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The Epic Cycle and the uniqueness of Homer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Jasper Griffin
Jasper Griffin
Affiliation:
Balliol College, Oxford
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Extract

The Homeric poems are the subject of such a flood of print that a definite justification is needed by one who adds to it. Especially perhaps is this so if the Epic Cycle is to be involved; ‘enough and too much has been written about the Epic Cycle’, said T. W. Allen in 1908. My argument will be that the Cycle has still not been fully exploited as a source to show, by comparison and contrast, the particular character and style of the two great epics, particularly the Iliad. With the domination of Homeric scholarship in English by formulaic studies on the one hand and archaeology on the other, the poems themselves have perhaps been less discussed than might have been expected, and the uniqueness of the Homeric style and picture of the world has not been fully brought out. Most treatments of the Cycle have been concerned to assert or to deny that it contained poems or incidents earlier than the surviving epics, a question which will not be raised here. Most recent writers on Homer have more or less ignored the Cycle; even Hermann Fränkel, the first part of whose book Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums (2nd edition 1962; now available in English, Poetry and Philosophy in Early Greece [1975]), is perhaps the most illuminating single work to have appeared on Homer in this century, does not discuss it, although it could have been made to support many of his arguments. No inferences are based on it, for example, in Wace and Stubbings, Companion to Homer, nor by Sir Maurice Bowra in his posthumous Homer. ‘My remarks are restricted to the two epics’, says J. B. Hainsworth in his short account; and G. S. Kirk, who does refer to the style of the fragments, does so summarily and without quotation. Yet after all the Cycle was a large body of early Greek heroic poetry, composed at a time not too far removed from that of the great epics, and at least passing as being in the same manner. We have some 120 lines quoted in the original, and a good deal of information about the content of the poems. If it proves possible to draw from this material any clear contrast with the Iliad, it may be felt that this will bring out the individuality of the latter even more strikingly than does the epic poetry, currently more often invoked, of the ancient Hittites or the modern Yugoslavs.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 97 , November 1977 , pp. 39 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1977

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References

I am greatly indebted for advice to Professor Hugh Lloyd-Jones.

1 Erinnerungen (1928) 58.

2 Homerische Untersuchungen (1879) 375.

3 CQ ii (1908) 64.

4 Here cited from vol. v of the Oxford Classical Text of Homer, ed. T. W. Allen, sometimes needing to be supplemented by Bethe, E., Homer 2 ii 2Google Scholar, a fuller collection and discussion of the fragments.

5 The attempts by Pestalozzi, Schadewaldt, Kullmann and others to show that various passages in the Iliad are derivative from episodes in the Cyclic poems for which we have evidence, seem to me not to have produced a single satisfactory example; see the sceptical discussion by Dihle, A., Homer-Probleme (1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ch. 1. That is not of course to say that other, earlier, poems on such themes did not influence the Iliad and Odyssey.

6 ‘Eine jeweils rechtzeitige Konsultation desfränkelschen Buches würde wohl überhaupt manche Seite gelehrter Literatur ungeschrieben lassen’. Dihle, , Homer-Probleme 15Google Scholar n. 13.

7 Hainsworth, J. B., Homer = New Surveys iii (1969) 3Google Scholar.

8 See below, p. 51.

9 It is not really possible to date these lost poems. If, as we are told (Paus, ix 9·5), Callinus ascribed the Thebais to Homer, that implies a very early date for that poem; Severyns, A., Le Cycle épique dans l'école dď Aristarque 313Google Scholar, puts the Aethiopis as early as the eighth century. But forms like Ἰλιακοῑο and αἰδοῑ in the Cypria point to a considerably later date; Wilamowitz, , Hom. Untersuchungen 367Google Scholar, Wackernagel, J., Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Homer 182Google Scholar. Probably Lesky, A. is right (Geschichte der gr. Lit. 3 [1971] 104)Google Scholar to put the composition of the Cyclic epics in general in the late seventh century.

9a Interesting material and reservations on this: Dirlmeier, F., Das serbokroatische Heldenlied und Homer, Heidelerg, S. B. 1971Google Scholar.

10 It is a pity that Monro, rather played down this aspect of the matter in his Appendix on ‘Homer and the Cyclic Poets’ in his edition of the Odyssey, ii (1901) 340–84Google Scholar; pp. 352 f., contain a little on it.

11 Magnien, V., La discrétion homérique, RÉG 37 (1924) 141–63Google Scholar. E.g. ‘Il a évité de décrire les êtres trop différents de…cette humanité idéale qu'est la divinité’, p. 142.

12 A goose, not a swan, according to Luppe, W., Philologus 118 (1974) 193Google Scholar ff.

13 Fr. 163R=ΣΤ in Il. xix 108: see also ΣΤ in Il. xx 234. Another application of the distinction: what the poet himself says must be self-consistent, but what his characters are made to say need not: Eustath. 640. 50; Porphyry, , Quaest. ad Horn. Il. ed. Schrader, p. 99Google Scholar. 22 ff.

14 Amazons, : Il. iii 189Google Scholar (a reminiscence of Priam), vi 196 (family history of Glaucus). Ethiops: Il. i 423, xxxiii 206 (gods go off to see them): Od. iv 84 (a reminiscence of Menelaus).

15 Kakridis, P. J., Achilles' Rüstung, Hermes 89 (1961) 288–97Google Scholar.

16 See Severyns, A., Le cycle épique 328Google Scholar.

16a Discussed judiciously by Drerup, E., Das Homerproblem in der Gegenwart (1921) 231Google Scholar n. 3, who thinks the motif pre-Homeric.

16b On Il. xx 226 ff. see below, p. 41.

17 Robertson, D. S., ‘The food of Achilles’, CR 54 (1940) 177–80Google Scholar. The transformation by Homer of the wholly superhuman heroes of older belief is eloquently described by Mühll, P. Von der, Der grosse Aias (1930) 40Google Scholar ff. As he puts it, “Heroen sind die Helden Homers in einem neuen, menschlicheren Sinn”.

18 Carpenter, Rhys, Folk Tale, Fiction, and Saga in the Homeric Epics 143–4Google Scholar: Roux, R., Le Problème des Argonautes (1949)Google Scholar, especially ch. IV, Les figures Argonautiques. Among the Argonauts both Iphiclus and Euphemus were gifted with fabulous speed at running.

19 So Lesley, in RE Peleus, s.v., xix 298Google Scholar. On the mythical pattern of shape-changers and their defeat, see now Detienne, M. and Vernant, J.-P., Les ruses de l'intelligence: La mètis des Grecs (1974) esp. 107Google Scholar ff.

20 E.g. in Il. i 396 on xviii 434, Aristarchus denied that Homer knew this story, invented by

21 So Lesky op. cit.

22 Winds, in the form of horses: Call. fr. 110Google Scholar. 54: Lloyd-Jones, H. in CQ n.s. 7 (1957) 24Google Scholar. Erichthonius in Il. xx an Attic interpolation: so Fick, , Leaf, , Heitsch, E., Aphroditehymnus, Aeneas und Homer (1965) 124–35Google Scholar. The counter-argument of Erbse, H., RM no (1967) 24Google Scholar, that Erichthonius may have entered Attica from this passage, seems unlikely for many reasons, not least his importance in the ancient initiation-festival of the Arrephoria: cf. Burkert, W. in Hermes 94 (1966) 1–25Google Scholar. Il. xvi 150 is rather different, see Leaf ad loc.

22a Fränkel, H., Dichtung und Philosophie 279Google Scholar.

23 Schadewaldt, W., Von Homers Welt und Werk 4261Google Scholar.

24 Bethe, , Homer 2 II 248Google Scholar denies that the translation of Achilles comes from the Aethiopis. His grounds are insufficient: could the poem have allowed Eos to get for her son what Thetis could not get for her incomparable Achilles?

25 See Parry, A. in ϒCS xx (1966) 197Google Scholar ff. It comes as a shock to find that the scholiasts thought the passage ‘added nothing to the poetry’, in iii 236;

26 Severyns, A., Recherches sur la Chrestomathie de Proclos ii 90Google Scholar.

26a ΣGen. in Il. v 126 not in Allen; cf. Bethe, Thebanische Heldenlieder 76Google Scholar, Severyns, , Le Cycle épique 219Google Scholar.

27 The word occurs nine times in the epics and four times in the Hymns, always with the word On Homer, and death see now CQ n.s. 26 (1976) 186Google Scholar.

28 For names see ΣΑ in Il. iii 175 as well as Cypria fr. ix, and RE s.v. Helene, 2830. 48 ff.

29 E.g. Σ in Il. vi 492

29a He is eloquently contrasted with Siegfried in this respect by Rohde, E., Der griechische Roman 444Google Scholar.

30 This line and the attitude it implies shocked the Alexandrians: ad loc., As usual they resorted to deletion.

31 in ix 668: The story of his concealment among women is an invention of the So too Eustathius 1956. 18.

31a Murray, G., Rise of the Greek Epic 4130–40Google Scholar.

32 in Il ix 456 in Od. xv 248 on the matricide of Alcmaeon. It was surely perverse of Bethe to argue from this silence that in the Nostoi she perhaps committed suicide [Homer 2 II 268). The Odyssey even pushes this tendency so far as implicitly to deny that Oedipus had children by his mother, xi 271–4:

It was pointed out in antiquity (Pausan, ix 5.10) that the word ᾄφαρ seems to rule out the production of children. This is the more striking as it has been shown by Deubner, , ‘Oedipusprobleme’, Abh. Preuss. Ak. (1942) 34Google Scholar ff., that this passage of the Odyssey is based on the version of the cyclic Oedipodeia, in which Oedipus had by her two sons, Phrastor and Laonytus. Deubner argues that ᾄφαρ need not rule out an interval of a year, time enough for twins to be born, cf. Od. ii 93, ii 167, and h. Cer. 452; I guess that the poet wished to gloss over the incestuous offspring, and so used a phrase which suggested that there was none.

33 Bethe, p. 243, ‘cannot bring himself to accept this romantic story as part of an heroic epic’. It is rather depressing to see how subjectively scholars behave in this matter. Wilamowitz, Kl. Sehr. iv 364Google Scholar, and ib. v 2.77) thought Laius' rape of Chrysippus and invention of homosexual love was told in the Theban epics; Deubner, (Abh. Preuss. Ak. (1942) 5)Google Scholar denies this on the ground that such a subject is “einem alten Epos alles andere als angemessen”. As for Achilles and Helen, it is by no means the only romantic story in the Cycle, and doubtless Rzach (2391. 4–10) and Severyns, (Le cycle épique 304)Google Scholar are right to accept it.

33a For Bethe, ib., the evidence that Achilles restrained them is of course a ‘kaum verständliche Notiz’; as on his anti-romantic assumptions it is bound to be.

34 Der griechische Roman 4 110 n. 2, (not quite in agreement with what he said on p. 46 ‘eine romantische Sehnsucht’). Bethe emphatically rejects it for the Aethiopis.

35 In his view she was originally ‘a valkyrie’, 1844.29.

36 I do not think the phrase is intended to express explicit condemnation of this act, a view which goes back to antiquity ( ad loc.: ) and is still popular; for refs. cf. Segal, C., The Theme of Mutilation of the Corpse in the Iliad, 13Google Scholar. Contra, cf. Bassett, in TAPA 64 (1933) 41–65Google Scholar; and such passages as Il. vii 478 and Od. viii 273, (Hephaestus plans the net to catch Ares and Aphrodite) In both cases the phrase means ‘evil for the victim’. The same disagreement over the to which Achilles subjected Hector's corpse, xxii 395 : cf. Bassett loc. cit. 44.

37 RE s.v. ‘Kyklos’, 2417. 42. He goes on to call it ‘almost romantic’, 2419.46; the ‘almost’ seems to be a bow to the convention among scholars that nothing really romantic is to be allowed to have appeared in the Cycle.

38 As the ΣAT on Il. ii 356 rightly say,

39 Well handled by Cauer, , NJbb. 12 (1900) 608Google Scholar: more detailed psychological explanations are given by Maniet, A., L'Ant. Class. 16 (1947) 37–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schmiel, R., TAPA 103 (1972) 463–72Google Scholar. Against such psychological elaboration of what Homer does not say about his characters, Kakridis, J. T., Homer Revisited (1971) 14Google Scholar f., and, on Helen, , his paper Dichterische Gestalten und wirkliche Menschen bei Homer in Festschrift Schadewaldt (1970) 51–64Google Scholar.

40 The point is made by Reinhardt, K., Tradition und Geist 10Google Scholar.

41 The speculations based on this by Heitsch, E., ‘Der Zorn des Paris’, in Festschrift J. Klein (1967) 216–47Google Scholar, consequently seem to me unreal.

42 Iliadic diet is discussed at length in Athenaeus 8–11, 25; cf. also e.g. ΣΑ in Il. xvi 407, 747.

43 Van der Valk, M. H., Homer's Nationalistic Attitude, L' Ant. Class. 22 (1953) 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar ff. : Kakridis, J. T., 'Λεὶ ϕιλέλλην ὁ ποιητής? WS 69 (1956) 26Google Scholar ff.= Homer Revisited 54 ff. The question is much can vassed in the ancient commentaries, e.g. ΣBT in Il. viii 78, 274, 487: Eustath. 237. 27, 370.15.

44 Paris, Dolon, and Hector are all in Il. iii 19: Trojans are boasters, Σ in Il. xvii 186. Cf. Friedrich, W. H., Verwundung und Tod in der Ilias (1956) 20Google Scholar ff.

45 Well brought out by Reinhardt, K., Tradition und Geist 9Google Scholar. See also Klingner, F., Hermes 75 (1940) 346Google Scholar = Studien zur gr. und röm. Lit. 17.

46 See Reinhardt, K., Tradition und Geist 14Google Scholar f.

46a Significantly, both Achilles, , Il. xxii 346Google Scholar, and Hecuba, xxiv 212, express the wish to feast on the enemy's flesh, but this cannot actually happen. Cf. also iv 35.

47 Pointed out by Nilsson, M. P., Opuscula Selecta i 359Google Scholar. In Iliad viii, and only in that Book, Zeus goes so far as to cast his warning bolts ‘among the Achaeans’ or before Diomede's chariot, viii 76, 133.

48 Wackernagel, J., Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Homer 224Google Scholar ff.: in antiquity, e.g. ΣΤ in Il. ix 134 and Hesiod fr. 208 MW, where the delicate brevity with which Homer describes Anteia's attempt to seduce Bellerophon is contrasted with the prurient fullness of the Hesiodic account of the attempt by Acastus' wife upon the virtue of Peleus.

49 It is wrong of Bowra, , Heroic Poetry 198Google Scholar, to call such accounts of feasts ‘perfunctory’. See rather Fränkel, H., Dichtung und Philosophie 231Google Scholar.

50 Schmid-Stählin, , Geschichte der gr. Lit., i 1.178Google Scholar.

51 Die Ilias und Homer 66.2. Rightly van der Valk, , Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad II 486Google Scholar, calls this ‘incredible’. In antiquity, when the commentators were looking for a reason why, at Il. xiv 75, Agamemnon disgracefully proposed flight, it did not occur to them to mention drink.

52 On the eccentric passage Il. xiii 613 ff., where the Trojans are blamed for this quality, normally a virtue, see Fenik, B., Typical Battle Scenes in the Iliad (1968) 147Google Scholar, and ΣBT in Il. xvi 617: a virtue turned into a reproach in the mouth of a taunting enemy.

53 So Kranz, W. in Studi Castiglioni 1 (1960) 481Google Scholar.

54 Der epische Cyclus ii 159.

55 ΣΤ in Il. xi 690

56 E.g. Lesky, , Geschichte der gr. Lit. 3104Google Scholar.

56a Kullmann, W., Die Quellen der Ilias (1960) 221Google Scholar.

57 Wilamowitz, , Homerische Untersuchungen 366–7Google Scholar; Wackernagel, , Sprachliche Untersuchungen 181Google Scholar ff.; Dihle, , Homer-Probleme 148Google Scholar f. (not all of whose examples of lateness are convincing) ; Bethe, 's commentary on the fragments, Homer 2 II 2. 150Google Scholar ff., contains useful material.

58 Severyns, , Le cycle épique 155–9Google Scholar.

59 The Songs of Homer 164. Important reservations about the different styles distinguished by Kirk are expressed by Holscher, U., Gnomon 39 (1967) 437–8Google Scholar.

60 See Eustathius 682.48, 754.7, 995.15, 1031.51, 1042.29, 1107.26, 1634.12.

61 Despite Allen, and Welcker, , (‘dem ᾄμφω scheint Nachdruck durch die Stellung gegeben zu sein,’ ii 516)Google Scholar, this metrical monster can hardly be right. Gerhard, and so Bethe.

62 Tzetzes quotes another six lines as continuous with these five, but they are ascribed to Simmias of Rhodes by the Scholiast, on Euripides Andromache 10Google Scholar; Allen's arrangement conceals this fact. The author ship of Simmias was rejected implicitly by Allen and explicitly by Fränkel, H., de Simia Rhodio 37Google Scholar ff.: Powell, J. U. printed the lines as by Simmias in Collectanea Alexandrina 112Google Scholar, but Diehl omitted them from his Anthologia Lyrica Graeca. Schmidt, Max, Troika, (Diss. Göttingen 1917) 45Google Scholar tries to meet the stylistic arguments of Fränkel. The problem is a difficult one. The lines seem to lack all the ingenuity and point we expect from Simmias, but it is hard to know how conclusive that is, in view of our ignorance of most of his work, while Professor Lloyd-Jones observes that the ascription to him, if not correct, is certainly very hard to account for. It seems best to use only the certainly attested lines in the argument here.

63 ‘Gar manche dichterische Schönheit’, RE s.v. ‘Kyklos’ 2372, 2394.

63a Die Heimkehr des Odysseus (1927) 183.

64 Homerische Untersuchungen 373 ff.