Difference between revisions of "Homeri Ilias"

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by Homer

Homeri Ilias
Title page from Homeri Ilias, volume one, George Wythe Collection, Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary.
Author	Homer
Editor	Samuel Clarke
Translator	{{{trans}}}
Published	Londini: Impensis Johannis & Pauli Knapton
Date	1740
Edition	Third
Language	Greek and Latin
Volumes	2 volume set
Pages	{{{pages}}}
Desc.	8vo (21 cm.)
Location	Shelf H-4
	[[Shelf {{{shelf2}}}]]

Frontispiece, volume one.

Little is known about the life of Homer, the poet responsible for the Iliad and the Odyssey. Herodotus claimed Homer lived around 850 BCE, while modern scholars usually date his poems to the second half of the eighth century BCE.^[3] The Trojan War is estimated to have occurred at the end of the Mycenaean Age in Greece, around 1200 BCE, meaning that Homer was looking back four centuries to a heroic world much greater in his esteem, than the contemporary world. Homer relied on oral history to compose his poems; this provides some of the basis for the "separatist" view that the two epic poems were not written by the same person, but possibly by a combination of poets. The mixed dialect of Ionian Greek in which each poem was originally written indicates that both poems were written in the east Aegean. This is supported by contextual clues in the poems themselves. The two most plausible locations for the birth of Homer are Smyrna and Chios, but ancient Greeks viewed the poet as a blind minstrel wandering while he composed the poems, which were sung or chanted, accompanied by a lyre.

Homer’s Iliad is an epic poem of a heroic or tragic nature, consisting of 24 books, all of which are original except for Book Ten, which was likely added later.^[4] It tells the tale of the wrath of Achilles during the last year of the ten-year Trojan War. The war began when Agamemnon led a unified force of Greek warriors across the Aegean Sea to attack Troy under the pretense of rescuing his sister-in-law, Helen (wife of Menelaus), from the Trojan prince Paris. Homer begins his narration in the tenth year of the war, covering several weeks during the war and focusing on the anger of Achilles at not being appropriately respected by Menelaus. Significantly described in the Iliad are the death of Patroclus (Achilles’ foster brother and alleged lover) and the subsequent vengeance killing of Hector (the oldest son of King Priam of Troy). The respect and compassion between supposed enemies Achilles and Priam when the former returns Hector’s body from the Danaan camp is an example of the humanity Greeks expected to be shown to one another even during war. The story ends with the funeral of Hector. Homer does not address the death of Achilles, the Trojan Horse or the fall of Troy. All of those stories come to us from the Latin poet Virgil’s epic, The Aeneid.

Inscription, front free endpaper, volume one.

Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

We know George Wythe definitely owned the 1740 edition of Samuel Clarke's Greek and Latin edition of The Illiad. A copy of volume one at the University of Virginia includes Wythe's bookplate. The title is also listed in the Jefferson Inventory of Wythe's Library as "[Homeri Ilias. Gr. Lat], Clarke. 2d. vol. 8vo." and was given by Thomas Jefferson to his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph. Jefferson's entry suggests he only inherited the second volume or compiled his inventory before he located volume one. The Brown Bibliography^[5] assumes the volume inherited by Jefferson came from the same 1740 edition as the University of Virginia volume one. Barbara Dean also includes the complete edition in her bibliography.^[6] George Wythe's Library^[7] on LibraryThing notes "Vol. 2 only. Precise edition unknown. Several two-volume editions of Clarke's translation were published in octavo, the first in 1735." and "Vol. 1 of this set, containing Wythe's armorial bookplate, is at the University of Virginia, Special Collections." The Wolf Law Library agreed with Brown and purchased a copy of the 1740 edition.

Description of the Wolf Law Library's copy

Bound in contemporary full calf. Spine features raised bands with gilt rules, gilt decorative elements and red morocco label with gilt lettering. Both volumes signed "Pat. Grant" on the front free endpaper.

Images of the library's copy of this book are available on Flickr. View the record for this book in William & Mary's online catalog.

See also

• Homerou Ilias kai Odysseia
• Tēs tou Homērou Iliados
• Homērou Odysseia
• Tēs tou Homērou Odysseias
• The Iliad of Homer
• Ilias kai eis Auten Scholia ton Palaion = Homeri Ilias et Veterum in eam Scholia, quae Vulgo Appellantur Didymi
• The Odyssey of Homer
• Incerti Scriptoris Graeci Fabulae Aliquot Homericae de Ulixis Erroribus, Ethice Explicatae
• George Wythe Room
• Jefferson Inventory
• Wythe's Library

References

1. ↑ "Samuel Clarke" by Ezio Vailati and Timothy Yenter in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Edward Zalta (Stanford, Summer 2009).
2. ↑ Hugh Chisholm, ed. “Clarke, Samuel.” Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911).
3. ↑ "Homer” in The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ed. by M.C. Howatson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
4. ↑ "Homer" in Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World, ed. by John Roberts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
5. ↑ Bennie Brown, "The Library of George Wythe of Williamsburg and Richmond," (unpublished manuscript, May, 2012) Microsoft Word file. Earlier edition available at: https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/13433
6. ↑ Memorandum from Barbara C. Dean, Colonial Williamsburg Found., to Mrs. Stiverson, Colonial Williamsburg Found. (June 16, 1975), 4 (on file at Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary).
7. ↑ LibraryThing, s. v. "Member: George Wythe", accessed February 27, 2014.

External Links

Read volume one of this book from the Hathi Trust.
Read volume two of this book from the Hathi Trust.