Iliadic Refractions: A Half-day event on the reception of the Iliad in different intermedial modes
27 May 2026
University of Nottingham
You are cordially invited to this workshop at Nottingham, where we are still doing plenty of research, under the auspices of the Centre for Ancient Mythology and its Reception (CAMRE). If you’d like to attend either in person or online, please email Helen Lovatt at helen.lovatt@nottingham.ac.uk, with details of whether you wish to attend in-person or online, whether you have any other access needs, and whether you would like to join us for dinner. There is no charge, but dinner will be at our own expense.
Planned programme and abstracts below.
Iliadic Refractions: A Half-day event on the reception of the Iliad in different intermedial modes
This event explores the reception of the Iliad, ancient and modern, across a range of different media and modes of engagement. Translation, commentary, intertextuality, supplementation, storytelling and immersive theatre all offer different perspectives on how Homeric epic is valued, interpreted and reused in different contexts. Each of these receptions breaks with or breaks up Homeric poetry in different ways. How does the refractive nature of reception across media affect engagement with and interpretation of Homeric poetry? What is special about the Iliad in the context of window receptions or mediated reception? How are different metaphors of refractive relationships thematised in cultural products?
Location: University Park, Nottingham, Clive Granger Building, A39
Programme
12.30 arrival/tea and coffee
13.00 Welcome
13.10 Steven J. Green (National University of Singapore) Diomedes Versutus: The Adventures of a Translated Hero in the Ilias Latina
14.00 Oliver Thomas (Nottingham) Pedagogical principles in the D Scholia
14.40 Abigail Spanner (Nottingham) Clothes, Stories, Destinies: Weaving and Spinning in the Iliad and the Posthomerica
15.20 Tea
15.50 Emily Kneebone (Nottingham) Refractions of the Iliad in Imperial Greek Epic Poetry
16.30 Helen Lovatt (Nottingham) Playing Homer in Apple of Discord: Iliadic Stories and Immersive Theatre
17.10 Closing discussion
Drinks/dinner in local restaurant
Abstracts
Steven J. Green (National University of Singapore) Diomedes Versutus: The Adventures of a Translated Hero in the Ilias Latina
This paper follows the journey of the Greek hero, Diomedes, from the Iliad into Roman cultural contexts, through Virgil’s Aeneid and into the Ilias Latina, an abbreviated Latin ‘translation’ of the Homeric epic most likely composed during the reign of Nero (c. 60–65 ACE).
Diomedes fares particularly badly when he transfers from Greek to Roman cultural contexts, as some of his most notorious activities on the battlefield – attacking Aeneas and wounding Venus – are viewed from a fresh critical perspective.
What happens, then, when Diomedes attempts to retrace his familiar Iliadic business within the ambit of an imperial Roman poem like the Ilias Latina? The result is a fascinating disconnect between the poet-narrator’s viewpoint on Diomedes, and Diomedes’ own perspective when he gets the chance to articulate himself in speech. In effect, Diomedes becomes an emblem for the cultural hybridity that is a quintessential part of the dynamic process of Greek-to-Latin translation.
Oliver Thomas (Nottingham) Pedagogical principles in the D Scholia
Abigail Spanner (Nottingham) Clothes, Stories, Destinies: Weaving and Spinning in the Iliad and the Posthomerica
This paper discusses the reception of ideas of spinning thread and weaving from the Iliad in Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica, a 3rd-century AD Greek epic poem on the Trojan War.
When one thinks of weaving in ancient epic poetry, Penelope in the Odyssey naturally comes to mind. Associated with her weaving are ideas of storytelling, deception and protection. One might assume that Quintus’ late antique epic, the Posthomerica, would make some overt references to Penelope’s weaving since Quintus writes as though he is Homer, continuing from the end of the Iliad and ending where the Odyssey begins. Yet not only does weaving appear to function in a more Iliadic way in the Posthomerica, but even more surprisingly, it hardly features at all. Quintus is very selective in where the art of weaving or spinning thread appears. Weaving and spinning thread appear in ordinary (even predictable) contexts; Quintus associates these activities with clothes, stories and destinies. What is interesting, though, is how subtly different Quintus is from the Iliadic and Odyssean weaving and spinning practices.
In this paper, as part of the conference “Iliadic Refractions”, I discuss the examples of weaving and spinning thread in the Posthomerica compared to the Iliad, and demonstrate how ‘Homeric’ or ‘un-Homeric’ these activities are in Quintus’ epic, revealing insights about Quintus’ ideas on gender roles and the human condition.
Emily Kneebone (Nottingham) Refractions of the Iliad in Imperial Greek Epic Poetry
The Greek epic poems of late antiquity look insistently to the Homeric epics as both inspiration and point of departure. This paper traces how later Greek epics expand, contract, and reshuffle the spatial dynamics of the Iliad to illuminate a world that is both fascinated by the epic past, but now also shaped by new religious and political concerns about the nature of space. It asks whether these poetic refractions can be meaningfully brought together, focusing on the divergent but intersecting ways in which Nonnus’ Dionysiaca and Eudocia’s Homeric Centos use the pivotal Iliadic motif of the shield to reflect on scale, scope, and the cosmic nature of epic itself.
Helen Lovatt (Nottingham) Playing Homer in Apple of Discord: Iliadic Stories and Immersive Theatre
This paper reflects on the experience of consulting on and contributing to an immersive theatre show with a focus on the Trojan myth. It explores how much the Trojan story is dominated by the Iliad and how different interests in and experiences of Classics shape that relationship. How do academic ideas of authenticity interact with creating an interesting, attractive and popular experience? What role can Homer and the Homeric play in modern popular culture? How does Homer interact with other versions of Trojan myth? Which stories from the Iliad proved effective and appropriate in this setting? What were audiences looking for and how interested were they in Homeric versions? How do audience members perceive Homer as fitting into the mythological material and what aspects of Homeric reception shape the immersive experience? In what ways is Iliadic storytelling immersive? How does Homeric oral tradition work as part of a fictional mythical or divine space?
Note: this is not a Classical Association event – please contact the organisers directly with any enquiries.