Priam's Catabasis: Traces of the Epic Journey to Hades in Iliad 24

This paper aims to prove that Priam's journey to Achilles' quarters in Iliad 24 is depicted at several points as a journey to Hades. The catabatic coloring of the episode has been sometimes acknowledged, but never systematically studied. The assumption that Homer's audience recognized some clear allusions to the tales of heroic descents to Hades offers a number of possibilities for exploration. Not only are several passages shown to have deeper poetic meaning in this light, but Homer's use of traditional themes and his aesthetic and ideological competition with other epic traditions are also illuminated by this case study.