Apollonius’ Argonautica and the Homeric Hymns

Apollonius represents a crucial link in the epic tradition spanning Homer and Vergil, but arrestingly, his epic Argonautica rather begins and ends in the style of a Homeric Hymn. This book contends that Apollonius thus frames his poem as an innovative synthesis of both branches of his Homeric inheritance: an “epic hymn” that simultaneously commemorates its protagonists’ glorious deeds and venerates them in their religious capacity as divinized cult heroes. This study—the first-ever in-depth investigation of Apollonius’ profound engagement with the hymnic Homer—promises to reorient scholarly understandings of the Argonautica’s novel narrative strategies, its inclusive conception of heroism, and indeed, its very generic affiliations.

Brian McPhee, Ph.D. (2020), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is an Assistant Professor in Bilkent University's Program in Cultures, Civilizations and Ideas. He has published widely on Greek and Roman poetry, with an especial focus on Hellenistic epic.