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

HOMERUS. HOMERUS. 503
phia, Chios, Teos, Olympia. (See the authors cited except Ulysses. The last adventures of Ulysses
by MUller, Ibid. p. 32.) Hesiod mentions musical after his return to Ithaca were treated in the Te!econtests (Op. 652, and Frag. 456), at which he gonia of Eugammon. All these poems were grouped
gained a tripod. Such contests seem to have round those of Homer, as their common centre.
been even anterior to the time of Homer, and " It is credible," says MiUller (Ibid. p. 64) "that
are alluded to in the Homeric description of the their authors were Homeric rhapsodists by proThracian bard Thamyris (11. ii. 594), who on his fession (so also Nitzsch, Hall. Encycl. s. v. Odyss.
road from Eurytus, the powerful ruler of Oechalia, pp. 400, 401), to whom the constant recitation of
was struck blind at Dorium by the Muses, and the ancient Homeric poems would naturally suggest
deprived of his entire art, because he had boasted the notion of continuing them by essays of their
of his ability to contend even with the Muses. own in a similar tone. Hence too it would be
(Comp. Diog. Laert. ix. i.) It is very likely that more likely to occur that these poems, when they
at the great festival of Panionimu in Asia Minor were sung by the same rhapsodists, would gradually
such contests took place (Heyne, Exe. ad n. vol. acquire themselves the name of Homeric epics."
viii. p. 796; Welcker, Ep. Cycl. p. 371; Heinrich, Their object of completing and spinning out the
Epimenides, p. 142); but still, in order to form an poems of Homer is obvious. It is necessary thereidea of the possible manner in which such poems as fore to suppose that the Iliad and Odyssey existed
the Iliad and Odyssey were recited, we must have entire, i. e. comprehending the same series of events
recourse to hypotheses, which have at best only which they now comprehend, at least in the time
internal probability, but no external authority. from the first to the tenth Olympiad, when ArctiSuch is the inference drawn from the later custom nus, Agias (Thiersch, Act. Monac. ii, 583), and
at Athens, that several rhapsodists followed one probably Stasinus, lived. This was a time when
another in the recitation of the same poem (Welcker, nobody yet thought of reading such poems. Therelp. Cycl. p. 371), and the still bolder hypothesis of fore there must have been an opportunity of reciting
Nitzsch, that the recitation lasted more than one in some. way or another, not only the Homeric
day. ( Vorr. z. Anm. z. Od. vol. ii. p. 21.) But, poems, but those of the Cyclic poets also, which
although the obscurity of those times prevents us were ofaboutequal length. (Nitisch, Vorr. z. Anfrom obtaining a certain and positive result as to merk. vol. ii. p.24.) The same result is obtained
the way in which such long poems were recited, from comparing the manner in which Homer and
yet we cannot be induced by this circumstance to these Cyclic poets treat and view mythical objects.
doubt that the Iliad and Odyssey, and other poems A wide difference is observable on this point,
of equal length, were recited as complete wholes, which justifies the conclusion, that as early as the
because they certainly existed at a time anterior to period of the composition of the first of the Cyclic
the use of writing. That such was the case follows poems, viz. before the tenth Olympiad, the Homeric
of necessity from what we know of the Cyclic poets. poems had attained a fixed form, and were no
(See Proclus, C/hrestomatllia in Gaisford's IIephaes- longer, as Wolf supposes, in a state of growth and
lion.) The Iliad and Odyssey contained only a development, or else they would have been exposed
small part of the copious traditions concerning the to the influence of the different opinions which then
Trojan war. A great number of poets undertook prevailed respecting mythical subjects. This is the
to fill up by separate poems the whole cycle of the only inference we can draw from an inquiry into
events of this war, from which circumstance -they the Cyclic poets. Wolf, however, who denied the
are commonly styled the CQclic poets. The poem existence of -long epic poets previous to the use of
Cypria, most probably by Stasinus, related all the writing, because he thought they could not be reevents which preceded the beginning of the Iliad cited as wholes, and who consequently denied that
from the birth of Helen to the ninth year of the the Iliad and Odyssey possessed an artificial or
war. The Aethliopis and Iliupersis of Arctinus poetical unity, thought to find a proof of this procontinued the narrative after the death of Hector, position in the Cyclic poems, in which he professed
and related the arrival of the Amazons, whose to see no other unity than that which is afforded
queen, Penthesileia, is slain by Achilles, the death by the natural sequence of events. Now we are
and burial of Thersites, the arrival of Memnon almost unable to form an accurate opinion of the
with the Aethiopians, who kills Antilochus, and is poetical merits of those poems, of which we poskilled in return by Achilles, the death of Achilles sess only dry prosaic extracts; but, granting that
himself by Paris, and the quarrel between Ajax they did not attain a high degree of poetical perand Ulysses about his arms. The poem of Arc- fection, and particularly, that they were destitute
tinus then related the death of Ajax, and all that of. poetical unity, still we are not on this account
intervened between this and the taking of Troy, at liberty to infer that the poems of Homer, their
which formed the subject of his second poem, the great example, are likewise destitute of this unity.
Iliupersis. These same events were likewise partly But this is the next proposition of Wolf, which
treated by Lesches, in his Little Ilias, with some therefore we must now proceed to discuss.
differences in tone and form. In this was told the Wolf observes that Aristotle first derived the
arrival of Philoctetes, who kills Paris, that of laws of epic poetry from the examples which
Neoptolemus, the building of the wooden horse, the he found laid down in the Iliad- and Odyssey.
capture of the palladium by Ulysses and Diomede, It was for this reason, says Wolf, that people
and, finally, the taking of Troy itself. The interval never thought of suspecting that those examples
between the war and the subject of the Odyssey is themselves were destitute of that poetical unity
filled up by the return of the different heroes. This which Aristotle, from a contemplation of them,
furnished the subject for the Nostoi by Agias, a drew up as a principal requisite for this kind of
poem distinguished by great excellencies of com- poetry. It was transmitted, says Wolf, by old
position. The misfortunes of the two Atreidae traditions, how once Achilles withdrew from the
formed the main part, and with this were artfully battle; how, iri consequence of the absence of the
interwoven the adventures of all the other heroes, great hero, who alone awed the Trojans, the Greeks
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