The Homeric Question Revisited

Dimitris G. Michalopoulos

Description

How did Socrates and Plato know that our planet is shaped like a ball? How were they aware that the earth has twelve tectonic plates? Were the Persians conquered at the naval battle of Salamis thanks to missiles launched from the nearby Thriasion Plain? How can Theocritus’ accurate knowledge of the American continent and Plutarch’s awareness of the Sargasso Sea be explained? Who was the real victor of the Trojan War, the Greeks or the Trojans? Can the aftermath of that legendary war in Anatolia be regarded as proof that the Greeks were conquered by the Trojans and not vice-versa? In point of fact, almost the whole of ancient Greek civilization is still an enigma. This book, taking as its starting point the assurance of Strabo, the famous geographer of the age of Pax Romana, that Odysseus’s peregrinations took place in the Atlantic Ocean, provides evidence for the veracity of this statement.

Sujets

• Political Science
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• General officer
• Ancient history
• History of Europe
• World
• General
• European
• Ancient
• Classics
• Greece

Informations

• Publié par: Academica Press
• Date de parution: 10 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781680537017
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

The Homeric Question Revisited: An Essay on the History of the Ancient Greeks
Dimitris G. Michalopoulos
Academica Press Washington~London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Michalopoulos, Dimitris G. (author)
Title: The homeric question revisited : an essay on the history of the ancient greeks | Dimitris G. Michalopoulos
Description: Washington : Academica Press, 2022. | Includes references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022944777 | ISBN 9781680537000 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781680537017 (e-book)
Copyright 2022 Dimitris G. Michalopoulos
In memory of my Teachers at the Italian School of Athens and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Contents Abbreviations Notice As A Prologue: De Profundis Part One. The Greek Enigma Chapter 1. The Problem of a Map Chapter 2. The Atlantic Ocean, Americas, and the Ancient Greeks Chapter 3. Odysseus, Homer and the Sack of Troy Chapter 4. Sparta Part Two Forgotten Trips Chapter 5. Ancient Itineraries and Ships Chapter 6. Mediterranean Trips Chapter 7. Oceanic Adventures Chapter 8. Back to the strepitus mundi Chapter 9. Ultima Thule Chapter 10. George Gemistos Plethon As an Epilogue Chapter 11. Conclusions Chapter 12. A Final Remark Sources and Bibliography Notes Index
Abbreviations LHA Rankavēs, Alexandros, Λεξικὸν τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς Ἀρχαιολογίας (= A Lexicon of the Greek Archaeology) MHE Μεγάλη Ἑλληνικὴ Ἐγκυκλοπαιδεία (= The Great Greek Encyclopaedia) MLHG Anestēs Kōnstantinidēs, Μέγα Λεξικὸν τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς Γλώσσης (= Great Lexicon of the Greek Language) PG J.-P. Migne (ed.),  Patrologia Graeca And also: Cf. Confront col., cols Column, columns ed., eds Editor, editors Ibid. Ibidem n.d. No date given p., pp. Page, pages r. Ruled
Notice
Greek names are written in compliance with their established (and frequently anglicized) form. In the notes and in the Bibliography, however, the rules of the U.S. Library of Congress regarding transliteration from Greek are strictly observed.
As A Prologue:
De Profundis
In the late 1960s in Greek secondary schools ( Gymnasia ), the works of ancient Greek philosophers were taught in the original, in the ancient Greek language. While we were in class reading and translating into modern Greek Plato’s Phaedo , our eyes suddenly fell on the famous passage where our planet is described by the great thinker of the pre-Christian era as if seen from space. 1
We, the pupils, remained silent for a moment, then looked at each other, and at last I found the courage to ask our teacher: “What does this mean?” And she, a very kind and lettered lady, grinned and answered: “All right, kids! Let it pass”.
We let it pass, indeed. And the years went by. I was now a student at the School of Philosophy of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Our Professor of ancient history, Nikolaos I. Karmiris (1930-1977), used to stress his doubts whether the adventures of Odysseus took place exclusively in the Mediterranean Sea, based on some of Homer’s verses concerning the Laestrygonians. 2 Furthermore, during his lectures on the naval battle of Salamis (480 BC), he would sometimes hint at the “fantastic technological superiority” of the ancient Greeks. “But what do you mean?” I asked him in a break. “Look into Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles ,” he answered promptly. “There you will find an allusion to missiles launched from Thriasian Plain, near Eleusis”. 3 And after a short silence, he added: “Think about the automata , too, those mysterious weapons mentioned by Herodotus”. 4
That was not all; both in his lectures and during the conversations with his students, it became clear that he shared the opinion of Spyridon Marinatos (1901-1974), the renowned Greek archaeologist, that almost all of the ancient Greek wisdom was “imported” from the Orient: Ex Oriente Lux ! 5 According to both of them, Karmiris and Marinatos, the ancient Greeks were not racially unified but were simply bound by a more-or-less common religion and, eventually, by a common tongue. 6 The Greek “nation” - and by no means “race” 7 - was actually formed in the fifth century BC thanks to the Persian Wars. As a result, the “key to the riddle” of ancient Greek civilization and wisdom was to be found in the sanctuaries and oracles dispersed throughout Greece. That is why Karmiris insisted that “systematic digs” should take place - at least in Eleusis and in the Thriasian Plain.
Alas! Marinatos passed away accidentally on the island of Thera in 1974; an autopsy on his body was never conducted. 8 And Karmiris died prematurely - and almost violently - in 1977. 9
The years went by… And I, involved in the strepitus mundi (the roar of the world), had no time to look further into the remarks of N. I. Karmiris. It was thanks to the commotion universally caused in 1987 by the appearance of Martin Bernal’s book on the “Afroasiatic roots of classical Civilization”, 10 that I began researching again. I was then Director of the Museum of the City of Athens and I wanted to have a clear idea of what was going on. And at last… what a surprise! The “oriental roots” of Classical Wisdom were indeed known as early as the Graeco-Roman era! Pausanias, for instance, had stated that Plato had adopted the ideas “of the Chaldaeans and the Indian magi” and that Egyptian artists had been working in Greece. 11
That was the spark of new research; and eventually one of Marinatos’s aphorisms came to mind: Someone on the island of Cephalonia was looking for the “helmet of Odysseus;” for since the Homeric hero was Greek, he must have had a helmet. Marinatos, nonetheless, cut him short: “Odysseus wore a cap”! 12 What was he trying to say? Was Odysseus not a Greek? In any event, the cunning resourcefulness of the king of Ithaca was considered a characteristic of the Egyptians and not of the Greeks. 13
Be that as it may, what Martin Bernal claimed was a commonplace ( locus communis ) in ancient Greek literature. There were Egyptians who considered themselves to be “in a measure akin to the Athenians”. 14 The Greek pantheon, moreover, was of Egyptian origin. 15 And, most importantly, the Hebrew Exodus took place partially in Greece:

When in ancient times a pestilence arose in Egypt , the common people ascribed their troubles to the workings of a divine agency; for indeed with many strangers of all sorts dwelling in their midst and practising different rites of religion and sacrifice , their own traditional observances in honour of the gods had fallen into disuse. Hence the natives of the land surmised that unless they removed the foreigners , their troubles would never be resolved. At once , therefore , the aliens were driven from the country , and the most outstanding and active among them banded together and , as some say , were cast ashore in Greece and certain other regions; their leaders were notable men , chief among them being Danaüs and Cadmus. 16
The majority of the people, nonetheless, immigrated into a country “not far from Egypt”, with Moses as their leader, “a very wise and valiant man”. 17
The knowledge that Danaus and Cadmus were not of Greek origin was common even among Byzantine scholars. 18 The name Cadmus, in fact, is said to come from a Semitic word meaning “eastern”; 19 and Danaus, thanks to his technological wisdom, had been able to save Argolis, in the Peloponnesus, from prolonged drought. 20 Moreover, Constantine Paparrigopoulos (1815-1891), who is regarded as the “national historian” of modern Greece, was certain that the main elements of Greek civilization were imported into Ancient Greece by Egyptians and Semites. 21 In brief, the Greek/Hellenic civilization did exist; but we are still in the dark about its remote ancestry and roots. For, contrary to what Plato may have wished, we are not ruled by philosophers. As a result, it is politics that decide on what wisdom is, and not vice-versa. That is why a British archaeologist who worked some years ago in Greece stated: “Before announcing what we have found in our excavations, we should first determine what the term ‘Greek’ means”. 22
I, too, subscribe to such a wise opinion; therefore, and in accordance with Thucydides, 23 the term “Greek” is often used merely conventionally in the pages that follow.
This book does not endeavour to provide answers to all Greek “riddles”. Such a task would simply be impossible. Accordingly, the purpose of this little volume is to furnish proof that the peregrinations recounted in the Odyssey occurred in the Atlantic Ocean and in the Americas and, furthermore, that the name Homer ( Ὅμηρος ) is nothing more than a symbolic name.
My research, moreover, unlike that of Henriette Mertz, 24 Enrico Mattievich, 25 and Siegfried Pyrrhus Petrides, 26 pioneers in the relevant scientific field, has an almost exclusively philological character. That is why it has obvious limits.
Who was Homer? Who endowed him with such a beautiful tongue? Let us stress it once more: we do not know! The only thing which may be regarded as certain is that the whole of the Homeric Poems is to a certain extent a “copy-paste” endeavour. In other words, they are peripeteias which occurred in very remote times and which were recounted in an artificially created tongue in order to achieve the unification of the various peoples who initially dwelt in the Greek lands.
Α book is never the product of a single person. In point of fact, there are many who, as a rule inconspicuously, contribute to its creation; and the least that the author can do is to thank them. I express, therefore, my thanks firstly to the Board of Directors of the Institute of Hellenic Maritime History who, as early as the beginning of the 2010s, adopted my opinion that the trips of Homer’s Odysseus occurred in the Atlantic Ocean and in the Americas, and published the first findings of my research. Since, moreover, the present book is based on another one which I authored and published in Greek in 2016, 27 I warmly thank my friend A. Livadas who generously