The tradition of quoting Homer as a way of identification in the inscriptions of Southern Asia Minor

After the conquests of Alexander the Great, many Greeks migrated to the southern regions of Asia Minor, including Lycia, Pisidia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia. They brought along their cultural traditions, which gradually merged over several centuries with the most enduring aspects of the indigenous culture. The ancient Greek language completely supplanted the Lycian, Pisidian, and other Anatolian languages. Education followed the established Greek canons, with Homer’s poems serving as primary texts. But, while the ruins of cities that have survived to this day provide an opportunity to gain an idea of the Hellenization of architecture, it is much more difficult to assess the extent to which the Anatolian population was able to familiarize itself with the Greek education system. The author of the article aims to establish the level of familiarity of the inhabitants of southern Asia Minor with the poems of Homer, to determine their personal attitude toward this poet, and argues that only inscriptions found in this region can be the material for such research, namely inscriptions written not in prose, but in hexameter or elegiac distich. Epigraphic material usually stands outside the scope of literary studies. Therefore, the relevance of this work lies not only in the formulation of the research problem but also in the choice of material for research. The article examines in detail four epitaphs. Their text indicates a very close familiarity of their creators with Homer’s poems. But even more sticking is the fact that there were quotations from the Iliad or the Odyssey in these epitaphs, and these quotations served to identify or even self-identify the one to whom these short poems were dedicated. One such quotation even appears in a prose inscription from the Adada city territory. These examples signify that during the Roman Empire, Homer evolved into an undisputed authority for the descendants of the original inhabitants of Anatolia, the same as he had always been for the ancient Greeks themselves.