The Heroikos of Philostratus, a novel of heroes and more

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze why the Heroikos puts together, in a fictional work, local heroes - and their real cults - and pan-Hellenic heroes of epic: two aspects belonging, apparently, to different scopes. In this work, in a very complex way, the author offers the reader a range of highly significant elements, both in the field of literature and of ‘reality’, taking into account, however, that both are fictional. Our approach, then, is to establish two separate levels in the narration: first, the narrative about heroes (in this sense we could consider the Heroikos ‘a novel of heroes’); secondly, the description of the framework in which the dialogue takes place, and of the characters in it, that is, basically, the vine-grower and the Phoenician in person, and the absent Protesilaos.