An Historical Homeric Society … Or Not?

Snodgrass, A.M. “An Historical Homeric Society?” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 94 (1974), 114-125.

Upon first glance, the observant reader will notice that the title for Snodgrass’ critique of the “historic Homer” argument is endowed with a question mark, perhaps applied because the essay that follows it is one big string of largely unanswered questions. Indeed, Snodgrass is sadly one of those authors who imagines that his audience is best served by hiding his thesis in the last sentence on the last page. “Does Homer’s tale reflect a real society or one highly idealized?” This is the question that Snodgrass sets out to answer.

The analysis of marriage in the context of Homer’s usage of Greek versus anthropological findings inconclusively dominates the first half of the paper. In all marriages examined, an exchange of gifts is observed, and these are categorized three ways: Bride Price, when payment goes to the bride’s family; Dowry, when payment goes to the groom’s family; and Indirect Dowry, wherein the loot eventually goes to the couple to help kick-start the new family. Famous examples cited in the essay are the marriage of Hector to Andromache and Agamemnon’s offer of one of his daughters to Achilles. All three types of marriage can be found in Homer’s epics, says Snodgrass, who relies upon the original Greek – left conveniently un-translated – to reach this conclusion. Problematically, the very presence of three types of marriage-related gift exchanges within the same social strata – Homer being only interested in portraying the royal/noble elites of the mortal and immortal realms – hints at radical inconsistency, but Snodgrass calls upon “poetic misunderstanding” as justification for this. After much to-do about marriage custom and a good deal of semantic tiptoeing, Snodgrass ultimately determines that Homer’s world is a composite image of many practices and traditions. This is an important declaration, as it is the reader’s first hint as to the essay’s overdue thesis.

His examination of marriage practices concluded, Snodgrass spends the latter half of his essay addressing the notion of a historical Iliad/Odyssey. Though Snodgrass spends a great deal of ink dropping names, Sir M.I. Finley crops up the most often, for that man’s works, written to definitively establish the historical Homeric setting, inform much of Snodgrass’ own argument. To hear Snodgrass tell it, Finley was set on finding a TIME for Homer, using such evidence as ceremonial and Linear B tablets as markers to cordon off time periods for examination. The essay breaks these options down into four: the Bronze Age, the Migration Period, the Dark Ages, and the Geometric Period – the last being Homer’s own. Now moving in the realms of archeology – and perhaps with less Greek to reference – Snodgrass fires off a salvo of details explaining why he believes that the Bronze Age and the Geometric Period are the only viable contenders – and even these are challenged.

Metalworking is the first category of examination and here Snodgrass notes that Homer’s warriors use exclusively bronze weapons. As the Dark Ages were apparently the height of iron usage, Homer’s epic thus finds an uncomfortable place in that era. And to mix things up a bit, Homer himself was aware of iron, and historically it was utilized for weapons before being adopted for domestic purposes, as it appears in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Curiously, Snodgrass does not address the possibility that Homer’s use of iron may be restricted to his similes, thus removing that metal from the epic proper.

Burials are next on Snodgrass’ hit list as he quotes Finley’s belief that such epic rites are purely Dark Age – his opponents, meanwhile, shout for Geometric period. As the two are clearly nothing alike, Snodgrass conveniently sidesteps the problem by calling in literary license. That is to say, Homer’s burials were dictated by the requirements of the story. If Patroclus needed to be burned and celebrated with impromptu Olympics, then Patroclus would get a cremation and his Olympics, no matter the historical reality. Indeed, the funeral of Patroclus is considered by Snodgrass the highest form of art versus life – he imagines that such elaborate ceremonial would have been impossible in Homer’s time.

Similar inconsistencies can be found in heroic equipment. The vast array of glittering armor, well-made this-and-that, and epic brick-a-brack seem to fly in the face of archeology and anthropology, Homer’s light javelins’ convenient habit of morphing into heavy thrusting spears for heroic close combat being the most outstanding example in Snodgrass’ opinion. Moreover, the very presence of such conspicuous wealth again reflects a world of plenty, unlike the relative dearth experienced in the Migration and Dark Age periods – the proliferation of iron notwithstanding.

In any case, Snodgrass determines that if one must seek out a historical setting for Homer, the historical models, if any, are either Bronze Age or Geometric – both eras rich in movable goods, that all-important status symbol in Homer’s tales. Not only do the lists of goods necessitate a wealthy society, but the elaborate ceremonial and lavish living enjoyed by Homeric heroes could only exist in a society able to afford the expense. And beyond the proliferation of mammon, the epic world of Iliadic myth is pretty much business as usual – albeit the ground shaking war with Troy – with no mention of depopulation or disasters, a point of conspicuous embarrassment for historical Greeks.

In conclusion, Snodgrass winds down his essay by allowing room for historic inspiration, but ultimately declares that Homer was simply a good fictionist. At long last, there was no such historical society that could be called “epic!”