• Andrew: why are there so many and so frequent epithets in Homer?
• GREAT QUESTION: it has to do with orality and oral composition techniques.
• Amanda: thought this was a historical text, not an oral text handed down.
• GOOD! We need to talk about this.
• "Homer" may not have ever existed as a person.
• "Homer" is a name, and there may have been a person who sang the epics who bore that name, and that person may have had a particularly strong influence on the epics, or been particularly virtuosic as a bard, but he did not invent the stories or the language or so many other things in the epic.
• THere was a huge web of bards who sang these and other epics.
• The language was formulaic, and the bard could use it like lego to build songs of various sorts.
• So "homer" came to be over centuries!
• And the Ancient Greeks thought the epics were historically accurate, but we moderns are suspicious, for many reasons, even though we think we have identified the ruins of a town in modern Turkey that many people think is the Troy of the Trojan War.
  
• Stephen: is art reliable in analyzing historical events when corroborated with artwork from different sources?
• Short answer: "art" includes literature, drawings/paintings/sculpture, etc.: it is generally not the best sort of evidence for most historical questions. But it is evidence, and it is what we have. Literature offers words, which means arguments, thoughts, claims. Visual art offers depictions, which cannot make arguments or claims. In conjunction with words, however, visual arts offer powerful and compelling support and sometimes alternative possibilities for what we find written.
  
• Yovi: Could Agamemnon be being petulant and contrary: the rank and file urge him to take the promise of later compensation for Chryseis, but his pride makes him to the opposite.
• Eli: Why should Zeus worry about whether Hera knows he talked with Hera? He's ruler. Is it just the nagging and yelling?
• Michael G: Was the priest Chryses trying to stir up disruption in the Greek camp by asking for his daughter back: he wanted her back, yes, for his honor and possibly because he liked her, but also, he wanted to get a little revenge by stirruing up trouble.
• Leah: Agamemnon takes his best warrior's prize: interesting action.
• Olivia: Achilles lets him and nurses a massive grudge: interesting.
  
• Heather: That it was immensely popular and sung needs to be remembered as we read.
• Noah: Did people see this as history or fiction?
• History. They thought these things happened, that the gods existed, etc.
• Both Herodotus and Thucydides, the originators of "history" as we know the discipline, thought the Homeric epics held historical truth (although they did exercise some scepticism about some aspects, particularly Thucydides did).
  
• Fiction was not invented and did not exist. I know that's a strange and almost unbelievable claim. But it's true. Myth is NOT fiction at all: one who is in the culture is free to vary a myth, but one cannot invent a myth entirely. Myth is a collective thing. Fiction is an individual thing.
  
• Think of how people believe that the Bible is "literally" true: it's something like that sort of attitude.
  
• Jacob: Is the film "Troy" with Brad Pitt accurate?
• It is better than many, but it has its problems.
• Accuracy is a hard concept with many dimensions: accurate to the poems' plot? accurate to what we know of buildings, weapons, clothing? accurate to the psychology of the poems (well, that's hard, since there are different interpretations, but there are many ways to clearly depart from the poems)
  
• Spencer: What determines what sides the gods take?
• Aphrodite: her son is Aeneas, a Trojan, and Paris chose her, another Trojan.
• Apollo: his priest Chryse was insulted.
• Jillian: did any gods ever switch sides?
• Can't think of an example, but I wouldn't be surprised: can any of you think of an example?
• Meg: why does Zeus assume that Hera won't understand his counsels? Why is it Hephaestus who stops her from overreacting to him.
• My own quick explanation is that this is a dysfunctional family (albeit that is anachronistic): Zeus is an arrogant person, but a product of his culture. Men were assumed to be superior, and he just assumes he is. Hera doesn't necessarily agree, but she knows he is stronger both in bodily ability AND in power, so she has to submit or be made to submit. Hephaestus is sort of like the child whose mother is beaten by the father and tries to intervene to keep the peace. He's also kind of comic relief. It's "funny" to watch him fall from heaven for a day, then land on Lemnos, then limp around Olympus. "Funny" in the cruel way that a lot of humor is.
  
• Matthew: If Paris is fated to kill his father, why leave him alive on a mountainside? Why not just kill him?
• Speculation: could it be similar to the way the villain in modern thrillers ALWAYS talks and talks and reveals everything to the person he (usually) is about to kill, and then the person escapes? It fulfills the same plot function.
• Historical reason? I am not sure: exposure of infants was apparently practiced: kind of like an extremely late abortion: avoids killing but disposes of the unwanted child. I don't know enough about the evidence for this: what I know of is literary, and hence perhaps not good evidence for actual practice.
• Michael: why are Homeric ethics the way they are?
• One can only speculate about that, because we have no evidence from before Homer, and Homer engages in little meta-commentary about the ethics. I tried to point out that there are elements of the same sort of ethical system still around even today, and in fact they are not dissimilar to the code of the mafia (in some ways, and insofar as I know anything about it): honor, wealth, birth. All still VERY important ethically today. A very disturbing instance: some people think that facts about your birth (skin color, nationality, etc.) fully determine your worth as a human being. Others merely never question the fact that they have lots of power and advantage simply by being born a white male. That's a sort of bit of Homeric Ethics, one that is arguably quite a bad idea, but also prevalent today. Others never question that their family has wealth not because of being better, but because of historical accident (not that that makes it a bad thing: it's not a morally good thing or a bad thing, certainly not something that one should brag about as if it makes one a good person).
  
• Malcolm: what is the role of women? not a single mortal one has spoken yet.
• Excellent observation and question: some will speak, especially when Homer shows us scenes in Troy. In the Greek camp, however, only captive women are present: mothers, wives, and daughters are not present in the Greek camp. So that is one good reason.
• Women are pretty much dependent on and socially inferior to their men.
• Maeve: is there misogyny involved? Hera as shrill wife archetype.
• Oh yeah. By our standards, the whole culture was misogynistic, but let's talk about that. It wasn't so much hatred of women (that's what misogyny means sometimes) as it was an idea that women are inferior and can't/shouldn't do what men do. There is a lot more to be said about this. Homer wasn't particularly misogynistic FOR HIS TIME: he was pretty much the norm, and the norm was highly androcentric (man-centered).
  
• Molly: are Chryseis and Bryseis just catalysts (i.e. plot drivers) or will they play a role later?
• They are hardly mentioned later, and never actually say anything or appear in any way except as war spoils.
• Baylee: why do goddesses have power if mortal women did not?
• Great question.
  
• Simple answer: there is a difference between gods and mortals. Too simple?
  
• Another (too?) simple answer: And notice that none of the gods who rule (Kronos, Zeus) or attempt to rule (giants, titans) are female.
  
• Some particular cases: goddesses like Athena and Artemis are virgins who have no offspring, which may be important (their power doesn't seem to threaten the patriarchy as much?).
• Is it significant that Aphrodite is female? Perhaps. But cupid/eros is male, albeit a child.
  
• There is a great deal of literature on this and related topics about male/female issues.
• Lauren: excitement to explore how a culture that values individualism highly also thinks the gods influence human behavior so much.
• Great observation: the Greek did indeed value individualism very highly. They were a contest culture: olympics, funeral games, theatre as contest, etc. Do you think that when Athena pulls Achilles by the hair back from killing Agamemnon that that is really an outside influence? Sometimes it seems as if the gods are just ways of talking about what feels like an outside influence: when I want to kill someone, but don't, what is happening? There is conflict within me: it's not hard to think that something or someone better than me is holding me back from my baser instincts. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps that is one of the ways that the gods function: as externalizations of human psychological phenomena.
  
• Lili: do the 3 fates have power over Zeus and aren't they the reason why he does what he does?
• It depends on what you think the fates are: are they reporters? or are the deciders?
• If they are reporters, then they simply are able to see the future and report what will happen: they don't decide it.
• if they are also deciders, then they have real power and are the reason for why things happen.
• I think they are conceived of as reporters, not deciders.
• But still, since they report accurately, it looks as if they are deciding.
  
• Royce: is it possible that any elements of Christianity grew out of Greek mythology?
• No, they did not grow out of it or evolve from it in a direct way. Homer has no direct influence that I know of on Christianity. Christians rejected all Greek and Roman mythology as pagan.
• BUT, they also created saints, who sort of fulfill the role of multiple gods.
• And they adopted a lot of later Greek and Roman thought and culture: philosophy, literary genres, law, etc.
• So Christianity picked and chose bits and pieces of pagan culture at a MUCH LATER date than Homer (by 800 years and more).
• Now, if we are talking about Christ himself, and the elements of his life, it is interesting and true that many elements of his story are found in Greek culture. Many! It's just that those elements came from Hellenistic Greece, not the Archaic Greece of Homer.
• Everett: How do we know these myths are entirely Greek: much came from pictorial art interpretation, which is not in a spoken language.
• Well, it is true that there were many influences on Greece from neighboring peoples, many. Some are influences, some are just parallels.
• For instance: that the sky god is the supreme ruler, elements of a hero quest, etc. But those are not specific with names and plots that are clearly the source of Greek myths.
  
• The exact forms and structure and variants are found only in Greece: Greek sites, Greek texts, etc.
  
• So, lots of cultural parallels make it clear that there was something like a melting pot of culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, but each culture is unique and has its own character including its own mythology. The Romans are kind of interesting in that they seem to have much the same mythology as the Greeks, but there are bits that are purely Roman.
• Quinn: did Homer have influences on him? Did he get these stories from someone before him?
• Yes, he did: we simply don't have good records of them.
• We have the last version of a very long string of versions. Kind of like folk songs: we have versions of them from the time there have been recordings. Before that, we have written out versions, but before that, we know they existed, but we have no records!
• Now, if you are asking whether there were OUTSIDE influences on Homer, that's another question: there are parallels to many elements in Homer and in Greek mythology in general outside of Greece, some of them earlier. We know that they had contact with other peoples and took various things from those other peoples (like the alphabet, art techniques, etc.), so why not parts of Homer? We have very limited evidence, but it does point to the idea that there were influences. It does not point to the idea that HOmer is somehow merely derivative or in any way not original to Greece. Influences, not wholesale adoption from other cultures seems to be the picture.
• Homer's epics include peoples from many cultures.
  
• Danielle: Agamemnon is "king" of Mycenae, so why is he called "war lord" etc. instead of "king"?
• Good question: we need to figure out what we mean by "king": these guys are more like "chiefs" of a small group that lives in one town and the surrounding country than "kings" of large realms. No town even the size of Burlington: these are small towns.
• Ujj: do characters knowingly depart from Homeric Ethics as explained in class?
• YES: Achilles is the best example, although in the end he chooses Homeric Ethics: he is VERY strongly tempted to go home and live out a life of peace and quiet. And later, when we meet him in the underworld, he will famously regret having chosen the life he did.
• Kyle: did any close to Homer's time question his stories
• the questioning happens later, and gets louder the later you go: but much of it is not formulated as questioning homer: eventually, people just write about alternative ways of doing things without feeling the need to point out that the alternative ways are in conflict with Homer, even though Homer is still important: Homer's importance shifts depending on the individual the time and the context generally.
• The pre-socratics are the first to really question Homer: that was in the 6th c. BCE: about 200 years or so after Homer.
  
• Cayden: can the Homeric Ethics as explained in class be applied to all texts that we will read?
• Important question.
  
• NO: by the time of tragedy (5th c. BC), things were changing. Rule of law was taking hold. Ethics were beginning to be questioned and purposely changed. Watch for evidence of this. The Aeneid is by a Roman: watch for differences there too.
• Andrew: where did Homer get his ethics?
• Well, he is simply reflecting the ethics of the songs he inherited from other bards: they go them from their predecessors. In a slow process, there were probably some changes, but we have only the last versions, the ones that got written down, and those all show pretty much the same system of ethics. So he got them from the society he lived in and its historical past.
• Paige: are "good" and "valiant" synonymous in Homer: it seems so from the minilecture on ethics.
• No, bravery is different from more general goodness. It is a part of it. That's the general idea.
• But goodness, nobility, bravery, etc. are all part of what one considers "good" ethically. They are virtues.
  
• Lani: amazing how ethics change. Homeric ethics are disgusting to us today.
• Yes, but remember, there are people who live by a code very similar to Homeric Ethics today: people consider their birth defining of their worth, their wealth too, and their honor to be defended at all costs. Things change, but then again...
  
• Cassie: does honor make one Ajax "the lesser" and the other "greater"?
• As with Achilles and Ajax, it seems to be battle prowess.
  
• Try to find evidence of their "power" and "honor": look at the relative number of their ships and soldiers? In Book 2. Also look at the town they come from: relative size and importance.
• Lucas: what did these poems sound like? How were they played?
• there is a one-credit course currently being taught that attempts to explore ancient Greek music.
• The evidence for what the music sounded like is really scant: there is much speculation necessary to make it into actual music, but it is possible. you can find attempts on line even.
• The epics must have been relatively monotonous as music, in a way (perhaps the same way much popular music is monotonous: songs are basically made out of a few chords on just a few instruments, etc.), because every line has the same meter, and they were chanted/sung to one instrument, the kithara.
• On the other hand, the kithara has cachet as a virtuoso instrument in antiquity: look for evidence of that.
• There just wasn't the same range of instruments and possibilities then: we have hundreds of different instruments, and electronic v. acoustic, and many many styles from many cultures.
  
• Rose: is there anything else comparable to Homer, like the Bible is? Harry Potter?
  
• Remember that the Bible is only comparable in some ways, not in others.
• In popularity, perhaps Harry Potter is comparable, but it is fiction, it is not "traditional" (the Homeric epics are the result of a long line of storytellers: a big folktale)
• Many other cultures have basic foundational texts of various sorts as well as mythology.
• Thomas: interesting that the gods, who are very human in that they have faults and bad behavior, are nonetheless praised and honored.
• Maybe they are praised and honored because they have power and honor: like Agamemnon?
• Are they just human society writ large with "real" super powers?
• In literature, they are close to that (super heroes), but in the religion of the time, they seem to be a little different, perhaps. There is a gulf between the religious practice of worshipping the gods and the stories told about them.
• Maia: is Homer a form of propaganda spread by bards.
• The bards were not trying to win converts or win a struggle against another culture. Propaganda seems mostly to do that. Bards were performers who performed for those who already bought into their stories and music.
  
• But the epics were a vehicle of ideology, so in that way they are comparable.
• Lucy: that Troy could be mistaken for another city is very interesting!
• Yes, indeed: one factor that may be a historical one: the cities over in Asia Minor did not all speak Greek! The city usually identifieed as the historical Troy probably didn't! So that could be why the Greeks could attack a Mysian city and not even realize until afterward that they had the wrong city. Also, maybe imperfect navigation was a fault.
• Also, maybe the epic we have is just a trumped-up huge version of what suredly did happen: lots of little raids to an fro between cities. The culture seems to have encouraged raiding, like Vikings did later.
  
• Cat (and Ariana's question too): why didn't some people want Homer read by the public?
• This is an important misconception! It needs to be corrected: Homer was a very public thing: the poems were performed many many times before all sorts of people. Our evidence is mostly men, but there is no particular reason to think women didn't hear too. Their voices are (mostly) silent, however, and the men don't always think to even try to speak for the women.
• I think what Cat is reacting to is Plato's later suggestion that in the ideal city, Homer would be banished. YOu need to understand that Plato is a philosopher, an influential and tremendously important one, but just as today most philosophers' ideas are not really important to everyday humans (even if they should be!), so in Ancient Greece, people did not take Plato so seriously that they actually banished HOmer. Mostly, they read him and thought "well, maybe" just as today we hear that too much screen time is bad for us and think, "Oh no, I guess I'm doomed" and keep using screens.
• Henry: could there have been significant texts from before Homer's time that did not survive?
• If by texts, you mean versions of stories about various myths, yes. It's not only possible, it's certain.
• If by texts, you mean written out records, it is very unlikely: we have a lot of material and discussion of such things, starting from Homer's time and growing more and more as time goes on. We have reports of very many lost works. The "Epic Cycle" is contemporaneous with or a little later than Homer: it consisted of several epics that have been lost now. None were as long or as important as Homer.
• Joe: when/where is HOmer compared to when/where his stories take place in the epics?
• Fantastic question: he is late 8th century, probably. His stories are maybe 12th century!!!!  400years apart: 400 years is a long long long time culturally.
• Spencer: confused over chronology of Achilles' birth, wedding of Peleus and Thetis, judgement of Paris, etc.
• Long and short: mythology usually doesn't worry about that sort of precise consistency. If they do worry about it, and it become an issue, they invent a way for it to be plausible, because that is the myth. Contradictions are either not noticed or explained away because they have to be explained away.
• You are very right to ask about this, however, because it is a very interesting aspect of myth and should be explored.
• Mary: imagines 2000 years from now, when Marvel comics are unearthed and taken to be the Homer of our society!
• YEAH!
• Maya: at the time, who could have known that Homer's epics would be not only the earliest, but also the best?
• Well, because they originated in an oral culture and developed over centuries, they were always already interwoven with the culture. No new work could achieve that in quite the same way, perhaps. Wait for the Aeneid!
  

Practical matters

• Emilie: Ideas for remembering names?
• Write them, say them out loud, talk about them. Familiarity is important.
• Lili: there are different ways to spell even the major characters: does spelling count in grading?
• While we won't mark you down if your spelling works well enough, that is a matter of judgement. And more importantly, there are only a few correct spellings: just because there are variants does not mean that you don't have to use one of the variants. It doesn't mean you should just spell however YOU want. I can talk about why there are various spellings if you like.
• Alex: do we need to know Pallas Athena, or is Athena just fine?
• Hard to say, but in general, I'd say that Athena is just fine. I don't want to say Pallas Athena will never be important, but I can't see right now why it ever would be.
  
• Ujj: can we refer to Greeks as "Greeks" on the quizzes?
• Yes. But know their names, so you know who is being talked about. Also, that seems like a good quiz question: "What are the Greeks called in the epics?"
  
• Connor: frustration at not having handed in a comment for first class, even though he was there and had a comment written out.
• I feel for you and understand. I hope you can do the same for me: it's a lot of work keeping track of everything, and I need to make things neat by requiring things to be handed in on time. But I've also worked into the system a lot of forgiveness: you can miss 3 daily comments and it won't hurt you at all. After that, it hurts just a little each time, but that could add up to failure by a thousand cuts, so please please please don't let that happen.
  

Others

• Simon: Where's Helen?
• Jillian: still trying to get bearings in new subject matter: appreciates hearing basic information about who is who.
• Amanda: poetry takes longer to read.
• Josh: it's hard to stop once I start reading.