Everyone has heard of the Iliad and the Odyssey. They are considered masterpieces of world literature and the foundation of the western literary canon. Likewise, everyone knows that the Iliad and the Odyssey are traditionally attributed to a poet named “Homer.” Most people, however, are not aware of the fact that there were many other poems that were sometimes attributed to Homer in antiquity aside from just the Iliad and the Odyssey.
“Wait, so there were other poems attributed to Homer?”
People always seem to be surprised to learn that there was actually a whole plethora of different poems that existed in ancient times that were sometimes attributed to the poet Homer, aside from just the Iliad and the Odyssey. I remember last semester in my ancient Greek culture class, the professor mentioned the Nostoi, a lost poem of the Epic Cycle that was sometimes attributed to Homer, during one of the lectures and one of the graduate students who was acting as a teacher’s assistant was really surprised because he had apparently never heard of the other poems attributed to Homer. I think this illustrates just how obscure some of these poems really are.
The fact is, there were actually plenty of other poems that were sometimes attributed to Homer in ancient times aside from just the Iliad and the Odyssey. We do not know exactly how many there were, but there were certainly quite a lot of them. Homer was a big name in antiquity and so lots of works tended to get attributed to him because having his name attached enhanced their prestige. Most of the other poems that were sometimes attributed to Homer in ancient times have been lost, but a number of them have survived and are even available in English translations.
A clarification about what I mean by “Homer”
Before I talk about the other poems that were sometimes attributed to Homer in ancient times, however, I should note that it has been widely accepted among classicists for around a century now that “Homer” was not a real single historical individual, but rather the legendary personification of a whole oral tradition. The Iliad and the Odyssey mention nothing at all about their alleged author and the earliest sources that mention anyone named “Homer” as the author of the poems come from centuries after the poems are believed to have been originally composed.
Furthermore, as the scholars Milman Parry (lived 1902 – 1935) and Albert Lord (lived 1912 – 1991) demonstrated in the early twentieth century, the Iliad and the Odyssey bear all the hallmarks of oral epics. They are now widely agreed to have been originally passed down orally by bards and storytellers, each of whom no doubt added their own touches to the poems. The Homeric poems, then, are the products of an entire tradition, not any one specific individual, and they were not originally written down at all, but rather told and retold orally.
It is possible that one great poetic genius may have played an important role in the final shaping of the poems into coherent literary narratives, but, whoever that person may have been, he probably was not really called “Homer.” Also, given the literary discrepancies between them, the Iliad and the Odyssey were probably not “finished” as it were by the same poet. “Homer,” then, is a legendary figure, not a historical poet.
ABOVE: Photograph of Milman Parry, the scholar who contributed the most to our modern understanding of oral poetry, with an oral poet in Yugoslavia
A little clarification about what I mean by “sometimes attributed”
Most people in ancient times agreed that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed by Homer. People were a bit less sure about the authorship of some of the other poems I am about to discuss. None of these poems ever seem to have held the same level of cultural dominance that the Iliad and the Odyssey held in classical Greece. They were not as highly esteemed and many people in ancient times seem to have questioned whether Homer really composed them. Now that all that has been said, here they are. I will start with the poems that have survived to the present day complete, followed by the others roughly in order of how much we know about them:
#1. The Homeric Hymns
The Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three hymns individually dedicated to various ancient Greek deities. They are composed in dactylic hexameter and narrate events from the deities’ lives. Most of the poems are short, but there are four very long, narrative poems included in the collection: the “First Homeric Hymn to Demeter,” the “First Homeric Hymn to Apollon,” the “First Homeric Hymn to Hermes,” and the “First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite.”
The “First Homeric Hymn to Demeter” narrates the abduction of Demeter’s daughter Persephone by Hades and the establishment of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The “First Homeric Hymn to Apollon” narrates Apollon’s birth on the island of Delos and his later defeat of the serpent Python at Delphoi. The “First Homeric Hymn to Hermes” describes Hermes’s theft of the cattle of Apollon as an infant and his subsequent invention of the lyre. The “First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite” tells the story of Aphrodite’s affair with the Trojan prince Anchises, to whom she bore a son, the Trojan prince Aineias.
The entire collection has survived to the present day complete. These hymns were attributed to Homer purely on the basis of the fact that they use the same poetic meter as the Iliad and the Odyssey. Modern scholars generally agree that these hymns were composed at a slightly later date than the Iliad and the Odyssey and by different authors. The true authors of the Homeric Hymns are anonymous.
ABOVE: Venus and Anchises, painted in 1889 or 1890 by the English painter William Blake Richmond, depicting the meeting of Aphrodite and Anchises as described in the “First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite”
#2. Batrachomyomachia, or The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice
The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice is a short, comic epic that is a deliberate parody of long, martial epics like the Iliad. Like the Iliad and the Odyssey, it is composed in dactylic hexameter. The poem is about precisely what you think it is about: an epic battle between the frogs and the mice.
It starts out with the King Frog carrying a mouse across the river. Then, the King Frog sees a water snake and so he dives under the water, forgetting about the mouse he was carrying. The mouse drowns, but another mouse sees it. Then he tells the other mice how the King Frog betrayed one of their kin and, next thing you know, it is all-out war. The mice win the battle, but Zeus sends an army of crabs to prevent the mice from utterly annihilating the frogs and the battle ends after one day.
This poem was sometimes attributed to Homer on account of its martial themes, but it was also attributed to others. The Greek writer Ploutarchos of Chaironeia (lived c. 46 – c. 120 AD) attributes it to Pigres of Halikarnassos in his essay “On the Malice of Herodotos.” The Souda, a tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia, likewise attributes it to Pigres. Modern scholars usually think that the Battle of the Frogs and the Mice was composed in around the late fourth century BC, which would be too late for it to have been composed by Pigres.
ABOVE: Illustration of the frogs and the mice duking it out against each other as portrayed in the Batrachomyomachia
#3. Margites
The Margites was a comic epic composed in mixed dactylic hexameter and iambic lines. The poem was about a man named Margites who is proverbially stupid and is utterly inept at everything he tries to do. A line from the poem quoted by Plato characterizes Margites saying “πόλλ’ ἠπίστατο ἔργα, κακῶς δ’ ἠπίστατο πάντα.” (i.e. “He knew many things, but all of them badly.”)
We have details about a few truly memorable scenes from the epic that are mentioned by later Greek writers. The Greek orator Dion Chrysostomos (lived c. 40 – c. 115 AD) remarks in his On Reputation that Margites was so stupid that, when he got married, he did not know what to do with his wife in the bedchamber. According to the fifth or sixth-century AD Greek lexicographer Hesychios of Alexandria, Margites was so clueless as to what he was supposed to do with her that his wife was forced to tell him that she had been stung by a deadly scorpion on her vulva and that the only way for him to cure her and save her life was to put his penis in her vagina.
Aristotle acclaims the Margites in chapter thirteen of his Poetics, declaring that Margites is the foundation of all comedy in the same way that the Iliad and the Odyssey are the foundation of all tragedy. Unfortunately, the poem has mostly been lost. Nonetheless, there are many surviving references to it in ancient texts and a number of passages from it have survived to the present day in fragmentary form. Margites was sometimes attributed to Homer, but it was also sometimes attributed to Pigres of Halikarnassos.
#4. The Kypria
The Kypria was the first poem of a set of epic poems composed in dactylic hexameter describing the events of the Trojan War known as the “Epic Cycle.” The Iliad and the Odyssey are the only complete surviving poems from the Epic Cycle. The Kypria was eleven books long and, although sometimes attributed to Homer, it was also attributed to the poet Stasinos of Kypros.
Only fragments from the Kypria have survived. Most of the poem has been lost. Nonetheless, we know which events from Greek mythology were narrated in the poem because there are surviving summaries of it. The principle summary of the Kypria comes from a prose work known as the Chrestomatheia, which is attributed to someone named “Proklos.” The identity of this “Proklos” is unknown, but, regardless of who he was, his Chrestomatheia contains summaries of all the poems of the Epic Cycle and is our main source of information on what these poems were about.
According to Proklos’s summary, the Kypria basically summarized all of the events leading up to the beginning of the Trojan War as well as the first ten years of the war. It covered the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the Judgement of Paris, the abduction of Helene from Sparta, the deaths of Kastor and Polydeukes, the preparation of the Achaians to set sail for Troy, the sacrifice of Iphigenia by Agamemnon, the abandonment of Philoktetes on Lemnos, the Achaians’ arrival at Troy, the Achaians’ presentation of their terms to the Trojans, the Trojans’ rejection of said terms, the meeting between Helene and Achilleus, the Achaians’ raiding of the countryside around Troy, the death of Troilos, Achilleus’s taking of Briseis as a slave and Agamemnon’s taking of Chryseis, and the death of Palamedes.
ABOVE: The Judgement of Paris, painted in c. 1636 by the Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, depicting a scene that was once described in the Kypria
#5. The Little Iliad
The second poem in the Epic Cycle was the Iliad. The third one was the Aithiopis, which, as far as we know, was never attributed to Homer. The fourth poem in the Epic Cycle was the Little Iliad, a four-book-long epic poem describing the aftermath of Achilleus’s death in battle and the Achaians’ preparation to take the city of Troy. Although sometimes attributed to Homer, the Little Iliad was also sometimes attributed to Lesches of Pyrrha, Kinaithon of Sparta, Diodoros of Erythrai, and Thestorides of Phokaia. As with the Kypria, most of what we know about the Little Iliad’s contents comes from Proklos’s summary of it in the Chrestomatheia.
The Little Iliad covered the contest between Aias the Greater and Odysseus over the arms of Achilleus, the awarding of Achilleus’s arms to Odysseus, the madness and suicide of Aias the Greater, Odysseus and Diomedes’s quest to find Philoktetes on Lemnos, the death of Paris in battle against Philoktetes, the remarriage of Helene to Paris’s brother Deiphobos, Odysseus and Diomedes’s theft of the Palladion from the Trojan temple to Athena, the entry of Neoptolemos (i.e. the son of Achilleus) into the war, the construction of the Trojan Horse of Epeios, and the Achaians’ feigned departure from Troy.
ABOVE: Etrurian red-figure kalyx-krater dating to c. 400 – c. 350 BC depicting the suicide of Aias the Greater, an event described in the Little Iliad
#6. The Nostoi
The Nostoi was the fifth poem in the Epic Cycle. In the narrative sequence, it came after the Iliou Persis, or Burning of Troy, but before the Odyssey. Although sometimes attributed to Homer, the Nostoi was also sometimes attributed to Agias of Troizen or Eumelos of Corinth. The Nostoi described the returns of the Greek warriors from Troy. (Nostoi means “returns” in Greek.) It was five books long. Again, most of what we know about its contents comes from Proklos’s Chrestomatheia.
The Nostoi covered the safe returns of Diomedes and Nestor to Argos and Pylos respectively, Menelaos and Helene’s stranding in Egypt, the death of Aias the Lesser in a storm sent by Athena, the return home of Neoptolemos and his reunion with his grandfather Peleus, the return of Agamemnon to Mycenae, the brutal murder of Agamemnon in the bath by his own wife Klytaimnestra, Agamemnon’s son Orestes’s vengeance against Klytaimnestra and her lover Aigisthos, and the return of Menelaos and Helene to Sparta.
ABOVE: The Murder of Agamemnon, painted in 1817 by the French Neoclassical painter Pierre-Narcisse Guerin, depicting a scene that was described in the Nostoi
#7. The Telegoneia
The Telegoneia is the final poem of the Epic Cycle. It comes after the Odyssey in the narrative sequence. Although sometimes attributed to Homer, it is also sometimes attributed in ancient sources to the poet Kinaithon of Sparta or the poet Eugammon of Kyrene. It is a sequel to the Odyssey describing Odysseus’s tragic death at the hands of his own son. The poem itself has been lost and the events that happened in it are known only through surviving summaries, particularly through the one in Proklos’s Chrestomatheia.
The Telegoneia apparently opened with the revelation that Odysseus actually had a son with Kirke named Telegonos, who was born after Odysseus left Aiaia. Telegonos was raised by Kirke on Aiaia. Once Telegonos was grown, his mother revealed to him who his father was. Telegonos therefore set off to meet his father on Ithaka, armed with a spear fashioned by the god Hephaistos with the deadly stinger of a stingray at the tip.
Telegonos, however, was blown off course by a storm and wound up on a strange island, which, unbeknownst to him, was actually Ithaka. Telegonos pillaged Odysseus’s cattle for food and the now-aged Odysseus came out to defend his property. Neither of them recognized each other, because neither of them had ever seen the other. They fought to the death and Telegonos killed his own father Odysseus with his poisoned spear.
At the last moment, as Odysseus lay dying on the ground, he and Telegonos suddenly recognized each other as father and son, but, by this point, it was already far too late for Telegonos to save his father. Telegonos brought Odysseus’s body to Penelope and to Telemachos, the son of Odysseus and Penelope. Together, they gave Odysseus a proper burial.
In the end, Kirke showed up and made Telegonos, Telemachos, and Penelope all immortal. Then, Telegonos married Penelope and Telemachos married Kirke. Thus, Odysseus was inadvertently killed by his own son and each of the sons of Odysseus married the other son’s mother, because that is totally not messed up in any way. (And you all thought the Odyssey had a happy ending!)
ABOVE: The island of Ithaka, legendary home of Odysseus, setting for much of the Telegoneia
#8. Kerkopes
The Kerkopes was another now-lost comic epic that was sometimes attributed to Homer. We know very little about it. A few fragments from it have survived, but nothing substantial. Judging from the title of the epic, it was probably about a well-known incident from Greek mythology in which the Kerkopes, two troublesome little monkey-creatures, stole Herakles’s weapons and made off with them.
In the well-known version of the myth, Herakles chased the Kerkopes all the way to the city of Ephesos in Asia Minor before he finally caught them. He tied their feet to a yoke, with which he carried them, dangling upside-down over his shoulders. Then they started making fun of him because his buttocks were hairy. He started laughing too and he let them go.
ABOVE: Ancient Greek metope from Paestum, Italy showing Herakles carrying the Kerkopes upside-down, dangling from a yoke over his shoulders.
#9. The Thebaid
The Thebaid was an epic poem in dactylic hexameter about the war between Eteokles and Polyneikes, the sons of Oidipous and his mother-wife Iokaste, over the throne of Thebes. The epic has been almost completely lost, but a few fragments of it have survived. It was sometimes attributed to Homer in antiquity.
ABOVE: Painting by the Italian painter Giovanni Silvagni from c. 1800 depicting the fight between the brothers Eteokles and Polyneikes, who were both sons of Oidipous and his mother-wife Iokaste. Their deaths in single combat against each other would have been described in the Thebaid.
#10. The Epigonoi
The Epigonoi was an epic poem in dactylic hexameter. It was a sequel to the Thebaid. The title of the poem means “progenies” and the poem is believed to have been about the offspring of the heroes who fought in the war between Eteokles and Polyneikes. Judging from references to it by ancient writers, the poem apparently included parts about the myths of Prokris, daughter of Erechtheus, and Manto, daughter of Teiresias.
Although it was sometimes attributed to Homer in ancient times, the Epigonoi was also sometimes attributed to a poet named “Antimachos,” who may have been either the poet Antimachos of Teos or the poet Antimachos of Kolophon.
ABOVE: The Death of Procris, painted between c. 1596 and c. 1600 by the Dutch Mannerist painter Joachim Wtewael. The death of Prokris, daughter of Erechtheus, was an event described in the Epigonoi.
#11. The Phokais
According to the Life of Homer by Pseudo-Herodotos, a fictional biography of Homer written in around the third or fourth century AD, the Phokais was an epic poem that Homer composed while living in the home of a man named Thestorides in the city of Phokaia in Ionia in Asia Minor. The epic was about the local history and legends of Phokaia. According to the Life of Homer, Thestorides stole the epic from Homer and passed it off as his own. Virtually nothing of the poem has survived.
#12. The Capture of Oichalia
The Capture of Oichalia was an epic poem that was sometimes attributed to Homer in antiquity and sometimes instead attributed to the poet Kreophylos of Samos. The poem was about the capture of the city of Oichalia by the hero Herakles. Only fragments of it have survived.
#13. Miscellaneous other poems
There are countless other shorter poems that are also attributed to Homer, some of which have survived. The Contest of Homer and Hesiodos, a second-century AD fictional account of a poetry competition between Homer and the other great Greek hexameter poet Hesiodos of Askre, contains numerous short poems attributed to Homer. Likewise, the Life of Homer by Pseudo-Herodotos also contains a number of short poems attributed to Homer.
Conclusion
If we tally up all the items on this list, plus the Iliad and the Odyssey, I have just listed fourteen major works that are known to have sometimes been attributed to Homer in antiquity. In addition to these, there are also, of course, the shorter, minor works (the ones I listed under number thirteen as “miscellaneous other poems”).
Of all these works I have mentioned, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Homeric Hymns, the Battle of the Frogs and the Mice, and some of the other shorter poems quoted in various ancient sources have all survived. On the other hand, all of the other works on this list have been mostly—if not entirely—lost. These works are known only through surviving fragments, through mentions by ancient writers, or through surviving summaries.
