NarratorNow listen to part of a lecture in a literature class.Male ProfessorIn the eighth century BCE, a legendary author named HOMER wrote two epic poems…you probably know them already…The Iliad and The Odyssey. They’re fascinating poems, really, p

Narrator

Now listen to part of a lecture in a literature class.

Male Professor

In the eighth century BCE, a legendary author named HOMER wrote two epic poems…you probably know them already…The Iliad and The Odyssey. They’re fascinating poems, really, partly because they give us such a clear window to the CULTURE of the time. But what culture? Or, uh… what PERIOD of Greek history was Homer describing? His own era, or an earlier one? It’s an interesting question, but it’s very likely that there’s NO REAL ANSWER.

You see, Homer was working in the ORAL TRADITION. Before he wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey down, the poems were told and retold by GENERATIONS of storytellers. Each generation added details to the poems. So it’s likely that these poems are actually this… They’re an interesting mixture of historical details about a bunch of DIFFERENT time periods.

So, let me give you a couple of examples. Here’s one. Homer describes helmets made out of boar tusks. Well, just these kinds of helmets have actually been DISCOVERED in sites dating back to the second millennium BCE in Greece. They weren’t used in later time periods. That’s a pretty clear indication, right? So, clearly Homer’s poems preserved some authentic details about the distant past, and some would argue that’s the era that Homer INTENDED to write about.

But then we take a look at another detail, and it’s a bit more nebulous. Homer describes CHARIOTS… horse-drawn wagons carrying warriors into battle… he describes them as simply carrying troops on and off the battlefield. That might be how chariots were used in HOMER’S time, sure. But in earlier history—the time when those helmets might’ve been used, say—they were used in battles themselves. The chariots, that is. So, this is a good example of Homer adding details from his own world into the poems.