Talk:Historicity of the Iliad

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Contents 1 typoe 2 Historicity 3 "planification" 4 Aeneas survives? 5 Athens? 6 Gilgamesh 7 Our essays

[edit] typoe

"Historicity the Iliad" makes little sense on its own. 203.214.112.124 11:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

doh. it was a typo I spread via copy-paste. dab (ᛏ) 13:56, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Historicity

"The more we know about Bronze Age history, the clearer it becomes that it is not a yes-or-no question but one of educated assessment of how much historical knowledge is present in Homer. The story of the Iliad is not an account of the war, but a tale of the psychology, the wrath, vengeance and death of individual heroes that assumes common knowledge of the Trojan War to create a backdrop. No scholars assume that the individual events in the tale (many of which centrally involve divine intervention) are historical fact; on the other hand, no scholars claim that the scenery is entirely devoid of memories of Mycenaean times: it is rather a subjective question of whether the factual content is rather more or rather less than one would have expected."

Did a grad-school psych student write this? It makes little sense, and violates NPOV.

209.6.162.130 12:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "planification"

What the heck does "planification" mean? It's not in the dictionary. Something like "steam rollering"?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.216.98.16 (talk) 14:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Aeneas survives?

The Homeric tradition that every inhabitant was killed or enslaved finds no confirmation in the archeological record.

Is this really the tradition? I thought in the original epic cycle Aeneas survives the war and rebuilds in Anatolia. I also seem to remember Antenor surviving. john k 02:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

In Book 20 of the Iliad Poseidon saves Aeneas from death at the hands of Achilles for the specific reason that Aeneas is fated to live beyond the Trojan War and his descendants will rule over Troy. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. So we should probably tone down the supposed "Homeric tradition" that every inhabitant was killed or enslaved. john k 10:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the paragraph that contained that statement, since it didn't seem like there was anything worth saving in it. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:13, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Athens?

I see that Athens appears on the map of Homeric Bronze Age Greece, but I thought that Athens was no where mentioned by Homer. --Michael C. Price ^talk 22:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Athens is mentioned in Book 2 of the Iliad, in the Catalogue of Ships. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:33, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

And Menestheus, the leader of the Athenians, is mentioned several times. john k 00:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks, my mistake. --Michael C. Price ^talk 03:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gilgamesh

I am not aware that the Epic of Gilgamesh is "striking similar" to the Iliad. I have put a citation needed tag on this statement. --Michael C. Price ^talk 13:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

ask and ye shall receive. It might be good to actually describe some of the similarities between NE myth/Gilgamesh and the Iliad at some point, but the proper article for that is probably Iliad, not Historicity of the Iliad. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I'd be interested to hear more, and I'm sure others would as well. May I suggest Troy#The_Iliad_as_essentially_legendary? --Michael C. Price ^talk 17:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Our essays

The article needs a Notes section and referenced statements with some pithy quotes, to help get away from our essays on the subject and move towards reports on the published development of argument on this topic. --Wetman 08:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

What? not anyone? --Wetman (talk) 11:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)