Wednesday 1 June 2016

Sandya Sistac - ‘Her do thou smite’ (Il. 5.132): a preliminary study of the relationships between Athena and Aphrodite in Homeric epic

And now for the next abstract - Sandya Sistac, PhD student at Université Toulouse-2-Jean Jaures.

‘Her do thou smite’ (Il. 5.132): a preliminary study of the relationships between Athena and Aphrodite in Homeric epic”

Following in the steps of Jean-Pierre Vernant, Marcel Detienne and, more recently, the studies of Gabriella Pironti on Aphrodite, a major part of my PhD (started some months ago) will focus on identifying and analysing Athena’s interactions with other Homeric divine beings. This “divine network” will hopefully bring forward clues regarding the place held by Athena’s divine puissance in the poems, which in turn may call forth an assessment of the Homeric network’s potential specificities compared to Hesiod’s for instance. From these observations, I intend to achieve an accurate characterization of Athena’s puissance as the Greeks understood it at the time of composition of the poems and as they still received it when the Iliad and the Odyssey were eventually written down. Obviously, we must never forget that this study’s frame of reference is a carefully crafted, literary one, hence the particular attention that must be given to the codes of epic literature and to the intrinsic logic of the poems at all times.

My paper will deal with the relationship between Athena and Aphrodite on which, as observed by Gabriella Pironti in her book (Entre ciel et guerre. Figures d’Aphrodite en Grèce ancienne, Kernos Supplément, 18, Liège, 2007), Diomedes’ aristeia in the fifth Book of the Iliad made a lasting impression. What can we learn of Athena from her part in these particular feats? As the openly conflictual relationship that she entertains with Aphrodite goes patently beyond a sibling quarrel, what does it tell us about the puissances in attendance? And how do they fit into the Homeric narrative and cosmic network?

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