Nikolaos Loukanes's 1526 Iliad and the Unprosodic New Trojans
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chapter 11 The Longs and Shorts of an Emergent Nation: Nikolaos Loukanes’s 1526 Iliad and the Unprosodic New Trojans Calliope Dourou According to Milman Parry’s seminal definition, the formula in the Homeric poems is “a group of words which is regularly employed under the same met- rical conditions to express a given essential idea”.1 When analysing, in partic- ular, the intricate set of rules underlying the noun-epithet formulae for the Achaeans,2 the eminent philologist spares no effort in elaborately explaining how phrases such as ἐυκνήμιδας Ἀχαιούς or κάρη κομόωντας Ἀχαιούς are regular- ly employed in the Homeric corpus because they fit the metrical needs of the dactylic hexameter. Perusing, however, Nikolaos Loukanes’s 1526 intriguing ad- aptation of the Iliad and paying close attention to the fixed epithets allotted by him to the Achaeans and the Trojans, we are faced with a distinctly dissimilar system of nomenclature, conditioned primarily not by any prosody-related ex- igencies, but rather by a proto-national sense of pride in the accomplishments of the gallant forefathers and by a concurrent, profound antipathy towards the people that came to be viewed as the New Trojans, the Turks.3 1 Loukanes and His Intellectual and Historical Context Born at the dawn of the eventful sixteenth century, the Cinquecento of the startling transatlantic discoveries, the ceaseless Italian Wars, the vociferous emergence of the Protestant Reformation, and the unrelenting Ottoman ad- vance into European territory, Nikolaos Loukanes, like so many of his erudite compatriots residing in flourishing cities in the West, appears to have ardently 1 Parry (1971: 272). 2 Parry (1971: 101 n. 1). 3 In BAV, Vat. Barb. gr. 239 we find a marginal note, most probably written by the author him- self, whereby his name is recorded as Nikolaos Loukanos. In this article we will refer to him as Nikolaos Loukanes since this is the name used by all modern scholars thus far. For the scant information available on the author’s life, see Katrames (1880: 248–52); Manoussakas (1963: 161–72); Sathas (1863: 135); Legrand (1869–1873: V, ζ–η); Zaviras (1972: 476–7). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004402461_013 Nikolaos Loukanes’s 1526 Iliad and the Unprosodic New Trojans 261 devoted himself to humanist intellectual endeavours aimed at instigating a re- vival of classical literature without at the same time being unresponsive to a longing to keep alive, in the hearts of his fellow Greeks, the empowering leg- acy of their illustrious ancestors. Gravely concerned about the alarming and seemingly unrestrainable expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the West dur- ing the first quarter of the sixteenth century, scholars such as Janus Lascaris and Marcus Musurus wholeheartedly dedicated their lives to the cause of the liberation of the Greek lands as their numerous fervent appeals for a crusade against the Ottomans amply testify.4 Loukanes’s stridently patriotic version of the Iliad, the first printed rendi- tion of Homer’s magnum opus in a modern language,5 emerges against the backdrop of the sanguine expectations to which Giulio de’ Medici’s ascen- dancy to the papal throne as Clement VII (r. 1523–1534) had given rise among Greek intellectual circles. That was a period when hopes for a crusade against the Ottomans were still simmering if not running high, and Greek intellectu- als, for their part, especially those who were privileged enough to enjoy the personal acquaintance and friendship of the pope, had not yet grown entirely disillusioned with the idea of a united expedition against the inveterate en- emies of Christianity, the Turks. It was also an era of looming uncertainty and persistent political unrest. 2 The Context of Loukanes’s Adaptation of the Iliad To be sure, many centuries had elapsed since the Iliad’s initial oral composi- tion. Moreover, in the vibrant period of the first quarter of the sixteenth centu- ry, which witnessed the burgeoning of publishing houses devoted exclusively to the promotion of Greek books to a Greek audience,6 there was no longer a need for obsolete mnemonic devices, instrumental only in the oral transmis- sion of epic poetry by bards in erstwhile eras. By 1526, four editions of the Iliad in the original Greek had already been issued.7 What was of dire importance, 4 For a comprehensive overview of the numerous Crusade appeals made by Greek scholars, see Manoussakas (1965). 5 Fischetti (1976: 20). 6 Layton (1994: xxxi). 7 The first edition was produced by Demetrius Chalcondyles in Florence (1488), the second in Venice by Aldus Manutius (1504), while the third and the fourth were also issued by the Aldine press (1517 and 1524)..