hallq

Question: to what extent did people of Jesus' era believe such national epics as the Odyssey and the Aeneid? If the common people did, it would betray a great willingness to uncritically accept legends, but are there scholars who would dispute this?

Phlox Pyros

Yes and no. Just as today, some believed them literally, some believed them allegorically, and others did not believe them.

Kosh

Evidence?

Roger Pearse

That demand doesn't contribute anything, surely?

I think of people quoting bits of the Illiad and Odyssey in daily conversation (Cicero records someone doing so, to whom while proconsul he had just refused a job). There was all that effort in Alexandria to establish the text, and obelise the inauthentic lines. Likewise the cities that claimed their foundation from Homeric times.

If we look at Eusebius' Chronicon, we see him making use of the material as if it was historical, and the Trojan war (p.96) as one of his key dates with which he tied together the king-lists of different lands. Indeed, in the absence of a tool like the Chronicon, which made comparative dating possible for the first time, it was pretty impossible for anyone in antiquity to deny it authority, I would have thought.

But on p.148, we find the following notice:

"d From this time, Greek history is believed to be true in the matter of dates: for before this, as it seemed to everyone, they have advanced different opinions."

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Chris Weimer

Tacitus and other Roman authors often talk about the Gods in a very literal way, and Augustus used the Aeneid to justify himself. Even though Vergil wrote the Aeneid, he called upon the Muses - divine figures - plus the story had already been in circulation.

Given that the Aeneid was propagandistic, we can assume that at least some people would believe that it was true.

A bit before Jesus, Plato and company believed the Homeric epics to be literally true - Socrates is often engaged in Homeric hermeneutics.

Phlox Pyros

Sorry. I don't have the time to look up references. Thanks to Roger and Chris for providing more detail than I did.

Read Julian The Apostate on Roger's website for belief in the Sun god but only allegorical belief in the written tales about the Sun god. There are plenty others.

Suggested reading:
Perseus Digital Library
Loeb Library

You'll either have to take our word for it, which is why the question was asked (I assume), or you'll have to do a bit of reading.

Ben C Smith

Plutarch introduces his Life of Theseus as follows:

As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, unapproachable bogs, Scythian ice, or a frozen sea, so, in this work of mine, in which I have compared the lives of the greatest men with one another, after passing through those periods which probable reasoning can reach to and real history find a footing in, I might very well say of those that are farther off, Beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the only inhabitants are the poets and inventors of fables; there is no credit, or certainty any farther. Yet, after publishing an account of Lycurgus the lawgiver and Numa the king, I thought I might, not without reason, ascend as high as to Romulus, being brought by my history so near to his time.

In the course of this biography he expresses the doubts of some as to the reality of the minotaur of the labyrinth, offering a couple of alternate explanations.

Ben.

Kosh

Sure it does. It requested evidence to back up a claim that was made without any substantiation. It's called a conversation, Roger.

Phlox Pyros

Many times, when someone believes something to be rather obvious if studied a little, one will present the information without references. It simply takes reading.

Kosh

It wasn't obvious, and that's why I asked for references. You're lecturing me on SOP after just 236 posts?

Back to the OP.