The Returning Hero: nostoi and Traditions of Mediterranean Settlement

by Simon Hornblower (editor), Giulia Biffis (Editor)

A recurring and significant theme in ancient Greek literature is that of returns and returning, chiefly - but by no means only - of mythical Greek heroes from Troy. One main, and certainly the most 'marked', ancient Greek word for 'return' is nostos (plural nostoi), from which is derived the English 'nostalgia'. Nostos-related traditions were important ingredients of colonial foundation myths and the theme runs through both ancient Greek
prose and poetry from Homer's Odyssey to Lykophron's Alexandra, also leaving traces in the historical record through the archaeological and epigraphical commemoration of nostoi, which played a central part in defining Greek ethnicity and crystallizing personal and communal identities.

This volume offers a truly interdisciplinary exploration of the concept of nostos in ancient Greek culture, which draws on its contributors' expertise in ancient Greek (and Roman) history, literature, archaeology, and religion. The chapters examine both literary and material evidence in order to achieve a better understanding of the nature of Greek settlement in the Mediterranean zone, and of sometimes equivocal Greek and Roman perceptions of home, displacement, and returning. The
special problems and vocabulary of exile are explored in the long Introduction, which offers an incisive yet accessible overview of the volume's key themes and sets its range of contributions clearly in context: while two chapters are concerned in different ways with emotions and personal identity, making use of
the theoretical tool of place-attachment, another demonstrates that failed nostoi can be more interesting than successful examples. Evidential absence can be as important and illuminating as presence, and mythical women, underrepresented in this regard, feature extensively in several chapters, which open up a range of new perspectives on nostos.

384 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 13, 2018

About the author

Simon Hornblower is Professor of Classics and Grote Professor of Ancient History at University College London.

Born in 1949, he was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a DPhil in 1978.

In 1971 he was elected to a Prize Fellowship of All Souls College, which he held until 1977. From 1978 until 1997, he was University Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Oriel College, Oxford, including one year, 1994/95, in which he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He moved to University College London in September 1997, where he was Senior Lecturer before being appointed Professor of Classics, then Professor of Ancient History in 2006.

He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2004.

His current focus is classical Greek historiography (especially Herodotus and Thucydides) and the relation between historical texts as literature and as history. He has published two volumes of a historical and literary commentary on Thucydides (Oxford University Press, 1991 and 1996) and the third and final volume will be published in late 2008. His latest book is Thucydides and Pindar: Historical Narrative and the World of Epinikian Poetry (2004). He is also co-editor, with Professor Cathy Morgan of King's College London, Pindar's Poetry, Patrons, and Festivals: From Archaic Greece to the Roman Empire (Oxford University Press, 2007).

Since 1979 he has been involved with the ongoing project Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and in 2000 co-edited a book called Greek Personal Names: their Value as Evidence (Oxford University Press for the British Academy).

He co-edited the new (3rd edn, 1996) Oxford Classical Dictionary.