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No Flames in the Odyssey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

J. B. Hainsworth
J. B. Hainsworth
Affiliation:
King's College, London
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Extract

In one of the most stimulating chapters of his recent contribution to Homeric studies, Professor D. L. Page adduces considerable evidence to suggest that the traditions of the Iliad and the Odyssey diverged at a fairly early date and, like isolated dialects, came to differ appreciably in their diction. Attractive and probable as this suggestion is as a whole, it will always be possible to wonder about the details of the evidence. In this paper it is intended to wonder whether the absence of φλόξ and its cognates from that part of the Odyssey that is certainly ‘Homer's’ is rightly adduced as evidence for this divergence of the traditions.

Page's argument runs as follows. The absence of φλόξ must be due either to ignorance or to chance. But it cannot be due to chance, since there are more than fifty opportunities for its use. Therefore the root, so common in the Iliad, must have been ‘wholly unknown to the Odyssean poet’.

It appears that in order to show that φλόξ was not part of the Odyssey's traditional vocabulary, since it is this that diverges from the Iliad, Page must claim that the root was not part of the poet's vocabulary at all. Can this be regarded as a probable claim? Our available evidence is scarcely sufficient to differentiate the sub-dialects of Ionic (it is admitted that both poets are Ionians), so that it is impossible to confirm that differences of nontechnical vocabulary were a feature of the differentiation. Our view of the matter has therefore to depend on a subjective estimate of the probabilities. Two points are not unworthy of notice: first, the banishing of φλόξ from the Odyssey is only achieved by the attribution to a rhapsodic hack of the ‘Continuation’, where in ω 71, φλόξ appears in just the circumstances where, as I hope to show, it is to be expected; and second, derivatives of the root are used by prose and verse writers both Ionian and Attic, and also in the κοινή, in circumstances that make it impossible to suppose that every instance is a reminiscence of a long defunct epic word.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 78 , November 1958 , pp. 49 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1958

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References

1 Page, D. L., Homeric Odyssey, Oxford, 1955, Ch. vi, especially pp. 152–3.Google Scholar

2 I use φλόξ generally to signify ‘derivatives of the root *bhleg-’.

3 LSJ9 cite among others for φλόξ tragedians, Thuc., Xen., Plato, Parmen., Emped., and LXX; for φλόγεος and similar adjectives, trag., Aristoph., Anth. Pal., LXX; for καταφλέγω Thuc., Plut;. φλεγμαίνω and derivatives are regular technical terms in the medical writers.

4 I take these terms from Gray's, D. H. F. article ‘Homeric epithets for things’, CQ. xli (1947), pp. 109–21.Google Scholar

5 This vehicle is not without its embarrassments for students of the Iliad. It is wholly exceptional both in its materials (precious metals) and its details (eight-spoked wheels). See Lorimer, H. L., Homer and the Monuments, p. 326.Google Scholar

6 Typical examples are paralleled only in engravings from the Shaft Graves at Mycenae (saec. xvi) and a few sealings elsewhere, Lorimer, pp. 139–41; true only for a period some time before the town's destruction c. 1150 B.C.; a fashion unknown in the Sub-Myc. and Geom. periods, Lorimer, pp. 273–4. An attempt to correlate formulae with archaeological and other evidence so as to give a rough chronology has been made by Webster, T. B. L., Eranos, liv (1956), p. 24.Google Scholar

7 L'Epithète traditionelle dans Homère, Paris, 1928, pp. 19–25; HSCP xli (1930), pp. 84–9.

8 The epithet is in fact found twice, Π 123, Ρ 89, but not in close association with φλόξ. So far from being a regular epithet (these are the sole instances of the literal use in Homer), there is even hesitation over the terminations.

9 φλόξ is actually used of the blade of a sword by LXX, Jd., 3.22, and by Aquila and Theodotion, i Kgs. 17.7.

10 ‘Archer’ seems the most reasonable interpretation of this word which was the subject of erudite polemics in antiquity, see Schol. on Ι 404. The epithet is discussed by Kraus, W., Anz. d. phil.-hist. Klasse d. Oest. Akad. d. Wiss., 1950, pp. 516–20Google Scholar, who, however, would link it with Delphi's role in colonisation.

11 The idea reappears also in χαλκοκορύστης, of Hector eight times out of nine. Though coincides with the metre of κορυθαίολος it does not break the rule that formulae for the same person should not contain metrical doublets (Parry, , HSCP xli (1930), p. 86Google Scholar), for it is abbreviated from and is predicative in use.

12 It is possible that these phrases are a vestige of a complex declension like with as an alternative genitive with different initial. But if this were a regular pattern we should expect more examples, and the parallelism is sufficiently accounted for by the tendency to place pyrrhic words in this position. According to O'Neill, (Yale Class. Stud. viii) 36·7%Google Scholar of pyrrhics in Il., and 31·9% in Od., fall in the fourth foot.

13 The inference from the free use, of which Page might approve, that φλόξ is a newcomer to the Iliadic tradition, is not necessary, nor in this instance, in view of even probable.

14 Inadvertence, e.g. the line 201 after Λ 780, for the regular Avoidance of unsuitable effect, e.g. Π 34, for the usual πολίη, which would be unfortunate in association with τίκτε. Avoidance of metrical difficulty, e.g. Η41, for with initial vowel. I take the last two examples from MissGray's, articles, CQ xli (1947), p. 111Google Scholar and JHS lxxiv (1954), p. 7, n. 36.

15 The use of helmet-words is elucidated by Gray, , CQ xli (1947), pp. 115–16.Google Scholar

16 The circumstances under which the Homeric epics were written down has long been one of the most crucial problems in Homeric scholarship. That the poems were taken down as the poet recited them has recently been argued by Lord, A. B., TAPA lxxxiii (1953), 124–34.Google Scholar Whatever its status as history, the view is illuminating as a working hypothesis in the study of the Homeric style.

17 E.g. in Φ 333 Hera gives a command, in Φ 342 it is obeyed by Hephaistos, but In Ψ 237–8 Achilles orders in 250–51 he is obeyed,

Forest fires are indifferently Λ 155, or Β 455.

18 E.g. μεθημοσύνη Ν 108, 121, only; 89, 158, only; βασιλεύτερος Ι 69, 160, 392, Κ 239; and the phrases in Iliad only Θ 5, 20; 265, 541. The subject does not appear to have received systematic treatment.

19 Doubtless Troy was burnt and the Odyssean poet knew it, but his phrase is γ 130, or 516. The fate of Ismaros is equally unspecific, 40.

20 Always of the Greek fleet, Θ 217, 235; Θ 374.

21 For the shroud cf. X 352, Ω 720, ω 67. It is sometimes represented on Geometric vases. That a shroud is here thought of is a reasonable inference from the phrase and is so taken by Ameis, Van Leeuwen, Paley and Leaf in their editions, and by Mylonas, G. E., AJA lii (1948), p. 59Google Scholar; cf. also the conduct of Periandros, Hdt. v. 92. The detention of Hector's body in the Greek camp would, as Paley saw, make this the ritual of a cenotaph. Cenotaph rituals are known to Homer, cf. α 289, β 220, δ 584, and are attested in Mycenaean times; see Persson, , Royal Tombs at Dendra, ch. v.Google Scholar

22 Nilsson, M. P., Homer and Mycenae, p. 156Google Scholar; Mylonas, op. cit. (above, n. 21), p. 68.

23 Lord, A. B., TAPA lxxxii (1951), p. 74Google Scholar; Bowra, C. M., Heroic Poetry, 1952Google Scholar, ch. v.

24 Schol, ad loc. record and

25 Apart from its possession of a secondary meaning the use of πρήθω parallels that of φλόξ: it is restricted in context to the burning of fleets and towns, and in consequence the Odyssey does not use it in its domestic fire contexts.

26 Allusion is made to the danger of the ships 32 times between Θ 180 and Π 273 (Schadewaldt, , Iliasstudien, p. 67Google Scholar).

27 E.g. (first numeral gives Iliadic total, second instances in A–H.) (7,0), (7,1), (5,1), (4,0), with (7,1), (5,1), (6,0).

28 I have to thank Professor R. P. Winnington-Ingram, who read an earlier draft of these notes, and Professor T. B. L. Webster for their criticism and suggestions.