Homer

The greatest poet of ancient Greece; lived 9th or 8th century BC (?) in Ionia (?)

The Greek poet Homer was already a mystical figure in ancient Greece, and not much more about him is known today. Greek authors, poets and philosophers considered him the author of the two greatest epic poems of European civilization, the Iliad and the Odyssey. If this belief is correct, Homer must be considered one of the greatest poets that ever lived.

The Iliad is set in the war of the Greek cities against Troy, but the story of many battles and four crucial days in the final year of the war is seen against the background of the wrath of Achilles, who was slighted by the Greek commander-in-chief Agamemnon and refuses to return to the battlefield unless Agamemnon offers reconciliation. Battle scenes alternate with descriptions of troop movements and individual confrontations. The whole epic is an exploration of the various faces of heroism - strength as beautiful and as brutal, pride as motivating and as insane, magnanimity in opposition to cruelty.

The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus, king of Itaca, who after ten years returns home from the Trojan war. His house is besieged by suitors of his wife Penelope; only his faithful dog and a nurse recognize him. With the aid of his son Telemachus Odysseus destroys the suitors and establishes himself as king again.

The difference in style between the martial and heroic Iliad and the more diffuse and fantastic Oddyssey led to doubts already in ancient Greece whether both epics were composed by the same author. Aristotle considered this to be the result of the author's different age when he wrote the two works; but doubts about Homer's authorship could never be totally dispelled.

The two epics had an immense impact on the development of European civilization. They shaped ancient Greek culture and influenced European culture of the following centuries through countless translations. The Latin translation of the Odyssey by Livius Andronicus became a standard textbook for young Romans, and both the Iliad and the Odyssey were highly valued 2000 years later during the Italian renaissance.

Homer's work has often been used as a source of historical information. To give just one example, the Iliad contains a description of the shield of Achilles which could be interpreted as a cosmological map. Strabo, who refers to Homer as the founder of geography, said about the authors of the various interpretations:

"Some men, having believed in these stories themselves and also in the wide learning of the poet, have actually turned the poetry of Homer to their use as a basis of scientific investigations. ... Other men, however, have greeted all attempts of that sort with such ferocity that they not only have cast out the poet ... from the whole field of scientific knowledge of this kind, but also have supposed to be madmen all who have taken in hand such a task."

home