The Descent of the Greek Epic

Abstract

A fundamental assumption throughout this article is that the text of Homer is no different from that of other classical authors, since it has been preserved by the same kind of manuscript tradition. The difference is that while all our texts go back to the editions of the Hellenistic scholars, the gap between these and the author is relatively short for fourth and fifth century writers, but very much longer for Homer, if we assign to him a very approximate date of the late eighth, or even early seventh, century.