American Journal of Philology

In Book 9 of Homer's Odyssey, the Cyclops Polyphemus is assimilated to the natural landscape, "like a wooded peak of high mountains" (Od. 9.191–2), in control of his rocky environs. He moves a great door stone that twenty-two wagons couldn't lift (Od. 9.240–3), and throws a mountain peak and stone after the escaping Odysseus (Od. 9.480–6, 537–42). Rocks persist throughout the Homeric poems as markers of strength and power, with Ajax hurling a large rock in Iliad 7.268 and Hector doing the same at Il. 12.453. When in the battle between the gods Ares attacks Athena, it is with a rock that she fights back:

But she, forced back, took up with her heavy hand a stone which was lying on the plain, black and rough and big, which men of an earlier time had put there to be a marker of the fields. [End Page 364]

(Il. 21.403–5)

Athena plunders the landscape, refashioning an object of human order into an object of immortal disorder. When the painted notice in a latrine at Ephesos from the 4th century c.e. tells its visitor to pick up a "wiper," then, in the same Homeric language of (Hunter suggests) utilizing rocky environs, "the client is offered a momentary glimpse of what he is about to do as a heroically 'epic' action, while at the same time being reminded of how 'fundamentally,' despite our desires, we differ from Iliadic heroes (who, for all that they are constantly eating, never seem to need a latrine)" (11–12). It is such examples of Homeric reception at every level, in every conceivable setting, that prove just how pervasive and all-encompassing the Homeric influence was throughout antiquity. A husband praising his wife for having "eyes like a cow" (6): with its Homeric resonance, and internalization of the accompanying exegetical tradition, it turns out there could be no more flattering inscription.

Hot on the heels of Hunter's Hesiodic Voices: Studies in the Ancient Reception of Hesiod's Works and Days (Cambridge, 2014) comes the current volume, offering Studies in the Ancient Reception of the Iliad and Odyssey. Hugo Koning's 2010 book Hesiod: The Other Poet was a landmark publication in showing the relationship between Hesiod and Homer in their reception, noting that "Hesiod, it seems, is never really alone" (Koning 2010, 130)—and Hunter's pairing of books perpetuates this connection. Add to the list Hunter's Plato and the Traditions of Ancient Literature: the Silent Stream (Cambridge, 2012), and we have the completion of "a trilogy of studies" (vii) that explore the impact of these central corpora on ancient literature and culture. The books are necessarily selective—but how could they not be? No enterprise grounded in case studies can be expected to be exhaustive, and we should bear no ill will towards Hunter for his choice of approach. Indeed, it was the only choice, particularly for the current volume. With Homeric poetry at the very heart of ancient culture, a full examination of all aspects of its reception is beyond the scope of an entire shelf of books, let alone a single volume. Hunter himself is "very conscious of the yawning gaps in what one might expect to find in a book on this subject" (vii). I suspect that our expectations might be unreasonable. We would do better, then, to leave them aside, and appreciate this book on its own terms. Hunter warns us that there will be very little on Greek drama, on imperial epic, on Hellenistic poetry (vii). The obvious candidates are set aside in favor of a more unexpected and, arguably, richer collection of receptions.

Before launching into his case studies proper, Hunter discusses the disputed "placement" of Homer: the multiple claims on him, and ultimately his omnipresence (1–4)—a treatment that was at the core of Barbara Graziosi...