Abstract:

The term chôros in the texts of Greek archaic epic designates a space delimited and measured through a series of movements of going and returning, separation and reunion that mark and define the periphery and the centre. The organization of this space operates the resolution of an original act of violence or a conflict within the community, while its cancellation means a return to chaos. The articulation of a chôros plays a fundamental role in the paradigmatic foundation narrative: the story of Apollo’s arrival to Delphi in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. The social and political interpretation proposed in these pages complements Boedeker’s analysis, focused on the relationship of the epic chôros to Indoeuropean myths of death and resurrection.