Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/78110

The previous paper concluded that the Aethiopis influenced the poet who composed the Iliad. This paper aims to reexamine the relationship between the Aethiopis and the Iliad, and the reexamination will center on several issues that the previous paper did not address. 1. This paper will make a comparative analysis mainly of Od. 24.36–92 (the second Nekyia) and the funeral of Achilleus depicted in the Aethiopis. It will then consider whether the poet of the Odyssey knew the Aethiopis. Next, this paper will look at the strange burial method mentioned in Od. 24.76–9 (the urn containing the ashes of Achilleus and Patroklos is buried apart from the ashes of Antilochos). It will then argue that the friendship between Antilochos and Achilleus (the Aethiopis ) is more traditional than the friendship between Patroklos and Achilleus (the Iliad ), and, as a result, that the former most likely precedes the latter. In addition, the relationship between the White Island (the island of Leuke) and the Milesian colonization of the Black Sea, and the hero cult of Achilleus will be examined. 2. A counterargument to the accepted view—the episode in Pind. Pyth. 6.28–42 (Antilochos was killed by Memnon when he attempted to save Nestor, his father) derives from the Aethiopis—will be reexamined in this paper through an analysis of the texts of Pind. Pyth. 6.28–42 and Il. 8.80–117. In addition, this paper will examine the arguments that deny the “vengeance theory” (the foundation of neoanalysis), which asserts that Achilleus killed Memnon out of a strong desire for revenge after his best friend Antilochos was killed. 3. This paper will touch upon the widely accepted view that Aeth. fr.1 Bernabé, the variant reading of the last line (24.804) of the Iliad, is not the opening passage of the Aethiopis. It will then point out that one need not necessarily consider the Aethiopis a later poem. Finally, this paper will present the following as its conclusion. The Aethiopis was a poem whose relatively fixed text (not verbatim) allowed the borrowing of motifs or stories. However, it was not written down. Additionally, while the poet of the Iliad composed many poems including those about, but not limited to, the myth of the Trojan War, he inherited his predecessors’ poems and added them to his repertoires; the Aethiopis was one of the works that he performed. The poet may have used the Aethiopis to compose an independent or separate narrative, the funeral games of Patroklos.