Who cares about Homer, anyway?

Dear Classical Wisdom Reader,

I hear it all the time…

“Why should we care about Homer, anyway?”

“What good is Marcus Aurelius in the age of spaceships and TikTok?”

“Who bothers with Aristotle, Sophocles and the rest of the dusty scribes?”

I like to imagine Thomas Jefferson, an avid classicist, heard similar complaints. So too John Adams, who was an admirer of the ancient historian, Sallust. Then there’s George Washington, who’s heroes included Cicero and, of course, the Roman statesman, Cincinnatus. What might he have thought?

I make no mention of the myriad novelists, painters, poets and philosophers down through the ages – from Raphael to Joyce, Milton to Nietzsche to Jung et al. – who drew influence and inspiration from our ancient forebears.

But to answer the question more fully, to understand why the classics are not only important, but essential, we take a leaf out of Catherine Lecomte Lapp’s introduction to “a book 100-years in the making”: The Essential Classics.

Read on for more…

The Essential Classics ~ Holiday Offer

“When young any composition pleases which unites a little sense, some imagination, and some rhythm, in doses however small. But as we advance in life these things fall off one by one, and I suspect that we are left at last with only Homer and Virgil, and perhaps with Homer alone.”

- Thomas Jefferson, Thoughts on English Prosody (1786)

The Essential Classics is a collection of the most illuminating Greek and Latin texts written over a thousand-year period, an anthology that our well educated Virginian and the third US President would have admired. The Essential Classics could not begin with any other than Homer, the earliest and most respected poet of the Western world. For centuries, the Greeks referred to his Iliad and Odyssey as the source of knowledge and wisdom. Generations of poets would develop their art with Homer. Children would learn to read with his works where they would discover their gods and heroes for the first time. Scholars, philosophers, scientists, grammarians and lexicologists would analyze every word in his poems, generating entire libraries of commentaries. Homer’s writings were to ancient peoples as the Bible is to us––the “book” par excellence.

Homer’s Iliad describes the Trojan War in its final year, when the Greeks and the Trojans had been fighting for nearly a decade and the Greek army––deprived of its greatest warrior, Achilles ––had fallen on difficult times.

His Odyssey tells of the hero Odysseus/Ulysses wandering throughout the Mediterranean after the war in an attempt to return to the island of Ithaca, where his wife Penelope devotedly waits for him. It will take him ten years to sail from Troy on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey to Ithaca in the Ionian Sea, a decade full of encounters with fantastic peoples, monsters, magicians and gods.

Why should the Iliad and the Odyssey be of any interest to us today, especially in our fast-paced world of the internet, cell phones and commercial spacecraft? After all, the poems deal with a semi-legendary war that occurred over 3,000 years ago––far more horrific conflicts and genocides have taken place since. The poems inform us of the adventures of a man roaming the Mediterranean, which has long since been explored and colonized by tourists. How can we fantasize today about a one-eyed cyclops devouring human flesh, when in fact, the Sicilian monster is Mount Etna and its “eye” the caldera of the volcano that modern seismologists and geophysicists monitor daily?

Homer’s epics continue to fascinate because they reveal a shared human condition that has changed little since the days of our ancient counterparts. The Iliad is not simply the story of a distant war and its battles. It is about courageous men struggling for the most beautiful woman of the time, Helen; the wrath of a warrior, not against his enemies but against his own chief for depriving him of the female captive who was due to him; the friendship and love of two young god-like Greeks, Achilles and Patroclus; the fate of a hero, the son of the goddess Thetis, who must choose between a glorious death in the full bloom of his youth and a long but obscure life. (How comforting to us that the gods’ progeny must face death and mediocrity just as we mere mortals do.)

The Odyssey is more than an adventure story. It embodies the faithful wife, Penelope, who languishes for twenty years in anticipation of her husband's return and does not waver once. And yet, in no way should she be perceived as a weak and passive woman. She is just as cunning and deceptive as her husband, plays games just as he does, and carries out whatever is necessary to get what she wants. Besides, it takes some crafty perseverance to weave the same shroud for ten years without ever finishing it.

Ulysses is not as faithful a spouse as Penelope: Who could resist the love of a Nymph like Calypso? Yet when the Sirens try to trap him with their irresistible songs, it is neither beauty nor pleasure that they promise him––it is knowledge. Ulysses could resist the former two; after all, he had just left Calypso who had promised him immortality. But the temptation of knowing the answers to questions only a mortal can ask was too strong for him: so insatiable was his need that he demanded his companions to tie him firmly to the mast of the ship.

The Cyclopes may not enter into our daily routine anymore, but the belief system they represent still survives: a proud and conscious rejection of the social and religious rules that normally enable humans to cope with one another. In short, the Cyclopes embody our ancestral fear of uncontrolled bestiality.

Another intriguing aspect of the Iliad and the Odyssey is that both unfold in a world where men and gods interact incessantly and where the borders between human and the divine, real and fantastic, are permeable. Homer’s gods intervene directly in the Trojan War as well as in Ulysses’ adventures. They behave and feel like humans; they react angrily and seek revenge; they favor certain warriors over others; they can be unfair and biased; and they manipulate the mortals to pursue their ambitions. The Homeric epic takes place in a time long vanished when men were heroes and a path still meandered between mortality and immortality.

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From Homer through Horace… Plato to Petronius… Thucydides to Tacitus, Cicero, Caesar and many, many more… The Essential Classics brings together the most critical texts from the ancient world in one 644-page anthology, making it the ideal companion for your journey into the foundational knowledge of our culture.

Make 2025 the year you discover the true value of ancient wisdom for modern minds. Your stunning hardback anthology is available at a heavily-discounted holiday special here… but only for a limited time:

Get Your Copy Here

All the best,

Anya Leonard
Founder and Director, Classical Wisdom

P.S. Got a life long learner on your Christmas list? Someone for whom a new scarf or a pair of socks just won’t cut it?

Why not compliment their intelligence and give the gift of knowledge?

To ensure delivery in time for the holidays, make sure to order your copy of the Essential Classics TODAY.

Ensure On Time Delivery ~ Order Here

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