This book takes a bold new approach to the prehistory of Homeric epic, arguing for a fresh understanding of how Near Eastern influence worked.

From its ancient incarnation as a song to recent translations in modern languages, Homeric epic remains an abiding source of inspiration for both scholars and artists that transcends temporal and linguistic boundaries. The Cambridge Guide to Homer examines the influence and meaning of Homeric poetry from its earliest form as ancient Greek song to its current status in world literature, presenting the information in a synthetic manner that allows the reader to gain an understanding of the different strands of Homeric studies. The volume is structured around three main themes: Homeric Song and Text; the Homeric World, and Homer in the World. Each section starts with a series of 'macropedia' essays arranged thematically that are accompanied by shorter complementary 'micropedia' articles. The Cambridge Guide to Homer thus traces the many routes taken by Homeric epic in the ancient world and its continuing relevance in different periods and cultures.

Round Trip to Hades in the Eastern Mediterranean Tradition explores the theme of visits to the underworld in the ancient Greek and Byzantine traditions from a broad perspective including written sources, iconography and archaeology.

The Cambridge Companion to Homer is a guide to the essential aspects of Homeric criticism and scholarship, including the reception of the poems in ancient and modern times. Written by an international team of scholars, it is intended to be the first port of call for students at all levels, with introductions to important subjects and suggestions for further exploration. Alongside traditional topics like the Homeric Question, the divine apparatus of the poems, the formulae, the characters and the archaeological background, there are detailed discussions of similes, speeches, the poet as story-teller and the genre of epic both within Greece and worldwide. The reception chapters include assessments of ancient Greek and Roman readings as well as selected modern interpretations from the eighteenth century to the present day. Chapters on Homer in English translation and Homer in the history of ideas round out the collection.

The ancient Greek poet Homer tells of the wealthy city of Troy and its defeat in the Trojan War. Since the classical period there has been much debate about whether this is a poetic fiction or a memory of historical reality. Earlier excavations at the hill of Hisarlik, in Turkey, brought no answer, but in 1988 new excavations, under the direction of Manfred Korfmann, led to a radical shift in understanding. In this book Joachim Latacz, one of Korfmann's closest collaborators, shows how this new research has shed light on what is now known about Troy and the Trojan War.

This volume is an interdisciplinary investigation and contextualization of the various concepts of divine union in the private and public sphere of the Greek and Near Eastern worlds.

This remarkable and daringly original book proposes a new way of thinking about the Greeks and their myths in the age of the great Homeric hymns. It combines a lifetime's familiarity with Greek literature and history with the latest archeological discoveries and the author's own journeys to the main sites in the story to describe how particular Greeks of the eighth century BC travelled east and west around the Mediterranean, and how their extraordinary journeys shaped their ideas of their gods and heroes. It gathers together stories and echoes from many different ancient cultures, not just the Greek - Assyria, Egypt, the Phoenician traders - and ranges from Mesopotamia to the Rio Tinto at Huelva in modern Portugal. Its central point is the Jebel Aqra, the great mountain on the north Syrian coast which Robin Lane Fox dubs 'the southern Olympus', and around which much of the action of the book turns. Robin Lane Fox rejects the fashionable view of Homer and his near-contemporary Hesiod as poets who owed a direct debt to texts and poems from the near East, and by following the trail of the Greek travellers shows that they were, rather, in debt to their own countrymen. With characteristic flair he reveals how these travellers, progenitors of tales which have inspired writers and historians for thousands of years, understood the world before the beginnings of philosophy and western thought.

This is the tale of Lukka, the Hittite soldier who traveled across Greece in search of the vicious slave traders who kidnapped his wife and sons. He tracks them all the way to war-torn Troy. There he proves himself a warrior to rank with noble Hector and swift Achilles. Lukka is the man who built the Trojan horse for crafty Odysseus, who toppled the walls of Jericho for the Isrealites, who stole beautiful Helen--the legendary face that launched a thousand ships--from her husband Menaleus after the fall of Troy and fought his way across half the known world to bring her safely to Egypt.

No city has captured the imagination like Troy does. Since the famous poet Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey in the eighth century BC, many peoples have sung, edited, studied and appropriated the stories of the city, the war between Greeks and Trojans and the famous Trojan horse. Roman emperors and many European monarchs have traced their roots to Trojan or Greek heroes. Troy was a legendary city, a city of poetry, paintings, operas and films. But the city really existed: in 1871 the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann found the remains of Troy during excavations in Turkey. Since the end of the nineteenth century, teams of archaeologists exposed the history of the city. In this handbook, with contributions from numerous experts from the Netherlands and Turkey, the latest insights and discoveries about both the historical and legendary Troy are presented.0Exhibition: Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (7.12.2012-5.5.2013).