Travelling Heroes: In the Epic Age of Homer [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Robin Lane Fox (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2009

The eighth century B.C. was the formative age of the great epics of Homer, a remote and, in some ways, mysterious era. In this groundbreaking book, Robin Lane Fox takes us into that time before history to explore questions ranging from the origins of the Greek gods to the spread of classical culture in the Mediterranean world. It is a remarkable tour de force of scholarship and creative reasoning, written with flair and the authority gained from a lifetime of study and personal experience of key sites.

Presented as a kind of historical detective story, Travelling Heroes draws upon archaeology, ancient texts, and new discoveries to develop a fresh and provocative thesis: that migrants from in the Greek island of Euboea settled in specific places both in the Near East and in Italy and that what they found there helped shape their most distinctive myths. In fascinating detail, Lane Fox describes the journeys of the travellers and the contacts they made with Phoenicians, Assyrians, and the people of north Cyprus and Syria, and he shows the way they drew themes—and even references to particular topographic features—into what would become the classic stories of gods and legend. He also offers new insights into Homer himself.

Robin Lane Fox is probably the most widely read historian of the ancient Greek world, and Travelling Heroes displays the same lively originality that marked his writing about the Bible in The Unauthorized Version and about the triumph of Christianity in Pagans and Christians. Learned but never dry, controversial but soundly based, it brings a distant and nearly forgotten time brilliantly to life again.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Oxford classicist Fox explores the 700s BCE, the century to which he imputes the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Explaining that this was an era of cultural contact between Greeks—specifically, those from the island Euboea—and residents of the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean Sea, he delves deeply into the nature of that exchange. Aiming to evoke the Euboeans’ mind-set, he springs from the archaeological traces of their settlements to the gods and heroes of the Near East they adapted into their own myths. While there is considerable textual explication of Homer and Hesiod involved in Fox’s procedure, he pulls the mythical characters from the pages and places them in the physical landscapes with which the Euboeans not only associated them but believed they actively inhabited. So doing lends the appealing impetus of travel writing to Fox’s account that aids readers in absorbing the world of pagan belief. Detailed but recurrently on point, Fox will connect with readers drawn to the Homeric age. --Gilbert Taylor

Review

Praise for Robin Lane Fox’s Travelling Heroes

“Fox has produced a work of prodigious scholarship. . . . A major contribution to Classical scholarship. . . . Strongly recommended.”
—Clay Williams, Library Journal

“[Robin Lane Fox’s] intellectual discipline is impressive.”
—Kirkus Reviews

The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian

“Fox is a fluent, perceptive color commentator on the pageant of ancient history, while giving readers some idea of where the parade was headed.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Lane Fox's survey deserves to be widely read. Indeed, I cannot think of a better introduction to the subject for those with no prior knowledge. . . . Lane Fox's strong and clear narrative will stimulate those reacquainting themselves with this fascinating era as much as it enthralls newcomers.”
—The Washington Post

“Fox, the author of numerous works on classical civilization, is a masterful writer whose elegant but highly readable prose offers an evolving portrait of Greek and Roman culture over a period of roughly 900 years. . . . [Fox] discusses in often fascinating detail topics that are normally given short shrift in general histories. . . . This is an excellent work of scholarship and literature.”
—Booklist

The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible

“Biblical historiography, with an edge. . . . [S]ound and clearly argued. A wealth of information.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Magnificent...delivered with authority and verve. Learned but never pedantic, [Lane Fox] is an unfailingly incisive, thought-provoking, humane, courteous, and often entertaining guide.”
—The Economist

“A remarkable achievement . . . [Lane Fox] manages, like a skilled juggler, to keep a number of intellectual balls in the air...with wit and grace. . . . The book could serve as a useful review for knowledgeable readers or as a crash course for the biblically impaired.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“[A] bracing precis of cutting-edge biblical criticism . . . The Unauthorized Version reacquaints us with one of the chief achievements of post-Enlightenment civilization.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer

“Fox does not approach his subject as an antagonist, but with the care and knowledge to make the text more meaningful. This book deserves a place in all libraries.”
—Library Journal

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (April 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679444319
• ISBN-13: 978-0679444312
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.6 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #920,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Challenging, Illuminating Book, April 16, 2009

By 

Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Travelling Heroes: In the Epic Age of Homer (Hardcover)

Robin Lane Fox's "Travelling Heroes: In the Epic Age of Homer" is a challenging, illuminating work. After a short introduction, the author presents a highly detailed examination of the archaeological evidence for the spread of Greeks - especially Greeks from the island of Euboea - through the Mediterranean in the 8th century BC, an examination so detailed that seemingly every piece and fragment of Euboean ceramics ever found outside of Greece is discussed.

After the archaeological exposition, Fox launches into his main subject: the creation and evolution of Greek myth and poetry as it was influenced by what these 8th century Euboean travelers saw and experienced. Fox contends that for the most part Greek myths were indigenous, not fundamentally borrowings from other peoples, but that the indigenous mythic elements were modified and shaped by the new worlds into which the Greeks were moving: not lands empty of other people, but lands where other people were already living and telling their own mythic tales. This long central portion of "Travelling Heroes" demands careful attention by the reader, as the evidence and arguments presented are complex and subtle. Of necessity, the foundations for the author's conclusions are less solid than the archaeological evidence presented earlier in the book; frequently, the evidence is linguistic or threaded through literary sources dating centuries later.

The final section of the book examines the direct effects of the 8th century Euboean experience upon the poems of Homer and Hesiod (Fox concludes that Homer most likely worked on Chios in the middle of the 8th century, while Hesiod came a few decades later).

Undoubtedly, Robin Lane Fox's conclusions will not find universal acceptance, but at a minimum this book provides a fascinating view of the foundations of much of Western culture.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Glad this wasn't exiled to academic purgatory, May 24, 2009

By 

S. Bahr - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Travelling Heroes: In the Epic Age of Homer (Hardcover)

The Post reviewer criticizes this book for being too academic for the general public, but I found it to be fascinating. There are those of us who are students of history even though we aren't academics--we like to be challenged intellectually, too--we don't need to read another generalized history of the Greek world. This is a very well-written, exhaustively researched book and I highly recommend it.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic in Every Sense of the Word, July 11, 2009

By 

S. Pactor "reader" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Travelling Heroes: In the Epic Age of Homer (Hardcover)

This Robin Lane Foxes take on the "Greece v. the Near East" debate, i.e. to what extent classical Greek culture was inspired by the older, more well established of the near east, specifically the neo-hittite indo european speakers. Fox approaches the question by taking heavily from recent archaeological studies in the Mediterranean world and methodically discussing the "world" of 8th century Greek/Euboean adventurers. The writing style and scholarship are first rate, I literally gobbled this book up. Foxes conclusion is basically that the Greek/Euboeans were aware of Near Eastern religious practices largely through individual experiences both trading and settling in places like Crete. Fox outlines different points of contact and also does an excellent job charting western expansion in the 8th century.

Although I'm not a specialist in the field, I found his placement of Homer in the 8th century as convincing. I think Fox, while obviously conversant with some of the advances in "indo european" studies, is largely dismissive of that discipline, but of course it's impossible to ignore the relationship between Hittite culture and Greek myth.