I should like to begin with some preliminary remarks. The topic is not new and is much debated. I myself have set forth my opinions on it in several publications, but there are some new aspects which seem worth discussing. I presuppose that we are able to speak of relative chronology only if it is possible to detect recognizable differences in the age of certain parts of the text or of certain constituent elements of it; and I think this is the case with the so-called Homeric Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.492–759).

My thesis is that the poet of the Iliad took over the epic Catalogue of Ships in a fixed form as a whole from an extraneous source or from one of his own earlier performances of another epic and adapted it to this poem.