The Homeric Doloneia: Evolution and Shaping of Iliad 10

The Doloneia is the most controversial book of the Iliad, its authenticity having been doubted since antiquity. Modern scholars are divided between those who regard it as a major interpolation by a later poet who was trained in the technique of epic composition and those who see it as the earliest manifestation of the very ancient theme of lochos. However, the first claim assumes the stylistic homogeneity of book 10, while the second sweeps out dictional and thematic difficulties by attributing them to the theme of ambush that is weakly represented in the extant corpus of archaic Greek epic.

By applying sophisticated interpretive tools such as intratextual association, intertextual allusion, and oral neoanalysis, this book maintains that Iliad 10 is thematically consonant with the rest of the Iliad and that it has evolved from an earlier Iliadic version after the addition of the Rhesus episode, which did not circulate as an independent composition but formed part of lost oral epic poetry with cyclic features that focused on the events after the death of Achilles.

Christos C. Tsagalis, Professor of Ancient Greek Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Christos C. Tsagalis is Professor of Greek at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is co-editor of the Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic, of the series of monographs Key Perspectives on Classical Research, and assistant editor of Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes. He has received the Award in Classics of the Academy of Athens and the Aristeion in Humanities of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is a Member of the Board of the Center of Greek Language and a Member of the Academia Europaea.