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▲[[Image:Auguste Leloir - Homère.jpg|thumb|300px|Homer, 1841, by Auguste Leloir]]
There are no known records directly dating Homer other than his writings of the ''[[Odyssey]]'' and the ''[[Iliad]]''. All accounts are based on tradition. The periodization hinted in written records comes from [[Herodotus]], who maintained that [[Hesiod]] and Homer lived no more than 400 years before his own time, therefore around 850 BC.<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories'' 2.53.</ref> Artemon of [[Clazomenae]], an [[annalist]], gave [[Arctinus of Miletus]], a pupil of Homer, a birth date of 744 BC. It is assumed he lived between 750-700 BC.{{clarify|reason=Previous two dates are 850 BC and a pupil born 744 BC, so why assume 750-700 i.e. the latter end pls?|date=April 2023}}<ref>Homer; Rieu, EV (translator); Rieu, DCH (editor); Jones, Peter (editor): ''The Odyssey'' (Penguin, 2003), p. ''i''.</ref>
▲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''.
▲==Date of Homer==
[[Image:Lafond Sappho and Homer.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|250px|left|[[Sappho]] sings for Homer, Charles Nicolas Rafael Lafond, 1824]]▼
The
▲==The lives and the epigrams==
▲[[Image:Lafond Sappho and Homer.jpg|thumb|250px|left|[[Sappho]] sings for Homer, Charles Nicolas Rafael Lafond, 1824]]
In the Homeric epigrams, the
▲The extant lives of Homer are ten in number. Eight of these are edited in [[Georg Westermann]]'s ''Vitarum Scriptores Graeci minores'',<ref>{{Cite book|first=Antonius|last=Westermann|title=ΒΙΟΓΡΑΦΟΙ: Vitarum Scriptores Graeci Minores|location=Brunsvigae|publisher=Georgius Westermann|year=1845}} Downloadable Google Books.</ref> including a piece called the ''[[Contest of Homer and Hesiod]]''.<ref>Westermann, pages 33-45. Greek language text.</ref> The longest ''[[Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus)|Life of Homer]]'' is written in the [[Ionic dialect]], and claims to be the work of Herodotus, but is certainly spurious ([[Pseudo-Herodotus]]).<ref>Westermann, pages 1-20. Greek language text. An English translation can be found at {{Cite book|first=Theodore Alois|last=Buckley|title=The Odyssey of Homer: with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice: Literally Translated, with Explanatory Notes|publisher=George Bell and Sons|location=London|year=1891|pages=vi-xxxii}} Downloadable Google Books</ref> In all probability it belongs to the 2nd century AD, which was fruitful beyond all others in literary forgeries. The other lives are certainly not more ancient.
▲The lives preserve some curious short poems or fragments of verse attributed to Homer, the so-called ''Epigrams'', which used to be printed at the end of editions of Homer. They are numbered as they appear in Pseudo-Herodotus. These are easily recognized as popular rhymes, a form of folklore to be met with in most countries, treasured by the people as a kind of [[proverb]]s.
==Other references on Homer==
▲In the Homeric epigrams the interest turns sometimes on the characteristics of particular localities, for example, [[Smyrna]] and [[Cyme (Aeolis)|Cyme]],<ref>Epigrams 1, 2, 4, Buckley pages 427-428.</ref> [[Erythrae]],<ref>Epigram 8, Buckley page 429.</ref> and [[Mt Ida]];<ref>Epigram 10, Buckley page 429.</ref> others relate to certain trades or occupations: potters,<ref>Epigram 14, Buckley page 431.</ref> sailors, fishermen, goat herds, etc. Some may be fragments of longer poems, but evidently they are not the work of any one poet. The fact that they were all ascribed to Homer merely means that they belong to a period in the history of the Ionian and Aeolian colonies when Homer was a name which drew to itself all ancient and popular verse.
[[File:Homer_-02.jpg|thumb|Coin of [[Smyrna]], 2nd/1st century BC; Apollo at left, seated Homer at right.]]
The same line of argument may be extended to the [[Homeric Hymns|Hymns]]
#The hymn to the Delian [[Apollo]] ends with an address of the poet to his audience. When any stranger comes and asks who
▲Again, comparing the epigrams with the legends and anecdotes told in the ''Lives of Homer,'' one can hardly doubt that they were the chief source from which these ''Lives'' were derived. Thus Epigram 4 mentions a blind poet, a native of Aeolian [[Smyrna]], through which flows the water of the sacred [[River Meles|Meles]]. Here is doubtless the source of the chief incident of the Herodotean ''Life,'' the birth of Homer, named Son of the Meles to conceal a scandalous affair between his mother and an older man who had been appointed her guardian. The epithet ''Aeolian'' implies high antiquity, inasmuch as according to Herodotus, Smyrna became Ionian about 688 BC. Naturally the Ionians had their own version of the story, a version which made Homer come out with the first Athenian colonists.
#The ''[[Margites]]'', a humorous poem
▲The same line of argument may be extended to the [[Homeric Hymns|Hymns]], and even to the works of the so-called [[Cyclic poets]], the lost early epics some of which formed the [[Epic Cycle]] and [[Theban Cycle]]. Thus:
▲#The hymn to the Delian [[Apollo]] ends with an address of the poet to his audience. When any stranger comes and asks who is the sweetest singer, they are to answer with one voice, "the blind man that dwells in rocky [[Chios]]; his songs deserve the prize for all time to come." [[Thucydides]], who quotes this passage to show the ancient character of the Delian festival, seems to have no doubt of the Homeric authorship of the hymn. Hence we may most naturally account for the belief that Homer was a Chian.
▲#The ''[[Margites]]'', a humorous poem which kept its ground as the reputed work of Homer down to the time of [[Aristotle]], began with the words, "There came to Colophon an old man, a divine singer, servant of the Muses and Apollo." Hence doubtless the claim of [[Colophon (city)|Colophon]] to be the native city of Homer, a claim supported in the early times of Homeric learning by the Colophonian poet and grammarian [[Antimachus]].
#The poem called the ''[[Cypria]]'' was said to have been given by Homer to his son-in-law [[Stasinus of Cyprus]] as dowry. The connection with [[Cyprus]] appears further in the predominance given in the poem to [[Aphrodite]].
#The ''[[Little Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Phocais]]'', according to the [[Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus)|pseudo-Herodotean life]], were composed by Homer when he lived at [[Phocaea]] with a certain [[Thestorides of Phocaea|Thestorides]], who carried them off to Chios and there gained fame by reciting them as his own. The name Thestorides occurs in Epigram 5.
#A similar story was told about the poem called the ''[[Capture of Oechalia]]'', the subject of which was one of the exploits of [[Heracles]]. It passed under the name of [[Kreophylos of Samos|Creophylus of Samos]], a friend or (as some said) a son-in-law of Homer, and was sometimes said to have been given to Creophylus by Homer in return for hospitality.
#
These indications render it probable that the stories connecting Homer with different cities and islands grew up after his poems had become known and famous, especially in the new and flourishing colonies of Aeolis and Ionia. The contention for Homer
==Arctinus of Miletus==
==See also==▼
* [[Homeridae]]
* [[Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus)]]▼
==Notes==
<references/>
*{{EB1911|wstitle=Homer}}▼
▲==See also==
▲* [[Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus)]]
▲{{EB1911|wstitle=Homer}}
{{Homer}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ancient Accounts Of Homer}}
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