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Elton T. E. Barker and Joel P. Christensen, Homer's Thebes: Epic Rivalries and the Appropriation of Mythical Pasts
Acknowledgements
Note on Text and Translations
Introduction. Why Thebes?
1. Troy, The Next Generation: Politics
2. The Labors of Herakles: Time
3. Homer’s Oedipus Complex: Form
4. Doubling Down On Strife
5. Theban Palimpsests
6. Beyond Thebes
Conclusion: Endgame
Works Cited
Note on Text and Translations
Passages from the Homeric poems are quoted from T.W. Allen’s editio maior of the Iliad (1931) and P. Von der Mühll’s Teubner Odyssey (1962) respectively. Those from Hesiod are from M. L. West’s Theogony (1966), F. Solmsen’s Works and Days (1970), and R. Merkelbach’s and M. L. West’s Fragmenta Hesiodea (1967). Quotations from the Theban fragments come from the editions of M. Davies (1988) and A. Bernabé (1996). Unless otherwise stated, translations are our own, for which we have generally opted for usefulness over elegance. In transliterating proper names we have used a hybrid system, preferring Latinized forms for names that are widely familiar but a more precise transliteration of the Greek for those less so: thus Achilles and Oedipus (rather than Akhilleus and Oidipous), but Kyknos and The Ehoiai (rather than Cycnus and The Ehoeae). We ask the reader’s forbearance for any irregularities in this system (e.g. Herakles).