Part 2: Evidence for ‘Episodes’ from Literature and Art

This is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis. Last year this substack provided over $2k in charitable donations.

This post is part one of three looking more closely at the proposition that our Iliad is made up of a series of songs or ‘episodes’ put together in a monumental performance. The first part looks at some of the internal evidence for performance and provides some historical context. The second part explores how much support there is for this model in the classical period. The third part offers some remarks on how this approach may or may not be different from neoanalysis and begins to sketch out how our Iliad may be broken up into songs or episodes.

In the last post, I explored the composition of the Homeric epics through a combination of episodes, focusing especially on the evidence from the Odyssey and on the tradition of the “Panathenaic rule”, the conventional performance of Homer in Athens by multiple rhapsodes. The internal and external evidence suggests that the full epics are made up of smaller parts integrated by multiple performers. In addition, it suggests that the epics evolved during performance over time. This means that we don’t imagine ancient performers creating from scratch each time, but working in concert and competition to integrate–or ‘stitch together’, to observe one of the etymologies of rhapsode–traditional themes and songs into a much larger performance.

As I discussed when talking about Odysseus’ story in books 9-12 of the Odyssey, it seems likely that longer compositions were in part developed from shorter, recognizable episodes. Logically, this makes sense, and late evidence from the Roman imperial period has provided some support for this, both in terms of the general idea itself and with some indication of what sections may have been considered self-standing songs. The 2nd Century CE Roman Aelian (Claudius Aelianus) reports that the epics were sung in “separate parts”:

Varia Historia, 13.14

“The tradition is that the ancients used to sing Homeric epics in separate parts. For example, they sang the “Battle By the Ships”, the “Doloneia”, the “Aristeia of Agamemnon”, the “Catalogue of Ships,” the “Patrokleia” and the “Ransoming” or the “Contest for Patroklos” and the “Breaking of the Oaths”. These were from the Iliad. From the other poem they sang “Events at Pylos” and “Events at Sparta” “Calpyso’s Cave,” “The Raft Story”, “The Tales of Alkinoos” and “The Kyklopeia” and the “Nekyuia” or “Events with Kirke”, “the Washing”, “The Murder of the Suitors,” “The Events in the Country”, “Laertes’ Tale”.

Rather late, Lyrkourgos the Spartan was the first to bring the poetry of Homer together into Greece; He brought them back with him from Ionia when he was living abroad. Later, Peisistratos collected them and had the Iliad and the Odyssey performed.”

῞Οτι τὰ ῾Ομήρου ἔπη πρότερον διῃρημένα ᾖδον οἱ παλαιοί. οἷον ἔλεγον Τὴν ἐπὶ ναυσὶ μάχην καὶ Δολώνειάν τινα καὶ ᾿Αριστείαν ᾿Αγαμέμνονος καὶ Νεῶν κατάλογον καὶ Πατρόκλειαν καὶ Λύτρα καὶ ᾿Επὶ Πατρόκλῳ ἆθλα καὶ ῾Ορκίων ἀφάνισιν. ταῦτα ὑπὲρ τῆς ᾿Ιλιάδος. ὑπὲρ δὲ τῆς ἑτέρας Τὰ ἐν Πύλῳ καὶ Τὰ ἐν Λακεδαίμονι καὶ Καλυψοῦς ἄντρον καὶ Τὰ περὶ τὴν σχεδίαν καὶ ᾿Αλκίνου ἀπολόγους καὶ Κυκλώπειαν καὶ Νέκυιαν καὶ Τὰ τῆς Κίρκης καὶ Νίπτρα καὶ Μνηστήρων φόνον καὶ Τὰ ἐν ἀγρῷ καὶ Τὰ ἐν Λαέρτου. ὀψὲ δὲ Λυκοῦργος ὁ Λακεδαιμόνιος ἀθρόαν πρῶτος ἐς τὴν ῾Ελλάδα ἐκόμισε τὴν ῾Ομήρου ποίησιν· τὸ δὲ ἀγώγιμον τοῦτο ἐξ ᾿Ιωνίας, ἡνίκα ἀπεδήμησεν, ἤγαγεν. ὕστερον δὲ Πεισίστρατος συναγαγὼν ἀπέφηνε τὴν ᾿Ιλιάδα καὶ ᾿Οδύσσειαν.

Here, Aelian combines several details that have been irresistible to Homerists interested in the epics’ textualization and performance: a connection between their final form and quasi-legendary foundation narratives along with details about the relationship between parts and the whole. Near the end of the anecdote, we find famous and semi-legendary leaders of Sparta and Athens as authorities who introduced the full epics into their communities, aligning in part with a historical movement that modern scholars have called Panhellenism. But before that, we find the attractive idea that really old performers (palaioi) sang (aiedon) the epics of Homer split into parts. And the parts align with some of the discrete sections of each epic that we have recognized as somewhat self-standing, such as the catalog of ships or the Doloneia.

I am one of those who really like this passage and find it valuable to think with. Nevertheless, I am concerned about how much of it we can rely on. My anxieties come in two forms: first, the relative antiquity of Aelian; second, the lack of corresponding evidence for episodes of these names or consistent nomenclature for episodes prior to Aelian.

Let me start with the first: Aelian is from the so-called second sophistic. I don’t know if we can say that anything he knows or reports about Homer does not come from Hellenistic editing practices. That is to say that he is almost six centuries removed from the Panathenaic rule at Athens and was educated in a system dominated by the editorial and rhetorical practices that canonized and transmitted the epics more or less as we have them.

In addition to limits on what Aelian could have known or how his knowledge was shaped by the rhetorical and editorial tradition preceding him, the contents of this passage are correspondingly curious: there is a lot of each epic not reported within his anecdote. Now, the omissions may simply be a case of Aelian leaving out the most well known plot points such as the embassy to Achilles in the Iliad or the Telemachea in the Odyssey. But the language he uses for the “separated epics” also gives me pause because it assumes each epic as a pre-existing whole. I am not sure that if there were traditional terminology for individual songs it would sound like this.

This leads me to the second concern I have for this passage: the lack of corresponding support from earlier evidence prior to the Hellenistic period. One of the most famous passages for thinking about the composition of the epics comes from Aristotle. In it he writes about the epics being composed of “episodes”:

Poetics 1459a

“For this reason, Homer should seem rather inspired compared to others: for, although the war has a beginning and an end, he did not try to compose the whole story. For the story would have been too overwhelming and incomprehensible or, if kept to a reasonable length, confusing because of its complexity. Instead, although he has taken up one plot [meros], he has employed many other episodes [epeisodiois] such as the catalog of ships and other episodes through which he has varied his composition.”

ταύτῃ θεσπέσιος ἂν φανείη Ὅμηρος παρὰ τοὺς ἄλλους, τῷ μηδὲ τὸν πόλεμον καίπερ ἔχοντα ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλος ἐπιχειρῆσαι ποιεῖν ὅλον· λίαν γὰρ ἂν μέγας καὶ οὐκ εὐσύνοπτος ἔμελλεν ἔσεσθαι ὁ μῦθος, ἢ τῷ μεγέθει μετριάζοντα καταπεπλεγμένον τῇ ποικιλίᾳ. νῦν δ᾿ ἓν μέρος ἀπολαβὼν ἐπεισοδίοις κέχρηται αὐτῶν πολλοῖς, οἷον νεῶν καταλόγῳ καὶ ἄλλοις ἐπεισοδίοις οἷς διαλαμβάνει τὴν ποίησιν.

It is really tempting to read this passage and infer that Aristotle’s episodes may be in some way coterminous with Arrian’s “separated parts”. But when I read epeisodos elsewhere, I think it functions as much as a “scene” as it does a specific and self contained narrative equivalent to the songs of Phemius and Demodocus in the Odyssey. There’s also something else I find both intriguing and compelling here: epeisodios seems to be etymologically tied to the parts of tragedy between the choral odes. The term seems to be related to the entrance and exit of different actors or characters on the stage. Applied to epic performance, it is tempting to imagine epeisodion as delimiting the space for a single singer or song within a larger composition.

In the Poetics, Aristotle’s primary focus is on the genre of tragedy. His episodes, if read carefully, blur the lines between major scenes in Attic tragedy and parts of the Trojan War narrative integrated into Iliad or the Odyssey. At times I am certain he means that the overall plot of the “rage of Achilles” is expanded or embellished through other episodes from the whole war. Aristotle does us a favor here by distinguishing between an episode of the war and the story of the whole. But if one reads through the Poetics carefully, the issue is much more uncertain. There is some indication in Plato that audiences thought in terms of particular scenes. For example, consider the longish question in the Ion where Socrates is trying to prove to the rhapsode that he is divinely inspired when he recites Homer:

Plato, Ion 535 c

Tell me this Ion and don’t hide anything from me whatever I ask you. Whenever you are performing epic and you especially astound the audience—either when you sing about Odysseus leaping upon the threshold and then appearing to the suitors as he pours arrows out on them all of a sudden or the part about Achilles chasing after Hektor or one of the sad things about Andromache or Hekuba or Priam—are you at that point in your own mind or are you outside yourself and does your spirit think you are among the events themselves, inspired by the very words you are speaking, either in the Ithaka or Troy or wherever the songs take you?

ΣΩ. ῎Εχε δή μοι τόδε εἰπέ, ὦ ῎Ιων, καὶ μὴ ἀποκρύψῃ ὅτι ἄν σε ἔρωμαι· ὅταν εὖ εἴπῃς ἔπη καὶ ἐκπλήξῃς μάλιστα τοὺς θεωμένους, ἢ τὸν ᾿Οδυσσέα ὅταν ἐπὶ τὸν οὐδὸν ἐφαλλόμενον ᾄδῃς, ἐκφανῆ γιγνόμενον τοῖς μνηστῆρσι καὶ ἐκχέοντα τοὺς ὀιστοὺς πρὸ τῶν ποδῶν, ἢ ᾿Αχιλλέα ἐπὶ τὸν ῞Εκτορα ὁρμῶντα, ἢ καὶ τῶν περὶ ᾿Ανδρομάχην ἐλεινῶν τι ἢ περὶ ῾Εκάβην ἢ περὶ Πρίαμον, τότε πότερον ἔμφρων εἶ ἢ ἔξω σαυτοῦ γίγνῃ καὶ παρὰ τοῖς πράγμασιν οἴεταί σου εἶναι ἡ ψυχὴ οἷς λέγεις ἐνθουσιάζουσα, ἢ ἐν ᾿Ιθάκῃ οὖσιν ἢ ἐν Τροίᾳ ἢ ὅπως ἂν καὶ τὰ ἔπη ἔχῃ;

Here, Plato has his Socrates point to scenes of particular vividness or tension–action scenes where Odysseus is about to murder the suitors and Achilles is chasing Hektor. These suspenseful scenes that create the emotion implied by the verb ἐκπλήξῃς. In addition, Ion may or may not be referring to specific events when he mentions “something of the pitiful things about Andromache, Hecuba, and Priam”. I am tempted to imagine these as correlating to their laments for Hektor, but the language itself (specifically the ἐλεινῶν τι + περὶ) makes me think Ion means what happens to them.

While both scenes certainly are from episodes (the ‘murder of the suitors’ or the pursuit of Hektor) they may not correspond to specific episodes themselves. This does not mean that Plato did not conceive of episodes: later in the same dialogue he refers to the “battle around the wall” as a part of the Iliad: “Or often in the Iliad too, for example in the teikhomakhia, when he says…” (πολλαχοῦ δὲ καὶ ἐν ᾿Ιλιάδι, οἷον καὶ ἐπὶ τειχομαχίᾳ· λέγει γὰρ καὶ ἐνταῦθα, 539 b3). He also seems to refer to funeral games from Patroklos earlier when he mentions the chariot race specifically (“Tell me now what Nestor says to his son Antilochous when he is advising him to be careful around the turning post in the chariot race for Patroklos.” ΣΩ. Εἰπὲ δή μοι ἃ λέγει Νέστωρ ᾿Αντιλόχῳ τῷ ὑεῖ, παραινῶν εὐλαβηθῆναι περὶ τὴν καμπὴν ἐν τῇ ἱπποδρομίᾳ τῇ ἐπὶ Πατρόκλῳ, 537a7“)

Plato provides at least the possibility that 5th and 4th century authors conceived of discrete parts of the Iliad as having their own titles and perhaps independent standing. I suspect there is more extensive support for this contention among the Greek orators, but the more interesting data is available from Greek art. In vase painting especially we have images from the 6th century and earlier that correlate to famous scenes from the Trojan War narrative such as the judgment of Paris and the ransoming of Hektor. As authors like Steven Lowenstam have shown, these are not simply static scenes but they act as metonyms for narratives. Of course, it is a mistake to see these images as correlating with the narrative we have. Instead, they indicate the basic premise of each episode as part of a larger whole (to go back to Aristotle). What the total evidence shows, though, is not a clustering of episodes from the Iliad and the Odyssey but a wide range of scenes from the Trojan War in general and a concentration of those that are not actually in our extant epics.

There is little agreement among classical scholars about the relationship between iconography and narrative traditions. Generally, I think it is unwise to overdetermine such things–by which I mean limiting to a less than useful extreme the range of relationships an image can have with the story it inspires in viewers. When it comes to traditional narrative episodes, images can denote very specific things or be rather open. Consider images of a crucified Christ: one may be a simple figure on a cross while another may show a wound from the centurion’s spear etc. There is iconographic drift even within one general narrative tradition.

An image can, therefore, stand metonymically to potential variations for narrative traditions. The popular image of a human figure blinding a giant–almost always identified as Odysseus–can support a level of detail that implies or conveys a very specific narrative correspondence. Consider how the krater in the image below allows alignment with the story where Odysseus gets Polyphemus drunk before blinding him while the image below it shows a “sleeping Cyclops” but without the specific allusion to wine, unless we consider the lines and dots stylized vines. The third image has neither.

So, iconography is indicative but not necessarily determinative for episodic performance. There are tempting parallels from other traditions that could push the boundaries of what we think the relationship between epic performance and images were, however. In Rajasthan, the performance of religious epics like Devnarayan, which can take a full week of all night recitations, are offered alongside a tapestry with images from the story. In this tradition, the Bhopa, a religious figure and singer, recites the tale while a partner illuminates the Par or Phad to correspond with parts of the tale. (I first learned about this from William Dalrymple’s 2006 article “Homer in India”)

I offer this analogy not because I believe that something similar happened in the performance of Homer in ancient Greece, but because it can point to some essential features of the relationship between episodic performance and imagery. First, the relationship between an image and a tale in this dynamic is metaphorical and metonymic: the image is not the story, but instead provides a possible window into the story. It can trigger a range of associative details that unfold over time. So, images stand for a story, but when they fix it in time can become something else on their own (and vice versa, to avoid making image secondary to the always primary narrative). Second, discrete series of images help to order or sequence more or less complex series. I often recall the cognitive concept of 7 plus/minus 2, which is generally how many discrete tasks/facts a human mind can keep track of at any given time. Any technology or practice that can divide larger sequences into manageable sets of 7 plus/minus 2 can help to explain the creation of longer and intricate compositions by individuals or groups.

Digression aside, there are multiple ways to think about the relationship between image and story in Greek myth. For thinking about the performance of Homer, I think that early art, when combined with the textual evidence the archaic and classical material discussed here, mostly supports the premise that many parts of the Homeric epics that we know had an independent status as shorter songs. The concretization of these scenes into identifiable parts could also be scene as a feature of the evolution of the epics and their later textualization. By phrasing it this way, I am leaving open two possibilities: one is that later scholars identified separate parts of the poems and gave them names based on their content; the other is that the songs were extant and the names are only articulated later. The material from the Homeric scholia is somewhat scattershot: episodia denote larger scenes much less frequently than shorter scenes or motifs. Much later authors, like Eustathius, seem to use the term more frequently to indicate different narrative traditions, but all this signals to me is a shifting of the term over time to be more inclusive. From Herodian to Eustathius, we can observe the development of episodes for nearly every book of the epic.

Bibliography: Please see the first post for an inclusive bibliography

Part 1: Singers in Homer and the Panathenaic Rule

This is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis. Last year this substack provided over $2k in charitable donations.

This post is part one of three looking more closely at the proposition that our Iliad is made up of a series of songs or ‘episodes’ put together in a monumental performance. The first part looks at some of the internal evidence for performance and provides some historical context. The second part explores how much support there is for this model in the classical period. The third part offers some remarks on how this approach may or may not be different from neoanalysis and begins to sketch out how our Iliad may be broken up into songs or episodes.

One of the suggestions about the composition and textualization of the Homeric poems I have mentioned in a previous post is that the poems we have received from antiquity are somehow made up of shorter songs or episodes. The inspiration for this comes in part from the poems themselves where we don’t find ‘epic’ poets performing songs anywhere near the length of the Iliad or the Odyssey but instead performances that occur during meals–as in Phemios’ song during book 1 of the Odyssey–or other activities, as when Demodokos sings the song of Hephaestus, Ares, and Aphrodite in book 8.

Scholars like Richard Hunter have seen evidence in these performances for the aesthetics and poetics of Homeric epic writ large (see Segal 1994 for the clearest articulation of this). I think Casey Dué puts this well in her Achilles Unbound when she writes (2019, 42):

“There are, moreover, several passages within the poems that depict the performance of epic poetry, such as the performances of Phemios for the suitors in the house of Odysseus and those of Demodokos for the Phaeacians in the house of King Alkinoos. These passages show a bard performing at banquets, often taking requests for various episodes involving well-known heroes. Such passages in the Homeric texts that refer to occasions of performance are fascinating windows into how ancient audiences imagined the creation of epic poetry ”

Others have extended the idea from these performances to Odysseus’ own narration in Odyssey 9-12 (see Beck 2005 for a discussion). Despite broad agreement that there is some relationship between the depiction of singers in the epics themselves and the generation of epic poetry, however, there remains some skepticism that the shorter performances represented in Homer actually correlate in any meaningful way to the Iliad and Odyssey themselves, both because of the length of the latter and the performance context of the former (see especially Murray 1983).

Three of the inset examples we do find–the song of the homecomings of the Achaeans in Odyssey 1, Demodokos’ song of the strife between Achilles and Odysseus or the tale of the Trojan horse in Odyssey 8–provide us mere titles and little else. Even the reported song of Hephaestus’ trapping of Ares and Aphrodite in book 8 is more of a summary than a song itself. Each takes place while people are doing other things: dining and drinking or playing games. Only Odysseus seems to hold his audience in rapt attention.

Nevertheless, despite the difference in length and putative performance contexts, these shorter songs can help us think about the larger compositions. Based on these examples in the Odyssey and the length of the transmitted narrative Homeric hymns such as the Hymns to Demeter, Aphrodite, Apollo, and Hermes, which are between 200 and 500 lines, scholars have often imagined a traditional performance of a ‘Homeric bard’ as being around the length of the shortest books of the Iliad and the Odyssey. For example, Odyssey 6 is the shortest at 331 lines; Iliad 5 is the longest book at 909 lines. The second longest Homeric Hymn, Apollo, is 546 lines, but many believe it is really two older songs put together. The Hymn to Aphrodite, at just under 300 lines, seems like a reasonable analog to the songs presented in the Odyssey.

Odysseus’ “Set List”

At a medium pace–c. 5 seconds per line–a 300 line song would probably take about 25 minutes to perform. 25 minutes certainly seems tolerable for a ‘dinner theater’ performance. But the Odyssey may have another model for us too. The story Odysseus tells provides an interesting example because books 9-12 have 2233 lines. Performed at the same pace, this would take a little over three hours (with a slight break after 1473, 11.333 when everyone is silent lasting until 11.378 when Odysseus resumes his take). This is a long tale, but not much more so than the running time of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023, 3 hours).

There’s a certain common sense logic to an argument that follows from these considerations, namely, that the major compositions we have in the Iliad and the Odyssey are likely made up of shorter songs. Indeed, the internal examples of the Odyssey provide some support for this. Those four books are generally split into distinct episodes themselves:

Book 9 (1) the first attack against the Cicones at Ismaros; (2) the Lotus-eaters; (3) the Cyclops scene

Book 10 (4) Aeolus and the bag of the winds, (5) the Laistrygonians and (6) Circe;

Book 11 (7) The Nekyia [in two parts, Catalog of Heroines [Intermezzo]; Catalog of Heroes]

Book 12 (8) Sirens, (9) Skylla and Charybdis, and (10) Helios’ Cattle

(see Most 1989; Cook 1995, 65-80; Christensen 2018 and 2020 Chapter 4 for more on these structures and their functions).

While these episodes vary in length, the average (c. 223 lines) is closer to the shorter of the narrative Homeric Hymns like Aphrodite than it is to the representation of songs by Phemios and Demodokos. What I find even more interesting from this comparison is that several of these scenes are also represented in early Greek art including Odysseus and the Cyclops, the Sirens, and Circe. Evidence from other poetic traditions like the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women also implies that scenes like the Nekyia were traditional too. So, one way of looking at Odysseus’ own story is as a collection of traditional episodes connected together for a specific performance. On a narrative level, of course, it is a series of memories provided by Odysseus to explain how he ended up naked on the shore of Ithaka. But there is no a priori reason that the majority of these scenes unfold in the order they do.

The Panathenaic Rule

The implication from this analysis, of course, is that larger compositions can be brought together from smaller known songs for the right occasion. Such an argument has been bolstered as well by the report of the Panathenaic rule, the only evidence we really have for the monumental performance of the epics in their entirety in antiquity. According to this tradition, rhapsodes would take up singing the Iliad or Odyssey in sequence, picking up where another left off. Additional evidence has suggested that this was a venue where shorter compositions could have been performed to create a corporate whole.

But before pursuing that line of thought, let’s look at some of the evidence for the Panathenaic rule. The first comes from a dialogue ascribed to Plato.

[Plato], Hipparchus 228b–c

Hipparchus was the oldest and the wisest of Peisistratos’ sons. He provided many other wonderful deeds as an indication of his wisdom and was the first to bring Homer’s epics to this country. He compelled the rhapsodes at the Panathenaic games to go through them in order (ἐφεξῆς ) and taking turns (ὑπολήψεως), even as they still do now.

῾Ιππάρχῳ, ὃς τῶν Πεισιστράτου παίδωυ ἦν πρεσβύτατος καὶ σοφώτατος, ὃς ἄλλα τε πολλὰ καὶ ἔργα σοφίας ἀπεδείξατο, καὶ τὰ ῾Ομήρου ἔπη πρῶτος ἐκόμισεν εἰς τὴν γῆν ταυτηνί, καὶ ἠνάγκασε τοὺς ῥαψῳδοὺς Παναθηναίοις ἐξ ὑπολήψεως ἐφεξῆς αὐτὰ διιέναι, ὥσπερ νῦν ἔτι οἵδε ποιοῦσι.

A few qualifying remarks. There’s no good reason to believe that the Panathenaic festival–an annual competition for traditional song–was the only context for the performance of epic poetry. Instead, one possibility is that it is the venue that provided the best opportunity to concretize and eventually textualize the epics we have. The basic outline is that there was a state sponsored festival that provided for the performance of Homeric epic by multiple rhapsodes. Note, however, that the passage refers to “Homer’s works” (τὰ ῾Ομήρου ἔπη) rather than the Iliad and Odyssey in general.

There’s also some debate about how to translate the words I render as “taking turns” and “in order”. There are good discussions in works by Derek Collins, Jose Gonzalez, and Gregory Nagy (see the helpful overview in Dué, Lupack, and Lamberton too). Collins (2004) believes that this passage makes it very unlikely that the epics were performed in their entirety at the festival and points to a passage he positions as indicating an older tradition in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Diogenes Laertius 1.57 = Dieuchidas of Megara FGH 485 F 6

Solon legislated that Homer’s songs be performed by rhapsodes by prompt [ὑποβολῆς] where when the first stopped, the subsequent singer would start.”

τά τε ῾Ομήρου ἐξ ὑποβολῆς γέγραφε ῥαψῳδεῖσθαι, οἶον ὅπου ὁ πρῶτος ἔληξεν, ἐκεῖθεν ἄρχεσθαι τὸν ἐχόμενον.

Here we have another traditional lawmaker establishing the performance of Homer by rhapsodes (again, note the generic nature of τά τε ῾Ομήρου) as part of an annual festival sponsored by the city. As Nagy has explored, there is an etymological felicity in the name rhapsode for the creation of a larger composition from individual songs. He has reconstructed the meaning as “one who stitches the songs together”. Nagy (2002) translates ἐξ ὑποβολῆς “by relay” instead of “prompt” for some good reasons he elaborates. I am less concerned about the precision of translation for either passage than what I think both passages indicate: a practice of multiple singers taking turns performing Homeric songs in some kind of an order.

It is not clear, as I mentioned above, that the resulting performance had to be our Iliad or Odyssey. There’s also no good reason to assume that what each rhapsode performed was a fixed song. Indeed, Collins believes that there was plenty of room for rhapsodic improvisation and Nagy argues as part of his evolutionary model for the textualization of the Homeric epics that the fixity of the songs changed over time. What I would like to imagine is a flexibility between the two possibilities: that songs that were in some way recognizably Homeric had to be performed but that rhapsodes were expected to embellish and connect them in different ways.

Bibliography: As Always, not exhaustive. Also, shared bibliography for all three posts.

Beck, Bill. “Lost in the middle : story time and discourse time in the « Iliad ».” Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic, vol. 1, 2017, pp. 46-64. Doi: 10.1163/24688487-00101003

Rinon, Yoav. “« Mise en abyme » and tragic signification in the « Odyssey »: the three songs of Demodocus.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 59, no. 2, 2006, pp. 208-225. Doi: 10.1163/156852506777069673

Beck, Deborah. “The presentation of song in Homer’s « Odyssey ».” Orality, literacy and performance in the ancient world, edited by Elizabeth Minchin, Mnemosyne. Supplements; 335. Leiden ; Boston (Mass.): Brill, 2012, pp. 25-53.

Benardete, Seth. “Some Misquotations of Homer in Plato.” Phronesis 8, no. 2 (1963): 173–78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4181724.

Broeniman, Clifford. “Demodocus, Odysseus, and the Trojan War in Odyssey 8.” Classical World, vol. 90, no. 1, 1996-1997, pp. 3-14.

Christensen, Joel P. 2020. The Many-Minded Man. Ithaca.

Christensen, Joel P. (2018). The clinical « Odyssey »: Odysseus’s apologoi and narrative therapy. Arethusa, 51(1), 1-31. Doi: 10.1353/are.2018.0000

Collins, Derek Burton. “Improvisation in rhapsodic performance.” Helios, vol. 28, no. 1, 2001, pp. 11-27.

Collins, Derek. 2004. Master of the Game: Competition and Performance in Greek Poetry. Hellenic Studies Series 7. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_CollinsD.Master_of_the_Game.2004.

Combellack, Frederick M. “Homer the Innovator.” Classical Philology 71, no. 1 (1976): 44–55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/268517.

Cook, Erwin F. 1995. The Odyssey in Athens. Ithaca.

Cook, Erwin F. “On the ‘Importance’ of Iliad Book 8.” Classical Philology 104, no. 2 (2009): 133–61. https://doi.org/10.1086/605340.

Davies, Malcolm. The « Aethiopis »: neo-neoanalysis reanalyzed. Hellenic Studies; 71., Washington (D. C.): Center for Hellenic Studies, 2016.

Dué, Casey. 2018. Achilles Unbound: Multiformity and Tradition in the Homeric Epics. Hellenic Studies Series 81. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Due.Achilles_Unbound.2018.

Dué, Casey, Susan Lupack, and Robert Lamberton. “Panathenaia.” Chapter. In The Cambridge Guide to Homer, edited by Corinne Ondine Pache, 187–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Edmunds, Lowell. “Three short essays on Demodocus’s song of Ares and Aphrodite (Odyssey 8.266-369).” Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic, vol. 4, 2020, pp. 55-71. Doi: 10.1163/24688487-00401003

Edwards, Mark W.. “Neoanalysis and beyond.” Classical Antiquity, vol. IX, 1990, pp. 311-325. Doi: 10.2307/25010933

Haft, Adele J.. “Odysseus’ wrath and grief in the Iliad. Agamemnon, the Ithacan king, and the sack of Troy in Books 2, 4, and 14.” The Classical Journal, vol. LXXXV, 1989-1990, pp. 97-114.

Finkelberg, Margalit. “The first song of Demodocus.” Mnemosyne, vol. XL, 1987, pp. 128-132. Doi: 10.1163/156852587X00111

Finkelberg, Margalit. “The sources of Iliad 7.” Colby Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 2, 2002, pp. 151-161.

Gaisser, Julia Haig. “Adaptation of traditional material in the Glaucus-Diomedes episode.” TAPA, vol. C, 1969, pp. 165-176.

González, José M. 2013. The Epic Rhapsode and His Craft: Homeric Performance in a Diachronic Perspective. Hellenic Studies Series 47. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_GonzalezJ.The_Epic_Rhapsode_and_his_Craft.2013.

Heiden, Bruce. “The placement of « book divisions » in the Iliad.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 118, 1998, pp. 68-81. Doi: 10.2307/632231

Herrero de Jáuregui, Miguel. “Priam’s catabasis: traces of the epic journey to Hades in Iliad 24.” TAPA, vol. 141, no. 1, 2011, pp. 37-68. Doi: 10.1353/apa.2011.0005

Howes, George Edwin. “Homeric Quotations in Plato and Aristotle.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 6 (1895): 153–237. https://doi.org/10.2307/310358.

Hunter, Richard L.. “The songs of Demodocus: compression and extension in Greek narrative poetry.” Brill’s companion to Greek and Latin epyllion and its reception, edited by Manuel Baumbach and Silvio Bär, Brill’s Companions in Classical Studies. Leiden ; Boston (Mass.): Brill, 2012, pp. 83-109.

Kakridis, Johannes Theophanes. “Auch Homer ist in die Lehre gegangen.” Gymnasium, vol. XCIX, 1992, pp. 97-100.

Karanika, Andromache. “Wedding and performance in Homer: a view in the « Teichoskopia ».” Trends in Classics, vol. 5, no. 2, 2013, pp. 208-233.

Kelly, Adrian. “Performance and rivalry: Homer, Odysseus, and Hesiod.” Performance, iconography, reception: studies in honour of Oliver Taplin, edited by Martin Revermann and Peter J. Wilson, Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Pr., 2008, pp. 177-203.

Kullmann, Wolfgang. “Ἡ σύλληψη τῆς Ὀδύσσειας και ἡ μυθικη παράδοση.” Ἐπιστημονικὴ Ἐπετηρὶς τῆς Φιλοσοφικῆς Σχολῆς τοῦ Πανεπιστημίου Ἀθηνῶν, vol. XXV, 1974-1977, pp. 9-29.

Marks, Jim. “Resisting Aristotle : episodes in the Epic cycle.” Tecendo narrativas : unidade e episódio na literatura grega antiga, edited by Christian Werner, Antonio Dourado-Lopes and Erika Werner, São Paulo: Humanitas, FFLCH/USP, 2015, pp. 55-71.

Most, Glenn W. “The Structure and Function of Odysseus’ Apologoi.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 119 (1989): 15–30. https://doi.org/10.2307/284257.

Murray, P.. “Homer and the bard.” Aspects of the epic, edited by Tom Winnifrith, P. Murray and Karl Watts Gransden, New York: St. Martin’s Pr., 1983, pp. 1-15.

Nagy, Gregory. The Best of the Achaeans. 1999. Johns Hopkins. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_NagyG.The_Best_of_the_Achaeans.1999.

Nagy, Gregory. 2002. Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer’s Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens. Hellenic Studies Series 1. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Platos_Rhapsody_and_Homers_Music.2002.

Nagy, Gregory and Olga M. Davidson. “On the problem of envisioning Homeric composition: some comparative observations.” Philologia Antiqua, vol. 16, 2023, pp. 15-25. Doi: 10.19272/202304601002

Nelson, Thomas J.. “Iphigenia in the « Iliad » and the architecture of Homeric allusion.” TAPA, vol. 152, no. 1, 2022, pp. 55-101. Doi: 10.1353/apa.2022.0007

Nishimura, Yoshiko T.. “The Circe-episodes in the « Odyssey ».” Journal of Classical Studies, vol. 45, 1997, pp. 40-49.

Postlethwaite, Norman. “The duel of Paris and Menelaos and the Teichoskopia in Iliad 3.” Antichthon, vol. XIX, 1985, pp. 1-6.

Rengakos, Antonios (2002). Zur narrativen Funktion der Telemachie. In André Hurst & Françoise Létoublon (Eds.), La mythologie et l’« Odyssée »: hommage à Gabriel Germain : actes du colloque international de Grenoble, 20-22 mai 1999 (pp. 87-98). Droz.

Rinon, Yoav. “« Mise en abyme » and tragic signification in the « Odyssey »: the three songs of Demodocus.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 59, no. 2, 2006, pp. 208-225. Doi: 10.1163/156852506777069673

Roisman, Hanna M.. “« Rhesus »’ allusions to the Homeric Hector.” Hermes, vol. 143, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1-23.

Segal, Charles (1994). Singers, heroes, and gods in the Odyssey. Cornell University Pr.

Sels, Nadia. “The untold death of Laertes: reevaluating Odysseus’s meeting with his father.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 66, no. 2, 2013, pp. 181-205. Doi: 10.1163/156852511X584991

Thomas, Oliver. “Phemius Suite.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 134, 2014, pp. 89-102. Doi: 10.1017/S007542691400007X

Tsagalis, Christos. 2008. The Oral Palimpsest: Exploring Intertextuality in the Homeric Epics. Hellenic Studies Series 29. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_TsagalisC.The_Oral_Palimpsest.2008.

Tsagalis, Christos. “Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis” Trends in Classics, vol. 3, no. 2, 2011, pp. 209-244. https://doi.org/10.1515/tcs.2011.011

Wyatt, William F.. “Homeric transitions.” Ἀρχαιογνωσία, vol. 6, 1989-1990, pp. 11-24.

YAMAGATA, NAOKO. “USE OF HOMERIC REFERENCES IN PLATO AND XENOPHON.” The Classical Quarterly 62, no. 1 (2012): 130–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41820000.

Zieliński, Karol. 2023. The Iliad and the Oral Epic Tradition. Hellenic Studies Series 99. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_ZielinskiK.The_Iliad_and_the_Oral_Epic_Tradition.2023.

Metaphors and Civil Strife in the Iliad

This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis. Last year this substack provided over $2k in charitable donations. Don’t forget about Storylife: On Epic, Narrative, and Living Things. Here is its amazon page. here is the link to the company doing the audiobook and here is the press page.

Od. 17.246

“Bad shepherds ruin their flocks.”

… αὐτὰρ μῆλα κακοὶ φθείρουσι νομῆες.

During his argument with Agamemnon in book 1 of the Iliad, Achilles’ rage increases with each conversational turn. Before he throws down the scepter and withdraws from the coalition—thus driving the action of the first two-thirds of the epic—Achilles insults Agamemnon multiple times.

Iliad 1.226-231

“Drunkard with a dog’s eyes and a dear’s heart:
Never have you dared to arm yourself to go to war with the army
Nor to join the ambush with the best of the Achaeans
Since your heart knows that this is your end.
No, really, it’s much easier to range through the wide host of the Achaeans
And steal the goods of anyone who speaks against you.
You’re a people-eating king who rules over nobodies.”

οἰνοβαρές, κυνὸς ὄμματ’ ἔχων, κραδίην δ’ ἐλάφοιο,
οὔτέ ποτ’ ἐς πόλεμον ἅμα λαῷ θωρηχθῆναι
οὔτε λόχον δ’ ἰέναι σὺν ἀριστήεσσιν ᾿Αχαιῶν
τέτληκας θυμῷ· τὸ δέ τοι κὴρ εἴδεται εἶναι.
ἦ πολὺ λώϊόν ἐστι κατὰ στρατὸν εὐρὺν ᾿Αχαιῶν
δῶρ’ ἀποαιρεῖσθαι ὅς τις σέθεν ἀντίον εἴπῃ·
δημοβόρος βασιλεὺς ἐπεὶ οὐτιδανοῖσιν ἀνάσσεις·

The insults in this speech are culturally shaped, as in most invective. Calling Agamemnon a drunkard impugns his self-control. In the cultural metaphors of animals, having a dog’s eyes most likely means he is greedy. A deer’s heart indicates that Agamemnon is a coward, a theme Achilles expands on in the next three lines. These insults are mostly personal in nature, by which I mean that Achilles is attacking Agamemnon’s character. He shifts, however, to focus on Agamemnon as a ruler. The pivot is an (implied) explanation on why Agamemnon does not join the fight himself: he doesn’t need the reward of acting up to the cultural standards of a brave man, because he can just steal his goods from other people. Achilles caps the entire section by moving from the personal to the political: Agamemnon is a “people-eating king who rules over nobodies”.

I don’t think that the general sense of this line requires much explication—I can’t remember anyone in my classes ever struggling to make sense of it. But there are some broader associations if we look into expectations for leadership in Greek epic and archaic poetry in general. My suspicion has always been that to understand the full force of this insult, we need to consider the broader metaphor for leadership in Greek epic, “the shepherd of the host” (*poimên laôn).

Often, I think we see the phrase as indicating a simple relationship. The metaphor is somewhat paternalistic: as a scholiast notes, there is concern involved “for it is right that a ruler be as careful of the led as the shepherd is of his sheep.” (Schol. ad Il. 285b “The shepherd of the host”: For it is right that the ruler be as careful of the led as a shepherd is of his sheep.” ex. <ποιμένι λαῶν:> δεῖ γὰρ τὸν ἄρχοντα τοσοῦτον εἶναι τῶν ἀρχομένων προνούστερον ὅσον ποιμένα προβάτων. λέγει δὲ τὸν ᾿Αγαμέμνονα.) Certain implications are clear in this concept: a leader must care for his people and protect them from external threats. But, as the general and philosopher Xenophon has it in his Memorabilia, it is not enough that a shepherd keep his flock safe, but he must also ensure its prosperity.

Xenophon, Mem. 3.2.1

“When he met a men who had been selected general, Socrates said why do you think that Homer call Agamemnon the shepherd of the host? Do you think that it is because it is right that he take care as a shepherd that his sheep be safe, that they have what they need, and that the reason they are raised will turn out well—that a general must act so that his people are safe, they have what they need and that they will obtain why they became an army? They went on an expedition so that, by overcoming their enemy, they might be happier?

…For a king is selected not so that he may care for himself well, but so that those who chose him may do well because of him. And all go to war so thet their life may be as good as possible, and they choose generals for this reason, so that they might have leaders to this end.”

᾿Εντυχὼν δέ ποτε στρατηγεῖν ᾑρημένῳ τῳ, Τοῦ ἕνεκεν, ἔφη, ῞Ομηρον οἴει τὸν ᾿Αγαμέμνονα προσαγορεῦσαι ποιμένα λαῶν; ἆρά γε ὅτι, ὥσπερ τὸν ποιμένα δεῖ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι, ὅπως σῶαί τε ἔσονται αἱ οἶες καὶ τὰ ἐπιτήδεια ἕξουσι καί, οὗ ἕνεκα τρέφονται, τοῦτο ἔσται, οὕτω καὶ τὸν στρατηγὸν ἐπιμελεῖσθαι δεῖ, ὅπως σῶοί τε οἱ στρατιῶται ἔσονται καὶ τὰ ἐπιτήδεια ἕξουσι καί, οὗ ἕνεκα στρατεύονται, τοῦτο ἔσται; στρατεύονται δέ, ἵνα κρατοῦντες τῶν πολεμίων εὐδαιμονέστεροι ὦσιν.

[3] καὶ γὰρ βασιλεὺς αἱρεῖται οὐχ ἵνα ἑαυτοῦ καλῶς ἐπιμελῆται, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα καὶ οἱ ἑλόμενοι δι᾽ αὐτὸν εὖ πράττωσι: καὶ στρατεύονται δὲ πάντες, ἵνα ὁ βίος αὐτοῖς ὡς βέλτιστος ᾖ, καὶ στρατηγοὺς αἱροῦνται τούτου ἕνεκα, ἵνα πρὸς τοῦτο αὐτοῖς ἡγεμόνες ὦσι.

In Homeric poetry, as Johannes Haubold observes, “Failure of the shepherd is the rule not the exception” (2015, 20). And there is a clear connection in Homeric language between the failure of a king and the destruction of his people: this criticism is essential to the characterization of both Agamemnon and Hektor. I also suspect that there is something dangerous in the metaphor that reifies social relationships: the sheep never get to become the leader. In addition, at its base, the relationship between a shepherd and flock is about consumption: even the kindest shepherd shears his sheep for wool; the noblest shepherd slaughters lambs for their meat. If a leader is a shepherd and a bad leader causes the ruin of his people, we can imagine cognitive metaphors of eating and excessive consumption combining with potential associations of the shepherd. It should not then be difficult to imagine that a an insult resulting in the image of a king eating his people.

When Achilles announces “You are a people-eating king who rules over nobodies” the attack capitalizes upon aspects of the king as a good shepherd and a failed leader. The king here is becomes an excessive eater, recognized by ancient commentators who gloss the word dêmoboros as meaning “one who eats the people’s common goods” (Apollonius Sophista s.v. δημοβόρος: “People-eater: one who eats the people’s common goods” δημοβόρος ὁ τὰ τοῦ δήμου κοινὰ κατεσθίων) Another scholiast makes the metaphor more economically specific, explaining it as the act of “making the common goods your own” (Schol bT ad. Il. 1.231ex “This disturbs the masses. For the most serious accusation is making the common goods your own.” δημοβόρος: κινητικὰ ταῦτα τοῦ πλήθους· μεγίστη γὰρ κατηγορία τὸ σφετερίζεσθαι τὰ κοινά.) In a world where “money makes the man”, individuals who have no goods are concretized as nobodies, individuals of no account as inhuman, perhaps, as the metaphorical shepherd’s flocks. Such a transformation implicitly justifies their mistreatment and slaughter.

I think the metaphor has deeper reach still: the noun dêmoboros is verbalized in the scholia when it refers to the Trojan “hope of destroying the people” (dêmoborêsai: Schol. bT ad Il. 18.312 “the hope of destroying the people” ἡ ἐλπὶς τοῦ δημοβορῆσαι.) This is an enemy’s action, not a leader’s.

The commentator Eustathius, for example, sees the actions as going both ways: rulers can eat the possessions of their people, but the people can consume their rulers’ possessions too (which seems to be the danger in the Odyssey). Eustathius, however, echoing Xenophon’s focus on the shepherd’s virtue, emphasizes the consumptive power of a king when he offers the parallel from Hesiod, “gift-devourer” (δωροφάγοι) and mentions in passing that Agamemnon is also criticized for drinking and eating in excess.

Eustathius, Commentary on the Iliad 1.143.27

“The insult “people-devouring king” is aimed especially at moving the people and provoking Agamemnon to Anger. Just as the term “gift-devourer” emphasizes the evil of taking bribes, just so here the term dêmoboros highlights the injustice which is more subtly announced in the phrase “deprive one of gifts”. Note as well that Agamemnon is maligned not just for drinking [being “wine-heavy”] but also for eating.”

σφόδρα δὲ κινητικὸν τοῦ δήμου τὸ δημοβόρος βασιλεύς καὶ ἐρεθιστικὸν εἰς θυμόν. ὥσπερ δὲ παρ’ ῾Ησιόδῳ τὸ δωροφάγοι ἐπιτείνει τὸ κακὸν τοῦ δωροληπτεῖν, οὕτω κἀνταῦθα τὴν ἀδικίαν τὸ δημοβόρον, ὃ ἠρέμα ὑπελαλήθη καὶ ἐν τῷ «δῶρ’ ἀποαιρεῖσθαι». ὅρα δὲ καὶ ὅτι οὐ μόνον οἰνοβαρὴς ὁ ᾿Αγαμέμνων σκώπτεται ἀλλὰ καὶ βορός.

In Hesiod’s Words and Days, kings who offer crooked judgments are called bribe-eating (221 and 264),[2] another usage framed as an issue of virtue by ancient scholars who believe that kings should be above the desire for money.

Works and Days 219-223; 263-266

“Oath runs immediately from crooked judgments.
And a roar rises from wounded Justice where men strike,
Bribe-eating men who apply the law with crooked judgments.

αὐτίκα γὰρ τρέχει ῞Ορκος ἅμα σκολιῇσι δίκῃσιν·
τῆς δὲ Δίκης ῥόθος ἑλκομένης ᾗ κ’ ἄνδρες ἄγωσι
δωροφάγοι, σκολιῇς δὲ δίκῃς κρίνωσι θέμιστας·

“Guard against these things, kings, and straighten your stories,
Bribe-eaters, forget about your crooked rulings completely.
Who fashions evil for another man brings it on himself.
The vilest end comes for the man who has made evil plans.”

ταῦτα φυλασσόμενοι, βασιλῆς, ἰθύνετε μύθους,
δωροφάγοι, σκολιέων δὲ δικέων ἐπὶ πάγχυ λάθεσθε.
οἷ αὐτῷ κακὰ τεύχει ἀνὴρ ἄλλῳ κακὰ τεύχων,
ἡ δὲ κακὴ βουλὴ τῷ βουλεύσαντι κακίστη.

A scholiast explains that there is a divine prerogative for kinds to ensure the wealth of their people.

Schol ad Hes. Prolg. 125

“He says this educationally, answering to the kings who should make a great effort to make people prosperous even though some of them take bribes. Not only this, he says clearly that if the kingly right is bestowed by the gods to do good, then it is right that kingly men be givers of wealth, and to expunge wrong doing, including a desire for money, for which they should be leaders for others according to the will of the gods.”

ΠΛΟΥΤΟΔΟΤΑΙ. Τοῦτο παιδευτικῶς εἶπεν, ἀποκρινόμενος πρὸς τοὺς βασιλεῖς, οἳ πολλοῦ δέουσιν εὐπόρους ποιεῖν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους δωροφάγοι τινὲς ὄντες. Μονονουχὶ λέγει σαφῶς, εἰ γέρας ἐστὶ βασιλικὸν προτεινόμενον ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν τὸ ἀγαθοποιεῖν, καὶ πλουτοδότας εἶναι δεῖ τοὺς βασιλικοὺς ἄνδρας, καθαρεύειν τε πάσης κακουργίας, καὶ τῆς τῶν χρημάτων ἐπιθυμίας, ὧν εἰσιν ἄλλοις χορηγοὶ κατὰβούλησιν τῶν θεῶν.

The only other close parallel for the term people-eating king comes from the archaic elegist Theognis:

Theognis 1179-1182

“Kyrnus, revere and fear the gods. For this restrains a man
From doing or saying anything sinful.
Put a people-eating tyrant to rest however you want—
No criticism will come from the gods for that.”

Κύρνε, θεοὺς αἰδοῦ καὶ δείδιθι· τοῦτο γὰρ ἄνδρα
εἴργει μήθ’ ἕρδειν μήτε λέγειν ἀσεβῆ.
δημοφάγον δὲ τύραννον ὅπως ἐθέλεις κατακλῖναι
οὐ νέμεσις πρὸς θεῶν γίνεται οὐδεμία.

Theognis stops just short from saying there is a divine mandate to overthrow kinds who consume their people. Instead, he uses the traditional phrase “there’s no criticism…” to indicate it is an acceptable if not necessary action.

N.B. Some of this draws on my article “Shepherds, Fathers, and Ships: Ancient Greek Leadership Metaphors and Some Consequences,” Science et Esprit 74: 164–79.

Some things to read

Agamben, Giorgio. 2015. Stasis: Civil War as a Political Paradigm. Translated by Nicholas Heron. Redwood City, CA.

Barker, E. T. E. 2009. Entering the Agôn: Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography and Tragedy, Oxford.

Benveniste, Émile. 1969. Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes. 1. Économie, parenté, société. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit.

Brock, Roger. 2013. Greek political imagery from Homer to Aristotle. New York ; London: Bloomsbury.

Drews, Robert. 1983. Basileus: The Evidence for Kingship in Geometric Greece. New Haven.

Elmer, David. 2013 The Poetics of Consent: Collective Decision Making and the Iliad, Baltimore.

Hammer, Dean. 2002. The Iliad as Politics: The Performance of Political Thought. University of Oklahoma Press.

Handl, Sandra & Schmid, Hans-Jörg. 2011. Introduction: Metaphor, Metonymy and Conceptual Blending. 10.1515/9783110238198.1.

Johannes Haubold. Homer’s People: Epic Poetry and Social Formation. Cambridge: 2000.

Huntzinger, Jonathan David. The end of exile: a short commentary on the shepherd/sheep metaphor in exilic and post-exilic prophetic and Synoptic Gospel literature. [S. l.]: [s. n.], 1999.

Lakoff, Georg and Johnson, Mark 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago.

Loraux, Nicole. 2006. The Divided City: On Memory and Forgetting in Ancient Athens. Translated by Corinne Pache and Jeff Fort. New York.

Macé, Arnaud. 2017. “Purifications et distributions sociales : Platon et le pastorat politique. Philosophie antique – problèmes, renaissances, usages” Presses universitaires du Septentrion, Platon et la politique: 101–123.

Marks, Jim. 2008. Zeus in the “Odyssey.” Hellenic Studies 31. Washington, DC.

Muellner, L. C. 1996. The Anger of Achilles: Mēnis in Greek Epic. Ithaca, NY.

Naiden, Fred. 2012. Smoke Signals for the Gods: Ancient Greek Sacrifice from the Archaic through the Roman Period. Oxford.

Petit, A. 1999. “Le pastorat ou l’impossible raccourci théologico-politique.” dans E. Cattin, L. Jafro & A. Petit (éd.), Figures du théologico-politique, Paris: 9–24.

Vernant, Jean-Pierre., Detienne, Marcel., Durand, Jean-Louis. The cuisine of sacrifice among the Greeks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Uhlig, Anna. “Sailing and singing: Alcaeus at sea.” Textual events : performance and the lyric in early Greece. Eds. Budelmann, Felix and Phillips, Tom. Oxford: Oxford University Pr., 2018. 63-92

Zanker, Andreas. 2019. Metaphor in Homer: Time, Speech, and Thought. Cambridge.