Swiss show highlights Homer's impact on culture

Writers in ancient Greece as well as Dante, Shakespeare and James Joyce are among countless authors who drew inspiration from the poetry, as did classical and modern composers. And even a 1954 American musical, "The Golden Apple," related to the "Iliad" and "Odyssey."

In a brief amusing passage, the catalog portrays a fictitious American family to demonstrate Homer's influence on commerce in daily life. The father has problems with his computer because of a Trojan virus. The mother wonders whether she should buy Helen of Troy personal hygiene products at the supermarket. And the family looks ahead to the summer holiday in which they will use their Honda SUV named Odyssey.

A marble head of Homer, a Roman copy of the Greek original of around 460 B.C., makes the cover of the exhibition catalog. It shows a bearded old man whose eyes are closed. There is a tradition that Homer was blind. In fact, little is known about the poet said to have lived in the eighth century B.C. Excavations going on since the 19th century have not definitely located ruins of the Trojan citadel, which according to Homer was destroyed by the victorious Greeks.

The Basel show runs through Aug. 17.

However, Latacz says scholars agree that Troy was situated on the southern entry of the Dardanelles in what is now Turkey. For Latacz, there is definite evidence that Homer was born in Smyrna, now the important Turkish port of Izmir, and worked on the Greek island of Chios, just off the western coast of Turkey.

Latacz joins other experts in flatly rejecting a thesis just established by an Austrian author, Raoul Schrott, in a book termed "sensational" on its cover. Schrott claims he has found proof that Troy was actually a fortress in the ancient kingdom of Assyria, now in Turkish Anatolia. For Schrott, Homer was a scribe at the court whose ambition to write stems from the loss of his manhood as all men working for the Assyrian king had to be castrated.

For Latacz, the book presents "sheer fantasy." But he is unlikely to regret its publication last month because it increased media attention for the Basel show running through Aug. 17.