GCE A level Classical Civilisation n Answering assignment and exam questions successfully

A level Classical Civilisation

Answering assignment and
exam questions successfully

Contents
Introduction 2
Important words and phrases 2
Social, historical and cultural context 2
Analysis, judgements and understanding 3
Secondary scholars and academics 4
Example questions and answers 5
Context: Odyssey 5
Context: Aeneid 9
Comparison questions: Homer and Virgil 12
Writing an essay 14
Shorter essay questions 19
References 19

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 GCE A level Classical Civilisation n Answering assignment and exam questions successfully

Introduction
This section is intended to help students who wish to obtain a good grade in
their examination. The questions in the NEC assignments, and the way the
questions are grouped, are very similar to the format of the examinations,
and the marking instructions for NEC tutors have wording identical to that of
the exam mark schemes. So knowing how to do these assignments gives you
the skills necessary for doing well in the exam questions.
Let’s start by looking at the expectation as set out in the exam board’s (OCR)
specification.
In all components of the OCR A level in Classical Civilisation, learners will be
required to:
n understand, interpret, evaluate and analyse a range of evidence from
classical sources in their social, historical and cultural context
n evaluate and use this evidence to produce analytical responses, and
effectively substantiated judgements
n present these judgements in a clear, concise and logical manner
n develop their knowledge, skills and understanding over the two-year
linear A level course to evaluate with appropriate levels of sophistication,
demonstrating a deep, complex understanding of the literature, ideas
and materials studied, as well as their cultural context
n make use of knowledge and understanding of relevant secondary scholars
and academics in order to further develop their analysis and argument.

Important words and phrases

In the specification requirements above, I have set in bold the most
important words and phrases you need to focus on when tackling A level
Classical Civilisation questions.

Social, historical and cultural context

Context is mentioned twice. It is fundamental to success in this subject to be
aware that the cultures of Greece and Rome in the thousand or so years
covered by the specification differed markedly from our own in many
significant ways.
Here are just a few examples:
n The society depicted in the Homeric epics was one that did not use
money. It hadn’t yet been invented, so ways of perceiving and measuring
the value of goods and people were based much more on the quality of
material goods, and on the nature of witnessed experiences. Time (tiµh)
is a concept explained in the course material, as being a measure of the
esteem in which a person is held – it is interesting to note that after the
invention of money tiµh was the word used for ‘price’.

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 GCE A level Classical Civilisation n Answering assignment and exam questions successfully

n The Aeneid was written at a time when Rome and the rest of Italy was
recovering from more than a century of internal strife, civil wars, class
struggles, rioting and aggressive violence. It looked as if the new leader,
Caesar Octavianus, might bring peace and prosperity, a social
environment which no one living could remember. On the other hand,
there was unease about the major reorganisation (or even replacement)
of a republican constitution that had existed in Rome for five hundred
years.
n The society in which tragic dramas were presented was one in which
understanding of the concept of personal responsibility was very different
from our own, especially because there was little idea of ‘free will’. It was
not uncommon to believe that many, if not all, events were
predetermined.
n A major feature of Athenian democracy in the fifth century BC was
freedom of speech, but of course there were no forms of media as we
understand them. Comic drama was therefore a major arena for
discussing contemporary social, political and military issues.
n For ancient Greeks, religion embodied what some physicists have called
the ‘god of the gaps’, where belief in and worship of gods are based on
the need to provide understanding of the world when there are gaps in
scientific knowledge. Such knowledge was very limited in the ancient
world, so a great deal of mortal and natural action was attributed to
divine agency. Moreover, in strong contrast to the nature of divinity in the
Abrahamic religions of our time (e.g. Judaism, Islam, Christianity), Greek
gods were not thought to be, nor expected to be, moral exemplars.

Analysis, judgements and understanding

n Analytical responses: ‘Analysis’ is a classical Greek word (analusiV) for
breaking something up into its parts. A synonym currently used in
academic terminology is ‘unpacking’: so, you take a line of literature, and
break it down, or unpack it, to see what it’s telling us. For example, when
in Book 1 of the Odyssey Telemachus sees a stranger waiting at the
entrance to the palace, he says to him: ‘Good evening, stranger, and
welcome. Be our guest, come share our dinner, and then tell us what you
need’ (Emily Wilson's translation). You’d be expected to take from this the
fact that this is not mere politeness on the young man’s part, but was the
socially accepted behaviour, backed by the command of Zeus, toward
strangers, and to note that strangers were admitted, washed and fed
before any questions were asked – an enormous trust. Compare this with
the situation in our contemporary society, where proof of identification is
required before anything else is managed.
n Substantiated judgements: Essay questions usually ask you to decide how
you feel about the proposition in the question, and quite often the
introductory words are ‘To what extent…?’. In these cases, you need to
make a judgement about this – and you’re expected to explain why you
feel that way, so that your opinion is ‘substantiated’.

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n Deep, complex understanding: ‘Deep’ basically means stating more than

what is obvious, and looking at a number of possibilities. ‘Complex’ is a
Latin word, and means ‘having many parts’, so a complex issue has a
number of analytical possibilities, some perhaps more significant than
others. How would Virgil’s contemporaries have felt about Dido?
Negatively, I would say, and there many reasons for that (‘deep’). These
reasons arise from a variety of social, political, historical and military
issues (‘complex’).

Secondary scholars and academics

Tutors are often asked about how you can use secondary scholarship in your
work. This requirement applies only to the 30-mark questions, but it’s
significant: according to the examiners’ instructions, if this is not done, the
maximum mark that can be awarded to an essay is 12/30.
You do not have to memorise a collection of exact words: direct quotations
are not expected. An example would be:
According to W.B. Stanford, Odysseus was faithful to Penelope, unlike the other heroes
at Troy. His intimate experiences with Calypso and Circe were because they, divine
beings, ordered him to.
You are not required to remember the name of the book or article from
which your reference comes – just the name of the scholar (in this case W.B.
Stanford) and the point that he or she has made.
You’re certainly not expected to spend a vast amount of your money on
academic books either, as they can be expensive. So where do you find the
resources from which you can draw quotations?
n Most translations these days have good introductions, often (especially in
the case of Penguin Classics) written by distinguished scholars.
n There are plenty of relevant references and quotations in your textbooks.
n A collection of useful articles is available in the resources folder, which is
in the A level Classical Civilisation course companion on learn@nec.
n Sometimes students put up their suggestions on the discussion forum on
learn@nec.
n Your tutor may recommend something (inexpensive) or use references in
the feedback.
n Ask your tutor to recommend something.
Remember that you can disagree with a scholar you wish to refer to, but it’s a
good idea to say why – this will count as evaluation. For example, Peter Jones
often writes about the ring composition in the structure of the Odyssey – but
this assumes the poem has a single author. That has not been, and is not
likely to be, proved, and there is good evidence against it.

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Example questions and answers

Let’s now look at the types of questions that are set in the exam and NEC
assignments and how you might go about responding to them.
These examples concentrate on the World of the Hero theme of Sections 1 to
4 of the course. World of the Hero is the first (and longest) of the three main
course components. The examples and comments below should help you to
tackle the first four assignments which make up this component.
Don’t worry if these initial course assignments seem a little intimidating. By
the time you get on to doing Assignments 5 to 9, you should be experienced
enough to tackle them with confidence.

Context: Odyssey
First of all, a context question from the Odyssey. This question is on page 91
of the OCR textbook.
If you’re hoping for good marks on this type of 10-mark question, you need
to consider the following (from the mark scheme):
9–10:
n AO1: Shows very good knowledge and understanding of the provided
source through a range of well selected, accurate and precise material
from it.
n AO2: Fully and consistently engages with the question, with perceptive,
critical analysis and interpretation of the provided source leading to
convincing points which are well-supported and developed.
In these questions, the ten marks are divided equally between A01 and A02.

The question
Evaluate how successfully Homer conveys the horror of this scene.
My men turned pale with terror; and now, while all eyes were on Charybdis as the
quarter from which we looked for disaster, Scylla snatched out of my ship the six
strongest and ablest men. Glancing towards my ship, looking for my comrades, I saw
their arms and legs dangling high in the air above my head. ‘Odysseus!’ they called out
to me in their anguish. But it was the last time they used my name. For like an angler on
a jutting point, who casts his bait to lure the little fishes below, dangles his long rod
with its line protected by an ox-horn pipe, gets a bite, and whips his struggling catch to
land, Scylla had whisked my comrades, struggling, up to the rocks. There she devoured
them at her own door, shrieking and stretching out their hands to me in their last
desperate throes. In all I have gone through as I explored the pathways of the seas, I
have never had to witness a more pitiable sight than that.
Odyssey Book 12, 242–259 (trans. Rieu)

(10 marks)

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Notes
n It’s not difficult to find horror here: the men in Scylla’s grasp crying out,
vainly, the name of their captain (and perhaps bringing to the listeners’
minds the etymology of the name: Odysseus is linked to the Greek verb
for grieving, mourning: oduresthai). Odysseus is responsible for their
safety, but they are beyond his help. Visual and oral elements here
include their shrieks and desperate stretching out towards him; they are
eaten even as they shriek. Odysseus himself says that he had seen nothing
like it, and we as readers know how much he has seen already that is
grim, gruesome and violent.
n Show your knowledge of the text by setting this episode in its narrative
context. This incident is not a surprise – Circe told Odysseus that this was
to be one of the perils of his onward journey – and even told him that he
would lose six men (but we did not know that the six would be the
‘strongest and ablest’, so the narrative is more than repetition here). We
know that Odysseus can do nothing, because Circe has told him that Scylla
cannot be killed. Helplessness in a dreadful situation is horrific in itself.
n So here the poet is using a well-established narrative technique:
maintaining our interest in the story to come by promising us something
that we’ll want to find out about. Our interest is not predicated on
whether it will happen, but on how it will be described. We’re in a world
where the general belief is that all futures are predetermined, and some
people, divine or specially favoured mortals, can tell us about it. It’s not
surprising then, that in these epic narratives the focus is not so much on
surprising us, but in satisfying our expectations. Anyone listening to the
Iliad, for example, knows that Achilles kills Hector. It’s how the scene is
going to be done that’s the attraction (and the poet of Iliad 22 does it
magnificently). Referring to another classical work in this way is an
example of using ‘evidence from classical sources’.
n The poet is also using another well-known narrative device by directing
our focus to one area when the danger comes from another. Anyone who
watches thriller or horror movies will know this well. Because ‘all eyes
were on Charybdis as the quarter from which we looked for disaster’,
Odysseus and the crew are off guard, despite Circe’s warning.
n Dying is of course common in epic poetry, and much of it is violent, so the
death of six crew members is not in itself exceptional. Death at sea was
very common at this time: seafaring was the main means of travel in a
country with a difficult a landscape as Greece has, where there are many
islands, and the dangers at sea were many and frequent. Ancient
literature is packed with narratives of destruction at sea – the tribulations
of Aeneas at the start of the Aeneid are an obvious example. So, anyone
at sea, especially in unknown waters, will be aware that death is a
possibility – by drowning in a storm, by slaughter from pirates, from
shipwreck on a reef – but not being eaten by a hideous monster. There is
no kleos is a death like this (unlike, for example, death in battle).

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n All the characters in the Odyssey know that there is an afterlife, but it
wasn’t a pleasant one – and in this narrative we have just had a richly
imaginative description of Hades. We are far from the Judaeo-Christian
belief in the possibility of a blissful and carefree afterlife. Death is
inevitable but that doesn’t mean that Homeric characters took it easily.
One of the formulae in the Iliad, for example, when a warrior is killed, is
that he ‘cries for his fate’ (on potµon goowsa - hon potmon gooosa).
This adds pathos to these desperate final cries, and the vainly
outstretched hands. This is a hideous way to depart this life, with nothing
attractive to follow in the next.
n Now anyone listening to this would know that a monster like Scylla
probably doesn’t exist, or at least is pretty likely to be beyond a listener’s
future experience – so the poet has the task of making an unrealistic
manner of death, part of a long sequence of the narrative that is clearly in
fantasyland – realistic so that the audience is affected. The details of
sound and vision, as have been noted, do this. The context may be out of
this world, but the fear, pain, and horror are not.
n We also need to consider that these sailors, after ten years of war at Troy
and many subsequent adventures in which they have seen their comrades
lost, are now at last on their way home. They were almost there earlier,
close enough to Ithaca to see fires being prepared, when they opened the
bag of winds and were blown away. These six strong and able men, no
doubt yearning for their homeland, will now never see it – and they will
not have funeral rites or be tended to by their families. Without a burial
they will not be able to cross the river Styx for a hundred years (and Virgil
in the sixth book of the Aeneid shows us how miserable that is).
n Finally, how does the simile enrich the narrative? It’s worth commenting
that in Homeric narrative similes are employed in intense dramatic
moments to vivify the event, but some similes work better than others. So
how effective is this one? At first sight it may seem not wholly
appropriate. The visual correspondences work, but we might expect more
than a comparison between a fisherman bringing in his catch and Scylla
drawing in her lunch. It’s not unreasonable to expect some emotional
effect as well as a visual one, but in that respect this simile seems out of
place. What it describes is essentially a moment of joy: the fisherman is
satisfied that his skill has been rewarded and that he has food. This is not
insignificant – there was no mass production and distribution of victuals in
those days and food had to be worked for in some way. Think of the
suitors eating the household’s food supply without working for it. I would
suggest that this seeming mismatch is actually a powerful use of bitter
irony. A kind of placidly satisfying experience, which perhaps the victims
had been looking forward to on their return home, one that these men
will never have or see again. This little vignette of sporting life contrasts
with astonishing sharpness the almost unendurable brutality of this
moment of lethal terror. In the nineteenth century, there was a common
belief that the Homeric poets, for all their skill as storytellers, were
unsophisticated narrators, and the idea of an ironic juxtaposition of a

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peaceful image and a gruesome one, would have been considered well
beyond the poet’s imaginary powers. Fortunately, classical scholarship has
developed a richer understanding of Homeric narrative in the time since
then.
You may have seen things that I haven’t – each of us who reads or hears a
work of classical literature will bring something individual to it.
Now we need to create an answer. We need to be mindful of time. This is 10
marks – 10% of the total, in an exam of 140 minutes – so we can’t really
afford more than about 15 minutes on this. That also applies to the
assignments, if you’re giving yourself a timed experience, which is certainly
recommended, at least once.

Sample answer
The listener/reader is expecting this scene. It was part of Circe’s foretelling of
perils ahead – even to the detail of the six men consumed, so the poet’s task
in vivifying the horror is not to surprise us, but to satisfy expectations. Small
but telling details enrich the terror: the final pleading scream of their
captain’s name (and reminding us of the name’s etymological derivation –
grief, mourning), a man who cannot now help them; and the final gesture of
the outstretched arms, yearning for a safety now beyond them. What awaits
instead is the grimness of Hades, which in all its horrid gloom has just been
described to us, and lived through by them, in the previous book.
For these men there is now no nostos (return home), as they are hideously
swept from it into the jaws of a monster. The horror is magnified because
they were on their way home, after ten years at Troy and a perilous voyage,
in which with devastating frustration they have already seen their home of
Ithaca disappear from their sight as they opened the bag of winds. They
evaded death in battle; they have survived the Cyclops, the Laestrygonians,
and a spell as pigs. Death at sea was common, but what they may have
anticipated was drowning or shipwreck – not becoming a monster’s meal. It
is no wonder, in the final moment of this scene, that Odysseus vows that
nothing in his experience was more pitiable than this. There is no kleos in an
ending like this, and no burial, so no easy entry into the underworld.
This selection of the visual and aural details of a terrifying death make this
scene not one of mere repetition of Circe’s prediction. Notice the narrative
device of diverting our attention, as Odysseus and his crew focus on evading
Charybdis, when suddenly the necks of Scylla reach out and snap up the
strongest and ablest (a detail Circe did not give). The grim power of this
scene is enriched by a simile, as moments of intensity often are in the
Homeric epics. Its visual correspondence is apt, but its context may at first
hearing seem emotionally unsuitable: it’s a small moment of joy and
satisfaction as an angler reels in his catch, his food, and the sustenance for
himself and his family.
This could be seen as a case of an unsophisticated narrator not realising that
the moods do not match. In fact, the horror of this moment is magnified by

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the ironic juxtaposition of the simile and its referent – the line of a peaceful
angler fetching in his catch, the neck of a monster bringing to her mouth her
meal of living, screaming, pleading men. There is much death and suffering in
the Odyssey, but these deaths are stand out in the detailed brevity of their
horror.

Context: Aeneid
Let’s now look at a context question for the Aeneid. This question is on page
158 of the OCR textbook.
If you’re hoping for good marks on this type of 10-mark question, you need
to consider the following (from the mark scheme):
9–10:
n AO1: Shows very good knowledge and understanding of the provided
source through a range of well selected, accurate and precise material
from it.
n AO2: Fully and consistently engages with the question, with perceptive,
critical analysis and interpretation of the provided source leading to
convincing points which are well-supported and developed.
In these questions, the ten marks are divided equally between A01 and A02.
As above, I’ve suggested some points to think about for inclusion in an
answer, but this time I’m not providing a model answer – you can practice
that for yourself if you wish.

The question
How effectively does Virgil portray the attack of the sea monsters?
Laocoon, the chosen priest of Neptune, was sacrificing a huge bull at the holy altar,
where suddenly there came over the calm water from Tenedos (I shudder at the
memory of it), two serpents leaning into the sea in great coils and making side by side
for the shore. Breasting the waves, they held high their blood-stained crests, and the
rest of their bodies ploughed the waves behind them, their backs winding, coil upon
measureless coil, through the sounding foam of the sea. Now they were on land. Their
eyes were blazing, and flecked with blood. They hissed as they licked their lips with
quivering tongues. We grew pale at the sight and ran in all directions, but they made
straight for Laocoon. First the two serpents seized his two young sons, twining round
them both and feeding on their helpless limbs. Then when Laocoon came to the rescue
with his sword in his hand, they seized him and bound him in huge spirals, and soon
their scaly backs were entwined round his body and twice round his throat, their heads
and necks high above him as he struggled to prise open their coils, his priestly ribbons
befouled by gore and black venom, and all the time he was raising horrible cries to
heaven like the bellowing of a wounded bull shaking the ineffectual axe out of its neck
as it flies from the altar.
Aeneid Book 2, 201-227 (trans. West)
(10 marks)

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Figure 1 Laocoon and his sons, also known as the Laocoon Group. Marble, copy after
Hellenistic original from c. 200 BC. Found in the Baths of Trajan, 1506.

© Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Notes
n First, let’s remind ourselves of the context. Laocoon had challenged the
euphoria of the Trojans about the ‘gift’ of the horse, and insisted that it
was a trick. It is he who says the well-known line Timeo Danaos et dona
ferentis (‘I am afraid of Greeks, particularly when they bring gifts’). He
hurled a spear against the horse’s side.
n This incident was not invented by Virgil, but was part of the Trojan epic
tradition. It is not in the Iliad, and we have no surviving earlier examples.
It is the subject of a famous statue in the Vatican museum, the original of
which precedes the composition of the poem, so Virgil may have seen it
and had it in mind (see Figure 1 above).
n The poet’s challenge is to take an incident from the epic tradition and
make it arresting, despite being familiar to his readership and audience.
Note first the horror of the circumstance: this attack occurs during a holy
act, a sacrifice to the god of the sea, home of the lethal monsters.
Laocoon the priest himself becomes the victim (see the detail of ‘his
priestly ribbons befouled by gore’). All was fine before this sudden
epiphany – the sea was ‘calm’.

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n Another problem is that, up to this point, Virgil’s narrative is realistic –

there have not been any fantasy elements that might reduce the
verisimilitude of the story. Notice how careful Virgil is to keep these
beasts believable. The focus is on their coils, their hissing, their quivering
tongues, all vivid features of the movement and attack of snakes, which
his readers would have seen, and been uneasy about. Roland Austin in his
commentary on Aeneid Book 2 quotes a letter to The Times in which the
correspondent describes how he watched a large water snake on the Nile,
and his description matches Virgil’s remarkably well. So what the poet
writes is not unimaginable, and if such large snakes existed (and he’s
careful to suggest no further – these are just big snakes, not hideous beats
beyond the scope the reality), this is how they would move. And we are
briefly reminded that this account is from a man who was there (‘I
shudder at the memory of it’).
n In the narrative itself, the danger is foreshadowed. Even as the snakes
breast the waves, we see that their crests are stained with blood, and
blood/gore is mentioned twice more in this brief extract. Epic poetry and
classical drama flow with blood, the most stunning visual sign of
wounding, violence and imminent death (and most of us will know that
the same holds true for narrative in our times too).
n The snakes attack the boys first. Children, especially male children, were
valued and cossetted in ancient literature. In this poem, it is Aeneas and
Iulus, Evander and Pallas. At Troy, it is Priam and Hector, and Hector and
his own baby boy, Astyanax. As mentioned above, the afterlife was
miserable, so immortality focused not on a shadowy existence in a gloomy
underworld, but in the life of one’s children. To take these from Laocoon
in his sight was the ultimate of suffering.
n It should be obvious to every reader that the poet of the Aeneid has a
powerful imagination and great skill in creating imagery, in letting us see
what happens (perhaps Virgil would have been a cinematographer if he
lived in contemporary times). But notice too that he often gives us a
‘soundtrack’ as well. In this extract we hear ‘the sounding foam of the sea’
and ‘horrible cries like the bellowing of a wounded bull’.
n We have a close link between the bellowing bull, the victim, matching the
shrieking Laocoon, who is now himself the victim at the ritual he was
overseeing. There are a number of accounts in classical literature of
animals surviving the blow of the axe and making their violent and noisy
escape. Ritual acts were rendered null and invalid if something went
wrong with the performance of the act, so the ineffective strike at the
animal allowing it to escape would be seen as a sign of ill omen. This, with
sharp irony, is not picked up by the Trojans however. As the passage
continues after the end of this extract, they think that Laocoon is being
punished for his act of insulting the gift of the horse by striking it. This is
somewhat reminiscent of the Trojan seer Cassandra, who was fated
always to foretell the truth but never be believed.

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There’s enough to be getting on with, in addition to anything you may spot

that I haven’t – so if you’d like some useful practice, see if you can put some
of these ideas into a 15-minute response by yourself.

Comparison questions: Homer and Virgil

We will now move to a question which asks you to compare the Homer
passage with the Virgil one. This sort of question usually wants you to make a
judgement about the relative effectiveness of the two passages.
Both of the passages used as examples are about attacks by monsters.

The question
Which passage is more engaging for an audience? Justify your response.
You should refer to the passage from the Aeneid and the passage from the
work of Homer you have read, in our case now the two passages analysed
above.
(10 marks)

Notes
n The question makes it clear that you are expected, when writing about an
audience, to be specific about which audience you mean, and to be aware
that ancient and modern responses will be different. Among the points
that might be included are ideas about different audiences – ancient and
modern – and how they might respond to the different passages.
n This type of question can be demanding, as the two passages may not
have obvious similarities as material for comparison. In classical academic
work passages from Homer and Virgil are only compared analytically in
certain situations. Firstly, if one passage is clearly derived from, or
intended to invoke a memory of, another (e.g. Aeneas’ rampage after the
death of Pallas; Achilles’ fury after Patroclus has been killed); secondly,
passages with similar themes (e.g. Odysseus meeting Nausicaa in the
Odyssey and the first encounter of Aeneas with Dido, both of which are
traditional themes of the wandering stranger being aided by a woman).
The passages set in the assignments, and in the exam, may not always
have that kind of relationship.
n It’s a good idea to show your awareness that the Homeric and the
Virgilian epics are at least seven hundred years apart in their composition,
during which time narrative techniques had altered and developed
substantially. The standout difference is that a Homeric epic is oral in its
makeup, and makes extensive use of repeated words, phrases, lines and
whole passages (the formulae). Moreover, it became a convention of
literary composition that any post-Homeric epic poet was expected to re-
use and refer to material from earlier authors. Consequently, the Aeneid
was composed with the Iliad, the Odyssey and a later epic the Argonautica

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very much in Virgil’s mind, as well as other epic writing that has been lost
(e.g. an episode depicting the fall of Troy).
n In both cases, the hideous events are not a surprise. In the Odyssey, the
disaster was foretold in an earlier book, while the Aeneid uses a well-
known and well-used story, as we can tell from the statue in the Vatican.
So both poets are being challenged to make this engaging for an audience
– to satisfy expectations, not to offer a narrative surprise. The Homeric
passage is more powerful in its detail of excruciating suffering – a horrible
way to die, on the way home, after surviving so much. Even for an
audience well used to violent death, and quite possibly in their own lives
(some members of the audience may have had the kind of combat
experience that features in epic), the scene would evoke horror and pity.
In the Virgil passage we have the bellowing of Laocoon, but there are no
other details of agony, and no flowing of blood (just the blood on the
snakes, possibly from previous victims). So the Virgil passage is less
engaging in terms of vivid and potent action, which helps us to
understand how the aim of the passage is different, to reveal to us
another aspect of how Troy was doomed. The man who warned against
accepting the horse is, so the Trojans think, being punished for his
ingratitude in attacking this marvellous gift with his spear. We also have
an opportunity to compare the efficacy of the similes, as there is one in
each extract.
n Finally, we have the issue of narrative context. The Scylla incident is part
of a journey through a world of fantasy, so the poet has a wider scope of
imaginative description available. We have already met a woman who can
turn men into pigs, and a large one-eyed creature whose diet includes
humans whole. In the Virgil extract, the action is located in a more
realistic and plausible setting, and the poet is careful not to disrupt that.
These lethal creatures are snakes, with the familiar characteristics of
reptiles.

Sample answer
At first sight the Homeric passage may seem to be more engaging. It gives us
powerful, graphic and plaintive images and sounds of men snatched by a foul
creature and stretching out their limbs in fruitless desperation, calling upon
their leader before they are consumed, a death far from any reasonable
expectations of warriors on a sea voyage home. The Virgil passage brings us
the grief of a father seeing his sons attacked, but the detail of the attack is
less explicit, and we are not told that anyone actually dies – that is implied,
not described. We do not see the kind of agony that is depicted on the face
of Laocoon in the Vatican sculpture. The blood that we see is on the attacking
beasts, a signal that they are merciless and lethal creatures.
However, even though both are dealing with incidents that are not new to
their audience, the authors have different intentions.

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Circe had foretold that Scylla would seize six men. The Homeric narrative is
the thrill of adventure in a fantasy world of strange beings and sudden,
violent demise, while still maintaining the reality of the pain which real
people suffer in an unreal world. The purpose is not dissimilar to the
expectation that a viewer of a Jurassic Park movie will have – of seeing
people eaten by a tyrannosaurus rex.
The Laocoon drama was a well-established story, as the Vatican sculpture,
predating this poem, tells us. The Virgil passage is therefore part of a
narrative strand, that of Troy’s doom and the fact that this is fated and
ineluctable. Laocoon’s action of challenging the idea that the horse was a
bountiful gift might have saved the Trojans, but that was not to be. What
befell him and his sons was understood as a punishment, so he was wrong –
the horse is safe. The Aeneid is a work of writing, meticulously composed
over ten years, so there will be many layers of meaning in the narrative. The
Homeric poem is oral, quite possibly composed ex tempore, and is likely to
focus on the thrill of the moment.
Both events are illustrated by similes, and in both cases with some
sophistication. The seeming inapt correspondence in the Odyssey example
may well be a potent use of irony, with the peaceful image of the angler used
to heighten the image of a prey being hauled in – a fish as a meal for a man, a
man as a meal for a monster. Virgil’s simile connects an image of an
unsuccessful divine ritual with the attack on the priest performing that ritual,
where the overseer becomes the victim.
In conclusion, the Homeric passage is more engaging for an audience seeking
the thrill of violent adventure, whereas the Virgil passage aims its
engagement at the literary intellect. These are different objectives for
different audiences, many centuries apart.

Writing an essay
We’re now going to look at writing an essay. This question is from page 125
of the OCR textbook.
Before we start, here are the requirements for getting top marks in the essay,
taken from the examiners’ instructions on the OCR website.
For A01, which is worth 10 marks:
n very detailed knowledge and a thorough understanding of the material
studied
n use of a range of well selected, accurate and precise material from
classical sources, and appropriate, effective use of their cultural context
and possible interpretation.
and for A02, which is worth 20 marks:
n a very good response to the question containing a wide range of relevant
points leading to convincing conclusions

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n points are very well supported by critical perceptive analysis,

interpretation and evaluation of classical sources and secondary sources,
scholars and/or academic works
n the response is logically structured, with a well-developed, sustained and
coherent line of reasoning.
This question is allocated 30 marks, which is 30% of the World of the Hero
paper. This equates to about 40-45 minutes of your exam time.
In the Greek Theatre and Greek Religion papers, the 30-mark essay is worth
40% of the total mark, and so should take up about the same time, 40-45
minutes, of your 105-minute allowance. You don’t have to answer the
questions in the order in which they appear, but if you do the essay question
last, make sure you leave enough time.

The question
How far do you think that Telemachus was a son worthy of Odysseus?
(30 marks)

Planning your answer

I would divide my answer into four paragraphs, taking about 10 minutes
each. Table 1 shows brief descriptions of the content of each paragraph, with
more detailed notes below.
Then I have written four sample paragraphs for you to see the development
of these ideas into a full answer.

Table 1 Essay plan: four paragraphs

Paragraph 1 Paragraph 2 Paragraph 3 Paragraph 4

Introduction to Relevant Relevant Conclusion
cultural context, evidence from evidence from drawing evidence
and nature and Odyssey Books Odyssey Books together to form
importance of 1–4 16–19 and 21–23 a judgement
father-son about the
relationships question’s
proposition

1. Introduction to cultural context, and nature and importance of

father-son relationships: The primary point is that sons are a man’s
immortality – his name, and his kleos, will live on through his
descendants, who will recall their ancestors by their looks and their
deeds. We have many examples in epic poetry of how male children
are, or should be, like their fathers. This was a social expectation that
weighs upon Telemachus from the start. Children were often given

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names in the hope and expectation that they would live up to the
qualities described in the name’s meaning, qualities for which the
father was known. I would also add, if I had time, the biological point
(not in your study materials) that the ancient Greeks believed that a
child came entirely and only from the male: the mother was the
carrier and bearer only.
2. Relevant evidence from Odyssey Books 1–4: The second paragraph,
looking at the Telemachy, the first four books, and the third, focusing
on the incidents in the second half of the poem. In these paragraphs
the task is to select relevant moments from the text, and assemble
them in such a way that a point emerges that enlightens the
proposition in the question. Three times in Book 1 we read of the
example set by Orestes, who bravely took up and met the demanding
challenge of avenging the murder of his father, Agamemnon, the
chief king of the Mycenaean Greeks. Athene, Nestor and Helen all
discuss Telemachus in terms of his father. We see how Telemachus
behaves in the first encounter of the epic, the visit of the disguised
Athene, and her effect on him. The subsequent narrative of these
books shows us Telemachus growing in maturity and self-confidence
as he acquires heroic characteristics.
3. Relevant evidence from Odyssey Books 16–19 and 21–23: We have
Telemachus meeting with his father in Eumaeus’ hut; how he deals
with the suitors, and his mother, and the final battle and its
aftermath, in all of which we see the father in the son; conversely,
we also see signs of immaturity and lack of experience. To score fully
on A02, you always need to show how the proposition is the
question is not fully realised, or qualified in some way.
4. Conclusion drawing evidence together to form a judgement about
the question’s proposition: Telemachus is not yet wholly formed, but
the evidence suggests he will fully honour his paternity. I would
mention here the unitarian analysis of the Odyssey’s structure, that
there are two parallel narratives, that of Odysseus trying and perilous
homecoming, and of the growth to maturity of his son. So we can
draw the conclusion that not only does the narrative strongly suggest
that Telemachus is a son worthy of his father, but that it is the
intention of the poet to establish that.
Note that there will be references in this essay to:
n Commentary on the Odyssey Books 1-4 by Stephanie West
n Views of W.B. Stanford
n Ancient Greek scholar Porphyry.
West’s unitarian analysis is mentioned in positive terms, fulfilling the
specification requirement of evaluation of scholars.

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Sample answer
First paragraph

It was a basic feature of Greek society that a son should be worthy of his
father, with his behaviour and his valorous deeds at least matching those of
his parent. This not only preserved a family’s reputation and its time, but
because a son was a father’s immortality. This was especially important in
the heroic period with its hierarchical ladder topped by noble houses, who
are the characters of the epic narratives. An afterlife in Hades was a gloomy
existence, as Achilles tells Odysseus in Book 11, but a man could live on in the
praise earned in the life of his son. In the Iliad we see this in the hope that
Hector has in his baby son Astyanax; conversely, Neoptolemos, the son of
Achilles, is considered a disgrace to his father because of his savagery and
disrespect for his enemy, by slaughtering the aging Priam while he clasps an
altar in supplication. In the Aeneid, we see this in Aeneas and Iulus. Names
were significant in that they express hoped-for qualities in offspring.
Stephanie West points out that Telemachus means ‘fighting from afar’, a
suitable name for the child of a father who was a skilled archer. It is archery
that reveals Odysseus to the suitors in Book 21, in the presence of his son,
who comes within a whisker of stringing the mighty bow himself. It is also
worth noting that in the primitive Greek understanding of biology, a child
came entirely from its father – the mother carried and gave birth, but did not
contribute any of herself.

Second paragraph

An examination of Telemachus’ role in the Odyssey will reveal to us a young

man growing from doubt of his paternity (he would have no memory of his
father, as he was a baby when Odysseus set off for Troy) to being his father’s
brave co-fighter in the stand against the suitors. We first see Telemachus as a
stranger arrives, and ‘he’ (actually Athene disguised as Mentes) is treated
with great courtesy, with strict adherence to the rules of xenia – as one
would expect a hero’s son to do. And every time Telemachus speaks in this
scene, he is described as doing so ‘thoughtfully’. Just after the strange
departure of ‘Mentes’, Telemachus thinks his visitor may have been divine.
To be aware of the divinity of a disguised visitor is itself a sign of heroic
quality. Three times in this book, from the outset in the opening scene, a
heroic role model is mentioned: Orestes, who bravely took on the task of
killing his father’s murderer, Aegistheus. Athene (as Mentes) presents
Telemachus himself with this comparison, as she attempts to instil into him
the qualities of sternness and courage, to make him a fit son for a famous
father. As a result, Telemachus calls an assembly of the Ithacan people,
where he upbraids the suitors. This is not fruitful, but it took courage to do it.
He then sets off for Pylos and Sparta, which was not to be underestimated as
an act of courage – travel was dangerous in those times. Both Nestor at Pylos
and Helen in Sparta comment on Telemachus’ resemblance to his father,
loosening his doubt about his own identity. The ancient scholar Porphyry
(third century AD) was the first of many to note that the first four books,

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describing Telemachus’ journey and his evasion of the suitors’ ambush, was
an adventure of a journey designed to show the listener how Telemachus
grows into a young adult worthy of his father.

Third paragraph

Telemachus’ meeting with his father in Eumaeus’ hut after his return from
the Peloponnese is a significant scene. With great courtesy, he offers the as
yet unidentified Odysseus his seat, mirroring his good manners in Book 1
(and the same formula, ‘thoughtfully’, is used when Telemachus speaks). His
father, as soon as they have been re-united, immediately includes
Telemachus in his plans, and the latter is now confident enough to suggest an
amendment to the plan of his father, who we know is the supreme strategist.
The young man is open and straightforward in his admission that he cannot
control the suitors, yet not much later (Book 18) he gives one of them such a
tongue lashing that all his fellows are astounded. In the combat against the
suitors he fights well, a fit companion for a veteran Trojan war hero, and we
see his savagery tempered with mercy, as he insists on sparing the bard and
the herald – the act of a hero who can distinguish between just vengeance
and rabid slaughter. Yet the poet is subtle in the way he portrays the adult –
his behaviour is not always adroit, and we see the not yet fully formed hero
son, such as when he speaks sharply to Penelope. Odysseus, not yet known
to her, gently counters his son’s rashness with a more understanding
approach to his wife. In the battle with the suitors Telemachus leaves the
armoury door open, giving their opponents access to weapons, but he takes
responsibility and confesses his carelessness. We also see an act of self-
satisfying cruelty, as he changes Odysseus’ instruction for the death of the
maids who gave themselves to the suitors. He has them hanged, the most
disgraceful of deaths in this society: it is the behaviour of Neoptolemus, not
of Achilles.

Fourth paragraph

‘I am not a child any more’ says Telemachus in Book 18. We have seen him
develop from a polite yet timid young man, oppressed by doubt and
uncertainty, into a confident, assertive, inchoate hero able to stand up to
provocation and to fight with valour alongside his father, yet not fully
formed, as his errors of judgement show. In the words of W.B. Stanford, the
Telemachus of this poem is ‘a cautious, discrete young man, but brave and
persevering’. Stephanie West, a firm unitarian, argues strongly that the
structure of the Odyssey deliberately shows two parallel narratives: the
testing and endurance of a veteran hero of great experience, wily and
curious; and the maturing of his son, who breaks from his limiting stay-at-
home life to take on a testing voyage of his own, and who, when the two
narrative strands meet, stands staunchly by his father in their heroic display
of might against the suitors. It is Telemachus’ social and family expectation to
deliver honour through matching his father, and the poet shows us this
journey. He is indeed a worthy son.

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Shorter essay questions

Finally, just a few words about the shorter essay questions, for 20 marks (and so
about 25–30 minutes of your time in the exam). Unlike in the NEC assignments,
these questions on the exam paper will suggest that you use the material or topic
of the preceding questions to start your answer. For the World of the Hero, the
wording is ‘you may use this passage as a starting point’. In this question the
marks for A01 and A02 are equally divided. The marking guidelines are similar to
those quoted at the start of the section above on question 3, but note that you do
not have to bring in any mention of other academic works here.

References
The Aeneid by Virgil, trans. D. West. Penguin, 2003.
The Odyssey by Homer, trans. E.V. Rieu. Penguin, 1946.
The Odyssey by Homer, trans. E. Wilson. WW Norton & Company, 2018.
Heubeck, A., West, S., Hainsworth, J.B. & Hoekstra, A., A Commentary on
Homer’s Odyssey: Introduction and Books I–VIII. Clarendon Press, 1990.

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