*maioni/das: o( *(/omhros. ei) d' e(a/lws, suggnwsto/n: e)pei\ kai\ koi/ranos u(/mnwn *maioni/das gri/fwn i)xqubo/lwn e)/qane. ta\n i)/sa *mou/sais fqegcame/nan kefala/n, w)= ce/ne, *maioni/dew.
Homer appears eleven times in the
Greek Anthology as Maeonides (in Doric Maeonidas, as here), and these are two of the instances. The first (7.213.7-8) is by
Archias, probably the poet for whose claim to Roman citizenship
Cicero delivered his speech
In Defence of Archias (
pro Archia). The second (7.2.1-2) is by the prolific Antipater of Sidon.
Maion/Maeon's claim to paternity is perhaps based on the tale told by
Ephorus of Cyme in his
Story of his Native Land (FGrH 70 F1), that there were three brothers in Cyme, of whom one, Apelles, entrusted his daughter Kritheis to another, Maeon, who deflowered her and, to avoid the scandal of her incestuous pregnancy, gave her in marriage to a verse teacher in
Smyrna called -- Phemius! In the surviving "Lives" of
Homer (all from Roman times) Maeon becomes the eponymous founder of the Maeonian people (who adopted
Homer according to
Aristotle, fr. 1.11.7b.13), an Amazon or a respectable citizen of Cyme. It is interesting to speculate that
Homer might have been the son of "the Maeonian", referring to the people who preceded the Lydians inland from Cyme and
Smyrna, from whom the Etruscans claimed descent and who are identified by
Eustathius with the Dardanians (on the Trojan warrior Maeon at
Iliad 4.394). Maeonides or Maeonius becomes a favorite name or adjective for
Homer and Homeric in Horace, Ovid and other Latin writers. Vergil attributes the name Maeon both to an Etruscan and to a Trojan. This may mean that the name is a poet's compliment to Roman Etruscans such as Maecenas (
mu 321).
For the story of
Homer's death on Ios, after he could not solve the fishermen's riddle, see
omicron 251 (end).
Homer did not, to the best of our knowledge, write hymns, but we have surviving 'Homeric Hymns', at least one of which was by a Homerid 'follower of
Homer' and designed to be sung as a prooemion (introduction) to his work (
Thucydides 3.104, apparently attributing it to
Homer).
[1] The word
gri=fos originally meant 'fishing-basket, creel', and was probably extended by
Aristophanes and others to mean 'riddle' and even 'penalty for not answering a riddle' (
Hesychius: see LSJ), by allusion to the story of
Homer's death. See
gamma 457,
gamma 458.
Archias clearly here puns on the two senses of the words.
[2]
Greek Anthology 7.2.1-2 (Antipater of Sidon), on the tomb of
Homer in Ios; see Gow and Page (vol. I, 14), (vol. II, 40-41), and another extract from this epigram at
phi 115. With its eponymous polis, the Cycladic island of Ios (Barrington Atlas map 61 grid A4) is located about 25km south-southwest of
Naxos (cf.
nu 27).
A.S.F. Gow and D.L. Page, eds., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, vol. I, (Cambridge 1965)
A.S.F. Gow and D.L. Page, eds., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, vol. II, (Cambridge 1965)
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