Heraclitus the Grammarian - not Heraclitus of Ephesus, “The Obscure” that one is used to seeing - was a 1st Century A.D commentator with only one surviving work, Homeric Problems. This is the oldest complete commentary on Homer and it is worth reading because it is important to have perspective on what the ancients thought of these stories that we rely on so heavily. The Iliad and the Odyssey were used for centuries as critical texts in education. Our only other resource for what the ancients thought of the Homeric epics is limited to fragments, quotes from later works, and various scholia scribbled on the margins of manuscripts. His main theme in his work is value that these stories bestow upon mankind in instilling virtue within us, as well as various allegorical interpretations of the battles of the gods. Heraclitus also spends some time on Hercules, and defends the heroes and epics from some of the later attacks on them in antiquity after the advent of the philosophical schools. This was a short, engaging read that has value for those of us who celebrate the Epic Cycle as a source of inspiration. In this short digest, I will review what I believed to be the most important or interesting points the author presented in the work.
Overall the early philosophers believed that heroic virtue was everywhere in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Porphyry of Tyre said, drawing from Plato’s Ion and Cratylas, that: “Homer is the great hierophant of heaven and the gods, who opened up for human souls the untrodden paths to heaven.” This is an interesting line of thinking – imitation of the characters of Homer will lead you to the Isles of the Blessed. At this, I begin to ponder, “am I trying to be a swift-running Achilles? A stout Ajax? Or a wise Odysseus?” leading me to adopt some of the Stoic brand of thinking that these stories, and myths in general, are allegories of the human psyche. One cannot be all of them at once. Initially, Heraclitus clears the air on what he thinks about Plato in the first few pages:
“Away too with Plato, the flatterer, Homer’s dishonest accuser, who banishes him from his private Republic as an honored exile, garlanded with white wool and with his head drenched with costly perfumes!”
With the philosophers sent away, he is free to take his allegorist approach to Homer.
From an allegorical perspective, Homeric Problems overlays an astrological cataclysm on Iliad XXI, with the gods representing the Heavenly Spheres or elements, on top of the human heroes fighting on the plain of Scamander. Consider the gods who are on the side of the Trojans or Achaeans, and who is fighting each other. Apollo, identified with the sun, and also sending down his arrows upon the Achaeans as a plague that would be present in a summer season, is pitted against Poseidon (water) on the side of the Greeks. Artemis (the moon) is set on Hera (air), and indeed results in a wounded Artemis as the mist and clouds tend to block the moon from time to time. Athena (wisdom) defeats both Ares (passion) and Aphrodite (lust), as well as appears to Telemachus in the Odyssey as he comes of age, when men are supposed to conquer both of these vices. Finally, Hermes (speech) and Leto, better described as Lethe (forgetfulness), who is the death of all speech and memory. An interesting proposition elaborated on across much of the work.
In a second section, Heraclitus presents probably the best allegorical treatment of most of Heracles’ Labors that I have ever seen. I will summarize them in a brief list:
· Erymanthean Boar: the incontinence of men
· Nemean Lion: headlong rush to inappropriate goals
· Cretan Bull: conquer passions
· Ceryneian Hind: banishment of cowardice
· Augean Stables: cleanse of the poisons that disfigures humanity
· Stymphalian Birds: scattering of false hopes
· Lernaean Hydra: elimination of effeminacy, ever arising if not burned
· Cerberus: bringing logic, physics, and ethics to the light of day
It is after reading this I envision Heracles as the compleat man – strong, yet wise, in order to defeat the monsters of the world. Remember he never could use simple brute force to achieve his labors. We all need to embody this hero. Be like Heracles and sharpen both body and mind. We will need both in the future.
The author spends quite some time on the subject of Telemachus and gives a wonderful window on how the Odyssey was used in setting an example of the folly of inaction:
“Come Telemachus,” says Reason, “you have more sense than a boy now: launch your best ship, crew her with twenty rowers, and go to seek your long departed father.”
The first thought Telemachus has is pious and just. He cannot sit around and play idle games on Ithaca, he must consult men of experience and wisdom to find his father: Menelaus and Nestor. He hears of the deeds of Orestes, and emboldened and imbued with determination, he sets sail and is prepared to confront the suitors back home.
In closing, I also want you to consider Odysseus, when he returned to Ithaca, Mentor appears to him as an old man and friend, as “grey hairs and age are the sacred haven of our last days, a safe anchorage for humankind, where the strength of the mind increases as the force of the body wanes.” It will be a sad day when this happens, but we must keep our minds sharp and preserve the fires to pass on to those of us who can still fight, whenever that day may be.
For the purposes of this digest, I am using “Writings from the Greco-Roman World” series from the Society of Biblical Literature, “Heraclitus: Homeric Problems” translated by Donald A. Russell and David Konstan. This volume contains the original Greek.
Thanks for writing this! I did not know about this little book or about this "new"/old Heraclitus. I will check it out now.