Hera in the Homeric Hymns

Hipponax and the Homeric Odysseus

Few will doubt that tracing Homer (and Homeric epos) on subsequent classical authors, in all its varied manifestations, has proved to be an enlightening critical enterprise. Indeed, it has become nearly impossible to consider the poetry of the so-called archaic lyric period without acknowledging at some level its relation to Homer and the epic tradition. It is a pity, therefore, that in this re...

The ‘potential’ optative in Homeric Greek

When translating the ‘potential’ Homeric Greek optative into English, ‘could’ is often the best modal verb to use, to be preferred to the more usual ‘would’. I will argue that, in some cases, this reveals that the optative expresses what is termed in the literature ‘dynamic’ modality. Examining several examples in more detail I will claim that the optative expresses a wide range of meanings, th...

The Psalms as Hymns in the Temple of Jerusalem

From as far back as our sources allow, hymns were part of Near Eastern temple ritual, with their performers an essential component of the temple functionaries. 1 These sources include Sumerian, Akkadian, and Egyptian texts from as early as the third millennium BCE. From the second millennium BCE, we gain further examples of hymns from the Hittite realm, even if most (if not all) of the poems ar...

Homeric Time Travel

The ethical structure of Homeric society.

According to Plato, the society as reflected in Homer's epics is one without state power. In a society without state power, the act of revenge which the offended party prosecutes on the offender is the only disciplinary force, which should be endorsed by the ethical concepts of the society. Though the ethics of Homeric society has been analyzed before, there has been no theory on the ethical st...