The Alcmene Ehoie: Functional Developments of an Epic Text

The genre of ehoiai, rooted in the local epic tradition of Boeotia, underwent a process of development which led to the assignment of a variety of functions to this type of composition. This genre of epic poetry was originally designed to serve an aretalogical rather than genealogical function, but the earliest ehoiai formed the basis for the later unification of this type of narrative material in the Catalogue of Women, acquiring a predominantly genealogical function. Some of them, however, continued to circulate in the local Boeotian tradition as autonomous compositions; among these, the Alcmene Ehoie, in its rhapsodic union with the Shield of Heracles, lent itself to new uses in a new performance context.