The subject of the book is the investigation of the historical background that created the Homeric epics and the Epic Cycle. Through a critical and analytical reassessment of the available material, Ilias K. Petropoulos allows the reader to explore firsthand the early and crucial period of Greek history and Greek culture in general.

Based on an exhaustive study of written and archaeological sources, as well as a critical evaluation of the related literature in the fields of Homeric studies, Assyriology, Egyptology, Hittitology, prehistoric and classical archaeology, and mythology, the author also analyzes the most significant texts presenting his own translations from the original at the most critical points, as he is familiar with the Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian, and Phrygian languages, cuneiform and Luwian hieroglyphics, as well as several modern languages.

The individual chapters examine specific topics – roughly as pieces that compose a larger picture: the process of transferring mythological traditions, ideas, objects, and cults from the East to Greece and vice versa, the political and diplomatic relations between the Mycenaean states and their successors with Eastern states, particularly with the Hittite states (and their descendants, the Neo-Hittites) and the Neo-Assyrians, and more generally the political and economic contacts and cultural osmosis in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean.

All the individual issues are examined with exhaustive use of sources, careful evaluation (and often critical commentary) of prior research, and special originality, which consists not only in the individual interpretive contributions but also in the overall unique picture that emerges regarding the relations of the Greek world and the East during the period circa 1400-600 BC – relations of continuous exchanges and osmosis, from which a unified historical space in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean arises that needs to be examined as a unity, not only after the campaigns of Alexander the Great but already from the Bronze Age.

Ilias Petropoulos serves as an Associate Professor of Ancient History at Democritus University of Thrace. He studied History and Archaeology on a scholarship and obtained his doctorate from the Historical Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University. He has written several articles and has edited five foreign-language volumes on ancient Greek colonies and cult monuments in the Black Sea region.