According to ancient biographies, the death of the poet Homer came at the hands of young boys who had been fishing. They posed a riddle he could not solve, and, true to the warning of the Delphic Oracle, he slipped in the mud and died soon afterward. The irony of Homers death is that throughout his epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, young boys are portrayed as mainly weak and foolish.

Daniel Levine, a professor of classics in the Fulbright College department of foreign languages, examines the influences on the several stories of Homers death in his recent article, "Poetic Justice: Homer's Death in the Ancient Biographical Tradition," appearing in The Classical Journal published by the University of Colorado in Boulder.

In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, there was immense interest in biographical details concerning the poet Homer. No fewer than ten "Lives" of the poet still exist from late antiquity. In his study, Levine examines
several possible influences on the biographical story of Homer's death, particularly noting that those asking the riddle are mere untutored youths. Such background material is to be found both within the epics themselves and other ancient traditions independent of the poems.

"I suggest that that Homer's ancient biographies resent his death as a sort of poetic justice young men deceive the old poet whose verses had emphasized their faults. He could not solve the fisher boys' riddle, and thus loses his final contest. He meets his end on the beach where fishermen empty their nets and their catch breathes its last. Like that of his Odysseus, Homer's death comes from the sea," said Levine.

The riddle was this: Homer asks the fisher boys what they caught, and they say, "What we caught we left behind; what we did not catch we brought with us." What did they mean? If you think you know the answer, contact Dr. Levine at 575-2951 or by e-mail, dlevine (at) uark.edu.