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

HOMERUS HOMERUS. 505
Ulysses from Calypso, and his arrival and reception judiciously assigns'" two principal motives for
in Scheria; the second the narration of his wan- this extension of the poem beyond its original plan,
derings. 3. The song of Ulysses vaeditatin#g revenge which might have exercised an influence on the
(book xiii. 92-xix). Here the two threads of mind of Homer himself, but had still more powerthe story are united; Ulysses is conveyed to ful effects upon his successors, the later Homerids.
Ithaca, and is met in the cottage of Eumaeus by In the first place, it is clear that a design manihis son, who has just returned from Sparta. 4. fested itself at all early period to make this poem
7Te song of the revenging and reconciled Ulysses (xx. complete in itself, so that all the subjects, descrip-xxiv.) brings all the manifold wrongs of the tions, and actions which could alone give an intesuitors and the sufferings of Ulysses to the desired rest to a poem on tleentire war, might find a place
and long-expected conclusion. Although we main- within the limits of this composition. For this purtain the unity of both the Homeric poems, we can- pose, it is not improbable that many lays of earlier
not deny that they have suffered greatly from in- bards, who had sung single adventures of the Trojan
terpolations, omissions, and alterations; and it is war, were laid under contribution, and that the
only by admitting some original poetical whole, finest parts of them were adopted into the new
that we are able to discover those parts which do poem, it being the natural course of popular poetry
nrot belong to this whole. Wolf, therefore, in propagated by oral tradition, to treat the best
pointing out some parts as spurious, has been led thoughts of previous poets as common property,
into an inconsistency in his demonstration, since he and to give them a new life by working them up
is obliged to acknowledge somethingas the genuine in a different context." Thus it would be excentre of the two poems, which he must suppose to plained why it is not before the ninth year of the
have been spun out more and more by subsequent war that the Greeks build a wall round their camp,
rhapsodists. This altered view, which is distinctly and think of deciding the war by single combat.
pronounced in the preface to his edition of Homer For the same reason the catalogue of the ships
(2nd edit. of 1795, towards the end of the pref.), could find a place in the Iliad, aswell as the view
appears already in the Prolegomena (p. 123), and of Helen and Priam from the walls (TecXoeroria),
has been -subsequently embraced by Hermain and by which we become acquainted with the chief
other critics. It is, as we have said, a necessary heroes among the Greeks, who were certainly not
consequence from the discovery of interpolations. unknown to Priam till so late a period of the war.
These interpolations are particularly apparent in " The other motive for the great extension of the
the first part of the Iliad. The catalogue of the preparatory part of the catastrophe may, it appears,
ships has long been recognised as a later addition, be traced to a certain conflict between the plan of
and can be omitted without leaving the slightest the poet and his own patriotic feelings. An attengap. The battles from the third to the seventh tive reader cannot fail to observe that, while
book seem almost entirely foreign to the plan of the Homer intends that the Greeks should be made to
Iliad. Zeus appears to have quite forgotten his suffer severely from the anger of Achilles, he is yet,
promise to Thetis, that he would honour her son as it were, retarded in his progress towards that
by letting Agamemnon feel his absence. The end by a natural endeavour to avenge the death of
Greeks are far from feeling this. Diomede fights each Greek by that of a yet more illustrious Trojan,
successfully even against gods; the Trojans are and thus to increase the glory of the numerous
driven back to the town. In an assembly of the Achaean heroes, so that even on the days in which
gods (iv. init.), the glory of Achilles is no motive the Greeks are defeated, more Trojans than Greeks
to deliver Troy from her fate; it is not till the are described as being slain."
eighth book that Zeus all at once seems mind- The Odyssey has experienced similar extenful of his promise to Thetis. The preceding five sions, which, far from inducing us to believe in
books are not only loosely connected with the an atomistical origin of the poem, only show that
whole of the poem, but even with one another. the original plan has been here and there obThe single combat between Menelaus and Paris scured. The poem opens with an assembly of
(book iii.), in which the former was on the point the gods, in which Athene complains of the long
of despatching the seducer of his wife, is inter- detention of Ulysses- in Ogygia; Zeus is of her
rupted by the treacherous shot of Pandarus. In opinion. She demands to send Hermes to Calypso
the next book all this is forgotten. The Greek's with an order from Zeus to dismiss TJlysses,
neither claim Helen as the prize of the victory of whilst she herself goes to Ithaca to incite young
Menelaus, nor do they complain of a breach of the Telemachus to determined steps. But in the beginoath: no god revenges the perjury. Paris in the ning of the fifth book we have almost the same prosixth book sits quietly at home, where Hector ceedings, the.same assembly of the gods, the same
severely upbraids him for his cowardice and:retire- complaints of Athene, the same assent of Zeus,
ment from war; to which Paris makes no reply, who now at last sends his messenger to the island
and does not plead that he had only just encoun- of Calypso. Telemachus refuses to stay with Metered Menelaus in deadly fight. The tenth book, nelaus; he is anxious to return home; and still,
containing the nocturnal expedition of Ulysses and without our knowing how and why, he remains at
Diomede, in which they kill the Thracian king'Sparta for a time which seems disproportionably
Rhesus and take his horses, is avowedly of. later long; for on his return to Ithaca he meets Ulysses,
origin. (Schol. Ven. ad II. x. I.) No reference who had in the meantime built his ship, passed
is subsequently made by any of the Greeks or twenty days on the sea, and three days with the
Trojans to this gallant deed. The two heroes were Phaeacians.
sent as spies, but they never narrate the result' of: Nitzsch (Anmerk. z. Odyssey, vol. ii. pref. p.
their expedition; not to speak of many other im- xlii.) has tried to remove these difficulties, but he
probabilities. To enumerate all those passages *does not deny extensive interpolations, particularly
which are reasonably suspected as interpolated, in the eighth book,'where the song of Demowould lead us'too far. Miiller (Ibid. p. 50) very docos concerning Ares and Aphrodite is very suc