Volume 12, Issue 1 - Special Issue: New Approaches to Ancient Epic Issue Editors: Efi Papadodima, Athanasios Stefanis

Although Homer refers to the art of poetry in terms closely similar to those used by oral traditional poets interviewed by Parry and Lord, his own poems do not follow the poetics of a point-by-point narrative succession that they themselves proclaim. This is not yet to say that in ancient Greece there were no epic poems for which such traditional poetics would effectively account. The poems of the Epic Cycle, whose incompatibility with the narrative strategies of the Homeric epics was highlighted as early as Aristotle, are one such example. The fact that, although he repeatedly refers to the practice of traditional poetry, Homer is silent on the matter of his own poetic practice which differs markedly from it, raises the question of whether the Iliad and the Odyssey can be considered traditional poems in the proper sense of the word.

This paper investigates internal evidence from the Homeric Hymns in order to trace the development from choral to monodic hymns. A study of the words humneo and humnos and the analysis of the embedded choral theogonic songs in the corpus of the Homeric Hymns show that women’s choral songs about gods are always identified as hymns, while the monodic theogonies, which are described in this corpus, are not identified as such. This division between choral and monodic hymns, reflected to some extent in the diction, is reconciled in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo , in which the poet, representing a different genre, addresses and praises the Delian Maidens – the choral singers par excellence . As the Homeric Hymns evolve from cultic, choral hymns, they turn the local praise of gods into panhellenic encomia. Such transition is also alluded to in other sources, in which hymns are disseminated and adapted by male performers, as a result of a female chorus’ instruction.

This contribution discusses the plot of the Odyssey as a field of opposing forces shaping the ending of the poem: (i) the generic tension between folktale and epic; (ii) the fundamental ambiguity of the poem’s climactic event, the killing of the Suitors (justice or revenge?); and (iii) the antagonism between Zeus and Poseidon. On this basis two competing scenarios for the ending of the poem are proposed: amnesia and departure, the former viewing the theme of revenge on the human plane, the latter on the divine.

This paper discusses the modes of communication between the two speakers in Poseidon’s protest before Zeus in Odyssey 13.125–158, which results from the Phaeacians facilitating Odysseus’ arrival in Ithaca. As it appears, both interlocutors employ sophisticated techniques that revolve around the mega-theme of Poseidon’s menis against Odysseus. Even though the Sea-god conceals his anger, I maintain that it lurks in the background, and defines the discourse of both speakers in making their claims. On the one hand, Poseidon lets his rage emerge indirectly through his desire for vengeance at the Phaeacians; on the other hand, Zeus manages to negotiate the wrath theme while suppressing the divine decision that defied the Sea-god in the first place. Concealment of aspects of the story and allusions to otherwise suppressed objectives appear extensively in the present passage, which therefore constitutes an excellent case study in the tactics of the Odyssean gods from the angle of indirect communication.

This study offers a thorough re-examination of the claim that the Doloneia is a major interpolation in the Iliad , since the horses of Rhesus stolen by the two Achaean spies in Iliad 10 are not used by Diomedes to win the chariot race in the Funeral Games in honor of Patroclus in Iliad 23. It is argued that this claim is wrong. Diomedes wins with the semi-divine Trojan horses he has stolen from Aeneas in Iliad 5, i. e. with the best horses after Achilles’ divine horses which are not used in the chariot race. Aeneas’ horses are the only ones that can defeat Eumelus’ excellent mares, which have been called the second-best Achaean horses in Il . 2.763–764.

The paper looks not so much at geographical space or at the standard antithesis of “space” and “place,” but at the fluctuating relationships of space and mind. Various contrasts of inside and outside are considered (bodies, ships, houses), in connection with characters’ experience of space and its meaning. Werth’s idea of text worlds is then considered: the shifting worlds presented in a text, often as perceived or constructed by characters. This approach is given more substance by thinking about space; spatial approaches are given more finesse by thinking about text worlds. The marriage of approaches works happily for similes, for characters’ imaginings, for the physical spaces they structure and manage. It suits the ever-shifting Argonautica well.

The poets of that time seek to find a way to engrave their names on the wall of immortality through their works. One way of achieving this was by “filling in the gaps” Homer left in his poems, or continuing through them the stories he started. Colluthus, a Greek poet of Egypt, who lived under the reign of Anastasius (5th-6th centuries AD), is known as the author of the short poem The Abduction of Helen . This “prequel” to the Iliad comes after a very long tradition of legends concerning the beginning of the war of Troy. In the present paper I will study how Colluthus uses his characters’ immobility and motion in The Abduction of Helen . I will show that motion always causes a catastrophe, whereas immobility is a synonym for forced inaction or imprisonment.

This paper explores how Quintus of Smyrna engages with the Homeric poems and the subsequent epic tradition. The paper discusses two scenes from Quintus’ Posthomerica dealing with the dynamics of speech between individuals and a collective body; the first of these scenes ( Posthomerica 6.5–95) is primarily indebted to a scene in Iliad 2, and the second one ( Posthomerica 1.403–475) has intriguing parallels in Apollonius’ Argonautica and Vergil’s Aeneid . The overall aim of the paper is to illustrate Quintus’ dialogue with multiple models throughout the epic tradition and to draw attention to the way he shapes these models according to his own poetics .

Ovid frequently organizes individual “narratives” on the basis of semantic relations (including etymology) that link together basic concepts and themes. This web of semantic relations creates a second level of text or subtext that deepens our understanding of the composition of the poem and adds meaning(s) to each particular narrative. One such subtext concerns the semantics of erotic violence or of “love” ( amor ) and “arms” ( arma ), the study of which can enrich our understanding of Ovid’s narrative skills. The pair amor and arma is sometimes expanded to include armenta in the sense of “cattle,” “oxen,” or any animal less commonly or uniquely assigned to this species. The addition of armenta to the semantic cluster is due to the fact that they are often included in Ovid’s mythological narratives, either as real animals or as transformed human beings or as disguised divinities.