The sources of Odyssey

1. the oracle of Zeus at Dodona Zeus 2 authority 2 citations

   book 14 · book 19

   The passage reports Odysseus consulting the oracle of Zeus at Dodona as a recognized source of divine guidance for his decision about returning home, fitting the definition of an oracle invoked as authority.

   But the king said Odysseus had gone to Dodona that he might learn Zeus’ mind from the god's high oak tree, and know whether after so long an absence he should return to the dêmos of Ithaca openly, or in secret.

Each stands at a single passage. The chapter carries the anchors.

book 8 4 sources

the lay of Ares and Aphrodite · the lay of the quarrel of Odysseus and Achilles · the lay of the wooden horse and the sack of Troy · the oracle of Apollo at Pytho

book 16 1 source

the oracles of Zeus

The harvest records where a citation is made: the paragraph in the citing book, and the book that paragraph stands in. It does not record which page of this book is meant. Where the citing text names a locus, you will find it in the quotation.

1. Orations Dio Chrysostom 5 authority · 2 neutral · 1 refuted · 3 extended 11 citations · 28 passages

   oration 2 3 passages anchored here · oration 8 · oration 9 · oration 11 3 passages anchored here · oration 13 2 passages anchored here · oration 7 12 passages anchored here · oration 32 · oration 33 2 passages anchored here

   and 3 more chapters

   oration 55 · oration 66 · oration 84

   Several episodes cited (Calypso, Odysseus's house, the suitors) are drawn from the Odyssey and used as authoritative illustrations.

   Nor does he feast the suitors on fish, exceedingly wanton and luxurious as they were, and that though they were feasting in Ithaca.

2. Stromata Clement of Alexandria 1 authority · 3 neutral 4 citations · 6 passages

   book 1 · book 4 4 passages anchored here · book 6

   Explicitly named 'in Homer' referring to the Nausicaa episode.

   just as Sarah, the wife of Abraham, that blessed woman, herself prepared the cakes for the angels, and royal maidens among the Hebrews tended the sheep, whence too Nausicaa in Homer went to the washing-places.

3. Protrepticus Clement of Alexandria 1 neutral · 1 refuted · 1 extended 3 citations

   protrepticus 3 passages anchored here

   The passage echoes a recognizable Homeric line describing a grief-forgetting song.

   This Eunomus of mine sings no measure of Terpander or of Capion, nor any Phrygian or Lydian or Dorian air, but the eternal measure of the new harmony that bears the name of God, the new song, the Levitical, "that lulls grief and anger, and brings forgetfulness of every ill.

4. Letters Basil of Caesarea 1 authority · 1 neutral 2 citations · 3 passages

   letter 14 · letter 74 · letter 147

   Homer's poetry is invoked twice as a point of comparison, without endorsing or refuting it.

   A forest of varied and all kinds of trees, growing of itself around it, becomes almost a fence to it, so that even the island of Calypso, which Homer plainly admired above all others for beauty, is small in comparison.

5. The Histories Herodotus 1 authority · 1 endorsed 2 citations · 12 passages

   book 2 9 passages anchored here · book 4 3 passages anchored here

   Herodotus quotes the Odyssey as further evidence that Homer was aware of the Egyptian episode in the Helen story, endorsing its testimony.

   In these verses the poet shows that he knew of Alexander 's wanderings to Egypt;

6. The Rights of War and Peace Hugo Grotius 1 authority · 1 neutral 2 citations

   ch. 24 · chapter xx.: on punishments.

   Homer's Odyssey is explicitly cited by book number for the Aegisthus/Orestes episode.

   for we are told, in the third book of the Odyssey, that Ægisthus, who had added the crime of murder to that of adultery, was honoured with funeral ceremonies by Orestes, the son of the murdered king.

7. Memorabilia Xenophon 1 neutral · 1 endorsed 2 citations

   book 1 · book 2

   Socrates favourably invokes the Circe episode as an exemplar of self-restraint, indicating approval of the poem's account.

   and it was partly by the prompting of Hermes, partly through his own self-restraint and avoidance of excessive indulgence in such things, that Odysseus was not turned into a pig.

8. Birds Aristophanes 1 extended 1 citation

   birds

   The chorus's anecdote explicitly frames Pisander's necromantic rite as a comic imitation of Odysseus's underworld ritual, extending the epic model into contemporary satire.

   He offered a little victim, a camel, slit his throat and, following the example of Odysseus, stepped one pace backwards.

9. De legendis gentilium libris Basil of Caesarea 1 extended 1 citation · 4 passages

   de legendis gentilium libris 4 passages anchored here

   Homer's epic is explicitly interpreted and quoted as bearing a moral meaning about virtue.

   As I once heard from a man skilled in discerning a poet's meaning, the whole poetry of Homer is a praise of virtue, and everything in it bears toward this, except what is by-work—and not least in those passages where he has portrayed the leader of the Cephallenians, saved naked from the shipwreck.

10. Institutes of Roman Law Gaius 1 extended 1 citation · 5 passages

    consensv obligationes. (2) 5 passages anchored here

    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;

11. Ancient Law Henry Sumner Maine 1 authority 1 citation · 3 passages

    ch. 9 3 passages anchored here

    The Odyssey is quoted and referenced twice as authoritative evidence.

    If I were attempting, for the more special pur poses of the jurist, to express compendiously the characteristics of the situation in which mankind disclose themselves at the dawn of their history, I should be satisfied to quote a few verses from the Odyssey of Homer:

12. Lectures on the Early History of Institutions Henry Sumner Maine 1 neutral 1 citation

    ch. 8

    The Odyssey is explicitly invoked via the figure of Laertes as a comparative example.

    The older members of the Family or Joint Family seem in advanced age to have become pensioners on it, and, like Laertes in the Odyssee, to have vacated their privileges of ownership or of authority.

13. Phaedo Plato 1 authority 1 citation · 3 passages

    phaedo 3 passages anchored here

    Socrates explicitly invokes 'Homer' and the episode 'in the Odyssey' as textual support for his philosophical claim about the soul's nature.

    Do you suppose that, when he wrote those words, he thought of the soul as a harmony which would be led by the conditions of the body, and not rather as something fitted to lead and rule them, and itself a far more divine thing than a harmony?

14. Symposium Xenophon 1 authority 1 citation · 6 passages

    chapter 3 6 passages anchored here

    The Odyssey is invoked as a prestigious work of education and interpretation.

    My father was anxious to see me develop into a good man, said Niceratus, and as a means to this end he compelled me to memorize all of Homer;