Misplaced Pages

#143856

79-540: In the five book epic Aethiopis , which was part of the Epic Cycle (or Cycle of Troy) on the Trojan War , the coming to Troy of Penthesilea and Memnon was described in detail. The Aethiopis was published in the 8th century BC and is attributed to Arctinus of Miletus . The main character of the epic is Achilles , who fights Penthesilea and Memnon before he is himself killed. Although Aethiopis has been lost,

158-453: A canonical text. The first printed edition of Homer was produced in 1488 in Milan, Italy by Demetrios Chalkokondyles . Today scholars use medieval manuscripts, papyri and other sources; some argue for a "multi-text" view, rather than seeking a single definitive text. The nineteenth-century edition of Arthur Ludwich mainly follows Aristarchus's work, whereas van Thiel's (1991, 1996) follows

237-610: A clear overall design and that they are not merely strung together from unrelated songs. It is also generally agreed that each poem was composed mostly by a single author, who probably relied heavily on older oral traditions. Nearly all scholars agree that the Doloneia in Book X of the Iliad is not part of the original poem, but rather a later insertion by a different poet. Some ancient scholars believed Homer to have been an eyewitness to

316-587: A company of Amazons to search for Penthesilea when she does not return from the Trojan War . The ship with Amazons is swept off course and after a shipwreck on the toe of Italy in Bruttium , Clete becomes the queen of the Amazons that settle there. In Virgil 's Aeneid , written between 29 and 19 BC, the Trojan army falls back when Achilles advances. Achilles drags the greatest Trojan warrior, Hector , around

395-531: A discredited dead end. Starting in around 1928, Milman Parry and Albert Lord , after their studies of folk bards in the Balkans, developed the "Oral-Formulaic Theory" that the Homeric poems were originally composed through improvised oral performances, which relied on traditional epithets and poetic formulas. This theory found very wide scholarly acceptance and explained many previously puzzling features of

474-415: A phrase or idea is repeated at both the beginning and end of a story, or a series of such ideas first appears in the order A, B, C ... before being reversed as ... C, B, A) has been observed in the Homeric epics. Opinion differs as to whether these occurrences are a conscious artistic device, a mnemonic aid or a spontaneous feature of human storytelling. Both of the Homeric poems begin with an invocation to

553-458: A queen by a crown. Penthesilea, shown on the ground just before being struck, and Achilles are exchanging a gaze. The final slab of the series on the Amazons depicts a truce between the Greek army and the Amazons at the end of the battle. According to Pausanias , the throne of Zeus at Olympia bore a painting by Panaenus of the dying Penthesilea being supported by Achilles. Pausanias wrote "And, at

632-484: A spear when they were hunting deer; this accident caused Penthesilea so much grief that she wished only to die, but, as a warrior and an Amazon, she had to do so honorably and in battle. She therefore was easily convinced to join in the Trojan War. Smyrnaeus also describes in gory detail how the army of Amazons surprises the Greek army and the slaughter that commenced. The Amazon Klonie, after slaying her first opponent,

711-592: Is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally . Despite being predominantly known for its tragic and serious themes, the Homeric poems also contain instances of comedy and laughter . Homer's epic poems shaped aspects of ancient Greek culture and education, fostering ideals of heroism, glory, and honor. To Plato , Homer was simply the one who "has taught Greece" ( τὴν Ἑλλάδα πεπαίδευκεν , tēn Helláda pepaídeuken ). In Dante Alighieri 's Divine Comedy , Virgil refers to Homer as "Poet sovereign", king of all poets; in

790-566: Is called parataxis . The so-called ' type scenes ' ( typische Szenen ), were named by Walter Arend in 1933. He noted that Homer often, when describing frequently recurring activities such as eating, praying , fighting and dressing, used blocks of set phrases in sequence that were then elaborated by the poet. The 'Analyst' school had considered these repetitions as un-Homeric, whereas Arend interpreted them philosophically. Parry and Lord noted that these conventions are found in many other cultures. 'Ring composition' or chiastic structure (when

869-474: Is described in detail by Virgil later in the epic. According to Virgil, Penthesilea led an army of Amazons and is a bellatrix (Latin for "female warrior") who dared to fight men ( audetque viris concurrere virgo ). Virgil based his narrative in Homer 's Iliad , while relying on the Epic Cycle for his portrayal of Penthesilea. Virgil also reworked oral legends into an epic on the foundation of Rome. In Aeneid

SECTION 10

#1732780902144

948-658: Is fundamentally based on Ionic Greek , in keeping with the tradition that Homer was from Ionia. Linguistic analysis suggests that the Iliad was composed slightly before the Odyssey and that Homeric formulae preserve features older than other parts of the poems. The poems were composed in unrhymed dactylic hexameter ; ancient Greek metre was quantity-based rather than stress-based. Homer frequently uses set phrases such as epithets ('crafty Odysseus ', 'rosy-fingered Dawn ', 'owl-eyed Athena ', etc.), Homeric formulae ('and then answered [him/her], Agamemnon, king of men', 'when

1027-423: Is in turn killed. Penthesilea mows through the Greek lines, killing eight warriors, and cuts the arm off the Greek warrior who had killed Klonie. Penthesilea's Amazon comrades Bremusa , Evandre and Thermodosa fight valiantly alongside her but are slain, and so are Derinoe , Alkibie and Derimachea. Penthesilea slays more Greeks with axe and spear . From the towers the Trojan women watch and Penthesilea inspires

1106-456: Is slain by Penthesilea. When she realizes that she and her pack of dogs have mangled the object of their desire, she dies herself through "a crushing feeling". The Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck wrote a 90' one-act opera, Penthesilea (Dresden, 1927) based on Kleist's drama. The French composer Pascal Dusapin 's opera based on Kleist's work premiered in 2015 at La Monnaie in Brussels under

1185-505: The Capture of Oechalia , and the Phocais . These claims are not considered authentic today and were not universally accepted in the ancient world. As with the multitude of legends surrounding Homer's life, they indicate little more than the centrality of Homer to ancient Greek culture. Some ancient accounts about Homer were established early and repeated often. They include that Homer

1264-521: The Iliad alone is massive, sprawling over nearly 4,000 oversized pages in a 21st-century printed version and his commentary on the Odyssey an additional nearly 2,000. In 1488, the Greek scholar Demetrios Chalkokondyles published in Florence the editio princeps of the Homeric poems. The earliest modern Homeric scholars started with the same basic approaches towards the Homeric poems as scholars in antiquity. The allegorical interpretation of

1343-897: The Iliad and the Odyssey are associated with the name "Homer". In antiquity, a large number of other works were sometimes attributed to him, including the Homeric Hymns , the Contest of Homer and Hesiod , several epigrams , the Little Iliad , the Nostoi , the Thebaid , the Cypria , the Epigoni , the comic mini-epic Batrachomyomachia ("The Frog–Mouse War"), the Margites ,

1422-443: The Iliad and the Odyssey in the sixth century BC by literate authors. After being written down, Wolf maintained that the two poems were extensively edited, modernized, and eventually shaped into their present state as artistic unities. Wolf and the "Analyst" school, which led the field in the nineteenth century, sought to recover the original, authentic poems which were thought to be concealed by later excrescences. Within

1501-462: The Muse . In the Iliad , the poet beseeches her to sing of "the anger of Achilles", and in the Odyssey , he asks her to tell of "the man of many ways". A similar opening was later employed by Virgil in his Aeneid . The orally transmitted Homeric poems were put into written form at some point between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE. Some scholars believe that they were dictated to a scribe by

1580-639: The Odyssey during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. As a result of the poems' prominence in classical Greek education, extensive commentaries on them developed to explain parts that were culturally or linguistically difficult. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, many interpreters, especially the Stoics , who believed that Homeric poems conveyed Stoic doctrines, regarded them as allegories, containing hidden wisdom. Perhaps partially because of

1659-574: The Odyssey in which Telemachus went in search of news of his father not to Menelaus in Sparta but to Idomeneus in Crete, in which Telemachus met up with his father in Crete and conspired with him to return to Ithaca disguised as the soothsayer Theoclymenus, and in which Penelope recognized Odysseus much earlier in the narrative and conspired with him in the destruction of the suitors. Most contemporary scholars, although they disagree on other questions about

SECTION 20

#1732780902144

1738-526: The Romans descended from the hero Aeneas and Trojan refugees who sailed to Italy after the Trojan War . This interweaving of the Penthesilea legend with the founding legend of Rome can be traced to Lycophron . In his universal history Bibliotheca historica , Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC celebrated Penthesilea as the last Amazon to win renown for valour in war. Diodorus wrote that after

1817-506: The Trojan War the Amazons diminished and tales of their former glory began to be considered mere legends. In the 4th century AD, the imperial Greek poet Quintus Smyrnaeus made Penthesilea the subject of the first book in Posthomerica . In this epic, Smyrnaeus tries to finish Homer by telling the colourful story of how the city of Troy fell. This work explains how Penthesilea came to be at Troy: Penthesilea had killed Hippolyta with

1896-427: The Trojan War ; others thought he had lived up to 500 years afterwards. Contemporary scholars continue to debate the date of the poems. A long history of oral transmission lies behind the composition of the poems, complicating the search for a precise date. At one extreme, Richard Janko has proposed a date for both poems to the eighth century BC based on linguistic analysis and statistics. Barry B. Powell dates

1975-569: The Amazon after her death and slew Thersites for jeering at him". In the 3rd century BC, Lycophron went against the grain of the Homeric tradition. The poet had been born in Euboea , the site of a shrine to wounded Amazons who had fought in a mythic Battle for Athens. Lycophron tells the story of the young Amazon Clete , Penthesilea's attendant, who had been left behind in Pontus . Clete sets out with

2054-545: The Analyst school were two camps: proponents of the "lay theory", which held that the Iliad and the Odyssey were put together from a large number of short, independent songs, and proponents of the "nucleus theory", which held that Homer had originally composed shorter versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey , which later poets expanded and revised. A small group of scholars opposed to the Analysts, dubbed "Unitarians", saw

2133-800: The Bronze Age Aegean civilisation , which in many ways resembles the ancient Near East more than the society described by Homer. Some aspects of the Homeric world are simply made up; for instance, the Iliad 22.145–56 describes there being two springs that run near the city of Troy, one that runs steaming hot and the other that runs icy cold. It is here that Hector takes his final stand against Achilles. Archaeologists, however, have uncovered no evidence that springs of this description ever actually existed. The Homeric epics are written in an artificial literary language or 'Kunstsprache' only used in epic hexameter poetry. Homeric Greek shows features of multiple regional Greek dialects and periods, but

2212-625: The Epic Cycle has been adapted and recycled in different periods of the classical age. The tradition of retelling the epic fall of Troy is indebted to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey , which were grounded in oral storytelling and were only written down when the Greek alphabet was adopted in ancient Greece . In the Aethiopis Penthesilea is a Thracian woman warrior . She was an Amazon and daughter of Ares , who comes to help

2291-500: The Form of an epic Poem till Pisistratus ' time, about 500 Years after." Friedrich August Wolf 's Prolegomena ad Homerum , published in 1795, argued that much of the material later incorporated into the Iliad and the Odyssey was originally composed in the tenth century BC in the form of short, separate oral songs, which passed through oral tradition for roughly four hundred years before being assembled into prototypical versions of

2370-476: The Homeric poems that had been so prevalent in antiquity returned to become the prevailing view of the Renaissance . Renaissance humanists praised Homer as the archetypically wise poet, whose writings contain hidden wisdom, disguised through allegory. In western Europe during the Renaissance , Virgil was more widely read than Homer and Homer was often seen through a Virgilian lens. In 1664, contradicting

2449-433: The Homeric poems' extensive use in education, many authors believed that Homer's original purpose had been to educate. Homer's wisdom became so widely praised that he began to acquire the image of almost a prototypical philosopher. Byzantine scholars such as Eustathius of Thessalonica and John Tzetzes produced commentaries, extensions and scholia to Homer, especially in the twelfth century. Eustathius's commentary on

Penthesilea - Misplaced Pages Continue

2528-563: The Homeric poems, including their unusually archaic language, their extensive use of stock epithets, and their other "repetitive" features. Many scholars concluded that the "Homeric Question" had finally been answered. Meanwhile, the 'Neoanalysts' sought to bridge the gap between the 'Analysts' and 'Unitarians'. The Neoanalysts sought to trace the relationships between the Homeric poems and other epic poems, which have now been lost, but of which modern scholars do possess some patchy knowledge. Neoanalysts hold that knowledge of earlier versions of

2607-470: The Middle Ages. In John Gower 's Confessio Amanatis she travels to Troy from Pafagoine. She is slain by Pirrus the son of Achilles. Philemenis returned her body for burial. He was rewarded with three fair maidens per year. Biographical lists of strong women were published, some included Penthesilea. The 1405 Chronicle (known as Haagse handschrift ) by the herald Baviere included Penthesilea and

2686-587: The Penthesilea legend appear to have existed at the time the Epic Cycle was published. One myth states that it was Neoptolemus who killed Penthesilea, instead of Achilles. In a lost poem of Stesichorus , believed to have been published in the 7th or 6th century, Penthesilea rather than Achilles had killed Hector . In the Pseudo-Apollodorus Epitome of the Bibliotheke she is said to have been killed by Achilles, "who fell in love with

2765-757: The Trojan War against the Greeks to impress Hector. But Penthesilea and her Amazon troops were slain at the end of a hard-fought battle with the Greeks. After recounting Penthesilea's accomplishments in De Mulieribus Claris Boccaccio wrote that "if we remember that practical experience can change natural dispositions" the legends of the Amazons become plausible. He wrote that "through practice, Penthesilea and women like her became much more manly in arms than those born male" who had been weakened through idleness and love of pleasure. The notion that upbringing and training were central to gender differences

2844-620: The Trojan king Priam had fought the Amazons in his youth on the Sangarius River in Phrygia , some 350 miles east of Troy. Later writers of the antiquity located Amazons geographically in Anatolia and started an epic tradition where Greek heroes, such as Heracles and Theseus , fought an Amazon warrior of distinction. The Aethiopis version of the Penthesilea legend has become known as the Homeric tradition. Different traditions of

2923-535: The Trojans. She arrived with twelve other Amazon warriors. After a day of distinguishing herself on the battlefield, Penthesilea confronts Achilles and a fight ensues. Achilles kills her, and Thersites taunts Achilles by accusing him of having fallen in love with Penthesilea. Thersites is killed by Achilles after he punches Thersites so hard he dies, he then travels to the island of Lesbos to be purified before returning to Troy and fighting Memnon. According to Homer,

3002-527: The Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.236 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 944250323 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 08:01:42 GMT Homer This is an accepted version of this page Homer ( / ˈ h oʊ m ər / ; Ancient Greek : Ὅμηρος [hómɛːros] , Hómēros ; born c.  8th century BCE )

3081-432: The baton of Ludovic Morlot . Austrian composer Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) wrote a symphonic poem on the legend entitled Penthesilea (1883–85). In Edward Bellamy's 1888 book Looking Backward , the main character (Julian West) is transported in time from 1887 (discovery date of the asteroid Penthesilea ) to 2000. There, in the year 2000, the main character reads a book by one of the 20th century's most famous writers by

3160-483: The city walls and sells his dead body to king Priam for gold. Penthesilea is cast as a tragic Amazon queen who came too late in vain to help the beleaguered city. When Aeneas sees the panel of Penthesilea in the Juno temple of Carthage , he knows that the defeat of Penthesilea and Memnon presage a chain of events that would culminate in the sacking of the city. Penthesilea's fate also foreshadows that of Camilla , which

3239-482: The composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey to sometime between 800 and 750 BC, based on the statement from Herodotus , who lived in the late fifth century BC, that Homer lived four hundred years before his own time "and not more" ( καὶ οὐ πλέοσι ) and on the fact that the poems do not mention hoplite battle tactics, inhumation , or literacy. Martin Litchfield West has argued that the Iliad echoes

Penthesilea - Misplaced Pages Continue

3318-596: The days of the Roman emperor Hadrian says Epicaste (daughter of Nestor ) and Telemachus (son of Odysseus ) were the parents of Homer. The two best known ancient biographies of Homer are the Life of Homer by the Pseudo-Herodotus and the Contest of Homer and Hesiod . In the early fourth century BC Alcidamas composed a fictional account of a poetry contest at Chalcis with both Homer and Hesiod . Homer

3397-545: The divisions back further to the Classical period. Very few credit Homer himself with the divisions. In antiquity, it was widely held that the Homeric poems were collected and organised in Athens in the late sixth century BCE by Pisistratus (died 528/7 BCE), in what subsequent scholars have dubbed the "Peisistratean recension". The idea that the Homeric poems were originally transmitted orally and first written down during

3476-479: The early-born rose-fingered Dawn came to light', 'thus he/she spoke'), simile , type scenes, ring composition and repetition. These habits aid the extemporizing bard, and are characteristic of oral poetry. For instance, the main words of a Homeric sentence are generally placed towards the beginning, whereas literate poets like Virgil or Milton use longer and more complicated syntactical structures. Homer then expands on these ideas in subsequent clauses; this technique

3555-456: The epics can be derived from anomalies of structure and detail in the surviving versions of the Iliad and Odyssey . These anomalies point to earlier versions of the Iliad in which Ajax played a more prominent role, in which the Achaean embassy to Achilles comprised different characters, and in which Patroclus was actually mistaken for Achilles by the Trojans. They point to earlier versions of

3634-458: The extremity of the painting, is Penthesilea breathing her last, and Achilles supporting her". The motif of Achilles supporting a dying or dead Penthesilea has been preserved at the Temple of Aphrodisias and was reinterpreted in sculptures and mosaics in ancient Rome . A black-figure vase from about 510–500 BC shows Achilles carrying Penthesilea from the battlefield. The subject of Penthesilea

3713-639: The fictional name of Berrian. The title of this book is "Penthesilia" [sic] and it is a romance that supposedly exposes the true power and fullest extent of love. In Robert Graves ' short poem "Penthesileia", Achilles becomes infatuated with Penthesilia immediately after killing her, and then slays Thersites for his mockery of Achilles' behavior. The last verse is open to interpretation, some have interpreted it that Penthelisea's ghost thanks Thersites for standing up for her honour, but it has been suggested that she thanks Achilles for killing Thersites. Aethiopis Too Many Requests If you report this error to

3792-565: The first collection of biographies in Western literature that was devoted to famous women. The De Mulieribus Claris was published in Latin and dedicated to Andrea Acciaioli , the Countess of Altavilla . According to Boccaccio, Penthesilea succeeded the Amazon queens Antiope and Orithyia . She was in strength and skill superior to previous queens. According to Boccaccio, Penthesilea entered

3871-432: The genesis of the poems, agree that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not produced by the same author, based on "the many differences of narrative manner, theology, ethics, vocabulary, and geographical perspective, and by the apparently imitative character of certain passages of the Odyssey in relation to the Iliad ." Nearly all scholars agree that the Iliad and the Odyssey are unified poems, in that each poem shows

3950-528: The ideals of chivalry . When kneeling before Hector's corpse, Penthesilea promises to avenge his death. Penthesilea fights at the side of the Trojan army, killing many Greek soldiers, but is slain by Achilles' son. In this tradition of the legend, her body is taken to the Thermodon for burial. Along the Terme River , various temple burial sites attest to the heroic status Penthesilea had as Amazon queen in

4029-434: The judge awarded Hesiod the prize; the poet who praised husbandry , he said, was greater than the one who told tales of battles and slaughter. The study of Homer is one of the oldest topics in scholarship, dating back to antiquity. Nonetheless, the aims of Homeric studies have changed over the course of the millennia. The earliest preserved comments on Homer concern his treatment of the gods, which hostile critics such as

SECTION 50

#1732780902144

4108-535: The later Iron Age during which they were composed; yet the same heroes are cremated (an Iron Age practice) rather than buried (as they were in the Bronze Age). In some parts of the Homeric poems, heroes are described as carrying large shields like those used by warriors during the Mycenaean period , but, in other places, they are instead described carrying the smaller shields that were commonly used during

4187-603: The later additions as superior, the work of a single inspired poet. By around 1830, the central preoccupations of Homeric scholars, dealing with whether or not "Homer" actually existed, when and how the Homeric poems originated, how they were transmitted, when and how they were finally written down, and their overall unity, had been dubbed "the Homeric Question". Following World War I , the Analyst school began to fall out of favor among Homeric scholars. It did not die out entirely, but it came to be increasingly seen as

4266-594: The medieval genre roman antique, which recycled Greek and Roman myths in a chivalric romance context. In late medieval Europe the legend was further popularised in Christine de Pizan 's The Book of the City of Ladies (1405) and John Lydgate 's Troy Book (1420). Penthesilea and Hector became romantic heroes. Penthesilea came to Troy because she had fallen in love with the virtuous knight Hector from afar. Hector and Penthesilea were portrayed as personifications of

4345-464: The mid- to late-5th century BC, scenes from the Trojan War are preserved in the Bassae Frieze , a high relief marble sculpture in 23 panels. Here the Greek army is charged by the Amazons, who gain the upper hand, and at the height of the battle Achilles slays Penthesilea on a slab known as BM 537. Achilles and Penthesilea are flanked by a Greek soldier and an Amazon. Penthesilea is identified as

4424-476: The myth of the Trojan War, others that the poem was inspired by multiple similar sieges that took place over the centuries. Most scholars now agree that the Homeric poems depict customs and elements of the material world that are derived from different periods of Greek history. For instance, the heroes in the poems use bronze weapons, characteristic of the Bronze Age in which the poems are set, rather than

4503-416: The other extreme, a few American scholars such as Gregory Nagy see "Homer" as a continually evolving tradition, which grew much more stable as the tradition progressed, but which did not fully cease to continue changing and evolving until as late as the middle of the second century BC. "'Homer" is a name of unknown etymological origin, around which many theories were erected in antiquity. One such linkage

4582-476: The poems were created in the eighth century, they continued to be orally transmitted with considerable revision until they were written down in the sixth century. After textualisation, the poems were each divided into 24 rhapsodes, today referred to as books, and labelled by the letters of the Greek alphabet . Most scholars attribute the book divisions to the Hellenistic scholars of Alexandria , in Egypt. Some trace

4661-429: The poet Xenophanes of Colophon denounced as immoral. The allegorist Theagenes of Rhegium is said to have defended Homer by arguing that the Homeric poems are allegories . The Iliad and the Odyssey were widely used as school texts in ancient Greek and Hellenistic cultures. They were the first literary works taught to all students. The Iliad , particularly its first few books, was far more intently studied than

4740-457: The poet and that our inherited versions of the Iliad and Odyssey were in origin orally dictated texts. Albert Lord noted that the Balkan bards that he was studying revised and expanded their songs in their process of dictating. Some scholars hypothesize that a similar process of revision and expansion occurred when the Homeric poems were first written down. Other scholars hold that, after

4819-486: The poetry of Hesiod and that it must have been composed around 660–650 BC at the earliest, with the Odyssey up to a generation later. He also interprets passages in the Iliad as showing knowledge of historical events that occurred in the ancient Near East during the middle of the seventh century BC, including the destruction of Babylon by Sennacherib in 689 BC and the Sack of Thebes by Ashurbanipal in 663/4 BC. At

SECTION 60

#1732780902144

4898-420: The preface to his translation of the Iliad , Alexander Pope acknowledges that Homer has always been considered the "greatest of poets". From antiquity to the present day, Homeric epics have inspired many famous works of literature, music, art, and film. The question of by whom, when, where and under what circumstances the Iliad and Odyssey were composed continues to be debated. Scholars generally regard

4977-600: The reign of Pisistratus is referenced by the first-century BCE Roman orator Cicero and is also referenced in a number of other surviving sources, including two ancient Lives of Homer . From around 150 BCE, the texts of the Homeric poems found in papyrus fragments exhibit much less variation, and the text seems to have become relatively stable. After the establishment of the Library of Alexandria , Homeric scholars such as Zenodotus of Ephesus, Aristophanes of Byzantium and in particular Aristarchus of Samothrace helped establish

5056-412: The sack of Troy was dated to 1184 BC. By the nineteenth century, there was widespread scholarly skepticism that the Trojan War had ever happened and that Troy had even existed, but in 1873 Heinrich Schliemann announced to the world that he had discovered the ruins of Homer's Troy at Hisarlik in modern Turkey. Some contemporary scholars think the destruction of Troy VIIa c. 1220 BC was the origin of

5135-516: The society depicted by Homer is based on his own or one which was, even at the time of the poems' composition, known only as legends. The Homeric epics are largely set in the east and center of the Mediterranean , with some scattered references to Egypt , Ethiopia and other distant lands, in a warlike society that resembles that of the Greek world slightly before the hypothesized date of the poems' composition. In ancient Greek chronology,

5214-529: The ten-year journey of Odysseus , king of Ithaca , back to his home after the fall of Troy. The epics depict man's struggle, the Odyssey especially so as Odysseus perseveres through punishment of the gods. The poems are in Homeric Greek , also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence

5293-484: The time when the poems were written in the early Iron Age. In the Iliad 10.260–265, Odysseus is described as wearing a helmet made of boar's tusks . Such helmets were not worn in Homer's time, but were commonly worn by aristocratic warriors between 1600 and 1150 BC. The decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris and continued archaeological investigation has increased modern scholars' understanding of

5372-514: The two Amazons Semiramis and Tomyris among the strong women. A Netherlandish list of 101 strong women published between 1465 and 1480 included Penthesilea. This list of 101 women circulated at the court of Mary of Burgundy and was read by members of the Brussels administration. Philippe Bouton in 1480 published a Miroir des dames , which included Penthesilea. Between 1361 and 1362 the Italian Giovanni Boccaccio wrote

5451-419: The two poems as the works of separate authors. It is thought that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. Many accounts of Homer's life circulated in classical antiquity , the most widespread that he was a blind bard from Ionia , a region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey. Modern scholars consider these accounts legendary . Today, only

5530-495: The widespread praise of Homer as the epitome of wisdom, François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac wrote a scathing attack on the Homeric poems, declaring that they were incoherent, immoral, tasteless, and without style, that Homer never existed, and that the poems were hastily cobbled together by incompetent editors from unrelated oral songs. Fifty years later, the English scholar Richard Bentley concluded that Homer did exist but that he

5609-429: The young Hippodamia , who urges the Trojan women to join the battle. Antimachus' daughter Tisiphone gives an inspirational speech: "not in strength are we inferior to men; the same our eyes, our limbs the same; one common light we see, one air we breathe; nor different is the food we eat. What then denied to us hath heaven on man bestowed? O let us hasten to the glorious war!" At the Temple of Apollo Epicurius , built in

5688-462: Was an Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey , two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature . Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history. Homer's Iliad centers on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War . The Odyssey chronicles

5767-532: Was an obscure, prehistoric oral poet whose compositions bear little relation to the Iliad and the Odyssey as they have been passed down. According to Bentley, Homer "wrote a Sequel of Songs and Rhapsodies, to be sung by himself for small Earnings and good Cheer at Festivals and other Days of Merriment; the Ilias he wrote for men, and the Odysseis for the other Sex. These loose songs were not collected together in

5846-509: Was blind (taking as self-referential a passage describing the blind bard Demodocus ), that he resided at Chios , that he was the son of the river Meles and the nymph Critheïs , that he was a wandering bard, that he composed a varying list of other works (the "Homerica"), that he died either in Ios or after failing to solve a riddle set by fishermen, and various explanations for the name "Homer" ( Ὅμηρος , Hómēros ). Another tradition from

5925-467: Was developed and recycled, with Achilles fading into the background. In illuminations that illustrated manuscripts, Penthesilea was cast as medieval warrior queen. A tradition developed where Penthesilea entered the Trojan War because of her reverence for the Trojan hero Hector. Penthesilea appears in the Roman de Troie (1160) by Benoît de Sainte-Maure as a chivalric heroine, and through this became part of

6004-410: Was discussed by Agostino Strozzi and Mario Equicola in 16th century Italy. The treatment of Penthesilea that has received most critical attention since the early twentieth century is the drama Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist , who cast its "precipitously violent tempo" in the form of twenty-four consecutive scenes without formal breaks into acts . In Kleist's Penthesilea, however, Achilles

6083-477: Was expected to win, and answered all of Hesiod's questions and puzzles with ease. Then, each of the poets was invited to recite the best passage from their work. Hesiod selected the beginning of Works and Days : "When the Pleiades born of Atlas  ... all in due season". Homer chose a description of Greek warriors in formation, facing the foe, taken from the Iliad . Though the crowd acclaimed Homer victor,

6162-449: Was to the Greek ὅμηρος ( hómēros ' hostage ' or ' surety ' ). The explanations suggested by modern scholars tend to mirror their position on the overall Homeric Question. Nagy interprets it as "he who fits (the song) together". West has advanced both possible Greek and Phoenician etymologies. Scholars continue to debate questions such as whether the Trojan War actually took place – and if so when and where – and to what extent

6241-472: Was treated so regularly by the so-called Penthesilea Painter , who was active between 470 and 450 BC, that Adolf Furtwängler dubbed him "The Penthesilea Painter". A considerable corpus for this innovative and prolific painter, whose work bridged the Severe style and Classicism and must have had a workshop of his own, was rapidly assembled in part by J.D. Beazley . In Medieval Europe , the Penthesilea legend

#143856