Empire: World History - Episode 334

"Bronze Age Apocalypse: Did Homer Write History? (Ep 3)"
Date: February 17, 2026
Hosts: William Dalrymple & Anita Anand
Guest: Simon Goldhill, Professor of Greek Literature and Culture, King's College Cambridge

Main Theme

This episode explores the enduring mystery of Homer: was he a historian recording the collapse of the Bronze Age, or a poet perpetrating myth and fiction? Dalrymple and Anand are joined by Simon Goldhill to unpack the historical, mythical, and literary legacy of Homer’s epics, and to investigate what—if any—truths about the Bronze Age and the fall of Troy can be gleaned from these works. The discussion moves fluidly between literary analysis, archaeological evidence, oral tradition, and the continuing influence of Homer’s world.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Homer’s Role: Historian or Poet?

• Oral tradition: Homer is the product of a long lineage of bardic storytelling, with layers of history, myth, and language. While his works draw on ancient traditions, they are far from straightforward chronicles.
• Historical accuracy:
  • Simon Goldhill: "You can believe Homer, but not for the things you want to." ([02:32])
  • Homer’s works offer a tapestry of inherited values, language, and vivid fantasy, but should not be read as literal history.
  • The famous quote that “ten men today could not lift the rock Hector lifted,” points to a self-aware mythologizing of the past.
• Legacy and values: Homer's influence stretches beyond ancient Greece; later authors, such as James Joyce, mined Homeric themes for modern exploration.

2. Authorship and The Bardic Tradition

• Was there a real ‘Homer’?
  • The idea of a singular genius is compelling but unsupported; the epics were likely the culmination of generations of bards.
  • Simon Goldhill: "We have to explain how, from what we know about oral simplicity and repetition, how do we get these amazingly sophisticated texts? ... We all want one person to have done it." ([06:29])
• Living oral traditions: As Dalrymple points out, bardic traditions are still alive in places like Rajasthan, where epics are memorized and recited for days, showing how massive oral works can be preserved and performed. ([07:53])
• Transmission and transformation: By the 5th century BCE, Homer’s texts had already become fixed, though earlier performances and versions were likely highly variable.

3. Extracting Historical Truths (or Not) from Homer

• Myth intertwined with reality: Details like cheese-making in a Cyclops’s cave may reflect real practices, but are embedded in a fantastical context.
  • Simon Goldhill: “Why isn’t that [Cyclops] part of the experience of the Bronze Age? … In what sense is it or isn’t it part of the experience ... Homer already knows that his past is not his present." ([10:27])
• Identifying older fragments: Artefacts such as bronze and iron weaponry, the boar’s tusk helmet, and types of shield are layered through the epics, reflecting different eras—but it’s hard to separate fact from poetic invention.
  • Simon Goldhill: "...the boar's head helmet could have existed... It's also extremely easy to imagine it as a fictional object. It's not too hard." ([13:41])
• Reality-check on Troy and Mycenae:
  • Archaeology shows that Troy was much smaller than depicted, and Mycenae couldn't have launched an expedition on the scale of the Trojan War.
  • Goldhill: "Whatever it was, it wasn't a huge city... The walls weren't the size described by Homer." ([14:30])

4. Fragmentation, Collapse, and the Survival of Oral Tradition

• Dark Age and survival: Despite the apparent collapse of literacy and civilization after the Bronze Age, the oral tradition survived, albeit fragmented and transformed.
  • Goldhill: "Even through the collapses and horrors of a society in disarray, there is still some need for imaginary projection of a better world." ([21:07])
  • The Homeric texts fuse fragments of older stories, sometimes resulting in visible narrative disjunctions that scholars use to detect multiple sources.

5. The Bronze Age Collapse: Is It Present in Homer?

• Absence of some elements: There is little in the Homeric poems about writing or central empire organization, unlike what is known from Mycenaean records (e.g., Linear B tablets).
  • Goldhill: "There are silences that I assume are a product partly of that collapse and partly of Homeric fantasy..." ([24:59])
• Sense of loss: Homer’s world is “haunted” by the idea of a lost, greater past, but does not describe the destruction of Troy in detail.
  • Goldhill: “The sense of a lost world is everywhere in Homer. But fascinatingly, there's no real description of the destruction of Troy.” ([26:21])
• Migration and violence: The Odyssey, in particular, reflects the chaos, migration, and violence characteristic of the post-collapse Mediterranean.

6. Nostalgia, Morality, and The Flawed Hero

• Complicated morality:
  • Achilles is “a psychopath,” Odysseus is a “nasty, tricky bastard.” Homer's heroes are grand but deeply flawed; they are not role models in the modern, moralizing sense.
  • Goldhill: "Like the Hebrew Bible, there is no hero who is unflawed." ([29:47])
  • The gods are equally capricious and petty, and humans can even wound gods, suggesting a worldview very different from later, more pious religious contexts.

7. The Gods: Seditious or Foundational?

• Divine irreverence: Homer regularly portrays gods in a comic or ridiculous light, which would be scandalous in many later religious systems.
  • Goldhill, paraphrasing Herodotus: "Homer gave the Greeks their gods. Homer defines what the gods are for Greeks, so far from being seditious, he's fundamental, really." ([32:46])
• Cultural difference in religiosity: In Homeric and later Greek religion, jokes about certain gods are acceptable, and piety is compatible with irreverence.

8. Archaeological Perspective

• Troy, Mycenae, and discoveries: While modern archaeology confirms the existence and some features of sites like Troy and Mycenae, it also affirms the gap between Homeric legend and historical fact.
  • Goldhill: "We know the size of Mycenae. We can see ... it was not capable of mounting an expedition of the size mentioned in Troy." ([36:03])
• Ongoing discoveries: Archaeology continues to evolve our understanding, particularly regarding trade, migration, and city interrelations during the late Bronze Age.

9. Why Homer Endures

• Source for later storytelling: Homer is a wellspring for Greek tragedy, Roman epics (Virgil), and even 20th-century literature (James Joyce).
  • Goldhill: "We want to retell the stories of Homer because they're not simple, because they're engaged. They create the world, which gives us our sense of values about power, about masculinity, about what it is to have a family, what it might mean to go home, what it is to be lost, what it is to return." ([37:40])
• Relevance: Homer’s narratives are not static—they continue to inspire reinterpretation and debate, reflecting universal questions of identity, power, and belonging.

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On truth in Homer:
  • Simon Goldhill ([02:32]): "You can believe Homer, but not for the things you want to."
• On the world of epic poetry:
  • Simon Goldhill ([10:27]): “It's really hard to decide what people actually experienced in the Bronze Age, not only because... the past is another country, but also because Homer already knows that his past is not his present.”
• Anand, exasperated:
  • Anita Anand ([14:03]): "You're doing my head in, Simon, because I don't know what to believe now."
• On heroism and nostalgia:
  • Simon Goldhill ([29:47]): “Like the Hebrew Bible, there is no hero who is unflawed... Modernity wants its heroes simple, it's Hollywood… Odysseus is a nasty, tricky bastard who kills everybody he meets, loses his whole [crew]. He's not Captain Kirk.”
• On divine ridicule:
  • Goldhill ([34:15]): “It's Homer who gives the stories that fill the imagination. And the important thing is that Homer becomes the furniture of the Greek mind. You can't... experience the world without Homer in the Greek world.”
• On the fixity of Homer’s texts:
  • Goldhill ([19:28]): “There's very little trouble with the Homer manuscript edition... it got fixed very early.”
• On retellings:
  • Goldhill ([39:17]): “[I] had to sign a waiver as I went in, promising not to reveal the plot in my review.” (on seeing the movie Troy)

Notable Timestamps

• [02:32] - Simon Goldhill on whether we can "believe" Homer
• [06:29] - The challenge of explaining the Homeric epics' sophistication
• [10:27] - The tangle of myth, reality, and poetic imagination
• [14:30] - The truth about Troy and Mycenae from archaeology
• [21:07] - Oral tradition surviving societal collapse
• [24:59] - How Bronze Age collapse shapes Homer’s narrative silence
• [26:21] - Omnipresent nostalgia, but no detailed description of Troy’s fall
• [29:47] - Complex, flawed heroes vs modern expectations
• [32:46] - Homer’s gods: irreverence and cultural context
• [36:03] - Modern archaeology reshaping views on Troy and Mycenae
• [37:40] - Why Homer remains central to culture and values

Tone & Style

The discussion is humorous, lively, and unafraid of deep scholarly dives, with Simon Goldhill’s wit balancing Anand’s relentless search for historical certainty. The trio spar over myth, memory, and fact, weaving academic insight with accessible anecdotes, and ensuring the episode is as vibrant as it is enlightening.

Conclusion

This episode leaves listeners with a sense of both wonder and skepticism: the Homeric epics are not literal chronicles but living, layered artworks—repositories of memory, myth, and cultural values that somehow survived the darkness of collapse. Homer may not be “history” in the modern sense, but his version of the past still shapes how we think about war, loss, nostalgia, and what it means to be heroic—or deeply human.