17 - Ancient Readers of Greek Epic

Summary

This chapter considers the place of epic, above all Homer, in three overlapping areas of ancient Greek and Roman culture – education at all levels, elite literary culture, and the more specialised interpretations of scholars and philosophers. Homer was central to Greek education and Hunter considers the various types of evidence for this centrality – anecdotes, literary descriptions, papyri – and the reasons for the greater attention given to the Iliad over the Odyssey. He then illustrates the place of epic in the creative poetry and prose of the Hellenistic and imperial periods and finally samples the scholarly and philosophical approaches taken to Homer from Ptolemaic Alexandria to late antiquity. The chapter brings together a range of authors and thinkers, from Quintilian to Horace, Dio Chrysostom to Eustathius, and Porphyry’s remarkable allegorical treatment of Homer.