Lives of Homer: translation in progress, with interspersed comments

“incept-date” 2025.08.01 [0] | By Gregory Nagy

The “base text”

Vitae or “Lives” of Homer, via edition of T. W. Allen 1912, with occasional adjustments

Following HPC pp. 29–30 note 1, I offer the following system for referring to these Vitae, with page numbers as printed by Allen 1912 (abbreviations like “HPC” are listed in the working Bibliography below)

Vita 1               = Vita Herodotea, pp. 192–218

Vita 2               = Certamen, pp. 225–238

Vita 3a             = Plutarchean Vita, pp. 238–244

Vita 3b             = Plutarchean Vita, pp. 244–245

Vita 4               = Vita quarta, pp. 245–246

Vita 5               = Vita quinta, pp. 247–250

Vita 6               = Vita sexta (the “Roman Vita”), pp. 250–253

Vita 7               = Vita septima, by way of Eustathius, pp. 253–254

Vita 8               = Vita by way of Tzetzes, pp. 254–255

Vita 9               = Vita by way of Eustathius (on Iliad IV 17), p. 255

Vita 10             = Vita by way of the Suda, pp. 256–268

Vita 11             = Vita by way of Proclus, pp. 99–102

Also relevant is Michigan Papyrus 2754, details in HPC pp. 29–30 note 1.

There is an alternative edition of all the Vitae, translated as well as edited by M. L. West 2003, which I have tracked for the few situations where we can find significant differences between his edition and Allen’s. And I occasionally report on relevant details to be found in an important work on Vita 1 and Vita 2 by M.-A. Colbeaux 2005, such as her mention at p. 77 of the Michigan Papyrus.

Vita 1. The Herodotean Vita.

1. Herodotus of Halicarnassus, about the birth of Homer, about the time of his upbringing, and about his life in general has the following to report-by-way-of-inquiry [historeîn], seeking to come up with something that is as accurate [atrekes] as I can possibly make it. Let me show why I say it this way. Back when the city of Cyme, an Aeolian city since ancient times, was-in-the-process-of-being-founded [ktizein], there was a coming together, in that one same place, all kinds of different people [ethnos plural] who-were-Greek-speaking [Hellēnika]. Among them were people from Magnesia, and {5} among the Magnesians, there was this one particular person,^[1] whose name was Melanōpos, son of Ithāgenēs, son of Krēthōn.^[2] A man with not much income, he had limited means to make a living. This Melanōpos, in Cyme, married the daughter of a man named Homurēs, and, from this union, he had a female child whose given name was Krēthēïs. {10} Melanōpos and his wife reached the end of their lives. But before that, he had entrusted his daughter to a man he valued very highly, named Kleanax, a man from Argos.

2. Time went by, and it happened that the girl [pais] had intercourse with a man, secretly, and got pregnant. At first it didn’t show. But when it did get noticed by Kleanax, he was angry about the predicament {15} and, summoning Krēthēïs to a meeting, just the two of them, he blamed her greatly, telling about all the shame [aiskhunē] with regard to the citizens of the city. So, he was going to make plans, proactive plans, about her, as follows. It just so happened that the people of Cyme were at that time in the process of city-founding [ktizein] at the inner curve of the gulf of the river Hermos. And for those who were founding [ktizein] the city [polis] the name that was given to that city was Smyrna, and it was given by Theseus,^[3] {20} who wanted to establish a memorial [mnēmeion] with regard to his wife. Her name was the same. It was Smurnē. Theseus was one of the leading-men [prōtoi] of the Thessalians who founded [ktizein] Cyme.^[4] He was a descendant of Eumēlos, son of Admētos.^[5] He was very well-off, when it comes to making a living. There [in Smyrna] Krēthēïs was placed by Kleanax into the care of Ismēniās the Boeotian, who was a shareholder {25} among the colonists [ap-oikoi] and who happened to be the closest comrade [hetairos] of his [= Kleanax].

3. Time went by. One day, Krēthēïs went out, in the company of other women, to a festival [heortē] at the banks of a river called Melēs [declined Melēs, Melētos, etc.]. She was at the point of giving birth and went into labor. Homer was born to her. He was not blind. {30} No, he had his eyesight. And she gave the child the name Melēsigenēs [as if the name meant ‘he whose birth is linked with the Melēs’], getting his epithet [ep-ōnumiā] from the river. To-continue-with-the-telling-of-the-story [μὲν οὖν]… For a while, Krēthēïs was still at the household of Ismēniās. But, as time went by, she went off on her own and started up with work that was handiwork. She sustained [trephein] the child and herself by doing different kinds of work for different people, and {35} she provided-for- the-education-of [paideuein] her boy [pais] by way of whatever earnings she could manage.

4. There was in Smyrna, at that time, a man by the name of Phēmios, who taught boys [paides] letters [grammata] and every other kind of art-of-the-Muses [mousikě]. This man, being single, hired Krēthēïs to do work for him on the wool that he {40} received as payment from the boys [paides] (for their education). And she would work for him in his household, with a great deal of orderliness and self-mastery [sōphrosunē]. She very much pleased Phēmios. It ended up with his making her a proposition, trying to talk her into living together with him. Among the many things he said that he thought would bring her around, he especially brought up the subject of her boy [pais], saying that he would make him his own son and that the boy, if he were to be brought up by him and {45} educated by him, would become someone who is worth talking about, since he could see that the boy [pais] was smart and a real natural. He kept on trying to persuade her until she finally agreed to do what he was proposing.

5. The boy [pais], since he was endowed with natural nobility, added to which were the guardianship and education [paideusis] that he was getting, quickly {50} became outstanding, far superior to all others. As time went by and he reached manhood, he was by no means inferior to Phēmios in his learning, and so, when Phēmios came to the end of his life, he left behind all he had to the boy [pais]. And, not much later, Krēthēis too came to the end of her life. Meanwhile, Melēsigenēs established himself as a teacher. And, now that he was on his own {55} he was getting more and more visibility. People became his enthusiastic-followers [thaumastai]—not only local people but also incoming non-locals [xenoi], since Smyrna was a trade-center, and there was much grain incoming from the fertile surrounding countryside that was being exported from there. So, non-locals [xenoi] too, whenever they would get off {60} from work, would spend their free time just sitting in at the establishment of Melēsigenēs.

6. Among those people at that time was a shipping captain named Mentēs. Coming from the locale surrounding Cape Leukas, he had sailed his ship to get grain [= in Smyrna]. He was a man who was educated [paideuein], by the standards of that time, and was knowledgeable about many things. And he persuaded Melēsigenēs to sail off with him, telling him to shut down {65} his teaching establishment, also, how he would now be earning wages and would be provided with all the necessities of life—and further telling him that he deserved to have the chance of getting to see regions [khōrā plural] and cities [polis plural] while he was still young. I think what especially persuaded him was what I just said. Maybe he had already at that time set his mind to the making-of-poetry [poiēsis]. And so he shut down his teaching establishment and sailed off with Mentēs. And wherever he went, {70} he always had a good look at all the local-things [epi-khōria]. He would make-inquiries [historeîn] and findings. It is likely that he was getting– things-written-down [graphein][6]—things-that-were-worth-remembering [mnēmosuna] concerning all these things.

7. On their way back from travels in Etruria and then Iberia, they arrived at the island of Ithaca.[7] And it happened that Melēsigenēs came down with an illness afflicting the eyes, and he was feeling terrible. Mentēs, planning for him to be cared for while he was getting ready to sail ahead to Leukas, leaving him behind, entrusted him to the care of a very close friend, Mentōr of Ithaca, son of Alkimos, asking him to take very good care of him and saying that he would come and fetch him when he sails back [from Leukas to Ithaca]. Well, Mentōr {80} did give him intensive care. He had sufficient means to do so, and he had a reputation far and wide for his righteousness [dikaiosunē] and hospitality [philoxeniā], surpassing by far all other men in Ithaca. And that is where it happened that Melēsigenēs inquired [historeîn] most thoroughly about Odysseus and made his findings about him. Here-is-something-I-just-learned [particle δὴ]… The people of Ithaca say that it was at that time, when he was there with them [= in Ithaca], that Melēsigenēs went blind. But I say that he had recovered his health at that time, and that he went blind only later, in Colophon. And backing me up about this is what the people of Colophon say.

8. Mentēs, sailing back from Leukas, stopped over at Ithaca and picked up Melēsigenēs, who frequently continued to sail around with him. And what happened then was this… Arriving at the city of Colophon, he came down again with the illness afflicting the eyes, and, this time being unable to escape the illness, he went blind then and there. Leaving Colophon, he made has way to Smyrna, and it was there that he now tried a hand, for the first time, at making-poetry [poiēsis]

9. {95} Time passed. Finding himself without the means for a livelihood, he decided to make his way [from the city of Smyrna] to the city of Cyme. As he was on his way, across the plain of the river Hermos, he came to the city of Neon Teikhos ‘New Wall’, which was a colony [apoikiā] οf the people of Cyme. This place was colonized [oikizein passive] eight years after Cyme was colonized. There it is said that he was standing around at a workshop for leatherwork {100} and that he spoke there, for the first time, the following verses [epos plural]:

The Greek text of Homer’s five verses as quoted in Vita 1 lines 101–105

{101}   αἰδεῖσθε ξενίων κεχρημένον ἠδὲ δόμοιο,
{102}   οἳ πόλιν αἰπεινὴν Κύμην ἐριώπιδα κούρην
{103}   ναίετε, Σαρδήνης πόδα νείατον ὑψικόμοιο·
{104}   ἀμβρόσιον πίνοντες ὕδωρ θείου ποταμοῖο
{105}   Ἕρμου δινήεντος, ὃν ἀθάνατος τέκετο Ζεύς.

{101}   Show respect, you-all, for a man in need of hospitality and a home,
{102}   you who occupy the lofty city [polis] that is Cyme—the girl [kourē] with the powerful looks—
{103}   you occupy it, the lowest foothill of [the mountain] Sardēnē, with its high-reaching forests,
{104}   and you drink the immortalizing water of the divine [theios] river,
{105}   the Hermos, surging as it flows, fathered by immortal Zeus.

A variant version (a free-standing five-line “epigram of Homer” (Epigrammata 1 (also known as the Homeric Hymn “Εἰς Ξένους,” in Hymni Homerici, ed. Allen, Halliday and Sikes 1936), as attested in some but not all the manuscripts contained in the medieval transmission of texts known as the Homeric Hymns)

1           αἰδεῖσθε ξενίων κεχρημένον ἠδὲ δόμοιο
2           οἳ πόλιν αἰπεινὴν νύμφης ἐρατώπιδος Ἥρης
3           ναίετε, Σαιδήνης πόδα νείατον ὑψικόμοιο,
4           ἀμβρόσιον πίνοντες ὕδωρ ξανθοῦ ποταμοῖο
5           Ἕρμου καλὰ ῥέοντος ὃν ἀθάνατος τέκετο Ζεύς.

1           Show respect, you-all, for a man in need of hospitality and a home,
2           you who occupy the lofty city [polis] of the numphē with the lovely looks, Hera,
3           you occupy it, the lowest foothill of [the mountain] Saidēnē, with its high-reaching forests,
4           and you drink the immortalizing water of the golden-haired [xanthos] river,
5           the Hermos, flowing beautifully, fathered by immortal Zeus.

An extended commentary on these two versions of five verses attributed to “Homer”

In the text and translation of the first version, as found in Vita 1 and extending from line 101 to line 106 of the text as edited by Allen, I refrain from accepting two emendations by West 2003:362, who reads Σαιδήνης and Σαιδήνη at lines 103 and 106 instead of what we see attested in the textual tradition of this Vita, Σαρδήνης and Σαρδήνη respectively. By contrast, in the edition of Vita 1 as printed by Allen 1912:197, this editor reads Σαρδήνης and Σαρδήνη, not Σαιδήνης and Σαιδήνη as read by West 2003:362, which are emendations. In emending, West has extrapolated from lines 1–5 of the five-line poem known as Homeric Epigram 1, which is the second version as quoted above. This second version, as I already noted, is attested in some but not in all of the manuscripts featuring Homeric Hymns.

At this point, it is essential for me to emphasize that both sets of names, Σαρδήνης and Σαρδήνη as well as Σαιδήνης and Σαιδήνη—names that I transliterate respectively as Sardēnē and Saidēnē—are attested elsewhere in ancient Greek sources. In the work of Herodian (ed. A. Lenz 1867, 3/2, p. 331 line 6), the name Sardēnē is explained as ‘the Amazon’ (Σαρδήνη· ἡ Ἀμαζών); alternatively, in the work known as the Ethnica by Stephanus of Byzantium (ed. A. Meineke 1849, p. 549 line 21), the name Saidēnē is explained as ‘mountain of Cyme’ (Σαιδηνή· ὄρος Κύμης) or, by extension (lines 21–22), as ‘the region’ [named] Saidēnē’ (καὶ Σαιδηνή ἡ χώρα). On the surface, these variant forms Sardēnē and Saidēnē seem to be referring to different referents, since the idea of an ‘Amazon’ seems different from the idea of a ‘region’ defined by a mountain that looms over the city of Cyme. Underneath the surface, however, I propose that there exists here a unifying idea, which is actually attested by Stephanus (p. 392 lines 17–18), where we read that the city that was called Cyme was named after an Amazon who was also named Cyme; here is my translation ‘Cyme: a city belonging to the region of the Aeolians. … [named] from an Amazon named Cyme’ (Κύμη· πόλις Αἰολίδος … ἀπὸ Κύμης Ἀμαζόνος). As we learn from two separate passages in the work of the geographer Strabo (11.5.4 C505 and 12.3.21 C550), at least four prominent cities of Asia Minor were named after Amazons, and, in both passages, Strabo lists the cities in a fixed order: Ephesus, Smyrnă, Cyme, Myrină (Ἐφέσου καὶ Σμύρνης καὶ Κύμης καὶ Μυρίνης in the first passage and Ἔφεσον καὶ Σμύρναν καὶ Κύμην καὶ Μύριναν in the second passage). That is to say, in each one of these four cities, both the Amazon and the city had the same name. Accordingly, I do not agree with West’s rejection of the reading Κύμην ἐριώπιδα κούρην at line 102 of Vita 1, where he emends the wording and reads “νύμφης ἐρατώπιδος ῞Ηρης.” Such a reading is not attested in the manuscript tradition of Vita 1 and is found only in the “Epigram 1” of “Homer” as attested in some manuscripts of the Homeric Hymns. West translates his emended wording as “fair-eyed Hera the Bride.” In terms of his emendation, Hera as numphē at line 102 would be the ‘bride’ of Zeus at line 105. But of course this word numphē can also mean, in non-marital situations, ‘nymph’ in the sense of ‘local goddess’. Which brings us to the word kourē ‘girl’ as actually attested at line 102 of Vita 1, and here, in this context, this word can mean not only ‘girl’ but also something closer to what I have just described as a ‘local goddess’.

To be more accurate here, however, I propose a slightly different description. As I showed in the book Ancient Greek Heroes, Athletes, Poetry (Nagy 2024), hereafter abbreviated as AGHAP, Amazons are comparable to goddesses, yes, since they were worshipped—just as we can say that gods and goddesses were worshipped—but the worshiping of Amazons by local populations can more accurately be described in terms of hero cult. In AGHAP, I analyze the historical evidence for the hero cults of Amazons, and I am about to quote here a relevant observation with reference to three Amazons, most famous for their roles in Athenian myth, whose hero cults are noted by the traveler Pausanias (1.2.1 and at 1.41.7). From the accounts of Pausanias, I have pieced together a central theme in the overall myth that is linked to the hero cults of these three Amazons, named Antiope, Molpadia, and Hippolyte, and here is what I have to say about such a central theme (AGHAP page 10):

In considering the references made by Pausanias to Amazons as cult heroes, I deliberately use the word hero and not heroine in such contexts because I seek to challenge the assumption, common to speakers of English, that only men are heroes. In terms of ancient Greek hero cults, both men and women could become cult heroes after death—whether or not they were primarily warriors. And the wording of Pausanias at 1.2.1 and at 1.41.7 makes it clear that the Amazons Antiope, Molpadia, and Hippolyte were, all three of them, cult heroes.

The traveler Pausanias speaks of these Amazons as cult heroes with specific reference to their tombs, which were the focal points of their being worshipped by local populations. And I can now compare the fact that the geographer Strabo (at 11.5.4 C505) speaks of the taphoi ‘tombs’ of the four Amazons who are named Ephesus, Smyrnă, Cyme, Myrină, and he goes on to say that these four Amazons are linked with local myths about ktiseis ‘colonizations’, that is, ‘foundations’ of the four cities named respectively Ephesus, Smyrnă, Cyme, Myrină. I infer, then, that these Amazons were cult heroes of their respective cities, and that it was their superhuman status as cult heroes that explains why, in each of these four cases, the identity of a given Amazon was equated with the city that embodied the very existence of the city. And that is what we see taking place also, I argue, in what we read at line 102 of Vita 1 of Homer, whose words in his poetry here are saying that the city named Cyme is to be identified with a beautifully fierce-looking kourē ‘girl’ named Cyme the Amazon, who is the very embodiment of the city. Such embodiment is visible in the coinage of Cyme as attested in the Hellenistic period. I show one example:

The linking, as pictured on such coins, of an Amazon with a prancing horse reminds me of an analogous theme involving the Amazon Myrină in the earliest attested passage involving Amazons. In what follows, I merge new comments I am making here with earlier comments I have made about Myrină in AGHAP 44–46.

The linking of Amazons with horses, and of horses with Amazons, is a most ancient idea—an idea we find attested, I as I will now show, already in the verbal art of Homeric poetry. I cite here the wording of Iliad 2.811–815, a passage that pictures an Amazon who is seen in the act of running—but she is not simply running, since she is also exuberantly leaping and bounding as she runs, like some racing horse. Perhaps her motion is synchronized with the running of a racing horse. Or perhaps she herself is running like a racing horse. Either way, the imagery is compressed into a single word. The word, as we read it at Iliad 2.814, is polú-skarthmos, a compound adjective used here as an epithet that describes a speeding Amazon, and I propose to translate this epithet as ‘speeding ahead with many leaps and bounds’. The Amazon who is described by way of this epithet polú-skarthmos at line 814 here in the Homeric Iliad is named Myrină—or, to spell her name more precisely, Múrīnă / Murī́nē (πολυσκάρθμοιο Μυρίνης)— I will continue here to write her name more simply as Myrină. In Homeric diction, the same element skarthmós that we see embedded in the Amazon’s epithet—the element that I render as ‘leaping and bounding’—is built into another Homeric compound adjective, eú-skarthmoi, which I translate as ‘beautifully leaping and bounding’, and which is an epithet that describes the divine horses that draw the chariot driven by the lord of horses himself, the god Poseidon, as we see in Iliad 13.31 (ἐΰσκαρθμοι … ἵπποι). The verb from which these epithets are derived, skaírein, is conventionally translated as ‘skip’ or ‘dance’ or ‘frisk’.

But this Amazon Myrină, so lively in her speeding athleticism as she is seen leaping and bounding ahead, is no longer alive in Iliad 2.811–815. Despite what her epithet says about her—that she is ‘speeding ahead with many leaps and bounds’—she is now dead. But she is not only dead, she is a cult hero. Her body is hidden underneath the earth somewhere inside a tumulus—I am using here a term frequently used by archaeologists in referring to a prominent mound of earth—which is the site of her tomb, and, at this tumulus, we see her being worshipped as a cult hero by the people of Troy. That is how I interpret Iliad 2.811–815 in a cumulative Homeric commentary of mine (Nagy 2022). The word kolōnē here at line 811, which I will translate simply as ‘tumulus’, refers to the place where, as we read further at line 814, the sēma ‘tomb’ of the Amazon named Myrină is located. We may compare the word kolōnē ‘tumulus’, as used here in the Homeric Iliad, with the word kolōnos ‘tumulus’ referring to the tomb of the cult hero Protesilaos in Philostratus On heroes 9.1. (In Hour 14 of H24H, I offer extensive commentary on this hero Protesilaos and on the relevant work of Philostratus, On heroes, dated to the early third century CE.) Elsewhere in On heroes, at 9.3, this same tomb of the cult hero Protesilaos is called a sēma ‘marker’—in the sense of ‘tomb’. Also, the same word kolōnos ‘tumulus’ refers to the tomb of Achilles himself in On heroes 51.12 (also at 53.10, 11). This tomb of Achilles, which marks the site on the Hellespont where he is worshipped as a cult hero, is also called a sēma in On heroes 53.11 (also 51.2, 52.3; further analysis in H24H 14§§23–26).

In the Homeric passage about Myrină in Iliad 2.811–815, she is not described explicitly as an Amazon, but her Amazonian identity is amply documented in two historical sources, Diodorus of Sicily, first centuries BCE, and Strabo the geographer, first centuries BCE/CE. Both sources report on a wide variety of regional variations in the transmission of myths about Myrină the Amazon: Diodorus at 3.54.2 through 3.55.11 and Strabo at 11.5.4 C505, 12.3.21 C550, 12.8.6 C573, 13.3.5–6 C622–623. Especially significant is the reference in Strabo 12.8.6 C573, where the Iliadic Myrină is explicitly identified as an Amazon. For now I simply focus on one particular detail about the cultural identity of this Amazon: Myrină is linked to the Aeolian populations who lived in mainland Asia Minor and on the offshore island Lesbos. Her name even becomes synonymous, as we have seen, with a mainland Aeolian city, Myrină, while she has a sister, named Mutilēnē=Mytilene, whose own name becomes synonymous with the dominant city on the island of Lesbos, Mytilene (Diodorus 3.55.7).

Having made a case for viewing the Homeric passage about Myrină in Iliad 2.811–815 as one of the earliest attestations of ancient Greek hero cult, I will now argue that Myrină is comparable to the Amazons who are worshipped, according to historical sources, as cult heroes at tombs where they are believed to be buried. I have already highlighted three such Amazons whose tombs are mentioned by Pausanias: Antiope, Molpadia, Hippolyte. And I will also argue that the epithet of Myrină in Iliad 2.811, polú-skarthmos, ‘speeding ahead with many leaps and bounds’, is indirectly relevant to these three Amazons in particular and even to Amazons in general.

The extended commentary comes to an end here, and translation from Vita 1 resumes, restarting at line 106.

{106} And Sardēnē is a mountain that looms over the river Hermos—also over Neon Teikhos.[8] As for the name of the leather-worker, it was Tukhíos. When he [= Tukhíos] heard the verses [epos plural], he decided to receive [dekhesthai] the man [Melēsigenēs],[9] since he felt pity for a blind man who was making an ask-for.[10] And he called on him to {110} come into his workshop and said that he could take part in whatever there was there. So, he went in. And, taking a seat inside this workshop for leatherwork, he was performing [epi-deiknusthai] for them (there were also other people there [besides Tukhíos]), performing for them his poetry [poiēsis]. He performed [the composition known as] The departure of Amphiaraos to fight in the war against Thebes.[11] Also, he performed the Hymns [humnoi] that have been made [poieîn] by him[12] to the gods.[13] And, concerning the things that were being said by those who were attending, {115} he displayed-his-own-thoughts[14] in response to theirs,[15] and he was thus shown to his listeners as one who is worthy of enthusiastic-admiration [thauma].

10. For a while, then, Melēsigenēs held on to his situation in the environs of Neon Teikhos,^[16] drawing on his poetry [poiēsis] as his means of livelihood. Even as recently as my own time, the people of Neon Teikhos used to show off the place where he [= Melēsigenēs = Homer] used to sit and make [poieîn] performance [epideixis] of his verses [epos plural]. They venerated [sebesthai] greatly this site.[17]

Bibliography

AGHAP. See Nagy 2024.

Allen, T. W., W. R. Halliday, and E. E. Sikes, eds. 1936. The Homeric Hymns. 2^nd  ed. Oxford.

Allen, T. W., ed. 1912. Homeri Opera (Hymns, Cycle, fragments, etc.). Oxford.

BA. See Nagy 1979/1999.

Brelich, A. 1958. Gli eroi greci: Un problema storico-religioso. Rome.

GMP. See Nagy 1996b.

H24H. See Nagy 2013.

HC. See Nagy 2009|2008.

HPC. See Nagy 2010|2009.

Nagy, G. 1990a. Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past. Baltimore. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Pindars_Homer.1990.

Nagy, G. 1990b. Greek Mythology and Poetics. Ithaca, NY. Revised paperback edition 1992. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Greek_Mythology_and_Poetics.1990.

Nagy, G. 2004. Homer’s Text and Language. Chicago and Urbana, IL. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Homers_Text_and_Language.2004.

Nagy, G. 2005. “The Epic Hero.” A Companion to Ancient Epic, ed. J. M. Foley, 71–89. Oxford. For the footnotes that are missing in this edition, see Nagy 2006.

Nagy, G. 2006. “The Epic Hero.” Expanded version of Nagy 2005. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.The_Epic_Hero.2005.

Nagy, G. 2009|2008. Homer the Classic. Printed | Online version. Hellenic Studies 36. Cambridge, MA and Washington, DC. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Homer_the_Classic.2008.

Nagy, G. 2010|2009. Homer the Preclassic. Printed | Online version. Berkeley and Los Angeles. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Homer_the_Preclassic.2009.

Nagy, G. 2011.04.06. “Observations on Greek dialects in the late second millennium BCE.” Proceedings of the Academy of Athens. Volume 86 Second Issue (2011) 81–96. Online version, http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Observations_on_Greek_Dialects.2011.

Nagy, G. 2011a. “The Aeolic Component of Homeric Diction.” Proceedings of the 22nd Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, ed. S. W. Jamison, H. C. Melchert, and B. Vine, 133–179. Bremen. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.The_Aeolic_Component_of_Homeric_Diction.2011.

Nagy, G. 2011b. “Asopos and His Multiple Daughters: Traces of Preclassical Epic in the Aeginetan Odes of Pindar.” In Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry; Myth, History, and Identity in the Fifth Century BC, ed. D. Fearn, 41–78. Oxford. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Asopos_and_His_Multiple_Daughters.2011.

Nagy, G. 2015.03.01. “A second look at a possible Mycenaean reflex in Homer: phorēnai.” http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.A_Second_Look_at_a_Possible_Mycenaean_Reflex_in_Homer.2015.

Nagy, G. 2015.07.22. “East of the Achaeans: Making up for a missed opportunity while reading Hittite texts.” Classical Inquiries. https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/east-of-the-achaeans-making-up-for-a-missed-opportunity-while-reading-hittite-texts/.

Nagy, G. 2017. “Things Said and Not Said in a Ritual Text: Iguvine Tables Ib 10–16 / VIb 48–53.” Miscellanea Indogermanica: Festschrift für José Luis García Ramón zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. I. Hajnal, D. Kölligan, and K. Zipser, 509–549. Innsbruck. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Things_Said_and_Not_Said_in_a_Ritual_Text.2016.

Nagy, G. 2023.08.19, an archived essay dating from 2020.11.03. “Greek dialects in the late second millennium BCE.” Classical Continuum. https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/observations-on-greek-dialects-in-the-late-second-millennium-bce-2/. Pamphlet 1 in the series EPOPS-NAF.

Nagy, G. 2023.08.20, an archived essay dating from 2015.07.22. “East of the Achaeans: Making up for a missed opportunity while reading Hittite texts.” Classical Continuum. https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/east-of-the-achaeans-making-up-for-a-missed-opportunity-while-reading-hittite-texts-2/. Pamphlet 2 in the series EPOPS-NAF.

Nagy, G. 2023.08.21. Greek: An Updating of a Survey of Recent Work, second edition. Classical Continuum. https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/greek-an-updating-of-a-survey-of-recent-work-second-edition/.

Nagy, G. 2023.08.22, an archived essay, originally published as Nagy, G. 2011a. “The Aeolic Component of Homeric Diction.” Proceedings of the 22nd Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, ed. S. W. Jamison, H. C. Melchert, and B. Vine, 133–179. Bremen. Classical Continuum. https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/the-aeolic-component-of-homeric-diction/. Pamphlet 3 in the series EPOPS-NAF.

Nagy, G. 2023.09.04. “Greek myths about invasions and migrations during the so-called Dark Age.” Classical Continuum. https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/greek-myths-about-invasions-and-migrations-during-the-so-called-dark-age/. Pamphlet 4 in the series EPOPS-NAF.

Nagy, G. 2023.09.07. “Yet another look at a possible Mycenaean reflex in Homer: phorēnai.” Classical Continuum. https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/yet-another-look-at-a-possible-mycenaean-reflex-in-homer-phorenai/. Pamphlet 5 in the series EPOPS-NAF.

Nagy, G. 2023.09.10, new version, “A ritualized rethinking of what it meant to be ‘European’ for ancient Greeks of the post-heroic age: evidence from the Heroikos of Philostratus.” Classical Continuum. https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/a-ritualized-rethinking-of-what-it-meant-to-be-european-for-ancient-greeks-of-the-post-heroic-age-evidence-from-the-heroikos-of-philostratus/. Pamphlet 6 in the series EPOPS-NAF. This version replaces the online version Nagy 2020.11.03 and the printed version Nagy 2019/2020.

Nagy, G. 2023.09.13, new version,“Signs of Hero Cult in Homeric Poetry.” Classical Continuum. https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/signs-of-hero-cult-in-homeric-poetry/. Pamphlet 7 in the series EPOPS-NAF. This version replaces the online version Nagy 2020.11.02 and the printed version Nagy 2012.

Nagy, G. 2024. Ancient Greek Heroes, Athletes, Poetry. Cambridge, MA. https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/book/ancient-greek-heroes-athletes-poetry/.

PH. See Nagy 1990a.

PP. See Nagy 1996a.

West, M. L.,  ed. 2003. With translations. Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Lives of Homer. Cambridge, MA.

Footnotes

[0] First of August, 2025… It seems like yesterday, first of August, 1975. So many happy years, and what fond memories ! With loving thoughts on our 50th anniversary, truly golden, from G to H …

[1] The speaker is going from general to specific. I think his syntax shows that he understands the idiom καὶ δὴ καὶ as used by the “real” Herodotus in that author’s own prooemium. On the prooemium of Herodotus: PH Chapter 8. To reiterate what I already noted above: abbreviations like “PH” are listed in the working Bibliography below.

[2] So, this author seeks to demonstrate maximum accuracy by choosing here the most specific possible detail out of a vast variety of other available details. In terms of the author’s reasoning, the question of Homer’s origins is a question that attracts an overwhelmingly vast variety of different answers. So, the author seeks to express, from the start, what he hopes is the best possible answer.

[3] But Theseus was king of Athens, an Ionian city in the Helladic mainland. By implication, the wording here acknowledges that Smyrna was founded by the city of Athens in the claimed role of that city as the mētropolis or ‘mother city’ of Ionians. So, what is hinted in the wording here is an almost grudging acknowledgment of a rival mythological tradition: where Smyrna became Ionian after it had once been Aeolian.

[4] But wait… The narrator now teasingly identifies Theseus as not the Athenian Theseus but rather as a Thessalian Theseus, who would be, as a Thessalian, not Ionian but Aeolian.

[5] The narrator skips any mention of a father for this alternative Theseus.

[6] The verb graphein here is in the middle voice: so, graphesthai. The middle voice here means that Melēsigenēs had things written down for him, whereas the active voice would have meant that he himself wrote things down. Detailed argumentation in HPC 34.

[7] The next stop for both would have been the island of Leukas.

[8] This afterthought, where Neon Teikhos is said to be visible down below when viewed from up high on the heights of the looming mountain Sardēnē, reinforces the idea that this city, even though it must be far lower than the mountaintop, must be situated in the higher foothills of the mountain—unlike Cyme, which is described in the words quoted from “Homer” as a city that is situated in the lowest foothills of that mountain—almost at ground level, like the river Hermos. Another indication that Neon Teikhos is situated at an altitude considerably higher than Cyme is the fact that it is dominated by a citadel: in fact, as I have shown in HPC 180, the ‘New Wall’ that is the citadel of Neon Teikhos was pictured as a replication of the ‘old wall’ that was the Ilion, the citadel of Troy. Strabo (13.1.40 C599) reports a relevant claim (without accepting it) that was made by the inhabitants of the Aeolian city of New Ilion: they maintained that their city had not been completely destroyed by the Achaeans in the Trojan War and that it had never been left completely abandoned. Strabo, in that same context, mentions this claim while highlighting a counterclaim: if Ilion had not been completely destroyed, there would have been no practical reason for the stones of this old citadel’s walls to be transported to the citadels of other cities for the added fortification of their own walls. In HPC 180, however, I argued that there are symbolic as well as practical reasons for the use of stones taken from the old walls of Ilion in order to fortify new walls of new citadels: such a use establishes a symbolic connection between the old Ilion and new Iliadic structures that are being built. Among these structures was the historical reality of New Ilion itself, an Aeolian city founded in the seventh (or possibly as early as the eighth) century BCE, which was built on the ruins of the old Ilion. Archaeologists have successfully identified the old Ilion of the Iliad (whether it be Troy VI or Troy VIIa) as an earlier stratum of this New Ilion (Troy VIII), which was sought out in historical times by world rulers striving to link themselves with the heroes of the epic past. In 480 BCE, for example, Xerxes made sacrifice to Athena, surnamed hē Ilias, in Aeolian New Ilion; he also made libations to the ‘heroes’ (Herodotus 7.43.2); Alexander the Great likewise sacrificed to Athena in New Ilion (Strabo 13.1.26 C593; Arrian Anabasis 1.11.7). And the same kind of symbolism, I went on to argue in HPC 180, is inherent in the name of another Aeolian city on the Asiatic mainland, Neon Teikhos, which means ‘New Wall’. In this case as well, the naming of the new structure is a functional metonym of the old Ilion. That said, I return to my argument that there was a pairing in the visualization of two different altitudes for the location of the two Aeolian cities visited by Melēsigenēs in Vita 1: there was, on the one hand, the city of Neon Teikhos, the citadel of which would have been situated higher up in the foothills of the mountain Sarganē by contrast with the city of Cyme, which is described as situated lower down, in the lowest of the foothills surrounding this mountain. So we see here an indication, I think, of political coextensiveness between these same two cities. As we have read in the verses quoted by “Homer,” Melēsigenēs can speak to the people of Cyme in a context where the framing narrative says that he is standing, as he speaks, at the citadel of Neon Teikhos, which would be gracing the higher foothills of the mountain, not in the lower foothills, where the city of Cyme is situated.

[9] Thus Tukhíos becomes an exponent of the “reception” of Melēsigenēs, who will soon be renamed as Homēros ‘Homer’, once he leaves Neon Teikhos and relocates to the city center of Cyme. We see here, in the reception by Tukhíos, a mythologized impetus for “Homeric reception.”

[10] I find such a colloquial expression, ‘making an ask-for’, more apt than ‘begging’. After all, Melēsigenēs does have his pride. His five verses, as quoted in the narrative, show that he is too proud to beg directly.

[11] It can be argued that this epic performance is part of what we know as the Thebaid or Seven Against Thebes: Colbeaux 2005:254.

[12] I analyze in HPC 35–42 all occurrences, in Vita 1, of the word poieîn ‘make’ in the sense of ‘compose-in-performance’ (I say ‘in’ not ‘for’). We see here in Vita 1 the first such occurrence of poieîn. I should add that we never see in Vita 1 the use of the word graphein ‘write’ in the sense of ‘compose’. As we will see later, the same can be said about Vita 2. As for the use of the perfect passive of poieîn ‘make’ here, it shows, I think, that that the content of what is being ‘made’ in performance is already set, as if this content were already composed. We see here, I suggest, the mentality of recomposition-in-performance. Background in PP 16.

[13] The word humnoi can mean ‘songs’ in general, but here in Vita 1.113–114 it may actually refer to the Homeric Hymns, such as we know them. That said, I need to add that the morphology of these Hymns, even though they are preserved only in textual form, indicates that such hymns, when performed, would be followed by performances of epics or of other forms of poetry, even of song. Background in HC Chapter 2. In other words, we cannot assume that Melēsigenēs here is imagined as performing a series of consecutive Homeric Hymns—as we see them preserved in the textual tradition.

[14] I attempt to convey here the idea that the verb apo-phainein ‘display’, when it is used in the middle voice, apo-phainesthai, means ‘display with reference to the self’: the performer here is displaying his own gnōmai ‘thoughts’. Nevertheless, as I suggest in the next note, he attempts to blend his thinking with the thinking of his listeners, and his responding to their thoughts is idealized as a sharing of thoughts.

[15] With reference to the expression ἐς τὸ μέσον, which literally means ‘aiming at the center’, I analyze in GMP 270n5 (with relevant bibliography) a comparable use of the same expression in Theognis 678—though there the context is more political. I interpret there the idea of ‘aiming at the center’ as referring to “an agonistic communalization of possessions that are marked for orderly distribution by the community.” In the present context of Vita 1, by contrast, I think that the “distribution” centers more generally on a sharing of thoughts, as it were. Such a “sharing,” I think, aims at an idealization of oral performance.

[16] The wording in the narrative blurs the exact location of the stay of Melēsigenēs in Neon Teikhos, since he is about to relocate to the city center of Cyme, which is some distance away—though not far enough away to be politically distinct from Neon Teikhos—as we have seen in the narrative that frames the words of Homer in the act of speaking to the people of Cyme in general while he is visiting the citadel of Neon Teikhos.

[17] The theme of venerating a place that had made direct contact with Homer himself is characteristic of hero cult. On Homer as cult hero, see BA 17§9n3 (= p. 297), citing Brelich 1958:320–321; see also PP 113n34, with references to sites named after Homer in Chios, Smyrna, and Delos. Strabo 14.1.37 C646 emphasizes the special claim of Smyrna on Homer; he notes that the Smyrnaeans in his time have a bibliothēkē and a quadrangular stoa called the Homēreion, containing a neōs ‘shrine’ of Homer and a xoanon ‘wooden statue’ of him.