Die Another Day: Sarpedon, Aristodemos, and Homeric Intertextuality in Herodotus

Barker, Elton (2022). Die Another Day: Sarpedon, Aristodemos, and Homeric Intertextuality in Herodotus. Histos, Supplement(14) pp. 161–210.

URL: https://histos.org/documents/SV14Ch6Barker.pdf

Abstract

The subject of this chapter is a single contested word in Herodotus' Histories. In it I explore its semantic range and use it to think about broader questions of Herodotus’ interplay with Homer. Where many of the Homeric touches in Herodotus can be put down to, and more productively used, as examples of traditional referentiality or, at least, non-specific resonances with the Iliad, the presence of the hapax λιποψυχέω in our manuscripts suggests a prosaic reworking of the poetic formula ‘his spirit left him’, and a specific intertext with the moment when this utterance is applied to Sarpedon’s spirit leaving him as he loses consciousness.

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