This is a book about the Iliad written by an expert in his field. I have previously read RLF's Alexander the Great, which I found slightly heavy going, and Travelling Heroes in which he attempts to show that colonists from the island of Euboea were instrumental in many of the early advances of the classical Greek world. Like Travelling Heroes, Homer and his Iliad is full of ideas and simply stuffed with scholarship but rather incoherently present. I never found it difficult to understand but as an intelligent non-specialist, I rather lost the wood for the trees. He was trying to establish some facts about Homer but often the evidence seemed to amount to little more than his opinion and is distributed about the book is such a way that I found it difficult in my head to assemble all the little snippets to decide whether he had adequately supported his main thesis.
For example, he works hard to establish that Homer was a single author who wrote the entire Iliad, except for the Catalogue of Ships in Book 2 and the 10th Book, which, he claims, were interpolations by later authors. But his supposition that the Iliad was created as a spoken or recited poem (evidenced by features such as repetition and ring composition which he says are typical of oral poetry) militates against the single author theory: other epic poems in the oral tradition are reinterpreted each time a new poet recites them. So RLF maintains that Homer must have dictated the poem, thereby fixing its form (and dating the composition to after the introduction of alphabetic literacy in Greece). But then he cites other passages which suggest a later date for composition than he now maintains and he can only explain these away by assuming that they are interpolations by those subsequent to Homer. Indeed, as I discovered in Hidden Hands, it was common for scribes when copying a manuscript to make additions or amendments. But surely this undermines his argument against the 'patchwork' theory: that the Iliad was created by a number of authors. He states “In general terms it is a fallacy to assume that unity of design entails a single author, but the rest of the Iliad’s plot is so pervasively signposted that a single author is evidently guiding its course.” (Ch 6) which seems to underline the feeling that RLF has started with a theory and isn't prepared to let inconvenient facts spoil it.
Furthermore, the arguments for dating the composition of the Iliad seem to be scattered over several chapters and presented in no particular order. I found this confusing. It would have been clearer if RLF had concentrated on a few key dates. For example, even though his stories are set firmly in the Bronze Age there is a mention of iron-tipped arrows ploughshares and this therefore dates (at least that passage which may, of course, be a later interpolation) to after this technology was introduced which puts an earliest composition date at c1020 BC. On the other hand, Homer never mentions coinage and, since this was introduced into that area of the world in about 650 BC it might be inferred that the Iliad was written after that date. Simple arguments such as this, especially if presented on a timeline would have made the dating of the poem clearer.
One feature that I desperately needed was the addition of a map. RLF repeatedly refers to places such as the Troad and I for one wasn't sure where they were. (He also repeatedly refers to the land-mass known to the Romans as Asia Minor and nowadays as Turkey as 'Asia' which is surely bound to lead to confusion!). He even gives geographical arguments, such as Chryse walking down the shore to a temple. My understanding of these arguments would have been massively enhanced with a few simple maps.
There were times when his obvious partiality for the Iliad (and for a couple of other epic poems that he had studied) seemed to lead him to make instant judgements. For example, after establishing how careful Homer was with his geographical references in the Iliad (saying that “throughout antiquity, Greek poetry and cult shows a strong connection to particular sites and landscapes in the real world.” Ch 3), he then dismisses generations of scholars who have tried to use geographical references in the Odyssey to trace the path of Odysseus (for example Ulysses Found by Ernle Bradford) by calling it "a journey into neverland" (Ch 3) without, so far as I can see, a single shred of evidence to back this statement up. This isn't the only time when RLF appears to want to have his cake and eat it.
Don't get me wrong, there were many interesting things in this book, just as there were with Travelling Heroes. But the incoherence confused me and the apparent cherry-picking of facts left me unconvinced. Map and a timeline too, please.
Selected quotes:
“When Helen and Paris re-meet in his bedroom in book 3, how much of the day has passed? They make love, but are they having prime-time sex, in the afternoon?” (Ch 5)
“Close encounters with Homeric gods or goddesses follow a general pattern. They appear, concealing their identity. They talk and intervene, and usually only when they are departing does their identity become clear. Intimacy provokes awe and fear, but the god reassures. This pattern ... also occurs, independently, in parts of the Bible, in the visits paid by angels.” (Ch 28)
“In societies where social relations are highly unequal and stratified, those relations of power are projected onto gods” (Ch 28)
“There is no cosmic justice. ... Homer’s listeners were aware that gods had anger and spite and [it] might lie behind disease or the destruction of a city. It might cause earthquakes or famine.” (Ch 280)
“The explanation of misfortune is a crucial function of religion.” (Ch 28)
“Sex with a god always makes a girl pregnant. If he has sex with her twice in one encounter, she has twins.” (Ch 29)
December 2023; 398 pages
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