From crisica@idt.net Sun Jun 4 04:22:09 2000 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id EAA28752 for ; Sun, 4 Jun 2000 04:22:08 -0700 Received: from u3.farm.idt.net (root@u3.farm.idt.net [169.132.8.12]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id EAA28067 for ; Sun, 4 Jun 2000 04:22:07 -0700 Received: from 18spd (ppp-34.ts-4-bay.nyc.idt.net [169.132.216.178]) by u3.farm.idt.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id HAA14014; Sun, 4 Jun 2000 07:22:04 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: From: "Christopher Robbins" To: Subject: To whose warfare was Homer referring? (was: Gladiators... authenticity, etc.) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2000 07:22:04 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <77.4eb5e4e.266ac2b8@aol.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Allen Koenigsberg wrote (in part): >[...] Does Homer really know what to do with chariot warfare in the Iliad? Is anyone put off by it today? My comment here is not meant to contradict Allen's point in his thoughtful posting on the Gladiator-authenticity thread. But if I may shift contexts entirely, Homer's considerable ignorance of the nature of Late Helladic warfare is indeed raising some eyebrows. No one is "put off" by it, except, of course, those who wish to cling to the notion that Homer's referant for warfare is Myencae. For example, that Mycenaean (and Assyrian, Hittite, etc.) chariots of the LH carried a lance (e.g., to use against fallen chariot crewmen or infantry) seems clear. But to claim that the spear was the primary offensive weapon of the LH chariot warrior is quite incorrect. Indeed, Nestor's advice to his charioteers (_Iliad_/Fagles, 4.350-356) that upon reaching the Trojan chariots they should thrust their spears, rather than throw them, has been shown to be effectively impossible for a warrior on a speeding chariot against another of the same. A standard reply is that in Homer these chariots were not speeding around in battle at all but are just taxi-cabs that shuttle foot soldiers to the engagement site. But though this view may be true for Homer, it is wholly at odds with what we are now coming to know about the true nature of Mycenaean era chariot warfare, whose rise and demise coincides with the Late Helladic. Mycenae may have been Agamemnon's capital city, but that Homer had no clue as to how the real Mycenaeans came to power there and eventually came to oversee a sort of pax Mycenaica for a century and a half before the EIA is becoming more and more obvious. [Allen K. continues...] > And who remembers the name of the book on the table (as the camera pans) when Martin Sheen is about to assassinate Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now"? Symbolic to be sure, but does anyone notice it? I would propose Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_, for the obvious reasons. But I confess that it is "obvious reasons" and not my direct observation of the book which underlies this guess. So, Allen, what was it? _The Turner Diaries_, perhaps? :-) Cheers, Christopher Robbins New York City crisica@idt.net .