The Configuration of the Archaic Greek Epic Hero through Homer and Hesiod
Abstract The emergence of the heroic cult has relevant aspects of the ancient Greek social organization. The Greeks conceived its legendary heroes as great men of a legendary and glorious past, but also as superhuman entities capable of providing protection for which surrender them honors by means of sacrifices and offerings. The great figures of Homeric poetry, Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus, probably began his epic career as kings, warriors and mycenaeans nobles of the oral tradition of the dark ages. Subsequently, they were transfigured in semi gods. So, it seems feasible that Homer and Hesiod had conceived the distant past as an era in which the world was inhabited by a semi divine race. Archaeology seems to show that past perception emerged shortly before the composition of the great epic poems, toward mediated the 8th century BC, in a time of relevant social changes. The cult of the mythical heroes, that renowned families legitimating their prestige associated with heroic ancestors, was giving way to the desire of communities to benefit from the protection of heroes. In the classicism, would continue to be heroic prototypes quasi divine, influential in domestic political organization.
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Currie, B. (2002). Euthymos of Locri: a case study in heroization in the classical period. JHS, 122, pp. 24-44.
Deger-Jalkotzy, S. y Lemos, I. S. (eds.). (2006). Ancient Greece. From the Mycenaean Palaces to the Age of Homer. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Dickey, E. (1996). Greek Forms of Address from Herodotus to Lucian. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Malkin, I. (1987). Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece. Leiden: Brill.
Malkin, I. (1993). Land ownership, territorial possession, hero cults and scholarly theory. En R. Rosen y J. Farrell (eds.), Nomodeiktes: Greek Studies in Honor of Martin Ostwald (pp. 225-234). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Morris, I. (1988). Tomb cult and the «Greek Renaissance». Antiquity, 62, pp. 750-761.
Morris, I. (1989). Attitudes towards death in archaic Greece. Classical Antiquity, 8, pp. 296-320.
Nagy, G. (1979). The Best of the Achaeans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ogden, D. (2001). Greek and Roman Necromancy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Osborne, R. (1998). Early Greek colonization? Archaic Greece, 3, pp. 251-269.
Peek, W. (1955). Griechische Vers-Inschriften I, Berlin.
Rohde, E. (2009). Psique: la idea del alma y la inmortalidad entre los griegos. México, D. F.: edic. FCE.
Ruijgh, C. (1995). D’Homère aux origines proto-mycéniennes de la tradition épique. Homeric Questions, pp. 1-96.
Seaford, R. (1994). Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-state, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Snodgrass, A. M. (1987). An Archaeology of Greece: The Present State and Future Scope of a Discipline. Berkeley & London: University of California Press.
Snodgrass, A. M. (1988). The archaeology of the hero. Annali di Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli (AION), 10, pp. 19-26.
Snodgrass, A. M. (1991). Archaeology and the study of the Greek city. En J. Rich y A. Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World (pp. 1-25). London: Routledge.
Van Wees, H. (1996). «Heroes, knights and nutters», en Lloyd, A. (Edit.) Battle in Antiquity. Londres & Swansea: Duckworth, pp. 1-86.
Van Wees, H. (1999). Homer and early Greece. En I. De Jong (ed.), Homer: Critical Assessments. Vol. II (pp. 1-32). London: Routledge.
West, M. (1978). Hesiod, Works and Days. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Whitley, J. (1988). Early states and hero cults. JHS, 108, pp. 173-182.
Antonaccio, C. (1993). Tomb and hero cult in early Greece: the archaeology of ancestors. En C. Dougherty y L. Kurke (eds.), Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece (pp. 46-70). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Antonaccio, C. (1994). Contesting the past: tomb cult, hero cult, and epic in early Greece. AJA, 98, pp. 389-410.
Antonaccio, C. (1995). Homer and Lefkandi. En Ø Andersen y M. Dickie (eds.), Homer’s World: Fiction, Tradition, Reality (pp. 5-27). Athens: Norwegian Institute at Athens.
Antonaccio, C. (2002). Warriors, traders, ancestors: the «heroes» of Lefkandi. En J. Munk Høtje (eds.), Images of Ancestors. Århus: Århus Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology, n.º 5, pp. 13-42.
Barrigón, C. (2000). La désignation des héros et héroïnes dans la poésie lyrique grecque. Kernos Supplement, 10, pp. 1-14.
Bauzá, H. F. (1999). El mito del héroe. Morfología y semántica de la figura heroica. México D.F.: edic. FCE.
Bermejo Barrera, J. C. (1996). Grecia arcaica: la mitología. Madrid: edit. Akal.
Boedeker, D. (1993). Hero cult and politics in Herodotus: the bones of Orestes. En C. Dougherty y L. Kurke (eds.), Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece: Cult, Performance, Politics (pp. 164-177). New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bowden, H. (1993). Hoplites and Homer: warfare, hero cult, and the ideology of the polis. En J. Rich y G. Shipley (eds.), War and Society in the Greek World (pp. 45-63). London: Routledge.
Bremmer, J. (1983). The Early Greek Concept of the Soul. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Buffiere, F. (1973). Les mythes d’Homere en la pensée grecque. Paris.
Catling, H. y Cavanagh, W. (1976). Two inscribed bronzes from the Menelaion, Sparta. Kadmos, 15, pp. 145-157.
Chadwick, J. (1985). What do we know about Mycenaean religion? En A. Morpurgo-Davies, e Y. Duhoux (eds.), Linear B: A 1984 Survey (pp. 191-239). Louvain: Cabay.
Coldstream, J. N. (1976). Hero-cults in the age of Homer. JHS, 96, pp. 8–17.
Crielaard, J. P. (2002). Past or present? Epic poetry, aristocratic self-representation and the concept of time in the eighth and seventh centuries BC. En F. Montanari (ed.), Omero Tre Mille Anni Dopo (pp. 239-295). Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.
Currie, B. (2002). Euthymos of Locri: a case study in heroization in the classical period. JHS, 122, pp. 24-44.
Deger-Jalkotzy, S. y Lemos, I. S. (eds.). (2006). Ancient Greece. From the Mycenaean Palaces to the Age of Homer. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Dickey, E. (1996). Greek Forms of Address from Herodotus to Lucian. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Edwards, A. (1985). Achilles in the underworld: Iliad, Odyssey and Aethiopis. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 26, pp. 211-227.
Espejo Muriel, C. (1992). El universo homérico: hombre y dioses. Florencia Iliberritana, 3, pp. 117-125.
Farnell, L. (1921). Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Garland, R. (1985). The Greek Way of Death. London: Duckworth.
Hack, R. (1929). Homer and the cult of héroes. Transactions of the American Philological Association, 60, pp. 57-74.
Hadzisteliou-Price, T. (1973). «Hero-cult and Homer». Historia, nº 22, pp. 129-144.
Hainsworth, B. (1993). The Iliad: A Commentary. Vol. III, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hornblower, S. (1996). A Commentary on Thucydides. Vol. II, Books IV-V.24, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Janko, R. (1994). The Iliad: A Commentary. Vol. IV, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jeffery, L. (1990). Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Johnston, S. (1999). Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press.
López Saco, J. (1994). La muerte y la utopía de las Islas de los Bienaventurados en el imaginario griego. Fortunatae, 6, pp. 39-65.
López Saco, J. (2004). «Mitos y héroes: su lenguaje y su realidad», Quincunce, n° 6, Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, pp. 8-12.
López Saco, J. (2010). «Las ofrendas funerarias micénicas y posmicénicas: ¿indicio de un culto heroico?», Praesentia (ULA), nº 11, pp. 1-12 .
Malkin, I. (1987). Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece. Leiden: Brill.
Malkin, I. (1993). Land ownership, territorial possession, hero cults and scholarly theory. En R. Rosen y J. Farrell (eds.), Nomodeiktes: Greek Studies in Honor of Martin Ostwald (pp. 225-234). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Morris, I. (1988). Tomb cult and the «Greek Renaissance». Antiquity, 62, pp. 750-761.
Morris, I. (1989). Attitudes towards death in archaic Greece. Classical Antiquity, 8, pp. 296-320.
Nagy, G. (1979). The Best of the Achaeans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ogden, D. (2001). Greek and Roman Necromancy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Osborne, R. (1998). Early Greek colonization? Archaic Greece, 3, pp. 251-269.
Peek, W. (1955). Griechische Vers-Inschriften I, Berlin.
Rohde, E. (2009). Psique: la idea del alma y la inmortalidad entre los griegos. México, D. F.: edic. FCE.
Ruijgh, C. (1995). D’Homère aux origines proto-mycéniennes de la tradition épique. Homeric Questions, pp. 1-96.
Seaford, R. (1994). Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-state, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Snodgrass, A. M. (1987). An Archaeology of Greece: The Present State and Future Scope of a Discipline. Berkeley & London: University of California Press.
Snodgrass, A. M. (1988). The archaeology of the hero. Annali di Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli (AION), 10, pp. 19-26.
Snodgrass, A. M. (1991). Archaeology and the study of the Greek city. En J. Rich y A. Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World (pp. 1-25). London: Routledge.
Van Wees, H. (1996). «Heroes, knights and nutters», en Lloyd, A. (Edit.) Battle in Antiquity. Londres & Swansea: Duckworth, pp. 1-86.
Van Wees, H. (1999). Homer and early Greece. En I. De Jong (ed.), Homer: Critical Assessments. Vol. II (pp. 1-32). London: Routledge.
West, M. (1978). Hesiod, Works and Days. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Whitley, J. (1988). Early states and hero cults. JHS, 108, pp. 173-182.
López Saco, J. (2018). The Configuration of the Archaic Greek Epic Hero through Homer and Hesiod. El Futuro Del Pasado, 9, 157–176. https://doi.org/10.14516/fdp.2018.009.001.006
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