Text History
- The Athenian tyrant Peisistratos, who ruled between 546 and 527 BC, is believed to have established a Commission of Editors of Homer to edit the text of the poems and remove any errors and interpolations, thus establishing a canonical text.
- The earliest papyrus fragments date back to the 3rd century BC.
- The oldest complete manuscript is the Laurentianus from the 10th or 11th century.
- The editio princeps of both the Iliad and the Odyssey is by Demetrius Chalcondyles in Florence, most likely from 1488.
Read more about this topic: Odyssey
Famous quotes containing the words text and/or history:
“The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out.... Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)