Ancient accounts of Homer: Difference between revisions

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[[Image:Auguste Leloir - Homère.jpg|thumb|300px|Homer, 1841, by Auguste Leloir]]

'''Ancient accounts of Homer''' include numerous passages in which archaic and classical Greek poets and prose authors mention or allude to [[Homer]]. In addition, they include the ten biographies of Homer, often referred to as ''Lives''.

==Dating of Homer==

Dating Homer's life poses a challenge as there are no known records of his life other than his writings of the ''[[Odyssey]],'' as well as the ''[[Iliad]].'' All accounts are based on tradition. The only explicit periodization hinted in written records comes from [[Herodotus]], who maintains 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]], gives [[Arctinus of Miletus]], a pupil of Homer, a birth date of 744 BC. It's often assumed that he lived between 750 and 700 BC.<ref>Homer; Rieu, EV (translator); Rieu, DCH (editor); Jones, Peter (editor): ''The Odyssey'' (Penguin, 2003), p. ''i''.</ref>

==The lives and the epigrams==

[[Image:Lafond Sappho and Homer.jpg|thumb|250px|left|[[Sappho]] sings for Homer, Charles Nicolas Rafael Lafond, 1824]]

There are 10 known extant lives of Homer. 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 (see [[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> It most likely belongs to the 2nd century AD, although the other lives are more recentin origin.

The lives preserve curious short poems and 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.

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 [[Mount 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 suggests 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.

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 not too long before 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 minor poems==

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 whois 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. This does not necessarily imply that Homer was born a Chian: many accounts say that he was from Smyrna and lived in Chios later in his life.

#The ''[[Margites]]'', a humorous poem which kept its groundasthe 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 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]]. However, this does not contradict Homer being from Smyrna, because Smyrna was founded by Colophonians and there was a close link between the two cities, possibly unfriendly. The [[Suda]] reports (almost certainly drawing upon ancient accounts that are now lost) Homer being a Smyrnaean that was taken as captive to the Colophonians ina war, hence the name Ὅμηρος, which in Greek means "captive". Homer's name originating from him being a captive is widely reported.

#Finally, the ''[[Thebaid (Greek poem)|Thebaid]]'' was confidently counted as the work of Homer. As to the ''[[Epigoni (epic)|Epigoni]]'', which carried on the Theban story, there was less certainty.

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, in short, began at a time when his real history was lost, and he had become a sort of mythical figure, an anonymous hero, or personification of a great school of poetry.

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An interesting confirmation of this view from the negative side is furnished by the city which ranked as chief among the Asiatic colonies of Greece, [[Miletus]]. No legend claims for Miletus even a visit from Homer, orashare in the authorship of any Homeric poem. Yet [[Arctinus of Miletus]] was said to have been a disciple of Homer, and was certainly one of the earliest and most considerable of the Cyclic poets. His ''[[Aethiopis]]'' was composed as a sequel to the ''Iliad''; and the structure and general character of his poems show that he took the ''Iliad'' as his model. Yet in his case we findnotraceof the disputed authorship which is so common with other Cyclic poems. How has this come about? Why have the works of Arctinus escaped the attraction which drew to the name of Homer such epics as the ''Cypria,'' the ''Little Iliad,'' the ''[[Thebaid (Greek poem)|Thebaid]],'' the ''Epigoni,'' the ''[[Capture of Oechalia]]'' and the ''[[Phocais]]''? The most obvious account of the matter is that Arctinus was never so far forgotten that his poems became the subject of dispute. This may provide a glimpse of an early post-Homeric age in Ionia, when the immediate disciples and successors of Homer were distinct figures in a trustworthy tradition when they had not yet merged their individuality in the legendary Homer of the [[Epic Cycle]].