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81-397: The origin of the name is uncertain: it has naturally been connected with Homer 's legend of Circe . The difficulty has been raised that the promontory ceased to be an island well before Homer 's time; but Procopius remarked that the promontory has all the appearance of an island until one is actually upon it. The town on the eastern side of Monte Circeo was probably founded by Greeks at

162-619: A literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally . Despite being predominantly known for its tragic and serious themes, the Homeric poems also contain instances of comedy and laughter . Homer's epic poems shaped aspects of ancient Greek culture and education, fostering ideals of heroism, glory, and honor. To Plato , Homer

243-449: A canonical text. The first printed edition of Homer was produced in 1488 in Milan, Italy by Demetrios Chalkokondyles . Today scholars use medieval manuscripts, papyri and other sources; some argue for a "multi-text" view, rather than seeking a single definitive text. The nineteenth-century edition of Arthur Ludwich mainly follows Aristarchus's work, whereas van Thiel's (1991, 1996) follows

324-597: A clear overall design and that they are not merely strung together from unrelated songs. It is also generally agreed that each poem was composed mostly by a single author, who probably relied heavily on older oral traditions. Nearly all scholars agree that the Doloneia in Book X of the Iliad is not part of the original poem, but rather a later insertion by a different poet. Some ancient scholars believed Homer to have been an eyewitness to

405-471: A discredited dead end. Starting in around 1928, Milman Parry and Albert Lord , after their studies of folk bards in the Balkans, developed the "Oral-Formulaic Theory" that the Homeric poems were originally composed through improvised oral performances, which relied on traditional epithets and poetic formulas. This theory found very wide scholarly acceptance and explained many previously puzzling features of

486-415: A phrase or idea is repeated at both the beginning and end of a story, or a series of such ideas first appears in the order A, B, C ... before being reversed as ... C, B, A) has been observed in the Homeric epics. Opinion differs as to whether these occurrences are a conscious artistic device, a mnemonic aid or a spontaneous feature of human storytelling. Both of the Homeric poems begin with an invocation to

567-556: A quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War . The Odyssey chronicles the ten-year journey of Odysseus , king of Ithaca , back to his home after the fall of Troy. The epics depict man's struggle, the Odyssey especially so as Odysseus perseveres through punishment of the gods. The poems are in Homeric Greek , also known as Epic Greek,

648-555: Is an accepted version of this page Homer ( / ˈ h oʊ m ər / ; Ancient Greek : Ὅμηρος [hómɛːros] , Hómēros ; born c.  8th century BCE ) was an Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey , two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature . Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history. Homer's Iliad centers on

729-566: Is called parataxis . The so-called ' type scenes ' ( typische Szenen ), were named by Walter Arend in 1933. He noted that Homer often, when describing frequently recurring activities such as eating, praying , fighting and dressing, used blocks of set phrases in sequence that were then elaborated by the poet. The 'Analyst' school had considered these repetitions as un-Homeric, whereas Arend interpreted them philosophically. Parry and Lord noted that these conventions are found in many other cultures. 'Ring composition' or chiastic structure (when

810-448: Is dedicated. Lucius Faberius belonged to the important Faberii family in Rome, especially in the first century BC. Another stone description affirms the high offices and industriousness held by Lucius Faberius in Rome. The canal was judged by Suetonius and Tacitus to be the most outrageous undertaking of Nero, and it was not completed, perhaps due to the sudden death of the emperor or due to

891-604: Is fundamentally based on Ionic Greek , in keeping with the tradition that Homer was from Ionia. Linguistic analysis suggests that the Iliad was composed slightly before the Odyssey and that Homeric formulae preserve features older than other parts of the poems. The poems were composed in unrhymed dactylic hexameter ; ancient Greek metre was quantity-based rather than stress-based. Homer frequently uses set phrases such as epithets ('crafty Odysseus ', 'rosy-fingered Dawn ', 'owl-eyed Athena ', etc.), Homeric formulae ('and then answered [him/her], Agamemnon, king of men', 'when

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972-407: Is one of several towns built on the reclaimed marshland of the ancient Pontine Marshes ( Agro Pontino ). This marsh was drained under orders from Benito Mussolini . Vast tracts of malaria-infested swamp were drained by workers transported from poor areas of northern Italy, leaving the coastal area south of Rome with rich farmland. These towns were built so that the fascist regime could demonstrate

1053-528: Is probable that the villa was only renovated in that period, as there are remains from the time of Augustus. A lot of material had ended up on the antiques market of the time and marbles and statues were divided into many museums, among which are the Apollo Kassel (now in a Kassel museum) and a satyr (now in the Vatican Museums). "La Casarina" is located on a peninsula at the south end of Lake Sabaudia. It

1134-505: Is used, as recently invented in Rome, with the architectural orders derived from the Hellenistic tradition. The model for the scenographic arrangement on sloping terraces may refer to the great sanctuaries of the city of Pergamum where the temples stand on high podiums and lack a colonnade at the back. The terraces are often surrounded by porticoes on three sides and the arches and vaults are often flanked or hidden by colonnades. Also called

1215-495: The Capture of Oechalia , and the Phocais . These claims are not considered authentic today and were not universally accepted in the ancient world. As with the multitude of legends surrounding Homer's life, they indicate little more than the centrality of Homer to ancient Greek culture. Some ancient accounts about Homer were established early and repeated often. They include that Homer

1296-564: The Iliad alone is massive, sprawling over nearly 4,000 oversized pages in a 21st-century printed version and his commentary on the Odyssey an additional nearly 2,000. In 1488, the Greek scholar Demetrios Chalkokondyles published in Florence the editio princeps of the Homeric poems. The earliest modern Homeric scholars started with the same basic approaches towards the Homeric poems as scholars in antiquity. The allegorical interpretation of

1377-510: The Iliad and Odyssey were composed continues to be debated. Scholars generally regard the two poems as the works of separate authors. It is thought that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. Many accounts of Homer's life circulated in classical antiquity , the most widespread that he was a blind bard from Ionia , a region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey. Modern scholars consider these accounts legendary . Today, only

1458-803: The Iliad and the Odyssey are associated with the name "Homer". In antiquity, a large number of other works were sometimes attributed to him, including the Homeric Hymns , the Contest of Homer and Hesiod , several epigrams , the Little Iliad , the Nostoi , the Thebaid , the Cypria , the Epigoni , the comic mini-epic Batrachomyomachia ("The Frog–Mouse War"), the Margites ,

1539-443: The Iliad and the Odyssey in the sixth century BC by literate authors. After being written down, Wolf maintained that the two poems were extensively edited, modernized, and eventually shaped into their present state as artistic unities. Wolf and the "Analyst" school, which led the field in the nineteenth century, sought to recover the original, authentic poems which were thought to be concealed by later excrescences. Within

1620-458: The Muse . In the Iliad , the poet beseeches her to sing of "the anger of Achilles", and in the Odyssey , he asks her to tell of "the man of many ways". A similar opening was later employed by Virgil in his Aeneid . The orally transmitted Homeric poems were put into written form at some point between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE. Some scholars believe that they were dictated to a scribe by

1701-569: The Odyssey during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. As a result of the poems' prominence in classical Greek education, extensive commentaries on them developed to explain parts that were culturally or linguistically difficult. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, many interpreters, especially the Stoics , who believed that Homeric poems conveyed Stoic doctrines, regarded them as allegories, containing hidden wisdom. Perhaps partially because of

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1782-566: The Odyssey in which Telemachus went in search of news of his father not to Menelaus in Sparta but to Idomeneus in Crete, in which Telemachus met up with his father in Crete and conspired with him to return to Ithaca disguised as the soothsayer Theoclymenus, and in which Penelope recognized Odysseus much earlier in the narrative and conspired with him in the destruction of the suitors. Most contemporary scholars, although they disagree on other questions about

1863-427: The Trojan War ; others thought he had lived up to 500 years afterwards. Contemporary scholars continue to debate the date of the poems. A long history of oral transmission lies behind the composition of the poems, complicating the search for a precise date. At one extreme, Richard Janko has proposed a date for both poems to the eighth century BC based on linguistic analysis and statistics. Barry B. Powell dates

1944-661: The Volscian invasion led by Coriolanus in 491-488 BC . Circeii was reconquered by the Romans in about 393 BC three years before the Gaulish War. Not long afterwards the Circeians revolted, and joined the Volscians again. Nevertheless in Rome's treaty with Carthage in 348 BC Circeii is stated as under Roman protection. They must have succeeded in establishing their independence as at the start of

2025-424: The province of Latina , Lazio , in central Italy. Sabaudia's centre is characterised by several examples of Fascist architecture . Villa Volpi , a neoclassical seaside villa built for Countess Nathalie Volpi of Misurata, is located on the sand dunes of Sabaudia. In ancient Roman times, the extensive Villa of Domitian was built nearby and embellished by the emperor. Some of its remains have been excavated. It

2106-624: The second Latin War in 340 BC Circeii was a member of the Latin League . After the war it must have been recolonised by the Romans, because in the Second Punic War it was among their thirty Latin colonies . But in 209 BC, during the Second Punic War, Circeii was one of twelve colonies to refuse any more military contributions towards Rome and in 204 it was punished as a result, by supplying double

2187-535: The Analyst school were two camps: proponents of the "lay theory", which held that the Iliad and the Odyssey were put together from a large number of short, independent songs, and proponents of the "nucleus theory", which held that Homer had originally composed shorter versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey , which later poets expanded and revised. A small group of scholars opposed to the Analysts, dubbed "Unitarians", saw

2268-792: The Bronze Age Aegean civilisation , which in many ways resembles the ancient Near East more than the society described by Homer. Some aspects of the Homeric world are simply made up; for instance, the Iliad 22.145–56 describes there being two springs that run near the city of Troy, one that runs steaming hot and the other that runs icy cold. It is here that Hector takes his final stand against Achilles. Archaeologists, however, have uncovered no evidence that springs of this description ever actually existed. The Homeric epics are written in an artificial literary language or 'Kunstsprache' only used in epic hexameter poetry. Homeric Greek shows features of multiple regional Greek dialects and periods, but

2349-665: The Bronze Age in the Mediterranean, for example in Lazio those of Segni , Ferentino , Norba and Arpinum , possibly by the Aurunci people of the area. The blocks of the inner face are much less carefully worked both here and at Arpinum. The Roman colony of Circeii was founded in the time of Roman king Tarquinius Superbus (before 495 BC). The Roman colonists were expelled by the Volsci during

2430-547: The Circeo National Park in Molella, halfway between Sabaudia and San Felice Circeo. The spring, formerly known as Bagnara, is now given the name of the rich patrician Lucullus who had many elaborate villas and, in 78 BC, entrusted Gnaeus Domitius Amandus (according to a brick stamp) with the task of collecting the waters of that area. The builder created two sources of water, for drinking and for baths with less clean water. It

2511-496: The Form of an epic Poem till Pisistratus ' time, about 500 Years after." Friedrich August Wolf 's Prolegomena ad Homerum , published in 1795, argued that much of the material later incorporated into the Iliad and the Odyssey was originally composed in the tenth century BC in the form of short, separate oral songs, which passed through oral tradition for roughly four hundred years before being assembled into prototypical versions of

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2592-594: The Fossa Augusta, Fossa Neronis or Cavo d'Augusto, it is a Roman canal that connected the South East side of Lake Paola to the Tyrrhenian Sea by crossing the plain at the foot of the promontory to avoid dangerous circumnavigation of Monte Circeo. The section near the mouth of Rio Torto was described by Giuseppe Lugli in the 1920s as: "The width of the navigable body of water must have been about 18 m and depth of 4 m; on

2673-470: The Homeric poems that had been so prevalent in antiquity returned to become the prevailing view of the Renaissance . Renaissance humanists praised Homer as the archetypically wise poet, whose writings contain hidden wisdom, disguised through allegory. In western Europe during the Renaissance , Virgil was more widely read than Homer and Homer was often seen through a Virgilian lens. In 1664, contradicting

2754-433: The Homeric poems' extensive use in education, many authors believed that Homer's original purpose had been to educate. Homer's wisdom became so widely praised that he began to acquire the image of almost a prototypical philosopher. Byzantine scholars such as Eustathius of Thessalonica and John Tzetzes produced commentaries, extensions and scholia to Homer, especially in the twelfth century. Eustathius's commentary on

2835-563: The Homeric poems, including their unusually archaic language, their extensive use of stock epithets, and their other "repetitive" features. Many scholars concluded that the "Homeric Question" had finally been answered. Meanwhile, the 'Neoanalysts' sought to bridge the gap between the 'Analysts' and 'Unitarians'. The Neoanalysts sought to trace the relationships between the Homeric poems and other epic poems, which have now been lost, but of which modern scholars do possess some patchy knowledge. Neoanalysts hold that knowledge of earlier versions of

2916-413: The acropolis on the east end of the mountain, the highest summit of the promontory has ruins of a platform attributed to a temple of Venus or Circe. This coastal area became popular with rich Romans, like nearby coasts, for the location of large, luxurious villas. On the east end of the promontory stand the remains of several very large ancient villas which Cicero compared to those at Antium . North of

2997-499: The building project, revolutionary for the time, of a sanctuary dedicated to Venus, protector of the fortune of the new dictator, Sulla , a new cult intended to overshadow the older divinity. The building also fits the picture of the great Republican sanctuaries of Lazio, such as those of Anxur and Praeneste built between the middle of the 2nd and the middle of the 1st century BC in scenic and dominant positions, on imposing terraced substructures. The new building technique of concrete

3078-465: The canal. The area around Monte Circeo was populated with many Roman villas and other buildings, remains of which can often still be seen. The enormous villa or palace dates from the 1st century AD and extends for over 45 hectares along the shores of Lake Sabaudia . Excavations in 1934 revealed brick stamps from the Domitian (r. 81-96 AD) era and the site was referred to in some verses by Martial . It

3159-546: The city on the Lago di Paola near Sabaudia emperor Domitian built a sumptuous villa extending over a vast area. Along the lagoon were fine buildings, including a large open piscina or basin, surrounded by a double portico, while farther inland are several very large and well-preserved cisterns supplied by an aqueduct of which traces may still be seen. An ancient inscription found near Torre Paola speaks of an amphitheatre , of which no remains are visible. Another inscription in

3240-475: The composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey to sometime between 800 and 750 BC, based on the statement from Herodotus , who lived in the late fifth century BC, that Homer lived four hundred years before his own time "and not more" ( καὶ οὐ πλέοσι ) and on the fact that the poems do not mention hoplite battle tactics, inhumation , or literacy. Martin Litchfield West has argued that the Iliad echoes

3321-580: The days of the Roman emperor Hadrian says Epicaste (daughter of Nestor ) and Telemachus (son of Odysseus ) were the parents of Homer. The two best known ancient biographies of Homer are the Life of Homer by the Pseudo-Herodotus and the Contest of Homer and Hesiod . In the early fourth century BC Alcidamas composed a fictional account of a poetry contest at Chalcis with both Homer and Hesiod . Homer

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3402-536: The divisions back further to the Classical period. Very few credit Homer himself with the divisions. In antiquity, it was widely held that the Homeric poems were collected and organised in Athens in the late sixth century BCE by Pisistratus (died 528/7 BCE), in what subsequent scholars have dubbed the "Peisistratean recension". The idea that the Homeric poems were originally transmitted orally and first written down during

3483-427: The draining of the marshland, as well as to provide housing communities for the increasing urban populations of Italy's large cities. Architects Gino Cancellotti, Eugenio Montuori, Luigi Piccinato, and Alfredo Scalpelli were responsible for the town plan and many of the buildings after winning a competition for the design of Sabaudia, sponsored by Mussolini. Work commenced on the town's construction on 5 August 1933 and

3564-479: The early-born rose-fingered Dawn came to light', 'thus he/she spoke'), simile , type scenes, ring composition and repetition. These habits aid the extemporizing bard, and are characteristic of oral poetry. For instance, the main words of a Homeric sentence are generally placed towards the beginning, whereas literate poets like Virgil or Milton use longer and more complicated syntactical structures. Homer then expands on these ideas in subsequent clauses; this technique

3645-557: The end of the Bronze Age, when they established ports and emporiums along the Italian coast. At the east end of the promontory ridge are the remains of Bronze Age cyclopean walls that roughly form a rectangle of 200 by 100 metres. It seems to have been an acropolis and contains only a subterranean cistern with a beehive roof of converging blocks. The megalithic blocks are cut and assembled precisely together using tight polygonal joints without mortar. Many walls of this type were built during

3726-501: The epics can be derived from anomalies of structure and detail in the surviving versions of the Iliad and Odyssey . These anomalies point to earlier versions of the Iliad in which Ajax played a more prominent role, in which the Achaean embassy to Achilles comprised different characters, and in which Patroclus was actually mistaken for Achilles by the Trojans. They point to earlier versions of

3807-432: The genesis of the poems, agree that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not produced by the same author, based on "the many differences of narrative manner, theology, ethics, vocabulary, and geographical perspective, and by the apparently imitative character of certain passages of the Odyssey in relation to the Iliad ." Nearly all scholars agree that the Iliad and the Odyssey are unified poems, in that each poem shows

3888-595: The greatest number of foot soldiers they had ever provided and 120 horsemen, all chosen from the wealthiest citizens, and to be sent out of Italy. Also an annual tax was imposed. The town only acquired municipal rights after the Social War and was unimportant except as a seaside resort . In the 2nd Triumvirate , after a dispute between Lepidus and Octavian , Lepidus was forced into exile in Circeii in 36 BC. It became an agreeable place of retirement for wealthy Romans under

3969-434: The judge awarded Hesiod the prize; the poet who praised husbandry , he said, was greater than the one who told tales of battles and slaughter. The study of Homer is one of the oldest topics in scholarship, dating back to antiquity. Nonetheless, the aims of Homeric studies have changed over the course of the millennia. The earliest preserved comments on Homer concern his treatment of the gods, which hostile critics such as

4050-524: The later Iron Age during which they were composed; yet the same heroes are cremated (an Iron Age practice) rather than buried (as they were in the Bronze Age). In some parts of the Homeric poems, heroes are described as carrying large shields like those used by warriors during the Mycenaean period , but, in other places, they are instead described carrying the smaller shields that were commonly used during

4131-475: The later Republic and the Empire, and the emperors Tiberius and Domitian had villas nearby. It was renowned for the quantity and quality of its oysters by the Romans. At the end of the republic or at latest at the beginning of the imperial period, the city of Circeii was connected to a harbour on the west side of the promontory on the shore of the Lago di Paola (a lagoon, now a considerable fishery) separated from

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4212-595: The later additions as superior, the work of a single inspired poet. By around 1830, the central preoccupations of Homeric scholars, dealing with whether or not "Homer" actually existed, when and how the Homeric poems originated, how they were transmitted, when and how they were finally written down, and their overall unity, had been dubbed "the Homeric Question". Following World War I , the Analyst school began to fall out of favor among Homeric scholars. It did not die out entirely, but it came to be increasingly seen as

4293-449: The medieval vulgate. Others, such as Martin West (1998–2000) or T. W. Allen , fall somewhere between these two extremes. Him with that falchion in his hand behold, ⁠Who comes before the three, even as their lord. That one is Homer, Poet sovereign; This is a partial list of translations into English of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . Sabaudia Sabaudia is a coastal town in

4374-523: The myth of the Trojan War, others that the poem was inspired by multiple similar sieges that took place over the centuries. Most scholars now agree that the Homeric poems depict customs and elements of the material world that are derived from different periods of Greek history. For instance, the heroes in the poems use bronze weapons, characteristic of the Bronze Age in which the poems are set, rather than

4455-416: The other extreme, a few American scholars such as Gregory Nagy see "Homer" as a continually evolving tradition, which grew much more stable as the tradition progressed, but which did not fully cease to continue changing and evolving until as late as the middle of the second century BC. "'Homer" is a name of unknown etymological origin, around which many theories were erected in antiquity. One such linkage

4536-519: The poems were created in the eighth century, they continued to be orally transmitted with considerable revision until they were written down in the sixth century. After textualisation, the poems were each divided into 24 rhapsodes, today referred to as books, and labelled by the letters of the Greek alphabet . Most scholars attribute the book divisions to the Hellenistic scholars of Alexandria , in Egypt. Some trace

4617-429: The poet Xenophanes of Colophon denounced as immoral. The allegorist Theagenes of Rhegium is said to have defended Homer by arguing that the Homeric poems are allegories . The Iliad and the Odyssey were widely used as school texts in ancient Greek and Hellenistic cultures. They were the first literary works taught to all students. The Iliad , particularly its first few books, was far more intently studied than

4698-453: The poet and that our inherited versions of the Iliad and Odyssey were in origin orally dictated texts. Albert Lord noted that the Balkan bards that he was studying revised and expanded their songs in their process of dictating. Some scholars hypothesize that a similar process of revision and expansion occurred when the Homeric poems were first written down. Other scholars hold that, after

4779-482: The poetry of Hesiod and that it must have been composed around 660–650 BC at the earliest, with the Odyssey up to a generation later. He also interprets passages in the Iliad as showing knowledge of historical events that occurred in the ancient Near East during the middle of the seventh century BC, including the destruction of Babylon by Sennacherib in 689 BC and the Sack of Thebes by Ashurbanipal in 663/4 BC. At

4860-595: The reign of Pisistratus is referenced by the first-century BCE Roman orator Cicero and is also referenced in a number of other surviving sources, including two ancient Lives of Homer . From around 150 BCE, the texts of the Homeric poems found in papyrus fragments exhibit much less variation, and the text seems to have become relatively stable. After the establishment of the Library of Alexandria , Homeric scholars such as Zenodotus of Ephesus, Aristophanes of Byzantium and in particular Aristarchus of Samothrace helped establish

4941-470: The rock near San Felice speaks about this part of the Latin : promonturium Veneris ("promontory of Venus "; the only case of the use of this name) as belonging to the city of Circeii. Known as the villa dei Quattro Venti, the remains of this large building in the historic centre of San Felice lie along the road that leads to the port. Majestic in size, approximately 8,000 m area and including three terraces, it

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5022-412: The sack of Troy was dated to 1184 BC. By the nineteenth century, there was widespread scholarly skepticism that the Trojan War had ever happened and that Troy had even existed, but in 1873 Heinrich Schliemann announced to the world that he had discovered the ruins of Homer's Troy at Hisarlik in modern Turkey. Some contemporary scholars think the destruction of Troy VIIa c. 1220 BC was the origin of

5103-567: The sea at Rio Torto is through a manhole below via Gibraleon. Historically the start of the canal was attributed to the emperor Nero (r. 54-68 AD) who began work on a 160-mile-long canal to join Ostia to Lake Avernus , traces of which remain between the lakes of Caprolace and Paola. Archaeological finds show that the port-canal was originally built in the Sullan period of about 91-88 BC by Lucius Faberius Murena, magistrate of Circei, to whom an inscription

5184-482: The sea by a line of sand-dunes and connected with it by a Roman channel: Strabo speaks of the city as a small harbour 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) north of the west end of the promontory. The more modern town of San Felice Circeo seems to occupy the site of the ancient city; its mediaeval walls rest upon ancient Cyclopean walls of less careful construction than those of the acropolis, and enclose an area that measures 200 by 150 m (660 by 490 ft). Along with

5265-410: The sea, called the harbour canal or canal of Torre Paola. It was most likely built by Domitian to connect his palace to the sea. This canal is still used and is about 1km long with walls of opus caementicium faced with opus reticulatum , opus latericium and opus mixtum . At the seaward mouth of the canal, the walls still extend into the sea by 60-100 m and here Domitian built a small harbour south of

5346-543: The sides there were docks for passing of ships and on the banks ran two parallel roads for towing by animals...". The Fossa Augusta begins near the area called Casarini, just south of the mediaeval convent and inside the Selva Piana a shallow ditch is clearly visible. The structure is easily identifiable in the Mola-la Cona stretch, which still retains the side roads, the current Via Giuseppe Verdi and Via Sabaudia. The outlet to

5427-509: The society depicted by Homer is based on his own or one which was, even at the time of the poems' composition, known only as legends. The Homeric epics are largely set in the east and center of the Mediterranean , with some scattered references to Egypt , Ethiopia and other distant lands, in a warlike society that resembles that of the Greek world slightly before the hypothesized date of the poems' composition. In ancient Greek chronology,

5508-486: The supply. This date offers further evidence in favour of the early expansion of Circeii. Most of the sections are inter-linked through rectangular openings at different heights. The western compartment, however, was isolated from the pool and communicated only with the supply channel from an underground sulphurous spring that gushed out at about 25 degrees and which was perhaps built in the Domitian era. Homer This

5589-431: The technical difficulties in its construction. Suetonius and Strabo describe a canal port already present at the end of the 1st century BC. The completion of the canal is assumed to be the work of Domitian associated with his nearby palace, as evidenced by similar brick stamps. There is at least one other, shorter, and well-preserved Roman canal at the west end, close to the base of Monte Circeo and linking Lake Paola with

5670-480: The time when the poems were written in the early Iron Age. In the Iliad 10.260–265, Odysseus is described as wearing a helmet made of boar's tusks . Such helmets were not worn in Homer's time, but were commonly worn by aristocratic warriors between 1600 and 1150 BC. The decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris and continued archaeological investigation has increased modern scholars' understanding of

5751-490: The widespread praise of Homer as the epitome of wisdom, François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac wrote a scathing attack on the Homeric poems, declaring that they were incoherent, immoral, tasteless, and without style, that Homer never existed, and that the poems were hastily cobbled together by incompetent editors from unrelated oral songs. Fifty years later, the English scholar Richard Bentley concluded that Homer did exist but that he

5832-523: Was an obscure, prehistoric oral poet whose compositions bear little relation to the Iliad and the Odyssey as they have been passed down. According to Bentley, Homer "wrote a Sequel of Songs and Rhapsodies, to be sung by himself for small Earnings and good Cheer at Festivals and other Days of Merriment; the Ilias he wrote for men, and the Odysseis for the other Sex. These loose songs were not collected together in

5913-506: Was blind (taking as self-referential a passage describing the blind bard Demodocus ), that he resided at Chios , that he was the son of the river Meles and the nymph Critheïs , that he was a wandering bard, that he composed a varying list of other works (the "Homerica"), that he died either in Ios or after failing to solve a riddle set by fishermen, and various explanations for the name "Homer" ( Ὅμηρος , Hómēros ). Another tradition from

5994-566: Was completed 253 days later. The city itself is based on a rectangular grid road layout and rationalist architecture. It was named after the then-reigning Savoy dynasty (Italian: dinastia sabauda ). Sabaudia is well frequented by residents of Rome and Naples, as it is about halfway between the two cities. Sabaudia has 15 km of beach that were awarded the Blue Flag designation by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE). The FEE grades

6075-438: Was discovered in 1904 under 15 m of sand and still gushes inside the ancient vault. The pool was a Roman fish farm made up of two concentric rings, divided into four unequal wedges by walls, which still exists today. The link to Lucullus is unproven. The first phase of the pool was between the end of the republic and the early empire, the same period in which the nearby thermal baths of Torre Paola were built which perhaps shared

6156-472: Was expected to win, and answered all of Hesiod's questions and puzzles with ease. Then, each of the poets was invited to recite the best passage from their work. Hesiod selected the beginning of Works and Days : "When the Pleiades born of Atlas  ... all in due season". Homer chose a description of Greek warriors in formation, facing the foe, taken from the Iliad . Though the crowd acclaimed Homer victor,

6237-532: Was long thought to be a great villa owned by Lepidus . It is now thought more likely to be a sanctuary according to recent studies by Sapienza University (with the support of the Circeo National Park and the Superintendency of Archaeological Heritage of Lazio) after discovery of a votive inscription, a dedication addressed to a divinity. The sanctuary is probably from the Sullan period (starting from 83 BC) and follows

6318-403: Was most likely a public bathing complex from the end of the 1st century BC. The docks, the cistern and the pools date to the first phase; in the 2nd phase, perhaps in the Domitian era, the small elliptical building was added. The complex was most likely abandoned in the 13th century. The Fonte di Lucullo (spring of Lucullus) is a Roman artificial cave built as a water cistern. It is located within

6399-453: Was near a republican villa that was visible until about 70 years ago. According to legend the delightful villa on the shores of Lake Paola belonged to Lucullus, who after having exercised his military career for many years fighting valiantly and with honour, and after having accumulated much wealth, retired from public office to end his last days in the comfort on the Circeo promontory. The spring

6480-544: Was simply the one who "has taught Greece" ( τὴν Ἑλλάδα πεπαίδευκεν , tēn Helláda pepaídeuken ). In Dante Alighieri 's Divine Comedy , Virgil refers to Homer as "Poet sovereign", king of all poets; in the preface to his translation of the Iliad , Alexander Pope acknowledges that Homer has always been considered the "greatest of poets". From antiquity to the present day, Homeric epics have inspired many famous works of literature, music, art, and film. The question of by whom, when, where and under what circumstances

6561-449: Was to the Greek ὅμηρος ( hómēros ' hostage ' or ' surety ' ). The explanations suggested by modern scholars tend to mirror their position on the overall Homeric Question. Nagy interprets it as "he who fits (the song) together". West has advanced both possible Greek and Phoenician etymologies. Scholars continue to debate questions such as whether the Trojan War actually took place – and if so when and where – and to what extent

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