Editing Homer (section)

=== Ancient ===
[[File:Townley Homer.jpg|thumb|Part of an eleventh-century manuscript, "the Townley Homer". The writings on the top and right side are [[scholia]].]]

The study of Homer is one of the oldest topics in scholarship, dating back to antiquity.<ref name="Dickey2012">{{harvc|last=Dickey|first=Eleanor|chapter=Scholarship, Ancient|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1307}}</ref><ref name="West2011"/><ref name="Lamberton2010">{{cite book |last=Lamberton |first=Robert |author-link=Robert D. Lamberton |date=2010 |chapter=Homer |title=The Classical Tradition |editor1-last=Grafton |editor1-first=Anthony |editor1-link=Anthony Grafton |editor2-last=Most |editor2-first=Glenn W. |editor2-link=Glenn W. Most |editor3-last=Settis |editor3-first=Salvatore |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England |publisher=[[Harvard University Press|Belknap Press]] |isbn=978-0-674-03572-0 |pages=449–452}}</ref> Nonetheless, the aims of Homeric studies have changed over the course of the millennia.<ref name="Dickey2012"/> The earliest preserved comments on Homer concern his treatment of the gods, which hostile critics such as the poet [[Xenophanes]] of Colophon denounced as immoral.<ref name="Lamberton2010"/> The allegorist [[Theagenes of Rhegium]] is said to have defended Homer by arguing that the Homeric poems are [[Allegory|allegories]].<ref name="Lamberton2010"/> The ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' were widely used as school texts in ancient Greek and Hellenistic cultures.<ref name="Dickey2012"/><ref name="Lamberton2010"/><ref name="Hunter2018">{{cite book |last=Hunter |first=Richard L. |author-link=Richard L. Hunter |date=2018 |title=The Measure of Homer: The Ancient Reception of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OxNSDwAAQBAJ |location=Cambridge, England |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-108-42831-6 |pages=4–7}}</ref> They were the first literary works taught to all students.<ref name="Hunter2018"/> The ''Iliad'', particularly its first few books, was far more intently studied than the ''Odyssey'' during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.<ref name="Hunter2018"/>

As a result of the poems' prominence in [[classical Greek]] education, extensive commentaries on them developed to explain parts that were culturally or linguistically difficult.<ref name="Dickey2012"/><ref name="Lamberton2010"/> During the [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic]] and Roman periods, many interpreters, especially the [[Stoicism|Stoics]], who believed that Homeric poems conveyed Stoic doctrines, regarded them as allegories, containing hidden wisdom.<ref name="Lamberton2010"/> Perhaps partially because of the Homeric poems' extensive use in education, many authors believed that Homer's original purpose had been to educate.<ref name="Lamberton2010"/> Homer's wisdom became so widely praised that he began to acquire the image of almost a prototypical philosopher.<ref name="Lamberton2010"/> [[Byzantine Greeks|Byzantine]] scholars such as [[Eustathius of Thessalonica]] and [[John Tzetzes]] produced commentaries, extensions and [[scholia]] to Homer, especially in the twelfth century.<ref>{{harvc|last=Kaldellis|first=Anthony|chapter=Scholarship, Byzantine|in=Finkelberg|year=2012}} {{doi|10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1308}}</ref><ref name="Lamberton2010"/> Eustathius's commentary on the ''Iliad'' alone is massive, sprawling over nearly 4,000 oversized pages in a 21st-century printed version and his commentary on the ''Odyssey'' an additional nearly 2,000.<ref name="Lamberton2010"/>