A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

502 HOMERUS. HOMERUS.
has done a great deal towards establishing a solid down a single syllable, and have preserved them
and well-founded view of this complicated question. faithfully in their memory, before committing them
Nitzsch opposed Wolf's conclusions concerning the to writing. And how much more easily could this
later date of written documents. He denies that have been done in the time anterior to the use of
the laws of Lycurgus were transmitted by oral writing, when all those faculties of themind, which
tradition alone, and were for this purpose set to had to dispense with this artificial assistance, were
music by Terpander and Thaletas, as is generally powerfully developed, trained, and exercised. We
believed, on the authority of Plutarch (de Mus. 3). must not look upon the old bards as amateurs, who
The Spartan v4YJol, which those two musicians are amused themselves in leisure hours with poetical
said to have composed, Nitzsch declares to have compositions, as is the fashion now-a-days. Combeen hymns and not laws, although Strabo calls position was their profession. All their thoughts
Thaletas a YolAoOes-tos dvrp (by a mistake, as were concentrated on this one point, in which and
Nitzsch ventures to say). Writing materials were, for which they lived. Their composition was,
according to Nitzsch, not wanting at a very early moreover, facilitated by their having no occasion to
period. Hle maintains that wooden tablets, and the invent complicated plots and wonderful stories; the
hides (6icpOepat) of the Ionians were employed, simple traditions, on which they founded their
and that even papyrus was known and used by songs, were handed down to them in a form already
the Greeks long before the time of Amasis, and adapted to poetical purposes. If now, in spite of
brought into Greece by Phoenician merchants. all these advantages, the composition of the Iliad
Amasis, according to Nitzsch, only rendered the and Odyssey was no easy task, we must attribute
use of papyrus more general (6th century B. c.), some superiority to the genius of Homer, which
whereas formerly its use had been confined to a caused his name and his works to acquire eternal
few. Thus Nitzsch arrives at the conclusion that glory, and covered all his innumerable predecessors,
writing was common in Greece full one hundred contemporaries, and followers, with oblivion.
years before the time which Wolf had supposed, The second conclusion of Wolf is of more
namely, about the beginning of the Olympiads (8th weight and importance. When people neither
century B. c.), and that this is the time in which wrote nor read, the only way of publishing poems
the Homeric poems were committed to writing. If was by oral recitation. The bards therefore of
this is granted, it does not follow that the poems the heroic age, as we see from Homer himself,
were also composed at this time. Nitzsch cannot used to entertain their hearers at banquets, festivals,
prove that the age of Homer was so late as the and similar occasions. On such occasions they
eighth century. The best authorities, as we have certainly could not recite more than one or two
seen, place Homer much earlier, so that we again rhapsodies. Now Wolf asks what could have income to the conclusion that the Homeric poems duced any one to compose a poem of such a length,
were composed and handed down for a long time that it could not be heard at once? All the charms
without the assistance of writing. In fact, this of an artificial and poetical unity, varied by epipoint seems indisputable. The nature of the Ho- sodes, but strictly observed through many books,
meric language is alone a sufficient argument, but must certainly be lost, if only fragments of the poem
into this consideration Nitzsch never entered. could be heard at once. To refute this argument,
(Hermann, Opusc. vi. 1, 75; Giese, d. Aeol. Dia- the opponents of Wolf were obliged to seek for
lect. p. 154.) The Homeric dialect could never occasions which afforded at least a possibility of
have attained that softness and flexibility, which reciting the whole of the Iliad and Odyssey. Banrender it so well adapted for versification-that quets and small festivals were not sufficient; but
variety of longer and shorter forms, which existed there were musical contests (cycaes), connected with
together-that freedom in contracting and resolving great national festivals, at which thousands assemvowels, and of forming the contractions into two bled, anxious to hear and patient to listen. " If,"
syllables-if the practice of writing had at that says Muller (Hist. of Greek Lit. p. 62)," the Athetime exercised the power, which it necessarily pos- nians could at one festival hear in succession about
sesses, of fixing the forms of a language. (MUller, nine tragedies,three satyric draimas, and as many coHist. of Gr. Lit. p. 38.) The strongest proof is the medies, without ever thinking that it might be better
Aeolic Digamma, a sound which existed at the to distribute this enjoyment over the whole year,
time of the composition of the poems, and had en- why should not the Greeks of earlier times have
tirely vanished from the language when the first been able to listen to the Iliad and Odyssey, and
copies were made, perhaps other poelis, at the same festival? Let us
It is necessary therefore to admit Wolf's first beware of measuring by our loose and desultory
position, that the Homeric poems were originally reading the intention of mind with which a people
not committed to writing. We proceed to examine enthusiastically devoted to such enjoyments, hung
the conclusions which he draws from these pre- with delight on the flowing strains of the minstrel.
mises. In short, there was a time when the Greek people,
However great the genius of Homer may have not indeed at meals, but at festivals, and under the
been, says Wolf, it is quite incredible that, without patronage of their hereditary princes, heard and
the assistance of writing, he could have conceived enjoyed these and other less excellent poems, as
in his mind and executed such extensive works. they were intended to be heard and enjoyed, viz.
This assertion is very bold.'" Who can determine," as complete wholes." This is credible enough, but
says Miiller (Hist. of Greek Lit. p. 62), "how many it is not quite so easy to prove it. We know that,
thousand verses a person thoroughly impregnated in the historical times, the Homeric poems were
with his subject, and absorbed in the contemplation recited at Athens at the festival of the Panathenaea
of it, might produce in a year, and confide to the (Lycurg. c. Leocr. p. 161); and that there were
faithful memory of disciples devoted to their master likewise contests of rhapsodists at Sicyon in the
and his art?" We have instances of modern poets, time of the tyrant Cleisthenes (Herod. v. 67), in
who have composed long poems without writing Syracuse, Epidaurus, Orchomenus,Thespiae, Acrae