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The Necklace of Eriphyle and Pausanias’ Approach to the Homeric Epics
- Classical World
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 107, Number 1, Fall 2013
- pp. 35-47
- 10.1353/clw.2013.0105
- Article
- Additional Information
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Pausanias’ debunking of the necklace of Eriphyle at Amathus at Pausanias 9.41.2–5 provides evidence about one of the key elements of his writing style: his use of the Homeric epics. Pausanias rests virtually his entire argument about the necklace on a single line of the Odyssey, despite the existence of more developed alternatives. This confidence in the exact wording of Homer is consistent with examples from elsewhere in the Periegesis. However, it is fundamentally different from the approach other Roman-era Greek writers and other Greek historians and geographers. Pausanias may therefore have had a unique approach to the Iliad and Odyssey.