Ilias Latina: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary

The Ilias Latina, the title coined by Emil Baehrens in his 1881 edition, is a condensed version of Homer’s Iliad spanning 1,070 verses of Latin hexameter. It was likely composed during the latter part of the principate of Nero (c. AD 60-65).

The poem has long suffered the scholarly status of second-order poetry, the sort of imitative, ’translation’ work that a Roman might compose at the beginning of his literary career. The poem’s chief legacy--as a medieval school text that acquainted a Greek-less audience with Homer--has done little to assist its literary reputation.

More recent times, however, have seen a greater appreciation for the literary, cultural, and political significance of Latin translation of Greek works. More specifically, there is now a growing awareness that the Ilias Latina is a sophisticated enterprise in its own right: the poem is a Roman appropriation of Homer’s Iliad, reinterpreted through Rome’s own national epic, Virgil’s Aeneid, and recalibrated to fit the artistic and political sensibilities of the early imperial age.

This book includes introductory chapters, Latin text, English translation, and detailed verse-by-verse commentary on the poem. The translation is the first to appear in English in a major, mainstream press. The commentary, also the first to appear in English, takes on board the full range of international scholarship and provides new insights into the poem’s intricacies and creative engagement with Homer and the Roman poets.

Steven J. Green, Associate Professor, Department of English, Linguistics, and Theatre Studies, National University of Singapore, and Yale-NUS College Singapore

Steven J. Green specializes in Roman literature and culture in the first centuries BC and AD, and is particularly interested in those texts that are typically overlooked, unread, or unappreciated by modern readers. His major research has moved from the relatively conventional world of Ovid (Fasti), to more marginal poems, including the astrological treatise of Manilius, the hunting manual of Grattius and, now, the Ilias Latina.