Posted on 03/13/2023 2:40:59 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Homer was one of the most important figures in ancient Greece. His contribution to ancient Greek culture was immense, due to his two most famous poems – the Iliad and the Odyssey. To the ancient Greeks, the works of Homer were as important as the Bible is today. It’s ironic, then, that many scholars actually question whether or not Homer was real. What does the evidence show?
Reasons for doubting Homer’s existence
The main reason some scholars doubt that Homer ever existed is because of a lack of contemporary evidence. Most scholars believe that Homer was supposed to have lived in the eighth or even ninth century BC, whereas the first reference to Homer appears to be from the late seventh century BC. This would be between one and two centuries after his supposed lifetime. This gap is viewed as too large for scholars to be confident that he really existed.
One historian has made a different kind of argument. Adam Nicolson argues that the Iliad and the Odyssey show signs of originating from about 1000 years earlier than when Homer is supposed to have lived. This would mean that Homer cannot have been their author. Since Homer’s only contribution to history is as the supposed author of those poems, that would take away his historical standing.
Another argument is that there is supposedly evidence that the Iliad and the Odyssey did not have the same author. This would mean that ‘Homer’ was just a fiction created to neatly explain the existence of both poems.
The issue of when Homer really lived A key issue involved in this debate is the matter of when Homer really lived. Herodotus claimed that Homer lived ‘no more than 400 years’ before his own time. That would place Homer in the ninth century BC.
Grecian Delight supports Greece
But notice that he said ‘no more’ than that length of time. This means that this was the upper limit. Some scholars think that Herodotus had information that Homer lived 10 generations before his own time, and that he was using an upper limit of 40 years per generation in his calculation. A more realistic estimate would be 25 years per generation, which would place Homer in c. 700 BC.
Some other ancient historians explicitly placed Homer in this era, or even a little later. Strabo referred to certain ancient chroniclers who placed Homer at or just after the time of the Cimmerian invasions of Anatolia. That would place Homer in the seventh century BC. The fourth century BC writer Theopompus and the third century BC writer Euporion also supported that date.
This would mean that the earliest reference to Homer, from the late seventh century BC, is actually a near-contemporary reference. This would mean that we can reasonably trust its reliability.
The issue of when the Iliad and the Odyssey were written
Homer could not have been the person who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey if those poems actually came from over 1000 years before Homer supposedly lived. But the case made by historians such as Adam Nicolson is very weak. They point out that these poems contain certain similarities to stories found all over Europe, indicating that they originate from thousands of years ago.
But this objection is easily explained. Homer could have been using motifs and tropes that were familiar to him. These motifs could have originated thousands of years before Homer’s supposed lifetime, but that does not mean that the poems themselves did.
Could Homer have been the single author of the Iliad and the Odyssey? The fact is that there is still a lot of debate over whether or not the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed by a single author. It is not a closed case by any means. Different scholars have different opinions. The key reason why some scholars think that they may have been composed by different people is because of discrepancies between the two poems.
There are differences in the way that the poems present certain matters. For example, the Iliad seems to present a positive view of the Phoenicians, while the Odyssey seems to present a negative view of them. The former also presents Achilles’ attitude about death in a very different way to how the latter poem presents it.
However, these are not irreconcilable differences. Apparent differences in viewpoint can be easily explained as being due to different contexts. In the Iliad, Homer was focusing on the glory of the Phoenician items that were being used by certain characters. Obviously, it would make sense for Homer to glorify the things being used by his heroes. But in the Odyssey, which is a story about voyaging, the rivalry between the Greeks and the Phoenicians at sea would obviously be more relevant.
Importantly, both poems display the same style of language. Also, scholars have shown that the language of both poems comes from the same era. These two facts support the idea that they could have had the same author. In any case, it is a question that scholars still debate.
Conclusion
In conclusion, scholars still do not agree about whether or not Homer was real. However, most of the arguments against Homer being real are not particularly strong. For example, it is claimed that there is no near-contemporary reference to him, but the evidence actually indicates that his supposed lifetime should be placed in the seventh century BC, not the eighth or the ninth. This would mean that the earliest reference to him comes from just a few decades after he supposedly lived, making it a reliable source by any reasonable standard. The other arguments against Homer being real are also fairly weak. Nonetheless, the issue of whether or not Homer was real is still far from settled.
Yes.
The argument used to be that there was more evidence for Jesus than Homer, and yet no one questioned that Homer existed but did for Jesus.
“Back in the day, we were taught that Homer wrote down existing oral stories - that he is believed to have actually written them is new to me.”
I was taught he used existing, time honored plots and combined them with using his own muse.
—”Consider the low quality of the Suitors, and that they were only after her money!”
Clearly, he took care of the suitors, hangers-on, and unfaithful maids...
Then Tennyson says Ulysses (AKA Odysseus) put the band back together and headed out...
“We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
As a septuagenarian, I can dream with the guys.
The Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey was so good, I could not stop reading it! And I knew the ending.
Try it, you will like it.
Real!
Yup. And there is a very great deal of evidence - specific memory markers such as repetitions of "rosy-fingered dawn" for example - that both poems are exactly that. The controversy these days mostly centers around the question "Were there two Homers?", based on subtle differences between the Greek dialect used in the oldest available copies of the respective works. That's way outside my paygrade but my last Classics professor said he thinks there's a good chance there probably were.
Obviously Homer did not write the two epic poems.
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It was William Shakespeare.
Obviously Homer did not write the two epic poems.
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It was William Shakespeare.
*********
Lol
Well played 👍
Damn right!
Is Marge real? Bart?
Pretty soon everything is called into question...
Whoever wrote this piece seems unaware of all the work that has been done on oral poetry since the 1920s by Milman Parry, Albert Bates Lord and many other scholars. Homer would have been illiterate. Whether the same poet created the Iliad and the Odyssey is still debated.
There were performers of epic poetry called Homeridae who claimed to be descendants of Homer but whether he really existed is unknown.
Archilochus of Paros was active in the mid-600s and we know something about him. If Homer was as late as the 7th century we probably would know something definite about him.
I agree. It has that halting, abrupt, spasmodic style common to AI.
The transition was in the late 60's to early 70's. My older high school teachers taught ancient, medieval and modern European history as one would expect using well established texts.
For American histroy we got some bright spark of a young genius out of one of our well-known Ivy League schools who taught us that American history is the history of immagrants. End of story. Nothing more to know. We learned nothing. And within 40 years the rot has spread everywhere and corrupted everything.
If Herodotus said that Homer did not write any of the other Epic Cycle poems, would that not point to Homer’s authorship of the two attributed to him?
I was taught he used existing, time honored plots and combined them with using his own muse.
—
That was after the teaching of classics and history were changed by know-nothing teachers.
Once his stories and plays became popular, and made money, his name was plagiarized by many of Joe Biden’s ancestors..............
Why would Herodotus, or any other Greek of the fifth century, know anything for sure about Homer’s authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey? Greeks of the classical period thought they knew many things about the Bronze Age which are now considered unproven legends. Thucydides thought he could use details in Homer as historical evidence.
that’s good! where is it from?
Hey! Go kipple somewhere else!
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