EXEMPLUM AND MYTH, CRITICISM AND CREATION

Papers on Early Greek Literature

J.G. Howie

CCP 3. ISBN 978-0-905205-54-0. Cloth, xviii+443 pp. + 38 b&w illustrations.

Published May, 2012. 

J. Gordon Howie’s seminal papers on Homer, Hesiod, Sappho, Pindar, Euripides, Thucydides, and Xenophon document the vitality and influence of cultural and intellectual patterns first visible in the homeric epics and early Greek lyric, and reveal the impact of those patterns on Attic drama and historical writing. A focal figure in this process, and throughout Howie’s papers, is Pindar, who transmitted his poetic past while transforming it in ways that made it acceptable to fifth-century Athenian culture.

These papers, composed over a period of nearly thirty years, starting in the mid-1970s, are presented in this volume together with some additional material, a combined bibliography, and indexes.

Contents

Introduction

I: Myth, Aetiology, Hymn, and Prayer

1 Greek Polytheism  

2. Apollo’s Dealings with Chiron and Croesus: Hymnic Predication and Ambiguity in  Hesiod’s Theogony, Pindar’s 9th Pythian, and Herodotus 1

3. The Alcestis of Euripides considered as an Aetiological Myth

II: Homer

4. The Iliad as Exemplum  

5. The Phaeacians in the Odyssey: Fable and Territorial Claim

III: Sappho in the Light of Pindar and Menander Rhetor

6. Sappho Fr. 16 (LP): Self-Consolation and Encomium

7. Sappho Fr. 94 (LP): Farewell, Consolation, and Help in a New Life  

IV: Creative Myth-Revision: Pindar’s Olympian 1

8. The Revision of Myth in Pindar Olympian 1: The Death and Revival of Pelops (25-27; 36-66)

9. Pindar’s Account of Pelops’ Contest with Oenomaus (with a translation of Olympian1)
Illustrations
Appendix: Reconsideration of the Role of Female Helper or Inciter

V: Thucydides (and Xenophon) and Earlier Poetry:

10. Thucydides and Pindar: The Archaeology and Nemean 7

11. The Aristeia of Brasidas: Thucydides’ Presentation of Events at Pylos and Amphipolis

12. The Major Aristeia in Homer and Xenophon  

Addendum to Chapter 9

13. The “Mighty Missiles” in Olympian 1.111–12

Bibliography

Index of selected passages

Index of ancient personal names

Index of subjects