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

510 HOMERUS. HOMERUS.
no mortal dares to resist, much less to attack and (Plut. Ale-b. p. 194, d.) Homer became a sort
wound a god; Olympus does not resound with of ground-work for a liberal education, and as his
everlasting quarrels; Athene consults humbly the influence over the minds of the people thus became
will of Zeus, and forbears offending Poseidon, her still stronger, the philosophers of that age were
uncle, for the sake of a mortal man. Whenever a naturally led either to explain and recommend or
god inflicts punishment or bestows protection in the to oppose and refute the moral principles and reliOdyssey, it is for some moral desert; not as in the gious doctrines contained in the heroic tales. (GriIliad, through mere caprice, without any consider- fenhan, Gesch. der Phliloloyie, vol. i. p. 202.) It
ation of the good or bad qualities of the individual. was with this practical view that Pythagoras,
In the Iliad Zeus sends a dream to deceive Aga- Xenophanes, and Heracleitus, condemned Homer
memnon; Athene, after a general consultation of as one who uttered falsehoods and degraded the
the gods, prompts Pandarus to his treachery; majesty of the gods; whilst Theagenes, Metrodorus,
Paris, the violator of the sacred laws of hos- Anaxagoras, and Stesimbrotus, expounded the
pitality, is never upbraided with his crime by deep wisdom of Homer, which was disguised from
the gods; whereas, in the Odyssey, they ap- the eyes of the common observer under the veil of
pear as the awful avengers of those who do not an apparently insignificant tale. So old is the
respect the laws of the hospitable Zeus. The gods allegorical explanation, a folly at which the sober
of the Iliad live on Mount Olympus; those of Socrates smiled, which Plato refuted, and Arithe Odyssey are further removed from the earth; starchus opposed with all his might, but which,
they inhabit the wide heaven. There is nothing nevertheless, outlived the sound critical study of
which obliges us to think of the Mount Olympus. Homer among the Greeks, and has thriven luxuIn the Iliad the gods are visible to ever3 one riantly even down to the present day.
except when they surround themselves with a A more scientific study was bestowed on Homer
cloud; -in the Odyssey they are usually invisible, by the sophists of Pericles' age, Prodicus, Protaunless they take the shape of men. In short, as goras, Hippias, and others. There are even traces
Benjamin Constant has well observed (de la Relig. which seem to indicate that the diropeal and AscreLs,
iii.), there is more mythology in the Iliad, and such favourite themes with the Alexandrian critics,
more religion in the Odyssey. If we add to all originated with these sophists. Thus the study of
this the differences that exist between the two Homer increased, and the copies of his works must
poems in language and tone, we shall be obliged to naturally have been more and more multiplied.
admit, that the Odyssey is of considerably later We may suppose that not a few of the literary
date than the Iliad. Every one who admires the men of that age carefully compared the best MSS.
bard of the Iliad, with whom are connected all the within their reach, and choosing what they thought
associations of ideas which have been formed re- best made new editions (8Lope0iaeLs). The task of
specting Homer, feels naturally inclined to give these first editors was not an easy one. It may be
him credit for having composed the Odyssey also, concluded from the nature of the case, and it is
and is unwilling to fancy another person to be the known by various testimonies, that the text of those
author who would be quite an imaginary and un- days offered enormous discrepancies, not paralleled
interesting personage. It is no doubt chiefly owing in the text of any other classical writer. There
to these feelings that many scholars have tried in were passages left out, transposed, added, or so
various ways to prove that the same Homer is the altered, as not easily to be recognised; nothing, in
author of both the poems, although there seem short, like a smooth vulgate existed before the time
sufficient reasons to establish the contrary. Thus of the Alexandrine critics. This state of the text
Miiller (Ibid. p. 62) says: " If the completion of must have presented immense difficulties to the
the Iliad and Odyssey seems too vast a work for first editors in the infancy of criticism. Yet these
the lifetime of one man, we may perhaps have re- early editions were valuable to the Alexandrians,
course to the supposition, that Homer, after having as being derived from good and ancient sources.
sung the Iliad in the vigour of his youthful years, Two only are known to us through the scholia, one
in his old age communicated to some devoted dis- of the poet Antimachus, and the famous one of
ciple the plan of the Odyssey, which had long been Aristotle:(i eK To vap'plcos), which Alexander
working in his mind, and left it to him for com- the Great used to carry about with him in a
pletion." Nitzsch (Anmerk. z. Od. vol. ii. p. 26) splendid case (mvdpOf~) on all his expeditions.
has found out another expedient. He thinks, that Besides these editions, called in the scholia al Ka-7'
in the Iliad Homer has followed more closely the avspa, there were several other old 8mop06ccr-1S at
old traditions, which represented the former and Alexandria, under the name of ai lcaTa 7roAels, or
ruder state of society; whilst, in the Odyssey, he at Kc 7ro'Aeyv, or at 7roxAllca-. We know six of
was more original, and imprinted upon his own them, those of Massilia, Chios, Argos, Sinope,
inventions his own ideas concerning the gods. Cyprus, and Crete. It is hardly likely that they
The history of the Homeric poems may be were made by public authority in the different
divided conveniently into two great periods: one states, whose names they bear; on the contrary,
in which the text was transmitted by oral tradi- as the persons who had made them were unknown,
tion, and the other of the written text after Peisis- they were called, just as manuscripts are now,
tratus. Of the former we have already spoken: it from the places where they had been found. We
therefore only remains to treat of- the latter. The are acquainted with two more editions, the alooAtc4,
epoch from Peisistratus down to the establishment brought most likely from some Aeolian town, and
of the first critical school at Alexandria, i. e. to the KwVlcAut, which seems to have been the copy of
Zenodotus, presents very few facts concerning the Homer which formed part of the series of cyclic
Homeric poems. Oral tradition still prevailed over poems in the Alexandrian library.
writing for a long time; though in the days of Alci- All these editions, however, were only preparabiades it was expected that every schoolmaster would tory to the establishment of a regular and systematic
have a copy of Homer with which to teach his boys. criticism and interpretation of Homer, which began