Homer’s ABCs

Or: Why don’t people in the Iliad and Odyssey write anything down? Sing, goddess, of how Homer is all the rage right now. My timelines have become streams of Nolan-inspired analyses, hot takes and fun facts. While there are many wrathful (and often untenable) criticisms and some complaints of Homeric fatigue to wade through, I nonetheless love to see the cultural moment. The simple fact that boatloads of people are newly disembarking onto the pages of the Iliad or setting sail into the Odyssey is very heartening for me. That world is amply populated with protagonists and antagonists who continue to entertain and inspire audiences – Hector, Priam, Cassandra, Helen, Odysseus, Penelope, Telemachus and of course swift-footed Achilles. Yet, as a historical linguist and alphabetic investigator, I am just as interested, if not more so, by a large crew of characters who have also made an unquantifiable contribution to Greek and global culture, yet are nowhere to be found in the two Homeric…