TheContest of Homer and Hesiodand the ambitions of Hadrian
Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines the compilation known as theContest of Homer and Hesiod. More usually mined for the material it preserves from the sophist Alcidamas, here I advance a reading that seeks to make sense of the compilation as a whole and situates the work ideologically in its Imperial context. An anecdote early in the compilation depicts the emperor Hadrian enquiring about Homer's birthplace and parents from the Delphic Oracle; he is told that Telemachus was Homer's father and Ithaca his homeland. When the text says that we must believe this self-evidently absurd response on account of the status of the emperor, its author is satirizing Hadrian's ambitions to participate in the Greek intellectual world and the pressures on scholars to accept Hadrian's authority in their field. Moreover, the compiler has linked this anecdote to the long account of the poetic contest between Homer and Hesiod in order to draw an unflattering parallel between Hadrian and King Panedes, who, as writers such as Lucian and Dio Chrysostom suggested, exposed his ineptitude in choosing Hesiod over Homer as the victor of the contest.
Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies
Author: James Uden
Institution: Columbia University
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2148679275