Hearing epic, living heroes: cult-connected moments in Homeric poetry

Two case studies of myths and rituals related to Zeus and kingship are here employed to suggest new ways of reading some key passages in the Iliad. The first centers on the ritual veneration of Agamemnon???s scepter in Chaeronea, while the second examines features of the myth of the Lapith king Kaineus as they relate to hero-cult. The article articulates a method of interpreting that which one might call ???religion??? in Homer by relating the historical fictions of epic to realities of interaction with the supernatural in actual ancient Greek communities (in this instance, in Boeotia and Thessaly). It attempts to explore such linkages and their poetic implications for the larger Homeric compositions (for example, the endings of both Iliad and Odyssey) while avoiding the positivism and historicizing that have been endemic to scholarship on problems of this type.