The library of Homer
Across 2 of Homer’s 3 works in the library, the harvest finds 7 named sources — 8 citations in all. Not one of those sources stands in the library; every one of them is on the corpus’s wanted list. In the other direction, 54 works in the library quote Homer back — 233 citations.
arrangedthe librarycited by
2 neutral
named once
7 sources · 2 worksEach of these stands at a single passage, named once and not held by the library. The work that names it carries the anchor.
cited by
233 citations · from 54 works54 works in the library quote Homer — 233 citations, each anchored to a verbatim passage in the work that does the quoting.
through Homer 160 citations · Iliad 40 citations · Odyssey 33 citations
by the citing author
The harvest records where a citation is made: the paragraph in the citing book, and the chapter that paragraph stands in. It does not record which page of Homer is meant. Where the citing text names a locus, you will find it in the quotation.
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Orations Dio Chrysostom 10 neutral 5 refuted 10 extended 4 endorsed 73 citations · 157 passages
oration 1 6 passages anchored here · oration 2 12 passages anchored here · oration 3 3 passages anchored here · oration 4 8 passages anchored here · oration 6 2 passages anchored here · oration 8 2 passages anchored here · oration 9 2 passages anchored here · oration 11 38 passages anchored hereand 32 more chapters
oration 12 12 passages anchored here · oration 13 2 passages anchored here · oration 7 15 passages anchored here · oration 32 10 passages anchored here · oration 33 9 passages anchored here · oration 35 2 passages anchored here · oration 36 4 passages anchored here · oration 40 · oration 44 · oration 47 · oration 49 · oration 53 · oration 55 · oration 56 · oration 57 · oration 61 · oration 64 · oration 66 · oration 71 · oration 74 · oration 79 · oration 79 · oration 80 2 passages anchored here · oration 84 2 passages anchored here · oration 88 · oration 20 · oration 21 2 passages anchored here · oration 23 2 passages anchored here · oration 27 · oration 29 2 passages anchored here · oration 30 · oration appendix1The speaker relies on Homer's depiction of Odysseus in paragraph 6 of Oration 47 as authoritative evidence about Homer's own state of mind.
but that Homer himself did not cherish his own city — and was not, under the name of Odysseus, confessing the love and the longing he himself had for his fatherland?
oration 47 ¶ -
Republic Plato 5 neutral 6 refuted 1 extended 1 endorsed 18 citations · 28 passages
book 1 · book 2 6 passages anchored here · book 3 9 passages anchored here · book 4 · book 5 · book 6 · book 7 · book 8 3 passages anchored hereand 1 more chapter
Homer is named explicitly as the source of the Autolycus characterization used to test (not directly refute or endorse) the argument.
A kind of thief then the just man it seems has turned out to be, and it is likely that you acquired this idea from Homer.
book 1 ¶ -
Stromata Clement of Alexandria 8 neutral 1 refuted 1 extended 17 citations · 38 passages
book 1 3 passages anchored here · book 2 7 passages anchored here · book 3 · book 4 7 passages anchored here · book 5 9 passages anchored here · book 6 11 passages anchored hereHomer is named or clearly alluded to and quoted in three separate places.
So Homer too sets it as the greatest prayer, "a husband and a house" — but not simply, but "with noble like-mindedness";
book 2 ¶ -
Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle 8 citations · 12 passages
book 3 6 passages anchored here · book 5 · book 6 · book 7 2 passages anchored here · book 8 2 passages anchored hereHomer is named explicitly as the source backing a factual claim about human desire, functioning as an authority.
and also sexual intercourse, as Homer says, when young and lusty.
book 3 ¶ -
Protrepticus Clement of Alexandria 3 neutral 1 refuted 2 extended 1 endorsed 8 citations · 14 passages
Explicitly named alongside Hesiod as a source of Greek theology.
There is a sixth, an introductory, manner of deception that produces gods, according to which they reckon the twelve gods — of whom Hesiod sings his own theogony, and all that Homer treats of as theology.
protrepticus ¶ -
The Rights of War and Peace Hugo Grotius 4 neutral 8 citations · 9 passages
ch. 11 · ch. 20 · ch. 21 · ch. 24 · chapter xx.: on punishments. · ch. 31 2 passages anchored here · ch. 32 · ch. 34Cited only as having anticipated Plato's distinction between redress and punishment.
Plato, in his ninth book on laws, very properly makes the same distinction, as Homer had done before him.
ch. 11 ¶ -
Letters to Lucilius Seneca, Lucius Annaeus 4 neutral 1 extended 8 citations · 9 passages
letter 40 · letter 63 · letter 88 3 passages anchored here · letter 90 · letter 104 · letter 108 · letter 123Homer is mentioned only as the traced origin of a phrase, without evaluative stance
" Ennius, he says, filched this from Homer, and Virgil from Ennius.
letter 108 ¶ -
The Histories Herodotus 2 neutral 1 refuted 2 endorsed 7 citations · 23 passages
Herodotus names Homer (or an older poet) directly as the origin of the 'Ocean' river notion and explicitly rejects the notion as an invention, a genuine citation of a specific poetic authority rather than an anonymous oral tradition.
and I suppose that Homer or some older poet invented this name and brought it into his poetry.
book 2 ¶ -
Tusculan Disputations Cicero, Marcus Tullius 2 refuted 2 endorsed 6 citations · 8 passages
book 1 · book 3 3 passages anchored here · book 4 2 passages anchored here · book 5 2 passages anchored hereExplicitly named as Homer's account and explicitly rejected ('Homer feigned these things').
nor do I listen to Homer, who says Ganymede was carried off by the gods for his beauty, to serve Jove his drink:
book 1 ¶ -
Memorabilia Xenophon 2 neutral 1 endorsed 6 citations · 11 passages
book 1 4 passages anchored here · book 2 · book 3 4 passages anchored here · book 4 2 passages anchored hereHomer is explicitly invoked as a textual authority connected with rhapsodic performance.
They tell me you have a complete copy of Homer.
book 4 ¶ -
Letters Basil of Caesarea 3 neutral 5 citations · 8 passages
Basil references 'the Homeric lotus' as a point of literary comparison for cabbage.
And henceforth I shall consider nothing comparable to it — not the Homeric lotus, no, nor even that ambrosia, whatever it may have been, which feeds the dwellers on Olympus.
letter 186 ¶ -
Ancient Law Henry Sumner Maine 1 extended 5 citations · 8 passages
Homeric lines are explicitly invoked as evidence for the Patriarchal State description.
but it has been thought that, in his Fifth Chapter on “Primitive Society and Ancient Law,” the Author has not done sufficient justice to investigations which appear to show the existence of states of society still more rudimentary than that vividly described in the Homeric lines quoted at page 110, and ordinarily known as the Patriarchal State.
ch. 1 ¶ -
Symposium Xenophon 1 neutral 5 citations · 17 passages
chapter 3 6 passages anchored here · chapter 4 7 passages anchored here · chapter 8 4 passages anchored hereHomer is invoked as a sage and source for practical and heroic knowledge.
You know, doubtless, that the sage Homer has written about practically everything pertaining to man.
chapter 4 ¶ -
Symposium Plato 1 extended 4 citations · 6 passages
Homer is invoked as the source of the story of Ephialtes and Otus, used to lend mythic credibility to Aristophanes' tale.
and the same story is told of them as Homer relates of Ephialtes and Otus, that scheming to assault the gods in fight they essayed to mount high heaven.
symposium ¶ -
Birds Aristophanes 1 extended 3 citations · 4 passages
Pisthetaerus explicitly names Homer as the source of a comparison used to support his argument that winged gods are unremarkable.
First of all, Victory flies with golden wings, Eros is undoubtedly winged too, and Iris is compared by Homer to a timorous dove.
birds ¶ -
Against Ctesiphon Aeschines 2 citations · 3 passages
Homer is explicitly invoked as authoritative poetic testimony.
Homer has sung of his fame, and has said that of all the mailed chieftains
against ctesiphon ¶ -
Against Timarchus Aeschines 2 citations · 12 passages
Invoked twice as an authoritative poetic source, first for Common Report's divinity and later (by the anticipated opposing speech) for the exemplary friendship of Achilles and Patroclus.
But since you make mention of Achilles and Patroclus, and of Homer and the other poets—as though the jury were men innocent of education, while you are people of a superior sort, who feel yourselves quite beyond common folks in learning—that you may know that we too have before now heard and learned a little something, we shall say a word about this also.
against timarchus ¶ -
De legendis gentilium libris Basil of Caesarea 1 neutral 1 extended 2 citations · 5 passages
The passage explicitly hedges attribution ('if indeed these verses are Homer's'), marking a neutral, reportive stance.
Then ease would be worth much in life, and Sardanapalus would be borne to first place of all in happiness, or Margites too, if you like, whom Homer said was neither ploughman nor digger nor any other thing useful for life—if indeed these verses are Homer's.
de legendis gentilium libris ¶ -
On the Nature of the Gods Cicero, Marcus Tullius 2 citations · 3 passages
Homer's attaching of gods to heroes is cited as authoritative literary support for the claim that gods care for individual men
This reasoning impelled the poets, and most of all Homer, to attach to the chief of the heroes — Ulysses, Diomedes, Agamemnon, Achilles — certain gods as companions of their crises and dangers.
book 2 ¶ -
Dissertations on Early Law and Custom Henry Sumner Maine 1 neutral 2 citations · 3 passages
The poems attributed to Homer are cited as evidence for the character of the early Greek King's judicial role.
But, in point of fact, the order of ideas exhibited by both systems is relatively more modern than that which we can trace in the poems attributed to Homer.
ch. 7 ¶ -
Lectures on the Early History of Institutions Henry Sumner Maine 1 neutral 2 citations
Invoked as supporting evidence for the dramatization interpretation.
’ ‘This interpretation,’ I then added, ‘would be less plausible than it is, were it not that, by a surprising coincidence, the ceremony described by Gaius as the imperative course of proceeding in a Legis Actio is substantially the same with one of the two subjects which the God Hephæstus is described by Homer as moulding into the First Compartment of the Shield of Achilles.
ch. 10 ¶ -
The Freedom of the Seas (Mare Liberum) Hugo Grotius 1 neutral 2 citations
Homer is explicitly named as the source Pliny cites for the origin of barter.
Ita commercia victus gratia inventa est Homero Plinius probat.
ch. 12 ¶ -
Panathenaicus Isocrates 1 neutral 2 citations · 3 passages
Homer's poetry is explicitly invoked as a recognized poetic source, though the speaker postpones evaluation.
As to the poetry of Homer and Hesiod and the rest, I would fain speak—for I think that I could silence those who chant their verses and prate about these poets in the Lyceum—but I perceive that I am being carried beyond the due limits which have been assigned to an introduction;
panathenaicus ¶ -
Apology Plato 2 citations
Socrates paraphrases Iliadic speeches of Thetis and Achilles as authoritative exemplars of choosing honor over survival.
For according to your argument all the demigods would be bad who died at Troy, including the son of Thetis, who so despised danger, in comparison with enduring any disgrace, that when his mother (and she was a goddess) said to him, as he was eager to slay Hector, something like this, I believe, My son, if you avenge the death of your friend Patroclus and kill Hector, you yourself shall die;
apology ¶ -
Phaedo Plato 2 citations · 5 passages
Homer's verse is invoked as the authoritative naming source for the chasm called Tartarus, without dispute.
Far off, the lowest abyss beneath the earth;
phaedo ¶ -
Ad Nationes Tertullian 1 refuted 2 citations
Homer is explicitly named as the poet whose depiction of the gods is relied upon as evidence.
He, I suppose, is the one who treated the divine majesty after the human condition, steeping the gods in human chances and passions;
book 1 ¶ -
De Anima Tertullian 1 neutral 1 refuted 2 citations
Homer's division of dreams by gates of horn and ivory is reported as a poetic authority on dream truth.
Homer divided two gates for dreams, the horn one of truth, the ivory one of falsehood.
de anima ¶ -
History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides 1 neutral 2 citations · 5 passages
Thucydides names Homer directly and repeatedly as the specific prior authority whose poems he weighs, both relying on and qualifying them, to reconstruct the scale of the Trojan expedition and early Greek naming customs.
as Homer has also shown, if he is sufficient authority for any one, and also, in [his account of] the transmission of the sceptre, he has mentioned that he
book 1 ¶ -
Clouds Aristophanes 1 citation
Unjust Cause explicitly appeals to Homer's authority ('Homer would never have been for representing Nestor as an orator') to legitimize his own position.
For if it had been bad, Homer would never have been for representing Nestor as an orator;
clouds ¶ -
On Fate Cicero, Marcus Tullius 1 extended 1 citation
The verses are explicitly attributed to Homer and said to 'lend support to this opinion,' with Cicero credited as translator, making Cicero's use an extension of Homer's authority into the philosophical argument.
Those verses of Homer also lend support to this opinion, which Cicero rendered into Latin:
on fate ¶ -
On Moral Ends Cicero, Marcus Tullius 1 extended 1 citation
Cicero explicitly names Homer, says he has translated 'this very passage,' and builds an extended interpretive argument on it, extending its meaning beyond the literal narrative.
So that to me indeed Homer seems to have seen something of this kind in those things which he feigned about the songs of the Sirens.
book 5 ¶ -
On the Commonwealth Cicero, Marcus Tullius 1 citation
Homer is explicitly named as the source of the image of Jove's nod.
Whether these things were established by the leaders of commonwealths for the use of life—that a single king should be thought to be in heaven, who by his nod, as Homer says, would turn all Olympus, and be held both king and father of all—great is the authority and many are the witnesses, if indeed it is granted that all are to be called many, that the nations have so agreed, plainly by the decree …
book 1 ¶ -
The Erotic Essay Demosthenes 1 citation
The passage explicitly names Homer and refers to his poetry as evidence, invoking him as a poetic authority for the description of martial equipment.
The best evidence for this may be found in the poetry of Homer, in which he represents the Greeks and barbarians warring against one another with this equipment.
the erotic essay ¶ -
The Funeral Speech Demosthenes 1 citation
The speaker explicitly names Homer as the source ('the epics in which Homer says') for the story of Acamas, invoking the poet as an authority underpinning the Acamantidae's ancestral exemplar.
The Acamantidae did not fail to recall the epics in which Homer says that Acamas sailed for Troy for the sake of his mother Aethra.
the funeral speech ¶ -
Cyclops Euripides 1 extended 1 citation · 3 passages
The entire play is a dramatic extension and comic reworking of the Cyclops episode from the Odyssey; the Noman trick and oracle are directly Homeric
Cyclops:
cyclops ¶ -
Institutes of Roman Law Gaius 1 extended 1 citation · 5 passages
Homer's poem is explicitly named and quoted in support of the Sabinian school's argument.
My school hold the affirmative, and regard exchange as a species, and the oldest species, of purchase and sale;
consensv obligationes. (2) ¶ -
Against the Sophists Isocrates 1 citation
Isocrates explicitly names Homer and invokes his reputation for wisdom to support the claim that foreknowledge of the future is beyond human power.
For I think it is manifest to all that foreknowledge of future events is not vouchsafed to our human nature, but that we are so far removed from this prescience that Homer, who has been conceded the highest reputation for wisdom, has pictured even the gods as at times debating among themselves about the future —not that he knew their minds but that he desired to show us that for mankind this power …
against the sophists ¶ -
Helen Isocrates 1 citation
Homer is named explicitly, and his poem on the Trojan expedition is invoked as authoritative evidence of Helen's enduring influence.
And some of the Homeridae also relate that Helen appeared to Homer by night and commanded him to compose a poem on those who went on the expedition to Troy, since she wished to make their death more to be envied than the life of the rest of mankind;
helen ¶ -
Panegyricus Isocrates 1 citation · 2 passages
Isocrates explicitly names Homer and treats his poetry as an authoritative cultural institution that instills hereditary hostility to the barbarians, citing its honored place in education and public contests.
Moreover, I think that even the poetry of Homer has won a greater renown because he has nobly glorified the men who fought against the barbarians, and that on this account our ancestors determined to give his art a place of honor in our musical contests and in the education of our youth, in order that we, hearing his verses over and over again, may learn by heart the enmity which stands from of ol …
panegyricus ¶ -
To Nicocles Isocrates 1 citation · 2 passages
The passage explicitly admires Homer as a model of insight into human nature and poetic pleasure.
for Homer has dressed the contests and battles of the demigods in myths, while the tragic poets have rendered the myths in the form of contests and action, so that they are presented, not to our ears alone, but to our eyes as well.
to nicocles ¶ -
Ansāb al-ʻArab al-qudamāʼ Jurjī Zaydān 1 endorsed 1 citation
The Iliad is cited as a positive model of how a legend-bearing text is properly handled.
For what is in the Iliad of Homer of the reports of the gods and their legends did not hinder the scholars from sifting it and distinguishing within it between history, religion and legend.
ch. 3 ¶ -
The Law of Intellectual Property Lysander Spooner 1 neutral 1 citation
Homer's poems are named as an example of a unique intellectual production tied to its author.
Who can suppose that the poems of Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton, or the orations of Demosthenes, Cicero, and Burke, would ever have seen the light, had not Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, Demosthenes, Cicero and Burke themselves existed?
ch. 14 ¶ -
Crito Plato 1 neutral 1 citation
The line 'on the third day thou wouldst come to fertile Phthia' echoes a well-known Homeric verse, invoked as an authoritative poetic utterance within the dream
I dreamed that a beautiful, fair woman, clothed in white raiment, came to me and called me and said, Socrates, on the third day thou wouldst come to fertile Phthia.
crito ¶ -
Consolation to Polybius Seneca, Lucius Annaeus 1 citation
Homer is named as one of the poets Polybius should turn to as a high priest and worshipper of letters for consolation.
then let Homer and Virgil—men who have deserved as well of the human race as you have deserved both of them and of all men, whom you wished to be known to more than had read them—abide long with you;
consolation to polybius ¶ -
On Anger Seneca, Lucius Annaeus 1 neutral 1 citation
The passage explicitly identifies the line shouted by Caesar as 'that Homeric line,' invoking Homer as the source
they will utter something you might think the mark of a great spirit, as did Gaius Caesar, who, angry at the heavens because a thunderstorm was drowning out the pantomimes—whom he imitated more zealously than he watched—and because his revelry was frightened by lightnings (very ill-aimed ones, at that), called Jupiter to battle, and that to the death, shouting out that Homeric line:
book 1 ¶ -
On Benefits Seneca, Lucius Annaeus 1 neutral 1 citation
Homer's account is directly cited and contrasted with Hesiod's to demonstrate that such details are poetic invention rather than fixed truth
in Hesiod she is one of the Graces, in Homer one of the Muses.
book 1 ¶ -
The Genius of the Common Law Sir Frederick Pollock 1 neutral 1 citation
Homer's depiction of the Greeks is directly invoked as a comparative historical source.
The Greeks described by Homer, for example, are much nearer to the Germanic ideal than Plato’s contemporaries;
ch. 1 ¶ -
The Law of Torts Sir Frederick Pollock 1 citation
Homer is named directly and invoked as a source one may consult to confirm the moral condemnation of the wrongs under discussion.
If anyone desires to be satisfied of this, he may open Homer or the Psalter at random.
ch. 4 ¶ -
Adversus Valentinianos Tertullian 1 neutral 1 citation
Homer is named as a possible source text for Ennius's image, reported without endorsement or refutation
First of all, Ennius, the Roman poet, spoke simply of "the great dining-halls of heaven," by the name of an elevated situation, or because he had read in Homer of Jupiter banqueting there.
adversus valentinianos ¶ -
De Corona Tertullian 1 refuted 1 citation
Homer is explicitly named as the poetic source behind an argument Tertullian proceeds to counter.
Claudius will indeed allege beforehand that even heaven is crowned with stars in the verses of Homer—certainly by God, certainly for man;
de corona ¶ -
De Pallio Tertullian 1 neutral 1 citation
Named directly via 'Homeric eyes' as a rhetorical touchstone.
Our own surveyed sphere, at any rate — as is clear even to closed, nay, wholly Homeric eyes — is throughout of changing form.
de pallio ¶ -
Characters Theophrastus 1 citation
The passage explicitly attributes a quoted political maxim to Homer's lines, used by the oligarchic man as authoritative support for his views.
" Of the lines of Homer he holds fast to this one only, that "the rule of many is not good;
characters ¶ -
Law in a Free State Wordsworth Donisthorpe 1 neutral 1 citation
The Brisēis episode, drawn from Homer's Iliad, is invoked as a mythological example within the essay's survey of religion and custom.
The gods of Olympus sided with the abducer of Brisēis;
chapter vi: marriage ¶ -
Apology Xenophon 1 citation
Homer is explicitly invoked as a recognized poetic authority for deathbed foresight.
But, he is reported to have added, Homer has attributed to some of his heroes at the moment of dissolution the power to foresee the future;
apology ¶