Study Day on Book 23 of the Iliad: Lines 570–897, Homeric Similes, and Death in Battle

This is the concluding session of a study day in Greek on Book 23 of Homer's Iliad, bringing together philologists and archaeologists at the University of Cyprus.

The session opens with a reading of lines 570 to 897 of Book 23 in D. N. Maronitis's translation, performed by Michalis Pieris and members of the University of Cyprus Theatre Workshop (THEPAK). The passage covers the reconciliation of Menelaus and Antilochus after the chariot race and the remaining funeral games for Patroclus: boxing, wrestling, the footrace, armed combat, throwing the iron mass, archery, and the spear-throw. Vassos Karageorghis interjects archaeological commentary linking Homeric arms and armour to Cypro-Geometric and Cypro-Archaic finds from Cyprus. On the silver-studded sword (xiphos argyroelon) awarded to Diomedes, once compared only to gold-riveted Mycenaean blades, he shows a seventh-century BC sword with silver rivets and hilt-band from Tomb 3 at Salamis, alongside two examples from Tamassos in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He contrasts the Mycenaean body-shield carried by chariot-borne warriors with the small eighth-century BC round shield found at Palaepaphos, notes the 90-centimetre sword and baldric from Salamis Tomb 3, illustrates Early and Late Geometric bronze helmets from Kouklia, and closes with a bronze spear from Salamis Tomb 3 preserved with its wooden shaft to a length of 2.18 metres.

Antonis Tsakmakis then speaks on Homeric similes and cognitive poetics. Noting the 431 similes in the Iliad and eight extended ones in Book 23, he reviews linguistic arguments that they belong to a younger stratum of the epic tradition and examines how oral poetry uses visualization to hold an audience's attention. Moving beyond Aristotelian models that treat similes as static parentheses of similarity, he applies conceptual blending theory and cognitive framing to two similes from Book 23: the comparison of the wrestlers Ajax and Odysseus to roof rafters fitted by a builder, where the permanence of a house creates tension with the expected end of a match and foreshadows a draw, and the comparison of Antilochus's chariot lead to a youth's discus throw, which complicates the audience's moral judgment of his foul manoeuvre.

Maria Ypsilanti follows with a paper on death in battle in Homer. She examines the imagery of liquidity and vaporization at death, as blood and organs flow downward to the earth while the soul flies away and darkness pours over the warrior's eyes, and considers the paradox of Patroclus's soul descending underground like smoke in Book 23. She then traces the linked duels in which Sarpedon falls to Patroclus, Patroclus to Hector, and Hector to Achilles: four heroes loved by Zeus whose deaths involve divine intervention, parental care for the corpse with ambrosia, and a combination of fate and personal choice that anticipates Greek tragedy.

In the closing assessment and discussion, Karageorghis reflects on the collaboration between philology and archaeology from his excavations at Salamis in the 1960s to his work on the cemeteries of Palaepaphos, and participants discuss interdisciplinary teaching and the humanities.