the most unrealistic part of the iliad & odyssey is actually every single time they talk about a hecatomb of cattle like its nothing. 100 cows? in this collapsing late bronze age economy? Where Are You Getting These. Who’s Your Cow Dealer. Can I Have Their Address
#it's very much a fantasy of abundance arising out of an iron-age world in which cattle are prized and scarcer than they used to be #and where there's a memory of a more centralized world several centuries earlier when one man COULD command vast amounts of cattle #but at the time the iliad and odyssey were being ''''composed'''' or whatever it was a pretty goat/sheep-based world #which is to say: it has less to do with the bronze-age-collapse setting of the poems than their post-collapse performance context #something to be said for how the odyssey sets up the wicked goatherd melanthius vs the good cowherd philoetius and good swineherd eumaeus #there's a clear narrative preference for larger animals and the people who deal with them #which reflects what the audiences of the odyssey idealized vs what was actually their reality #the iron-age homeric audiences are NOT PLEASED about being a more goat/sheep based society! they long for the days of cattle! via @finelythreadedsky
