Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T20:30:12.233Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reconsidering the Tartarean Geography of the Iliad: Traces of a Far-Away Tartarus and the Narrative Significance of Localisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2022

Joel A. Gordon Open the ORCID record for Joel A. Gordon [Opens in a new window]
Joel A. Gordon*
Affiliation:
University of Otago, New Zealand
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper argues for a novel conception of Iliadic Tartarus as a fluid liminal space which includes a superterranean context alongside its (traditionally realised) subterranean localisation. A close reading of Iliad 8.477–81 reveals traces of superterranean imagery which, alongside the traditional subterranean reading of 8.13–6 and 14.198–311, allows for the identification of a fluid, dual-model of Tartarean space within the background of the poem. Further, grounded in recent developments regarding dual localisation within Homeric narrative, this paper explores how localisation can reflect narrative and/or thematic concerns, rather than exclusively denoting spatial-physical realities. Thus, the use of geographical imagery within the three Tartarean passages is examined for its narrative/thematic significance, considering themes such as the hierarchy of the gods and narrative developments such as the relocation of Zeus’ positioning within the larger cosmos. The identification of such nuances, in turn, provides a precedent for retaining ‘conflicting’ or fluid geographical space(s) within the narrative despite the ‘contradictions’ that they embody.

Keywords

IliadlocalisationTartarusdualitylandscapeHomerfluidgeography
Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 56 , 2022 , pp. 1 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albinus, L. (2000), The House of Hades: Studies in Ancient Greek Eschatology. Aarhus.Google Scholar
Ballabriga, A. (1986), Le soleil et le tartare: L'image mythique du monde en grèce archaïque. Paris.Google Scholar
Ballabriga, A. (1998), Les fictions d'Homère: L'invention mythologique et cosmographique dans l'Odysée. Paris.Google Scholar
Bilić, T. (2013), ‘Locations of Mythical Exile: Two Mythical Models Accounting for the Phenomenon of Diurnal Solar Movement’, Mnemosyne 66, 247–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, R., (2006), ‘Iapetus’, in H. Cancik et al. (eds.), Brill's New Pauly at https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/*-e521170Google Scholar
Bowra, C. M. (1930), Tradition and Design in the Iliad. Oxford.Google Scholar
Bray, C. (2018), ‘Limits of Dread: ἐσχατιά, πɛῖραρ, and Dangerous Edge-Space in Homeric Formulae’, in Felton, D. (ed.), Landscapes of Dread in Classical Antiquity: Negative Emotion in Natural and Constructed Spaces. Abingdon, 38–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bremmer, J. N. (2008), Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East. Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Budelmann, F. and Haubold, J. (2007), ‘Reception and Tradition’, in Hardwick, L. and Stray, C. (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions. Oxford, 13–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, J. S. (2016), ‘Localization of the Odyssey's Underworld’, CEA 53, 15–37.Google Scholar
Burton, D. (2016), ‘Utopian Motifs in Early Greek Concepts of the Afterlife’, Antichthon 50, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camacho, P. F. (2015), ‘A Space without Ethnology: Study of the Ideological Treatment of the West in Greek and Roman Literature through the Sources about the Island of Gades’, AC 84, 63–73.Google Scholar
Clark, S. R. L. (2017), ‘Classical Mediterranean Conceptions of the Afterlife’, in Nagasawa, Y. and Matheson, B. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of the Afterlife. London, 41–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clay, D. (1992), ‘The World of Hesiod’, Ramus 21, 131–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cousin, C. (2002), ‘La situation géographique et les abords de l'Hadès homérique’, Gaia 6, 25–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cousin, C. (2012), Le monde des morts: Espaces et paysages de l'au-delà dans l'imaginaire grec d'Homère à la fin du Ve siècle avant J.-C: étude littéraire et iconographique. Paris.Google Scholar
Currie, B. (2016), Homer's Allusive Art. Oxford.Google Scholar
de Jong, I. J. F. (2001), A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey. Cambridge and New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Defouw, R. J. (2018). The Subtlety of Homer. Boulder, CO.Google Scholar
Edmunds, L. (2009), ‘A Hermeneutic Commentary on the Eschatological Passage in Pindar Olympian 2 (57–83)’, in Dill, U. and Walde, C. (eds.), Antike Mythen. Berlin, 662–77.Google Scholar
Endsjø, D. O. (1997), ‘Placing the Unplaceable: The Making of Apollonius’ Argonautic Geography’, GRBS 38, 373–85.Google Scholar
Evans, R. (2003), ‘Searching for Paradise: Landscape, Utopia, and Rome’, Arethusa 36, 285–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, R. (2008), Utopia Antiqua: Readings of the Golden Age and Decline at Rome. London.Google Scholar
Fowler, R. L. (2017), ‘Imaginary Itineraries in the Beyond’, in Hawes, G. (ed.), Myths on the Map: The Storied Landscapes of Ancient Greece. Oxford, 243–60.Google Scholar
Garland, R. (1981), ‘The Causation of Death in the Iliad: A Theological and Biological Investigation’, BICS 28, 43–60.Google Scholar
Gazis, G. (2018), Homer and the Poetics of Hades. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gazis, G. A. (2021a), ‘Beyond the Stream of the Ocean: Hades, the Aethiopians and Homeric Eschata’, in Marlow, H., Pollman, K. and van Noorden, H. (eds.), Eschatology in Antiquity: Forms and Functions. Abingdon and New York, 105–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gazis, G. A. (2021b), ‘What is your Lot?: Lyric Pessimism and Pindar's Afterlife’, in Gazis, G. A. and Hooper, A. (eds.), Aspects of Death and the Afterlife in Greek Literature. Liverpool, 69–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gazis, G. A. (2021c), ‘Dying (?) in Pindar's Sicily: Olympian 2 and the Isle of the Blessed’, in Reid, H. L. and Lewis, V. M. (eds.), Pindar in Sicily. Sioux City, IA, 97–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gee, E. R. G. (2020), Mapping the Afterlife: from Homer to Dante. Oxford and New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilchrest, E. J. (2012), The Topography of Utopia: Revelation 21–22 in Light of Ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman Utopianism. PhD thesis. Baylor University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, J. A. (2017), ‘When Superman Smote Zeus: Analysing Violent Deicide in Popular Culture’, CRJ 9, 211–36.Google Scholar
Gordon, J. A. (2019), ‘Opening up the World below’: A New ‘Reading’ of Ancient Greek Eschatological Topography. Phd Thesis. University of Otago.Google Scholar
Hainsworth, J. B. (1993), The Iliad: A Commentary. Vol. 3 (Books 9–12). Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haller, B. S. (2007), Landscape Description in Homer's Odyssey. PhD thesis. University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Hammond, R. (2012), Islands in the Sky: The Four-dimensional Journey of Odysseus Through Space and Time. Newcastle.Google Scholar
Harrell, S. E. (1991), ‘Apollo's Fraternal Threats: Language of Succession and Domination in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes’, GRBS 32, 307–29.Google Scholar
Hawes, G. (2017), ‘Of Myths and Maps’ in Hawes, G. (ed.), Myths on the Map: The Storied Landscapes of Ancient Greece. Oxford, 1–13.Google Scholar
Janko, R. (1992), The Iliad: A Commentary. Vol. 4 (Books 13–16). Cambridge.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. M. (1999), ‘Hesiod's Descriptions of Tartarus (Theogony 721-819)’, Phoenix 53, 8–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jouanna, D. (2015), Les Grecs aux enfers: d'Homère à Épicure. Paris.Google Scholar
Kirchhoff, A. (1879) Die homerische Odyssee. Berlin.Google Scholar
Kirk, G. S. (1985), The Iliad: A Commentary. Vol. 1 (Books 1–4). Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirk, G. S. (1990), The Iliad: A Commentary. Vol. 2 (Books 5–8). Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kostuch, L. (2015), ‘Between Rivers and the Sea: The Hellenic Aquatic Divisions’, International Journal of Maritime History 27, 177–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louden, B. (2013), ‘Iapetus and Japheth: Hesiod's Theogony, Iliad 15.187–93, and Genesis 9–10’, ICS 38, 1–22.Google Scholar
Lye, S. (2016), The Hypertextual Underworld: Exploring the Underworld as an Intertextual Space in Ancient Greek Literature. PhD thesis. University of California.Google Scholar
Mackie, C. J. (2014), ‘Zeus and Mount Ida in Homer's Iliad’, Antichthon 48, 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McInerney, J. and Sluiter, I. (2016), ‘General Introduction’, in McInerney, J. and Sluiter, I. (eds.), Valuing Landscape in Classical Antiquity: Natural Environment and Cultural Imagination. Leiden, 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McIntyre, J. S. (2009), Written into the Landscape: Latin Epic and the Landmarks of Literary Reception. PhD thesis. University of St. Andrews.Google Scholar
Most, G. W. (ed.) (2006), Hesiod. Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Murray, A. T. and Wyatt, W. F. (eds.) (1999), Homer: Iliad. 2 vols. rev. edn. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Nagy, G. (1973), ‘Phaethon, Sappho's Phaon, and the White Rock of Leukas’, HSCPh 77, 137–77Google Scholar
Nakassis, D. (2004), ‘Gemination at the Horizons: East and West in the Mythical Geography of Archaic Greek Epic’, TAPhA 134, 215–33.Google Scholar
Page, D. L. (1955), The Homeric Odyssey: The Mary Flexner Lectures Delivered at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. Westport, CT.Google Scholar
Purves, A. C. (2006), ‘Falling into Time in Homer's Iliad’, ClAnt 25, 179–209.Google Scholar
Purves, A. C. (2010), Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative. New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romm, J. S. (1992), The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction. Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snell, B. (ed.) (2004), Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos. Band 3 (Μ-Π). Göttingen.Google Scholar
Sourvinou-Inwood, C. (1995). ‘Reading’ Greek Death: To the End of the Classical Period. Oxford.Google Scholar
Stanford, W. B. (1965), ‘The Ending of the Odyssey: An Ethical Approach’, Hermathena 100, 5–20.Google Scholar
Trépanier, S. (2017), ‘From Hades to the Stars: Empedocles on the Cosmic Habitats of Soul’, ClAnt 36, 130–82.Google Scholar
Tralau, J. (2018), ‘Hesiod, Ouranos, Kronos, and the Emasculation at the Beginning of Time’, CW 111, 459–84.Google Scholar
van der Valk, M. (1985), ‘On the God Cronus’, GRBS 26, 5–11.Google Scholar
Wender, D. (1978), The Last Scenes of the Odyssey. Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. v. (1884), Homerische Untersuchungen. Berlin.Google Scholar
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. v. (1927), Die Heimkehr des Odysseus: neue homerische Untersuchungen. Berlin.Google Scholar
Wilson, C. H. (1996), Homer Iliad VIII and IX. Warminster.Google Scholar
Yasumura, N. (2011), Challenges to the Power of Zeus in Early Greek Poetry. London.Google Scholar
Zellner, H. (2008), ‘Argument in the New Sappho’, CB 84, 47–55.Google Scholar