The foundation of ancient Greek culture was the poet Homer. Greeks referred to their favorite storyteller as simply “the poet,” but Homer’s significance was such that several city-states claimed to be his birthplace. The stories he is credited with brilliantly retelling-the two epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey-had been passed down orally for centuries, since Mycenaean times (for a synopsis of both, see page 19).
Homeric literature served a variety of purposes. It spoke to the Greeks of their noble past and of their special relationship with the gods who control the universe, and it gave them a sense of unity that overcame their geographic barriers and political separation. Homer’s poems were of such lyrical quality that they have remained immortal, much as the gods and heroes they depict, and, along with the Bible, are considered the basis of literature in the Western world.
As Homer told the story of The Iliad, writes Kenneth J. Atchity in The Classical Greek Reader, it is not about the Trojan War as much as it is
About “repercussions of the quarrel between the mightiest Greek hero, Achilles, and. . . Agamemnon.” It is a story about heroes and gods, driven by all-too-human weaknesses and misunderstandings, and it is a myth “by which the Greeks explained. . . all of life and death,” writes Atchity. In the The Odyssey, the hero Odysseus introduces the concept of moral relativism (doing whatever is required at a given moment to survive), earning him Athena’s admiration. “Two of a kind, we are, contrivers both,” she concedes to Odysseus (quoted in The Classical Greek Reader).
The other significant early Greek writer was Hesiod, who worked around 700 B. C.E. He was from Boeotia, an area with rich farmland, and his book Works and Days dealt with agricultural life as well as his own philosophy. In it, he discussed the difference between good strife and bad strife-good strife being those challenging situations, such as competitions, that make us work harder. Bad strife, created by self-centered persons (or the gods) disrupts social harmony. Hesiod also advised that the poor should avoid violence. “The better path is to go. . . [is] towards justice; for justice beats outrage when she comes at length to the end of the race,” he wrote (as posted at the Online Medieval and Classic Library). In Theogony, Hesiod claimed that the nine Muses (see the box on the opposite page) inspired him to retell the ancient beginnings of the gods. The religious myths he and other storytellers recorded and dramatized were inspiration for the Greeks’ art and architecture.
World History
