The Romans and Homer

[Vindex]

Iliad 20.297-308, description of Aeneas (or Aineias)

“But why does this man, who is guiltless, suffer his sorrows
for no reason, for the sake of others’ unhappiness, and always
he gives gifts that please them to the gods who hold the wide heaven.
But come, let us ourselves get him away from death, for fear
the son of Kronos may be angered if now Achilleus
kills this man. It is destined that he shall be the survivor,
that the generation of Dardanos shall not die, without seed
obliterated, since Dardanos was dearest to Kronides
of all his sons that have been born to him from mortal women.
For Kronos’ son has cursed the generation of Priam,
and now the might of Aineias shall be lord over the Trojans,
and his sons’ sons, and those who are born of their seed hereafter.”

Which is picked up by Virgil's Aeneid in book one as "compelled a man remarkable for goodness to endure so many crises, meet so many trials."

Am I right in taking this as tacit evidence that the Romans were generally aware of Homer's work be it the Iliad or Odyssey?


Is there any other evidence/refernce to these Greek epic poems in mosaic or statuary?

[john m roberts]

The image of Aeneas bearing his father, Anchises, from burning Troy on his back became an important Roman icon of filial piety to be found many times in art. However, I don't know if this image was common before Vergil's poem was published. The Iliad and Oddysey were known throughout the Mediterranean world and the first task of the scholars of the Museum at Alexandria was to produce an approved canon of Homeric verse (it had grown corrupt by Hellenistic times). The Romans can scarcely have been unaware of the poems, considering the pervasiveness of Greek culture.

[Nathan Ross]

I can't think of any physical evidence, but Romans were certainly aware of Homer - I think there were papyrii found in Egypt with lines from the Iliad copied out as school exercises, in the same way that Virgil was used on the Vindolanda tablets.

Cassius Dio has Septimius Severus quoting from the Iliad, after losing his rag with the Caledonians:

"Let no one escape sheer destruction,
No one our hands, not even the babe in the womb of the mother,
If it be male; let it nevertheless not escape sheer destruction."
(Dio 77.15 - quote from Iliad book VI, Agamemnon to 'soft hearted Menelaus')

The stories of the Trojan war seem to have been well known - the relics of the war were still on show in the second century AD - the sceptre of Agamemnon, the sword and tomb of Achilles, etc - and were popular tourist attractions. Possibly Romans would quote from Homer (and Virgil) as we might quote lines from famous films or songs today.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Since they claimed lineage going back to Aeneas? I.e. GJC,
Possibly a good chance indeed they had heard of Homer!

[Lyceum]

Well we can intimate the Romans knew of Homer from the ridiculous number of papyri fragments, constant reference and imitation in their literature and artwork, the intense editorial activity, blatant statements, school curricula etc etc.

Aineias was an important part of the Greek epic tradition: that quote most likely refers to the Aineidai in the Troad incidentally.

Homer was A part of the Trojan mythos, not always the most favoured one as far as the Romans were concerned and they seemed to draw more heavily from what we call the epic cycle as well as writers like Stesichorus. Its worth looking into the artwork at Bovillae and in also the Tabula Illiaca.

I'm not sure what to say actually, this is such a hugely studied area of Roman culture that I could exhaust hours and hours typing about the various aspects of it and get nowhere, basically. The most recent, easy to get into, book would Andrew Erksine's book on Troy and Rome or whatever its called, its a decent introduction.

[magister clarissimus]

One of the very first works in Latin literature was a translation of Homer referred to as the "Odusia", by a Greek called Livius (after his Roman master?) Andronicus around 250 bc. And from that moment on, Latin literature was heavily influenced by Greek literature. Vergils Aeneid, almost 250 years later, still can only be fully appreciated if one is aquainted with Homer. One can be very sure the Roman cultural elite was very aware of the Greek examples.

Bear also in mind that in a large part of the Roman empire, Greek rather than Latin was the language of merchants, diplomats and artists. And also of philosophy; Cicero still had to invent the Latin terminology for translating works of the great Greek philosophers because Latin simply had no words to render the Greek philosophical terminology properly. So up to his days (i.e. a few decades before the Aeneid was written) anyone having a philosophical dispute did so in Greek, not in Latin.

[Vindex]

Well we can intimate the Romans knew of Homer from the ridiculous number of papyri fragments, constant reference and imitation in their literature and artwork, the intense editorial activity, blatant statements, school curricula etc etc.

Thank you.

You must forgive me if my question seemed naive to you - I am not a student of Roman arts and literature per se having been thoroughly put off it by a bad teacher at an early age. I will retire and look at the (unreferenced) "ridiculous" number of papyri fragments which have so far eluded me.

[Lyceum]

Well we can intimate the Romans knew of Homer from the ridiculous number of papyri fragments, constant reference and imitation in their literature and artwork, the intense editorial activity, blatant statements, school curricula etc etc.

Thank you.

You must forgive me if my question seemed naive to you - I am not a student of Roman arts and literature per se having been thoroughly put off it by a bad teacher at an early age. I will retire and look at the (unreferenced) "ridiculous" number of papyri fragments which have so far eluded me.

Well no, didn't mean it like that, simply that we can actually firmly establish that Homer was read on a variety of fronts, its one of our few provable facts. Actually just hang on, I'll send you a decent article on the literary side...

[Ovid]

I remember reading somewhere that when Constantine was looking for a New Rome he first looked in asia minor. The original home of the Romans-Troy.

[Nathan Ross]

when Constantine was looking for a New Rome he first looked in asia minor.

So Sozomen claimed in his Ecclesiastical History - the emperor had already laid out his new city at Troy when God directed him elsewhere...

Probably fiction, although another rumour claims that Constantine removed the Trojan Palladium from Rome and shifted it to Constantinople (along with a lot of other ancient artefacts and statues...)

[Epictetus]

Oh, yes. Homer, and other Greek myths, were known very early in Rome. There were Greek colonists in the Bay of Naples by around 770 BC, and perhaps the Homeric traditions even preceded them to Italy via traders and expats.

Dionysius [ of Halicarnassus ]’ account [ of Roman history ] is a classic example of what has been called the ‘hellenocentric’ view of Mediterranean history. This characteristic approach aimed to reconstruct the events of prehistoric times by rationalising the myths and legends of the Greek heroic age. The legendary material became a coherent body of pseudo-historical tradition and was the object of intense research…

The method was hellenocentric because the Greeks connected the origins of non-Greek peoples with the activities of Greek heroes, and thus incorporated them into the general scheme… In many instances these Greek ideas were accepted by the ‘barbarian’ peoples and grafted on to their native traditions. This happened in part because of the cultural prestige of the Greeks, and partly because only the Greeks had devised a universal scheme for the systematic reconstruction of the prehistory of the whole inhabited world…

The idea that Lavinium held the Trojan Penates was already current by around 300 BC, and may well be much older…

One of the most startling discoveries was a sixth-century dedication to Castor and Pollux, a Greek cult which according to tradition was adopted in Rome in the early fifth century and honoured with a temple in 484 BC…

Other evidence concerning Aeneas at Lavinium is equally inconclusive, and as things stand at present we cannot be certain that the Trojan legend was established there before the fourth century BC. It nevertheless remains probable that Lavinium was among the first of the Latin cities to lay claim to a Trojan origin… [ I ]t would not be at all surprising if archaeologists were to come across definite proof of a cult of Aeneas at Lavinium in the sixth century.

T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome

[Lyceum]

Well, yes, as I said one must differentiate Homer from the wider epic tradition with which he was a part. It wasn't until the Classical period that he was the dominant expression of the Trojan Cycle for the Greeks and as I said above it would taaake ages for him to get such a position amongst the Romans, were cyclic versions and Stesikhoros ruled. In the same vein Livius Andronicus' work wasn't so much a translation as an adaptation (think in terms of comic book movies here, very helpful parallel) in the full Hellenistic sense.

The Aineias legend was probably in Etruria even earlier btw, around the 6th century. The best articles in this area are the ones written by Horsfall btw though there's a really great one on Trojan genealogies in the Blackwell Companion to Caesar.

Also, whilst I like Cornell's book overall, he certainly shouldn't be surprised to find dedications to the Dioskouroi since this wasn't a borrowing but a genetically related cult (!) same with the early Herakles cult (!). Instead we should view the use of Greek names akin to the bilingual inscriptions so common in the Greek world thus Herakles/Melqart or Zeus/Hadadios etc. Common Mediterranean practice.

Epitecte, did you put a review up of Cornell here btw? I've noticed that you've read a lot of books on early Rome (I think it was you I was discussing Forsythe with...) and if you get time it would be really interesting to have some brief reviews up I think.

[Epictetus]

Epitecte, did you put a review up of Cornell here btw? I've noticed that you've read a lot of books on early Rome (I think it was you I was discussing Forsythe with...) and if you get time it would be really interesting to have some brief reviews up I think.

I bought Beginnings before I joined RAT, so I never put up a review. I suppose I could, though. I think Cornell is one of the best sources in English for early Rome, so others might be interested in him, too. And I think if you pair Cornell with Forsythe you get two different ways of looking at the evidence that is very fascinating. I bought Forsythe because he was more-or-less billed as the 'critical school's answer' to Cornell.

[Lyceum]

Yeah it would be interesting I think if you got time, I might put something up too and we could have a thread on major books relating to early Rome which are easy to get a hold of. Cornell, Ogilvie, Forsythe etc.

Incidentally, I definitely see myself more closely aligned to the critical school but admittedly I'm more interested in why they told the stories they did. That key dates in Rome were said to have occurred at the same time as those at Athens and Asia Minor is not interesting, the why and the how and implications re: the annalistic tradition is much more so.