Homer and the Trojan War

CLAS 311/HIST 311

MWF 12:30-1:20
Prof. Sarah Murray
CBA Room 140
Office Hours: M 2:00-3:30, Tu 12:00-2:00, W 9:00-10:00 and by appointment
Office Location: 940 Oldfather Hall
Email: smurray9@unl.edu

I. Explanation of the Course

1. Course Description:
What is the relationship between myth and history? This course examines the relationship
between the fictional story of the Trojan War told in the Homeric poems (the Iliad and relevant
portions of the so-called epic cycle) and early Greek military history as it is known from the
archaeological and documentary record. The course will introduce the colorful debate between
those who believe that the story of the Trojan War presented by Homer is a pure fiction of little
use for reconstructing the military history of early Greece, and those seeking to uncover a kernel
of historical truth at the core of the fantastical adventures of Achilles, Hektor, Paris, et al.
Students will read the Iliad in translation, consider the ways in which the physical and social
worlds evident in the poems might articulate with archaeological remains and historical evidence
from the Late Bronze, Early Iron, and Archaic ages, and critically evaluate the history of the
Trojan War that has gradually been built up around a bare scaffolding of Homeric and
archaeological evidence.
2. Required Course Materials:
The Iliad (Lattimore translation recommended, but feel free to use a different one, if you have a
favorite)
Cline, E. The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford.
[Secondary material, as listed in each week's reading list, will be distributed electronically via
the course blackboard site]
3. Course Goals:
Substance
1. Gain familiarity with the legend of the Trojan War, as told by Homer and other ancient authors.
2. Become conversant in the major categories of material evidence from Late Bronze and Early Iron
Age Greece.
3. Think critically about the use (and abuse) of literary texts as a source for writing history.
Skills
1. Internalize, contextualize, and mentally sort different kinds and categories of ancient evidence.
2. Distinguish good from bad historical argument and grasp the major differences between the two.
3. Write clear, well organized, and forceful arguments based upon complex evidence.

4. Course Structure:
The course is divided into two conceptual parts. First, we will read and discuss the literary
sources, myths, and legends that pertain to the legend of the Trojan War, reflect upon their nature
and value as historical documents, and evaluate the ways past scholars have used them to
reconstruct the Trojan War as a part of history. Then, we will turn to the material record,
comparing specific types of evidence from the poems to archaeological evidence from ancient
Greece, and draw our own conclusions about the relationship between myth and history.

5. Requirements:
Daily:
-Appear in class on time.
-Complete assigned readings on schedule.
Weekly
-Complete administered quizzes with competence.
-Participate in discussion with enthusiasm.
Semester:
-Read quite a lot (or ideally all) of the Iliad.
-Complete midterm on basic concepts.
-Compose 5 pages of well thought out and carefully argued analysis.
6. Grading:
30%: Weekly Quizzes (n = 10)
15%: Class Participation & Citizenship
20%: Midterm Exam
15%: Critical Oral History Paper
20%: Final Exam
Grade Scale: A = 94-100; A-= 90-93.9; B+ = 87-89.9; B = 83-86.9; B-= 80-82.9; C+ = 77-79.9;
C = 73-76.9; C-= 70- 72.9, etc. You need to cross the threshold decisively to receive the next
higher grade. Dont expect your grade to be rounded up.
Policy on Late Work:
1. You have a short paper due on MARCH 2nd papers that are late with no excuse will be
docked letter grade per day late. However, if you really cannot hand something in on
time, please get in touch with me before the due date so that we can work out an
alternative solution.
2. Quizzes cannot be made up unless there is a viable excuse and unless arrangements have
been made with me before the day of the quiz.
7. Explanation of Assignments
A. Class Participation
Grade assigned based on regular attendance and classroom engagement.
B. Weekly Quizzes
On Friday of most weeks, a quiz will be administered. The quiz will consist of ONE short essay
question. The question for each quiz will be sent round to the class via email the night before
the quiz. Students will have 15 minutes to write their answer out when they arrive in the
classroom on quiz day, and the essay topic will form the jumping-off-point of a group discussion
that will comprise the rest of the class period. No make-up quizzes will be administered unless a
student provides a reasonable excuse for an expected absence BEFORE the date of the scheduled
quiz.

C. Midterm Examination
There will be one examination in week 8. This will consist of straightforward factual questions
based on class readings and lectures. There will be a review session.
D. Critical Oral History Paper (5 pages)
Oral Poetry as History Critical Thinking Project:
During WWII, the Greek island of Crete was heavily occupied by German forces. In April of
1944, as part of the resistance effort, two British soldiers kidnapped a German commanding
officer from his base near modern Heraklion and smuggled him off of the island with the help of
Cretan guerillas. The events of the kidnapping were quite dramatic and full of swashbuckle, and
have since been made into a popular nonfiction book (Ill Met by Moonlight) and an English
language fictionalized film (Night Ambush/Ill Met by Moonlight).
While conducting ethnographic research in Crete in 1952, the scholar James Notopoulos
discovered that oral heroic poets practicing in a modern Cretan village remembered the Kreipe
kidnapping from their own experiences. Notopoulos asked one of these bards to sing a song
detailing the capture of the German general, and recorded its details. We thus possess two
distinctive records of the kidnapping of General Kreipe - one written according to historical
accounts recorded by the British kidnappers and one sung as remembered by a Cretan participant
in the events eight years after they transpired.
For this assignment you are asked to read about the historical details of the Kreipe kidnapping
and to compare them to the details of the episode as the eyewitness Cretan bard sang them eight
years after the kidnapping. You will consider what the example of the transformation of the
Kreipe episode into oral poetry does for your understanding of the relationship between Homeric
epic and early Greek history. Your paper will address differences between the events of the
Kreipe kidnapping as we know them from historical events (Moss) and as they are portrayed in
the song sung by the Cretan bard (Notopoulos). You will spend 4 pages making a comparison
between the poem and the historical events: I would suggest writing approximately one page on
each of the following four topics: Characters, Plot Details, Physical World, Depiction of Society.
On the final page of your assignment, you should reflect on what this example teaches you about
the way in which Homeric epic might relate to Greek prehistory. Does the example make you
more or less likely to accept the Homeric poems as evidence for Greek history? Why or why
not?
E. Final Exam
The final exam will consist of three parts: (1) factual questions covering basic plot and character
points of the Iliad (2) short answer questions concerning the history of Homeric scholarship, and
(3) questions about the reality behind the truth of the Trojan War. You will be expected to
know the main beats of these topics (narrative and major characters of Iliad and Odyssey;
Schliemann, Linear B decipherment, Finley, the positions taken by the main post-Finley figures,
&c.) but you need not worry about niggling details (particular points of scholarly arguments,
exact book-by-book plot of the epics, &c.). Two in-class review sessions will be held during the
final week of classes.

II. Things to Know

1. This course is designed to promote critical thinking. The emphasis of assessment will
therefore be on understanding complex evidence and arguments and generating your own ideas
and analyses rather than on memorization and regurgitation.
2. Most of the historico-archaeological problems we will discuss in the course have not been
definitively solved. This has the benefit of giving you, the student, freedom to draw your own
original conclusions about the material. The drawback is that there are no easy answers. You will
therefore need to be mentally prepared to accommodate uncertainty in order to succeed in this
course.
3. To do well, you will need to faithfully attend class sessions and complete assigned readings
according to the schedule provided in this syllabus. Short quizzes will be administered once a
week throughout the semester in order to ensure that you remain up to date in terms of readings
and concepts. Accordingly, your grade will suffer if you regularly miss class or fail to steadily
complete assigned work. The upside is that your grade is not overwhelmingly dependent upon a
single large assignment at the end of the quarter.
III. The Honor Code
Students who sign up for this class are obliged to abide by the highest standards of academic
honesty. Students found to be violating the statutes listed in section 4.2 on Academic Dishonesty
in the UN-L Code of Conduct will be subject to disciplinary measures, according to the judgment
of the professor and the egregiousness of the offense. This is an issue of respect, responsibility,
and maturity, and I take it seriously.
IV. Weekly Course Schedule:
[Part I: The Trojan War: Myth and History]
Week 1. Introduction
1/12: No class (professor away at conference)
1/14: Preliminaries Syllabus, Introductions, Plan of the Course
1/16: Basic Background to the Trojan War
Week 2. Greek prehistory and the Trojan War
1/19: MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY (no class)
1/21: The Legend of Troy
Primary Text: Iliad Books 1-3
Secondary Reading: Camp, W. 1980. An Introduction to Homer. Oxford: 4-17.
Cline, VSI, Chapter 1
1/23: Introduction to Homer and his poems
Primary Text: Iliad Books 4-6.
Secondary Reading: Cline, VSI, Chapter 3
QUIZ #1: (on the basics of Homer and Troy)

Additional Readings for Fun:

Chadwick, J. 1985. "Homer the Pseudo-Historian," in The Mycenaean World. Cambridge:
180-187.
Crielaard, J. 1995. "Homer, History, and Archaeology: Some Remarks on the Date of the
Homeric World," in J. Crielaard (ed.) Homeric Questions. Amsterdam: 201-88.
Morris, I. 1994. Archaeologies of Greece. In I. Morris (ed.) Classical Greece: Ancient
Histories and Modern Archaeologies. Cambridge: 8-47.
Ready, J. 2007. "Homer, Hesiod, and the Epic Tradition," in H. Shapiro (ed.) Cambridge
Companion to Archaic Greece. Cambridge: 111-140.
West, M. 1988. "The rise of the Greek epic," JHS 108: 151-172.
Week 3. Iliad: Part I
1/26: The Plot of the Iliad (Part I)
Primary Text: Iliad Books 7-9
Secondary Reading: [Selections from] Wood, M. 1985. In search of the Trojan war.
London.
1/28-1/30: NO CLASS (Professor away at Conference)
Primary Text: Iliad Books 10-15
QUIZ #2: (on Iliad books 1-9) (due 1/30 on blackboard)
Week 4. Trojan War: History or Legend?
2/2: The Discovery of the Greek Bronze Age
Primary Text: Iliad Books 16-19
Secondary Reading:
Cline, VSI, Chapter 5
2/4: Linear B and Homer as an Oral Poet
Primary Text:
Iliad Books 20-24
Secondary Reading:
Visser, E. 2006. "Homer and Oral Poetry," Mycenae to Homer 427-437.
2/6: Discussion and QUIZ #3: (on Schliemann, Linear B, and Oral Composition)
Additional Readings for Fun
Allen, S. 1998. Finding the Walls of Troy: Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at
Hisarlik. Berkeley.
Calder, W. and D. Traill (eds.) 1986. Myth, Scandal, and History: The Heinrich Schliemann
Controversy. Detroit.
Hood, S. 1995. "The Bronze Age Context of Homer," in J. Carter and S. Morris (eds.) The Ages
of Homer. Austin: 25-32.
Kirk, G. 1960. "Objective Dating Criteria in Homer," in G. Kirk (ed.) Language and Background
of Homer. 174-190.
Traill, D. 1995. Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit. London.

Finnegan, R. 1992. Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context. Bloomington.
Nagy, G. "Orality and Literacy," Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (ed. T. O. Sloane; Oxford 2001) 532538.<http://chs.harvard.edu/cgibin/WebObjects/workbench.woa/wa/pageR?tn=ArticleWr
apper&bdc=12&mn=3457>
Oinas, F. 1978. Heroic Epic and Saga: An Introduction to the World's Great Folk Epics.
Bloomington.
Page, D. 1959. History and the Homeric Iliad. Berkeley.
Palaima, T. 2010. "Linear B," in E. Cline (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age
Aegean. Oxford: 356-372.
Parry, M. 1903. "Studies in the epic technique of oral verse-making I: Homer and the Homeric
style," HSCP 41: 73-147.
Visser, E. 2006. "Homer and Oral Poetry," Mycenae to Homer 427-437.
Week 5. Iliad Part II and the World of Odysseus
2/9: The Plot of the Iliad (Part II)
Primary Text:
Selections from the EPIC CYCLE
Required Secondary Reading:
[Selections from] Finley, M. 1954 (2002). The World of Odysseus. New York.
2/11: Moses Finleys World of Odysseus
Required Secondary Reading:
Finley, M. 1974. "Schliemann's Troy - One Hundred Years After," Proceedings of
the British Academy 60: 393-412.
2/13: Discussion and QUIZ #4: (on Iliad books 10-24)
Additional Readings for Fun
Burkert, W. 1995. "Lydia between East and West or how to date the Trojan War," in F.
Montanari (ed.) Omero tremilla anni dopo. Rome: 343-405.
Finley. M. 1970. Early Greece: the bronze and archaic ages. New York.
Finley, M. 1982. Economy and Society in Ancient Greece. New York.
Raaflaub, K. 1997. "Homeric society," in New Companion 625-648.
Week 6. Current Debates
2/16: Taking Homer out of the Dark Age: 8th Century Greece and the Trojan War
Primary Text:
(Catch-Up week for Iliad)
Required Secondary Reading:
Morris, I. 1986. "The Use and Abuse of Homer," Classical Antiquity 5: 81-138.
Snodgrass, A. 1974. "An Historical Homeric Society?" JHS 94: 114-125.
2/18: Discussion and Debate: is Homers history real?
Secondary Reading: (choose one)
Osborne, R. 2004. "Homer's Society," in R. Fowler (ed.) The Cambridge
Companion to Homer. Cambridge: 206-219.

Raaflaub, K. 1998. "A historian's headache: how to read "Homeric Society"? in

Archaic Greece: 169-93.
van Wees, H. 1999. "Introduction: Homer and Early Greece," in I. de Jong (ed.)
Homer: Critical Assessments. Volume II: The Homeric World. London: 132.
2/20: NO CLASS (Professor away at conference)
QUIZ #5: (basic positions in the current state of Homeric scholarship) (due online
by 2/20)
Week 7: The Kidnapping of General Kreipe and the Greek Bards
2/23: Read: Moss, S. 1950. Ill Met by Moonlight. Philadelphia.
2/25: Read: Notopoulos, G. 1960. "The Genesis of an Oral Greek Poem," Greek Roman and
Byzantine Studies 3: 135-144.
Film Viewing: Night Ambush (1957)
2/27: Film Viewing: Night Ambush (1957) (contd)
(NO QUIZ)
Week 8:
[Middle-of-the-Semester Evaluation Time]
A. (5-7 pages, Due MONDAY 3/2)
Oral Poetry as History Critical Thinking Project (see description above, p. 3).
Group discussion of papers in class on 3/2
3/4: Midterm Review Session
B. MIDTERM EXAM (in class, Friday 3/6)
[Part II: The Archaeology of the Trojan War]
Week 9. The Archaeological Site of Troy
3/9: Introduction to the Site of Troy in its Aegean context
Archaeological Evidence:
Rose, C.B. 2014. The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Troy, Introduction and
Chapter 1: Troy in the Bronze Age (pp. 1-43).
Troia Project webpage: http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/troia/eng/index.html
3/11: Architecture and Settlement in the Homeric Poems
Focused Primary Reading:
Odyssey 1.125-43; 1.425-440; 4.5-16; 4.43-75; 6.262-296; 6.303-9; 7.81-132;
17.264-71; 19.53-79; 21.5-41; Iliad book 6 (description of the city of Troy)

3/13: Discussion and QUIZ #6: (Trojan settlement and architecture)

Additional Reading for fun
Blegen, C. 1957. Nestors Pylos, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 101.4:
379-385.
Hopkins, C. 1968. The Megaron of the Mycenaean Palace, SMEA 6: 45-53.
Lemos, I. 2002. "Settlements and Structures," in The Protogeometric Aegean. Cambridge: 135150.
Week 10. War in the Homeric Poems
3/16: Basic Aspects of War in the Iliad
Focused Primary Reading: Iliad 4.457-99; 5.192-203; 5.565-72; 8.60-7; 10.257-71;
12.269-74; 13.642-9; 16.211-17.
3/18: Basic Aspects of War in the Iliad (contd)
van Wees, H. 1992. Warriors at Peace, in Status Warriors. 168-172.
3/20: Discussion and QUIZ #7 (General Homeric Warfare)
3/21-3/29: NO CLASS, SPRING BREAK
Week 11. War in the Homeric Poems
3/30: Weapons and Modes of Attack
4/1: Sieges and Walls
4/3: Discussion and QUIZ #8 (Technicalities of Homeric Warfare)
Week 12. Evidence for War in Bronze Age and Dark Age Greece
4/6: Review of War in the Iliad
4/8: Evidence for War in the Greek Bronze and Early Iron Ages
Archaeological Evidence:
[Selections from] Snodgrass, A. 1967. Arms and Armour of the Greeks.
Baltimore.
Webster, T. 1958. From Mycenae to Homer. London. (Chapter 2)
van Wees, H. 1992. "The historicity of Homeric warfare," in Status Warriors.
Amsterdam 259-262.
van Wees, H. 2004. "The Archaic Phalanx," in Greek Warfare. London: 166-183.
Georganas, I. 2010. "Weapons and Warfare," in E. Cline (ed.) The Oxford
Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean. Oxford: 305-315.
4/10: Discussion and QUIZ #9 (Early Greek War)

Week 13. Documentary Evidence for the Trojan War

4/13: The Hittites and Near Eastern Epistolary Evidence
Focused Primary Reading:
Tawagalawa Letter [Handout]
Iliad 4.457-99; 5.192-203; 5.565-72; 8.60-7; 10.257-71; 12.269-74; 13.642-9;
16.211-17.
Secondary Reading: Cline, VSI, Chapter 2
4/15: Kernels of Truth in Homer?
Archaeological Evidence:
Rutter, J. "Lesson 27: Troy VII and the Historicity of the Trojan War," Aegean
Prehistoric Archaeology <http://www.dartmouth.edu/~prehistory/aegean/?page_id=630>
4/17: Discussion and QUIZ #10: (Trojan War fact or fiction?)
Additional Readings for Fun
Bryce, T. 2010. "The Trojan War," in E. Cline (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age
Aegean. Oxford: 475-482.
Finley, M. et al. 1964. "The Trojan War," JHS 84: 1-20.
Gterbock, H. 1986. "Troy in Hittite Texts? Wilusa, Ahhiyawa, and Hittite history," in M.
Mellink (ed.) Troy and the Trojan War. Bryn Mawr: 33-44.
[Selections from] Johansen, K. 1967. The Iliad in Early Greek Art. Cambridge.
Latacz, J. 2004. Troy and Homer: Towards a solution of an old mystery. Oxford.
van Wees, H. 1994. "The Homeric Way of War: the Iliad and the Hoplite Phalanx," Greece and
Rome 41.1: 1-18.
Week 14. Summing Up: The Trojan War, Homer, and History
4/20: Troy in the historical imagination
Rose, C.B. Troy and the Historical Imagination. The Classical Review 91(5): 405-413.
4/22: Reception of the Trojan War from Alexander to Brad Pitt
Thompson, D.P. 2013. The Trojan War: Literature and Legends from the Bronze Age to
the Present, Chapters 8-10 (pp. 102-140)
4/24: Discussion on Homer and History Your View
Week 15. End Times
4/27: Concluding Discussion
Cline,VSI, Epilogue
4/29, 5/1: Review for Final
FINAL EXAM: Wednesday May 6th, 3:30-5:30pm