Roman wallpainting has been the subject of innumerable studies from the eighteenth century to the present day, but the epic-themed friezes of Late Republican and Early Imperial Italy have been comparatively neglected throughout this history of scholarship. This thesis therefore seeks to examine the three painted and stucco Iliad friezes from Pompeii, all found on the Via dell'Abbondanza, and the Odyssey frescoes from a house on the Esquiline in Rome, as four examples of a type which had a long history in the Graeco-Roman world, even if their survival in the archaeological record is scant. The primary aim of the study is to understand each frieze in the knowledge of how they might have been regarded in antiquity, as elucidated in Pausanias' commentaries on Polygnotus' Iliupersis and Nekyia frescoes in Delphi, and to understand their extra-textual insertions and spelling discrepancies not as artistic errors but as reflections of the geographical and chronological contexts in which the friezes were displayed. Through detailed study of their iconography and epigraphy, alongside contemporary writers' discussion of the epic genre and its specific concerns for a Roman audience, this study aims to show that the most fruitful course of enquiry pertaining to the friezes lies not in an argument about whether they are entirely faithful to the Homeric epics or depart from them in puzzling ways, but in the observation that reliance on the text and free play on it go hand in hand as part of the epic reception-culture within which these paintings belong.

Na Ilíada, a multidão exerce um papel fundamental para a contrução da trama. Ela ajuda a ambientar a epopéia em um cenário de guerra épica, além de ser necessária na própria definição daqueles que são as figuras centrais do poema: os heróis. Nesse sentido, procurou-se discutir justamente a função da multidão, massa, ou coletividade, em um poema em que o enfoque recai em outro elemento. Para tal, foi preciso estabelecer os aspectos próprios que caracterizam a multidão, além de apresentar de que forma ela garante que o herói seja mostrado de maneira épica. Em primeiro lugar foi proposta uma discussão acerca das fontes. Discutiu-se a questão da oralidade nos poemas homéricos e suas implicações para o estudo da História, com ênfase especial para a tradição. Questionou-se a validade do uso de tais poemas para o estudo da História. A sugestão proposta é considerar os textos como veículos de uma tradição que tem uma validade histórica por transmitir valores ideais. A partir de tal concepção refletiu-se, no presente trabalho, acerca das características próprias da coletividade, massa ou multidão, começando pela quantidade, o elemento mais básico e necessário para a própria existência de tais manifestações. A partir dela, outras características foram observadas. O anonimato reina entre seus integrantes. Para fazer parte de uma massa ou multidão, os indivíduos não podem ser nomeados no momento da reunião, pois do contrário não funcionam como coletividade, mas como indivíduos. Dessa forma, a multidão passa a ser lida como uma unidade, como um corpo único, que apresenta também unidade de ação, opinião e sentimento. A despeito do foco central, observou-se que o herói é definido por oposição à multidão. O herói é aquele que se destaca da coletividade, sendo nomeado e tendo sua ação notada justamente pelo fato de sua ação ser individual. Além disso, os feitos que garantem que um herói seja destacado devem ser realizados em público, carecendo de uma multidão observadora que funciona como platéia e juíza. Conclui-se portanto que a multidão ambienta, define e fiscaliza, sendo um elemento essencial para a compreensão da Ilíada. / In the Iliad, the crowd plays a fundamental role in the construction of the poem. It helps to set the story in an epic war stage, besides being necessary to define the poems key figures: the heroes. A discussion of the function of the crowd, mass, mob or collectivity was presented, regarding a poem in which the main focus lays in another element. It was necessary, at first, to establish the aspects that characterize the crowd, and to present the manner in which the crowd ensures that the hero is portrayed in an epic fashion. First, a discussion regarding the sources was proposed. The matter of orality in the Homeric poems and its implication to the study of History, with special emphasis to tradition was discussed. The validity of the use of such poems to the study of History was questioned. The proposed solution is to consider the texts as vehicles of a tradition that has historical validity for transmitting ideal values. From this notion the characteristics of the collectivity, mass or crowd was studied, starting from the idea of quantity as the most basic and necessary element for the very existence of such phenomena. The next important notion is the anonymity, which reigns among the men in the crowd. To be a part of a mob or a crowd, the participants cannot be named in the moments of reunion. Otherwise they do not work as a collectivity, but as individuals. The crowd is understood as a unity of body, action, opinion and humor. Finally, regardless of the main focus of the poem, the hero can be defined as opposed to the crowd. The hero is the character that is separated from the collectivity, being named and noticed for having individual action. Besides, the great deeds that ensure the heroes prestige must be performed in public, therefore needing an observing crowd which acts as audience and judge. The conclusion is that the crowd sets the stage, defines the hero and acts as fiscal, being an essential element to the understanding of the Iliad.

A Ilíada de Homero é geralmente caracterizada como um poema que trata da Guerra de Tróia, que teria acontecido mais de 500 anos antes da composição de tal poema, e teria sido transmitido através da tradição oral, até o momento em que foi escrito pela primeira vez. Esperava-se, portanto, que os fatos narrados pelo poeta correspondessem aos achados arqueológicos encontrados para o Período Micênico, mas o que se encontra na Ilíada é uma mistura de elementos da sociedade micênica e da sociedade contemporânea a Homero, ou seja, o século VIII a.C. O estudo da relação entre documentos arqueológicos dos períodos Micênico, Proto-Geométrico e Geométrico, compreendidos entre 1550 e o final do século VIII a.C., e a Ilíada de Homero é composto por duas categorias de fontes distintas, a arqueológica e a escrita, esta como resultado de uma tradição oral que a precedeu. A presente dissertação tem como foco apresentar as informações que se podem depreender da Ilíada de Homero que, de alguma forma, contribuíram para a interpretação arqueológica e se, de tal confronto, surgiram controvérsias entre os dois tipos de fontes, levando a uma reflexão sobre a questão da continuidade e da ruptura de elementos culturais próprios da Civilização Micênica e que, de certa maneira, se refletem nos períodos posteriores em pauta. / The Iliad of Homer is generally seen as a poem about the Trojan War, which took place more than 500 years before the composition of such poem, and transmitted by oral tradition down to the moment it was written for the first time. It was hoped, therefore, that the facts narrated by its poet matched the archaeological finds for the Mycenaean Period; instead what is found in the Iliad is an ensemble of the elements of the Mycenaean society and the one contemporary to Homer, which is considered to be the eighth century B.C. The study of the relation between the Mycenaean, Proto-Geometrical, and Geometrical archaeological finds, dating from 1550 to the end of the eighth century B.C., and the Iliad of Homer is based on two different categories of sources, namely the archaeological and the literary ones, the last one being the result of an oral tradition which had preceded it. The present dissertation focuses on showing the information that can be derived from the Iliad of Homer that somehow has contributed to the archaeological interpretation and whether controversies were raised between those two kinds of sources from such a comparison, leading to a reflection about the question of either continuity or rupture of the cultural elements proper to the Mycenaean Civilization and that, in a certain way, are reflected on the later periods concerned.

This thesis raises and explores questions concerning the popularity of the Homeric poems in ancient Greece. It asks why the Iliad and Odyssey held such continuing appeal among the Greeks of the Archaic and Classical age. Cultural products such as poetry cannot be separated from the sociopolitical conditions in which and for which they were originally composed and received. Working on the basis that the extent of Homer’s appeal was inspired and sustained by the peculiar and determining historical circumstances, I set out to explore the relation of the social, political and ethical conditions and values of Archaic and Classical Greece to those portrayed in the Homeric poems. The Greeks, at the time during which Homer was composing his poems, had begun to establish a new form of social organisation: the polis. By examining historical, literary and philosophical texts from the Archaic and Classical age, I explore the manner in which Greek society attempted to reorganise and reconstitute itself in a different way, developing original modes of social and political activity which the new needs and goals of their new social reality demanded. I then turn to examine Homer’s treatment of and response to this social context, and explore the various ways in which Homer was able to reinterpret and reinvent the inherited stories of adventure and warfare in order to compose poetry that not only looks back to the highly centralised and bureaucratic society of the Mycenaean world, but also looks forward, insistently so, to the urban reality of the present. I argue that Homer’s conflation of a remembered mythical age with the contemporary conditions and values of Archaic and Classical Greece aroused in his audiences a new perception and understanding of human existence in the altered sociopolitical conditions of the polis and, in so doing, ultimately contributed to the development of new ideas on the manner in which the Greeks could best live together in their new social world.

This thesis seeks to analyze the Homeric allusions in the Aethiopica with an inclusive definition to explore Heliodorus’ authorial motives. To approach this project, I use textual analysis to avoid arguments rooted in assumptions of the historical context of the novel, about which we know almost nothing. I explore how links to Homer’s Odyssey are visible within the structural organization of the text and the content of the text. I also explore how the content of the novel reproduces actions and compatible settings of Odyssean characters, which therefore qualifies Heliodorus’ characters in a metaliterary commentary with Homer’s archaic epic poem. The division of Odyssean actions and traits depicted in Heliodorus’ characters introduce a new addition to the heroic legacy established by Homer and distances the hero from Greek identity. I conclude that Heliodorus’ adherences to epic conventions and departures thereof inform the subtextual commentaries conveyed in the Aethiopica.

This thesis compares Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad with the Norse Sagas, the Young and Elder Edda. More specifically, it analyses, whether the Odyssey and Iliad should indeed derive from the Norse Sagas, which is a claim brought forth by Felice Vinci. Throughout the thesis, passages, sentences and words from both the Greek and Norse texts have been singled out through the process of text analysis tools from Python and Orange3. Similar passages or words from both texts were filtered out by building a program that would print sentences with given key words. These were then analysed and studied, in order to compare the texts to each other and for the most part, to see if the Greek texts should indeed have derived from the Nordic texts. Finally, no proof has been found that the Norse Sagas should have predated the Greek Myths. However, this was a very interesting theory, that I am glad to have examined.

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The Iliad and Heike monogatari are each seen as seminal pieces of literature in Greek and Japanese culture respectively. Both works depict famous wars from which subsequent generations of warriors, poets, and other artists in each society drew their inspiration for their own modes of conduct and creation. While neither work is emphatically pro-war, both were used extensively by the warrior classes of both cultures to reinforce warrior culture and to inculcate proper battlefield behavior. In spite of this, however, both tales contain a strong undercurrent of anti-war sentiment which contrasts sharply with their traditionally seen roles of being tales about warriors and their glorious deeds. This thesis examines these works and details the presence of anti-war sentiment while also highlighting its emergence to greater prominence in later works found within the genres of Greek tragedy and nō theater. Ultimately, the Iliad and Heike monogatari act as foundational sources of anti-war sentiment for the later dramatic works, which poets of both cultures used to decry the woeful effects of war on both combatants and the innocent. By examining the presence of anti-war sentiment in two cultures that share surprising similarities but are widely separated by geography and chronology, we are presented with both a broader and deeper understanding of the effects of warfare on society and of the historical responses of citizen populations to events in war.

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