The Returning Hero: Nostoi and Traditions of Mediterranean Settlement 1st Edition – Ebook Instant Download/Delivery ISBN(s): 9780198811428,019881142X

Product details:

• ISBN-10: 0192539426
• ISBN-13: 9780192539427
• Author: Simon Hornblower, Giulia Biffis

A recurring and significant theme in ancient Greek literature is that of returns and returning, chiefly – but by no means only – of mythical Greek heroes from Troy. One main, and certainly the most ‘marked’, ancient Greek word for ‘return’ is nostos (plural nostoi), from which is derived the English ‘nostalgia’. Nostos-related traditions were important ingredients of colonial foundation myths and the theme runs through both ancient Greek prose and poetry from Homer’s Odyssey to Lykophron’s Alexandra, also leaving traces in the historical record through the archaeological and epigraphical commemoration of nostoi, which played a central part in defining Greek ethnicity and crystallizing personal and communal identities. This volume offers a truly interdisciplinary exploration of the concept of nostos in ancient Greek culture, which draws on its contributors’ expertise in ancient Greek (and Roman) history, literature, archaeology, and religion.

Table contents:

1. Introduction

2. The nostoi and Archaic Greek Ethnicity

3. Odysseus’ Eclectic Itinerary

4. Returning Heroes and Greek Colonists

5. Nostoi as Heroic Foundations in Southern Italy: The Traditions about Epeios and Philoktetes

6. Women and nostoi

7. Nostos, a Journey towards Identity in Athenian Tragedy

8. Emotional Returns

9. Macedonians and nostoi

10. Nostoi and Material Culture in the Area of the Classical-Hellenistic Ionian and Adriatic Seas

11. Failed nostoi and Foundations: Kalchas at Kolophon

12. Mediterranean Perspectives on Departure, Displacement, and Home

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