ABSTRACT
Recitals from Homer accompanied by exposition were given by professionals who went from city to city. Homer could be quoted in diplomatic exchanges, like a Domesday book, to support a territorial claim. A kind of Fundamentalism grew up: Homer enshrined all wisdom and all knowledge. Painters and poets turned to Homer for their inspiration and for their actual subjects: Aeschylus was said to have described his own work, modestly, as 'slices from Homer's banquet' - and European drama knows no greater figure than Aeschylus. The Homeric image takes a very different colour from its context of heroic striving and achievement. Longinus, the finest critic of antiquity, observed this, and remarked, 'Homer in the Odyssey is like the setting sun; the grandeur remains, but not the intensity'. The Greeks were fortunate in possessing Homer, and wise in using him as they did.
