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Diomedes' Genealogy and Ancient Criticism

The Homeric poems were cited, quoted, or alluded to by ancient authors probably more than any other works. Indeed, in surviving texts as disparate as Callianax’s medical treatises of the third century B.C.E. and the literary efforts of the fifth-century C.E. Neoplatonist Proclus, references to the Iliad and Odyssey occur. In authors as different in perspective and purpose as these, the uses of Homer will, not surprisingly, be just as various. Callianax, for example, seems to have cited Homer to comfort patients frightened of death, explaining that even heroes like Patroclus had to die. Such uses of the epics have no more than a superficial purpose—to add a literary flourish or to display literary erudition. But two other kinds of authors use Homer for very different reasons: for some, the text of Homer is the focus and their concern is to establish what the poet really said, while, for others, Homer is the authority cited to strengthen an argument. While the former goal may be regarded by some today as mistaken, it was important in antiquity. What is striking about these two large groups of authors is how seemingly little effect the one, those interested in establishing the text of Homer, had on the other, those using Homer as an authority for other questions. To illustrate this, I’ve focused on a passage from Homer that was quoted and discussed by more than one author in antiquity.