At the same time – in the mid-70s – he also read an article in the daily press in which he raved about the illustrated French edition of the Iliad, which reminded him that something similar was missing in Greek literature. “I realized that half a millennium after the invention of printing, except for the five-volume Rusiadis of 1816, we had no other similar Greek edition. That is why I began to look for illustrated editions of Homer in second-hand bookshops. In the basement of Nasiotis in Monastiraki, I found printed treasures and I wanted them to become the property of many through my publications,” he explains.

A bold example of those findings we enjoy today in his two-volume Iliad. “I was born in the heart of the occupation in poverty, at a time when, apart from the school book for reading Grammatopoulos, we had no illustrated books. And now, with these editions of mine, with so many images, I pour out my depression!” he adds, smiling. At the same time, however, he also understands the auxiliary function of images on the text: “With their help, the audience gets the bait to move to the next page,” he emphasizes to us, showing that he wants to give his publishing product a quality spectacle.

The iconocentric nature of this edition is also betrayed by another element: most of the illustrations are accompanied by verses from the corresponding scene of the text to which they refer, thus also acting as independent signatures. “This was done in order to show the audience how valuable this text is,” Theodoros Tsochalis tells us, showing how interested he is in winning over the audience with attractive conclusions and attention to detail, which is also evident from the fact. that many originally black-and-white engravings are presented skilfully colored and thus acquire a modern quality, as if they were works of graphics of the 20th century. In any case, among the great painters and engravers of Europe of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries who walk on the pages (such as the German Heinrich Goethe Tisbein, the Italian Antoni Viviani or the British John Flaxman), there are those creators who, indeed, they are ” stride” into the 20th century and are influenced by its current trends. Prominent among them are the German Impressionist Max Schlevogt (1868-1932) with his wild coals and the Spanish illustrator Eduardo Benito (1891-1981) with his elegant tall Art Deco figures.

The “gifts” of this two-volume Iliad, however, do not stop: in addition to various maps containing a detailed record of Homeric place names, at the end of the volumes you can find two large folded “posters”: in one you can admire a unique sort of labyrinthine family tree of all Homeric characters, and in another with the “volcanic” shield of Achilles, impressively illustrated by the Florentine engraver Giuseppe Cusi in the mid-19th century.

What next edition is being prepared today by such a prolific Theodoros Tsochalis, “the doctor examining Homer”? When we ask him, he answers like a commando: “I will share when he is ready. In spetsnaz, you know, first we reached the goal and then announced the mission,” he tells us, adding enthusiastically: “You can also enjoy the amazing mission of the cruiser in the Iliad, in Rhapsody K!”.