Life of Homer (Pseudo-Herodotus)
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The Life of Homer — its unknown author is referred to as Pseudo-Herodotus — is one among several ancient biographies of the Greek epic poet, Homer. It is distinguished from the others by the fact that it contains, in its first lines, the claim to have been compiled by the early historian Herodotus:
- Herodotus of Halicarnassus wrote the following history of Homer's background, upbringing and life, and sought to make his account complete and absolutely reliable.
- (translation by Mary R. Lefkowitz)
The claim is patently false. The text was written long after Herodotus's time, perhaps in the third or fourth centuries AD, when there was apparently an audience for literary pastiches, such as the Letters of Alciphron, and fraudulent attributions, as in the Historia Augusta.[1] Thus the Life of Homer is best treated as historical fiction.
Ingeniously linking the famous poet with various places that figure prominently in his works and in well-known legends about him, the Life depicts Homer as the illegitimate son of Cretheis of Argos and his ward, who was the daughter of Melanopus of Cyme in Aeolis (Asia Minor). Homer, whose name at birth was Melesigenes, was born at neighbouring Smyrna. He went with his schoolteacher on a voyage to Ithaca, where he stayed with a certain Mentor; later he would include Mentor as a character in the Odyssey as acknowledgment to his host. Already a sufferer from eye disease, Homer became blind during the return journey from Ithaca, at Colophon. He then took up poetry in order to make a living.
Having failed in a bid for municipal sponsorship at Cyme, he moved to Phocaea, where another schoolteacher, Thestorides, offered him food and lodging in exchange for the right to record his poetry in writing. Homer had little choice but to accept, and recited to Thestorides the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Thestorides afterwards moved to Chios, where he performed Homer's poems as if they were his own and became famous. Homer heard rumours of this and eventually travelled to Chios also, where he found work as a tutor (the author's inventiveness falters here: there are too many teachers in the story). Thestorides retreated hastily, and it was in Chios that Homer composed those of his supposed works that were meant for children, including the Batrachomyomachia or "Battle of the Frogs and Mice". At the end of his life Homer travelled to Samos; he died at Ios in the course of a voyage to Athens.
The text concludes with a calculation showing that Homer was born 168 years after the Trojan War and 622 years before Xerxes I of Persia (a major figure in the real Herodotus's Histories) invaded Greece. That invasion took place in 480 BC; by this calculation, therefore, Homer was born in 1102 BC. This contradicts the estimate given by the real Herodotus, that Homer lived "not more than 400 years before our own time", thus around 850 BC.
The Pseudo-Herodotean Life of Homer is unique among ancient versions of the poet's life in claiming that writing was known in Homer's circle and that the poems were written down from his recital.[2]
A translation, and a study of this and other ancient biographical material on Homer, are included in Mary R. Lefkowitz's Lives of the Greek poets.
[edit] Notes
- ^ (Lefkowitz 1981, p. 20)
- ^ (Dalby 2006, p. 29)
[edit] Bibliography
- Dalby, Andrew (2006), Rediscovering Homer, New York, London: Norton, ISBN 0393057887
- Lefkowitz, Mary R. (1981), The lives of the Greek poets, London: Duckworth, ISBN 0715615904
