About twenty years ago, I read a theory that Homer was actually Celtic, not Greek, and that Troy was in England rather than in Turkey, Ithaca in Spain rather than in Greece. I found the theory quite interesting and must admit that the presented evidence was in most cases quite convincing. The author was Dutch, like me, and I am curious whether this theory has ever been spread beyond the borders of our small country (which by the way apparently was home to Circe)… Reactions, anyone?
The early bird gets the wurm, but the second mouse gets the cheese (Steven Wright)
There is a fairly large body of evidence that the people from whom the Celts were descended were originally inhabitants of the region now known as Hungary. They spread out across the European continent over a thousand-year period, and were displaced in their original homes by other peoples by the end of the Bronze Age. During the Iron Age and the later periods their culture became more associated with the western end of Europe, but the persistence of the bardic tradition may have been left behind with other people. Then again, it might have been absorbed by the Celts from other people.
The Celts established a very broad, but very loosely knit social fabric in Europe. Tribal chieftains were kings to those near enough, or weak enough to be dominated by the warriors of that chieftain. Kings far enough away to be ignored were ignored, unless they had a whole lot of warriors, in which case they were called “High Kings” and bribed with nieces and daughters and loot to remain distant. Bards sing what gets them fed, and changing the name of the hero in the song is a simple matter when the king’s ego seems in need of a stroke or two.
Wandering off into the west is an old and distinguished tradition in Celtic mythology, and the west is a fairly generic term meaning “somewhere I have never been.” Some guy named Homer might have wandered southwest, into the middle of early Greek history. Or Homer might have been an early Greek term for “Wimp who sings songs.” Homer the person is as likely to be named for the office of court jester/historian as vice versa. When he ran out of history, he could easily have decided to appropriate some old Celtic folk tales and used them.
The reverse case is no more difficult to believe. The Celts, who stole a lot of their culture from the various folks who chased them around Europe, might have liked a few of those old Greek stories and ported them along in the bad boats they built to sail off into the west in. Given the realities of Celtic seamanship, the boats loaded with songs had a better chance of landfall than the ones burdened with other things.
<P ALIGN=“CENTER”>Tris</P>
Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?
– **Socrates ** - last words
If you go to the National Geographic website or pick up the Dec. '99 issue there is a good piece on Ancient Greece. Of course as noted in another thread NG has had a few factual problems lately but I think they aren’t that far off on this one.
Nope. I never heard it. How come Homer wrote in Greek in he lived in England or the low countries? How come he got the geography down so good? I have read both the Iliad and the Odyssey and I don’t remember any of the Homeric heroes painting themselves blue before battle, or speaking with those stupid accents or drinking warm beer or driving horribly uncomfortable and unreliable sports cars. At times though, I guess the Trojan War did resemble your average, everyday British soccer match. And the description Homer gave of cooking (boil everything) does sound as appetizing as British cuisine - haggis, anyone?. Nevertheless, could you imagine Hugh Grant as Odysseus, Achilles, or HRH the Queen as Helen of Troy? Parakalo!
Sorry guys (M/F) for the late reaction, been away. Some of the responses are of course predictable, and were dealt with in the theory. Yes, Schliemann did dug up an old city in Turkey and called it Troy, but the dimensions of his ‘Troy’ are much and much smaller than what Homer has depicted in the Iliad. In addition, Homer stated that there were two large rivers near Troy, big enough to drown people. Absent near Schliemann’s Troy. Moreover, he writes in a scene that the sun rose over the sea - try that on the West coast of Turkey. Another supporting evidence: what colour would you say the sea had between Greece and Turkey? Anyone suggesting anything other than blue? Well, Homer always uses the word grey…
The theory said that Homer was a bard who traveled to Greece and spread the tale. The Greek loved it, and when they themselves started traveling, they named the new places according to Homer’s tales. For instance, Homer includes ‘Egypt’ in the tales of Ulysses - just funny, he never mentioned pyramids or sphynx or Nile…
Of course, it is impossible for me to summarise all the arguments in a 200p book here, but it really started me to think, yes, he might be right…
The thing abut stories is: it is easy to tell a convincing one. I get to choose which facts to expose. I get to choose what context in which to reveal information. I get to choose what order and emphasis is placed upon the material. Archaeological and anthropological speculations are great fun. They are also quite often deficient in hard supporting facts. Without reading the book I make the bold prediction that the author bases his Homer==celt hypothesis almost entirely upon similarities between the Homeric epics and some celtic folklore. The same iron-clad reasoning will demonstrate to us that the Bible was written by Sumerians and that the early Latins were really Etruscans.
The Greeks were very conscious of cultural identity. I, for one, would require a fairly string standard of evidence before I accept that they adopted a barbarian’s foreign tales as their most treasured cultural epics.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
