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Oil on canvas by El Greco.
Washington DC National Art Gallery.
Marble relief known as the Apotheosis of Homer, with Zeus, Apollo and the Muses.
Homer, bottom left, is crowned by Chronos (Time) and Oikoumene (Inhabited World), and acclaimed by other personifications. Signed by the sculptor Archelaos of Priene, son of Apollonios of Priene (just below Zeus, at the top of the relief), it is thought to have to have been made in Alexandria, Egypt in the 3rd or 2nd century BCE, perhaps during the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopater (222-205 BC) and his queen (sister and wife) Arsinoe Ill Philopater, who built a temple of Homer in the city. It has been suggested that the relief may have been a prize awarded to a poet, and even that the poet shown standing on a pedestal (to the right of Apollo Kitharoidos) may be meant to represent the winning bard.
The bard (Omeros, Homer), enthroned before an altar, holds a sceptre and a scroll. The two smaller-scale figures at Homer's side and directly in front of him, have been identifed as The Iliad (Ilias) and The Odyssey (Odysseia) respectively, perhaps as his "children". The scene is observed from above by Zeus, reclining on a rock (or cloud?), immediately below which is a panel containing the inscribed signature of the sculptor. The seated female figure below (perhaps the Muse Euterpe) appears to point to it with her raised aulos (double flute). Most interestingly, It is thought that Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe III may be portrayed standing behind Homer, as Chronos and Oikoumene, who is crowning the poet.
Ptolemaic Greek, from Alexandria Egypt. 3rd or 2nd century BCE.
British Museum, London (1819,0812.1)
Chatsworth House.
c. 480 BC, Athens.
Medelhavs Museum.
Wooden board used as a writing tablet (with iron handle for hanging), on which lines 468-473 from Book I of Homer's Iliad are written in ink. It must have been used as an exercise for students learning their Homer (in Greek, as you can see from the writing).
The lines referenced are part of the feast that corrects a terrible wrong, when Agamemnon refused a plea from Chryses for the return of his kidnapped daughter, Chryseis (he doesn’t seem to care about his other daughter, Briseis, who has been claimed by the psychopath Achilles; Agamemnon will claim her from him after he is forced to return Chryseis). Chryses prays to Apollo for help, and the god releases a plague on the Greek warriors. After the seer Calchas relates the reason for the plague, Agamemnon has Odysseus return Chryseis to Chryses, and the men feast, after Odysseus performs a sacrifice to Apollo. The banquet is all about the correctness of things, of putting everything into order again.
‘But when they had put from them the desire for food and drink, the youths filled the bowls brim full of drink and served out to all, first pouring drops for libation into the cups. So the whole day long they sought to appease the god with song, singing the beautiful paean, the sons of the Achaeans, hymning the god who works from afar; and his heart was glad, as he heard.’
From Egypt
400-500 CE
Donated in 1906 by the British School of Archaeology, Egypt
British Museum (1906,1020.2)
On this relief, a bearded man is seated in right profile on a four-legged stool (diphros) with carved legs and a cushion, and rests his feet on a footstool. With his left hand raised to his check in a contemplative gesture, he supports his left elbow on a gnarled staff held in his right hand. Beneath the chair is a griffin, the symbol of Apollo, god of prophecy. Over his left shoulder he wears a himation that covers his lower body, and sandals. Coiled around the tree in front of him is a snake, which menaces a nest of fledglings and two adult birds perched in the branches. The Pentelic marble head is ancient but does not belong to the original relief; it was recut and restored in the 18th century. The hairstyle and sober expression belong to a divinity, and a hole in the crown for the attachment of a kalathos identifies it as the head of the god Serapis. Despite the addition of a head of Serapis, the overall scene portrays Calchas, the Argive soothsayer to whom Apollo had given the gift of prophecy. In Homer’s Iliad (II.300-30), the seer foretold that the Trojan War would last for nine years after observing a snake devour a mother sparrow and her eight chicks. The eclectic style of the relief combines the form of a late Classical Attic stele with landscape elements drawn from the Hellenistic repertoire. It was discovered in 1774 at Roma Vecchia in the Villa dei Sette Bassi, which belonged to the senatorial family of C. Bellicus Calpurnius Apolaustus. Such a panel may have decorated a library assembled by a cultured patron well versed in Greek literature. On the underside is a Latinized Greek inscription that reads ΞΕΑ[Ν]ΘΕ: ‘XEANTHE’—likely a version of Xanthe, the former name for Troy. The inscription may have functioned as a tag indicating the placement of the relief.
Roman; relief 140–160 CE; head 170–190 CE
Found along the Via Appia Antica, Villa dei Sette Bassi, Rome
Marble
Getty Villa Museum (72.AA.160)
