, the many eccentricities attributed to this ‘edition’ suggest that it was merely a personal copy whose variants were wrongly interpreted as Zenodotus’ own conjectures.6 The question that should be asked, then, is [End Page 202] not why Zenodotus ‘wrote’ these lines in his edition of the Odyssey, but why these lines should have appeared in the copy that he happened to use, and exactly how they appeared there. And this is an important question, because the variant readings are perhaps the strangest in the whole textual tradition of Homer, since they involve a major narrative signpost but completely contradict the course of the action.7 Indeed, the variants are so inappropriate to the context of our Odyssey that it seems almost impossible that they reflect an alteration by Zenodotus or anyone else, and it has been argued paradoxically that they must therefore represent ‘the genuine original text’ of the Odyssey.8 Yet this could only mean an Odyssey in which Telemachus did visit Crete on Athena’s advice.9 This is not so outlandish as it may, at first, seem. It has long been noticed that Crete is very frequently mentioned in the Odyssey, not so much in the direct narrative as in the lying tales of Odysseus, who repeatedly claims to be a native of Crete or to have visited there. These lying tales reveal a surprisingly accurate topographical and ethnographic knowledge of Crete.10 Stranger still, even Eumaeus has heard a story, from a source other than Odysseus, locating Odysseus in Crete...

The Silence of the Muse

The Silence of the Muse Yukai Li Homeric scholarship has tended to take the Muse at her word—she who is the daughter of Memory, the all-knowing, the keeper of tradition—or rather, more correctly, specifically not at her word, since she never speaks. But the Homeric Muse must speak: she must bring the words and knowledge of the epic past to the singer at the moment of performance and thus underwrite the relationship between the Homeric poet and the Homeric tradition. In the wake of Milman Parry, the general consensus that the Homeric poems are the product of a long performance tradition and yet are also to be read as literary texts has only made the Muse all the more important in her role as the mediator between the individual poem and its tradition. In what follows, I propose to examine the connection between the figure of the Muse and the presuppositions of Homeric scholarship. How is the way in which we understand the voice and the silence of the Muse linked to the ways in which we think about Homer and the Homeric tradition? Next to the voice and the silence of the Muse, which serves as an image of or an emblem for questions of origin, continuity, and authority in the Homeric tradition, the core of my argument is the concept of kleos, meaning "fame, glory, or rumour." If kleos is what, in important ways, holds the Homeric tradition together—since kleos is what the hero wants and what the Homeric poet celebrates—then how we understand kleos is intimately connected with how we understand the Muse. It is possible, although I do not think anyone does this, to bring together Muse and kleos in a very literal configuration and say that the Muse conveys the kleos of the hero to the poet who celebrates him, thus guaranteeing the continuity and authority of the Homeric tradition with the Muse as its origin. Against this configuration of Muse, kleos, and tradition, we might raise the most basic and most trivial objection: "Sing of the wrath," says the poet of the [End Page 91] Iliad; "Speak to me about that man," says the poet of the Odyssey—but why then is it still the poet who sings the poems? If the literal configuration of Muse and kleos is impossible, since the Muse does not literally speak, we must then confront the questions of what it means for the performance of epic that the Muse does not speak, and what kind of song comes into being in the wake of the Muse's silence. The consideration of these questions takes place inescapably in the wake of the theory of orality, which has, of course, never been merely an assertion of the fact that the Homeric poems were orally composed but has always brought with it particular ways of thinking about the nature of poetry in the Homeric tradition. In the early parts of this essay, I will demonstrate as a point of departure some aspects of a relatively coherent series of linked propositions that underlie how scholars in the oral theoretical context approach the concept of kleos. It is helpful to briefly outline these propositions of oral theory: first, the assertion that the Homeric poems were orally composed and not written has tended to oppose the presence of oral performance with the distance of written texts; John Miles Foley, especially, examines the epiphanic aspects of oral performance (1999). Second, oral performance, as the epiphany of the truth and authority of the oral poetic tradition, insists on its own continuity and self-identity; this insistence on self-sameness is in conflict with what is known about the plain fact that oral traditions change and one performance is not the same as another.1 Consideration of the question of self-identity then breaks into two parts: recognising, on the one hand, that the Homeric tradition "objectively" proceeds via diachronic changes, but also incorporating a "subjective" perspective from within the tradition that this tradition is "ancient and immutable" (Nagy 1996b.17). The third proposition is that the insistence on the self-identity of the oral tradition, even if it is only a...

�I will send him to Crete, and sandy Pylos� A fragment of the Cypria in the Homeric scholia?

�I will send him to Crete, and sandy Pylos� A fragment of the Cypria in the Homeric scholia?

The Challenge of Oral Epic to Homeric Scholarship

The epic is an intriguing genre, claiming its place in both oral and written systems. Ever since the beginning of folklore studies epic has been in the centre of interest, and monumental attempts at describing its characteristics have been made, in which oral literature was understood mainly as a primitive stage leading up to written literature. With the appearance in 1960 of A. B. Lord’s The Singer of Tales and the introduction of the oral-formulaic theory, the paradigm changed towards considering oral literature a special form of verbal art with its own rules. Fieldworkers have been eagerly studying oral epics all over the world. The growth of material caused that the problems of defining the genre also grew. However, after more than half a century of intensive implementation of the theory an internationally valid sociological model of oral epic is by now established and must be respected in cognate fields such as Homeric scholarship. Here the theory is both a help for readers to guard themselves against anachronistic interpretations and a necessary tool for constructing a social-historic context for the Iliad and the Odyssey. As an example, the hypothesis of a gradual crystallization of these two epics is discussed and rejected.

ヤコブス・ホイエル(1651-1689)とホメロス研究 : 「船のカタログ」を中心に

ヤコブス・ホイエル(1651-1689)とホメロス研究 : 「船のカタログ」を中心に

Os feácios e a transição de Odisseu na Odisseia

The transitional role played by the Phaeacians in The Odyssey has built into a kind of ‘communis opinio’ among Homeric scholars. Mixing divergent elements, these people seem to set a connection between Odysseus’ previous adventures and his re-entering in Ithaca. His quick 3-day stay in this unknown land gives him the opportunity to recall his sufferings since he left Troy, and manages to build a relationship between narrator and audience that helps us understand not only Odysseus’ character, but also the character of those who entertain him. I will focus on how Homer characterizes the Phaeacians as an ‘intermediate’ people, mixing opposite elements which are epitomized in their ability to sail.

Aristotle on Philoctetes’ Snake? Hom. Il. 2.721–725 and Ael. NA 4.57

Abstract Ael. NA 4.57 describes what Aristotle is supposed to have said about the effects of the bite of a water-snake (ὕδρος) on a human being. This chapter has generally been considered a fragment from a lost work of Aristotle on animals, though the possibility that it came from a lost medical work is in the present essay also suggested. In any case, by considering the content of NA 4.57 in the context of discussion by ancient Homeric scholars of the snake that bit Philoctetes – concerning what kind of snake it is, and what were the effects of its bite – this essay attempts to show that NA 4.57 may provide evidence for commentary by Aristotle, in his lost Homeric Puzzles, on Hom. Il. 2.721–725, the passage on Philoctetes in the Catalogue of Ships.