« On Not Looking Back!
Main
Anti-Witchcraft in Ancient Mesopotamia »

February 26, 2011

Quotation From The 6th Century BCE

Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods everything which is a shame and reproach among men, stealing, committing adultery, and deceiving each other.

Attributed to Xenophanes by Sextus Empiricus (Adversos Mathematicos, 9:193). Translation from S. F. Kirk, R. E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (2nd ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 168.

If the attribution is correct, this is likely the oldest reference to Homer. It appears that the earliest direct quotations from the Iliad and/or the Odyssey are in Herodotus, 2:116 (Iliad 6:289-92, Odyssey 4:227-230, 235). If anyone knows of anything earlier, I’d sure like to know about it. I’m also looking for the earliest reference to or quotation from Iliad 12:200-209. If you are wondering why I filed this under Akkadian, I did because the project that drives me to raise this question deals with Akkadian textsHappy Face.

Posted by Duane Smith at February 26, 2011 3:42 PM | Read more on Akkadian |

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telecomtally.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/3561

Comments

Post a comment

Please read Abnormal Interest's Comments Policy.

Name:

Email Address:

Your email address with not be posted.

URL:

Remember Me?


Comments:

The following HTML tags are allowed in comments:

<p> </p>, <br> </br>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>emphasis</em>,
<blockquote>your quotation</blockquote>, <i>italic</i>, <b>bold</b>,
<ul> </ul>, <li> </li>, <a href="http://your.link.com/">link</a>

and no others.

Tags:

Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.