Why Homer Matters

by Adam Nicolson

  Armstrong, C. B. “The Casualty Lists in the Trojan War.” Greece and Rome 16 (1969), 30–31.

  Bachhuber, Christoph. “The Treasure Deposits of Troy: Rethinking Crisis and Agency on the Early Bronze Age Citadel.” Anatolian Studies 59 (2009), 1–18.

  Butler, Elizabeth Wayland. Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth and Society in Early Times. New York: Norton, 1994.

  Carter, J. B., and S. P. Morris. The Ages of Homer. A Tribute to E. Townsend Vermeule. 1995; reprint, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.

  Easton, D. F. “Heinrich Schliemann: Hero or Fraud?” Classical World 91, no. 5, The World of Troy (May–June 1998), 335–43.

  ______. “Priam’s Gold: The Full Story.” Anatolian Studies 44 (1994), 221–43.

  Easton, D. F., J. D. Hawkins, A. G. Sherratt and E. S. Sherratt. “Troy in Recent Perspective.” Anatolian Studies 52 (2002), 75–109.

  Jacobs, Bruce A., and Richard Wright. Street Justice: Retaliation in the Criminal Underworld. Cambridge Studies in Criminology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

  Meyer, E. “Schliemann’s Letters to Max Müller in Oxford.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 82 (1962), 75–105.

  Neal, Tamara. “Blood and Hunger in the Iliad.” Classical Philology 101, no. 1 (Jan. 2006), 15–33.

  Sánchez-Jankowski, Martín. Islands in the Street: Gangs and American Urban Society. Oakland: University of California Press, 1991.

  Simpson, Colton, with Ann Pearlman. Inside the Crips. Cambridge: St. Martin’s Press, 2005.

  Treister, Mikhail. “The Trojan Treasures: Description, Chronology, Historical Context.” In The Gold of Troy, edited by Vladimir Tolstikov and Mikhail Treister. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996, 225–29.

  Wright, James C. “The Place of Troy among the Civilizations of the Bronze Age.” Classical World 91, no. 5, The World of Troy (May–June 1998), 356–68.

  THE VIEW IN THE MIRROR

  Beckman, Gary, ed. Hittite Diplomatic Texts. 2nd ed. SBL Writings from the Ancient World series. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999.

  Cook, J. M. “Bath-Tubs in Ancient Greece.” Greece and Rome, 2nd ser., 6, no. 1 (Mar. 1959), 31–41.

  Dothan, T. The Philistines and Their Material Culture. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982.

  Dothan, T., and M. Dothan. People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1992.

  Finkelberg, Margalit. “Timē and Aretē in Homer.” Classical Quarterly, new ser., 48, no. 1 (1998), 14–28.

  Gardiner, A. H. Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, Third Series: Chester Beatty Gift. I, 41. London: British Museum, 1935.

  Gilgamesh. Epic XI.239–55. Translated in Gary A. Rendsburg, “Notes on Genesis XXXV.” Vetus Testamentum 34, fasc. 3 (July 1984), 361–66.

  Gitin, Seymour, Amihai Mazar, and Ephraim Stern, eds. Mediterranean Peoples in Transition, Thirteenth to Early Tenth Centuries B.C.E. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1998.

  Güterbock, Hans G. “Hittites and Akhaeans: A New Look.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 128, no. 2 (June 1984), 114–22.

  Hays, J. Daniel. “Reconsidering the Height of Goliath.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48, no. 4 (Dec. 2005), 701–14.

  Hodge, Carleton T. “Indo-Europeans in the Near East.” Anthropological Linguistics 35, no. 1/4, A Retrospective of the Journal Anthropological Linguistics: Selected Papers, 1959–1985 (1993), 90–108.

  Kelly, Adrian. “Homer and History: ‘Iliad’ 9.381–4.” Mnemosyne, 4th ser., 59, fasc. 3 (2006), 321–33.

  Kemp, Barry. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilisation. Oxford: Routledge, 2007.

  Mallory, J. P., and D. Q. Adams. The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World (Oxford Linguistics). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

  Parkinson, R. B., ed. and trans. The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Egyptian Poems, 1940–1640 BC. 1997; reprint, Oxford University Press, 2009.

  Prag, A. J. N. W., Lena Papazoglou-Manioudaki, R. A. H. Neave, Denise Smith, J. H. Musgrave and A. Nafplioti. “Mycenae Revisited: Part 1. The Human Remains from a Grave Circle.” Annual of the British School at Athens 104 (2009), 233–77.

  Reece, Steve. “The Homeric asaminthos: Stirring the Waters of the Mycenaean Bath.” Mnemosyne, 4th ser., 55, fasc. 6 (2002), 703–8.

  Stager, L. E. “The Impact of the Sea Peoples in Canaan (1185–1050 BCE).” in The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land, edited by T. E. Levy, 332–48. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1995.

  West, Martin L. “Atreus and Attarissiyas.” Glotta 77 (2001), 262–66.

  Yadin, Azzan. “Goliath’s Armor and Israelite Collective Memory.” Vetus Testamentum 54, fasc. 3 (July 2004), 373–95.

  ODYSSEUS’S JOURNEYS

  Abulafia, David. The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

  Benton, Sylvia. “Note on Sea-Birds.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 92 (1972), 172–73.

  Boraston, J. MacLair. “The Birds of Homer.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 31 (1911), 216–50.

  Diodorus Siculus. Library of History, 5.3.2. Online at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/5A*.html.

  Friedrich, Paul. “An Avian and Aphrodisian Reading of Homer’s Odyssey.” American Anthropologist, new ser., 99, no. 2 (June 1997), 306–20.

  Helms, Mary W. Ulysses’ Sail: An Ethnographic Odyssey of Power, Knowledge and Geographical Distance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988.

  Reade, Julian. Assyrian Sculpture. 1983; reprint, London: British Museum, 1988.

  Rorty, Richard. “Trotsky and the Wild Orchids” (1992). In Philosophy and Social Hope. London: Penguin, 1999.

  Russell, Anthony. “In the Middle of the Corrupting Sea: Cultural Encounters in Sicily and Sardinia between 1450–900 BC.” PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2011, online at http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2670/.

  Waterhouse, Helen. “From Ithaca to the Odyssey.” Annual of the British School at Athens 91 (1996), 301–17.

  HOMER’S MEANING

  Davis, David B., ed. Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1956.

  Erdman, David V., ed. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, revised edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

  Ferber, Michael. “Shelley and ‘The Disastrous Fame of Conquerors.’” Keats-Shelley Journal 51 (2002), 145–73.

  Oswald, Alice. Memorial: An Excavation of the Iliad. London: Faber, 2011.

  Plett, Heinrich F. Enargeia in Classical Antiquity and the Early Modern Age: The Aesthetics of Evidence. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

  Rorty, Richard. “Against Belatedness.” London Review of Books, June 16, 1983, 3–5.

  Sontag, Susan. Review of Selected Essays, by Simone Weil (1962), translated by Richard Rees. New York Review of Books, Feb. 1, 1963.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This is to thank everyone who, over many years, knowingly or not, has helped me along Homer’s tangled paths.

  George Fairhurst; Vassilis Papadimitriou; Gavin Francis; Robert Macfarlane; Ali Serle; Juliet Nicolson; Rebecca Nicolson; Aurea Carpenter; Andrew Palmer; Paul Johnston; Alexandra Chaldecott; Ivan Samarine; Jim Richardson; Oliver Payne; Claire Whalley; Koenraad Kuiper; Liz Broomfield; Mary Keen; Laura Beatty; Martin Thomas; Matthew Reynolds; Matthew Rice; Nicholas Purcell; Philip Marsden; Robert Sackville-West; Richard Klein; Sarah Longley; Sigrid Rausing; Stephen Romer; Thomas Pennybacker; Casey Dué; David Sansone; Garry Fabian Miller; Charlie Burrell; Issy Burrell.

  Sofka Zinovieff is the best friend, guide and companion anyone could wish for. Tim Dee took me to all sorts of Homeric places in a way that transformed my understanding of Homer. Caroline Alexander came and talked about my Homeric ideas for many vigorous and illuminating hours. David Anthony provided supremely helpful signposts to the world of the steppe.

  I would particular
ly like to thank Kylie Richardson of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and Matt Hosty of Jesus College, Oxford, for the care and trouble they took in saving me from the worst of mistakes. Needless to say, they bear no responsibility for those that remain.

  At Henry Holt, Courtney Reed has been efficiency itself and Jack Macrae nothing short of an inspiration. I would particularly like to thank Zoë Pagnamenta, my agent, for encouragement and brilliance over many years.

  Above all I want to thank my wife, Sarah, and the children for co-habiting with Homer, who is not the easiest of houseguests, for quite so long. This book is dedicated to them.

  Sarah Raven

  Molly Nicolson

  Rosie Nicolson

  Benedict Nicolson

  William Nicolson

  Thomas Nicolson

  INDEX

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  Abydos

  Achaea

  Achilles

  Briseis and

  death of

  ghost of

  hair of

  hands of

  lyre and

  meeting of Hector and

  shield of

  steppe culture and

  Addison, Joseph

  Aegean Sea

  aegis

  Aegisthus

  Aeneas

  Aeschylus, Oresteia

  Aesop

  Afghanistan

  Africa

  Agamemnon

  Briseis and

  death of

  Agricola, Georgius

  Ahhiyawa

  Ajax

  Alaksandu

  Albania

  Alcinous

  Alexander the Great

  Alexandria

  Ptolemaic library

  alphabet

  Phoenician

  amber

  amethyst

  Amurru

  anagnōrsis

  Anatolia

  Andalusia

  Andromachē

  animals

  sacrifices

  See also specific animals

  Antiopē

  Aphrodite

  Apollinaire, Guillaume

  Apollo

  Apulia

  Aramaeans

  Arcadia

  archaeology

  Buchner and

  Petrie and

  Shaft Graves

  Troy

  Ulu Burun ship wreck

  Arēs

  Argolid

  Argos

  Aristarchus

  Aristotle

  Rhetoric

  Armenia

  Arnold, Matthew

  arsenic

  Artemis

  Ashnan

  Asinē

  Astyanax

  Atē

  Athene

  Athens

  Atlantic Ocean

  Atreus

  Attarissiya

  Attica

  Auk

  axes

  Azores

  azurite

  Babylon

  Bachelard, Gaston, The Poetics of Space

  Baghdad

  Bagot, Reverend Walter

  Bajgorić, Halil

  Balboa, Vasco Núñez de

  Balkans

  Baltic Sea

  Barlow, Joel

  Bašić, Ibrahim

  baths

  of Circe

  beach

  leaving a

  beauty

  of warriors

  Belarus

  Bellerophon

  Benbecula

  Bentley, Richard

  Beowulf

  Berlin

  Bible

  birds

  Odysseus visited by

  Black Sea

  blackwood

  Blackwood’s Magazine

  Blake, William

  Blegen, Carl

  blindness

  Boardman, John

  Bogaskale

  Bosnia

  Boston Museum of Fine Arts

  bow and arrow

  Briseis

  British Museum

  bronze

  spearheads

  tin-copper alloy

  weaponry

  Bronze Age

  cross-continental journeys

  European

  iron in

  Ulu Burun ship wreck

  weaponry

  White Horse

  Broodbank, Cyprian

  Buchner, Giorgio

  Bulgaria

  burial mounds

  Butler, Samuel

  Byblos

  Byzantium

  editions of Iliad

  caesura

  Calabria

  calcite

  Calliope

  Calvert, Frank

  Calypso

  Campania

  Canaan

  cannibalism

  canoes

  Caravaggio

  Carthage

  Caspian Sea

  Caspian steppe

  cattle

  Caucasus

  Cebriones

  Celts

  coins

  Chalcondyles, Demetrius

  Chania

  Chapman, George

  chariots

  races

  technology

  childbirth

  children

  graves of

  of Troy

  China

  Chinflón

  Chios

  choreia

  Christianity

  cinnabar

  Circe

  city-states

  Clarke, Charles Cowden

  classicism

  Clytemnestra

  coinage

  Celtic

  Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

  Collins, Tim

  Columbus, Christopher

  Congreve, William

  Constant, Benjamin, Adolphe

  Constantinople

  copper

  mining

  copying texts

  Corinth

  Cornwall

  Cortés

  cosmology

  Cowper, William

  crafts

  creed

  cremation

  Crete

  writing

  crocus-cloth

  Crusades

  cummings, e. e.

  cuneiform

  Cyclades

  Cyclops

  Cyprus

  Czech Republic

  dactyls

  Daedalus

  dance

  Dante

  Danube River

  David and Goliath

  dawn, departures at

  Dead Sea Scrolls

  death

  burial mounds

  Egypt and

  funeral pyre

  Iliad and

  masks

  meadow of

  of Patroclus

  Pithekoussai graves

  thump

  threat of

  visit to Hades

  See also graves

  dedmēto

  Deïphobus

  Delos

  Delphi

  Demodocus

  Denmark

  departures

  for Hades

  De Quincey, Thomas

  destiny

  diadems

  Diodorus Siculus

  Diomedes

  dogs

  metal

  Dolōn

  Dörpfeld, Wilhelm

  doupein

  dromoi

  drought

  Dué, Casey

  Easton, Donald

  ebony

  economies

  Egypt

  Alexandrian Homer

  gold

  Hawara Homer

  poverty in

  scarabs


  Sinuhe and

  eisos

  Elba

  elegy

  Eliot, T. S.

  Elizabeth I, Queen of England

  Elpēnōr

  Emporio

  Enlightenment

  epics

  hexameters

  spoken

  See also specific epics

  Escorial

  Eteocles

  Etruria

  Euboea

  Euphorbus

  European Bronze Age

  Eurycleia

  Eustathius

  Evans, Arthur

  Examiner

  Extremadura

  stone stelae

  Fagles, Robert

  Odyssey translation

  faience beads

  Fairhurst, George

  fame

  farming

  Neolithic

  Faroes

  fate

  fathers

  missing

  Fayum Depression

  Fermor, Patrick Leigh

  Finucane, Ronald

  fish

  Florence

  Laurentian Library

  flowers

  food

  horse as

  France

  frescoes

  Pylos

  funeral pyre

  for Patroclus

  Gaelic

  galena

  Galicia

  gangs

  Iliad and

  St. Louis

  gardens

  Gautier, Théophile

  Gaza

  Genesis

  Germany

  World War II

  Nazi

  ghosts

  Gibraltar

  Gilgamesh

  Glaucus

  Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von

  gold

  Celtic coin

  cups

  jewelry

  of Troy

  Goliath

  Goncourt, Edmond de

  Goncourt, Jules de

  Gorgythion

  government

  grains

  grammar

  graves

  of children

  horses and

  masks

  mounds

  Pithekoussai

  Shaft

  single burials

  Sintashta

  Stone Age

  Thapsos

  weapons in

  Great Britain

  World War II

  Greece

  Bronze Age

  Dark Ages

  Hellenistic

  Iron Age

  Mycenaen

  origin of Greek consciousness

  Greek

  classical

  early written

  first printed Homer

  Hawara Homer

  Linear B

  Gulf of Argolis

  guslars

  Hades

  departure for

  Odysseus and

  hair

  blonde

  dark

  of Goliath

  of warriors

  hands

  Harrison, Richard

  Harvard University

  Hattusa tablets

  Hawara Homer

  Hayasa

  Heaney, Seamus