Homerverse auf einem Tonziegel aus der Umgebung von Olympia

Abstract

A clay brick found in the Roman necropolis of Frangonissi east of Olympia in 2018 contains the first 13 verses from Book 14 of the Odyssey, with the meeting of Odysseus and the faithful swineherd Eumaios. The brick dates from between the mid 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd cent. A.D. The article describes the find context and the results of the follow-up excavation in 2019/2020. In the main section the inscription is critically edited, the contribution of its lexical and orthographic variants to the tradition of the Homer text is appraised, and the Homeric epigraphic record known to date is examined. Finally the authors speculate about who commissioned it (a teacher or pupil, a rhapsode or Homeristes?) and what that person’s intentions were in selecting these verses.