ABSTRACT
This essay focuses on the Homeric figure as an aesthetic object, whether clad in bronze armour like a second skin in the Iliad, or as, in the Odyssey, an artisanal creation that turns the human form into a masterpiece of skillful handiwork. Martial in the first instance, erotic in the second, the objectification of corporeal presence through artifice and artefact constructs human figures who are thauma idesthai and points the way to later technical developments in the arts, notably in sculpture and vase painting.
