The historicity of the Iliad or the Homeric Question has been a topic of scholarly debate for centuries. The Iliad recounts the Trojan War between the city of Troy and a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, leading to the destruction of Troy. While researchers of the 18th century had largely rejected the story of the Trojan War as fable, the discoveries made by Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik reopened the question. The subsequent excavation of Troy VIIa and the discovery of the toponym "Wilusa" in cuneiform Hittite correspondence has made it plausible that the Trojan War cycle was at least remotely based on a historical conflict of the 12th century BC, even if the poems of Homer remembered the event only through the distortion of four centuries of oral tradition.
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👉 Historicity of the Iliad in the context of Homeric Question
The Homeric Question concerns the doubts and consequent debate over the identity of Homer, the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, and their historicity (especially concerning the Iliad). The subject has its roots in classical antiquity and the scholarship of the Hellenistic period, but has flourished among Homeric scholars of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
The main subtopics of the Homeric Question are:
Historicity of the Iliad in the context of Heinrich Schliemann
Johann Ludwig Heinrich Julius Schliemann (German: [ˈʃliːman]; 6 January 1822 – 26 December 1890) was a German businessman and an influential archaeologist. He was an advocate of the historicity of places mentioned in the works of Homer and an archaeological excavator of Hisarlık, now presumed to be the site of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns. His work lent weight to the idea that Homer's Iliad reflects historical events. Schliemann's excavation of nine layers of archaeological remains has been criticized as destructive of significant historical artefacts, including the layer that is believed to be the Homeric Troy.
Historicity of the Iliad in the context of Troy VIIa
Troy in the Late Bronze Age was a thriving coastal city consisting of a steep fortified citadel and a sprawling lower town below it. It had a considerable population and extensive foreign contacts, including with Mycenaean Greece. Geographic and linguistic evidence suggests that it corresponds to the city of Wilusa known from Hittite texts. Its archaeological sublayers Troy VIh and Troy VIIa are among the candidates for a potential historical setting for the myths of the Trojan War, since aspects of their architecture are consistent with the Iliad's description of mythic Troy and they show potential signs of violent destruction.
Historicity of the Iliad in the context of Calchas
Calchas (/ˈkælkəs/; Ancient Greek: Κάλχας, Kalkhas) is an Argive mantis, or "seer" in Greek mythology. Calchas appears in the opening scenes of the Iliad, which is believed to have been based on a war conducted by the Achaeans against the powerful city of Troy in the Late Bronze Age.
A seer in the service of the Greek forces, Calchas is portrayed as a skilled augur, Greek oinópolos ('bird-savant'): "as an augur, Calchas had no rival in the camp." He had received knowledge of the past, present, and future from the god, Apollo. He had other mantic skills as well: interpreting the entrails of the enemy during the tide of battle. His mantosune, as it is called in the Iliad, is the hereditary occupation of his family, which accounts for the most credible etymology of his name: “the dark one” in the sense of “ponderer,” based on the resemblance of pondering to melancholy, or being “blue.” Calchas has a long literary history after Homer. In the legendary time of the Iliad, seers and divination are already long-standing.