BMCR Review of The Homer Encyclopedia, Three Volume Set

BMCR Review of The Homer Encyclopedia, Three Volume Set
As the general editor Margalit Finkelberg explains in the Introduction, this Homeric Encyclopedia contains 1300 entries divided into three categories: the first one includes approximately 900 entries on personal or geographical names. Both groups cover a wide span of references, the former stretching from the two most important heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey (Achilles is masterfully presented by Seth Schein in a five-column entry— Odysseus receives an equally tight but outstanding treatment by Richard B. Rutherford) to the so-called minor warriors (around 220 Trojans and Achaeans), who enjoy only a passing reference in the epics as victims of the first- rank heroes, and the latter from Odysseus’ fatherland Ithaca and the debate concerning its identification to (the still picturesque) Oitylos in Laconia, as well as the other hapax legomena included in the Catalogue of Ships. The rest of the entries (i.e. the second and the third categories) can be divided on the basis of a diachronic and a synchronic perspective; a ‘synopsis’ (pp. xxxixff.) facilitates the consultation of all items pertaining to a given field or area (a full list of entries appears in pp. viff.). The second category of entries contains everything related to the historical framework (e.g. Mycenaean, Dark and Archaic Age etc.) as well as the Nachleben of Homeric epic (textual tradition, ancient and modern Homeric philology, Nachleben from antiquity to the 20th century, among which I stress those entries dealing with less known topics such as "Reception, in Rabbinic Judaism" or "Reception, Syriac and Arabic"), and also ancient and modern interpretive trends in Homeric scholarship.
Read more here.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thousands of free images of Byzantine art from the Met Museum

Image
From NY Times: All images of public-domain artworks in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection — about 375,000 — are now free for anyone to use however they may please.The museum announced on Tuesday that it had changed its open access policy to allow free, unrestricted use of any images of artworks in the public domain, using the license designation Creative Commons Zero, known as CC0. Click here to access the collection
Read more

The Harbour of Theodosius

Image
The Harbour of Eleutherios (Greek: λιμήν Ἐλευθερίου), later known as the Harbour of Theodosius (Greek: λιμήν Θεοδοσίου, Latin: Portus Theodosiacus) was one of the ports of ancient Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, located beneath the modern Yenikapi neighbourhood of Istanbul, Turkey. The harbour was located on the south side of the peninsula where the city is built, facing towards the Sea of Marmara. The other harbours of the city were the Harbour of Julian and the small harbour of the Boukoleon Palace, likewise on the southern shore, and the harbours of Neorion and Prosphorion on the northern side. The harbour was built in the late 4th century during the reign of Theodosius I, and was the city's major point of trade in Late Antiquity. The area was later transformed for agricultural use due to the effects of erosion and silting. In Ottoman times, the area was built over. Here is a video about the harbour:
Read more