HOMER:
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ILIAD
AND THE ODYSSEY.
'>",
PUBLISHED BY
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW;
$nblishers to the Stnibersit}).
MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.
London, • • Simpkin, Hamilton and Co.
Cambridge, - Macmillan and Boives.
Edinburgh, - Douglas and Faults.
MDCQCXCIV
HOMER:
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ILIAD
/ AND THE ODYSSEY
BY
/
/?
R. C. JEBB, LITT.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK AND FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE, AND M.P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY: HON. D.r.L.
OXON.: HON. LL.D. HARVARD, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW
AND DUKLm: HO1,BC&T. PHILOS. BOLOGNA.
KLm: HO1£,,BC&T
ST,
NO.
BOSTON:
GINN AND COMPANY.
1894.
MAY 1 7 1954
PREFACE.
THE purpose of this book is to furnish, in a
compact form, a general introduction to the study of
Homer.
The four chapters into which it is divided deal
respectively with four aspects of the subject: — (i)
The general character of the Homeric poems, and
their place in the history of literature : (2) their
historical value, as illustrating an early period of
Hellenic life : (3) their influence in the ancient world,
and the criticism bestowed on them in antiquity :
(4) the modern inquiry into their origin.
So far as I am aware, there is no one book,
English or foreign, which collects the principal results
of modern study in each of these departments.
Mr Monro, the Provost of Oriel, was kind enough
to read a considerable part of these pages, while they
were still in an unfinished state, and to give me the
benefit of his opinion on several points. Professor
J b
VI PREFACE.
Seymour, of Yale, during a visit to England last
summer, gave me a signal proof of friendship in the
care with which he went through the book, — then
nearly completed, — and the kindness with which he
permitted me to profit by some suggestions.
My thanks are also due to Professor Butcher,
the Rev. M. A. Bayfield, Mr Sidney Colvin, and
Mr Walter Leaf, for various tokens of kind interest
in this work.
R. C. JEBB.
THE COLLEGE, GLASGOW,
December, 1886.
Note to the Second Edition.
THE first edition, published in January, 1887, was
exhausted in February. The present edition is sub-
stantially identical with the first, while on a few points
of detail it has profited by some criticisms with which
I have been favoured.
R. C. J.
March, 1887
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS OF
THE POEMS.
1 . Homeric Poems — their twofold interest i
2. Pre-Homeric poetry .... i
3. Epic poetry .... 3
4. Aristotle on Homer 4
5. Structure of the Iliad A.
6. Structure of the Odyssey .... . . (8
7. Homeric poetry — its general stamp I a
8. Relation to ballad poetry . ... 12
9. Relation to the literary epic 16
10. Dryden and Addison on Homer. — The Wolfians . . .18
11. Homer and Walter Scott 19
12. The Homeric characters. i ....... 23
13. Their typical value 24
14. Their expression in speech, or in thought . . . • 25 .
15. Divine and human action . . . . . . .26
16. Homeric use of simile ........ 26
17. Why simile is rarer in the Odyssey 29
1 8. Range of the similes 30
19. Aggregation of similes — how used by Homer ... 31
20. The twenty-second book of the Iliad 32
2 1 . Concluding remarks 36
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER II.
THE HOMERIC WORLD.
PAGE
r. The Hellenic type already mature. — Unity of the picture . 38
2. Homeric geography, 'inner' and 'outer' .... 39
3. Iliad. Inner geography. Outer geography 39
4. The 'Catalogue' — a document apart 41
5. Traces of personal knowledge 43
6, 7. Odyssey. Inner geography. Outer geography ... 44
8. Homeric polity 46
9- King 47
jo. Dike and themis. Council. Agora 48
u. Difference between Iliad and Odyssey as pictures of polity . 49
v/12. Homeric religion qf&
13. P^ate. Erinyes 51
^14. Difference between Iliad and Odyssey as to the supernatural j2
15. Homeric ethics. The family 53
i 1.6. Slavery 54
17. Limit to the sphere of themis. — Aidos. Nemesis . . 54
1 8. The Homeric civilisation . . . . . . -55
19. Archaeological evidence . . . . . . .56
20. Use of stone ......... 56
21. The Homeric house. The court . . . . . -57
22. The aethusa and prodomus . . . . . . -57
23. The megaron ......... 59
24. Women's apartments. Analogy to later Greek house . . 60
25. Interior fittings and decoration, etc 61
26. Social manners ......... 62
27. Homeric dress ......... 64
28. Homeric armour 65
29. Homeric art ......... 66
30. Shield of Achilles. Other works 67
31. Standards of value. Writing. Craftsmen. Merchants . 69
32. Life in the similes. Scenes on the Shield . 70
33. Funeral rites 71
34. The state of the dead 71
CONTENTS. LX
CHAPTER III.
HOMER IN ANTIQUITY.
1. Influence of the Homeric poems 74
2. Minstrelsy in Homer. Iliad. Odyssey .... 75
3, 4. Post-Homeric recitation. Rhapsodes .... 76
5. Homeridae .......... 78
6. The rhapsode in the fourth century B.C 78
7. Was Homer ever sung ? The rhapsode as commentator . 80
8, 9, 10. Homer in education . . . . . . .81
n, 12. Homer's influence on Greek religion .... $$}
13. Greek view of Homer as a historian ^4
14. Poems ascribed to Homer in antiquity .... 85
15. Notices of Homer's life. Earliest traces. A shadowy per-
sonality 87
1 6. Allegorizing interpretation .... 89
17. Rhetorical treatment 90
1 8. Rationalising criticism ....... 90
19. Alexandrian materials for Homeric criticism. The ancient
vulgate 91
20. Zenodotus 92
21. Aristophanes .......... 93
22. Aristarchus .......... 93
23. Characteristics of his work ....... 94
24. Didymus. Aristonicus. Herodian. Nicanor ... 96
25. The Epitome. Codex Venetus A ..... 96
26. The division into books ....... 97
•27. Crates and the Pergamene School ..... 98
28. Demetrius. Eustathius 100
29. Scholia .......... 100
30. Our text of Homer . . . . . . . 101
CHAPTER IV.
THE HOMERIC QUESTION.
f. The Chorizontes ......... 103
2. The modern Homeric question ...... 104
3, 4. Surmises before Wolf 105
X CONTENTS.
PAGE
5. Vico. Robert Wood 106
6. Wolf's Prolegomena . , . . . . . .107
7,8. Wolf recognised a personal Homer 109
9. Objections to Wolf 's view of writing no
10. Summary . . . . . . . . . .113
u. The story about Peisistratus 114
12. 'Nature' and 'art' 116
13. Elasticity of Wolf 's theory. Developments of it . . -117
14. Lachmann . . . . . . . . . .118
15. Hermann . . . . . . . . . .119
1 6. Reaction. The epopee view. Nitzsch . . . .120
17. Grote's 'Achilleid ' 122
18,19. Estimate of Grote's theory 123
20. Geddes 125
21, 22, 23. W. Christ 126
24,25. Texture of the Odyssey. Kirchhoff . . . .128
26 — 33. Analogy of other early epics 131
34. Homeric language . . . . . . . .136
35. Traditional epic element 136
36. False archaisms 137
37,38. Differences between Iliad and Odyssey .... (7^p
39. Lost sounds. The digamma 1 39
40. Inconstant use of the digamma in Homer . . . .141
41. Supposed errors of transliteration 142
42. Fick's theory ......... 143
43. 44, 45. Estimate of it 144
46. The tale of Troy — how far historical 147
47, 48. Site of Homeric Troy . . . . . . .148
49. Origin of the Homeric picture of Troy . . . . 1 50
50. The Epic Cycle 151
51. Analysis of the Trojan Cycle 153
52. Summary 154
53. General survey of results. Views which may be rejected . 155
54. Deceptive unity of the epic style . . . . .156
55. Conservative tendency of recent studies . . . . 157
56. The primary poem. Special advantages of the subject . 157
57. The poem was an ' Iliad ' from the first . . . .158
58. Enlargement of the primary Iliad. Books 2 to 7 . .159
59. Books 12 to 15 160
60. Books 8 and 9. . . . - - - - .161
61. Books 23 and 24 . 161
62. Book 10. The greater interpolations 162
CONTENTS. XI
PAGE
63. Summary. — Age and origin of the primary Iliad . .164
64. Arguments for the European origin. — Two strata of
tradition ........ 164
65. Estimate of this argument 165
66. The argument from Homeric silence . . . .166
67. Inference — early fixity of form in the Iliad . . . 167
68. The primary Iliad — perhaps Thessalian. — The dialect
afterwards lonicised . . . . . .168
69. Ancient belief in an Asiatic Homer . . . .168
70. The European claim can be reconciled with the Asiatic . 169
71. Authorship of the earlier enlargements . . . .169
72. Predominant significance of the first poet . . . 170
73. Origin of the Odyssey . . . . . . -171
74. Ionian development of the poem 171
75. Authorship 172
76. Relations with the Iliad. Age 172
77. Conclusion 173
APPENDIX.
Note i, p. 61. The house at Tiryns (with plan) . . -175
Note 2, p. 136. Differences between Homeric and later
classical Greek 185
Note 3, p. 1 39. Differences of language between the Iliad
and the Odyssey 187
Note 4, p. 140. Homeric words which show traces of the
digamma 188
Note 5. Homeric versification ...... 190
A list of books on Homer
197
HOMER.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POEMS.
1. THE literature of Greece, and of Europe, begins with Homeric
Homer, whose name will be used here to denote ' the Ef their
Iliad and the Odyssey] without implying that one man twofold
composed the whole of both or of either. The interest of ml
Homer is twofold, poetical and historical. H^ is the
greatest epic poet of the world, and the only representative
of the earliest artistic form which the Greek mind gave to
its work. He is also the first author who presents any clear
or vivid picture of Aryan civilisation. An entire period of
early Hellenic life which, but for him, would be almost
a blank, is seen to be connected by an unbroken course
of development with the later Hellenic age.
2. The Homeric poems themselves attest a pre-Homeric Pre-Ho-
poetry. They are the creations of a matured art. But
the earlier and ruder essays of that art have left few
traces. The little that is known can be briefly summed up,
so far as it directly concerns the study of Greek literature.
(i) The Greeks had old folk-songs on the death of (i) Songs
a beautiful youth, — Linus, Hylas, lalemus, Hyacinthus,
Adonis, — i.e. on the spring yielding to summer, the summer
J. *
2 HOMER. [CH. I.
to autumn, or the like. In the Iliad the ' Linos ' is a solo
sung by a youth to the lyre at a vintage festival, among the
maidens and youths who carry the baskets of grapes, and
who dance in time to the song (//. 18. 569) l. The origin
of such songs was Semitic. But they suited that early
phase of the Aryan mind in which religion was chiefly
a sense of divinity in the forces of outward Nature, and
which, in India, is represented by the Vedic hymns. A
distinctively Greek element began early to show itself in
the numerous local legends as to the personal relationships
of the youth who had perished.
(2) Le- (2) A later stage than that in which the Linus-song
OI>igmated is represented by the legends of the earliest
Greek bards, (a) Some of these are called 'Thracian,' and
are associated with the worship of 'the Muses' — the god-
desses of memory, or record, a worship which can be traced
as spreading from the northern coasts of the Aegean to
the district Pieria at the N.E. corner of Thessaly, and
thence southwards to the Boeotian Helicon and the Phocian
(b) South- Parnassus, (b) Other prehistoric bards are specially asso-
group ciated with hymns to Apollo, — indicating a stream of
influence which passed from Asia, through Crete and other
(c) Asia- Aegean islands, to Greece Proper. (c) A third group
tic group. Q£ early barcis is connected with Asia Minor, especially
1 These Nature-songs were brought from the East to Greece, and
then, in Greek fashion, were linked with local myths. The song of
Linos probably came from Phrygia through Thrace, and was specially
localised at Argos. Sappho used flie form OtroXwos, which, ace. to
Paus. 9. 29. 8, she derived from very ancient hymns, ascribed to
the Athenian Pamphos. Herodotus (2. 79) identifies Linos with the
Egyptian prince Maneros, ( = ma-n-hra, 'come to me', the refrain of a
song in which Isis was represented as mourning Osiris) : and says that
the song (aettr/ia) 'Linos' was famous in Cyprus, Phoenicia, and else-
where. ' Linos'1 came from aifXuw, ai lenu, 'woe for us', the refrain
of the Phoenician mourners in Syria and Cyprus for Thammuz (Ezek.
viii. 14), the Greek Adonis. Similar conceptions were the Lydian and
Phrygian Attes or Atys, the Bithynian Bormos, the Mysian Hylas, the
Lacedaemonian Hyacinthos, the Arcadian Skephros
the Thracian lalemos.
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 3
Phrygia, and with Asiatic worship, such as that of Cybele1.
Taken collectively, these sparse and vague traditions have a
clear general meaning. They point to an age when the
Hellenic tribes were still in passage from Asia to Europe. General
They show that a cultivation of poetry, — partly Pre-Hellenic result'
in its religious motive, but already Hellenic in its form, —
had begun before the Hellenic populations had settled
down in their European seats.
(3) Lastly, Homer himself mentions those heroic lays (3)Forms
(/cXea ai/Spa>j/) out of which Epic poetry grew ; also the ^JJ-1^.
hymenaeus, or marriage-chant, and the threnus, or dirge, — ed by
both, in Homer's time, already secular, and sung by the Homer-
people, — no longer, as in ancient India, parts of a ritual, to
be sung by priests.
3. Down to about 700 B.C. the kind of poetry which Epic
we call 'Epic'2 was the only literature which the Greeks poetry<
possessed. The idea of ' epic ' poetry, as a species, could
not exist until ' lyric ' (or, as the Greeks said, ' melic ') had
taken a distinct form. Then, later still, came 'dramatic'
poetry. ' Epic poetry,' as the Greeks of the fourth century
B.C. understood it, was denned by its differences from
'lyric' and 'dramatic.' As distinguished from 'lyric,' it
meant poetry which was recited, not sung to music. As
1 (a) To the Thracian group belong, among others, Orpheus (=the
Indian Ribhu, — the Ribhus figuring in the Indian hymns as great
artificers, the first men who were made immortal), — Musaeus, Eumolpus,
Thamyris ; (b) to the Southern group, Olen of Lycia, Chrysothemis of
Crete, Philammon of Delphi, Pamphos of Attica, — makers of hymns to
Apollo, Demeter, etc. ; (c) to the Asiatic group, Olympus, the pupil of
Marsyas, and Hyagnis, who made hymns to Cybele. These were
merely so many names of ancient but vague prestige, to which later
composers attached their own work, — being in the old hymn-literature
what the Boeotian Bakis was in the traditional oracular lore.
2 Aristotle never uses the word tiriKos, which seems not to occur
before the later Alexandrian age. He calls Epic Poetry 77 eiro-rroua, or
(as contrasted with drama), 77 Si^yij/wm/c?) KOI tv [drptp /JUMTIKIJ (Poet.
23), i.e. narrative poetry which imitates by means of verse only (without
help from TO TrpaTreiv).
I — 2
4 HOMER. [CH. I.
distinguished from ' dramatic,' it meant poetry which merely
narrated. It is well to begin by observing the broad
characteristics which Homer presents to the mind of
Aristotle.
Aristotle 4. Aristotle's conception of an epic poem demands, first,
merH° that it: snould nave a dignified theme; next, that it should
form an organic whole, — i.e., it must have unity ; and, with-
in this unity, there must be an ordered progress. The
events must form a connected series, and must conduce to
a common end. Thus the unity proper to an epic is not
merely such unity as a history may owe to the fact that all
the events which it relates are comprised in a certain period
of time. The Iliad does not treat the whole Trojan War,
but a part of it, diversifying this by episodes. The Odyssey
does not attempt to relate everything that ever happened
to Odysseus. The superiority of Homer's judgment in this
respect, as compared with that of some other epic poets,
may be illustrated (Aristotle remarks) by a dramatic test
The Iliad and the Odyssey would not furnish more than one
tragedy apiece, or two at the most. But no fewer than
eight dramas had been carved out of the ' Little Iliad' —
an epic chronicle of the events from the death of Achilles
to the fall of Troy. The special merits for which
Aristotle praises Homer are chiefly the following: — (i)
Homer combines unity with variety1: (2) he is excellent
both in diction and in sentiment: (3) he keeps himself
in the background, — telling his story as much as possible
by the actions and words of the persons themselves, and
marking their characters well : (4) he is artistic in fiction —
boldly using the improbable or supernatural element, — for
which epic poetry gives more scope than drama, — but
1 It is an inherent defect of an epic, as compared with a tragedy,
(Aristotle remarks,) that it must have less unity. If the epic poet's
theme is strictly one, his poem will appear either curt or spun-out
(/xuovpos — v5a/»7's). Homer has overcome this difficulty as far as possible :
ravra ra Tron^ara avvtaTrjKev ws frdtxerai a/H0ra, Kal o n /xaAtora /uas
sr/>a£ewj fj.lfj.^als tari (Poet. 26).
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 5
with a charm so skilful that the illusion is not broken1.
Aristotle's remarks on Homer bring out the singularity
in the history of Greek poetry, that it begins with master-
pieces. He regards Homer as at once the earliest of poets
and the most finished of epic artists2. This estimate is
subject, indeed, to one qualification. Aristotle apparently
regarded the length of the Homeric epics as somewhat too
great for the ideal of Gpaa\ymm&^ V
At the outset;, it i^^cfegargtQ^jgfe^giJtGfcbSld have
clearly before his mind .the general type of structure exhi-
bited by each of the t^epdcs. /ihe^trbjoined sketch
will serve to' s-how- thin, while in Jeuiife it will "be found
convenient for subsequent reference.
5. The Iliad owes its unity, not to the person of Structure
Achilles,but to his wrath. His withdrawal from the Greek host
leaves Greek heroism more nearly on a level with Trojan,
and so admits of the battle-scenes which describe a doubtful
war. Hence the framework of the poem is necessarily elastic.
As a help to the memory, the story of the Iliad may be
1 Poet. 24 5e5i'5a%e 5£ yaaXtora "O/mypos /cat rota aXXous \fsetideiv ('to
feign') ws Set. Aristotle instances TO. ev '05u<r<ra'a d\oya TO, irepl TTJV
i-KOeffiv, — the account of the landing of Odysseus in Ithaca, — where the
Homeric charm disguises the improbability (rots oXXots ayaOols d<j>a.vlfci
•fiSvvwv TO droTrov).
2 After mentioning the several requirements of epic poetry, he says —
o?s aTra<rit>"Ofj.T)pos K^x/J^rat Kal irpurros /cat IKO.VW (Poet. 24).
3 Poet. c. 24, with Twining's note (vol. II. p. 331). The limit of
due length for an epic is that it should be possible for us to ' comprehend
the beginning and the end in one view.' This means, to read, or hear,
the whole epic, without discomfort, in one day, — as is shown by the
comparison with 'tragedies set for one hearing.' And, for this purpose,
the epic should be 'shorter than the ancient' epics, — a phrase which
must include Homer. (The Iliad contains 15,693 lines; the Odyssey ',
12,110.) I do not know whether it has been pointed out how
interesting is this indication of Aristotle's feeling, in relation to the
modern view that the epics have grown by additions beyond their
first design. Surmising nothing of the kind, and profoundly admiring
Homer, the Greek critic yet cannot altogether disguise the offence to
his sense of measure.
6 HOMER. [CH. I.
divided into three parts. The first ends with book ix.,
when the Greeks sue to Achilles, and are repulsed. The
second -ends with book xvin., the last in which he remains
aloof from the war.
The asterisks denote those books in which Achilles
himself appears. The Greek titles of the books, given in
brackets, have come down from the Alexandrian age.
*I. (A. Aoi/i6s. Mijm.) In the tenth year of the war, Apollo
plagues the Greeks, because the daughter of Chryses, his priest, has
been taken by Agamemnon ; who, being required to restore her,
wrongs Achilles by depriving him of his captive, the maiden Briseis.
Thereupon Achilles retires from the war, and Zeus swears to Thetis,
the hero's mother, that the Greeks shall rue this wrong done to her son.
II. (B. "Oreipos. BoiCtfri'a TJ tcaraXoyos TUV veui>.) Zeus sends the
Dream-god to the sleeping Agamemnon, and beguiles him to marshal
all his host for battle. An assembly of the Greek army shows that the
general voice is for going back to Greece — but at last the army is
rallied. — Catalogue of the Greek and Trojan forces (vv. 484 — 877).
III. (F. "Op/cot. Tetxo0"/co7ria. HaptSoj /cai MepeXdov /iowytcax/a.)
The Trojan Paris having challenged the Greek Menelaus to decide the
war by single combat, a truce is made between the armies. Helen and
Priam survey the Greek host from the walls of Troy. In the single
combat, Aphrodite saves Paris.
IV. (A. 'OpKiuv <rijyxvffiS' 'A-ya^/j-vovos ^TriTrwXi/o-tj.) The Trojan
Pandarus breaks the truce. Agamemnon marshals the Greek host.
The armies join battle.
V. (E. Aioi*7)5ov$ dpHTTela.) The prowess of the Greek Diomede;
who makes great slaughter of the Trojans, and, helped by Athene,
wounds even Aphrodite and Ares.
VI. (Z. "E/cropos Kal'Avdpofjiax^ 6fj.i\la.) Diomede and the Lycian
Glaucus (a Trojan ally) are about to fight, when they recognise each
other as hereditary guest-friends, and part in amity. — Hector goes from
the battle to Troy, and before sallying out again, bids farewell to his wife
Andromache.
VII. (H. "E/cropos Kal Atavros [j.ovo/j.axla- NeAcpwj' avalpfffis. ) Single
combat of Hector and Ajax. Burying of the dead. The Greeks build
a wall to protect their camp by the Hellespont.
VIII. (0. Ko'Xos /M-x-n— 'the interrupted fight'— broken off by the
gods at v. 485.) Zeus, on Olympus, commands the gods to help neither
side; and then, going down to Ida, gives the Trojans the advantage
over the Greeks. At Hector's instance the Trojans bivouac on the
battle-field.
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 7
*IX. (I. Upeo-pela irp&s 'Ax'XX&i. AtraL) Agamemnon sends
envoys (Odysseus, Ajax, Phoenix) by night to Achilles, offering to
restore Brise'is and to make amends ; but Achilles rejects the
offer.
X. (K. AoXwi/aci.) Odysseus and Diomede, going by night to-
wards the Trojan camp, slay Dolon, a Trojan spy; then they slay the
sleeping Rhesus, chief of the Thracians, and take his horses.
*XI. (A. 'Aya^/jivovos apiffrda.) Agamemnon does great deeds,
but in vain; many of the leading Greek chiefs are disabled; and
Patroclus, sent by Achilles to ask about the wounded physician
Machaon, learns that the plight of the Greeks is desperate.
XII. (M. Tetxo/*ax*a.) The Trojans, led by Hector, break
through the wall of the Greek camp.
XIII. (N. Max?; tiri TCUS vavffiv.) Zeus having turned his eyes
for a while away from the Trojan plain, the sea-god Poseidon, watching
from the peak of Samothrace, seizes the moment to encourage the
Greeks. The Cretan Idomeneus does great deeds.
XIV. (S. Aids cbrarq— *'.;. the trick played on Zeus.) The Sleep-
god, and Hera, lull Zeus to slumber on Ida. Poseidon urges on the
Greeks, and the Trojan Hector is wounded.
XV. (0. IldXlwfa Trapa ruv vewv — not a correct title, for the
Trojans are not routed.) Zeus awakens on Ida. At his bidding,
Apollo puts new strength into Hector. The Trojan host presses again
on the Greek ships : Ajax valorously defends them.
*XVI. (II. narpo/cXeid.) Patroclus intercedes for the Greeks
with Achilles ; who lends him his armour. In the guise of his friend,
Patroclus takes the field, and drives the Trojans from the ships; and at
last is slain by Hector.
XVII. (P. N.evf\dov dpia-rela.) The Greeks and Trojans con-
tend for the corpse of Patroclus. Meuelaus does great deeds.
*XVIII. (S. 'On-Xoirorfa.) Achilles learns the death of Patroclus,
and makes moan for him ; at the sound whereof, Thetis rises from the
sea, and comes to her son. She persuades the god of fire, Hephaestus,
to make new armour for Achilles. The shield wrought by Hephaestus
is described.
*XIX. (T. M^j>t8os diropp-rjffis.) Achilles renounces his wrath.
He is reconciled to Agamemnon before the assembly of the Greek
host. He makes ready to go forth to war with them; the horses are
yoked to his chariot; when the horse Xanthus speaks with human
voice, and foretells the doom of Achilles.
*XX. (T. Qeo/j.axla.) The gods come down from Olympus to
join in the fight on the Trojan plain — some with the Greeks, some with
the Trojans. Achilles fights with Aeneas, who is saved by Poseidon;
and with Hector, who is saved by Apollo.
8 HOMER. [CH. I,
*XXI. ($. MaxT? irapaTTord/Mos.) The River-god Scamander
fights with Achilles, who is saved by Hephaestus.
*XXII. (X. "Eicropos dvatpeffts.) Achilles fights with Hector, and
chases him thrice round the walls of Troy. Zeus weighs in golden
scales the lots of Achilles and Hector. Hector is doomed to die:
Apollo deserts him, while Athene encourages Achilles. Achilles slays
Hector.
*XXIII. (*. "AflXa M narp6/c\y.) The spirit of Patroclus
appears to Achilles, and craves burial for the corpse : which is burned
on a great pyre, with slaying of many victims : twelve Trojan captives
are slain, and cast on the pyre. Games follow, in honour of the
funeral.
*XXIV. (£). "E/cropos \vrpa.) As Achilles daily drags the corpse
of Hector round the barrow of Patroclus, Apollo pleads with the gods,
and Zeus stirs up Priam to go and ransom the body of his son. The
god Hermes, in disguise, conducts the aged king across the plain;
Achilles receives him courteously, and accepts the ransom ; and Priam
goes back to Troy with the corpse of Hector, to be mourned and
buried.
Structure 5, The Odyssey owes its unity to the person of Odysseus,
Odyssey. and this unity is necessarily of a closer kind than exists in
the Iliad. The epic may conveniently be divided into
groups of four books, (i) I. — iv. The adventures of Tele-
machus. (2) v. — vm. The adventures of Odysseus, after
leaving Calypso's isle, till he reaches Phaeacia. (3) ix. —
xn. The previous adventures of Odysseus. (4) xm. — xvi.
Odysseus at the hut of Eumaeus in Ithaca. (5) xvn. —
xx. The return of Odysseus to his house. (6) XXL —
xxiv. The vengeance on the suitors, and the re-establish-
ment of Odysseus in his realm.
I. (a. Qewv dyopd. 'A.0r)vq.s Trapatveffis TT/OOS TyMfAaxov.) It is
the tenth year since the fall of Troy. Odysseus is now detained by the
nymph Calypso in Ogygia, an isle of the far west; while his wife,
Penelope, in Ithaca, is beset by suitors, lawless men, who feast riotously
in the house, as though it were their own. In the council of the gods,
Athene urges that Poseidon, the sea-god, has vexed Odysseus long
enough; and she herself goes to Ithaca, and stirs up Telemachus to go
in search of his father.
II. (j8. 'ldaKr]ffiwv dyopd. T^Xe/uaxoi; diroSrjfji.la). Telemachus
calls an assembly of the Ithacans, and appeals to them to protect his
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 9
rights; but the suitors mock him, and nothing is done. Athene,
however, disguised as a chief named Mentor, gets him a ship, wherein
Telemachus, with the supposed Mentor, sails for Pylus in Elis.
III. (7. Td tv n«J\v.) Nestor, the old king of Pylus, receives
them hospitably. At the banquet, ' Mentor' vanishes, and Nestor per-
ceives that their guest has been the goddess Athene, to whom he pours
a drink-offering. Then Telemachus sets out for Sparta, with Nestor's
son, Peisistratus.
IV. (5. Td tv A.a.Kedalfj.oi'i.) Menelaus, king of Sparta, receives
them, and his wife Helen knows Telemachus by his likeness to his
father. Having learned that his father is in Calypso's isle (Menelaus
had been told this by the seer Proteus in Egypt), Telemachus prepares
to return to Ithaca. Meanwhile Penelope hears of a plot by the suitors
to slay her son; but Athene comforts her in a dream.
V. (e. KaXi^ouj avrpov. 'OSvo-fftus crx^SLa.) The gods at last
send Hermes, and tell Calypso to let Odysseus go; and she obeys.
Odysseus builds himself a flat-bottomed vessel (not simply what we
call 'a raft'), and puts to sea. On the i8th day his old enemy Poseidon
espies him, and wrecks him; but the sea-goddess Ino ( = Leucothea)
gives him a veil which buoys him up, and at last he comes ashore at
the mouth of a river in Scheria, the land of a great sea-faring folk, the
Phaeacians.
VI. (f. '05v<r<r£us d<f>i£is els QaiaKas.) Nausicaa, daughter of the
Phaeacian king Alcinous, comes down to the river with her handmaids,
to wash linen; and having done this, they play at ball. Their voices
awake the sleeping Odysseus; he entreats their pity; and Nausicaa
shows him the way to her father's city.
VII. (17. '05i»0-(r^ws e&roSos irpos 'A\Klvovv.) King Alcinous and
his queen, Arete, receive Odysseus in their splendid palace, and he
tells his adventures since he left Calypso's isle.
VIII. (9. 'Odvvfftws owracns TT/JOJ 4>a/a/cas.) Alcinous calls an
assembly of the Phaeacians, and it is resolved that the stranger shall
have a ship to take him home. Games are held. Then at a feast
given by the king, the minstrel Demodocus sings of Troy : the stranger
weeps ; and the king presses him to tell his story.
[Books IX. — xii. were called collectively 'AXidvov diroXoyoi, the
'narratives to Alcinous'.]
IX. (i. Ku/cXw7reta.) Odysseus tells how, on leaving Troy, he
came to the Cicones (in Thrace) ; afterwards to the Lotus-eaters ; and
then to the land of the Cyclopes, where he put out the one eye
of Polyphemus.
X. (K. Td ire pi A.ib\ov ical Aaia-rpvydvwv Ka.1 K/pKijs.) His ad-
ventures with the wind-god Aeolus; with the Laestrygonians ; and
with the enchantress Circe.
10 HOMER. [CH. I.
XI. (X. NVKtua.) How he went down to Hades, the place of the
dead, and spoke with many spirits of the departed.
XII. (/*. Seizes, S/cyXXa, Xa/3u/35is, £6es 'HX/ou.) His ad-
ventures with the Seirens, and Scylla and Charybdis; and how his
comrades ate the sacred oxen of the sun in the isle Thrinacria ; wherefore
they all perished at sea, and he came alone to Calypso's isle, Ogygia.
XIII. (v. '05v<rfft(i)S dvairXovs Trapd $at.a.KWi> Kal a0c|;ts et'j 'IdaK-rjv. )
The Phaeacians take Odysseus back to Ithaca; and, as they are re-
turning, Poseidon turns their ship to stone. Athene appears to Odysseus
in Ithaca; changes him into the likeness of an old beggar-man; and
counsels him how he shall slay the suitors.
XIV. (£. '05v(r<rtus irpos Eti/j.aioi> 6/Ju\la.) Odysseus converses
with his old swine-herd Eumaeus, who knows him not.
XV. (o. frj\e/j.dxov irpos Efifjiatov d</>t£is.) Telemachus returns to
Ithaca, and seeks the dwelling of Eumaeus.
XVI. (TT. ' Avayvwpi<r/j.os 'Odva-ff^ws VTTO T^Xe/w^ou.) Odysseus,
temporarily restored to his proper form by Athene (cp. xm.), reveals
himself to his son. They concert a plan for slaying the suitors.
XVII. (p. Tr]\efj.dxov tirdvodos e£s 'IdaKyv — i.e. to the town- he
has been in the isle since xv.) Telemachus goes to the town. He
keeps his father's return a secret from his mother, telling her only what
he had heard abroad. Odysseus — once more the old beggar-man —
comes to the house with Eumaeus ; the dog Argos knows his disguised
master, and welcomes him, and dies.
XVIII. (ff. 'Odvfffftws Kal "Ipov irvy/JLri,) The disguised Odysseus
has a fight with Irus, a beggar living on the alms of the suitors;
who continue their revelry and insolence.
XIX. (T. 'QSvfffftw Kal H^eXoTnyj 6fj.i\ia. To, viirTpa.) Penelope
speaks with the poor stranger, whom she knows not for her lord,
and tells him how she has baffled the suitors by delay. She promised
to make her choice as soon as she should have woven a web, and every
night she undid the day's weaving. Eurycleia, the old nurse, washes
the stranger's feet ; by a scar she knows Odysseus ; who charges her to
be secret.
XX. (v. Ta Trpo TTJS fj.vr)<TT'r)po<f>oj>tas.) Odysseus is troubled in
soul, as he lies awake in the porch of the house ; Athene appears and
comforts him. While the suitors are revelling, the seer Theoclymenus,
who has second-sight, foresees their doom in a dread vision: but they
heed him not.
XXI. (0. T6£ov 0ecris.) Penelope proposes to the suitors that
they should try their skill with a bow which the hero Eurytus-had once
given to Odysseus. Not one of them can even bend it; but the
stranger (Odysseus) strings it with ease, and sends an arrow through the
holes in twelve axe-heads, set up one behind another.
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. II
XXII. (%. 'M.vrj<rT'r)po<t>oi>la.) At that instant Odysseus casts off
his disguise; with his son, and two trusty followers, he falls on the
suitors in the palace-hall, and slays them: and-the faithless serving-
maids of the house are hanged.
XXIII. ($. 'QdvffcrtwsvTrd HTjveXoTrrjs avayvwpiffiws.) The nurse
Eurycleia (cp. xix.) tells Penelope that Odysseus has come home; the
wife recognises her lord, and hears from him the sum of his wanderings.
Odysseus resolves to withdraw for a while to a farm some way from the
town, to see his aged father, Laertes.
XXIV. (w. NAewa devrtpa. Zirovdal.) The god Hermes leads
the shades of the suitors down to Hades. Odysseus finds Laertes
working in his garden, and reveals himself to his father. The Ithacans
bury the suitors, and, after debate, resolve to avenge them; but are
worsted by Odysseus and his following, and submit. Then the goddess
Athene makes peace and a solemn covenant between the king Odysseus
and his lieges in Ithaca.
Epics, like dramas, are classed by Aristotle as 'simple'
or 'complex.' The Iliad is 'simple' (aVX^), because its
action, like that of the Prometheus Vindus, has a plain and
direct course. The Odyssey is 'complex' (TrepiTreTrXey/AeV^),
because the plot is complicated by the disguises of Odysseus,
and the 'recognition,' like that in the Oedipus Tyrannus, is
accompanied by a sudden reversal of the situation (?repi-
Trereia). Again, the Iliad is 'pathetic' (tta&p-un?), because
the mainspring of the hero's action throughout is passion, —
wrath against Agamemnon, grief for Patroclus, and a fierce
desire to avenge him. The Odyssey is 'ethic' (jJ0wof)j
because the character of the patient and resourceful hero is
displayed in action guided by reason1.
1 Arist. Poet. 24. This view— that Aristotle's va0irriicq
refer to the dominant motive of action in the two epics respectively —
has been lately developed by G. Giinther, Grundziige der tragischen
Kunst, pp. 538 — 543 (Leipsic, 1885). It seems the most probable. If
yQiK-r) meant merely, 'strong in portraiture of character,' it would apply
to the Iliad no less than to the Odyssey. And if Tra^rt/ci; meant,
as Twining and others take it, 'disastrous,' — i.e. 'containing tragic
events,' — it would apply to the Odyssey — with its destruction of the
hero's comrades, and its slaughter of the suitors — hardly less than
to the Iliad.
12 HOMER. [CH. I.
Homeric 7. The capital distinction of Homeric poetry is that it
as a^ ^e fresnness and simplicity of a primitive age, — all
ral the charm which we associate with the 'childhood of the
amp> world' ; while on the other hand it has completely surmounted
the rudeness of form, the struggle of thought with language,
the tendency to grotesque or ignoble modes of speech, the
incapacity for equable maintenance of a high level, which
belong to the primitive stage in literature. This general
character is that which Mr Matthew Arnold defines, in his
excellent lectures on translating Homer, when he says that
Homer's style has four principal qualities ; it is rapid ; plain
in thought; plain in diction; and noble1. The English
reader will perhaps see this most clearly if he compares
Homer with our old ballads on the one hand, and, on the
other, with a form of poetry which shares, indeed, the name
and form of 'epic,' but is of an essentially different nature
from the Homeric, — namely, the literary epic, such as the
Aeneid or Paradise Lost.
Relation 8. Before instituting any comparison between the bal-
}°dbal~ lads and Homer, we must guard ourselves by marking its
poetry, limit. The old English and Scottish ballads, such as those in
Percy's ' Reliques ' and other collections, belong to a much
ruder stage of poetical development than the Iliad and the
Odyssey. In Greek there are no remains of the stage pro-
perly corresponding to our ballads ; as in English, on the
other hand, we have no Homer. The ballad ' proper was
a narrative poem, while the 'song' was the vehicle of per-
sonal feeling ; and though the line was not rigidly drawn,
still the balladist, by tradition and instinct, confined himself,
as a rule, to simple narrative. The 'ballad' and the
'song' were contemporary products, whereas the Greek epic
existed before Greece had any properly lyric poetry ; and
1 He remarks that, as a translator of Homer, Cowper fails to be
rapid ; Pope, to be plain in diction ; and Chapman (imbued with the
'conceits' of the Elizabethan age) to be plain in thought, — Homeric
though he is in so much, — 'plain-spoken, fresh, vigorous, to a certain
degree, rapid.'
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 13
the Homeric epic, while it is mainly a narrative, is also
rich in the germs of the unborn lyric. Such are those
utterances of thought and sentiment concerning human
life, — utterances often so deeply suggestive and pathetic, —
which fall from the lips of the Homeric persons, and
which contribute to give the Homeric poems their profound
and universal human interest, — a moral and philosophic
significance, over and above their splendid pictures of
action. As a medium of poetry, the relatively poor and
narrow form in which the balladist worked cannot for an
instant be compared with Homer's spacious and various
epic. But we may illustrate certain Homeric qualities by
inquiring how far they are, or are not, present in the
ballads.
We find, then, that the ballads share with Homer the Homeric
first three qualities named above ; they are rapid in move- j^6^111
ment ; plain in thought ; and plain in diction. There are ballads,
moments, further, when to these three qualities they add
the fourth quality, — nobleness; and it is then that they
become, in some degree, Homeric. Such moments usually
occur under one of two conditions; viz., when the ballad
describes a crisis of warlike action, or when it describes
a vehement outburst of natural emotion. An example of
the first kind is the part of Chevy Chase where ' a squire
of Northumberland' warns the Percy's men that the Douglas
is coming :
1 Leave off the brittling of the deer ! ' he said,—
' And to your bows look ye take good heed I
' For sith ye were o' your mothers born
'Had ye never so mickle need.'
The doughty Douglas on a steed
He rode at his men beforne;
His armour glitter'd as did a glede :
A bolder baron never was born.
'Tell me what men ye are,' he says, —
1 Or whose men that ye be !
'Who gave you leave to hunt in this
' Cheviot Chace in the spite of me ? '
14 HOMER. [CH. I.
That is rapid ; it is direct in thought and in language ;
further, it has a martial dignity of its own ; and, uniting
these qualities, it produces an effect on the mind somewhat
analogous to that which is produced by the warlike scenes
of the Iliad. Consider, again, the description in the Iliad
of Achilles in his first passion of grief for the death of
Patroclus, — Antilochus having just brought the news : —
' Thus spake he, and a black cloud of grief enwrapped Achilles, and
with both hands he took dark dust, and poured it over his head, and
defiled his comely face, and on his fragrant doublet black ashes fell,
and himself in the dust lay mighty and mightily fallen, and with his
own hands tore and marred his hair.'
In the ballad of 'Jamie Telfer,' Wat of Harden, a
chieftain of Teviotside, sees his son Willie killed before his
eyes in a Border foray. A chivalrous nature, in its first
agony of grief and anger, is portrayed here also. The stanzas
are ennobled by the intensity of natural pathos, and, despite
all difference of form, are thus far Homeric in spirit : —
But Willie was stricken ower the head,
And thro' the knapscap J the sword has gane ;
And Harden grat for very rage,
When Willie on the ground lay slane.
But he's taen aff his gude steel cap,
And thrice he's waved it in the air;
The Dinlay snaws were ne'er mair white
Nor the lyart locks of Harden's hair.
'Revenge! Revenge!' auld Wat 'gan cry;
'Fye, lads, lay on them cruellie,
'We'll ne'er see Teviotside again,
'Or Willie's death revenged sail be2.'
The But now take the ballad on its ordinary level of
bdlad17 narrative> where it is not raised by any such glow of passion,
tone. and compare it with some analogous part of Homer. In
the Odyssey King Alcinous suggests to his noble guest
1 head-piece.— 'Dinlay' (v. 7), a Liddesdale hill.— 'lyart' (v. 8) =
grey.
2 Prof. Veitch's History and Poetry of the Scottish Border (Mac-
Lehose, 1878), from which I take this (p. 397), would furnish many
other fine examples : see esp. ch. xi.
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 1 5
(whom he does not yet know to be Odysseus) that he
should stay in Phaeacia, and marry his daughter Nau-
sicaa :—
'Would to father Zeus, and Athene, and Apollo, would that so
goodly a man as thou art, and like-minded with me, thou wouldst wed
my daughter, and be called my son, here abiding : so would I give thee
home and wealth, if thou wouldst stay of thine own will : but against
thy will shall none of the Phaeacians keep thee : never be this well-
pleasing in the eyes of father Zeus.'
Absolutely simple and direct as that is, it is also perfect
in refinement and in nobleness.
King Estmere, in the old ballad which bears his name,
wishes to marry King Adland's daughter; and Adler,
Estmere's brother, announces this to Adland : —
'You have a daughter,' said Adler young, —
' Men call her bright and sheen ;
'My brother would marry her to his wife,
' Of England to be Queen.'
King Adland replies : —
'Yesterday was at my dear daughter
' Sir Bremor, the King of Spain ;
'And then she nicked him with Nay:
' I fear she'll do you the same.'
I take this example, because the difference between the
tone of King Adland and of King Alcinous seems a not
unfair measure of the average difference between the ballad,
when it is on its ordinary level, and Homer. It might be
questioned whether Mr Matthew Arnold is quite just to the
balladists in quoting as a typical verse,
When the tinker did dine, he had plenty of wine :
but, at any rate, the main point is indisputable; the balladist
is altogether a ruder workman, and also stands on a much
lower intellectual level, than the Homeric poet ; whose style
varies appropriately to his theme, but always and every-
where maintains its noble grace, maintains it, too, without
the slightest stiffness, or visible effort • and whose thoughts
on human life show a finer and deeper insight than that of
1 6 HOMER. [CH. I.
the balladists. We have been glancing at our old ballads
here as representing early folk-song, made by the people for
the people. The result is to show that the Homeric poetry
is something maturer and higher. Early folk-song has its
moments of elevation, and in these comes nearer to Homer;
but its general level is immeasurably lower.
Homer 9. It is still more important, perhaps, to perceive the
Literary broad difference between the Homeric epic and the literary
epic. epic of later ages. The literary epic is composed, in an
age of advanced civilisation, by a learned poet. His taste
and style have been influenced by the writings of many
poets before him. He commands the historical and anti-
quarian literature suitable to his design. He composes
with a view to cultivated readers, who will feel the more
recondite charms of style, and will understand the literary
allusions. The general character of the literary epic is well
illustrated by the great passage of Paradise Lost where
Milton is saying how far 'beyond compare of mortal prowess'
were the legions of the fallen Archangel : —
And now his heart
Distends with pride, and, hardening in his strength,
Glories; for never, since created Man,
Met such embodied force, as named with these,
Could merit more than that small infantry
Warred on by cranes — though all the giant brood
Of Phlegra with the heroic race were joined
That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side
Mixed with auxiliar gods; and what resounds
In fable or romance of Uther's son,
Begirt with British and Armoric knights;
And all who since, baptized or infidel,
Jousted in Aspramont, or Montalban,
Damasco, or Morocco, or Trebisond,
Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore
When Charlemain with all his peerage fell
By Fontarabia.
It is a single and a simple thought — the exceeding might
of Satan's followers — that Milton here enforces by example
after example. A large range of literature is laid under
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. I'J
contribution, — the classical poets, the Arthurian cycle, the
Italian romances of chivalry, the French legends of Charle-
magne. The lost angels are measured against the Giants,
the Greek heroes, the Knights of the Round Table, the
champions of the Cross or the Crescent, and the paladins
slain at Roncesvalles. Every name is a literary reminiscence.
By the time that ' Aspramont' is reached, we begin to feel that
the progress of the enumeration is no longer adding anything
to our conception of prowess ; we begin to be aware that, in
these splendid verses, the poet is exhibiting his erudition.
But this characteristic of the literary epic, — its proneness to
employ the resources of learning for the production of a
cumulative effect, — is only one of the traits which are ex-
emplified by the passage. Homer would not have said, as
Milton does, that, in comparison with the exiled Spirits, all
the chivalry of human story was no better than "-that small
infantry warred on by cranes;' Homer would have said
that it was no better than the Pygmies. Homer says plainly
and directly what he means ; the literary epic likes to say
it allusively ; and observe the turn of Milton's expression,
— '•that small infantry;' i.e., 'the small infantry which, of
course, you remember in the third book of the Iliad.1
Lastly, remark Milton's phrase, 'since created Man,'
meaning, 'since the creation of Man.' The idiom, so
familiar in Greek and Latin, is not English, and so it gives
a learned air to the style; the poet is at once felt to be a
scholar, and the poem to be a work of the study. Homer's
language is everywhere noble, but then it is also natural.
So, within the compass of these few lines, three characteris- Summary,
tics may be seen which broadly distinguish the literary epic
from Homer. It is learnedly elaborate, while Homer is
spontaneous; it is apt to be allusive, while Homer is
direct; in language it is often artificially subtle, while
Homer, though noble, is plain1. The Homeric quality
1 'The unrivalled clearness and straightforwardness of his thinking'
is a point in which Mr Matthew Arnold finds an affinity between
Homer and Voltaire. Like Voltaire, Homer 'keeps to one thought at
J. 2
1 8 HOMER. [CH. I.
which the literary epic best attains is nobleness ; yet the
nobleness is of a different cast ; it is a grave majesty,
of stately but somewhat monotonous strain; whereas the
noble manner of Homer lends itself with equal ease to
every mood of human life; it can render the vehemence of
dark passions, or reflect the splendour of battle, but it is
not less truly itself in shedding a sunny or tender grace
over the gentlest or homeliest scenes, — in short, it is every-
where the nobleness of nature.
Dryden IO- It was once a commonplace of criticism to compare
and Ad- Homer with the great literary epics as if they were works
Homer, of the same order. Dryden's lines are famous; —
Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn:
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go ;
To make a third she joined the former two1.
Here, classing the three poets together, Dryden is con-
tent with distinguishing Homer as sublime, Virgil as majestic,
and Milton as both. Addison, again, compares the Iliad,
the Aeneid, and Paradise Lost in respect of plot, characters,
sentiments, and language, — without indicating any sense of
the generic difference which separates the Iliad from the
other two. To ignore this difference, however, is even
more unjust to Virgil and to Milton than it is to Homer.
The epic poet in a literary age cannot escape from his age,
and the primary condition of justly estimating his poetry is
to recognise that it is not a voice from the primitive
world; but then he has a task of his own, such as was
not laid on the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey; he
has to deal with great masses of more or less intractable
a time, and puts that thought forth in its complete natural plainness,
instead of being led away from it by some fancy, striking him in con-
nection with it.'
1 They were first printed under White's portrait of Milton in the
edition of Paradise Lost published by Tonson in 1688. Masson's
edition of Milton, I. 20.
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. TQ
materials, — to select from them, — to organise the selected
parts, — and to animate them with a vital breath; he has,
in poetry, a constructive function analogous to that which,
in prose, is performed by a Livy or a Gibbon ; and who does
not know with what marvellous power this task has been
achieved — in different modes and in different degrees —
by the genius of Virgil, of Dante, and of Milton ? Then,
towards the close of the last century, the origin of the
Homeric poems began to be critically discussed, — and
the new tendency was to make an assumption exactly op-
posite to that on which Addison's criticism rested. Wolf The
protested against comparing Homer with the literary epic
poets, such as Milton. The fashion now was to compare
Homer with the makers of primitive folk-songs or ballads.
But, as we have seen, this was a mistake in the opposite
direction. The first step towards appreciating Homer's
place in literature has been gained if we clearly perceive
wherein Homer mainly differs from Chevy Chase on the one
hand, and from Paradise Lost on the other.
ii. At this point we may refer, for illustration, to an Homer
analogy which our own literature offers, — one which, however falter
imperfect, is in several respects suggestive, — the analogy of Scott.
Walter Scott's poetry. The relation of Scott to Homer
may be viewed from two different sides. If a direct literary
comparison is made, — if the foim of Scott's poetry is com-
pared with that of Homer's, — the contrast is more evident
than the likeness. If, on the other hand, we look for an
analogy, and not for a direct resemblance, — if Scott's
relation to our old balladists is compared with Homer's
relation to a ruder age of song, — if the spirit in which Scott
re-animates the age of chivalry is compared with the spirit
in which Homer re-animates the age of Achaean heroism,
— then a genuine kinship is discerned. For the English
student of Homer, there could scarcely be a more in-
teresting exercise than to estimate this unlikeness and this
analogy ; it is one which tests our appreciation of Homer
in several ways; and, it may be added, it is one which
2 — 2
20 HOMER. [CH. I.
can be attempted with equal profit by those who entertain
dissimilar views as to the precise poetical rank of Scott.
To begin with the unlikeness, Scott's poetry was formed
on the old Border ballad, modified by the medieval
element romance; in the note prefixed to Marmion he calls that
of con- poem a 'Romantic Tale,' and disclaims all idea of essaying
trust "*
'epic composition.' When, therefore, Mr Matthew Arnold
says of Scott's style that 'it is, tried by the highest
standards, a bastard epic style,' it is only just to re-
member that Scott would himself have deprecated the
application of those 'highest standards.' But it is true
that, as the same critic says, Scott's style has anjinherent
inability for maintaining the Homeric level of nobleness;
it necessarily shares that defect with the ballad form on
which it is founded. Mr Arnold has quoted these lines
(from Marmion vi. 29) as typical of Scott :
Tunstall lies dead upon the field,
His life-blood stains the spotless shield :
Edmund is down — my life is reft —
The Admiral alone is left.
He makes two remarks upon them, — that the movement,
though rapid, is jerky; and that this external trait points
to a deeper spiritual diversity, which the lines also reveal, —
Scott's incapacity for the grand manner of Homer. This
example is, however, utterly unfair to Scott. First, the
'jerkiness' of these lines does not represent the normal
movement of Scott's verse where it is most Homeric, —
they belong to the broken utterances of the wounded
Marmion, as, recovering from his swoon, he hurriedly tells
the disastrous tidings of the field to those around him, —
their abruptness is purposed l :— next, the whole passage is
infinitely far from representing Scott's nearest approach to
1 A critic having observed this, Mr Arnold rejoins ('Last Words on
translating Homer,' p. 67) that 'the best art, having to represent the
death of a hero, does not set about imitating his dying noises.' But
Marmion's words are not 'dying noises'; and poetry is surely per-
mitted to represent abrupt speech.
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 21
the manner of Homer. Adequately to represent that, we
might rather quote, from the same Canto, the magnificent
description of Flodden, beginning —
At length the freshening western blast
Aside the shroud of battle cast ;
And, first, the ridge of mingled spears
Above the brightening cloud appears,
And in the smoke the pennons flew,
As in the storm the white sea-mew —
or, from the Lay, William of Deloraine's ride from Brank-
some to Melrose ; or Dacre's defiance to the warriors of
Scotland —
'And let them come,' fierce Dacre cried;
' For soon yon crest, my father's pride,
' That swept the shores of Judah's sea,
'And waved in gales of Galilee,
'From Branksome's highest towers display'd,
'Shall mock the rescue's lingering aid' —
or, from the Lady of the Lake, a farewell not unworthy to
be compared with the parting of Hector and Andromache
in the sixth book of the Iliad, — the passage in which
Duncan's widow sees her young son go forth to be the
champion of their house : —
In haste the stripling to his side
His father's dirk and broadsword tied;
But when he saw his mother's eye
Watch him in speechless agony,
Back to her open'd arms he flew,
Press'd on her lips a fond adieu —
' Alas ! ' she sobb'd, — ' and yet, be gone,
' And speed thee forth, like Duncan's son ! '
One look he cast upon the bier,
Dash'd from his eye the gathering tear,
Breathed deep to clear his labouring breast,
And toss'd aloft his bonnet crest;
Then, like the high-bred colt, when, freed,
First he essays his fire and speed,
He vanish'd, and o'er moor and moss
Sped forward with the Fiery Cross.
22 HOMER. [CH. I.
Or — to take but one instance more — the lines, picturing
the career of the Fiery Cross, in which Homer's favourite
image of a fire raging in the hills is joined to much of
Homer's magic in the use of local names —
Not faster o'er thy heathery braes,
Balquhidder, speeds the midnight blaze,
Rushing in conflagration strong
Thy deep ravines and dells along,
Wrapping thy cliffs in purple glow,
And reddening the dark lakes below ;
Nor faster speeds it, nor so far
As o'er thy heaths the voice of war —
But it is not by a few detached verses that either the
unlikeness or the affinity between Homer and Scott can be
measured : both must be judged by the spirit of the whole.
The unlikeness, as we have seen, depends on the inherent
limitations, not merely of the ballad form, but of the ballad
tone; it may be briefly expressed in the proposition that
a translation of Homer into the metres and style of Scott
could never be successful.
The ele- The affinity, on the other hand, is profounder and
analo0f more essential- On any view as to the origin of the
Homeric poems, it is certain that the age of Achaean
prowess lay behind the Homeric poet, but was still so near
to him — either in time, or through tradition — that he could
realise it with entire vividness. Scott stood in a similar
relation to a past age of warlike and romantic adventure.
This was due to the peculiar condition of Scotland at the
date of his birth in 1771. Those literary influences which
tend to make the difference between an Aeneid and an Iliad
were in full force, indeed, at Edinburgh, but they were
little felt, as yet, in Scotland at large. The memories and
feelings of an earlier time still survived, with extraordinary
freshness, in the life of the people. Old men could still
tell of stirring deeds associated with the risings of 1745 and
1715 ; in many a Scottish home some episode of stubborn
devotion was dear to the descendants of those who had
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 23
died for the Covenant ; and, in the Border country, ballad
and legend still enabled men to feel the mental atmosphere
of yet more distant days, when the bale-fire, signalling
some inroad from the south, used to flash from peel to
peel along the valleys of the Ettrick and the Yarrow,
the Teviot and the Tweed. From childhood Scott had
breathed this atmosphere and had known these scenes.
His strong genius was in the largest sense Homeric, as being
in natural sympathy with the heroic. Thus, by a com-
bined felicity of moment and temperament, he was in
touch with that past Those features of his poetical style
which are most liable to academic criticism are just those
which show how far he had escaped from what is most
anti-Homeric in an age of books. As Principal Shairp has
well said, 'It is this spontaneity, this naturalness of treat-
ment, this absence of effort, which marks out Scott's poetry
as belonging essentially to the popular, and having little
in common with the literary, epic1.' Nowhere else, per- Summary,
haps, in modern literature could any one be found who,
in an equal measure with Scott, has united these three
conditions of a true spiritual analogy to Homer; — living
realisation of a past heroic age ; a genius in native sympathy
with the heroic; and a manner which joins the spontaneous
impulse of the balladist to a higher order of art and
intellect.
12. Fresh, direct, and noble, the Homeric mode of pre- The
senting life has been singularly potent in tracing certain types Homeric
of character which ever since have stood out clearly before ters.
the imagination of the world. Such, in the first place, are
the heroes of the two epics, — Achilles, the type of heroic
might, violent in anger and in sorrow, capable also of
chivalrous and tender compassion; Odysseus, the type of
resourceful intelligence joined to heroic endurance, — one in
whom the power of Homer is seen even better, perhaps,
than in Achilles, since the debased Odysseus of later Greek
poetry never succeeded in effacing the nobler image of his
1 Aspects of Poetry, ch. xili. p. 394.
24 HOMER. [CH. I.
Homeric original. Such, again, are the Homeric types of
women, so remarkable for true and fine insight — Andro-
mache, the young wife and mother, who, in losing Hector,
must Jose all ; Penelope, loyal under hard trial to her
long-absent lord ; the Helen of the Iliad, remorseful,
clear-sighted, keenly sensitive to any kindness shown her
at Troy ; the Helen of the Odyssey, restored to honour in
her home at Sparta; the maiden Nausicaa, so beautiful
in the dawning promise of a noble womanhood, — perfect
in her delicacy, her grace, and her generous courage.
From Agamemnon to Thersites there is no prominent
agent in the Homeric epic on whom Homer has not set
the stamp of some quality which we can feel as distinctive.
The divine types of character are marked as clearly, and in
the same manner, as the human ; — Zeus, the imperious but
genial ruler of the Olympian family, — intolerant of com-
peting might, but manageable through his affections or his
appetites; Hera, his wife, who never loses sight of her
great aim, — the advancement of the Greek cause, — but
whose sometimes mutinous petulance is tempered by a
feminine perception of the point at which her lord's
character requires that she should take refuge in blandish-
ments; Apollo, the minister of death, the prophet, active in
upholding the decrees of his father Zeus, and never at
discord with him ; Athene, who, unlike her brother Apollo,
is often opposed to the purposes of Zeus, — at once a mighty
goddess of war, and the goddess who presides over art
and industry.
Their 13. Of all such Homeric beings, divine or human, we per-
iStoe1 ce*ve ^e dominant qualities and the general tendencies; but
they are not individualised beyond a certain point. Perhaps
the persons whom we seem to know best are the intensely
human Zeus and Hera, who furnish the only Homeric
example of domestic wrangling. The epic form, as com-
pared with the dramatic, is necessarily at a disadvantage for
the subtler delineation of character; but, further, it was the
special bent of the Greek genius, in poetry as in plastic art,
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 25
to aim at lucid expression of primary motives, and to refrain
from multiplying individual traits which might interfere with
their effect; a tendency which is seen even in Greek
drama. This typical quality in Homeric portraiture has
been one secret of its universal impressiveness. The
Homeric outlines are in each case brilliantly distinct,
while they leave to the reader a certain liberty of private
conception; he can fill them in so as to satisfy his own
ideal : and this is one reason for the ease with which
Homer's truth to the essential facts of human life has
been recognised by every age and race.
14. The speeches of the Homeric persons illustrate this. Their ex-
They faithfully express the general attributes of the
speakers; but — supposing that we already know what
these attributes are — we seldom feel that the speech has
given us fresh insight of a closer kind : what we do
feel is rather that we have heard a speech thoroughly
appropriate to a given type of person in a given situation.
As an example, we might refer to the great speeches in
the ninth Iliad, where Odysseus, Ajax, and Phoenix come
as envoys from the Greeks to Achilles, and he — in perhaps
the most splendid example of Homeric eloquence — rejects
their prayer. Oratorical power, and the faculty of debate
— as a master of both has observed — are there seen
in their highest form. The speeches are also admirably
suited to the type of character which each speaker repre-
sents; but they add none of those minor traits by which
the secrets of individuality are revealed.
A similar limit is observable in those cases where a or in
person's inward thoughts are clothed in words, and given
as a speech which he addresses to his own soul. These
audible thoughts are usually in the nature of comments
on the main point of the situation, and are such as might
have been made by a sympathetic bystander; they are com-
parable to the utterances of the Chorus in Greek Tragedy1.
1 The regular formula is, 6x#»?Vas 8' dpa elwe TT/JOS ov /xryaXiJro/ja dv/JiAv
(in which ox^cras, ' troubled,' is a general term, denoting, according to
26 HOMER. [CH. I.
Divine I5- The profound human interest of the Homeric poems
and human js enhanced by another feature in which they stand altogether
alone — their mode of blending divine and human action.
The Homeric gods meet mortals in hand-to-hand fight, they
wound them or are wounded by them, they aid or thwart
them, advise or deceive them, in visible presence; and it is
the unique distinction of Homer that all this is managed
without ever making the deities less than divine, or the mortals
more than human. Homer alone has known how to create
a sphere of action in which man's nature is constantly
challenged to prove its highest capacity by the direct
pressure of a supernatural force, while the gods are not
lowered, but exalted, by meeting men on common ground.
If we would feel how the Homeric communications between
heaven and earth reconcile perfect ease and grace of inter-
course with celestial dignity and religious awe, let us
contrast them with the abrupt interventions of the deus
ex machina in some plays of Euripides, or, again, with
such a relationship of gods and men as the literary epic
is apt to represent, — the Aeneid, for example, where Jupiter
is little more than an idealised Roman Senator, and the
agency of Olympus generally, instead of being vitally
interwoven with the organism of the poem, is rather a
mechanical adjunct.
Homeric 1 6. A literary estimate of Homer owes particular notice
"se°f to one abounding source of variety, vividness, and beauty.
The Homeric use of simile is so characteristic, it plays so
important a part in the poems, and it has so largely in-
fluenced later poetry, that it is well worthy of attentive
consideration. The first point to observe is that Homeric
simile is not a mere ornament. It serves to introduce
circumstances, grief, anxiety, terror or anger). It is used in the Iliad
of Achilles (18. 5,20. 343, 21. 53), Hector (22. 98), Odysseus (11.403),
Menelaus (17. 90), Agenor (21. 552). In the Odyssey it occurs thrice,
always of Odysseus (5. 298, 355, 407). The menacing thoughts of
Poseidon against Odysseus are twice introduced by a similar formula
Kapt) irporl ov fj-vB^aaro GV/J-OV, 5. 285. 376).
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 27
something which Homer desires to render exceptionally
impressive, — some moment, it may be, of peculiarly in-
tense action, — some sight, or sound, full of wonder, or
terror, or pity, — in a word, something great. He wishes to
prepare us for it by first describing something similar, only
more familiar, which he feels sure of being able to make
us see clearly. Thus the Homeric similes are responses to
a demand made on the narrator by the course of the
narrative; they indicate a spontaneous glow of poetical
energy; and consequently their occurrence seems as natural
as their effect is powerful. In the eighteenth book of
the Iliad Athene invests Achilles with the aegis, and
encircles his head with 'a golden cloud,' from which she
makes a flame to blaze. This gives occasion for one of
the most beautiful similes in Homer (//. 18. 207) : —
As from an island city, seen afar,
The smoke goes up to heaven, when foes besiege;
And all day long in grievous battle strive
The leaguered townsmen from their city wall:
But soon, at set of sun, blaze after blaze,
Flame forth the beacon-fires, and high the glare
Shoots up, for all that dwell around to see,
That they may come with ships to aid their stress:
Such light blazed heavenwards from Achilles' head1.
The comparison is between the flame flashing from the
golden cloud above the head of Achilles and the beacon-
fire which, in the gloaming, flares out beneath its column
of smoke. The circumstances of the island siege serve
as framework for the image of the beacon. This is fre-
quently the case in Homeric simile. When Homer com-
pares A to B, he will often add details concerning B which
have no bearing on the comparison. For instance, when
1 This version is from an admirable translation of ' The Similes of
Homer's Iliad' by the Rev. W. C. Green, late Fellow of King's
College, Cambridge (Longmans, 1877). In v. 211 I have ventured
to substitute 'Flame forth' (<t>\eyt0ov<riv) for 'Are lit,' because I con-
ceive the fires to have been lit before.
28 HOMER. [CH. I.
the sea-god Poseidon soars into the air from the Trojan
plain, he is compared to a hawk (//. 13. 62), —
That from a beetling brow of rock
Launched in mid air forth dashes to pursue
Some lesser bird along the plain below :
but Poseidon is not pursuing any one; the point of simi-
litude is solely the speed through the air. Such admission
Irrelevant of irrelevant detail might seem foreign to that direct aim at
detail. vividness which is the ruling motive of Homeric simile; but
it is, in fact, only another expression of it. If A is to
be made clearer by means of B, B itself must be clearly
seen; and therefore Homer takes care that B shall never
remain abstract or shadowy ; he invests it with enough
of detail to place a concrete image before the mind. The
hawk, for example, to whom Poseidon is likened, is more
vividly conceived when it is described as doing a particular
act characteristic of a hawk, — viz. pursuing another bird.
' Secure of the main likeness,' Pope says, 'Homer makes
no scruple to play with the circumstances;' but, while this
is true in the sense just noticed, we must remember that the
Homeric 'playing with circumstances' is never an aimless
luxuriance. The poet's delight in a picture, and the Hellenic
love of clear-cut form, are certainly present ; but both are
subordinate to a sense that the object which furnishes the
simile must be made distinct before the simile itself can be
Com- effective. In this respect Dante sometimes offers a striking
whh°n resemblance to Homer. It is generally believed that Dante
Dante, had no direct knowledge of Homer; but, even if it had
been otherwise, the particular resemblance of which we are
now speaking is manifestly due to a natural affinity of
spirit, — to the earnest desire of vividness, — and not to
literary imitation. Dante compares the boiling pitch of
Malebolge to the boiling pitch in the Arsenal of Venice
(Inf. XXL). And, in order that the Arsenal may be more
clearly placed before our minds, he rapidly mentions the
various tasks with which the workers in it are busy, —
how one man is building a new boat, while another is
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 29
caulking an old one, — how one is hammering at the prow,
another at the poop, — how others are making oars, or
twisting ropes, while others mend mizen or mainsail.
These labours have no analogy to the sufferings of the
lost in the Infernal Lake ; but they help us to see the very
place where the pitch is boiling at Venice; and the de-
scription of them is therefore thoroughly Homeric. A Contrast -
contrast is afforded by the Hebraic similes of the Old
Testament, which, as a rule, tersely mark the point of poetry.
comparison, and dispense with non-essential details. There
are, of course, exceptions; as when Job, comparing the
inconstancy of friends to the failure of water, makes such
failure more vivid — in a truly Homeric manner — by de-
scribing the disappointment of wanderers in the desert,
who reach springs only to find them dry : — * the caravans
of Tema look for them, the companies of Sheba rest their
hope on them : they are ashamed of their trust, they come
hither and blush ' (Job vi. 15 — 20).
17. The Iliad contains about a hundred and eighty de- Why
tailed similes, — the Odyssey, barely forty; and the proportion ^J^8
is such as might be expected when the broad difference the
between the two epics is considered. Full of adventure yssey-
and marvel as is the Odyssey, it has far fewer moments
of concentrated excitement than are presented by the war-
like action of the Iliad; in particular, it lacks all those
numerous occasions for simile which in the Iliad are given
by the movements of masses. But the spirit of the com-
parisons is essentially the same. When Charybdis swallows
the raft of Odysseus, he saves himself by clutching a wild
fig-tree which overhangs the whirlpool. There he clings,
'like a bat,' waiting till the depths of the vortex shall give
up his raft; and the keenness of his prolonged suspense
is emphasised by a simile. 'At the hour when a man rises
up from the assembly, and goes to supper, — one who
judges the many quarrels of the young men that seek to
him for law, — at that same hour those timbers came forth
to view from out Charybdis' (Od, 12. 439) \
1 Lest it be objected that these three verses, Od. 12. 439—441,
30 HOMER. [CH. I.
Range of 1 8 The range of Homeric simile is as wide as the life
16 . known to the poet. Some of the grandest images are
suggested by fire — especially, fire raging in a mountain
forest — by torrent, snowstorm, lightning, or warring winds.
Among animals, the lion is remarkable as furnishing no
fewer than thirty comparisons to the Iliad, — the finest of
all, perhaps, being that in which Ajax, defending the corpse
of Patroclus, is compared to a lion guarding his rubs,
who 'glares in his strength, and draws down all the skin
of his brows, covering his eyes1' (//. 17. 135). The useful
and ornamental arts afford other similitudes (which we
shall have occasion to mention in the next chapter) ; others
are drawn from the commonest operations or experiences of
every-day life ; for Homer thinks nothing too homely for
his purpose, if only it is vivid. The struggle of Greeks and
Trojans for the body of Patroclus is likened to men tugging
at a bull's hide which they wish to stretch for tanning
(//. 17. 389); the quick staunching of the War-God's wound
by the divine healer, Paieon, is likened to the quick curdling
of milk by the agency of fig-juice — the old Greek equivalent
for rennet (//. 5. 902); the stubborn Ajax, beset by Trojans,
is likened to an ass trespassing on corn-land, and vainly
belaboured with cudgels by boys (//. n. 557). This forcible
use of homely imagery is no less Hebraic than Homeric;
it is enough to recall 2 Kings xxi. 13, 'I will wipe
Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish: he wipeth it and
turneth it upside down,' — or the similes (which Homer
also has) from the threshing-floor and the winnowing fan.
Special mention is due to a small group of peculiarly
were suspected in antiquity (though on grounds which seem very
inconclusive), another example may be added — Od. 6. 232 ff., where
the splendour given by Athene to the aspect of Odysseus is marked by
the simile of the craftsman overlaying gold upon silver.
1 It should be noted that a personal knowledge of lions would not
necessarily presuppose an Asiatic Homer. In the 5th century B.C.
lions still existed in Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace, according to
Herod. 7. 125 f. His statement is confirmed by Xenophon (Cyneg. n),
and by Aristotle, a native of the region (Hist, An. 6. 31, 8. 28). See
Geddes, Problem of the Homeric Poems, p. 268.
CH. Lj GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 3!
touching similes in the Iliad — taken, as if for contrast
with camp and battle, from the life of children, or of the
family. Apollo throws down the Greek wall as easily as
a child destroys the sand-house which he has built on the
sea-shore (//. 15. 361); Achilles reproves Patroclus for
weeping like a little girl running at her mother's side,
clinging to her robe, and tearfully looking up, until the
mother lifts her in her arms (//. 16. 2). Achilles, burning
the remains of Patroclus, grieves as a father burning the
remains of a son who has died soon after marriage (//.
23. 222). The evenly-poised battle is as the balance in
the hands of a careful working-woman, weighing wool, 'that
she may win a scanty wage for her children' (//. 12. 435).
Subjective imagery, from sensation or thought, is ex- Sub-
tremely rare in Homer. Once there is a simile from
dream, in which the dreamer cannot overtake one who rare.
flies before him (//. 22. 199). Once only in the Iliad
have we a simile — but then a most beautiful one — from
the action of the waking mind. Hera, speeding from Ida
to Olympus, is likened, for swiftness, to the thoughts of a
man who has travelled in many lands : ' He considers in
his wise heart, — " Would that I were there — or there!" —
and thinks wistfully of many things' (//. 15. 82). 1
19. Homersometim.es illustrates the same object by two Aggre-
or more similes, presented in rapid succession. It is well Satl°n of
to observe the condition under which this usually occurs, —how
since imitations of the practice by later poets have some- V!ed b^
times been Homeric in semblance without being properly
Homeric in motive. A good example is afforded by the
passage which describes the Greeks thronging from their
quarters by the ships to the place of assembly in the
plain. Five comparisons are there contained in twenty-two
verses (//. 2. 455 — 476). As the Greeks issue from their
huts in glittering armour, the poet likens them to fire
devouring a great forest ; as they noisily hasten forward
on the plain, to a clamorous flight of birds; as, having
reached the place of meeting, they stand in their assembled
1 Cp. Od. 7. 36 : the Phaeacian ships are ' swift as a wing, or as a
thought '.
32 HOMER. [CH. 1.
multitude, to countless leaves; as they are agitated by a
ripple of warlike excitement, to buzzing flies ; and, as they
are marshalled in divisions by their leaders, to flocks of
goats parted by goat-herds. Fire — birds — leaves — flies —
goats; — each image marks a distinct moment; one rapidly
follows another in the order in which the phases of the
great spectacle itself are unfolded before Homer's imagi-
nation. Homer's one anxiety is to make us see each
successive phase of that spectacle as vividly as he sees it :
if he can only do that, he does not care — as a literary
epic poet would have been apt to care — how incongruous
the similes, taken all together, may appear, or how closely
they are crowded together. When Milton compares the
fallen angels, prone on the fiery flood, to autumn leaves
strewing a brook, or to sedge scattered on the Red Sea1,
the images of multitude are alternative ; but in the Homeric
passage, while the general idea of multitude is common
to the images from birds, leaves, flies, and goats, each
image presents that idea in a different aspect. Sometimes
one simile is almost unconsciously evolved from another.
In //. 13. 492 the Trojans following Aeneas are compared
to sheep following the bell-wether; this suggests the joy felt
by the shepherd ; and this, in turn, is compared to the joy
felt by Aeneas. It is a similar transition when Milton adds,
after speaking of the sedge on the Red Sea, —
whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, —
and so evolves a new image for the confusion of the Arch-
Rebel's host.
The 20. It may now be well to select some one integral
Twenty- portion or chapter of Homeric action, — to follow it in rapid
Book of outline, — and to see how it illustrates those leading cha-
'• racteristics which have been separately considered. For
this purpose, no part of either epic can be more suitable
than the twenty- second book of the Iliad, where the story
1 Par. Lost i. 302 ff.
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 33
may be said to culminate in the slaying of Hector by
Achilles. No other single book of Homer, perhaps, is
more comprehensively typical.
Athene (in Olympus) is friendly to Achilles ; Apollo, on
the Trojan plain, is befriending Hector. In order to save
Hector, Apollo has taken upon himself the semblance of a
Trojan warrior, and has enticed Achilles away in pursuit.
At last Apollo reveals himself to his pursuer : — ' Wherefore,
son of Peleus, chasest thou me with swift feet ?'...' Me thou
wilt never slay, for I am not subject unto death.' Achilles
replies, in anger : * Thou hast foiled me, Far-darter, most
mischievous of all the gods... Verily I would avenge me on
thee, had I but the power.' Achilles then rushes back over
the plain to Troy, — 'like some victorious steed in a chariot.'
Hector, ' bound by deadly Fate,' is meanwhile standing
before the walls of Troy, at the Scaean Gates. His aged
father, Priam, is on the walls, and can see Achilles rushing
onward, — his armour flashing Mike the star that cometh
forth at harvest-time,' — like Orion's Dog, that brings fever
to men. Priam implores his son to come within the walls ;
— 'Have compassion on me also, the helpless one;' — he
rends his white hair, — but Hector is deaf to him, — and to
his mother Hecuba, who also pleads with him from the
walls : — ' Hector, my child, have regard unto this bosom,
and pity me, if ever I gave thee consolation of my breast.'
Achilles has now come close. ' As a serpent of the
mountains upon his den awaiteth a man, having fed on evil
poisons, and fell wrath hath entered into him,' — so Hector
awaits the attack ; yet he is troubled, and his thoughts are
told to us in words — ' thus spake he to his great heart.'
But Achilles is upon him, like a very god of war, 'brandishing
from his right shoulder the Pelian ash, his terrible spear;
and, all around, the bronze on him flashed like the gleam
of blazing fire, or of the Sun as he ariseth/ Hector turns to
flight, and Achilles pursues him round the walls of Troy, —
'as a falcon upon the mountains, swiftest of winged things,
swoopeth fleetly after a trembling dove.'
J- 3
34 HOMER. [CH. I.
All the gods are gazing on them from Olympus, and
now, seeing Hector hard-pressed, Zeus speaks among them.
Shall we save Hector, he asks, or allow Achilles to slay him?
Athene protests against the idea of saving Hector, — 'a
mortal, doomed long ago by Fate;' and Zeus answers, —
* Be of good comfort, dear child : not in full earnest speak
I ; and I would fain be kind to thee. Do as seemeth good
to thy mind.' Then Athene darts down to the battle-field,
to help Achilles.
Now for the third time Achilles had chased Hector
round the walls, when Zeus, in Olympus, ' hung his golden
balances, and set therein two lots of dreary death,' — one for
Achilles, one for Hector. Hector's scale sinks, — he is to die :
and from that moment Apollo has no more power to help
him.
Athene, on the plain below, now comes to the side of
Achilles : ' Do thou stand still, and take breath ; and I will
go, and persuade this man to face thee in fight.' She takes
the guise of the Trojan Deiphobos, Hector's brother, and
pretends that she has come forth from Troy to aid him.
Thus encouraged, Hector turns to confront Achilles, —
defying him to combat, but proposing, before they fight, to
make a chivalrous compact, — that, whichever may fall, the
victor shall be content with stripping the armour from the
vanquished, and shall restore the corpse, to receive the due
rites from friends. Achilles sternly answers that there can
be no compact between them, ' as between men and lions
there is no pledge of faith, — as wolves and sheep cannot be
of one mind.'
He hurls his spear, — Hector crouches, and it flies over
his head; — Athene, unseen of Hector, restores it to the
hand of Achilles. Hector now hurls his spear, but he, too,
misses : — he calls to his trusty brother Deiphobos for a
second spear — but Deiphobos has vanished ! The truth
flashes on Hector — ' It was Athene who played me false'—
and he knows that he is doomed. Drawing his sword, he
rushes on Achilles, who, by a spear-thrust, mortally wounds
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 35
him in the neck, — and he falls. ' I pray thee by thy life,
and knees, and parents,' the dying man says, c leave me not
for dogs to devour by the ships of the Achaeans,' — but
Achilles brooks no thought of ransom for the corpse. ' En-
treat me not, dog, by knees or parents : would that my
heart's desire could so bid me myself to carve thy flesh, and
eat it raw, for the evil thou hast wrought me, as surely
there is none that shall keep the dogs from thee.' Then,
with his last breath, Hector warns his slayer of wrath to
come from the gods, in the day when he also shall be slain
at those same Gates of Troy ; ' and the shadow of death
came down upon him, and his soul flew forth of his limbs,
and was gone to the house of Hades, wailing her fate,
leaving her vigour and youth.'
Achilles strips the gory armour from the body, and
binds the body to his chariot, and, lashing his horses to
speed, drags it to the camp : the fierce rage for the death
of Patroclus is still consuming his heart : while, in Troy,
Priam and Hecuba make bitter lament, and all the folk of
Troy fall to crying and moaning : * most like it seemed as
though all beetling Ilios were burning utterly with fire.'
But meanwhile Hector's wife, Andromache, was in her
house in Troy, waiting for his return : ' in an inner chamber
she was weaving a double purple web, and broidering there-
in manifold flowers.' She had bade her handmaids ' to set
a great tripod on the fire, that Hector might have warm
washing when he came home out of the battle, — fond
heart! — and knew not how, far from all washings, bright-
eyed Athene had slain him by the hand of Achilles.'
Suddenly she heard the cry of Hector's mother, Hecuba,
on the battlements ; * her limbs reeled, and the shuttle fell
from her hands.' She rushed forth with two of her hand-
maids : ' but when she came to the battlements and the
throng of men, she stood still upon the wall, and gazed, and
beheld him dragged before the walls : and night came on
her eyes, and shrouded her.' The awakening from that
swoon is followed by her passionate lament, for herself, and
3—2
36 HOMER. [CH. I.
for her son : ' the day of orphanage sunders a child from
his fellows.'
Con- 21. In the swift action of this twenty-second book, we
remarks. can ^cognise at least four general traits as pre-eminently
Homeric.
(1) The outlines of character are made distinct in deed,
in dialogue, and in audible thought.
(2) The divine and human agencies are interfused :
the scene passes rapidly from earth to Olympus, and again
to earth : the gods speak the same language as men, —
noble, yet simple and direct; the gods are superhuman
in might, — human in love, in hate, and in guile.
(3) Each crisis of the narrative is marked by a powerful
simile from nature.
(4) The fiercest scenes of war are brought into relief
against profoundly touching pictures of domestic love and
sorrow.
Perhaps the best proof of the enduring reality which
Homer has given to his epic world is the fact that, in a
world so different as our own, ' Homeric ' is still an
epithet which can be applied, not only to a style, but to an
action or to a man. Among those for whom the word
' Homeric ' has a clear meaning, not a few, perhaps, have
known some friend in whose character or conduct they
have felt a certain affinity with the spirit which breathes in
Homer.
One example may suffice. After referring to the
Homeric qualities which distinguish Clough's poem, The
Bothie of Tober-na- Vuolich, — 'its out-of-doors freshness, life,
naturalness, buoyant rapidity,' its Homeric ring in such
phrases as ' Dangerous Corrievrechan... where roads are un-
known to Loch Nevish' — Mr Matthew Arnold goes on to
say of Clough himself, — 'But that in him of which I think
oftenest, is the Homeric simplicity of his literary life.'
Those general characteristics of Homer which it has been
the purpose of this chapter to indicate are the chief reasons
why the word ' Homeric ' is fraught with a living suggestive*
CH. I.] GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 37
ness, not shared by ' Virgilian ' or ' Miltonic.' But there is
also a further reason. Homer describes a certain phase of
early civilisation. He portrays its politics, its religious and
moral ideas, its material circumstances, its social manners.
This picture is not a laboured mosaic or an archaeological
revival. It is a naturally harmonious whole, and it completes
the unity of impression which Homer leaves on the mind.
We may now consider the principal features of this picture.
CHAPTER II.
THE HOMERIC WORLD.
The i. THE Homeric poems are the oldest documents of
Hellenic Hellenic life. The Greek race, as first revealed by Homer, re-
already sembles the poetical art which discloses it. It is a matured
mature. which must have been gradually developed, though the
antecedent phases of development are lost in a prehistoric
darkness. The Homeric Greek exhibits all the essential
characteristics and aptitudes which distinguish his descendant
in the historical age. If his natural gifts are not yet in full
exercise, they only wait for opportunity and circumstance.
The broader aspects of the Homeric world are the same in
the Iliad and in the Odyssey. But there are also differences,
which, like certain traits of language, suggest that the
Odyssey belongs to a somewhat later period than the Iliad.
General These differences will be noted as they occur. On the
of the otner hand, each epic may, for our present purpose, be
picture, treated as a whole. Each, indeed, — as will be seen in
Chapter iv., — contains parts which did not belong to the
original form of the poem. In the Iliad such additions
have been numerous, and certainly have not all been
contemporaneous ; yet, even there, minor discrepancies in
regard to plot and style do not affect the general con-
sistency with which the salient features of the Achaean
period are presented.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 39
2. As the geography is the framework of the picture, Homeric
we may first glance at that. Homer imagines the earth |Jogra
as a round plane, girdled by the deep and strong river
Oceanus — which, as far as Homer is concerned, seems to
have nothing to do with any dim idea of the Atlantic, but
to be a pure myth. The 'bronze' or 'iron' sky is the con-
cave roof of the earth, propped by pillars which the giant
Atlas upholds1. On this large flat disc, the earth, there is
only one inner zone of which Homer has any distinct
notion. This is the belt of countries around the Aegean
sea. By the 'inner geography' of Homer we mean the geo- 'Inner'
graphyof this Aegean zone. The 'outer geography' consists ?outer»
in hints of regions beyond that zone. The 'outer geo- geogra-
graphy' is very scant and hazy. So much is true of both p y'
poems.
3. On the western side of the Aegean, the Iliad shows Iliad.
a good knowledge of Greece. There is not, however, any
collective name for it. The Greeks are called the ' Achaeans,' phy.
'the Argives,' or 'the DanaiV ' Hellas' denotes merely a
district in the region afterwards called Thessaly3. The
name Thessaly does not occur in either poem, though the
1 Mr Bunbury, in his History of Ancient Geography (i. 33), thinks
that the Homeric Atlas merely guards the pillars, and that the idea
of his upholding them began with later poets (lies. Theog. 517 etc.).
But in Od. i. 53 ?xet ^ T€ Klovas aur6s, /e.r.X., the emphatic pronoun
favours the other view, which the name a-rXas (upholder) itself sug-
gests. Atlas has been explained as the sea, on which, at the horizon,
the sky seems to rest.
2 In //. 2. 530 (Catalogue), but nowhere else, we have
3 //. 2. 683 o? T' efyov *0tV ^5' 'EXXoSa Ka\\tyijt>aiKa. Phthia
and Hellas are there two of five districts in Ile\affyiK&v "Apyos, which
belong to the kingdom of Peleus. In //. 9 (one of the perhaps later
books), 447, 478, ' Hellas' seems to have a larger sense, denoting the
whole N. region of Thessaly. In Od. i. 344 /ra0"EXXd5a Kal fJLfoov
"Apyos=( in Northern and Southern Greece.' 'EXXc£s = all Greece first
in Hes. Opp. 651. Thuc. (i. 3) supposes that when the hero Hellen and
his sons had grown powerful in Phthiotis, the name Hellenes became
diffused through their being called in to help other states in war.
40 HOMER. [CH. II.
region is familiar to a part of the Iliad. The knowledge
of western Greece includes Aetolia, with the great river
Achelous, but excludes Acarnania and Epeirus (which is not
found as a proper name). The poetical assumption in the
Iliad is that the Achaean princes are still ruling in Pelo-
ponnesus, Agamemnon having his royal seat at Mycenae.
'Dorians' are not mentioned in the Iliad. The name
'Argos' denotes not, only the town Argos, or the region of
Argolis, but also, especially in the formula ' Achaean
Argos1,' the whole or a great part of Peloponnesus (a name
which Homer never uses). Similarly ' Pelasgian Argos2
seems to mean Thessaly, or the northern part of it. On
the northern shores of the Aegean, the Thracian tribes
are known, including the Paeonians who dwell on the
Axius (Vardar), 'the fairest stream that waters the
earth3.'
In Asia Minor, the Iliad knows the topography of the
Troad in some detail. The country afterwards called Lydia
is 'Maeonia/ identified by the mention of Mount Tmolus4.
On the coast from Mysia to Caria not one of the Greek
colonies is mentioned5. The name of 'lonians' occurs only
once in Homer (//. 13. 685), and in that passage it has
been generally understood as referring to the Athenians.
The references to the interior of Asia Minor (Phrygia, Paph-
, II. 9. 141, 283: 19. 115: Od. 3. 251. In Od.
18. 246 "laffov "Apyos also = Peloponnesus : and "Apyos alone has this
sense in Od. i. 344, &c. In //. 12. 70 the phrase d,Tr"'Apyeos (repeated,
13. 227, 14. 70) seems to mean the whole of Greece. (Distinguish
Homer's airly ycua (a far land) from later poets' 'Atria yrj = Pelo-
ponnesus. )
2 He\curyiKbv "Apyo j //. 2. 68 1 (the only place in either poem where
this combination occurs).
3 //. i. 850.
4 //. 2. 866. In 20. 390 ff. the \tfj.vr) Tvyairj and the river Hermus
are also named. "TSrj there (383) seems to represent a site answering to
that of Sardis.
5 The name of Miletus, indeed, occurs (//. 2. 868), — but it is a town
of the Kfipes /3a/>/3ap60wi'ot, who also possess Mycale, and the
valley of the Maeander. In 2. 647 Miletus is a town of Crete.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 41
lagonia, etc.) are slight and vague1. Among the Aegean
islands, Crete and Rhodes are named, with a south-eastern
group : also the group of the north-east, off the Troad —
Tenedos, Imbros, Samothrace (called Samos), Lesbos,
Lemnos. There is no mention of the Cyclades, nor of
Chios or Samos.
The 'outer' geography of the Iliad asks but few words, fliad.
To the north, there is a dim rumour of nomads who roam
the plains beyond the Thracian hills, living on the milk of phy-
their mares2: yet the name 'Scythian' is not found. To the
south, there is a rumour of 'swart faces' (Aethiopes),
'remotest of men': and of Pygmies, who dwell hard by
the banks of the river Ocean3. Egypt is noticed only in a
passing mention of the Egyptian Thebes4. The name
' Phoenician ' occurs only once, but the cunning works of
Sidon are more than once mentioned5. Tyre is not
named.
4. The 'Catalogue' of the Greek and Trojan allies (//. The
2. 484 — 877) has a peculiar character, and should be con- J5jjjji
sidered by itself, apart from the rest of the Iliad. The small a docu-
1 A region somewhere to the east of Paphlagonia seems to be
denoted by 'AXvfir), ( the birthplace of silver, ' the home of the Halizones
(//. 2. 857, cp. 5. 39), — identified by some of the ancients with the
country of the Chalybes. Neither poem mentions the Euxine, or the
river Halys. (See Bunbury, Anc. Geo, i. 37.)
2 'lTnrr)/j.o\y£v \ y\aKTo<pdyuv , II. 13. 5.
3 The //. mentions the Aethiopes only when it is needful to send the
gods on some very distant excursion (to feast on the Aethiopian
offerings) — i. 428, 23. 206. The 'Pygmies' (3. 6) are curiously
illustrated by M. Schweinfurth's account of a race of dwarfs (Akka)
in Central Africa (Travels in the Heart of Africa ii. ch. xvi.) :
Bunbury i. 48.
4 //. 9. 381 f. 0ijj8os | A-lyvirrlas, odi TrXetcrra 56/^ots kv KTTj/uara
KetTcu : it has a hundred gates, and at each 200 men ' go forth with
horses and chariots.' Orchomenus (in Boeotia) and Apollo's temple
in ' Pytho' (Delphi) are the other typically rich places (ib. 381, 405).
6 Phoenicians //. 23. 744 : Sidon 6. 289 (embroidered robes, i-pya
| "Zibovlwv) : 23. 743 (a silver cup, "Zidbves Tro\v5al5a\oi ev
ment
apart.
42 HOMER. [CH. II.
groups of verses, strung together in a jerky manner, show
the style of the Hesiodic school, which produced other
'Catalogues' of this kind, and which had its chief seat in
Boeotia. Accordingly the poet of the Catalogue makes
Boeotia the most important part of Greece. He puts it first,
and names more towns in it than in any other region1. The
story that Solon inserted a verse (558) in order to support
the Athenian claim to Salamis seems at least to indicate
that, as early as tire. 600 B.C., the Catalogue had canonical
authority as a Domesday Book of Greece. At the same
time the story suggests the kind of motive, and also
the ease, with which interpolations may have been made
down to a relatively late period. And there can be no
doubt that the Catalogue actually contains such additions.
But, in the main, it may be as old as 800 — 700 B.C., or
older. The Achaean empire of Agamemnon, with its
capital at Mycenae, extends beyond the Peloponnesus :
Boeotia and Thessaly are populous, while Athens is ob-
scure : Greek settlers have reached Crete and Rhodes, but
are not heard of on the coasts of Asia Minor. In these
broad features the map of the Catalogue is probably
historical, though we cannot date it2. But it certainly was
not originally intended for its present place in the Iliad.
The Hesiodic poet who composed it appears to have been
thinking of the Greek ships as mustering on the shores
of his own Boeotia, before they left Aulis for Troy3. And
in two special points the Catalogue seems to be at variance
with popular tradition. It places the Boeotians in Boeotia ;
but, according to the popular Greek tradition, their im-
1 29 in all. From Boeotia the poet of the Catalogue passes to the
regions around it — then to Peloponnesus and the regions adjacent to
it on the N.W. — then to Crete — and then back to Thessaly. Among
the places in Greece Proper not mentioned in the Catalogue are Delphi,
Eleusis, Megara, Pisa, Pharsalus, Larissa.
2 Cp. Freeman, Hist. Geography of Europe, and D. B. Monro
in the Historical Review, no. i.
3 Hence dye vyas, vtes tcrTixowTo, etc., which would be strange if
the ships had for ten years been drawn up on land at Troy.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 43
migration took place sixty years after the Trojan war1. It
is true, we do not know the authority for this tradition, nor
can we press it, as to the fact; but at least the absence
of the name Thessaly from the Iliad, while the region is so
well-known, agrees with the tradition. Again, the Catalogue
places Tlepolemus, — a Heracleid, and therefore a Dorian, —
in Rhodes2. Dorians are mentioned nowhere else in the
Iliad; and their presence in Rhodes rather suggests their
presence in Peloponnesus, since it was from Sparta that
the Dorian colonisation of the Aegean islands seems to
have begun. The passage relating to Tlepolemus may, of
course, be a later interpolation.
5. This being the area which the Iliad recognises, it Traces of
maybe asked — 'How far does the poem show a personal ^wv*^
knowledge of its scenes?' The answer must be that there ledge.
are two main threads of local association. Parts of the Iliad
bear the impress of northern Greece in the imagery of wild
woodlands and hills ; in the prominence given to the horse,
which is characteristic of Thessaly ; and in the presence of
Mount Olympus as the dominant feature of the landscape3.
Other parts of the Iliad show local colouring borrowed
from the valley of the Cayster near Ephesus, or from that
'Icarian sea' which washed the sea-board of south-western
1 The mythical chronology placed events in this order: — 1184 B.C.
Troy taken : 1124, Boeotians driven Southward into 'Boeotia' by the
Thessalian immigrants from Epeirus : 1104, Achaean rule in the
Peloponnesus overthrown by the Dorians. Thuc. (l. 12) noticed this
difficulty in the Catalogue, and got over it by supposing that Homer's
Boeotians were only a sort of advanced guard (airoSaff/jAs). It is
curious that the Catalogue (v. 750) seems to put Dodona in Thessaly,
instead of Epeirus.
2 //. 2. 655. His followers are dia. rptxa KOffwQtvTts — a hint of the
three Dorian tribes (Hylleis, Dymanes, Pamphyli).— Cp. Find. Pyth.
5. 68 where the Dorian colonisers of Thera set out from Sparta.
3 See Geddes, Problem of the Homeric Poems, chapters xvm, xix,
XX, where this whole topic is ably treated. The traits from northern
Greece belong mainly to Crete's ' Achilleid ' (Iliad minus books 2 — 7,
9, 10, 23, 24). The character of Thessaly as especially the equestrian
land is illustrated by the frequency of the horse on the coins of Crannon,
Larissa, Pharsalus, and Pherae (Geddes, p. 248).
44 HOMER. [CH. II.
Asia Minor. We also find the Niobe myth localised at
Mount Sipylus on the Lydian border1.
Odyssey. 6. In the Odyssey, the coast of Ionia is better known.
GerSra- ^e ^ear *°r t^ie ^rst ^me °^ Chios, and of 'windy Mimas',
phy. the neighbouring promontory on the Ionian mainland2. The
poet knows the altar of Apollo in Delos, the central resort
of early Ionian worship3. 'Dorians' are once mentioned,
in Crete4. In Greece Proper we still hear of 'Pytho', as in
the Iliad, not yet of Delphi5. As to the islands on the west
side of Greece— Ithaca and the adjacent group — the poet
knew some of their general characteristics. Ithaca is rugged
and rocky, as he says — suited to goats, and not to horses.
But it is not a 'low' island, and his description of its
position, relatively to its neighbours, is hard to reconcile
with the supposition that he was personally familiar with it6.
Odyssey. 7. jn the ' outer' geography of the Odyssey, we find that
geogra- ^e Phoenician traders are now thoroughly familiar visitors.
phy.
1 The Asia Minor traits belong chiefly to books 2 — 7, 9, and 24.
River Cayster and ' Asian ' meadow (first extant trace of the name
'Asian'), //. 2. 461: Icarian sea, 2. 145: Mt Sipylus, 24. 615. I
omit the argument of Dr Geddes (p. 281), from //. 2. 535, AOKP&V ot
vaiovfft irtpvjv lepfy Ev^oirjs (that the poet is looking westward from
Ionia), because this occurs in the Catalogue, which, as plainly of
Boeotian origin, I should distinguish from book 2. i — 483.
2 Od. 3. 172 virtvepQe Xloio, Trap tyepbevra. Wi^avra.
8 Od. 6. 162.
4 Od. 19. 177. Awpi^ej re T/n%cii>cej, usually explained as 'divided
into three tribes;' but perhaps rather 'with waving locks (or crests)',
fr. dpi!-, and d&rcrw (rt. cu/c), as Mr Monro thinks : cp. K0pv0ai£, 7ro\vdi'£.
5 Od. n. 581.
6 Ithaca is distinctly placed to the west of Cephallenia (Sa/iij) and
far apart from it (Od. 9. 25 f.). Ithaca is really to the north-east of
Cephallenia, and is divided from it only by a narrow strait. Then
Cephallenia is said to form a group^ apart from Ithaca, with Zacynthus
(Zante !), and Dulichium — which Mr Bunbury identifies with .Leucadia
(Santa Maura) : Anc. Geo. i. 69. (I agree with Mr W. G. Clark,
Peloponn. p. 206, that Santa Maura is much too small, and not in the
right position for Dulichium.) The best description of Ithaca in relation
to Homer is to be found in Mr W. J. Stillman's papers, ' On the Track
of Ulysses,' in the Century Magazine for Sept. and Oct., 1884. See
also Bunbury, Anc. Geo. i. 68, 83.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 45
Voyages to Egypt seem also familiar, though 'the river
Egyptus' is the only name for the Nile. The 'swart-faces'
of the Iliad are thus far more denned, that the Odyssey
knows two divisions of them — eastern and western Aethio-
pians. Libya is named for the first time. The 'Sicilians1'
are mentioned; and in the last book (which has been
regarded as a later addition to the poem) we find 'Sicania2'
(an older name for 'Sicily'). Odysseus, on sailing from
Troy, is first driven to the land of the Cicones on the
coast of Thrace, and then crosses the Aegean to Cape Malea
(the S.E. point of the Peloponnesus); hence he is driven
out to sea by evil winds. From that moment, till he Wander
finally reaches Ithaca, his wanderings belong to the realm QcP^eu
of fancy. The 'Lotus-eaters' were doubtless suggested to — imagi
the poet by sailors' stories of a tribe on the north-coast of nary<
Africa who lived chiefly on the fruit of the lotus-tree3.
Scylla and Charybdis were suggested by a rumour of perils
run by mariners in the straits of Messina4. Further than
this we cannot go. When the early Corinthian settlers in
Corcyra became skilful seamen, they set up the claim that
Corcyra was the Homeric home of the seafaring Phaeacians.
This was the common creed of the old world, and still lives
1 StfceXoi, Od. 20. 383 (in 24. 211 etc. the old attendant of Laertes '"**
is a StKeXi?).
2 Si/raw; Od. 24. 307. The St/ca^ot were early immigrants from
Iberia, /cal air avruv Si/caHa r6re 17 vfjaos eKaXetTo, -rrpbrepov TpivaKpla
KaKov^vr) (Thuc. 6. 2). The Si/ceXo/ were later immigrants from
Italy.
3 Od. 9. 82 ff. Her. -4. 177. Scylax (Periphis no) places them near
the lesser Syrtis (Gulf of Khabs). Polybius 12. 2 describes the lotus
(rhamnus lotus) from personal knowledge as yielding a fruit which,
when prepared, resembled the fig or date, — and also as yielding
wine.
4 Thuc. 4. i^-fjfJieTa^v'P-rjytov 0aXcur<nx KO.L Me<r<rrii>'r)s...£crTU' y Xd/>v/35cs
K\T)0el<ra. TOVTO — owing, as he says, to the dangerous eddies and currents.
Admiral Smyth has described these ( The Mediterranean, pp. 178 — 182) :
cp. Bunbury, Anc. Ceo. i. 6r, who remarks that 'anything in the nature
of a whirlpool ' has ever been subject to exaggeration — instancing the
Norwegian Maelstrom and the Corrievrechan in the Hebrides.
46 HOMER. [CH. II.
in Corfu1. But even this has no real warrant from Homer.
The Odyssey knows 'Thesprotia,' the part of southern
Epeirus over against Corcyra, yet never names it in con-
nection with Scheria, the land (never called the island) of
the Phaeacians. It is futile to aim at mapping out the voy-
age of Odysseus as definitely as 'the voyage of Magellan or
Sum- Vasco de GamaV The whole impression left by the
mar7- Odyssey is that a poet, who himself knew only the Aegean
zone, wove into imaginary wanderings some touches derived
from stories of the western Mediterranean brought by
Phoenician traders, who had reached the south of Spain as
early as about uoo B.C.3.
>meric 8. Not a word in Homer shows acquaintance with the
lty' great monarchies on the Euphrates or the Tigris. The names
of Assyria and Babylon are never heard. Civilisation, outside
of the Aegean, is represented solely by Egypt and Phoeni-
cia*. Remembering the despotic character of kingship in
the oriental empires — that character which Herodotus has
so graphically depicted in Xerxes — we cannot fail to be
impressed by the contrast which the Homeric world reveals.
Here, as in the East, monarchy is the prevalent form of
government. But it is a monarchy which operates mainly
1 Thuc. i. 25. Canoni Bay in Corfu (so called from the cannon
mounted there) is shown as the spot where Odysseus met Nausicaa
('Chrysida,' in the local version).
2 Bunbury, Anc. Geo. i. 50, whose remarks on this subject are
judicious. Almost all the fabulous tribes and places of the poem have
been prosaically localised. Thus:— the land of the Cyclopes = Sicily
(Eur. Cyclops assumes this): Laestrygones = Sicily (Greek view),
or = Formiae in Campania (Roman view): isle of Aeolus = Stromboli
(one of the ' Aeoliae insulae,' or Lipari group) : isle of Calypso = Gaudos
(Gozo, close to Malta on the N. E.) : Circe's isle = the promontory (!) of
Circeii on the Italian coast — &c.
3 Cp. Bunbury, Anc. Geo. i. 6 ft.
4 In Od. n. 520 ercu/>oi Kijretot (v. I. /oJSetoi) fall at Troy with
• Eurypylus. These comrades of the Mysian hero have been rashly
claimed as Hittites by some ingenious writers. It is hardly necessary
to observe that the name 01 that people (the Khita of the Egyptian
monuments) would not appear in Greek as K^retoc.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 47
by reasonable persuasion, appealing to force only in the
last resort. Public questions are brought before the whole
body of those whom they concern. The king has his duties
no less than his privileges. At this early age — while in
each non-Hellenic monarchy 'all were slaves but one1' —
the Hellenes have already reached the conception of a
properly political life.
9. ' Basileus V ' leader of the people,' ' duke,' is the title King,
of the royal office. It includes 'chiefs' or 'kings' of different
relative rank : thus Agamemnon, the suzerain, is ' most
royal3.' Every basileus rules by right hereditary and
divine : Zeus has given the sceptre to his house. The
distinguishing epithet of the Homeric kings, 'Zeus-nurtured,'
($LOTpe<f>TJ<s) means generally, 'upheld and enlightened by
Zeus,' but is further tinged with the notion of the king's
1 Eur. Hel. 276 ra fiapfiapuv yap dov\a ir&vTa irXty ev&s: whereas
the early Greek monarchies were founded on consent (e/coimcu, as Arist.
Pol. 3. 10. ir says).
2 Curtius would derive it from rt. /3a and Ion. \ev = \ao (cp. Aevrv-
Xi'5??s), a compound like STT^O-I-XO/JOS : cp. £ev£/Xews (Soph. fr. 129
Nauck), $ virefrvyntvoi ciiriv ol \aol. [Eustathius says, p. 401. n,
£eu£i'Xews ei/^rcu irapd rot's fj.eO* "O/JLrjpov 6 fiaffiXfvs.] Another deriv. from
/3a and Xeu=Xafa (Xaas), 'one who mounts a stone,' refers to the
Teutonic and Celtic custom that the king should show himself to the
people on a high stone — a custom not proved for early Greece. See
Curt. Etym. § 535 (sth ed., Eng. tr. by Wilkins and England, 1886,
vol. i. p. 439).
3 //. 9. 69, the only instance of /SacriXei/raTos. The compar. /3a<rtXev-
repos occurs only thrice in //., (9. 160, 392 : 10. 239), and once in Od.
J5- 533- While paviXevs is always a title, like 'duke,' aval; in Homer
is a descriptive epithet, like 'noble.' Mr Gladstone (Homeric Studies,
1. 543) holds that the formula aval- avdp&v is applied only to patriarchal
chiefs — i.e. to /SatrtX^es who were also heads of ruling families or clans.
It seems hard to make this out. The formula is used of i. Agamemnon:
2. Anchises: 3. Aeneas: 4. Augeias: 5. Euphetes: 6. Eumelus. I
would suggest a metrical reason. Every one of these names = | ;
hence, in the Homeric hexameter, ava% avdp&v was a peculiarly con-
venient introduction for them; and, out of some 50 places where the
formula occurs, it precedes the 2nd half of the 5th foot in all but one
(//. i. 7).
48 HOMER. [CH. II.
descent from a god or demi-god. The king is (i) leader in
war, (2) supreme judge, (3) president of the council and of
the popular assembly. (4) In public sacrifices, as head of
the state, he takes the same part which the head of a family
takes in private sacrifice. But he has not otherwise a
sacerdotal quality1. A demesne (relievos) is assigned to
him from the public land2, and he discharges functions of
public hospitality.
Dike and 10. Homer has no word for 'law3.' The word dikl
themis. («justice') means 'a way pointed out,' and so the 'course
which usage prescribes4.' The word themis, again, means,
'what has been laid down,' t.e., first, a decision in a par-
1 Aristotle (Politics 3. 14. 12, speaking of the kings of the heroic
age): Kvpioi 5' TIUO.V rijs re KCITOI ir6\e[Mov riyefj-ovtas Kal TUIV Ov<rtwv, o<rai
fj,Tj lepariKat (i.e. sacrifices requiring a priest acquainted with special
rites — like those of the Eumolpidae), Kal irpbs TOUTOIS rots SiKas eKpwov.
The sacrificial function alone (he adds) remained associated with the
name of 'king' in most Greek states (as in the case of the archon basileus
at Athens); while at Sparta the military function was left to the 'kings'.
Cp. Thuc. I. 13 eTri p^rotj ytpaai TrarpLKal /3curi\«cu.
2 In an interesting paper on ' The Homeric Land System ' (Journ.
Hellen. Stud. vi. 319), Prof. W. Ridgeway holds that the Homeric
poems indicate the 'Common-Field' system of agriculture, — the public
land being portioned out, in temporary tenure, among the members
of the community, while the hereditary king's rfaevos was an ex-
ceptional instance of property in land. He shows that iro\v\^ios = rich
in \r)is (live stock, as opp. to inanimate /cr^ara), not in \TILOV (standing
corn); and explains the term ovpa (•TIIJ.I.OVWV, /3ou?j>, //. to. 351) as
an ancient unit of land-measure, — viz., the distance between the first
and last furrows of a day's ploughing. But it is more difficult to
assume that eir&vy ev dpovpy (11. 12. 422) means the public field
of a community. It seems rather to mean simply a field in which
the holdings of the two disputants were conterminous.
3 Homer has only vofj,6s (pasture), never pd/xos.
4 Curt. Etym. § 14. The use of di'/o? as ='way,' 'fashion' (cp.
the adverbial S/KTJJ') occurs in Oct. (as n. 218 <iXX' ai'r?? diK-rj earl (3poTwi>).
The plur. in Horn. = 'judgments,' as //. 16. 543 os Aimi?? ei'/wro diKyal
re Kal ffd£ve'C y. In Od. 9. 215, which describes the savage Cyclops as
cure 5i/cas eu eldora ovre Ot /u err as, the former = ' dooms,' while
the latter has its derived sense, precepts of justice. Cp. Maine,
Ancient Law, ch. I.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 49
ticular case, 'a doom'; then, the custom founded on
former dooms. The plural lthemistes' denotes a body of
such precedents. The Homeric king is entrusted by Zeus
with ' themistes ' in the sense that he upholds those judicial
precedents on which the rights of his people rest. A bad
king is one who gives * crooked judgments1.' The Council Council.
((3ov\TJ) consists of a small number of ' elders,' whom the
king convenes for the purpose of laying business before
them2. The Assembly (dyoprj) includes all the free men Agora.
of the realm.
ii. The Iliad describes the life of a Greek camp. The Iliad.
Council is there composed of a few prominent chiefs
or kings, who hold the same relation to the suzerain,
Agamemnon, as local elders to a local king. The Assem-
bly is the body of the fighting men ; the chiefs speak before
it, and the Assembly expresses its sense by shouts or
murmurs.
The Odyssey describes civil life in a society partly Odyssey.
deranged by the ten years' absence of its heads at Troy.
In some respects the monarchical system of the Iliad might
seem to be undergoing a change, (i) Though the hereditary
principle is still acknowledged in the Odyssey, there are
hints that it is less absolute and inviolable3. (2) The Agora
1 Zeus has given into the king's keeping ffK^irrpov r r)d£ 0e/uoTas
(II. 9. 99). The judges uphold judgments by the authority of Zeus —
5tfcacr7r6Xot, c&Tt04fUffTfU \ Trpbs Aids elpvarat, //. i. -238. Corrupt rulers :
//. 16. 387 ot filr) elv ayopy ovcoXtds Kpivuai dtfjuffras, \ £K d£ diKTjv
2 Gladstone, Horn. Stud. in. 98 : 'Upon the whole, the BovXi? seems
to have been a most important auxiliary element of government ; some-
times as preparing materials for the more public deliberations of the
Assembly, sometimes intrusted, as a kind of executive committee, with
its confidence; always as supplying the Assemblies with an intellectual
and authoritative element, in a concentrated form, which might give
steadiness to its tone, and advise its course with a weight equal to so
important a function.' In //. 9. 70 ff. we have an instance of a question
referred to a council of ytpovres, as to a committee, after an 0,70/377.
3 The suitors assume that Odysseus is dead (Od. 2. 183); the
hereditary claim of Telemachus is admitted (i. 387 8 rot yevefi Tra.Tp&i6v
J- 4
50 HOMER. [CH. II.
seems a less passive body than in the Iliad. It appears
as an effective organ of civic discussion1. But the evidence
on these points is very slender; and allowance must be
made for the special conditions presupposed by the subject
of the Odyssey.
Homeric 12. The basis of Homeric religion is the feeling that
religion. <
gods are quickly responsive to this need, if they are duly
worshipped. Sacrifice and prayer are the appointed means
of seeking their help, or appeasing their anger. The Homeric
sense of the divine placability is well expressed in the
words of the aged knight Phoenix to the implacable
Achilles (//. 9. 4961!.): 'Achilles, tame thy high spirit;
neither beseemeth it thee to have a ruthless heart. Nay,
even the very gods can bend, and theirs withal is loftier
Sacrifice, majesty and honour and might. Their hearts by incense
and reverent vows and drink-offering and burnt-offering
men turn with prayer, so oft as any transgresseth and
Sin and doeth wrong. Moreover Prayers (Atrai) are daughters
Prayer. Qf tne great Zeus, halting and wrinkled and of eyes
askance, that have their task withal to go in the steps
of Ate2. For Ate is strong and fleet of foot, where-
fore she far outrunneth all prayers, and goeth before them
over all the earth, doing hurt to men ; and Prayers follow
behind to heal the harm.' The loftiest forms which human
prayer to Heaven assumes in Homer are seen when
and yet the suitor Antinous hopes (ib. 386) that Zeus will
not 'make Telemachus king'. Mr Gladstone remarks (Horn. Stud. m.
51) that this seems to imply the need of some formal act, 'either ap-
proaching to election, or in some way involving a voluntary act on the
part of the subjects or a portion of them.'
1 In Od. 2 Telemachus appeals to the Agora of the Ithacans to
vindicate his rights, and a debate takes prace. In Od. 24. 420 ff. it is
debated by the Ithacans in the Agora whether the suitors shall be
avenged.
2 &rr] (daw) is 'hurt' (done to the mind). Cp. Milton, Samson 1676,
'among them He a spirit of phrenzy sent, | Who hurt their minds'.
"Ar?7 is the power which infatuates men (sometimes as a punishment for
insolence) so that they become reckless in offending the gods.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 51
Hector, going out to war, prays to all the gods that a
noble life may be in store for his infant son (//. 6. 476);
and where Achilles prays to ' Zeus, lord of Dodona, Pelas-
gian, dwelling afar/ that his comrade Patroclus may return
safe from the fight (//. 16. 233). In sacrifice, as in prayer,
the Homeric man ordinarily communes with the gods
directly, not through priests. The priest (icpeus), as dis- Priests,
tinguished from the soothsayer (/xaVris), never appears in
Homer save as the guardian of a local shrine1.
13. In later Greek poetry Fate is sometimes definitely Fate. ^
opposed, and superior, to the will of the gods. This is
never the case in Homer. Fate and the gods appear as
concurrent ^nd usually harmonious agencies ; there is no
attempt to separate them distinctly, or to define precisely
the relation in which they stand to each other. The idea of
Fate is expressed chiefly by two words, both meaning
' portion,' — aura and polpa. The personified Alcra weaves
the thread of a mortal's destiny, and assigns it to him
at birth. Like alo-a, ^otpa may be either good or evil;
but the personified Motpa is regularly associated with the
Death-god, Thanatos2. Two other words denote the death-
doom ; TTO'T/XOS (' what falls to one '), and Ktjp (' destruction') ;
the personified Ktjp (sometimes plural) is the goddess who
brings a violent death, especially in battle. The 'three Fates'
are a post-Homeric conception, found first in Hesiod3.
The Erinyes in Homer are avenging powers who up- Erinyes.
1 Such was the priest of Apollo at Chryse in the Troad (//. i. 37);
the priest of Hephaestus in the Troad (//. 5. 10), — the priest of Apollo
at Ismarus in Thrace (Od. 9. 198), etc. There are only two places
where Homer speaks of 'priests' in the plur. : (i) //. 9. 575, where the
Aetolians send Oeuv ieprjas dplffrovs to implore help from Meleager — i.e.
priests of the chief local shrines : (2) II. 24. 221 rj ol (jidvTits elcri 6vo<rK6oi,
r) iepijes, where special rites are in view. In //. 16. 234 the Selli at Do-
dona are not called iepyjes, but U7ro0jyrcu of Zeus, the declarers of his will.
2 In //. 24. 209 MoZpct is the weaver of a death-doom.
3 Theog. 218. Plural 'Fates' occur only in //. 24. 49 r\rjrbv yap
Motpcu dv/j.bv dtaav av0p&Troi<nv. In Od. 7. 197 ireifferai &<raa oi al<ra
*ara K\&6& (v. 1. KaTaK\uQts) re fiapelat | yeivo/j.ei'y vt)<ra.vTo \ii>y, these
^spinners' are merely 'the half-personified agency of alaa,' as Mr
4—2
52 HOMER. [CH. II.
hold the right, alike among gods and among men. They
punish all crimes against the family ; especially they execute
the curses of injured parents on children. They do not
allow the aged or the poor to be wronged with impunity.
They bring retribution for perjury. In a word, they are the
sanctions of natural law. The immortal steed Xanthus,
suddenly endued with human speech by the goddess Hera,
spoke to Achilles, and revealed his doom; then 'the
Erinyes stayed his voice' (//. 19. 418).
The gods 14. As compared with the Iliad, the Odyssey shows a
"J the somewhat more spiritual conception of the divine agency.
The vivid physical image of Olympus and the Olympian
court, as the Iliad presents it, has become more etherial. It
is a far-off place, ' where, as they say, is the seat of the gods
that standeth fast for ever. Not by winds is it shaken, nor
ever wet with rain, nor doth the snow come nigh thereto,
but most clear air is spread about it cloudless, and the
white light floats over it. Therein the blessed gods
are glad for all their days' (Od. 6. 42 ff.). 'The gods, in
the likeness of strangers from far countries, put on all
manner of shapes, and wander through the cities, beholding
the violence and the righteousness of men' (Od. 17. 485).
Divine The gods of the Iliad most often show their power on
agency ^g bodies or the material fortunes of man : it is corn-
more
spiritual, paratively seldom that they guide his mind, by inspiring
a thought at a critical moment. In the Odyssey the latter
form of divine agency becomes more prominent. ' When
Athene, of deep counsel, shall put it into my heart, I will
nod to thee/ says Odysseus to his son (Od. 16. 282).
Faith in their help has become a more spiritual feeling.
* Consider whether Athene with Father Zeus will suffice for
us twain, or whether I shall cast about for some other
champion.' 'Verily,' Telemachus answers, 'the best of
champions are these two thou namest, though high in the
Merry remarks ; comparing, as other examples of personification
stopping short of mythology, apTrvicu, the personified storm-winds
(Od. i. 245), and /cparaJs (Od. \i. 124).
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 53
clouds is their seat' (ib. 260 ff.). While the notion of the Other
gods has been thus far spiritualised, the notion of the |j™|
supernatural generally takes many fantastic forms1, associated super-
with that outer Wonderland, beyond the Aegean zone, ofnatural>
which sailors had brought stories. It is here that we find
those beings or monsters who are neither gods nor men —
Calypso, Circe, Polyphemus, Proteus, Aeolus, Scylla, the
Sirens.
15. The Homeric notions of right and wrong have a Homeric
simplicity answering to that of the religion, but are strongly ethlcs-
held. They begin with the inner circle of the family. The The
ties of the family are sacred in every relation, — between
husband and wife, parent and child, kinsman and kinsman.
Polygamy is not found among Greeks. The picture of the
Trojan Hector and Andromache in the Iliad — the pictures
of Menelaus and Helen, Alcinous and Arete, above all,
Odysseus and Penelope, in the Odyssey — attest a pure and
tender conception of conjugal affection. The prayer of
Odysseus for the maiden Nausicaa is this : — ' May the gods
grant thee all thy heart's desire: a husband and a home,
and a mind at one with his may they give — a good gift, for
there is nothing mightier and nobler than when man and
wife are of one heart and mind in a house' (Od. 6. 180 ff.).
Dependents of the family are included in the recognised
duty of kindness and help. So are those who have a claim
1 E.g. the herb 'moly', given by Hermes to Odysseus as a charm
against Circe's evil spells (Od. 10. 302) ; the 'imperishable veil' of Ino,
which saved Odysseus from drowning (ib. 5. 346); the flesh 'bellowing
on the spits', when the oxen of the Sun were being roasted by the com-
panions of Odysseus (ib. \i. 395); the Phaeacian ship suddenly turned to
stone (ib. 13. 163); the second-sight of the seer Theoclymenus, when he
forebodes the death of the suitors (compared by Mr Lang to the visions
of Bergthora and Njal in the Story of Burnt Njal ii. 167) :— 'Shrouded
in night are your heads and your faces and your knees, and kindled is
the voice of wailing, and all cheeks are wet with tears, and the walls
and the fair beams of the roof are sprinkled with blood' (Od.
20. 351 ff.). In the Iliad the nearest analogies to such marvels are the
speaking horse (19. 407), the self-moving tripods of Hephaestus (18. 376),
and his golden handmaids, who can move, speak and think (ib. 418).
54 HOMER. [CH. II.
Strangers on hospitality : ' for all strangers and beggars are from Zeus *
aiiantsP~ (^ 6* 2°8)' The suPPuant GK€/T7?s) must °e protected,
even when he seeks refuge from the consequences of
blood-shed (//. 16. 573); for the Zeus of Suppliants has
him in keeping (Od. 1.3. 213), and will punish wrong done
to him (//. 24. 570).
Slavery. 16. Slavery in Homer wears a less repulsive aspect than
in later periods of antiquity. It is the doom for prisoners
of war, however noble their birth : and instances are also
mentioned of children, belonging to good families, being
kidnapped by pirates or merchants (Od. 15. 403 ff.). It is
recognised as an awful calamity : * Zeus takes away the half
of his manhood from a man, when the day of slavery over-
takes him' (Od. 17. 322). But the very feeling for human
dignity which this implies may have helped to temper the
slave's lot. The Odyssey furnishes examples of devotedly
attached slaves, and there is no Homeric instance of a cruel
master. Homeric slavery seems to be domestic only, the
slave being employed in the house or on the land : we do
not hear of serfs bound to the soil1. Besides the slaves
(8/xc3es) there are also free hired labourers (Brjr&i Od. 4. 644).
-Limit 17. Themis, the custom established by dooms, acts as
sphere of aoprestraining force within the largest circle of recognised
"^relationships. But outside of that circle — when the Greek
has to do with a mere alien — themis ceases to act, and
we are in an age of violence. Excommunication, political
and social, is expressed by the form, 'outside of clanr
custom, and hearth'2. The life of a man-slayer was for-
feit to the kinsmen of the slain, who might, however,
accept a fine (voivq) as satisfaction. Speaking generally,
1 In Od. i. 489, indeed, tirapovpos has been taken 2& — adscriptus
glebae; but it need not be more than an epithet describing the par-
ticular kind of work on which the 0ifc was employed.
2 //. 9. 63 d0p7jTWp, d0e/tuo'Tos, dvtffTios. Hence, and from i. 362 f.,
I had inferred that, above the Homeric family, was the unity of the
clan (0/37777)77), and then of the tribe (<f>v\oi>) : ist ed., p. 54. But
I grant that such a relationship cannot be proved for the Homeric age.
Homer knows no gentile sacra.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 55
we may say that the Homeric Greeks appear as a gentle
and generous race in a rude age. There is no trace among
the Homeric Greeks of oriental vice or cruelty in its worst
forms. Their sense of decency and propriety is remarkably
fine — even in some points in which their descendants
were less delicate. If the Homeric man breaks themis AidSs.
in any way, he feels that others will disapprove. This
feeling is called aidos. Hence, therefore, aidos has as
many shades of meaning as there are ways in which themis
can be broken; — 'sense of honour,' 'shame,' 'reverence,'
etc. And the feeling with which he himself regards a Nemesis,
breach of themis by another person is called nemesis, —
righteous indignation. The Odyssey, in comparison with Odyssey
the Iliad, shows more traces of reflection on questions of
right and wrong. There are some additions to the stock of
words for expressing the religious or moral feelings *.
18. The civilisation based on these ideas and feelings The Ho-_
was very unlike that of the later Greek world. The Homeric
man already exhibits, indeed, the clear-cut Greek type of
humanity : he has its essential qualities, mental and moral.
But all his surroundings bespeak an age of transition.
Crude contrasts abound. Luxuries and splendours of an
eastern cast are mingled with elements of squalid barbarism.
Manners of the noblest chivalry and the truest refinement
are strangely crossed by traits of coarseness or ferocity.
There are moments when the Homeric hero is almost a
savage2.
1 Thus the following words occur in the Odyssey, but not in the
Iliad: — (i) ayvri, epithet of Artemis, of Persephone, and of a festival,
ioprri'. (2) 60-177, 'piety' (the only part of oVtos found in either poem) : (3)
deovdys, 'god-fearing', as epithet of voos or 6v/j.o$: (4) VQIJ/J.UV (found in
//. only as a proper name), = ' right-minded' (always with dlifaios), —
nearly = the later crw^wc, which does not occur in Homer. The word
SIKCUOS is frequent in the Odyssey, while the Iliad has only the superlative
(once) and the comparative (twice), but the positive nowhere.
2 Thus the Homeric man, even the noblest, is liable to savage out-
bursts of fury, — like that in which the Macedonian Alexander slew his
friend Cleitus, — though not, as in that case, kindled by wine. Patroclus
56 HOMER. [CH. II.
Archaeo- 19. Homer gives some general notion of the extent to
evidence ^ich the useful and ornamental arts had been developed ;
and in some points this literary evidence can now be sup-
plemented by evidence from monuments of archaeology1.
The poet naturally assumes that his hearers are familiar
with the products to which he refers. Hence the in-
dications which he gives are often slight. Nor can any
real help be derived from the scenes depicted on vases
or reliefs of the classical Greek age, which clothe
Homeric life in the garb of the sixth or fifth century B.C.
The only monuments which can be trusted for the
illustration of Homer are those of an earlier date. As
the Homeric poems show, the field over which such
testimony may be sought is a wide one. Agamemnon
received a breast-plate from the king of Cyprus. Menelaus
received a mixing-bowl from the king of Sidon. Helen's silver
work-basket on wheels came from Egyptian Thebes. A Phoe-
nician merchant showed a necklace of amber and gold to the
mother of Eumaeus. Priam offered Achilles a Thracian cup 2.
Use of 20. The power of working stone is implied in the
Homeric mention of mill-stones, quoits, and sepulchral
slew the son of Amphidamas ' in wrath over a game of knuckle-bones'
(//. 23. 88). Achilles, the very embodiment of chivalry, fears lest the
wild beast within him should leap forth, and he should slay Priam — the
aged and helpless king, his guest, and his suppliant (//. 24. 568 — 586).
1 This evidence has been brought into relation with the evi-
dence of the Homeric text by Dr W. Helbig in his compact and
comprehensive work, Das Homerische Epos aus den Denkmdlern erlautert
(Leipzig, Teubner, 1884).
2 The chief sources of archaeological evidence for Homer are discussed
by Helbig, pp. i — 59. They are (i) Phoenician: (2) archaic Greek and
Italian : (3) Northern — e.g., an archaic bronze hydria has been found at
Grachwyl in Switzerland. In the Aegean zone, the chief groups of
relevant 'finds' have been at i. Hissarlik: 2. Thera: 3. lalysos in
Rhodes: 4. Mycenae (where Helbig would put the remains before the
Dorian conquest, — i.e. earlier than circ. noo B.C. — but not long before
the Homeric times): 5. Spata in Attica: 6. The Dipylon at Athens,
where — in graves of a later age (circ. 700—500 B.C.) than the five pre-
ceding groups — vases have been found with designs more nearly Homeric
than any others known, — though the ships depicted are un-Homeric in
one point, as having beaks (which do not occur before 800 — 700 B.C. :
PP- 54-59)-
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 57
slabs (O-TT/XCU). The chambers in Priam's palace are
built of 'polished stone'; and so is Circe's house (Od.
10. 210). But the use of wood in house-building of the
humbler sort was probably more general than that of stone.
Homer nowhere mentions stone statues, or figure-sculpture
on stone. He knows no treatment of stone for decorative
purposes beyond hewing and polishing (denoted by the
word ICO-TO'S) ' .
21. The house of the Homeric chief is most clearly exem- The
plified by the house of Odysseus ', the general arrangement
of which is shown in the accompanying plan2. It was sur-
rounded by a high and massive stone wall, probably of
the rude and irregular structure known as 'Cyclopean'.
In this defensive wall there was only one opening, viz. the
front gate, with large and solid folding-doors. Outside
the wall, on each side of the gate, stone seats were
placed. On passing through this gateway (-n-poOvpov) in
the outer wall, the visitor found himself in a court-yard
(auXiy, ep/cos). This was open to the air. It was not paved. The
It was, in fact, like a farm -yard, and quite as dirty3. Small cc
chambers (0a'Aa/xoi), built at the sides of the court-yard,
against the outer wall, served as farm-buildings, as sleeping-
rooms for male slaves, and sometimes even for members of
the family4. In the midst of the court-yard stood the altar
of ' Zeus of the Court ' (Zeus Herkeios), the symbol of
domestic unity5.
22. Standing at the front gate, where he entered, The
the visitor sees a portico, supported by pillars, run- ae*usa
ning along the inner side of the court-yard, opposite to domus.
1 Helbig, pp. 71—73.
2 Based on that given by Mr John Protodikos in his essay De
Aedibus Homerkis (Leipsic, 1877).
3 Argos, the dog of Odysseus, lay on a huge dung-heap in the court-
yard of the house (Od. 17. 297).
4 In two cases, at least, an unmarried son of the house has a BoXa/mos
in the av\-f) — Phoenix (//. 9. 471 ff.) and Telemachus (Od. 19. 48).
5 Od. 22. 334: here the master of the house offered sacrifice. In
Soph. Ant. 487 6 TTCIS Zei)s'Ep/ce?os='the whole family.'
5$ HOMER. [CH. II.
him. This portico is the 'aethusa' (aWova-a), specially so
called. The space covered by it is called the prodomus
1 1
MYX01 AOMOY
m
0AAAMO* OAY^Eft*
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OH*AYP°* | OTTAIIN
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THE HOMERIC HOUSE OF THE ODYSSEY.
or 'fore-hall,' as being immediately in front
of the great hall, to which it served as a kind of vestibule.
Hence aethusa and prodomus are sometimes used con-
vertibly j as when a person who sleeps under the aethusa is
said to sleep in the prodomus. Guests, even of high
distinction, were sometimes lodged there for the night1.
1 As Telemachus and Peisistratus, in the house of Menelaus at
Sparta. Helen orders beds to be prepared for them VTT alffowrg (Od. 4.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 59
The term ' aethusa ' itself was a general one, being merely
the epithet of a portico which is open to the sun's rays
(aWciv). Another portico, similar to that of the pro-
domus, ran along the opposite side of the court, on each
side of the gateway (irpoOvpov), and, sometimes at least,
along the two other sides of the court also, which then had
a colonnade running all round it, — the peristyle (TrepiVrvAov)
of later times. Hence the Homeric phrase, ' he drove out
of the gateway and the echoing portico* (//. 24. 323).
Hence, too, the prodomus (with its portico) can be dis-
tinguished from the aWova-a ca-A?;?, which then means the
colonnade on the opposite side, or the other sides, of
the court (//. 9. 472 f.).
23. From the prodomus a door led into the great hall The
(fjityapov, Sw/za). In the house of Odysseus, this door has a megarc
threshold of ash (//,eA«/os ov86<s, Od. 17. 339), while the
opposite door, leading from the great hall to the women's
apartments, has a threshold of stone (AaiVos, Od. 20. 258).
Each threshold, as appears from the story, was somewhat
raised above the level of the floor. In one of the side-walls
of the hall, near the upper end, was a postern (opa-oOvprj),
also raised above the floor, and opening on a passage
(Xavprj) which ran along the outside of the hall, communi-
cating both with the court and with the back part of
the house. At the upper end of the hall was the
hearth (eo-xapiy), at which all the cooking was done; for
the hall served both as kitchen and as dining-room. Not
only the guests but the retainers of the Homeric prince
live and eat with him in the hall, — a number of small
tables (one for every two persons, as a rule) being ranged in
it from end to end; in the house of Odysseus, upwards
of sixty such tables must have been in use. In this
respect the home-life of the Achaean basileus resembled
that of the medieval baron or the Scandinavian chief.
297), and they sleep tv irpodbuy (ib. 302). So aldoticrr} in //. 24. 644
— irpoS6/j.ii} ib. 673. If Odysseus, in his humble disguise, is fain to take
a rough 'shake-down' in aWovcra, the slight is not in the place but in
the mode (Od. 20. i).
60 HOMER. [CH. II.
24. The women's part of the house was an inner court,
immediately beyond the great hall, with which it was in
direct communication by the door with the stone thresh-
The old. The women's apartments are sometimes collec-
wo™ten's lively called thalamos1. They included the private room,
ments. or rooms, of the mistress of the house (to which, in
Penelope's case, access was given by stairs), and the work-
rooms of the women slaves. In the house of Odysseus, the
strong-room or treasury for precious possessions (^o-aupo's),
and the armoury (6dX.a^o<; oVXwi/), were also in this region.
The phrase /xvxos SO'/AOV, 'innermost part of the house,' is
sometimes so used as to indicate a part beyond the women's
court. Here, in the house of Odysseus, was probably the
chamber, built by himself, enclosing the bed of which
the head-post was an olive-stump (Od. 23. 192), — the'
sign by which he finally convinced Penelope of his
identity2.
Analogy Thus the general plan of the Homeric house is
Greek* essentially that of the Greek house in historical times.
house. There is an outer court, — the Homeric aule, the later an-
1 From the collective thalamos — as a whole part of the house — dis-
tinguish the plur. 0a\ayU(H, said of the small chambers against the walls
of the court-yard. So from megaron, in its special sense — the public
hall — distinguish /j-tyapa, said of work-rooms for the women in the
thalamos (Od. 19. 16).
2 See Protodikos, p. 60. Some points in regard to the Odyssean
house remain doubtful, (i) What was the circular 06\os in the av\ij?
(Od. 22. 442). Perhaps, as some of the ancients thought, and as
Protodikos thinks (p. 24), a ra/xietoi', — i.e. a sort of pantry, in which
plates, dishes, cups, etc., were kept. (2) What were the payes
fj,eydpoio? (Od. 22. 143). I have elsewhere (Journ. Hellen. Stud.)
given reasons for thinking that they mean the 'narrow passages,'
leading from the optroOvpa to the back-part of the house. The Neo-
Hellenic povya is used in a like sense, and seems to be descended from
the Homeric word (evidently once a familiar one). The Low Latin
ruga (Fr. rue] is not a probable source for it. (3) What were the
^ecrofyiai? (Od. 19. 37.) Probably the main (or longitudinal) beams in
the roof of the megaron, while doitol were the transverse beams ;
as Protodikos holds (p. 37). Buchholz (Horn. Realien, p. 109)
reverses the relation of doKot and /ue
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 6 1
dronitis. There is an inner court for the women, with
rooms round it, — the Homeric thalamos, the later gynae-
conitis. And between the two there is the principal room
of the house, in which the host and his guests eat, — the
Homeric megaron or doma, the later andron1.
25. The public hall (megaron) in the house of Odysseus, Interior
— a typical palace, — is not floored with wood or stone. The 5j"Jn|g
floor is merely earth trodden to hardness. There is, how- coration,
ever, a long raised threshold of ash-wood inside the door etc*
leading to the court-yard, and a similar threshold of stone
inside the door leading to the thalamos. In the megaron
of Alcinous, the walls are covered with plates of bronze, —
a mode of ornamentation which had come into the Hellenic
countries from Asia, and which continued to be used in the
East for many centuries. Traces of it appear in the
Treasuries of Mycenae and Orchomenus. Portions of the
wood-work in the Homeric palace, especially doors and
door-posts, may also have been overlaid with gold or silver.
The cyanus (KVCIVOS), which adorned the cornice in the
hall of Alcinous (Od. 7. 87), was formerly interpreted
as bronze or blue steel. But there is now little doubt that
it was a kind of blue glass paste, used as an artificial
substitute for the natural ultramarine obtained by pul-
verising the sapphire (lapis lazuli)2. The brilliant effect
of the metallic wall-plating and other decoration in the
palace of Alcinous is marked by the phrase, 'a radiance
of the sun or of the moon' (Od. 7. 84), which is also
applied to the palace of Menelaus at Sparta (Od. 4. 45).
The poet of the Iliad, on the other hand, ascribes such
1 With regard to the house at Tiryns, see Note at the end of the
book. The origin and age of that house are doubtful ; but it certainly
is not the Homeric house of the Odyssey.
2 See Helbig, pp. 79 — 82. The explanation was first suggested by
R. Lepsius. The locus dassicus is Theophrastus irepl \L6wv § 55, who
distinguishes the natural KVO.VOS (avTO(f>\rfjs), or lapis lazuli, from the
artificial (crKevaoros). Fragments of an alabaster frieze, inlaid at
intervals with small pieces of blue glass, were found at Tiryns.
Their age is uncertain.
62 HOMER. [CH. II.
decoration to no mortal's house — perhaps simply be-
cause he has no occasion to describe the interior of
a palace; but he calls the house of the god Poseidon
'golden', and that of the god Hephaestus 'brazen'. Metal-
plating on wood or other material must be understood
by the epithet 'golden' or 'silvern' as applied to several
objects in both epics. Such are the 'golden' sceptre,
wand, distaff, bread-basket, chair, etc.; the 'silvern' wool-
basket, chest, table, etc. The hall was at once lighted
and warmed by large braziers (Aa/utTTT^pcs), — three of which
are brought in by the maid-servants of Odysseus at night-
fall; they light the fires with dry faggots, and take turns in
watching to replenish them (Od. 18. 307). The smoke
from the braziers and the hearth sufficed to blacken
the bows, spears, and other arms hung on the walls (Od. 16.
290). The outlet for the smoke may have been an opening
in the roof, though Homer mentions nothing of the kind1.
Social 26. The social manners of the time, in the house of a chief
IS> of the highest rank, may be gathered from the reception of
Telemachus and his friend (Nestor's son Peisistratus) at the
palace of Menelaus in Sparta. The travellers, in a chariot
drawn by two horses, drive up to the outer gate of the
court-yard. A retainer (Oepdiruv) informs the master of the
house, and is ordered at once to unyoke the horses, and to
conduct the strangers (whose names are as yet unknown)
into the house. Accordingly the horses are stabled, and the
strangers are led into the great hall — which astonishes them
by its splendour. Thence they are ushered to baths.
Having bathed, anointed themselves with olive-oil and put
on fresh raiment, they return to the great hall, where their
host Menelaus receives them. They are placed on chairs
beside him. A hand-maid brings a silver basin and a
golden ewer, from which she pours water over their hands.
A polished table is then placed beside them. 'A grave
1 Such a hole or smoke-vent (KairvoSoKij, Ion. for Ka.irvoSox'n — the
Attic KO.TTVT) or oirrj) belongs to the earliest form of Graeco-Roman house :
cp. Her. 8. 137. — In Od. i. 320 avoircua has been taken as 'up the smoke-
vent'; but probably it means simply 'upwards': see Merry ad loc.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 63
dame' (the house-keeper) brings bread (in baskets), and
' many dainties ' ; while a carver places on the table
'platters of divers kinds of flesh'1, and golden bowls for
wine. Menelaus then invites them to eat, and, as a special
mark of honour, sets before them, with his own hands, a
roast ox-chine. He does not yet know who his guests
are ; but, when he mentions Odysseus in conversation, tears
come into the eyes of Telemachus, who raises his purple
mantle to hide them.
Menelaus is musing on this, when the mistress of the house
enters the hall2. Helen, in her radiant beauty, comes from
the inner, or women's, part of the house — 'the fragrant tha-
lamos' — attended by three hand-maids. She takes a chair,
to which a foot-stool is attached ; at her side a maiden places
a silver basket, on wheels, full of dressed yarn; and lays
across it a golden distaff, charged with wool of violet blue.
She and her lord converse with their guests until the night
is far spent. Then supper is served, and Helen casts into
the wine a soothing drug which she had brought from
Egypt, — 'a drug to lull all pain and anger, and bring
forgetfulness of every sorrow.' Presently attendants, with
torches, show the two guests to their beds in the porch, —
1 In the Homeric world, fish is not mentioned as a delicacy — rather
it is regarded as the last resource of hunger (Od. 12. 329 ff., Od. 4. 368).
The similes from fishing point to the use of fish by poor people who
could command no other animal food.
2 Helen in her own house at Sparta is the best example of the
Homeric woman's social position — as Nausicaa is the best proof that the
poet perfectly apprehended all that is meant by the word 'lady'. In
comparing the Homeric place of woman with her apparently lower place
in historical Greece, two things should be borne in mind, (i) The only
Homeric women of whom we hear much are the wives of chiefs or
princes, who share the position of their husbands. The women of
whom we hear most from the Attic writers belong to relatively poor
households : their social sphere is necessarily more confined. (2) The
intellectual progress made between 800 and 500 B.C. was for the men,
and only in exceptional cases for the women. The Homeric woman of
950 B.C. was probably a better companion for her husband than the Attic
woman of 450 B.C.
64 HOMER. [CH. II.
where bedsteads have been set, with purple blankets, and
coverlets and thick mantles thereon (Od. 4. 20 — 305).
A con- If we contrast this picture with that of the suitors in
ast< Ithaca we feel the skill and delicacy of the poet's touch. In
the house of Menelaus, Homer presents a scene of noble and
refined hospitality; in the invaded house of Odysseus he
means to describe a scene of coarse riot. When one of
the suitors snatches up an ox's foot from a basket, and
throws it at Odysseus— missing him, and hitting the wall
(Od. 20. 299 if.) — we are not to infer that incidents of this
kind were characteristic of good Homeric society.
Homeric 27. The dress of the Homeric man is a shirt or tunic
dress. (chiton)1, and over that a mantle (chlaindf , which answers
to the outer garment called himation in the classical age.
The Homeric woman wears a robe (peplus) reaching to the
feet. On her head she sometimes wears a high, stiff coif,
(K€Kpv<f>a\os), over the middle of which passes a many-
coloured twisted band (-n-XeKTrj avaSeV/x^)3, while a golden
fillet glitters at the front. Either from the coif, or directly
from the crown of the head, a veil (/cp^Se/tvoi/, KaXvirrpr))
falls over shoulders and back.
In imagining such a scene as Helen standing on
the walls of Troy with Priam and the Trojan elders
(//. 3), the general picture (Helbig remarks) which we
should conceive as present to the poet's mind is one
dominated by the conventional forms and brilliant colours4
1 In //. 13. 685 the'Iao^es (probably Athenians) are called eX/ce^rwi/es,
'tunic-trailing' — i.e. wearing the long tunic which reached below the
knee (XIT&V Te/3/uoets). This was once worn by Dorians as well as
lonians, but was never the ordinary garment of daily life — being worn
only (i) by elders or men of rank, (2) by other persons on festal occasions.
The Homeric poet, when he said tXKexirwves, was perhaps thinking of
an Ionian festival, such as that at Delos. See Helbig, pp. 119 ff.
2 Or 0apos, Od. 6. 214.
3 Schliemann assumed that the TT\€KTT] ava.ofofj.ij was a golden
frontlet. Helbig points out the error (p. 158), which the word TrXe/er^
itself refutes. A frontlet would have been &/J.ITV!-.
4 The Homeric vocabulary of colour marks vividly the distinction
between dark and light (or bright), but very imperfectly the distinctions
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 65
of the East, — not by the free dignity and harmonious
symmetry of mature Greek art. Priam and the elders of
Troy wear close-fitting tunics, which in some cases reach
to the feet — over these, red or purple mantles, which
fall straight and foldless, — some of them embroidered with
rich patterns, — the king's mantle, perhaps, with the picture
of a fight. Their upper lips are shaven ; they have wedge-
shaped beards; their hair falls over their cheeks in long
locks fastened with golden spirals. Helen wears a richly-
embroidered robe (peplus], which fits close to her form ; a
costly perfume breathes from it ; on her breast glitter the
golden brooches which fasten the peplus ; a necklace (6'p/^os)
hangs down to her breast, — the gold forming in it a contrast
with the dark-red amber. On her head is the coif, with
glittering frontlet, and the veil falling over the shoulders1.
28. The Homeric warrior has defensive armour resembling Homeric
that of the heavy infantry soldier (hoplite) of later times. armour-
This defensive armour is an essentially Greek trait ; it is not
oriental. Thus the Ionian Aristagoras tells the Spartan
Cleomenes that the barbarians, who fight with bows and
short spears, go into battle wearing trousers and turbans3.
The Homeric defensive panoply consists of helmet, cuirass
(Ouprjg, formed of breast- plate and back-plate), greaves,
belt3, shield, and lastly the 'mitra,' — a girdle of metal,
between shades of colour. Thus he says of a robe which was KVO.VCQV
that nothing was /ieXcu/re/xw (//. 24. 93) : though Kvaveos properly — dark
blue. He applies x^wP<» both to young herbage (pale green), and to
honey (as 'pale,' or perh. merely 'fresh-looking'). A striking parallel
to his x^^pos is the Gaelic urail, as meaning (i) green of any shade, (2)
'flourishing,' — fresh, comely, — said of a face. Thus the character of
the Homeric colour-sense is in accord with the character of Homeric
art. The notion that 'Homer was colour-blind' has long been
exploded.
1 Helbig, p. 194.
2 To£a — alx/AT) /3pa%^a — dva^vpiSes — Kvpj3a<riai (Her. 5. 49).
3 ^wffrrip. The word &pa, as used in the Iliad, probably de-
notes a projecting rim at the bottom of the dwp-q%, forming a 'waist'
which served to hold the faffT-rjp in its place. In the Odyssey the fw^a
has a somewhat different sense, denoting a kind of broad girdle some-
J- 5
66 HOMER. [CH. II.
(or plated with metal,) protecting the body below the belt1.
The mitra was not included in the panoply of later days.
The Homeric shield is round ; but there are hints that
an oblong shield was familiar at least through poetical
tradition ; thus the comparison of the shield of Ajax to
a tower (//. 7. 219, etc.) implies that form2. The Homeric
warrior must be imagined as a somewhat clumsier figure
than the classical hoplite; — his armour heavier, more
angular, and fitting less neatly. The war-chariot — important
in Homeric fights — had gone out of Greek use before
700 B.C.3
Homeric 29. The fine art of the Homeric age appears mainly as
art- decorative art, applied to objects in daily use, such as cups
and other vessels, furniture, armour, or dress. A difficult,
but interesting, question is to estimate the actual state
of art with which the Homeric poems were contemporary.
The following is an outline of the general view which many
archaeologists now accept, (i) The oldest objects of art
found in the graves at Mycenae are older than the Dorian
conquest of the Peloponnesus, i.e., older than about
1 1 oo B.C. Three main elements are present there; skilled
goldsmith's work, probably Phrygian; work of an early
indigenous Greek art, best represented by decorated
sword- blades; and, in a much smaller degree, Phoenician
work. (2) This earliest period is followed by an interval
of some three centuries (noo — 800 B.C.) which in Greek
art, as in Greek history, is almost a blank. Then, about
800 — 750 B.C., a revival of art begins in the East, and
is carried by Phoenicians into Greece. This revived art
times worn instead of the dupy!; when a lighter equipment was re-
quired.
1 In //. 4. 187 the fjiirpTj is made by xaX/c^es.
2 Cp. Mr W. Leaf, in Journ. Hellen. Stud. iv. 283, who has
elucidated several points of Homeric armour. Among others, the
ffrpeTTTos xiTWf of //. 5. ng has been explained by him as a pleated
doublet worn under the cuirass, to protect the skin from the metal.
3 In the war-poetry of Archilochus, Alcaeus and Tyrtaeus, there is
no reference to the use of the ap^a.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 67
is represented especially by metal work, such as the
Phoenician bronze bowls in the British Museum, and by
pottery, such as the vases from Cameirus in Rhodes. (3)
The Homeric notices of art belong mainly to the interval
between 1100 and 800 B.C.; that is, to a period of compara-
tive decadence, intervening between two periods of vigour.
The Homeric art is nearest to the Mycenean1, but later and
ruder; while the influence of the eighth-century revival, if it
has been felt at all, is as yet only incipient.
30. The most elaborate work of art in Homer is the Shield of
Shield of Achilles (//. 18. 478 ff). The central part of the A
Shield (the o'/u^aXos, or boss) was adorned with representa-
tions of earth, heaven, sea, sun, moon, and stars. The
outer rim of the shield represented the earth-girdling river
Oceanus. Between the boss and the rim, successive con-
centric bands displayed various scenes of human life ; a
besieged city ; a city at peace ; ploughing ; reaping • vin-
tage ; oxen attacked by lions ; sheep at pasture in a glen ;
youths and maidens dancing. An ingenious reconstruction
of the Shield, from Phoenician, Assyrian, Egyptian, and early
Greek sources, has been given by Mr A. S. Murray2. He
observes that the Shield, though a general picture of human
life, gives no place to ships — an omission natural for As-
syrians, but strange for Greeks — nor does it include any rite
of Greek religious worship3. Helbig thinks that the par- HOW far
ticular scenes depicted on the Shield had been suggested to imaff1'
the poet by real works of art, but that the Shield as a whole
is the work of his fancy. It proves the artistic feeling of the
poet, but belongs to an age which was not yet ripe for
1 Thus Nestor's cup (//. n. 632), with its two 7rv9/j,fres, is illus-
trated by some of the Mycenean cups, where the Trvd^ves appear
as golden supports connecting the handles of each cup with its stem.
'2 History of Greek Sculpture, ch. in. p. 44.
3 The Chest of Cypselus, described by Pausanias, was of the ;th
century B.C. ; and on the Chest — in contrast with the Shield — the actors
are not nameless, but are well-known persons of Greek mythology,
with their names written beside them. See Murray, op, «'/., pp.
47, 6r.
5—2
68 HOMER. [CH. II.
plastic expression of so complex a kind1. There can be no
doubt that the Shield as a whole is a work of the imagina-
tion; the only question is how far actual works of art
had inspired its details. One thing is certain. The poet
knew that different metals could be inlaid, as he represents
them on his Shield, so as to give variety of colour : his field
is of gold, his vine-poles of silver, his fence of tin, etc.
Some of the bronze sword-blades found at Mycenae — one
of which was adorned with a lion-hunt — were overlaid with
a dark metallic enamel, and in this figures cut in gold
leaf were inserted, — the gold being artificially toned to
different shades2.
Other The golden brooch (-rrcpov-rj) of Odysseus (Od. 19. 226)
represented a hound holding a fawn in his fore-paws, and
strangling it, while it writhed. This may have been sug-
gested by a real work of art. The animals and fighting
scenes wrought on the golden belt of Heracles (Od. n.
610) recall some Rhodian vase-paintings3. But there is
no other Homeric hint of that Greek art, dating from the
8th century B.C., which Phoenician work had stimulated;
and the passage in which the belt occurs is, by general
consent, one of the later parts of the Odyssey.
The remark made above, as to the right way of con-
ceiving Homeric figures and dress, may probably be ex-
tended to the general effect of the Homeric house and of
1 Generally, the Greek artistic sense in Homer is shown -by (i)
distaste for the formless and planless, — the monsters, such as Scylla,
being non-Hellenic conceptions : (2) feeling for physical beauty, even in
the old — as Achilles admires the comeliness of Priam (//. 24. 631) — just
as, later, old men chosen for their beauty shared in the Panathenaic
procession (0a\\o(f>6poi, Michaelis, Parthenon, pp. 330 f.) : (3) especially,
the admiration of the human form as seen (e.g.) in the corpse of
Hector (//. 22. 369, cp. Herod. 9. 25). Agamemnon is likened to
Zeus for head and eyes, to Ares for girth, and to Poseidon for breast
(//. 2. 477). Yet Pheidias was the first who wrought out the Zeus of
Homer.
2 Prof. P. Gardner in Macmillan 's Magazine, vol. Liv. p. 377;
who refers to U. Koehler in Mittheilungen Deutsch. Inst. Athen^
VII. a44. 3 Ib. p. 378.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 69
Homeric art. The modern spectator, if he could be placed Oriental
in the dwelling of an Homeric king, might fancy himself at ^USeric
Nineveh in the palace of Sanherib, or at Tyre in the palace art gene-
of Hiram, rather than in a Greek home x.
31. Homer makes no reference to coined money. A Stan-
* talent's weight ' of uncoined gold is sometimes mentioned2. Va[Ue.°
The ox is the ordinary measure of values. Thus a female
slave, skilled in embroidery, is worth four oxen ; Laertes had
given twenty for Eurycleia ; a fine tripod is worth twelve ;
a suit of 'golden' armour is worth a hundred. Much-
wooed maidens 'multiply oxen' for their fathers — by
gifts from the successful suitors3.
Some kind of alphabetic writing is probably indicated by Writing,
the 'baneful tokens' in //. 6. 168; but elsewhere in Homer
the later word for ' writing ' (ypa$o>) means only to ' scratch '
or ' graze.' The subject of writing will be noticed again in
Chapter iv.
The Odyssey has a word for a man who is skilled Crafts-
in a profession or trade — ' craftsman of the people ' men>
(S^/uoepyo's). This term is applied to (i) soothsayers, (2)
surgeons, (3) minstrels, (4) heralds, (5) artificers. Commerce Mer-
is not yet in high esteem with Greeks. Odysseus is chants<
nettled when a Phaeacian chief remarks that he is not like
* one skilled in games,' but rather like ' a master of sailors
that are merchants' (Trp^Kr^pes, Od. 8. 161).
32. Apart from the action of each epic, glimpses into
1 Helbig, p. 318.
2 It denotes no great value — as may be inferred from //. 23. 751,
where 'half a talent of gold' is only the third prize for running, — the
second being an ox, and the first a silver bowl.
3 See Butcher and Lang's Odyssey, Note 5, p. 410. 'The %8va in
Homer are invariably gifts made by the wooers to the father or kinsmen
of the bride, that is, the bride-price, the kalym of the dwellers on the
Volga. The Greeks of the Homeric age virtually bought their wives :
cp. Aristotle, Pol. ii. 8 § 19, speaking of the barbaric customs of ancient
Greece, rds yvvcuKas tuvovvro Trap ctXX^Xwr.' The Homeric fj.fi\ia are
gifts to the bride from her father : the wooer's gifts to her are called
simply dupa. In Pindar Zdva already =<p4pvr), the dowry.
HOMER.
[CH. II.
the general life of the age are given by many of the
Life similes. These tell of the shipwright — for whom mules
similes ^ra& tinker from the hills — the chariot-builder, the stone-
mason, and the house-builder. A woman 'of Caria or
Maeonia ' stains ivory with crimson, to make a cheek-piece
for the bridle of a chief's horse. The art of 'overlaying
gold on silver' is noticed. A doubtful fight suggests the
equipoise of scales in the hands of 'a careful working-
dame,' weighing wool, that by spinning 'she may earn a
scant wage for her children.' We see neighbours disputing
about a boundary, 'with measuring-rods in their hands.'
Or a skilled rider1 is urging four horses together along a
highway towards a great town, and leaping from one horse
to another, while the folk marvel. A late hour in the
afternoon is the hour 'when a man rises up from the
marketplace and goes to supper, — one who judges the
many quarrels of the young men that seek to him for law2.'
Scenes On the Shield of Achilles two scenes of townlife are given.
Shield. ^ne *s a j°y°us marriage procession, while torches blaze, and
the bridal chant rings clear. Another is a dispute for the
blood-price of a slain man, in the marketplace ; the slayer
vows that he has paid ; the kinsman of the slain denies it ;
and the elders, seated on polished stones in a semicircle,
try the cause. In the rural scenes of the Shield — Ploughing,
Reaping, Vintage, Pasturage — we note the kindly and
joyous aspect of the country life. And then there comes
the picture of the dance : — ' youths dancing, and maidens
of costly wooing, their hands upon one another's wrists.
- ,x
*•*•-
1 //. 15. 679; the only mention of riding (/ceAT/Ttfeii/) in //.: for in
jo. 513 we need not assume that Odysseus and Diomede ride, rather than
drive, the horses of Rhesus. In Od. 5. 371 the shipwrecked Odysseus
bestrides a spar, KtXrjd' us 'iirirov £\a.vvuv. In two other instances
a Homeric simile turns on a practice not ascribed to the Homeric
heroes: (i) the use of the trumpet, <ra\iri.y$, 11. 18. 219: (2) boiling
meat in a caldron, \t(3tjs, II. 21. 362.
2 ^' I2> 44° — notable as an indication of time exactly like the
Tr\r)dovffa (early forenoon) or dyopas 5id\v<ris (early afternoon) of
classical age.
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. Jl
Fine linen the maidens had on, and the youths well-woven
tunics faintly glistening with oil. Fair wreaths had the
maidens, and the youths daggers of gold hanging from
silver baldrics.' Now they move round in a swift circle —
now they run in lines to meet each other. ' And a great
company stood round the lovely dance in joy.'
33. The Homeric Greeks burn their dead. When the Funeral
body has been laid on the pyre, sacrifice is offered, on a scale rites-
proportionate to the rank of the dead. If he was a great
chief, many oxen and sheep are slain, as well as some of his
favourite horses and dogs, and their carcases are thrown on
the pyre. The corpse is wrapped in the fat of the victims ;
unguents and honey are also placed near it. When the
body has been consumed, the embers are quenched with
wine. The friends then collect the bones, washing them
with wine and oil, or wrapping them in fat; cover them
with fine cloths ; and place them in an urn (Xdpvag). The
urn is then deposited in a grave (/caTrcros); over this is
raised a round barrow of earth and stones (ru/xySos or
oTy/wx)1, and on the top of the barrow is set an upright slab
of stone (crr^Xr;). Until the body has received funeral rites,
the spirit of the dead is supposed to be excluded from con-
verse with the other shades in the nether world (//. 23. 71).
In practising cremation, the Homeric Greeks were in accord
with the most ancient practice of the Indo-European
peoples, except the Persians. With the Semitic races, on
the other hand, interment was the prevailing custom.
Among the Greeks and Romans of the historical age crema-
tion and interment were in contemporary use.
34. The Homeric place of the departed is ' the house The
of Hades.' 'Hades,' 'the Unseen/ is in Homer always a
proper name, denoting the god Pluto. Between earth and
1 Three fire-funerals are described with some detail; — //. 23. no ff.
(Patroclus): //. 24 786 ff. (Hector): Od. 24. 63 ff. (Achilles). The
sacrifice of the Trojan prisoners at the funeral of Patroclus is ex-
ceptional— a trait of unique ferocity, intended to mark the frenzy of
grief in Achilles.
72 HOMER. [CH. II.
the realm of Hades is an intermediate region of gloom,
Erebus : while Tartarus, the prison of the Titans and other
offenders against Zeus, is as far below Hades as he is below
the earth. In the realm of Hades the spirit (i/^x1?) of
the dead has the form, the rank, and the occupations which
were those of the living man. But the spirit is a mere
semblance (etSwAov) or wraith ; ' the living heart is not in it '
(//. 23. 103) ; it is < strengthless.' The Homeric feeling on
this point is illustrated by the use of the pronoun euro's. As
distinguished from the spirit in the nether world, the real
self (auVo's) is either the corpse left on earth (//. i. 4),
or the man as he formerly lived (Od. n. 574)'. So the
Egyptian Book of the Dead2 has a picture of the deceased
man (the euro's) making prayers to the Sun-god, while his
soul attends behind him. When Odysseus wishes to call
up the spirits of the dead, he digs a pit, a cubit square, into
which flows the blood of the sheep which he sacrifices ; and
the spirits, invoked by his prayers, then come up from
Erebus to the drink-offering of blood (Od. n. 36). By
drinking of the blood, the ghosts recover some of the
faculties of the living, so that they can recognise Odysseus,
and speak to him3.
Homer knows not the ' Islands of the Blest :' these are
first named by Pindar. But in the far region of the sunset
is 'the Elysian plain.' 'No snow is there, nor yet great
storm, nor any rain; but always the river Ocean sendeth
1 Similarly in Od. n. 602 atros is the real Heracles, as he exists,
after apotheosis, among the gods, in distinction from his eidolon in
the house of Hades.
2 Bunsen's Egypt (vol. I. p. 26, transl.), quoted by Gladstone in
Homeric Synchronism, p. 261. The 'Book of the Dead,' or 'Funeral
Ritual,' is 'a collection of prayers of a magical character, referring to the
future condition of the disembodied soul' (R. S. Poole, in Encycl. Brit.
VII. p. 721). It has been published by Lepsius and by De Rouge, and
translated by Birch.
3 See Od. n. 153, 390. The drinking of the blood is not mentioned
in every instance, but the poet evidently conceived it as the genera]
condition : see Merry on Od. n. g6
CH. II.] THE HOMERIC WORLD. 73
forth the breeze of the shrill west to blow cool on men.'
There is Rhadamanthus, son of Zeus ; and thither Menelaus
shall pass without dying, because Helen, the daughter of
Zeus, is his wife. (Od. 4. 563 ff.)
Such are the chief traits of the Homeric age. As a
general picture of that age, the Homeric poetry has the
value of history. It is manifestly inspired by real life.
This is equally true whether the life is conceived as strictly
contemporary with the poet, or as known to him only
through a vivid tradition.
CHAPTER III.
HOMER IN ANTIQUITY.
i. WE have now considered the general characteris-
Influence tics of the Homeric poems and of the Homeric age. The
Homeric subJect which next invites attention is the influence of Homer
poems, in .Greek antiquity. That influence pervades Greek litera-
ture. But it is much more than literary. It enters into
every part of Greek life. Eulogists of Homer, Plato tells
us, used to say that he had been 'the educator of Hellas V
In a certain sense, such a claim can be made for every
great national poet. The peculiarity of Homer's case is
that, for him, the claim can be made with so much literal
truth. There is no other instance in which the -educative
power of national poetry over a national mind has been
so direct or so comprehensive.
Homer was long known to the Greek world solely,
or chiefly, through public recitation. The spirit in which
the public reciter conceived his office will be better under-
stood if we begin by noting the Homeric references to
minstrelsy.
1 Rep. 606 E OTO.V 'OfAripov eiraivtrais ^VTV^TJ^, X£yoi.p<r«> cJs TTJJ>
'EXXaSa TreiraidevKev euros 6
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 75
2. The 7//dv/ nowhere mentions a minstrel (aoiSoV) reel- Min-
ting lays. It says, indeed, that the Thracian poet Thamyris
boasted that 'he would conquer, though the Muses them- niad
selves should sing against him' (2. 597). He was 'coming
from Eurytus of Oechalia' (in Thessaly) when the Muses
met him and struck him blind. Here we seern to have a
glimpse of a poet who (i) recites his own poetry, (2) is
familiar with the idea of competition in singing, and (3) is
the guest of chieftains. Achilles has no minstrel to entertain
him in his tent, but plays the lyre himself, and sings to it
'the glories of heroes' (/<Xea ai/Spwv, 9. 189). Patroclus was
waiting in silence, till Achilles 'should cease from singing.'
The Odyssey assigns a recognised position to the pro- Odyssey.
fessional minstrel (aoiSos). In the palace of Alcinous, king
of Phaeacia, the blind minstrel, Demodocus, is led in by the
king's 'herald' or chamberlain (/c^pu^), and is set on 'a high
chair inlaid with silver,' in the midst of the guests (8. 65).
Demodocus sings the 'glories of heroes' (/cXea ai/Spcav, v. 73)
to the lyre — choosing the episode of a quarrel between
Odysseus and Achilles. Then the company go out to see
athletic games. The next time that Demodocus sings at
the feast, his theme is again from the * Trojan lay': but
Odysseus names the part which is to be sung — viz., the
story of the wooden horse ; and the minstrel ' took up the
tale from that poinf (!v$ev eXcav, 8. 500).
In Ithaca, during the absence of Odysseus, the min-
strel Phemius was constrained by the suitors to sing to
them at their feasts. He sang ' the pitiful return of the
Achaeans' from Troy. This pained Penelope, and she
begged him to change his theme; but Telemachus re-
1 In //. 24. 720 Trapa 5' elffav dotSotfs, | Gprjvwv e£a'/>xovs, the 'singers'
placed by Hector's corpse merely 'lead the dirge,' while the women
join in with their wail. The only other place where the Iliad has
the word is a doubtful passage, 18. 604 fiera dt cfyiv e/u<?\7rero Oeios
ooiSo's, | <pop(j.ifai>, — ' was making music with his lyre' (for the dancers —
in one of the scenes on the Shield). These words occur in no rns.
They were inserted by Wolf from Athenaeus (v. p. i8oD), who blames
Aristarchus for having struck them out (ib. p. 181 D).
76 HOMER. [CH. III.
marked that the minstrel could not be blamed for choosing
it — since men most applaud the song which is newest (i.
352). So the Odyssey knows at least two great themes for
minstrels, — (i) 'The Doom of Ilios' ('IXi'ou olrov, 8. 578),
and (2) the 'Return of the Achaeans' ('AXCUWI/ VO'O-TOV, i.
326): and the latter is the * newest.'
The similes from the art of the minstrel are striking.
(i) When the swineherd Eumaeus wishes to make Penelope
understand the charm of the newly-arrived stranger (Odys-
seus), he says : — ' Even as when a man gazes on a minstrel,
whom the gods have taught to sing words of yearning joy
to mortals, and they have a ceaseless desire to hear him,
so long as he will sing ; — even so he charmed me, sitting
by me in the halls' (Od. 17. 518 fif.). (2) Ease in stringing
a bow is thus described : — ' Even as when a man that
is skilled in the lyre and in minstrelsy easily stretches a
cord about a new peg, after tying at either end the twisted
sheep-gut, even so Odysseus straightway bent the great bow'
(Od. 21. 406 ff.).
Such, then, are the essential traits of the minstrel,
or ' aoidos,' as we find him in the Odyssey: — (i) He is a
singer directly moved by 'the god' (opp.rjOcl<: Otov, Od. 8.
499), or by 'the Muse:' (2) he sings for a select company
of guests at the banquet in a great man's house: (3) he
accompanies his song on the lyre: (4) his song is a lay
of moderate length, dealing with some episode complete
in itself, taken from a larger story (such as the tale of
Troy). When his host asks him for a particular lay, the
minstrel begins ' from that point ' in the larger story.
Post-Ho- 3. After the picture of the 'aoidos' in the Odyssey t
citationf" tnere ^s a gaP m our knowledge. Then, early in the his-
Knap- torical age, we meet with the public reciter, or 'rhapsode'
tb' , who claims, in a certain way, to represent the
Homeric aoidos. The earlier rhapsodes were sometimes,
doubtless, epic composers also ; but it is not likely that this
was often the case after the sixth century B.C. 'Rhapsode'
is strictly 'a singer of stitched things,' — as Pindar (Nem. 2. 2)
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 77
paraphrases it, pairrotv eTrecov aoiSos. 'To stitch verses to-
gether' was a metaphor for 'composing verses'.' 'Rhap-
sode,' then, need not mean anything more than ' a reciter
of poetical compositions ' (whether his own, or another's).
The word was, however, peculiarly suitable to the con-
tinuous flow of epic verse, as contrasted with a lyric strophe.
It has nothing to do with any notion of the epic being
pieced together from short lays.
4. The public recitation of the Homeric poems by
rhapsodes can be traced back to about 600 B.C., and was
doubtless in use from a considerably earlier time. It is found
at Sicyon in Peloponnesus, — at Syracuse, — at Delos, — at
Chios, — at Cyprus, — and at Athens. This shows how widely
the Homeric poems were diffused, from an early date,
throughout the Greek world, among Dorians and lonians
alike. At Athens there was a special ordinance prescribing
that Homer should be recited (paif/wSelo-Oai) at the festival of
the Great Panathenaea, once in every four years2. This law
was probably as old as 600 — 500 B.C. It was further provided
that the competing rhapsodes at the Panathenaea should
recite consecutive parts of Homer, instead of choosing their
passages at random3.
The passage in which Herodotus (5. 67) notices
the recitations at Sicyon is of interest as illustrating the
power of Homer over the popular Greek mind. Cleis-
1 Hes. fr. 34 (Homer and Hesiod) ev veapols vfj-vois pd\f/avTes aoi^v
(cp. 'pangere versus'). V/MVOS itself is perh. v<p-vos (vtyalvui), 'web':
though in any case it seems unlikely that in Od. 8. 429 (doidrjs
vnvov OLKOVUV) it was used with a consciousness of that sense.
2 KaO' eKdffTyv TrevraeTtipida, Lycurgus Leocr. § 102.
3 Ace. to Diogenes Laertius r. 2. 57, Solon e£ viroj3o\ijs ytypafa
pa^ipdeiffdai, olov STTOV 6 Trpwros ^rj^ev, eKeWev a.pxecrda.1. rbv e%6/uei'oi'.
Ace. to the Platonic Hipparchus 228 B Hipparchus compelled the
reciters of the Homeric poems £!• VTroXTji/'ews efa^qs avra dutvai :
i.e. in such a way that they should 'take one another up' consecutively.
The general sense of e£ uTro/SoX^s is clearly the same : the only question
is whether it means (i) 'from an authorised text,' or (2) 'with
prompting' — each reciter having his proper cue given to him.
7 HOMER. CH. III.
thenes, tyrant of Sicyon (600 — 570 B.C.), was bitterly
hostile to Argos. ' He put down the competitions of
rhapsodes,' Herodotus says, ' on account of the Homeric
poems, because Argives and Argos are celebrated almost
everywhere in them.' It has been thought that the
* Homeric poems ' meant here were some poems specially
concerned with Argos, such as the lost epic called the
T/iebais. But there is no reason why the reference should
not be to our Iliad t since in it 'Argives' is one of the col-
lective names for the Greeks, and Agamemnon is lord of
'Argos and the isles.'
Homer- 5. In the island of Chios, there was a family or clan
called Homeridae, and it has generally been supposed that
they were rhapsodists; but this is doubtful. The Chian
Homeridae are first mentioned by Strabo (arc. 18 A.D.),
who says that they claimed descent from Homer, but does
not connect them with the recitation or study of Homeric
poetry. The term ' Homeridae,' as used by Pindar and
Plato, seems to have nothing to do with a gens in Chios, but
to mean simply ' votaries ' or ' students ' of Homeric poetry,
being equivalent to the more prosaic term 'Homerists'
('QfJLTJpflOL Or 'O/ATyplKOt)1.
The 6. The hint in Herodotus as to Homer's power agrees
rhapsode wjtjj tne picture of the Homeric rhapsode in the Platonic
fourth dialogue, the Ion. Here we see what the rhapsode's calling
century was about 400—350 B.C. Ion, a native of Ephesus, is a pro-
fessional rhapsode, who goes from city to city, reciting and ex-
1 All that we know about 'Owpidai comes to this: — (i) The word
occurs first in Pindar Nem. 2. 2, 'QfinqplSai pa-JTTuiv tirtuv doidoi, where it
has no special reference to a family in Chios. And the scholiast there
expressly recognises a general use of 'OwpiSai to denote rhapsodists of
Homer who had no claim to be his descendants ; adding, however,
that '0/j.r)pidai had originally meant such descendants — a statement for
which he perhaps had no ground except the form of the word itself.
Plato has the word 'Owpidcu thrice (Ion 530 D, Rep. 599 E,
Phaedr. 2528), always as = persons who concern themselves with the
Homeric poems. The scholiast on Plat. Theaet. 179 E (ruv 'Hpa/cXei-
as, 'Qfj.r)petuv), has 'O/u.-rjptdas <p7i<rl Tovs'Hpa.K\ei-
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 79
pounding Homer to large audiences. He has been attending
the festival of Asclepius at Epfdaurus ; now he has come to
Athens to recite at the Panathenaea. On such occasions, the
rhapsode appeared on a platform ((3rjp.a), in a richly em-
broidered dress, with a golden wreath on his head. He re-
cited Homer in a dramatic manner, with appropriate gesture
and declamation. Ion says that, when he recites, he feels
the strongest emotion : at the pathetic parts, his eyes fill with
tears ; at the terrors, his hair stands on end. He may have
an audience of 'more than twenty thousand;' and, after
all reasonable deduction, we must conclude that these
popular audiences were often very large indeed. As he
recites on his platform, the rhapsode beholds his own
moods reflected in the sea of upturned faces ; the hearers are
moved to wonder, to anger, or to tears. As Ion frankly puts
it to Socrates, a rhapsode whom his audience did not take
seriously — a rhapsode who merely made ihemfaug/i — would
have cause to look serious himself, for he would lose his pay.
The passage is a remarkable testimony to the intensity
with which the Greeks of the fourth century B.C. could still
enter into the spirit of Homer. They demanded that the
rhapsode should do something more than amuse them. He
must move them. He must bring the Homeric poetry home
to their hearts. On his part, the rhapsode Ion regards
himself and his professional brethren as more than reciters
or actors. They have an intellectual kinship with Homer ;
some measure of his spirit has descended on them. In
Ion's own phrase, they are 'possessed' by Homer. The
Platonic Socrates, with delicate irony, embodies this claim
in a simile. The Muse, says Socrates, is like the stone
reious did TO r-fft deiKivrja'ias 86y/j.a — showing that the scholiast under-
stood 'Opripldai as='0/XT7petoi. (2) A family or clan in Chios called
'0/j.ripidai is noticed by Strabo XIV. p. 645, who says that it was
so called d.irb rov eKelvov ytvovs, and that hence it was quoted by
the Chians in proof that Homer was a Chian. Harpocration, in
his lexicon, also mentions the Chian Horrieridae, but notices that
their descent from Homer was not undisputed.
8o HOMER. [CH. III.
which Euripides has named the magnet, but which is
usually called the stone of Heracleia. The poet is the
first link in a magnetic chain ; the audience is the last ;
the rhapsode is the link which connects them. The pro-
fessional ancestors of Ion are such as Orpheus, or the
Thamyris of the Iliad, or the Phemius of the Odyssey,
whom Socrates calls ' the rhapsode of Ithaca.'
7. Ion devotes himself exclusively to Homer. He does
not pretend to any thorough knowledge of Hesiod, for in-
stance, or of Archilochus. Some rhapsodes, he says, give
themselves to Orpheus or Musaeus; but the majority are
occupied with Homer alone.
Was The rhapsode of Plato's time clearly did not sing
ev°™er Homer to music ; the word aSeiv is, indeed, used of
sung? Ion's performances (Plat. Ion 532 c, 535 A), but that word
was applicable to any solemn recitation : thus Thucydides
applies it to the reciting of an oracular verse (2. 53).
Whether the Iliad or Odyssey was ever sung to music, is
very doubtful. Once, certainly, there had been heroic lays
which were really sung to the lyre. But the form of Homeric
verse is ill-suited for that purpose. In the hymn to the
Delian Apollo (verse 170) the reciter is supposed to carry
a lyre : but this may have been conventional, — a symbol
of legitimacy in the descent of the Homeric rhapsode's
art from that of the 'aoidos.' Hesiod describes the Muses
giving him a branch of laurel as the token of his vocation;
and in the Hesiodic school of rhapsodists, at least, the wand
or pa/38os — not the lyre — was usually carried.
The Besides reciting Homer, Ion interprets him. At the
Panathenaea the competing rhapsodes recited continuously,
commen- each beginning where the last left off. Ion's comments,
ltor- then, must have been given separately from his recitations,
or else can have been combined with these only on oc-
casions when he was the sole performer. It is evident
from the Platonic dialogue that Ion's Homeric commentary
had the form of continuous rhetorical exposition : he took
pride in his fluency, and in the wealth, as he says, of his
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 8l
'ideas about Homer.' 'I have embellished Homer so well',
he declares, 'that his votaries ought to give me a golden
crown.' Doubtless, like other men of that age, he dealt
mainly with the allegories which a perverse ingenuity dis-
covered in Homer.
8. The study of the poets in schools is described in Homer
Plato's Protagoras. When a boy goes to school, he is
first taught his letters. As soon as he can read, he is
introduced to the poets. The boys sit on benches,
and the teacher ' sets before them ' ' the works of good
poets,' which they are required to learn thoroughly1.
Evidently, then, the teaching was by manuscript copies
which the boys had before them, and was not merely
oral. The purpose was not only to form the boy's
literary taste, or to give him the traditional lore: it was
especially a moral purpose, having regard to the precepts
(vovfle-nfcms) in the poets, and to the praises of great men
of old, — ' in order that the boy may emulate their examples,
and may strive to become such as they' (Plat. Prot. 326 A).
9. From this point of view Homer was regarded as the
best and greatest of educators. In Xenophon's Sym-
posium (3. 5) one of the guests says : — ' My father, anxious
that I should become a good man, made me learn all the
poems of Homer; and now I could say the whole Iliad
and Odyssey by heart '. ' Homer, the prince of poets,
has treated almost all human affairs. If any one of you,
then, wishes to become a prudent ruler of his house, or an
orator, or a general, or to resemble Achilles, Ajax, Nestor,
or Odysseus ' — let him study Homer (ib. 4. 6). Especially,
as Isocrates says, Homer was looked upon as the embodi-
ment of national Hellenic sentiment. No one else was so
well fitted to keep the edge of Hellenic feeling keen and
bright against the barbarian2.
1 Plat. Prot. 325 E irapanQtaaiv airrois iirl r<2v fiaOpwv dvayiyvucrKeiv
TronfjTwv dyaOuv iroi^fjutra /cat €K/J.av6avetv dvayKafovviv. tKfjt,avdav€ii> may
imply committing portions to memory, a sense which the word has in
f. 81 1 A.
2 Panegyricus § 159.
J. 6
82 HOMER. [CH. III.
Plutarch relates that Alcibiades, when a young man,
once went up to a schoolmaster and asked him for a
copy of Homer. The schoolmaster said that he had
nothing of Homer's, whereupon Alcibiades struck him1.
This story suggests the remark that, though Homer
had a place in the education of very young boys no less
than of older youths, it was better suited for the latter;
and such, perhaps, was the view of the Homer-less school-
master. There is an amusing fragment of Aristophanes
(from the 'Banqueters,' AatraXeis) in which an old man — a
believer in the old orthodox system of education — examines
his son on 'hard words in Homer' (cO/^peioi -yXwo-o-ai),
asking him ' what is meant by a/xevryva Kap^va ', and so
forth. The young man, who represents new-fangled ideas
and the new-born love of law-suits, retorts by examining his
father on the archaic words in Solon's laws3.
10. In the Frogs of Aristophanes some of the poets are
mentioned in connection with the special lessons which they
severally teach. Orpheus teaches mystic rites, and abstinence
from animal food. Musaeus gives oracles, and precepts
for banishing pestilence. Hesiod is the poet of the husband-
man. Homer is preeminently the poet of the soldier3. The
rhapsode Ion, when cross-questioned by Socrates, is not
absolutely certain that the study of Homer has made him a
finished charioteer, or physician, or fisherman, or prophet ;
but he has no doubt whatever that it has made him a
competent general. The Athenians, Socrates remarks, are
sorely in need of such a general, and it is strange that they
have not secured Ion's services ; but Ion accounts for this by
the Athenian prejudice against foreigners.
Plato's famous protest against the educational influence
of the myths is pointed with especial force at Homer. But
1 Plut. Alcib. 7 f3if3\iov 7jTi)<rev 'OfJ.ijpiK6v, elirovros 5£ TOV §t5cw/ca\ov
2 The point is curiously illustrated by Lysias (or. 10 §§ 15 ff.),
who gives, from 'the old laws of Solon,' specimens of words obsolete
in 400 B.C.
8 Homer teaches rafetj, dpera's, oTrXkreis dvSpuv (Frogs 1036).
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 83
it does not seem to have materially affected the place of
Homer in Greek education. At the close of the first
Christian century Dion Chrysostom speaks of the Homeric
poems as still used in the teaching of children from the
very beginning1.
ii. Herodotus remarks (2. 53) that Homeland Hesiod Homer's
created the Greek theogony. They did this, he says, in four J^ Greek
respects. They gave the gods their titles (^rtow/uoi) — as religion.
Homer calls Zeus Kpoi/utys, and Athene Tptroyeveia. They
gave them their prerogatives (TI/XCU), — as Poseidon is the
sea-god, Ares the god of war, etc. They distinguished
their arts or faculties (re^vou), as Hephaestus is the artificer,
Athene the giver of skill in embroidery, etc. They indi-
cated their personal and moral characteristics, (<u.8rj). The
statement is true of Hesiod in the sense that the 'Theogony'
is a storehouse of genealogical details. Homer affected the
popular conception of the gods in a larger way. He traced
types of divine character which established themselves in the
Greek imagination. Sometimes, indeed, he was credited
with a consciously didactic purpose in his delineation of the
gods, even by writers who did not look for allegorical
meanings. Thus Isocrates says that Homer feigns the gods
deliberating, because he wishes to teach us that, if gods
cannot read the future, much less can men2.
12. A larger and a truer claim might be made for the work
unconsciously wrought by the genius of the poet. Homeric
mythology contains various elements, belonging to different
stages of thought, and the fusion is imperfect. Coarse or
grotesque traits are by no means wanting. But there is
a complete absence of the grossest features common to all
early mythologies. There are no amours of the gods in the
shapes of animals; there is no Cronus swallowing his
children, as in Hesiod. Such things abounded in the
oldest Greek temple-legends, as Pausanias shows. What-
ever the instinct of the great artist has tolerated, at least it
1 evOvs t£ apxw, or. n. p. 308.
2 Adv. Sophistas, § «.
6 — 2
84 HOMER. [CH. III.
has purged these things away. Further, Homer did the
Greeks the inestimable service of making them conscious
that their own religious sense was higher than their mytho-
logy,— a trait often observed in other races, and one which
naturally tends to become more marked when it has
received poetical expression.
The Homer was the ultimate authority concerning the
heroes mentioned in the two great poems. Some of
these heroes were objects of worship in the historical age.
There is no trace in Homer of divine honours paid
to men after death1. But the Homeric poems must have
had a considerable influence, at least in a negative sense,
on the various local cults of later times. As a general
rule, the burden of proof would have been held to rest
with any local priesthood who adopted a legend at dis-
tinct variance with Homer. On the other hand we must
not overrate this restraining influence. In some cases, at
least, it failed2.
Greek 13. Homer was justly regarded by the Greeks as their
Homer ear^est historian. But the historical character which they
as a his- ascribed to him was not merely that which he could truly
ian' claim, as the delineator of their early civilisation. They
held that his events and his persons were, in the main,
real. This general belief was not affected by criticisms of
detail, nor, again, by the manner in which the supernatural
elements might be viewed. Thucydides differs from
Herodotus in bringing down the Homeric heroes more
nearly to the level of common men. But the basis of fact
in Homer is fully as real to Thucydides as to Herodotus.
1 Thus in the Iliad (3. -243) the Dioscuri are simply men who had
died, and had been buried in Lacedaemon. The later notion of their
alternate immortality appears in the Odyssey (u. 299 — 304). Hesiod
first calls the heroes fyu'0eot (Op. 160) ; Homer never does so, except in
//. 12. 23, a verse which belongs to a late interpolation. He applies
the name rjpws (akin to Lat. vir) to any respected free man. The cult
of ijpwes is first mentioned by Pindar.
2 A tomb of Castor was shown also at Argos (Plut. Quaest. Gr.
c. 23). Again, the Homeric murder of Agamemnon (Od. 4. 530 ff.)
and Oedipus-myth (n. 271 ff.), differ from the later versions.
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 85
Thucydides treats the Homeric Catalogue as a historical
document, — exaggerated, perhaps, in its numbers, yet
essentially authentic. He treats the Phaeacians as a
historical people who had dwelt in Corcyra.
Appeals to the historical authority of Homer are not rare Ancient
in Greek literature. Thus when the invasion by Xerxes was *P jjfsau
imminent, Sparta and Athens sent envoys to seek help from thority.
Gelon of Syracuse. Gelon said that he would help if he might
lead. The Spartans replied that Agamemnon would groan if
he could hear such a proposal; while the Athenians remarked
that, according to Homer, it was Athens that had sent to
Troy the best man of all to marshal an army, — Menes-
theus1. When the Athenians were contending with the
Megarians for Salamis, they quoted Iliad 2. 558, where
the Salaminian Ajax stations his ships with the Athenians
(Arist. Rhet. i. 15). Pericles, in the Thucydidean funeral
speech, says that the achievements of Athens render her
independent of Homer's praise2. The point of the passage
depends on the fact that Homer was the witness to whom
Greek cities and families especially appealed in evidence
of their prehistoric greatness; as Thucydides elsewhere
contrasts the poor aspect of Mycenae in his own time
with the past grandeur which Homer attests.
14. As early as the seventh century B. c. other poems Poems
besides the Iliad and the Odyssey were popularly attributed J^HO-
to Homer. Callmus, who flourished about 690 B.C., be-merin
lieved Homer to be the author of an epic called the
Thebais, as Pausanias tells us (9. 9. 5). It appears from
Herodotus that an epic called the Cypria and another called
the Epigoni were believed to be Homer's. Herodotus
does not commit himself in regard to the Epigoni. But
he denies the Homeric authorship of the Cypria, because
he finds in it a statement which conflicts with the Iliad*.
1 Herod. 7. 159 — 161 : cp. //. 7. 125, 2. 552.
2 Thuc. 2.41 § 4: cp. i. 10 § I (on Mycenae).
3 Her. 2. 117 (Cypria): 4. 32 (Epigoni}. In the Cypria, as
Her. knew it, Paris reached Troy in 3 days from Sparta, whereas
86 HOMER. [CH. III.
This suggests how little these attributions probably regarded
the evidence of style, language, or spirit. Unless there
was some contradiction on the surface, the attribution could
pass current, or could be left an open question. A comic
poem called the Margites was ascribed to Homer by
Aristotle1. Many other humorous pieces were called
Homer's — the best known being the parody called the
Battle of the Frogs and Mice (Batrachomyomachia) 2. The
so-called Epigrams anciently ascribed to him are short
popular poems or fragments, — pieces of folk-lore which
had acquired a half-proverbial character, — and, which, in
some cases at least, are probably very old3. The 'Hymns'
were also generally attributed to Homer. Thucydides
(3. 104) quotes the Hymn to the Delian Apollo in
the Iliad (6. 290) sent him to Sidon — on the same occasion, as Her.
assumes. Before the Cypria was incorporated into the Epic Cycle,
it was altered (as we know from Proclus) in this very particular :
a storm was brought in, which drove Paris to Sidon. The criticism
of Her. had told.
1 Poet. 4. The Ma/ry£n?s was a feebly versatile person, who tried
many things, but excelled in nothing. Only a few verses are extant,
of which TroXA' "rjirlffTaro Zpya, jca/cws 5' yTrlffraTO iravra ([Plat.]
Alcib. II. 147 B) is the most significant. The piece may have been as
old as 700 B.C. Aristotle considers it the Homeric germ of comedy,
as the serious epics were of tragedy.
2 This mock-heroic piece, of which 305 verses are extant, cannot
well be later than about 160 B.C., and was by some ascribed to Pigres,
the brother (?) of Artemisia, tire. 475 B.C. It was doubtless on the
strength of the really ancient Margites that later Tralyvia. were
attributed to Homer.
8 The 16 'epigrams,' — containing altogether 109 hexameter verses,
— are subjoined to the older editions of Homer (as to Didot's). Of
the 16, only 3 contain as many as 10 lines. The localities mentioned
all belong to the West coast of Asia Minor (except that no. 16
speaks of Arcadia) : viz. the Aeolian Cymt (2, 4) : Neonteichos, a
colony of Cyme on the river Hermus (i) : Mount Ida (10) : the
Aeolo-Ionian Smyrna, and its river Meles (4) : the Ionian Erythrae,
opposite Chios (7), and Cape Mimas just N. of it (6) : Santos (title
of 12). Perhaps the most interesting is no. 4 — a complaint by a
poet who had come from Smyrna to Cyme, — had been ill-received, —
and meditates emigrating.
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 87
reference to the Ionian festival at Delos, and expressly
identifies Homer with the 'blind man' there mentioned,
who * dwells in rocky Chios.'
15. This leads us to the ancient notices of Homer's Notices
life. It is probable that nearly all of them are founded £[e^°"
on poems which were generally ascribed to him, and which life,
were taken as containing bits of genuine autobiography.
This is clearly the case in regard to several of the legends
about his birth-place. The Margites, for example, spoke of
its author — 'an old man, a divine singer,' — as coming to
Colophon. The Delian hymn sanctioned the claim of Chios.
One of the epigrams was held to vouch for Smyrna ; another
supported Cyme. Other competitors were los — a small
island of the Cyclades group, which stood alone in claiming
his grave — Rhodes — Salamis — Ithaca — Argos — Athens —
Thessaly — and Egyptian Thebes. But the favourites were
Smyrna, Chios, Colophon; and the ancient world gave a
decided preference to Smyrna1. Among the great Ionian
cities, Miletus is remarkable as not being connected by any
legend with Homer.
The extant Greek lives of Homer are all late,— pro- The
bably in no case earlier than about the second century A.D., 'Lives',
a period fertile in rhetorical forgeries. The Life written
in Ionic which bears the name of Herodotus was ob-
viously ascribed to him on the strength of the passage
1 Antipater of Sid on (circ. 100 B.C.), in his epigram (Anthol.
Planudea 4. 296) puts the three strongest claimants first:— -oJ ^h <reu
KoXo^cGva TiOTjvrjTeipav, "O/JL-rjpe, \ ol 6£ KdXav Zfj.tipvav, oi 5' ti>tirov<ri
XI ov. Another epigram was cirra 7r6Xetj diepifrvviv irepl pL^av'OfJi^pov, \
Z/ifywa, 'P65os, KoXo0wi', ZaXajuiV, "los, *Apyos, 'AOijvai. Two other
versions of it, with lists partly different, occur in Anthol. Plan. 4. 297,
298. The best-known Latin couplet was 'Smyrna, Rhodes, Colophon,
Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenae, | Orbis, de patria certat, Homere, tua'.
Egyptian Thebes is added in Lucian Encom. Demosth. § 9. Suidas gives
a prodigious list, including Rome. Strabo mentions Smyrna as TT\V virb
T&V Tr\eiffTwv \eyofj.tvr)i> afrrov irarplda.. See Geddes, Problem of
Horn. Poems, pp. 239 f. It is significant that the old myths (preserved
in the 'Lives') made Homer MeX^oryei'ifc, | son of the river Meles at
Smyrna by a nymph Crithei's. Smyrna was Aeolo-Ionian.
88 HOMER. [CH. III.
in which he expresses a view as to Homer's age (2. 53), —
viz. that he had lived not much before 850 B.C. Some con-
temporaries of Herodotus, we may infer, assumed an earlier
date. It is to be noted that legend spoke of Homer's
poems as having been preserved and transmitted, not by a
son, but by a friend (some call him a son-in-law), Creophylus
of Sam os — whose descendants, settled in Crete, afterwards
gave them to the Spartan Lycurgus. Here, perhaps, we may
recognise one of the earliest rhapsodes, who was also a poet.
Earliest. The earliest trace of Homer in literature is the reference
Homer. to him in a lost Poem of Callinus, arc. 690 B. c., already
mentioned (§ 14) as reported by Pausanias. The earliest
mention of Homer's name in extant work is by the philo-
sopher Xenophanes of Colophon (circ. 510 B.C.), who' says
that 'Homer and Hesiod have imputed to the gods all
that is blame and shame for men1.' The earliest quota-
tion from Homer is made by Simonides of Ceos2, born
556 B.C., who quotes //. 6. 148 as an utterance of 'the man
of Chios. '
Thus, while the belief of the ancient Greeks in
a personal Homer was unquestioning, his personality was
shadowy, and could be associated with inconsistent legends.
We have seen that a similar uncertainty prevailed as to
the criteria of his authentic work : any composition in
epic verse could be ascribed to Homer if it only seemed
sufficiently good of its kind. In a word, the attitude of
Greece towards Homer, before the Alexandrian age, was
wholly uncritical.
1 ap. Sextus Empiricus adv. Mathem. 9. 193 iravra 0eo?s ai'ed-rjKav
"Owpos 0"Ho-to56sre | offffa Trap1 a.t>6pwTroiffiv bvdSea. KO! i/'oyos e<m', |
K\^Trreiv /xot%ei/etf re KCL! dXXTjXous dTrareveiv. Timon the satirist
(270 B.C.) called Xenophanes 'O/i^ctTrarTjj ^TTIKOTTTT?? (castigator of
Homeric fiction), unless, with Kiihn, we read '0/j.fipoiraTrjs (trampler on
Homer). Heracleitus, the contemporary of Xenophanes, is quoted by
Diog. Laert. Q. I as saying that Homer (and Archilochus) deserved to
be scourged (Heracl. fr. 119).
2 Or Simonides of Amorgos (660 B.C.), as Bergk surmises from the
style (Poet. Lyr., 3rd ed., p. 1146). Fr. 85 fr 5£ TO KoXkiarov Xtos
o'tijTrfp (pv\\ui> yefe-f], roi-qde Kai av8pui>.
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 89
1 6. But, though he was not yet a subject of critical
study, he was already a cause of intellectual activity. In the
sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries B.C. the Homeric poetry gave
manifold occupation to ingenious or frivolous minds. Al-
most at the beginning of philosophical reflection in Greece
the moral sense of some thinkers rebelled against the
Homeric representation of the gods. The protest of Xeno-
phanes has just been quoted. Hence arose the allegorising
school of Homeric interpretation. Allegory afforded a
refuge for the defenders of Homer. Theagenes of Rhegium, Alle-
circ. 525 B.C., is mentioned as the earliest of the alle- f^
gorizers1. He combined two modes of allegorizing which tation
afterwards diverged, — the moral (or mental), and the
physical : thus Hera was the air ; Aphrodite was love.
The moral allegorising was continued in the next century by
Anaxagoras, who explained Zeus as mind, Athene as art.
The physical mode was developed by Metrodorus of
Lampsacus. Aristotle refers to the allegorizers as ' the old
Homerists7 (ot dpx<uot. 'O/x^piKot), and remarks that 'they
see small resemblances, but overlook large ones ' (Metaph.
13. 6, 7). The allegorizers of the classical age were
equalled, or surpassed, in misapplied subtlety by the Neo-
platonists of the third century A. D., who discovered their
own mystic doctrines in Homer2.
rjs 6 'Pyytvos, 6 KO.T& 'Ka^vff-^v yeyovus, is named by Tatian
adv. Graec. § 48 (quoted by Euseb. Praep. Evang. x. 2) at the head of
a list of the earliest writers (ot 7rpe<r/3irraroi) who dealt with inquiries as
to Homer's 'poetry, birth, and date.' In Plato's time (cp. Ion 5300)
the highest repute for comment on Homer was enjoyed by Stesimbrotus
of Thasos and Metrodorus of Lampsacus. They, as well as Theagenes
and Anaxagoras, are among the commentators mentioned in the
Venetian Scholia. Wolf well describes the method of the allegorizers:
' interpretatione sua corrigere fabulas atque ad physicam et moralem doc-
trinam suae aetatis accommodare, denique historias et reliqua fereomnia
ad involucra exquisitae sapientiae trahere coeperunt' (Proleg. cxxxvi).
2 Porphyrius (fire. 270 A.D.), the pupil of Plotinus, has left a choice
specimen of this in his treatise Hepl TOV ev '05txr<m'p ruv T$vfj,(p(2i> avrpov,
an allegorizing explanation, from the Neoplatonic point of view, of the
cave of the nymphs in the Odyssey.
o HOMER. [CH. III.
Rhetori- 1 7. Rhetorical dialectic also busied itself with Homer ;
t" sometimes by applying a kind of sophistical analysis, which
aimed at detecting incongruities of thought or language. The
sophist Protagoras (who applies this method to Simonides
in Plato Prot. 339 A) objected to pfyw afiSc Ofd, because
Homer ought to have prayed the goddess to sing, instead of
commanding her1. Sometimes, again, we hear of declamations
on Homeric themes. Thus the sophist Hippias made Homer
the subject of 'displays' at the Olympic festivals. In
Plato's dialogue (Hippias Minor) he maintains that Achilles
is the bravest, Nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the wiliest,
of Homeric characters. Both these forms of treatment,
the analytic and the declamatory, were probably used by
the ' Homeromastix,' Zoilus of Amphipolis (arc. 280 B. c. ?),
who was only the best known type of a class2.
Rationa- 18. Another kind of interpretation applied to Homer
was tnat wm'cn aimed at reducing the narrative to intelligible
historical fact. Thucydides affords examples ; as when he
suggests that the Greek chiefs went to Troy, not because
they had promised Helen's father to avenge her, but
because the power of Agamemnon constrained them ; or
when he accounts for the ten years' resistance of Troy
by the fact that the energies of the Greeks were partly
given to providing themselves with food. We may suppose
that this method was fully developed by Callisthenes (circ.
330 B.C.), who, in his history of Greece, devoted a separate
book to the Trojan War. The same tendency often appears
in later writers, as Polybius, Diodorus, Strabo, and Pau-
olbnevos tiriTdrrei (Arist. Poet. 21.) See Spengel away.
45. Aristophanes burlesques the cavilling sophistical method
in the verbal criticisms of Euripides on Aeschylus in the Frogs.
2 Lehrs thinks that, of the works ascribed to Zoilus, the ^070*
'Ofjirjpov was a declamation, while the KOTOI T^S TOV 'O^pov iroi-f)<rew$
\6yoi iwka. (Suidas) were in the style of sophistical analysis.
3 This 'pragmatizing' method is especially associated with the
Sicilian Euhemerus (circ. 3306.0.). But the distinctive point of his
theory was that the gods, no less than the heroes, had been men,
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 9!
Aristotle's comments on Homer, as illustrating the
characteristics of epic poetry, have been noticed in Chapter
I. (p. 4). He also wrote a treatise, now lost, on difficulties
suggested by Homer l.
19. But it was at Alexandria that Homeric criticism, in
the proper sense, began. The materials for it, indeed, were
for the first time brought together in such great libraries
as those of Alexandria and Pergamum. -Our knowledge
of these materials is derived from the Homeric scholia.
The editions of Homer in the Alexandrian library were Alex-
chiefly of two classes, (i) Editions known by the names
individual editors. The earliest recorded edition of this for Ho-
class is that by the epic poet Antimachus, of Clarus in ™?t"c
Ionia (circ. 410 B. c.). Such editions are sometimes cited cism.
separately, by the editor's name; as rj 'Avrt/xa^eios (sc.
€K8ocrts). Sometimes they are cited collectively, as 'the
private editions' (at /car' at/Spa)2. (2) The other great class
consisted of editions known only by the names of cities.
Such were the editions of Massalia, Chios, Argos, Sinope,
Cyprus3. When cited collectively, these are called 'the
who, after their deaths, were deified by admiring posterity. Thus such
rationalising as that of Thucydides stops short of 'Euhemerism' proper.
1 aTToprtfj-ara (or for!] par a, or 7rpo/3\ij/xara)'0^i7?/)t/fd. Porphyry often
refers to it in his own fifr^fUKra'Oft^pucd: but the book from which he
quotes cannot, as Lehrs thinks, have been the genuine work of Aristotle
(De Aristarchi Stud. Horn. p. 222). The terms farrarucoi ('objectors')
and \vriKoL ('solvers', answerers) were especially applied to gram-
marians who impugned or defended points in Homer.
2 Aristarchus had at least six such editions, ranging from the end of
the 5th to the beginning of the 2nd cent. B. c., — those of Antimachus,
Zenodotus, Rhianus (the Alexandrian poet), Sosigenes, Philemon, and
Aristophanes. Didymus (circ. 30 B. c.) had also that of Callistratus,
and perhaps others. In Plut. Alcib. 7 a schoolmaster (circ. 420 B. c.)
says that he has a Homer ' corrected by himself (u0' avrov dt.wpO&fj.tvov').
The anecdote suggests the scope which such diopduxreis, at least in the
earlier times, may have given to private caprice.
3 •}} MacrcraXiwrt/c^, i) X£a, 17 'ApyoXiKrj, 77 Stvanri/o?, 77 ~K.virpta (or
These five seem to have been the only « civic ' editions used
Q2 HOMER. [CH. III.
civic editions ' (al Kara TroA-ets)1. There is no proof that they
represented texts authorised for public use. It is more
probable that their names merely indicated the places from
which they had come, their revisers being unknown. Besides
these two classes of editions, there were other texts desig-
nated as ' common ' or ' popular ' (KOU/OU, S^/uoSeis). These
are the same which are described as 'the more careless'
opposed to the more accurate or scholarly
The Taken altogether, the copies known to the Alexandrians
ancient must jiave rested on an older vulgate text, of which the
vulgate.
sources are unknown. This is indicated by the narrow
limits of textual divergence. The Alexandrian critics
notice only differences in regard to the reading of particular
verses, or to omissions and additions of a very small kind.
There is no trace of larger discrepancies or dislocations.
Such, however, could not have failed to exist if there had
not been a common basis of tradition.
20. The earlier activity of Homeric criticism at Alexan-
dria belongs to the period from about 270 B. c. to 150 B. c.,
and is associated with three men — Zenodotus, Aristophanes, '
and Aristarchus.
Zeno- Zenodotus, a native of Ephesus, was made Librarian of
the Alexandrian Museum by Ptolemy Philadelphus, who
reigned from 285 to 247 B. c. He published a recension of
Homer, and a Homeric glossary ('O^pLKal yAwo-o-cu). In
the dawn of the new scholarship, he appears as a gifted man
with a critical aim, but without an adequate critical method.
He insisted on the study of Homer's style ; but he failed to
by Aristarchus. They are placed here in the order of frequency with
which they are mentioned in the scholia. The editions of Massalia and
Argos contained Odyssey as well as Iliad-, in regard to the others,
nothing is known on this point. The Cretan edition (KprjTiK^) probably
was not used by Aristarchus. The Alo\iicfi (or AloXis) is cited only for
some variants in the Odyssey. See Ludwich, Aristarchs Horn. Text-
kritik, i. 4.
1 Also al a.irb (or £K, or Sid) rZv vroXew^: or simply al rut> TroXeoH/, or
tt! TToAlTtKCU.
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 93
place that study on a sound basis. One cause of this was
that he often omitted to distinguish between the ordinary
usages of words and those peculiar to Homer. In regard
to dialect, again, he did not sufficiently discriminate the
older from the later Ionic. And, relying too much on
his own feeling for Homer's spirit, he indulged in some
arbitrary emendations. Still, he broke new ground; his
work had a great repute ; and, to some extent, its influence
was lasting.
21. Aristophanes of Byzantium (circ. 200 B. c.) was the Aristo-
pupil of Zenodotus, whom he followed (though not imme- Phanes'
diately) in the office of Librarian. He, too, published a recen-
sion of Homer. There is no proof that his work was founded
on that of Zenodotus ; and, in some respects at least, it seems
to have marked an advance. Aristophanes had more respect
for manuscript evidence. His wide erudition also enabled
him, in many cases, to defend readings which his prede-
cessor had too hastily condemned l.
22. Aristarchus2, a native of Samothrace, was a pupil Aristar-
of Aristophanes, and his successor in the headship of the chus'
Library. The first half of the second century B.C. is the
period to which his active life belonged, and the time of his
highest eminence might be placed about 160 B.C.
His contributions to Homeric study were of three kinds.
(i)orvyypa)u,/x,aTa, treatises on special Homeric questions, some-
times polemical. (2) vTro/xvTf/xara, continuous commentaries
1 In some cases where Zenodotus had expelled a verse from the
text (oi55<: ^7pa0e), Aristophanes was content to leave it in the text,
marking it with the obelus as spurious (aderelv). The difference
between the two men is well illustrated by an example to which Lehrs
refers (p. 352). Anacreon describes a fawn as forsaken Kepo£<r<rr)<i...i)irb
fjiarpos. Zenodotus wrote epotffffrjs (' lovely ')> on the ground that only
the males have horns. Aristophanes vindicated the text by showing
that the poets ascribe horns to hinds as well as to stags. Schol. Find.
0£. 3. 52 : Aelian Hist, An. 7. 39.
2 The principal authorities on Aristarchus are K. Lehrs De Arist.
Studiis Homerids (3rd ed., 1882); and A. Ludwicb, Arisiarchs
Homerische Textkritik (2 vols., 1884—5).
94 HOMER. [CH. III.
on the Homeric text. These seem to have been current,
partly in a finished form, partly in the shape of rough notes,
either made by himself for use in lectures, or taken down
by his hearers. (3) cKSocret?, editions of the Homeric text.
He published two such1. The second appears to have been
later than the commentaries, and to have closed his Homeric
labours. In his text of Homer he used an apparatus of
critical signs, forming a sort of critical short-hand or cipher,
by which his readers could see at a glance when he thought
a verse spurious, — when he thought that it was out of its
right place, — or when it contained any point which he had
illustrated in his commentaries. This system of signs had
been partly used by the Alexandrians before him, and was
further elaborated by later grammarians2.
Charac- 23. Aristarchus was the greatest scholar, and the best
oThis03 Homeric critic, of antiquity. Three general aspects of his
work, work may be noted, (i) He carefully studied the Homeric
1 Ammonius, the pupil of Aristarchus, wrote a tract, irepl rov P.TJ
yeyovtvai irXetovas &c56<rei5 rrjs ' Apiffrapxfiov BiopQwcrews. Ludwich
agrees with Lehrs in explaining this to mean, 'not more than two? I
confess that the explanation seems to me a little forced. Ammonius
wrote also irepl rfjs tireKdodelffTjs diopdtlxrews. May he not have meant
that the so-called second recension was only a modification of the first?
2 The ffr]fj,eia used by Aristarchus seem to have been six only, (i)
The obelus (oySeXos, or 'spit'), — , prefixed to a verse to indicate its
condemnation as spurious (dO^ffis). This sign had already been used
by Zenodotus and Aristophanes. (2) The diptt (5i7rX^), s-i (also >,
H$, or -3 ), a general mark of reference to the commentaries of Aristarchus,
placed against a verse which contained anything notable, either in
language or in matter. (3) The dotted diple, (8ur\7J irepieffrtyp.^,) »,
prefixed to a verse in which the reading of Aristarchus differed from
that of Zenodotus. (4) The asterisk (dffreplffKos), *, when used alone,
merely drew attention to a repeated verse. Thus it was prefixed to
//. 2. 1 80 because that verse is the same (plus 5') as 164. But if a
repeated verse seemed to be spurious in one of the two places where it
occurred, the asterisk with obelus t * — , was prefixed to that place. (5)
The antisigma, 3, and (6) the stigme or dot (ffriy/j.^)t were used in
conjunction. Aristarchus thought that //. 2. 192 should be immediately
followed by vv. 203 — 205. He prefixed the D to 192, and dots (for in
Ven. A. the C must be an error, see Ludwich I. p. 209) to 203 — 205.
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 95
usages of words — recognising that criticism of the matter
must be based on accurate knowledge of the language. Pre-
vious grammarians had dealt chiefly with rare or archaic
words (yXdxnrai). Aristarchus aimed further at denning
the Homeric sense of familiar words — remarking (e.g.) that
Homer always has <SSe in the sense of ' thus ' (never as =
'here' or 'hither'); that Homer uses /3aAAeiv of missiles,
but OVTOL&IV of wounding at close quarters ; <£o7?os, in the
sense of 'flight'; TroVos, especially with reference to battle;
"OA.U/XTTOS (in the Iliad), of the actual mountain. (2) In
forming his text, he gave full weight to manuscript au-
thority. When this test left him in doubt between two
readings, he was guided by ' the usage of the poet V So
far from being rash in correcting the text, he appears to
have been extremely cautious. In contrast with Zenodotus,
he abstained from merely conjectural readings. He was
even censured by later critics for excess of caution, — and
perhaps with some reason2. (3) He commented on the
subject-matter of Homer. He compared the Homeric
versions of myths with those in other writers ; and noticed
characteristic points of the Homeric civilisation. He
seems to have made a chart showing the topography
of the Trojan plain and the Greek camp : and he notes
(e.g.) that Homer means Thessaly by "Apyos
and Peloponnesus by "Apyos '
Again, //. 8. 535 — 537 had the antisigma, and 538 — 541 the stigmt,
because the latter group seemed to repeat the sense of the former.
The stigmd was also used alone as a mark of suspected spuriousness.
Aristophanes used the Kepa.vvi.ov, f, as a collective obelus when several
consecutive verses were adjudged spurious. The dotted antisigma •> was
used by some to mark tautology. But these two signs were not
Aristarchean.
1 TO Idifjiov TOV TTOIIJTOV, Apollonius Dyscolus synt. p. 77 (Lehrs p.
360), who says that it was this which led Aristarchus to write IT us dal
T<2v Ipwuv (f>v\aKal, instead of TTWS 5' al. (II. 10. 408).
2 Lehrs p. 363 : 'Minime audax Aristarchus; imo mihi certum est
si quid Aristarchus peccavit in contrarium peccasse.' Cp. ib. p. 359
(virb irepiTTrjs eu\ct/3etas oiidtv fj.eTt6it)Kev). Wolf (Prolegomena ch. i)
held that Aristarchus erred, through a too prosaic strictness (nimia
qf> HOMER. [CH. III.
Didymus. 24. All that is now known concerning the work of Aris-
tarchus has come down in a way which it is curious to trace.
Early in the Augustan age, about 120 years after the death
of Aristarchus, a treatise on his recension of Homer (Trepl
T-TJS 'Aptcrrap^etou Sio/j0axreu)s) was written by Didymus, the
Alexandrian grammarian, called XaA./ceWfpos from his inde-
fatigable industry. The object of Didymus was to ascertain
the readings approved by Aristarchus. Why was such a
work needed? It has been suggested that the authentic
copies of the Aristarchean text may have perished by the
fire in the Alexandrian War (47 B.C.). Such a supposition
seems, however, hardly necessary. The criticism of Aris-
tarchus had been gradually developed, and was embodied
in a long series of works. It is possible that a clear and
complete view of his opinions, with the grounds for them,
could be obtained only by a careful collation of his various
Homeric writings, and that this was the task which Didymus
undertook.
Aris- Aristonicus of Alexandria, a younger contemporary of
tomcus. Didymus, wrote a treatise on the critical signs employed by
Aristarchus in the Iliad and the Odyssey (vepl arjfjLtuov
'IXiaSos /cat 'O8vo-o-eias). In this book he quoted the views
of Aristarchus concerning the verses to which the various
signs were prefixed.
Herodian Herodian (fire. 160 A.D.) wrote a treatise on the prosody
??.d and accentuation of the Iliad ('IXiaK?/ irpoo-uSt'a). Nicanor
(130 A.D.) wrote a book on Homeric punctuation (irepl
oTiy/^s), — which, by the way, procured him the nickname
of cmyfAOLTias.
The 25- About 200 — 250 A. D. it occurred to some student of
Epitome, the Iliad to make extracts from these four writers, Didymus,
Aristonicus, Herodian, and Nicanor. He wove his extracts
from them into a sort of continuous annotation on the
Homeric text. Thus arose the Epitome of the four treatises,
which, for shortness, we may call ' the Epitome.'
sobrietate acuminis), in condemning too much, but had the counter-
vailing merit of introducing nothing rashly.
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 97
In the tenth century, a transcriber of the Iliad copied Codex
the Epitome into its margin. By this time, the original form
of the Epitome seems to have been a good deal disturbed,
and some foreign elements had been mixed with it. The
tenth century manuscript into which it was copied is the
famous Codex Venetus A of the Iliad, no. 454 in the
Library of St Mark at Venice1. The Epitome (especially
the part of it relating to Didymus), as preserved in this one
manuscript, is the principal source of all that we know in
detail concerning the views of Aristarchus. This manuscript
is also the only one which exhibits the critical signs of Aris-
tarchus (§ 22). The scholia of A were first published by
Villoison in 1788. They include scholia from other sources
besides the Epitome. Of these we shall speak presently.
The recension of Aristarchus was never canonised in its The Aris-
entirety as a standard text. But his criticism seems to have recension
had a much larger influence than that of any other single never
authority. It is probable that between about 200 and as a°whole.
400 A.D. a vulgate (the ancient common text modified in
detail) was gradually formed by a comparison of his views,
so far as they were known, with those of other critics2.
26. The division of the Iliad and the Odyssey into twenty- The divi-
four books each, denoted by the letters of the alphabet, has
sometimes been ascribed to Aristarchus, (who certainly used
it in his recension,) sometimes to Aristophanes or to Zeno-
dotus8. There is nothing to show who was the author
of it. All we know is that it seems to have been already
firmly established in the second half of the third century
B.C. It is older, then, than Aristophanes or Aristarchus.
1 The contents of the Epitome are thus described by its original
author (cp. Ludwich i. p. 79) in a formula which the scribe of the
Venetus A repeats at the end of each book : — TrapctKetrat rd 'ApHTTovlicov
o-^eta, /cai TO. AiSi^ou irepl TT/S 'Apiffrapxelov Siopduxre&s, riva S£ /ecu e/c
rf)s 'IXia/CTjs irpofftpBias ' H-pudiavov Kal Ni/cd^opos irepl TTJS
2 See W. Christ in the Prolegomena to his ed. of the Iliad (1884),
p. 102.
3 Cp. Ludwich ii. p. 220, n. 195.
J- 7
98 HOMER. [CH. III.
It is not demonstrably older than Zenodotus ; but we
cannot say more. One thing, at least, is plain. The
arbitrary and mechanical neatness of the division bears
the stamp of an age which sought to arrange its literary
material in a way convenient for study and reference. This
suits the view that the division originated at Alexandria in
the third century B. c.
Writers of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. indicate
passages of Homer merely by mentioning the persons or
events prominent in them. Thus, Herodotus (2. 1 16) denotes
77. 6. 289 ff. as 'the part where Diomede distinguishes him-
self (€v Aio/wy'Seos apum/ir/) ; Thucydides (i. 10) refers to
the 'Catalogue' by ev vew KaraAoyo); Plato (Crat. p. 428 c)
refers to //. 9. 640 f. as occurring ' in the supplication ' (ei/
; Arist. (Poet. 16) refers to Od. 8. 521 as <h/ 'AA./aVou
(a title known also to Plato, Rep. 6148, and pro-
perly confined to Od. bks. 9 — 12,) and to Od. 19. 386 ff. as
iv TOIS VITTT/OOIS. Such descriptions sufficed for their pur-
pose,— to recall a part of the poem to the memory; and,
in most cases, coincide with the names of ' rhapsodies ' or
cantos into which the poem was divided for recitation1.
Some recognised division of this kind is implied in the
ancient regulations for a consecutive recitation at festivals
(p. 77); and the record of it was preserved, at least for a
time, after the alphabetical division into books had been
adopted at Alexandria. The title of one canto sometimes
covered more than one of our books; thus the Ato^'Sovs
apurrei'a answered to book 5 and (part at least) of book 6.
More often, one book comprises more than one canto ; as
book 2 includes the 'Dream' and the 'Catalogue.'
Crates 27. The great library founded at Pergamum in Mysia by
and
the Per- * Several ancient titles of rhapsodies are preserved by Aelian Var.
gamene Hist. 13, 14. See Christ, Proleg., pp. r — 7. Distinguish, as of a
School. (jifferent class, phrases, invented for the occasion, by which short passages
are sometimes indicated : as Thuc. i. 9 &/ TOU o-K^irrpov rfj -n-apaSdaei
( = 11. i. io8ff.): Arist. Hist. An. 9. 32 ev rrj TOV Hpiafiov e£65y ( = //.
24. 3i6ff.): Strabo i. 17 h ry irpevfidq. ( = 11. 3. 222f.): Paus. i. 18. 2
fp "Hpas opKif =(//. 15. 36 f.).
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. 99
Eumenes II., early in the second century B.C., soon became
a rival to the older institution at Alexandria; and a like
rivalry developed itself between their schools of Homeric
interpretation. Crates, a native of Mallus in Cilicia, who
was librarian of Pergamum in the time of Aristarchus,
published Homeric commentaries1. The broad differences
between the two schools turned mainly on two points.
(1) The Alexandrian school, represented by Aristarchus,
was essentially a school of accurate grammatical scholarship.
In particular, the Alexandrians aimed at laying down strict
rules of declension and conjugation. Now, Crates was far
from denying the existence of ascertainable laws in language :
like other Stoics, he gave much attention to correct idiom
('EAA^vioyAos). But he maintained that the Alexandrians
pushed their love of regularity too far. While they insisted
on the rules applicable to forms of words, Crates dwelt on
the exceptions. This is expressed in the statement that 'Analogy
Aristarchus was the champion of 'analogy' (avaXoyia), and «anomaly'
Crates of ' anomaly ' (avw/xaXta) 2.
(2) Aristarchus, as we have seen, did not neglect the
questions arising immediately out of Homer's text, such as
those of topography or antiquities. But Crates went much
further afield. He conceived that Homeric criticism ought
to embrace a mass of problems, philosophical, historical,
or physical, which Homer suggested. He found in Homer,
not only allegories, but astronomical andjCosmical theories
which agreed with those of Stoic writers. In his view,
Homer's aim was not merely that of a poet ((j/vxaytayia),
but pre-eminently that of a teacher (SiSao-KaAta), an opinion
which enjoyed popularity in later times. The readings of
Crates are often mentioned, and are sometimes ingenious.
But he and his school had comparatively little influence
1 Ludwich (i. p. 43) agrees with Wachsmuth (De Cratete Mallota,
p. 31, 1860) in doubting whether an edition of Homer was published
by Crates.
2 Wachsmuth De Cratete p. 15. Gellius 2. 25 (where he refers to
Crates and Aristarchus): avaXoyla est similium similis declinatio...
dvupaXia est inaequalitas declinationum consuetudinem sequens.
7—2
100 HOMER. [CH. III.
on the Homeric text. Some pungent verses1 record their
scorn for the ' verbal scholarship ' of Alexandria.
Demetrius. 28. Among other ancient scholars who dealt with
Homer, Demetrius of Scepsis in the Troad (circ. 190 B.C.) de-
serves mention, on account of the fame enjoyed in anti-
quity by his labours on Homeric topography. His Tpau/cos
StaKooyios, 'The Marshalling of the Trojans,' was a work
in 30 books on the catalogue of the Trojan forces in
Iliad 2. He agreed with the general opinion of the best
ancient judges in rejecting the claim of the Greek Ilium
(Hissarlik) to represent the site of Homeric Troy. His
work, which is often quoted by ancient writers, appears
to have united multifarious and exhaustive learning with
a high degree of critical acuteness.
Eustathius. Midway between the ancient and modern studies of
Homer, we find the great compilation of Eustathius, arch-
bishop of Thessalonica in the latter half of the i2th cen-
tury. It is entitled, IlapeK^oXai ets rrjv 'Qfjnqpav 'IXtaSa KCU
'OSwo-ctav, i.e. 'excerpts' bearing on the poems2. The
excerpts are made from a very large number of earlier
writers, and include matter of every kind which can illustrate
either the language or the subject-matter of Homer.
Scholia. 29. Many traces of ancient work on Homer, which would
otherwise have been wholly lost, are preserved in the scholia,
which, especially in the case of the Iliad t are most im-
portant. The scholia in the Codex Venetus (A) of the
///a*/ come mainly from two sources, (i) One of these is
the Epitome of the four treatises, described above. The
scholia from this source are the most valuable of all.
(2) The other source appears to have been a large body of
commentary, selected from various authors, and compiled
1 By Herodicus (ap. Athen. p. 222 A), who describes the Aristarcheans
as 'buzzing in corners, busy with monosyllables': 7wi'io/36yu,/3u/ces,
fjt,oi>ocrv\\a(3oi, olffi fi4fJU}\tv \ TO a<p>lv Ka.1 <r<f>utv Kal rb fj.lv yd^ T& vlv.
(Aristarchus had pointed out that Homer uses only fj.iv, not viv.)
2 7ra/3e/<|3dXXetj' meaning, 'to make extracts in the course of one's
reading.'
CH. III.] HOMER IN ANTIQUITY. IOI
later than the time of Porphyrius (arc. 270 A.D.), of whose
'Homeric Problems' much use was made. In contrast
with the Epitome, the scholia from this second source deal
less with textual criticism, and more with allegorising
interpretations, mythology, or criticism of poetical style.
These scholia are found not only in Venetus A, but also,
with modifications, in some other MSS.1 For scholia on the
Odyssey, the most important MS. is the Harleianus, no.
5674 in the British Museum, of the thirteenth century.
30. The results of inquiry into the ancient study of Our text
J . , _ of Homer.
Homer, as briefly given m the foregoing pages, have more
than a historical interest; more, too, than a critical value
in relation to particular points. They establish a general
conclusion of the highest importance in regard to the
whole existing text of Homer2. It is as follows.
1 These are: B = Codex Venetus no. 453 (nth, or perh. loth,
cent.): V = cod. Victorianus no. 16 in the Munich Library (i6th cent.?),
which has only scholia, without text : the cod. Townleianus in the
British Museum, which has been regarded as the source of V : and
L= codex Lipsiensis. See Ludwich I. pp. 83 if. The shorter scholia
variously known as the 'brevia,' 'vulgata,' 'minora,' or 'Didymi,'
(found in many MSS., and first published in 1517,) are almost worth-
less.
2 The most important MSS. of the Iliad are the following, (i)
A=codex Venetus A, in Library of St Mark, no. 454 (loth cent.), a
parchment folio of 327 leaves. Some of the ancient leaves (19 in all)
have been lost in different places, and replaced by a late hand. Its
unique interest consists in the scholia, and the critical signs of
Aristarchus (as described above). Its text of the Iliad differs from that
of all our other MSS. in being more strongly influenced by the readings
of Aristarchus. (2) B: see last note. (3) C = Laurentianus 32. 5, in
the Laurentian Library at Florence (zoth or nth cent.). (4)
D = Laurent. 32. 15 (nth cent.): perhaps the best after A. (5) The
Townleianus : see last note. — Some fragments exist, older than A, but
of no critical importance; viz.: (i) three papyrus fragments, found in
Egypt, two of which are prob. of the ist century B.C. (2) 800 lines
from different parts of the Iliad, in a 6th cent. MS. (the Codex
Ambrosianus) , edited at Milan by Mai in 1819. (3) A Syrian
palimpsest (in the Brit. Museum) of the 6th or 7th cent., containing
3873 lines from books 12 — 16, and 18 — 24. For the text of the
102 HOMER. [CH. III.
We saw that the editions used by Aristarchus re-
presented an older common text, or vulgate, and that one
of these editions was that of Antimachus (arc. 410 B.C.), in
which the variations appear to have been only of the same
small kind as in the rest. Hence there is the strongest
reason for believing that the common text of 200 B. c.
went back at least to the fifth century B. c. But Aristarchus
caused no breach in the transmission of that common text.
He made no wild conjectures or violent dislocations. He
handed on what he had received, with such help towards
exhibiting it in a purer form as careful collation and study
could give; and so, with comparatively slight modifications,
it descended to the age from which our MSS. date. Our
common text, then, we may reasonably believe, is funda-
mentally the same as that which was known to Aristarchus ;
and therefore, in all probability, it rests on the same basis
as the text which was read by Plato and Thucydides.
Odyssey, the best MSS. are the Harleianus (see above in text) ; and
the Augustanus (Monacensis), no. 519 B in the Munich Library, of the
I3th cent, according to the catalogue, but more probably of the i4th or
1 5th. See La Roche, Homer. Textkritik, p. 481.
CHAPTER IV.
THE HOMERIC QUESTION.
i. FROM an early time down to the fourth century B.C.
other poems besides the Iliad and the Odyssey were cur-
rently ascribed to Homer (p. 85). The Alexandrian criticism
of the third century B.C. arrived at the conclusion that
the Iliad and the Odyssey were his only genuine works.
At that point the ancient scrutiny of Homeric authorship
may be said to have stopped. A few doubters went
further ; but they were almost unheeded.
The existence of ancient \<opitf>vrc.* or ' Separaters ' — The
who assigned the Iliad to Homer, and the Odyssey to
another author — is known chiefly from the allusions to their
opinion in the scholia of the Codex Venetus. The scholium
on Iliad 12. 45 mentions a reading given by Aristarchus
ev T<3 TT/aos TO Eei/wvos irapaSo^ov, in his ' Treatise against the
Paradox of Xenon.' The other name mentioned in this
connection is that of Hellanicus, a grammarian who was
the elder contemporary of Aristarchus. It might be inferred
from the existence of such a phrase as 01 xwPl/£OVT€S that
Xenon and Hellanicus were merely the most prominent
members of a literary sect which shared their view *. But
we know nothing of their argument, except that it must
have turned partly on style. They produced no effect
on the ancient world. Seneca refers to the question
in a tone which shows that it was well known in the first
1 See Bernhardy, Gk. Lit. n. 114.
104 HOMER. [CH. IV.
century A.D., but that he regarded it as an unprofitable
subtlety1. Suidas (circ. noo A. D.) is still able to say that
the Iliad and Odyssey are undisputed2 works of Homer.
Ancient criticism was not, indeed, a stranger to the idea of
'many Homers'3. But that phrase had nothing to do with
any modern theory of a composite authorship for the Iliad
and the Odyssey, The 'many Homers' were merely poets who
sought to associate their independent work with an illustrious
name.
The 2. To the modern mind the Iliad and the Odyssey
modern present ^wojnain problems, (i) The first is the fact
meric of their existence. Greek literature opens with these
^s; finished masterpieces. We are certain that ruder work
had gone before, but we know nothing of it. This
phenomenon was less striking to the old Greeks than it is
to us, since they knew no literature but their own. It is
fully appreciated only when a comparison with other early
literatures shows it to be unparalleled.
(2) The second problem depends on the inner
characteristics of the poems, Each of them forms an
organic and artistic whole. Yet each contains some parts
which appear to disturb the plan, or to betray inferior
workmanship. How can we account at once for the
general unity and for the particular discrepancies ?
These two problems — the external and the internal — are
the basis of 'the Homeric question'4. The modern
1 De Brevitate Vitae c. 13 (eiusdemne auctoris essent Ilias et
Odyssea).
2 avafj.<}>l.\eKTa (s. v. "Qfj-ypos) : justly noticed by Geddes as a proof
that the Chorizontes 'were virtually silenced, and Antiquity refused to
listen to them,' Problem of the Homeric Poems, p. 6.
3 "O/jurjpoi yap TroXXoi yeyovaai ftyXy TOV TraXai ryv K\TJ(TII> \a/tx/3cu'OJ/Tes,
Proclus (commentator on Hesiod), ap. Gaisford Poet. Mitt. Gr. iii.
scholia, p. 6, quoted by Geddes (Problem of the Homeric Poems p. 7),
who adds Eustathius 4, us 5£ KCU iroXXoi "Ofj-r/poi. Proclus was arguing
that Hesiod's competitor in the traditional ' contest ' was not the Homer,
but a Phocian Homer of later date.
4 Cp. Volkmann, Geschichte und Kritik der Wolfschen Prolegomena
zu Homer, c. r.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 105
discussion of the Homeric question, in a critical sense,
began with Wolf's Prolegomena (1795).
3. Before Wolf, we meet, indeed, with expressions of Surmises
opinion by other scholars which might be regarded as
partly anticipating his view. But these, in so far as they
were not mere conjecture, were based on the ancient
tradition that the poems of Homer had been scattered
until Peisistratus caused them to be collected. A famous
passage in Josephus (tire. 90 A.D.) was also suggestive.
' The present use of alphabetical writing,' Josephus says,
' cannot have been known to the Greeks of the Trojan war.
The Greeks have no literature older than Homer; and
Homer lived after the war. And they say (<£ao-tV) that
even Homer did not leave his poetry in writing, but that it
was transmitted by memory (Sta/xv^ovevo/Aev^i/), and after-
wards put together from the separate songs (e/< TOJI/ acr/xaTcov
vVrcpov crwre^vai) : hence the number of discrepancies which
it presents^.
Here, Josephus does not merely reproduce the tradition
of a collection by Peisistratus : he states that, in the received
belief of the Greeks, Homer did not use writing; that the
poems had been transmitted only by memory ; and that this
fact accounted for their inconsistencies.
4. It was by such hints that the moderns before Wolf
were guided. Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614), referring in a
note on Diogenes Laertius (9. 12) to the passage just quoted
from Josephus, remarked that we could scarcely hope for a
sound text of Homer, no matter how old our MSS. might
be. The Dutch scholar Jacob Perizonius in his Animad-
versiones Historicae (1684) accepted the account given by
Josephus, and brought it into connection with other ancient
notices.
Bentley, in his ' Remarks ' on the ' Discourse of Free-
Thinking' by Anthony Collins (1713), supposes that a poet
1 Josephus KOTO, 'Airiwvos I. 2 p. 175 (Bekk.). He is maintaining
that no argument against the antiquity of the Jews can be drawn from
the silence of Greek writers.
106 HOMER. [CH. IV.
named Homer lived about 1050 B.C., and 'wrote' both
the Iliad and the Odyssey. Each consisted of several
short lays, which Homer recited separately. These lays cir-
culated merely as detached pieces, until they were collected
in the time of Peisistratus (arc. 550 B.C.), into our two epics1.
Vico. 5. Giambattista Vico, of Naples (born 1668), touched on
the origin of the Homeric poems in some notes (1722) with
which he supplemented his treatise on 'Universal Law'.
Here his point was much the same as Bentley's in answer
to Collins, — viz., that the Homeric poetry is not a conscious
effort of profound philosophy, but the mirror of a simple
age. In the second edition of his Scienza Nuova (1730)
he went further. He there maintains that ' Homer ' is a
collective name for the work of many successive poets.
These, in the course of many generations, gradually
produced the poems which the Peisistratidae first collected
into our Iliad and Odyssey. But, said Vico, though there
were many Homers, we may say that there were pre-
eminently two — the Homer of the Iliad, who belonged to
North-east Greece (i.e. Thessaly), and the Homer of the
Odyssey, who came later, and belonged to South-west
Greece (i.e. the Western Peloponnesus and adjacent
islands). Vico did not bring critical proofs of his proposi-
tions. He had no influence on Wolf or the Wolfians. Yet
his theory must at least be regarded as a remarkable
example of divining instinct2.
1 Cp. 'Bentley,' in 'English Men of Letters,' pp. 146 ff. Collins
had maintained that the Iliad was 'the epitome of all arts and
sciences,' and that Homer 'designed his poem for eternity, to please
and instruct mankind.' Bentley replies, 'Take my word for it, poor
Homer, in those circumstances and early times, had never such
aspiring thoughts. He wrote a sequel of songs and rhapsodies, to be sung
by himself for small earnings and good cheer, at festivals and other days
of merriment; the Ilias he made for the men, and the Odysseis for the
other sex'. The phrase, 'a sequel? is ambiguous: as he goes on to
say, ' These loose songs were not collected together in the form of an
epic poem till Pisistratus' time, above 500 years after,' he perhaps
did not mean, 'a connected series.'
2 Professor Flint, in a monograph on Vico (1884), pp. 173 — 178, gives
CH. IV. J THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 1 07
But the work which had most effect, before the ap- Robert
pearance of the Prolegomena, was undoubtedly Robert Wood-
Wood's ' Essay on the Original Genius of Homer ' (I769)1.
In one chapter he discussed the question whether the art
of writing was known to Homer, and answered it in the
negative. This view had never before been enforced by
critical argument. F. A. Wolf (born in 1759) rea-d Wood's
essay in his student-days at Gottingen, and refers to it with
some praise in the Prolegomena*. Wood's doctrine about
writing became, in fact, the very keystone of Wolf's theory.
6. Wolfs 'Prolegomena' — a small octavo volume of Wolf's
280 pages — appeared at Halle in 1795, w^h a dedication to
David Ruhnken, as 'chief of critics'3. After some general
a full and clear account of his Homeric theory. Without going so far
as to hold that Vice's 'discovery of the true Homer' (as he himself
called it) was 'a complete anticipation of the so-called Wolfian theory'
(p. 176), I agree in thinking that adequate justice has scarcely been done
to Vico. Wolf, some time after he had published the Prolegomena, had
his attention drawn to Vico by Melchior Cesarotti (translator of Homer
and Ossian). The review of Vico which he wrote in the Museum
der Alterthumswissenschaft I. 1807, pp. 555 ff., is contained in his Kleim
Schriften II. pp. 157 ff.
1 Heyne, who was then by general consent the foremost 'humanist*
of Germany, reviewed Wood's Essay in enthusiastic terms (1770):
'We have to this day seen no one who has penetrated so deeply into
Homer's spirit.' The first German translation appeared in 1773, the
second (revised) in 1778, — both by Prof. Michaelis of Gottingen, where
F. A. Wolf finished his studies in 1779. Wolf (Proleg. xii) quotes the
•2nd English edit, of 1775.
2 c. xii., where, speaking of Wood's ' celebratissimus liber,' he
remarks (in a foot-note), ' plura sunt scite et egregie animadversa, nisi
quod subtilitas fere deest, sine qua historica disputatio persuadet, non
ndem facit.
3 The volume of 'Prolegomena' is called 'I.', and we read 'Pars
Prima' at p. xxiv : but the second part, which was to have dealt with
the principles of Homeric textual criticism, was never published. It was
not Wolfs first contribution to Homeric studies, though he was only .
36 when it appeared. In an essay addressed to Heyne (1779) he had
indicated his views as to the age of writing in Greece, which can be
traced also in his introductions to the Iliad and Odyssey, published in
1784. This was before the publication of the Codex Venetus by
108 HOMER. [CH. IV.
remarks on the critical office in regard to Homer's text, Wolf
proceeds to discuss the history of the poems from about 950
B. c. — which he takes as the epoch of matured Ionian poetry
— down to the time of Peisistratus (about 550 B. c.). The
four main points which he seeks to prove are the following,
(i) The Homeric poems were composed without thei
aid of writing, which in 950 B.C. was either wholly!
unknown to the Greeks, or not yet employed by them
for literary purposes1. The poems were handed down
by oral recitation, and in the course of that process suf-
fered many alterations, deliberate or accidental, by the
rhapsodes. (2) After the poems had been written down
circ. 550 B. c., they suffered still further changes. These
were deliberately made by 'revisers' (Stao-Kevaorat), or by
learned critics who aimed at polishing the work, and bring-
ing it into harmony with certain forms of idiom or canons
of art. (3) The Iliad has artistic unity ; so, in a still higher
degree, has the Odyssey2. But this unity is not mainly due
Villoison (1788). Wolf greatly overrated the difference between the
ancient copies which the scholia of Venetus A disclosed ; and reviewing
Villoison's edition in 1791, he spoke of it as proving that Homer
had long been transmitted by memory alone.
1 He insists that poems on such a scale as our Iliad and Odyssey
could not have been composed without writing. Suppose it done,
however, the composer would have had no public, since he would have
had no readers : — ' The poems would have resembled a huge ship, built, in
some inland spot, and in days before naval science, by a man who had
neither engines and rollers for launching it, nor even a sea on which to
try his craft.'' (Proleg. c. xxv.)
2 Thus he says (Proleg. c. xxxi) that the 'carmina' which compose
the Iliad and Odyssey, ' though separated by the distance of one or two
centuries ' [indicating that Wolf would have placed the latest rhapsodies
about 750 — 700 B.C.], ' deceive us by a general uniformity and resem-
blance of character. All the books have the same tone, the same
moral complexion, the same stamp of language and of rhythm.' — And so
(Proleg. c. xxvii) he says that, in the Odyssey especially, the ' admirabilis
summaetcompages-pio praeclarissimo monumento Graeci ingenii habenda
est,' but adds (c. xxviii) that this consummate piecing together is just
what we should not expect from an early poet who merely recited
single rhapsodies (singulas tantum rhapsodias decantantem).
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. TOQ
to the original poems; rather it has been superinduced by
their artificial treatment in a later age. (4) The original
poems, from which our Iliad and our Odyssey have been
put together, were not all by the same author.
7. But Wolf was far from denying a personal Homer. Wolf re-
He supposes that a poet of commanding genius, — whom ^^
he often calls Homer, — 'began the weaving of the web,' sonal
and ' carried it down to a certain point.' Nay more : Homer<
this Homer wove the greater part of the songs which were
afterwards united in the Iliad and the Odyssey. This is
said in the Prolegomena1. But it is said still more em-
phatically in the Preface to his edition of the Iliad,
published at nearly the same time2. '// is certain that,
alike in the Iliad and in the Odyssey, the web was begun,
and the threads were carried to a certain point, by the poet
who had first taken up the theme... Perhaps it will never
be possible to show, even with probability, the precise points
at which new filaments or dependencies of the texture begin :
but this, at least, if I mistake not, will admit of proof— that
we must assign to Homer only the greater part of the songs,
and the remainder to the Homeridae, who were following out
the lines traced by him'
8. Nothing in this passage is more striking than Wolfs
prophetic sense that it would never be possible to show >
exactly where different hands in the poems begin and end. /
When Wolf conceded 'the greater part' of the poems to one
1 Proleg. c. xxviii ad fin. Atque haec ratio eo probabilior fiet, si
ab ipso primo auctore filum fabulae iam aliquatenus deductum esse
apparebit. — Ib. c. xxxi. At nonne omnibus erit manifestum... tolas
rhapsodias inesse quae Homeri non sunt, id est eius, a quo maior
pars et priorum rhapsodiarum series deducta est?
2 Praefat. p. xxviii. Quoniam certum est, tarn in Iliade quam in
Odyssea orsam telam et deducta aliquatenus fila esse a vate qui
princeps ad canendum accesserat...forsitan ne probabiliter quidem
demonstrari poterit, a quibus locis potissimum nova subtemina et limbi
procedant: at id tamen, ni fallor, poterit effici, ut liquido appareat
Homero nihil praeter maiorem partem carminum tribuendam esse,
reliqua Homeridis, praescripta lineamenta persequentibus.
110 HOMER. [CH. IV.
great poet, he was moved by his feeling for their internal
characteristics — for the splendid genius, and the general
unity. The whole argument for his theory, on the other
hand, was essentially external. It was based on certain
historical considerations as to early Greek civilisation and
the development of poetical art. He has himself told us,
in memorable words, how he felt on turning from his own
theory to a renewed perusal of the poems. As he steeps
himself in that stream of epic story which glides like a
clear river, his own arguments vanish from his mind;
the pervading harmony and consistency of the poems
assert themselves with irresistible power ; and he is angry
with the scepticism which has robbed him of belief in one
Homer1.
Objec- 9- In Wolfs theory, the fundamental proposition is the
tions to denial that a literary use of writing was possible for Greeks
view of about 950 B. c. This proposition is, however, by no means
writing. so certain as Wolf held it to be. .
The following points may be noticed, (i) It is true
that the extant evidence from inscriptions does not go
above the yth century B. c. But it cannot be assumed that
the monumental use of writing preceded its application to
ordinary affairs. The opposite supposition would be more
reasonable. And if the Greek writing on the earliest extant
marbles is clumsy, this does not necessarily prove that the
Greeks were then unfamiliar with the art of writing, but
only that they had not yet acquired facility in carving
characters on stone2. Long before that time, they may
1 Preface to the Iliad, p. xxii : quoties. . .penitus immergor in ilium veluti
prono et liquido alveo decurrentem tenorem actionum et narrationum :
quoties animadverto ac reputo mecum quam in universum aestimanti
unus his carminibus insit color... vix mihi quisquam irasci et succensere
gravius poterit, quam ipse facio mihi.
2 Mr Hicks, in his excellent Manual of Greek Historical Inscrip-
tions, observes (p. i) : ' Certainly the cramped and awkward characters
of the earliest extant marbles prove that writing must have been an
unfamiliar art in Greece as late as the 7th century B.C.' But, not
to mention the earliest 'Cyclic' poems, it is certain that writing was
CH. IV. J THE HOMERIC QUESTION. Ill
have attained to ease in writing on softer and more perish-
able materials, such as leaves, prepared skins1, wood, or
wax.
(2) Commercial intercourse between the Greeks and
the Phoenicians, from whom the Greeks obtained their
alphabet, must have been frequent from about uoo B. c., or
earlier still. The Phoenicians, as Josephus testifies, had
from the earliest age applied the art of writing, not only ' to
the recording of their public acts,' but also 'to the business
of daily life' (eis T€ ra<s irtpi rov /3iov OIKOVO/UO.S KOL Trpos TTTJV
Tiov KOivwv cpywv 7rapa8o<rtv) 2. It would be strange if a
people so quick-witted as the Greeks, while advancing in
other parts of civilisation, had delayed to follow this ex-
ample till so comparatively late a time in their development
as the yth century B. c.
(3) We know, too, that long epic poems (some of those
known as the 'Cyclic'), which never enjoyed the same kind
of popularity as ' Homer/ came down from the 8th century
B. c. : and it is most improbable that these relatively ob-
scure works should have been preserved without the aid
of writing. Such were the Cypria ascribed to Stasinus, and
the Aethiopis of Arctlnus. It is certain that writing was used
by Archilochus and other poets of the early yth century.
Wolf himself, indeed, admits the occasional use of wtiting
by poets as early as 776 B. c.3
already used by poets who lived in the early part of that century, — as
we shall see.
1 Humboldt (Atlas p. 66) remarks that the old Mexican 'manuscripts'
are written on deer-skin, cotton cloth, or paper made from the maguy
plant, and suggests that, among the Greeks also, the use of prepared
skins may have preceded that of paper. We know that it preceded the
use of papyrus. Wolfs conjecture that the use of such skins (dufiffepat)
for writing came into Greek from the East only fire. 776 B.C. ('sub
epochum Olympiadum,' Proleg. p. Ixii) lacks proof, and is against all
probability.
'2 /caret 'Airiuvos I. 6.
3 Wolf is a thoroughly candid inquirer. In this case, while
admitting that Arctlnus and others of the early 8th century wrote their
poems, he seeks to distinguish such instances from an admission * de
112 HOMER. [CH. IV.
(4) The balance of probabilities seems to be in favour
of the view that the 'baneful tokens' (crijfj.aTa \vypd) of
Iliad 6. 1 68 denote some kind of alphabetical or syllabic
writing1. But even if we granted that no allusion to writing
occurs in the Iliad or Odyssey, no valid argument could be
drawn from a silence which, in heroic poetry meant for
recitation, may have been conventional.
(5) Herodotus, speaking of a Greek inscription which
he saw at Thebes, supposes it to date from many centuries
before his own time2. A similar belief as to the high anti-
quity of writing among the Greeks sometimes seems to be
implied in the Greek literature of the 5th and 4th centuries
B.c.3
(6) Recent researches have invalidated the argument
universa Graecia et paullo tritiore iisu artis institutoque conscribendorum
librorum* (Proleg. p. Ixx). But (r) why is the line to be drawn
precisely at 776 or 800 B.C. ? And (2), supposing an earlier though not
general use, why should not ' Homer ' have been one of the few who
used writing?
1 iropev 5' o ye a-rj/uLara \vypd, | ypd\f>as £v irivaKi TTTVKT<$ 6v(j,o(f>d6pa
iroXXo, | 5e?£cu 5' rivwyeiv $ irevOepq. On the tenth day the king of
Lycia fl'ree o%6a ISfodcu (176), and 'when he had received the <rfjfj.a
Ka.K6v ' (178), set about slaying Bellerophon. Now, as Kreuser long ago
pointed out (Vorfragen iiber Homeros, p. 202, 1828), TTTVKT£ implies that
the cr^ara (or ffrj/j-a.) could have been understood by Bellerophon
himself; while iro\\d suggests words rather than picture-writing.
Ulrici (Geschichte der Hellenischen Dichtkunst I. 226) argued that 5et£cu
is inapplicable to a letter: but why? As Thirlwall says (Hist. Gr.
I. 502 ed. 1855) it could mean, '•produce'' (or better, perhaps, '•present''}.
Mr Monro (note on //. 6. 168, ed. 1884) inclines, with Mr Isaac
Taylor (Alphabet II. 117), to the view in the text.
2 Her. 5. 59 ravra ^XiKtrjv efy av /card Aaibp rbv Aa/35a/tou (i.e.
considerably earlier than the Trojan war, according to the mythical
chronology). It is obviously immaterial what the age of the eiriypafj.fj.a
really was. The point is that Herodotus felt no difficulty about his
guess, but makes it in a matter-of-course way.
3 Thus Eur. Hipp. 45 1 makes the Nurse say that the loves of the
gods are known to all who have ypa<t>ds r&v iraKairtpwv — plainly mean-
ing (I think) writings, not paintings. So in /. A. 35 Agamemnon
writes a letter. But this topic of the indirect literary evidence is so
largely a question of tone and particular context that space excludes it
here.
CH. IV.) THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 113
that the poems must have been made long before they were
written because they often imply a sound (the 'digamma')
which is not known to have been represented by a letter in \f
any ancient MS. of Homer1.
(7) The idea, 'a literary use of writing,' needs definition.
If it is taken to mean, 'the wide circulation of writings by
numerous copies, for a reading public,' certainly nothing of
the kind seems to have existed before the latter part of
the 5th century B. c. But suppose that a man had made
a number of verses in his head, and was afraid of forgetting
them. If he could use 'the Phoenician signs' well enough
to keep his accounts (for instance), or other memoranda,
why should he not write down his verses? That, in fact, is
what Wolf allows that some men did as early at least as
776 B. c. The verses might never be read by anybody
except himself, or those to whom he privately bequeathed
them: but his end would have been gained.
10. Hence, with regard to the Wolfian theory, we have Sum-
to discriminate between three things, which rest on different m
levels of probability, — memorial composition, oral publica-
tion, and oral transmission.
(a) As to memorial composition, it would be rash to
deny that an exceptionally gifted man could have composed
both our Iliad and our Odyssey without the aid of writing.
Similar feats of memory are alleged2, (b) As to oral publi-
cation, it is certain that the Homeric poems were for centuries
known to Greece at large mainly through the recitation of
detached parts, (c} But a serious difficulty is raised by the
theory of an exclusively oral transmission. The difficulty
does not primarily concern the capacity of the human
1 See below, § 39.
a The German poem Parzival, a romantic epic of more than 24,000
verses, was composed in the i3th century by Wolfram von Eschenbach,
a poor knight, who confesses that he could neither read nor write.
Lachmann appeals to this instance. But, before applying it to the
Homeric question, it would be pertinent to know whether Eschenbach
commanded the aid of an amanuensis.
J- 8
114 HOMER. [CH. IV.
memory. The true difficulty is that an approximately ac-
curate tradition, through centuries, of such vast works,
without help from writing, implies an organisation of which
there is no trace. The nearest analogies which can be
produced (as from India) presuppose a religious or sacer-
dotal basis. We have to conceive of Homeric priesthoods
or colleges, in which, from generation to generation, lives
were concentrated on this task. But such an idea is wholly
foreign to the free spirit in which Hellenic life and art were
developed; nor does it consist with what we know of the
wandering rhapsodes.
The general conclusion, then, is as follows. It cannot
be proved that the Homeric poems were not committed to
writing either when originally composed, or soon afterwards.
For centuries they were known to the Greek world at large
chiefly through the mouths of rhapsodes. But that fact
is not inconsistent with the supposition that the rhapsodes
possessed written copies. On the other hand, a purely oral
transmission is hardly conceivable.
The "• Next to the argument from writing, Wolfs mainstay
story was the story that the scattered poems of 'Homer' had
Peisis- been first collected and written down at Athens in the time
tratus. Of Peisistratus. The story is both doubtful and vague. It
occurs in no ancient writer before Cicero, and in no Greek
writer before Pausanias1. According to another tradition,
1 Cic. De Orat. 3. 34. 137 qui primus Homeri libros, confuses
antea, sic disposuisse dicitur ut nunc habemus. Pausan. 7* 26 Heicrl-
rd '0/j.rjpov dieyiraff^va re Kal dXXa dXXa%oi) /j.vrj/j.ovev6fj.eva
One of the ~Btoi Ofj.^pov (which are all, probably, of the
Christian era) quotes an inscription from a statue of Peisistratus at
Athens,1 in which he is made to say of himself— rbv "Q^pov \ rjdpoura,
airopaSrjv rb irpiv aeidopevov. It is most unlikely that such a statue
existed (after 510 B.C., at least), and the inscription is probably a late
rhetorical figment — possibly the prime source of the story which first
appears in Cicero. A scholium on Plautus, found after Wolf's time and
edited by Ritschl (die Alexandr. Bibliothek p. 4) gives the story in a
somewhat more circumstantial form : Pisistratus sparsamprius Homeri
poesim...sollerti cura in ea quae nunc exstant redegit volumina, usus ad
hoc opus divinum industria quattuor celeberrimorum et eruditissimorum
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 115
which has older authority, it was Lycurgus who, about 776
B. c., first brought to Greece Proper a complete copy of the
Homeric poems, previously known there only by scattered
fragments1. Even if the story about Peisistratus is accepted,
it does not disprove the original unity of the poems. When,
for ages, rhapsodies had been recited singly, doubts might
have arisen as to their proper sequence and their several
relations to the plan of the great epic. It would satisfy the
vague shape in which the story has reached us, if we
regarded Peisistratus, not as creating a new unity, but as
seeking to preserve an old unity which had been obscured2.
hominum, -videlicet Concyli (?), Onomacriti Atheniensis, Zopyri Hera-
cleotae, et Orphei Crotoniatae. This was taken from a comment by
Tzetzes (i2th cent.), first published by Keil: 'O/tT/peJovs 8t /Si/SXovs...
<nrov5fi HeiffiffTparos [? HeiaicrTpartSai] irapa TUV Teffcrdpwv
ffo<p£i>' tirl KoyictiXov, 'Ovofj-aKpirov re 'Adrjvalov, Zwirvpov re
'H.pa.K\euTov Kal KpoTuvidrov 'Qp&ws. Another form of the same state-
ment has been published by Cramer from a Paris MS. : oi 5£ riaaa.p<r'(.
rtffi TU>V £iri HeurHTTpdrov 5i6pdw<riv dva<ptpov<riv, 'Op<pei K/JOTWJ/ICITT/,
Zwirvpif 'HpaKXewT#, 'Ovofj.aKpiT<{)'A6Tr)i>alip Kal Kay tirl KoyKvXw (sic).
In the margin of the Par. MS. is 'AdyvoSupy ^irlKK^v [tirlK\r)<riv] KopSu-
\iuvi: which probably means that Athenodorus Cordylion, a Pergamene
grammarian of the 2nd cent. B.C., was taken to be the source of
the statement. It has been conjectured that the corrupt words tirl
KoyKvXov and Kay tirl KoyKvXu conceal ITTIK^V KIJK\OV, and, being taken
for a man's name, gave rise to the tradition of a fourth commissioner.
But all this is doubtful. See Volkmann, pp. 333 ff. Onomacritus was 'a
soothsayer, and editor (Sta^r^s) of the oracles of Musaeus,' who was
expelled from Athens by Hipparchus, son of Peisistratus, because the
lyric poet, Lasus of Hermione, had caught him in the act of interpola-
ting an oracle (^TTOI^UV Is ra Movtralov xpr)<r(j.6v — Her. 7. 6).
1 Plutarch's view is that, circ. 776 B.C., the Greeks of Greece Proper
knew the Homeric poems only by ' a dim rumour,' — a few persons
possessing fragments, — until Lycurgus brought a complete copy from
Crete, where the poems were preserved by the descendants of Homer's
friend, Creophylus : — T\V yap TIS -fjST) 5o£a TUV tirwis a/Jiavpa irapa TO?S
rtjvro 8 ov TroXXol ^pr) rivd, (nropadriv rrjs Troi^ffews, ws
8ia<f>€pofj.{vr)s (Lycurg. c. 4). The tradition about Lycurgus
was noticed as early as the 4th century B.C. by the historian Ephorus,
and Heracleides Ponticus.
2 Ritschl, accepting the Peisistratus story, so took it.
8—2
Il6 HOMER. [CH. IV.
'Nature' 12. The Homeric poems, said Wolf, show art: 'but it is
md
'art.'
and clear that this art is, in a way, comparatively near to nature ;
it is drawn from a native feeling for what is right and
beautiful; it is not derived from the formal methods of
a school1'. There we see the mark of Wolfs age, which
was in revolt against the pedantic rules of pseudo- classicism.
'Art' was now associated with abstract canons on the
'unities,' and so forth: it was the synonym of frigid con-
ventionality. 'Nature' was everything that put 'art' to
shame; 'nature' was freedom, originality, genius2. The
confusion of ideas involved in this antithesis long helped to
complicate the Homeric question in Germany. Wolf was
penetrated by the idea that the original Homeric poetry was
the primitive poetry of the Greek people in its first youth,
instinct with 'the divine force and breath of natural genius3'.
He justly says that 'Homer and -Callimachus, Virgil, Non-
nus and Milton,' are not to be read in the same spirit4.
1 Proleg. c. XII. p. xlii. In 1735 Thomas Blackwell, Professor of
Greek at Aberdeen, had published his ' Inquiry into the Life and
Writings of Homer.' It made a considerable impression both at home
and abroad, because it hit the mind of the age by tracing Homer's
excellence to the happy concurrence of natural conditions.
2 This period of 'Sturm und Drang' ('storm and stress') was so
nick-named from a drama of that title by F. M. V. Klinger(born 1752).
Volkmann, in his work on Wolf already cited, regards the impulse as
having come to Germany from the English literature of the i8th
century : — ' Genius and originality, those well-known watchwords of
our Sturm-und-Drang period, are ideas propagated to us from England '
(p. 14). Cp. G. H. Lewes, Story of Goethe's Life, p. 79 : 'There was
one universal shout for nature. With the young, nature seemed to be
a compound of volcanoes and moonlight ; her force explosion, her
beauty sentiment. To be insurgent and sentimental, explosive and
lachrymose, were the true signs of genius. Everything established was
humdrum. Genius, abhorrent of humdrum, would neither spell correctly,
nor write correctly, nor demean itself correctly. It would be German —
lawless, rude, natural. Lawless it was, and rude it was, — but natural ?
Not according to Nature of any reputable type.'
3 Proleg. p. cclv 'iuveniltter ludenti populo...divina ingenii vi ac
spiritu.'
4 ib. p. xliii.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 117
But it was an error on the other side to compare Homer
with the ruder forms of primitive song in other lands1.
Our own early ballads, for instance, are rich in the pure
elements of natural poetry ; in genuine pathos, especially,
/ they are often unsurpassed. But the Iliad and the Odyssey
evidently show a larger mental grasp ; they breathe a spirit
of finer strain; they belong to an order of poetry which
comes later in the intellectual growth of a people2. When
we endeavour to define Wolf's notion of a 'primitive' poet,
we find only one clear point. He is a poet who, being
unable to write, and composing for hearers, not for readers,
makes only short poems.
13. The permanent influence of Wolfs work has been Elasti-
due not only to the power with which his theory was stated, Rolf's
but also to the tact with which he refrained from making it theory,
too precise. His literary sense, keenly alive to those
inner traits which give each epic a general unity, mode-
rated his use of the external arguments. He did not
attempt to define exactly how much the original poet had
done, — where the other poets come in, — or how they differ.
1 The poems of ' Ossian ' had been published by Macpherson in
1760 — 65. Wolf remarks that 'Homer — i.e. the old poetry of the
lonians ' — stands on a higher level than ' the Celtic songs of Ossian ' ;
but he hints at two points of analogy : — (i) the poems are not all of one
age; (ii) they have not come down in their original form (Proleg.
p. cclv). Heyne on //. 16. 53 (ed. min.) compared Homer's similes
with Ossian's.
2 Wolf made many powerful converts among the German critics ;
but he was less successful with the poets. Schiller called the theory
'barbaric.' Wieland, though interested, was unconvinced. Klopstock
was decidedly adverse. Goethe went with Wolf at first (1796), but in
1798 wrote to Schiller, 'I am more than ever convinced of the unity and
indivisibility of the poem ' (the Iliad], And in the little tract called
' Homer once more ' \Homer noch einmal) that appears as his final
view (1821). Voss, at once scholar and poet, was also unpersuaded.
This illustrates Thirlwall's remark that critics who have studied
the details of the Homeric poems have usually favoured a manifold
authorship, while those who have dwelt rather on the general outlines
have tended to maintain an original unity. Poets usually look at Homer
in the latter way.
Il8 HOMER. [CH. IV.
Hence 'Wolfian' is a somewhat elastic term, including
several different shades of opinion. It has sometimes been
applied too narrowly, and sometimes too widely.
The distinctively ' Wolfian' doctrine is simply this, —
that the Homeric poems were put together, at the beginning
of the Greek literary age, -out of shorter unwritten songs
which had come down from a primitive age. How many
of these short songs we are to conceive as due to one man,
was a minor point. Wolfs own belief, as we have seen, was
that the poet who began the series of songs also composed
most of them, and that the later poets continued the
general line of his work.
Develop- The genuine developments of Wolf's theory have shown
one of two general bents. One bent has been to make the
first poet of the series less influential than Wolf did: this is
represented by Lachmann. The other bent has been
to make him still more influential : this is represented by
Hermann.
Lach- 14. Lachmann dissected the Iliad into eighteen sepa-
mann. rate lays1. He leaves it doubtful whether they are to be
ascribed to eighteen distinct authors. But, at any rate, he
maintains, each lay was originally more or less independent
of all the rest2. His main test is the inconsistency of
detail. A primitive poet, he argued, would have a vivid
picture before his mind, and would reproduce it with close
1 Betrachtungen iiber Homers Ilias (Berlin, 1874).
2 The only distinct exception admitted by Lachmann is his i6th lay
(=//w</bks. 18 — 22), which was intended as a sort of sequel to the i5th
(=//. 15. 592 to end of xvii), though by another poet. Generally, how-
ever, he concedes that, after the i ith book of the Iliad, the distinctness
of the songs is less well-marked. Thus they all agree in representing
Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Diomedes as placed hors de combat.
Grote says that any admission as to the later songs being adapted to
the earlier is ' a virtual surrender of the Wolfian hypothesis ' (Hist. Gr.
vol. II. p. 233 note i). This is not so. Wolf conceived the later poets
as carrying on the ' threads ' of the first and chief weaver (see p. 109).
Wolfs criticism on Lachmann would have been that the latter
underrated the general unity which the epics now exhibit.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 119
consistency. He also affirms that many of the lays are
utterly distinct in general spirit1. Lachmann had been
prepared for analysing the Iliad by previously trying his
hand on the Nibehmgenlied, in which he discovered twenty
independent lays2. Unfortunately for the analogy, later
researches have made this view of the Nibelungenlied im-
probable.
The arbitrary character of such a theory as Lachmann's
is shown by the plurality of such theories. Kochly, too, has
dissected the///#^ into sixteen lays besides books 9 and io3.
But Kochly's lays are not Lachmann's. The two operators
take different views of the anatomy. A 'theory of small
songs' (Klein-Lieder-Theorie\ whatever special form it may
assume, necessarily excludes the view that any one poet had
a dominant influence on the general plan of the poems.
15. Hermann, on the other hand, developed Wolf 's view Her-
more in Wolf's spirit4. Hermann clearly perceived one mann'
difficulty which Wolf had left unexplained. The weaving
of the Homeric web was begun, said Wolf, by the first and
chief poet, who carried it down ' to a certain point ' : then
others continued it. But why should they have continued
it only within such narrow limitations? Why did they
confine themselves to a few days in the siege of Troy?
Why did they sing the ' return ' of no hero except Odysseus ?
Because, said Hermann, the great primitive poet ('Homer')
had not simply carried a web down to a certain point.
Rather, making large use of earlier materials, he had pro-
duced the original sketch of our Iliad and the original
sketch of our Odyssey (' Ur-Iliasj ' Ur-Odyssee'). The task
1 ' ihrem Geiste nach hochst verschiedene Lieder ' (Fernere Betrach-
tungen etc., p. 18, § xxiii).
3 Ueber die urspriingliche Geslalt des Gedichts von der Nibehmgen
Noth, Berlin, 1816.
3 Iliadis Carmina XVI. Restituta edidit Arminius Kochly Turi-
censis, 1861.
4 Dissertatio de Interpolationibus Homeri in his Opuscula, vol. v.
p. 52 (1834). Ueber Homer und Sappho ib. vi. pars I. p. 70 (1835). De
Iteratis apud Homerum, ib. VIII. p. n (1840).
120 HOMER. [CH. IV.
of after-comers was not to carry on a line of texture, but
merely to complete a design within fixed outlines.
In accordance with the Wolfian view of a primitive poet,
Hermann conceived each of these poems as short. But though
'of no great compass/ the two poems excelled all other pro-
ductions of their age in 'spirit, vigour, and art' The poets
who came after Homer, down to the time of the 'Cyclic epics'
(i.e. to about 800 B.C.), confined themselves to engrafting
new work on the original Iliad and Odyssey. This work
took chiefly three forms, (i) They added passages imi-
tated from Homer, even repeating whole verses or groups
of verses. The opening of Iliad 8 was in Hermann's
view an instance of such imitation. (2) They expanded
passages of the original poems : thus the fight of the gods in
Iliad 21 was expanded from Iliad 20. 56 — 74. (3) Gene-
rally, they retouched or recast the original poems in such a
way as to invest them with a new aspect. When Hermann
spoke of ' '• interpolation"1 in Homer, he did not mean only
the insertion of verses. Writing in Latin, he used 'inter-
polation' in its Latin sense, — 'furbishing up'1. These
later poets would have had no audience, he argued, if they
had stepped beyond the charmed circle traced by the
primitive Homer. And lest the potency of the spell should
seem too marvellous, he made a further supposition.
Homer's work was not only supreme in merit, but new
in kind. The bards before him had been wholly didactic.
He was the first who sang the deeds of heroes. This
assumption is improbable in itself; and, if granted, would
not suffice to explain why two heroic themes should have
monopolised the epic activity of centuries.
Re- 1 6. Thus far we have seen Homer identified with the
action.
1 Hermann defined his own use of the term in a letter to Ilgen,
prefixed to his ed. of the Hymns (1806) p. viii : ' Interpolationem autem
dico non modo quam nunc plerique intelligunt, quae est in adiectionc
novorum versuum, sed quam antiqui appellabant, cuius est omnino rent
veterem nova specie induere? (Cp. Cic. ad Q. Fr. ii. 12 togam...inter-
polet, 'have his toga whitened anew.')
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 121
primitive epics of short unwritten lays. That is the funda- The
mental idea common to Wolf and the genuine Wolfians, as eP°Pee
view.
Lachmann and Hermann. We now turn to a radically
different conception, and one which is nearer to the
truth. In this, Homer is no longer the primitive bard.
He is the great poetical artist who, coming after the age of
short lays, frames an epic on a larger plan. He is the
founder of epopee.
This view found an able exponent in G. W. Nitzsch, Nitzsch.
who represents the first effective reaction against the
Wolfian theory1. He pointed out that some of the 'Cyclic'
epics, dating from the seventh and eighth centuries B.C.,
presuppose our Iliad and Odyssey in something like their
present compass and form2, being designed as supplements
or introductions to the Homeric poems3. He showed that
the Greek use of writing was presumably older than Wolf
had assumed, and might have been used to help the
memory long before there was a reading public.
' By Homer,' says Nitzsch, * I understand the man who
made a great advance from the various smaller songs by older
1 De Historia Homeri maximeque de scriptorum carminum aetate
meletemata (Hanover, 1830 — 1837. Supplementary parts were published
at Kiel in 1837 and 1839). His earliest contribution to the Homeric
question was his Indagandae per Homeri Odysseum interpolationis
praeparatio (1828). Among his earlier Homeric writings may be
mentioned also the article ' Odyssee' in the ' Allgemeine Encyclopadie'
(1829). His Sagenpoesie der Griechen appeared in 1852 : his Beitrage
zur Geschichte der epischen Poesie, in 1862.
2 De Hist. Horn. p. 152. He refers to (i) the Aethiopis and//z#
Persis of Arctinus, (2) the Cypria, (3) the Nostivi Hagias, (4) the Little
Iliad of Lesches, (5) the Telegonia of Eugammon. When these poems
were written, we must concede, he says, Iliadem et Odysseam ambitu
ac forma in universum tales iam ac lantas extitisse, quantas hodu
habemus.
3 The first vol. of F. G. Welcker's 'Der Epische Cyclus oder
die homerischen Dichter' — the book which first threw a clear light
on the 'Cyclic' epics— appeared at Bonn in 1835 (2nd ed., 1865):
the second vol. in 1849. Nitzsch's position was much strengthened by
Welcker's results.
122 HOMER. [CH. IV.
' L
bards which treated of the Trojan war, and shaped the
'Iliad' — which previously had dealt only with the 'counsel
of Zeus' — into our Iliad on 'the wrath of Achilles. '...In
this poem, I fancy that much from older songs was retained.
The Odyssey was the work, perhaps, of the same poet, older
sources being used in a similar way.' But in the Odyssey,
Nitzsch adds, we see the poet's originality more fully than
in the Iliad. The Odyssey was the first great epic of its
kind, — i.e. dealing with a complex series of romantic
adventures. And the details of embellishment in the
Odyssey were almost all due to the author himself.
Thus Nitzsch conceives Homer as a very ancient poet,
and as one with whom an epoch begins. He found a number
of short lays about Troy. He achieved a work of a new
kind by building up, partly from these, a large epic on
the wrath of Achilles. Minor interpolations and changes
were made afterwards. But our Iliad, mainly the work
of one man, and our Odyssey, perhaps by the same
author, had taken substantially their present shape con-
siderably earlier than 800 B.C.
Grote. 17. Grote accepts the essential part of Nitzsch's view1.
He conceives Homer as belonging to the second, not the
first, stage in the development of epos, — as the composer of
the large epic, not as the primitive bard of the short lays.
But he thinks that our Iliad has outgrown the plan of the
large poem as originally composed. That poem was on the
wrath of Achilles : it was an Achilleid. Another poet, or
poets, aimed at converting it into a poem on the war of
Troy generally, — an Iliad. Whole rhapsodies were added
which have no strict relation with the Achilleid proper, and
interrupt or unduly prolong it.
1 Hist. Gr. c. xxi. vol. II. p. 234 : 'The age of the epos is followed
by that of the epopee — short spontaneous effusions preparing the way,
and furnishing materials, for the architectonic genius of the poet...
Such, in my judgement, is the right conception of the Homeric epoch —
an organising poetical mind, still preserving that freshness of observation
aoid vivacity of details which constitutes the charm of the ballad.'
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 123
The original Achilleid consisted only of books i, 8, 'Achil-
and ii to 22 inclusive, ending with the slaying of Hector
by Achilles. Books 2 to 7 inclusive, 9, 10, 23 and 24
were added with the view of making this Achilleid into an
Iliad. In book i Zeus promises to punish the Greeks for
the affront to Achilles : why does he do nothing to fulfil his
promise till book 8 ? Books 2 — 7 are simply * a splendid
picture of the war generally.' Then in book 9 (the embassy)
the Greeks humble themselves before Achilles, and he
spurns them; this is unseemly, — nay, shocking to the
'sentiment of Nemesis ' ; and in book 16. 52 — 87 Achilles
speaks as if no such supplication had been made to him.
Book 10, though fitted to its place, is a detached episode,
with no bearing on the sequel. Book 23 (the funeral games
for Patroclus) and book 24 (the ransoming of Hector's
corpse) 'may have formed part of the original Iliad,' but
are more probably later additions.
1 8. Grote's arguments against the several 'non-Achil- Estimate
lean' books have very different degrees of force. Book 10, Grote's
though composed for its present place, is unquestionably theory.
later than any other large part of the Iliad. The language
gives many indications of this1; and the characteristic
nobleness of the Iliad here sinks to a lower style and
tone. As to book 9, Grote's objection to its general fitness
is over-strained. Achilles is possessed by a burning resent-
ment : it is not enough for him that the Greeks should
confess their fault; they must smart for it. But Grote
is right in saying that book 9 cannot have been known
to the composer of book 16. 52 — 87. Book 9 certainly
1 See Monro, //. I — xn., p. 354. Among them are, some perfects
in KO. from derivative verbs, as pefiltiKfv : (uyf]ffeffOai (365), the only
2nd fut. pass, in Homer, except SaTj'cro/icu (in Od. 3. 187, 19. 325) :
vvv (v. 105) as='now': clear instances of the article used in a
post-Homeric way: several words for armour and dress which occur
nowhere else in Homer (as KCITCUTU£, ffavpurrip, e/craSiT/, KTidttj) ; and
some words frequent in the Odyssey, but not elsewhere found in the
Iliad (as 56crts, 07?,cuj, 5<5£a, a<rd[j.iv9os).
124 HOMER. [CH. IV.
did not belong to the original form of the poem. It has
traits of language and of matter which bring it nearer to
parts of books 23, 24, and even 10, while they separate
it from the body of the Iliad1.
It is in regard to book 8 that Grote's theory is most
decidedly at fault. He makes it part of his original Achil-
leid. But it stands in the most intimate poetical connection
with book 9. The reverses of the Greeks in book 8 lead
up to the embassy in 9, and the poet intended them
to do so. And this fact agrees with the proofs in book
8 itself that its origin was later than that of the greater part
of the Iliad. A large proportion of its verses has been
borrowed or adapted from other parts of the Iliad, or from
the Odyssey*.
Books 2 — 7 delay the story, and almost certainly did
not belong to the first form of the poem ; but everything
indicates that these books (excepting the ' Catalogue ' in
book 2) must have been among the earliest additions to
it ; and they are unquestionably older than book 8, whose
poet has imitated them. Grote is right in regarding books
23 and 24 as additions to the original poem. But they
stand on different levels. Book 24 is in the highest Homeric
strain, and, if not contemplated in the first design of the
poem, is at least entirely in unison with it. The games
in book 23 are an addition by an inferior and probably
later hand.
19. Few things in Homeric criticism are more interest-
ing than to consider how Grote was led to form his theory,
with book 8 for its pivot. He was looking for the earliest sign
of Zeus fulfilling the promise made in book i, and discom-
fiting the Greeks. He found this in book 8, and thence
inferred that, in the original ' Achilleid,' book 8 immediately
1 Examples are — wore with infin. (42); the impers. Set (337) : the
mention of Apollo's shrine at Pytho (Delphi, 405) : the mention of
Egypt (382) : the use of'EXXas in a large sense, as at least = Northern
Thessaly (447) — all unique in the Iliad.
2 On book 8 see Christ's Prolegomena to the Iliad, pp. 69 f.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 125
followed book i. Now, there are two distinct moments in
the Iliad at which the tide of war turns against the Greeks.
One is book 8. The other is book n. Grote saw that
books 9 and 10 were later than the original form of
the poem. But he omitted to observe that the poet
who abased the Greeks before Achilles in book 9 would
have felt the necessity of first discomfiting them in war;
that, therefore, book 9 would account for book 8 ; and that
the primary form of the poem becomes both simpler and
more intelligible if we suppose that, in it, book i was
once closely followed by book u. That such was the
case, the results of more recent studies strongly tend to
show.
Grote recognised that the books which he rejected from Source
the original Achilleid were, in large part, of high intrinsic of th?*
excellence. 'Amongst them are comprehended some ofnon-.
the noblest efforts of the Grecian epic.' He also held that books. °
they were of practically the same date as the Achilleid
itself: — 'they belong to the same generation.' The
Odyssey, in his belief, was the work of one author, who was
distinct from the author of the Achilleid, but coeval with
him, — their age being 'a very early one, anterior to the first
Olympiad' (776 B.C.)1.
20. Accepting Grote's definition of the Achilleid, Ged- Geddes.
des2 has maintained that the non-Achillean books of the
Iliad were composed by a later poet, the author of the
Odyssey. He 'engrafted on a more ancient poem, the
Achilleid, splendid and vigorous saplings of his own, trans-
forming and enlarging it into an Iliad, but an Iliad in
which the engrafting is not absolutely complete, where the
'sutures' are still visible.' The kinship between the Odyssey
and the ' non- Achillean ' books of the Iliad (i.e. 2 — 7,
9, 10, 23, 24) is recognised especially (i) in the mode
1 Grote Hist. Gr. vol. II. pp. 236, 262, 273.
2 The Problem of the Homeric Poems. By William D. Geddes, LL.D.,
Professor of Greek in [now Principal of] the University of Aberdeen.
(Macmillan, 1878.)
126 HOMER. [CH. IV.
of presenting Odysseus, Hector, Helen, and some other
persons; (2) in the aspects of the gods and their worship,
(3) in ethical purpose; (4) in local marks of origin, — the
traces of an Ionian origin being common to the Odyssey
with the non-Achillean books of the Iliad, and with those
alone.
It can scarcely be questioned that the Odyssey, while
bearing the general impress of the same early age as
the Iliad, belongs to a somewhat later part of that age.
We have seen some tokens of this in Chapter II. Nor can
it be doubted that many real affinities exist between
the Odyssey and the later books of the Iliad. But it
is less easy to decide how far these traits are due to
a single mind, to the influence of a school, or to the
traditional form of epic material. On any view, the work
of Geddes will always rank as a very able and original con-
tribution to the question1.
W.Christ. 21. A view of the Iliad which is in some measure con-
servative, and which aims at reconciling divergent theories,
has been fully expounded by Christ, in the Prolegomena to
his edition of the text (1884). The following is an outline
of it.
A great poet, Homer, composed a number of epic lays,
intended to be recited separately, and therefore to some
extent independent, but also connected by an organic plan
which was definitely before his mind. The 'old,' or original,
Iliad consisted of these lays, and formed a whole complete
in itself. It contained the quarrel of Agamemnon and
Achilles (bk. i. i — 305); the resolve of Zeus to avenge
Achilles (bk. i. 306 — end); the exploits of Agamemnon, his
wounding, and the rout of the Greeks (bk. n. i — 595); the
sally of Patroclus to help the Greeks, and his slaying by
Hector (bks. 16 and 17); the return of Achilles to the war,
1 Of especial interest are the chapters on the 'Local Mint-marks'
(XVIII. — XXI.), showing how the traits which indicate personal know-
ledge of European and Asiatic Hellas respectively are distributed in the
poems.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 127
his routing of the Trojans, and his slaying of Hector (bks.
1 8 — 22, excepting some large interpolations).
This ' old ' Iliad was, however, amplified in many ways ;
partly by its author, Homer ; partly by poets to whom he
had entrusted 'the keeping, reciting, and publishing' of
his poem. Christ calls these poets ' Homeridae/ and
conceives Homer as ' the founder of their clan ' ( ' conditor
gentis').
22. To distinguish between the additions made to the
' old ' Iliad by Homer himself, and those made by the
' Homeridae,' is, he thinks, as difficult as to distinguish
'between the genuine and the spurious elements in Mozart's
Requiem' However, he can discern at least four main
groups of additions.
(1) The earliest additions consisted, roughly, of bks. 2,
3, 4, 5, minus the 'Catalogue' in bk. 2. The object was to
gratify the 'Aeolian and Ionian fellow-citizens of Homer' by
praises of ancestral chiefs.
(2) Then those parts of bks. 5 and 6 which relate to
Sarpedon and Glaucus were added from a similar motive.
Christ dwells on the fact that in the Iliad we have two sets
of Lycians ; the northern, neighbours to Troy, and led by
Pandarus ; and the southern, under Sarpedon and Glaucus.
The latter, with their chiefs, were brought in to please
lonians claiming descent from Glaucus.
The building of the wall at the Greek camp was now in-
vented, in order to give occasion for the splendid scenes of
assault and repulse. Books 12, 13, 14 (part), and 15 were
added.
(3) Another poet now sought to perfect the Iliad by
connecting its parts more closely; by adding the embassy to
Achilles ; and by closing the poem with the ransoming of
Hector's corpse. He added books 7, 8, 9, the latter part of
ii (from 596), 19 (to 356), 23 (to 256), and 24. Such a
book as 24 had, indeed, been part of the original Homer's
design.
The Iliad was now complete in its enlarged form. All
128 HOMER. [CH. IV.
this had been done ' some time before ' arc. 800 B.C. : Christ
is dubious as to the number of poets, but thinks that, in-
cluding the original Homer, there were not more than four.
(4) The ' Homerid rhapsodes ' further added some
passages, which were composed while the epic art still
flourished. Such are the part assigned to Phoenix in bk. 9 ;
bk. 10 (the Doloneia); the making of the armour in bk. 18;
the fight of Achilles and Aeneas in bk. 20 (75 — 352). Lastly,
some tasteless rhapsodes made minor additions, and, among
other things, thrust the 'Catalogue' into bk. 2. The ad-
ditions of this fourth group were made in the 8th and
7th centuries B.C.
23. Dr Christ divides the Iliad into 40 lays, which follow
each other in the order of our text, and were meant to be re-
cited in that order, though composed (as we have seen) at
various times. The Iliad had been committed to writing, he
thinks, before the time of Peisistratus, but only in these
separate lays, with separate titles. Peisistratus first caused the
series to be committed to writing as a single ordered whole.
It will be seen that Christ somewhat resembles Hermann
(whose work on ' interpolation ' he admires) in his way of
conceiving the relation between Homer and post-Homeric
additions. His reasoning is strict, yet not rigid. Much
of it deals with points on which it is hopeless to expect
general agreement1. But he has greatly strengthened
the general conclusion that the Iliad is an enlargement of an
epic by a great poet, who worked on a great but compara-
tively simple plan, leaving room for others to complete or to
complicate it2.
Texture 24. The closer unity of plan in the Odyssey, as compared
Ottvsse w^ t^ie H*adt nas been recognised by every modern critic
from Wolf onwards. In some degree, this greater unity is a
1 As, indeed, he feels ; Proleg. p. 95 : ' Sed haec sunt altioris
indaginis, quae vereor ut umquam omnibus plane persuader! possint.'
2 A feature of peculiar value in Christ's edition is the analysis of his
40 lays in what he regards as the chronological order of their com-
position,— showing in detail how each was related to the rest, whether
as model or as imitation (Proleg. pp. 57 — 78).
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 129
necessary result of the generic difference between the two
poems. The person of Odysseus knits together all the
parts of the Odyssey more strictly than the wrath of
Achilles could knit together all the parts of an Iliad.
But, over and above this, it is clear that in the dove-tailing
of the Odyssey we see the work of one mind. The
question is whether we can discern different bodies of
original material which the single constructor used.
With regard to the composition of the Odyssey, the most Kirch-
elaborate and ingenious view which has yet been put forward
is that of Kirchhoff. It is as follows. There was a very
old poem on the 'Return of Odysseus' (No'oros 'OSvo-o-eW).
It contained the adventures of the hero on his homeward
voyage down to his landing in Ithaca, and answered roughly
to our books 5, 6, 7 (greater part), 9, n (greater part), and
13 ( to v. 184). The 'Return' was not a mere folk-song.
It was an epic poem, composed, probably, long after the
epic art had been matured.
Later, but still before 800 B.C., another poet composed a
sequel to the ' Return,' telling the adventures of Odysseus
after his arrival in Ithaca. This sequel consisted of bks. 13
(from v. 185) to 23 (v. 296) inclusive, excepting bk. 15.
(Book 23. v. 296 is the point at which Aristarchus thought
that the genuine Odyssey ended.) The author of the sequel
used a number of popular epic lays, but lacked the skill
to blend them into a perfect unity. Hence many contra-
dictions and inequalities remain. But he carried the fusion
at least so far that we can no longer clearly separate the
original lays.
The sequel never existed apart from the old * Return.'
The 'Return' and the sequel together formed a single poem.
Kirchhoff calls this poem ' the older redaction ' of the Odys-
sey, — older than circ. 800 B.C.
About 660 B.C. a third poet took up the work. The
framework of the Odyssey was already complete. But this
new poet wished to incorporate with it some other lays of
the same group. He wished also to give it a better ending.
130 HOMER. [CH. IV.
He added the adventures of Telemachus (bks. i — 4) ' ; bks.
8, 10, i22, 15, 23 (from v. 297), and 24. In doing this, he
freely altered or mutilated the text of the ' older redaction.'
Thus arose the ' later redaction,' which is our Odyssey, save
for some small interpolations by later hands.
25. Kirchhoff's arguments are given partly in a continuous
commentary on the text, partly in short essays. A brief
summary would be unjust. The strength of his case depends
essentially on the cumulative force of a great number of
subtle observations3. Even those who cannot accept his
1 Kirchhoff regards the first 87 verses of bk. i as having formed
the exordium of the original NOOTOJ. The Telemachy begins at
bk. r. 88. A curious discrepancy of time between the Telemachy
and the rest of the poem had long ago been noticed. Telemachus
leaves Ithaca on the evening of the and day after the Odyssey
opens, intending to be absent not more than 12 days (2. 374 ff. :
cp. 4. 632). He reaches Sparta on the evening of the 5th day of the
poem, and is left there by the poet on the morning of the 6th, purposing
to return at once, as his companions at Pylos are awaiting him (4.
595 ff.). Then book 5 turns to Odysseus : who at last reaches Ithaca on
the 36th day of the poem (13. 119). But Telemachus returns to Ithaca
one day later than his father : i.e. on the 37th of the poem, and the
36th of his own absence. (Mure, Hist. Gk. Lit. I. 440 ff.) Geddes
(p. 32) suggests an interesting possibility — viz., that the poet may
originally have intended to send Telemachus on from Sparta to the
court of Idomeneus in Crete, — a visit which would account for the
superfluous days. In Od. I, after v. 93, in which Athene says that she
will send Telemachus to Pylos and Sparta, some ancient copies read, —
KeWev 5' es KpriT-qv re (KeWei> 8£ K/nfrTji'Se ?) Trap 'IdofJ-evija avaKTa' \ os
yap Sfvraros rjXdev'Axaitov xa^K°XiT('}l'uv'
2 Books 10 and 12 — now part of the narrative given by Odysseus to
Alcinous — were adapted (KirchhofT thinks) from lays in which the poet
told the story in the third person. Book 9 and the old part of book 1 1
had always been in the first person ; and the third poet had to suit the
new books to their place.
3 In estimating KirchhofT's view, undue prominence has sometimes
been given to one of his particular arguments, which is easily answered
— that in the N6<rroj Odysseus is in his prime, and in the 'sequel' is an
old man. The transformation is due to Athene's magic (13. 429);
and her wand cannot well be explained as a device for harmonising the
two poems. — It has been noticed that in Od. 13. 399 the hero's hair is
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 131
theory in detail must (I think; allow that he has proved
two general propositions, or at least has shown them
to be in the highest degree probable, (i) The Odyssey
contains distinct strata of poetical material, from different
sources and periods. (2) The poem owes its present unity
of form to one man ; but, under this unity of form, there
are perceptible traces of a process by which different com- |
positions were adapted to each other.
Against Kirchhoff's theory, Niese1 has re-asserted the
view which had previously been general, — that the Odyssey,
nearly in its present form, had been completed before
776 B.C. But the influence of Kirchhoff's work, especially
in Germany, has been deeply felt, and is not likely to
diminish. It is in the Iliad, however, that the main interest
of the Homeric question must always be centred. The
Odyssey problem is not only different, but less importunate.
In the Odyssey we have a poem which owes at least its
existing shape to a single hand, and which, notwithstanding
the patent or latent discrepancies, can be read without
the question of a complex origin being forced upon the
mind. Further analysis is less interesting than in the case
of the Iliad, while it is also necessarily more difficult.
^26. The history of early epics in other languages is Analogy
a source from which illustration of the Homeric question g^d^61
has been sought. But the history of such epics is often epics,
itself more or less obscure. And, from the nature of the case,
the only illustration which can be expected is of the
most general kind. Before any definite solution of the
Homeric problem could derive scientific support from
such analogies, it would be necessary to show that the
particular conditions under which the Homeric poems
auburn (!-av66$), in 16. 176 it is dark (/cucu'eos), — as also in 6. 231,
unless the vaidvdivov avdos is an image merely for curliness, not
for colour. Note that, on Kirchhoff's view, this would be a case of
the author of the 'sequel' contradicting himself ; for both 13. 399 and
1 6. 176 are his.
1 Ettf-wickehmg der homerischen Poesie (Berlin, 1882), pp. 222 ff.
9—2
132 HOMER. [CH. IV.
appear in early Greece had been reproduced with sufficient
closeness elsewhere. Still, it is necessary for the student of
Homer to know the general scope of such comparisons,
if only in order to control the arguments drawn from them.
Among the early epics which offer some general resemblance
to the Homeric poems, the following are the principal.
27. (i) The Mahdbhdrata and the Ramayana. Of
these two great Sanscrit epics, the latter has been com-
pared to the Odyssey, because (a) the interest is concen-
trated upon a single hero, Rama; and (b) the structure
has greater unity1. The Mahdbhdrata^ on the other hand,
so far resembles the Iliad that (a) the heroic interest
is more divided, and (b} there are stronger traces of
its having been put together, at least to some extent,
from parts originally distinct, and of different dates2.
As the Odyssey is now generally believed to be, as a whole,
later than the Iliad, so, according to one view, the Rdmd-
yana is later than the greater part of the Mahdbhdrata.
28. (2) The early French romances of chivalry, or ' Chan-
sons de Geste.' These, which are traced back to the eleventh
century, represent 'the earliest form which finished litera-
ture took in France3,' just as the Homeric poems stand at
the beginning of Greek literature. Like Homer, they were
a native growth. Like Homer, they were recited. The
composer, or 'trouvere,' was usually a distinct person from
the reciter, or 'jongleur,' who corresponded to the Greek
rhapsode. As a type of the 'Chansons de Geste' may be
taken the Chanson de Roland, of the eleventh century,
which is a sort of French Achilleid. It opens when
Charlemagne has been warring for seven years against the '
Saracens in Spain , and after its hero, the French Roland,
1 As Grote says that the Odyssey was ' moulded at one projection,'
so Lassen (Indisck. Alth. i. 584) says that the Ramayana is 'from
a single mould ' (aus einem Gztsse).
2 ' Es kann keine Frage seyn, dass wir im Mahabharata Stiicke aus
sehr verschiedenen Zeiten, wie sehr verschieden an Inhalt und Farbe
vor uns haben' (Lassen I.e.}.
3 Saintsbury, Short History of French Literature, ch. n. p. 10.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 133
has been slain in the Pyrenees, the poem relates the doom
of a false knight who had betrayed him to death. The
'Chansons de Geste,' it has been supposed, had been pre-
ceded by short historical ballads called 'cantilenae,' which
were worked up in the 'Chansons.' But the 'cantilenae'
are lost; and the theory lacks good evidence1. Were it
otherwise, then the 'cantilenae' would have been analo-
gous to the short heroic lays (KXe'a dvSpuv) which appear
to have preceded the Homeric epics.
29. (3) The poetic Edda of Iceland2. This is a
collection of poems, most of which date probably from
the 8th or gih century, some of them being merely
fragments of longer heroic lays which are not extant.
They deal with the myths and religious legends of
early Scandinavian civilisation. But they do not form
a single epic. Gathered, probably, from oral tradition,
long after they were composed, they were thrown together,
in a body which has no poetical unity, about noo A.D.
Thus, if any inference could properly be drawn from the
Edda, it would be that short separate poems on cognate
subjects can long exist as a collection, without coalescing
into such an artistic whole as the Iliad or the Odyssey.
30. (4) The Nibelungenlied (or Der Nibelunge Not3}.
As the Homeric poems give an artistic form to older legends,
so the German romantic epic is only the final shape of a
1 The Homeric theories of Wolf and his followers suggested similar
theories in regard to the Chansons de Geste, as M. Paul remarks
(Recherches sur V Epopee fran$aise, p. 65).
2 The name Edda is borne by two entirely distinct bodies of ancient
Icelandic writings. One is the poetic Edda noticed above. The other,
to which the name is more anciently and properly given, is the prose
Edda, a miscellaneous collection of writings, ascribed to Snorri
Sturluson, the most eminent of early Scandinavian writers, and probably
completed about 1222.' See Mr E. W. Gosse in the Encycl. Brit.
(9th ed.) vol. vn. p. 649.
3 The Nibelungen are a race of mysterious and supernatural beings.
Siegfried, the hero of the poem, has carried off a great treasure of gold
and gems from two princes of the Nibelungen-land, to whom it had
been bequeathed by their father, the king Nibelung. The subject
134 HOMER. [CH. IV.
Teutonic saga which had appeared in many earlier forms.
So far, Lachmann's view (1816) was plausible, that it had
been put together about 1210 A.D. from twenty old ballads.
But the view now generally received is that of Prof. K. Bartsch.
The Nibelungenlied was written, by one man, about 1140, —
the lines ending in assonances, not in rhymes. About 1170
another poet partially introduced rhyme instead of assonance :
and between 1190 and 1200 this process was completed, in
two distinct recensions, by two different hands. One of
these has preserved the original form more closely than
the other1. Thus, if we could argue at all from the case of
the Nibelungenlied, the argument would tell against the
Wolfians, and in favour of such a view as that of Nitzsch,
described above.
31. (5) The Kalewala of Finland. This is a kind
of epic poem, called from 'Kaleva,' a happy land, three
heroes of which struggle against foes from the land of
cold and the land of death. It was the Kalewala that
suggested Longfellow's Hiawatha. It embodies the old
folk-lore of the Finns, and existed only in scattered songs,
preserved by memory alone, until they were collected and
written down early in this century. Dr E. Lonnrot, the
chief collector, published 12,000 verses in 1835, and in
1849 a new edition of 22,7931 Here, then, is a case
seemingly in favour of Lachmann — Dr Lonnrot answering
to Peisistratus or his commission. But, on the other hand,
the texture of the Kalewala is said to be of a very loose
kind: it has not unity of plot in at all the same sense as the
Iliad and the Odyssey have it8. The Kalewala could not,
of the epic is the ' doom ' or curse which this enchanted hoard brings
on its possessor, as exemplified in the ill-starred loves of Siegfried and
the heroine Kriemhild, and in the sequel thereof.
1 See Mr. James Sime in Encycl. Brit, (9th ed.) vol. XVII. p. 476.
2 See Mr. J. S. Keltie, in Encycl. Brit. (9th ed.) vol. ix. p. 219.
3 ' It has none of the unity of structure which we find in Homer,
but ranges over the whole life of the hero, from his birth to his
disappearance in extreme old age ' : Mr. Monro in Journal of Philo-
logy, vol. xi. p. 59.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 135
of course, be cited as an instance of an epic arising from a
fortuitous or spontaneous aggregation of songs: the editor
would naturally seek to give them such unity as he could.
And it further fails to prove that mere combining and
editing can form an artistic whole out of originally distinct
songs, even though concerned with closely-related themes.
32. (6) The Persian epic, the Shahnamah, or 'Book of
Kings,' is a history of Persia in 60,000 verses, based on old
popular legends \ It is wholly the work of Firdousi (a name
assumed by Abu '1 Casim Mansiir), who completed it in
1009 A.D. It claims notice here as supplying perhaps the
fairest illustration for the ancient view of the Homeric epics
as wholly the work of one man, in this respect — that the
Shahnamah became the popular national epic of Persia
almost as the Homeric poems became the national epics of
Greece.
33. (7) The early war-poetry of England. In such
pieces as the ''Battle Song of BrunanburJi1 (937 A.D.) and
the 'Song of the Fight at Maldon'' (991 A.D.) there are
several traits which might remind us of Homer2. The
Maldon song is about as long as one book of the Iliad. If
twenty-four such songs had grown into one English epic,
taking unity from a central theme, that would have been an
English Iliad. According to the primary relation of the
songs to each other, it would have offered an analogy
favourable to the view of Wolf, of Hermann, or of Lach-
mann. But in our country, as in others, we fail to find any
true parallel to the case of the Homeric poems. These
poems must be studied in themselves, without looking for
aid, in this sense, to the comparative method.
1 See the article on Firdousi, by the late Prof. E. H. Palmer,
in the Encycl. Brit, (gth ed.) vol. IX. p. 225.
2 Referring to the Song of Maldon, Mr. Stopford Brooke says : —
' In the speeches of heralds and warriors before the fight, in the speeches
and single combats of the chiefs, in the loud laugh and mock which
follow a good death-stroke, in the rapid rush of the verse when
the battle is joined, the poem, though broken,— as Homer's verse
is not, — is Homeric.' (Primer of English Literature, p. 15.)
136 HOMER. [CH. IV.
There are only two sources from which we can hope
for any real light on their origin. One is their subject-
matter, of which an outline has been given in Chapter II.
The other is their language.
Homeric/ 34. The general character of Homeric language — that
language. ^{^ {s common to Iliad and Odyssey — attests the high anti-
quity of the poems. The dialect of Homer is Ionic. In the
fifth century B.C. there is the Ionic of Herodotus, while a
kindred, though distinct, dialect has taken a mature form in
the Attic literature. A comparison of Homer's Ionic with
the fifth-century Ionic and Attic shows differences of two
classes. One class is concerned with the forms of words:
the other, with their arrangement in sentences. And these
differences are not merely matters of detail or of caprice.
They are such as to show that Homer's Ionic belongs to an
earlier stage in the development of the language1. In order
to give time for such changes, it is necessary to allow an
interval of at least two or three centuries. That is, the
stamp of Homeric language, as a whole, indicates that we
should place the Homeric poems not later than about
800 — 700 B.C.
Tradi- 35. But the Ionic of Homer cannot have been the
epiTele. sPoken dialect of one time. It comprises too great a number
ment. of alternative forms for even the commonest words2. The
Homeric poet used the spoken Ionic of his own day; but,
besides this, he used also an element of earlier Ionic as it
came to him in the traditional diction of poetry. At a very
early date — how early, we do not know — Ionic became the
accepted dialect of epic poetry for all Greeks, as Tuscan
became the literary dialect for all Italians. Some forms
occur in Homer which are Aeolic. It is possible that these
forms may have been adopted into Ionic, as the national
1 See Note at the end of the book.
2 e.g. flvai, 2(Ji€!>, tn/u-ev, ?/j.evai^fj,/j,€vai: vyvcri, vfafffft, vavfa : 7r6Xe«,
TroXtes, iroXTjes: TroXtfp, irov\tiv, TroXXoV: TroX^es, TroXets, woXXot:
Tt-r)\r)L'dSao, HyXeideci), H^etdao : 'Ax'X^i
irdvTeaffi: Kvai, KvvecrffL: ui^es, iȣes : etc.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 137
dialect for epic poetry, from old Aeolian lays. But it is also
possible that they originally belonged to the old Ionic itself,
as well as to the old Aeolic. The only thing certain about
such forms is that they are very old1. They were part
of an epic style which the Ionic poets inherited.
36. And the presence of this traditional element might False ar-
easily have a further result. A poet using words or phrases chaisms-
which lived only in epic convention would be apt to coin
similar forms by analogy. In doing this, he would not be
controlled by the instinct of living speech; and in those days
there was no scientific philology to keep him right Analogy,
then, might prove a misleading guide. The forms which he
devised, — believing them to be warranted by similar old
forms,— might happen to be incorrect. This would be the
origin of 'false archaisms.' There are undoubtedly some
'false archaisms' in Homer2, though probably not so many
as some critics have assumed3. But it is well to mark the
1 Such Homeric forms as tyuv, iriffvpes, a/i/ues, vnnes or vfifji.es, are
Aeolic; rdv, rvvt), etc., Doric. See, on this subject, Mr Monro's
papers, 'Traces of different Dialects in the language of Homer'
(Journ. of Philology, ix. p. 252), and ' Further Notes on Homeric
Subjects' (ib. vol. xi. p. 56).
8 Thus vwb Kpdrecrcpi (//. 10. 156) = 'under his head,' Kparefffa being
formed on the analogy of <TTii0e<T<f>i (from the stem onjflej of OT^OJ),
and meant for the dat. sing. (Kpari) : but this is incorrect, since the stem
is not /c/mres, but /c/rar. So (ib. 361) tirciyerov, if meant for the 3rd
pers. dual subjunctive (as irpoQt-rjffi in 362 suggests) is wrong, since
Homer has rj in the subjunct. where the indie, has e. Again (ib. 346)
irapa<t>0al-r)<n is meant for the optat. -jrapa^daL-rj, but is wrongly formed
on the analogy of subjunctives in -rffft. These false archaisms in //. 10.
confirm the relative lateness of the book, but only with the reserve
indicated above. In //. 15. 415, tdaa.ro, 'he went,' may, as Curtius
thought (Princ. ii. 207), be a false archaism, suggested by the analogy
of ^fei<raro, 'seemed' (Od. 2. 320) : but this is doubtful. Wackernagel's
view is that it is merely an error for e-fjcraro, which he would identify
with Sanscr. aydsat (Monro Gr. § 401 n.).
3 False archaisms have a large place in Prof. Paley's theory, — that
'our Iliad and Odyssey were put together only in the latter part of the
5th century B.C., from the large mass of ballad literature which Pindar
and the Tragics know of in their entirety ' (Pref. to Iliad, vol. II. p. xxi).
138 HOMER. [CH. IV.
limit of the inference which can be drawn from such in-
stances. It has sometimes been argued that a 'false
archaism' proves the passage in which it occurs to be
altogether later than the age of Ionian epos, — as late (say)
as 450 — 400 B. c. This inference is unsound. The pos-
sibility of false archaisms began as soon as there were
genuine archaisms. False archaisms might have been made
in 800 or 900 B. c., as easily as in 450 B. c., by an Ionian
poet who found in the traditional epic diction certain
forms or phrases which no longer existed in the living
idiom of his day.
Dif- 37- So far, we have been considering the general stamp
Sween °f Homer*c language> as seen in both the great epics. But
Iliad the language of the Odyssey has certain traits of its own,
^ which indicate that, as a whole, it is later than that of the
Odyssey.
Iliad. It is not safe to lay much stress on mere differences
of vocabulary in the two poems. The Iliad deals chiefly
with war-scenes, the Odyssey with adventurous travel or
domestic life. We should naturally expect a corresponding
difference in the classes of words used. Further, many
differences might be due to local or personal causes rather
than to separation in time. Perhaps the only argument
from vocabulary that has any force is the greater frequency
in the Odyssey of words which interpret the religious or
moral sense1. But the evidence of syntax is more sig-
nificant. The Odyssey has a number of constructions
and usages which distinguish it from the Iliad. They
1 As to these, see p. 55, n. i. It is not strange that in the Odyssey
alone should be found lorfy, X&rx7? (a place where men meet to talk, in
Mod. Greek = ' club'), xtpvufs (water for washing the hands), drj/juoepybs
(one who plies a peaceful calling). Nor is it strange that <£o/3os ('flight')
and pyyvv/M ('to break'), — so frequent in the Iliad battle-scenes, should
occur only once each in the Odyssey. Words afterwards so common
as etrtfi^s, •xprifJui.Ta. ('property') occur only in the Odyssey, and this is
perhaps more significant. e\7r/s and 5d£a occur only in the Odyssey,
except that 5o£?7s occurs once in //. 10. 324, a book which has other
non-Iliadic words in common with the Odyssey, as So'cns, <f>r)[ju.s, dairy,
dwr^w, d.5?7Ko'rej, elcrffa,
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 139
fall chiefly under the following heads1, (i) Uses of preposi-
tions. (2) Uses of the article, of pronouns, conjunctions,
particles, and adverbs. (3) Dependent clauses. In regard
to metre, again some distinctive points may be noticed2.
38. These characteristics of the Odyssey are either
wholly absent from the Iliad, or occur only in a limited area
of it, which is almost always confined to books 9, 10, 23,
24; books which, as we saw, have been held, on other
grounds, to be later than most of the others. The late-
ness which these particular traits argue is, however, only
relative. There is nothing in them which is not con-
sistent with the earliest date which could, on other grounds,
be claimed for the Odyssey as a whole. They do not affect
the generally ancient stamp which its language shares with
that of the Iliad. Their effect is only to draw certain
limited parts of the Iliad nearer to the Odyssey. They
strengthen the probability that some interval of time must
be supposed between the bulk of the Iliad and those parts
of it which here exhibit a marked affinity with the Odyssey.
39. Homeric metre exhibits traces of certain sounds or Lost
letters which were unknown to the Ionic of the historical souncis<
age. In one very common word (ws) we see the metrical
influence of a lost initial y*. A few instances, though these
1 See Note at the end of the book.
2 (i) A pause in the verse sometimes excuses the non-elision of a
vowel (hiatus), and one case of this is when the beginning of the 5<th
foot coincides with the beginning of a word : as Od. 2. 57 ei\a.iri.vd.£ov<nv
irlvovffi re \ aWoira olvov. This division of the verse is called the
' bucolic diaeresis,' because especially characteristic of the hexameter in
pastoral poetry. Hiatus in this bucolic diaeresis is about twice as
frequent in the Od. as in the //. So also is hiatus after the vowel e.
In both these metrical points, however, books 23 and 24 of the Iliad
show an affinity with the Odyssey. Monro Gr. § 382.
3 By the lengthening of a short syllable before it, as //. n. 58
Atveiav 0', 6s T/awcri 0eds w rtero S^y (as though it were jwj). This
occurs in some 36 places, but the exceptions are scarcely less numerous :
as //. 3. 196, avrbs 5£ /crt'Xos wj (where Bentley proposed avrap \f/i\6s
ewv). Monro Horn. Gr.§ 397. Cp. Peile, Greek and Latin Etymology,
pp. 76, 229.
140 HOMER. [CH. IV.
are more doubtful, suggest the similar influence of a lost
The di- initial cr1. But the most important case is that of the letter
gamma. vau^ answering in sound to our V or W. The character for
this was like F, or one Greek F placed on top of another :
hence its name, 'double gamma', 'digamma2.' This was
one of the ordinary letters of the earliest Greek alphabet.
It occurs in Doric inscriptions, and in the Aeolic inscrip-
tions of Greece Proper (Boeotia, Elis, etc.), though not in
those of the Asiatic Aeolis. For the existence of the letter
in the Ionic alphabet, the evidence is very slender ; in any
case, it ceased to be used in Ionic as early, at least, as
500 B.C.3 Nor is there any evidence that the letter F was
ever written in the ancient texts of Homer. But in
1 As eTrt-aX/iez/os (salio\ &/j.<f>l-a\o$ (sat), anfil-ewov (sequor), KCLTCU<T-
(for -aiax€raL)> vvvfxts (as if for orxnrexes, Od. 5. 257), and
occasional hiatus before u'X??, UTTVOS, eo'j (silva, somnus, sttzts).
2 Bentley was the first modern scholar who recognised the presence
of the digamma in Homeric metre. The earliest hint of his discovery
occurs in a note written by him, in 1713, on a blank leaf in his copy of
the ' Discourse of Free-Thinking ' ' by Anthony Collins' (in the Library
of Trin. Coll., Cambridge) : — ' Homer's dlya/j./jia. Aeolicum to be added.
oZVos, Folvos, vinu : a Demonstration of this, because polvos has always
preceding it a vowel : so olvoiror^wv.' The digamma was first printed
in a quotation from Homer in Bentley's edition of Paradise Lost (1732),
a capital F being used : whence Pope's lines in the Dunciad : 'While
tow'ring o'er your alphabet, like Saul, | Stands our digamma, and
o'ertops them all.' The substance of Bentley's ms. notes on the
digamma was published in Dr. J. W. Donaldson's New Cratyhts.
Cp. 'Bentley,' in ' English Men of Letters,' pp. 149 — 154.
3 In the Dorian inscriptions of the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. f is
usually retained as an initial letter, even where it is neglected in the
body of a word. The Tabulae Herachenses of the Dorian Heraclea in
Magna Graecia (4th cent. B.C.) show the F retained in some words, and
omitted in others. For f in the Ionic alphabet the chief evidence is (i)
one word in a Naxian inscription of circ. 510 B.C. : (2) three names
on vases found in Magna Graecia, and said to have come from Chalcis
in Euboea : (3) the name of the town Velia, founded by lonians of
Phocaea. The earliest Ionic inscriptions of Euboea itself (6th cent. B. c.)
show no trace of f. Tudeer, De digammo pp. 5 ff., thinks that the
loss off in Ionic happened between 800 — 500 B.C. (Monro, Horn. Gr.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 141
Homeric verse the presence of the sound is often indicated.
This occurs in two ways, (i) It warrants 'hiatus:' i.e.
prevents the elision of a vowel before another vowel : as
II. 9. 128 dfjiv/jiova epya iSw'as. Here e/rva and iSuta? are
treated, for metrical purposes, as if they were written werga
widuias. (2) It makes ''position:' i.e. it lengthens a pre-
ceding syllable which would otherwise have been short : as
//. 4. 182 Js TTOTC TIS cpeet, where TIS is lengthened as if
followed by wereei,
40. Now, if these effects were constant, there would be incon-
less difficulty. We should then have to suppose that a fixed stant_use
epic tradition compelled the poet to assume the sound w Homer,
before certain words, whether that sound or letter was
generally used in his day, or not. But we find that the
Homeric use fluctuates, even in regard to the same words.
The digamma does not. always prevent elision, or lengthen
a short syllable. It does so in upwards of 3300 places.
It fails to do so in upwards of 600 places1. How are we
to explain the failures ? No conclusive answer has yet been
given to this question2.
1 This is the reckoning of Prof. W. Hartel (ffomerische Studien III.),
whose results are given by Mr Monro, Horn. Gr. § 398. Prof. Hartel's
precise figures are 3354 against 617. (i) Of the 3354 cases in which f
is operative, it prevents the elision of a short vowel in 2324 ; in 507 it
follows a long vowel or diphthong in arsis; in 164 it prevents the
shortening of a diphthong in thesis; and in 359 it lengthens a short
syllable ending in a consonant. (2) Of the 617 cases in which f is
inoperative, it fails to prevent elision in 324 : it permits a preceding
long vowel or diphthong to be shortened in 78 ; and it fails to lengthen
a short syllable ending in a consonant in 215.
2 The principal theories which have been broached are briefly these.
(i) Bentley's: — All places where F is ignored are corrupt. This theory
is too sweeping. But it is true that initial F can be restored, without
violence, to a very large proportion of places in those parts of the Iliad
which are indisputably old. Medial f, too, can often be restored to
some words by resolving a diphthong, as by writing /roi'Xos for KO?\OJ
(cp. Curt. Etym. § 79), 'Arpeicfys for 'ArpeiS^s. (2) F was going out
of use, and so words which originally had F could be used by the
poet either with or without F- There were alternative forms. In the
case, however, of such words as cu>a£, curry, fpyov, ol/cos, ISeiv, the
142 HOMER. [CH. IV.
One thing, at least, is certain. The sound of the di-
gamma was known as a living sound in the language by the
first Greeks who made epic verse, whether these were
lonians or not. As regards the use in Homer, the follow-
ing points appear probable, (i) The tradition of the
digamma in epic verse had come down to Ionian poets in
whose own day the sound had either disappeared from
Ionic, or was tending to disappear. (2) The tradition
was felt as decidedly more binding in regard to some
words and phrases than to others, perhaps because their
association with the digamma was traditionally more fa-
miliar. (3) Within certain limits, and without absolutel}
rigid exception of any word, the Ionian poet was free to
treat the digamma as a trait of epic style, observing or
ignoring it as metrical convenience prompted. (4) The
tendency to observe it slightly decreased with increasing
distance from the time in which the digamma was a living
sound in daily speech1.
Sup- 41. It has been supposed that some of the Homeric
errors of ^orms wmcn present difficulties are mere blunders of
translit- ancient transcribers, made in transliterating Homer from
eration. ^ Q^QY ^^ ^^abet into the Ionic alphabet, after
observance of f is more frequent than the neglect in the ratio of about
14 : I. (3) The F was confined to certain fixed epic phrases. But
it is found also in words which occur more rarely (LTVS, M-q, apves
etc.). And there are no false instances, such as imitation might
generate. (4) Hiatus before any word which once had f was an
epic survival. But this does not explain why f should also make
position.' (5) Prof. W. Hartel's theory, f was neither a full con-
sonant nor a full vowel, but something between the two. Used as
a semi-consonant, it could prevent elision or shortening. Used as a
semi-vowel, it was compatible with either. Hence the Homeric
inconstancy of use would be only apparent : the observance of f would
be really universal.
1 As applied to different parts of the Iliad and the Odyssey,
this test hardly yields any results on which stress can be laid.
But in the Homeric 'hymns,' which belong chiefly to circ. 750 —
500 B.C., the neglect off is decidedly more frequent than in the Iliad
or the Odyssey.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 143
it had been formally adopted at Athens in 403 B.C.1 But it
is very doubtful whether any errors have really been due to
this cause2.
Whatever disturbing causes may have affected Homeric
tradition, at least they have not affected the general com-
plexion of Homeric language. Its essential characteristics
can still be recognised with certainty. It shows that the
Iliad and the Odyssey, viewed as a whole, belong to an
early age. This conclusion would remain unshaken, even
if assent were given to the theory lately put forward with
much ingenuity by Prof. Fick.
42. He believes that the Homeric poems existed in a Fick's
purely Aeolic dialect down to about 530 — 500 B.C., when l ;ory'
they were translated into Ionic3. The author of 'the Ionic
redaction ' was Cynaethus, a rhapsode of Chios, the reputed
author of the hymn to the Delian Apollo. According to
the scholiast on Pindar, Nem. 2. i, Cynaethus was the first
who recited ' Homer's poems ' at Syracuse, about the 69th
olympiad (504 B. c.). At the time when the Aeolic Homer
was thus turned into Ionic, or shortly afterwards, Ionic
1 Thus Curtius thinks that such Homeric infinitives as
ideeiv, should be tpvytev, tdtev, and that the error arose from the Attic
transliterators (ot fj.eTaxo-pc-KTijpl^ovTes) supposing that the second B in
4>TrEEN, etc., was Ionic for El. Similarly he suspects that £17*
should be tei>, from BEN. Greek Verb II. in (p. 348 Eng. tr.).
2 As a fact limiting the possible range of such errors, it should
be noted that in the Ionic alphabet B represented et only when
the latter was 'spurious,' i.e. came from e + e, or e + a compensatory
lengthening (as in ENAI for efrcu). 'Genuine' et, from e-l-t, was
written El (except sometimes before vowels). Hence (e.g.) tdaaro
would have been written EEIZATO, not EESATO. So 0 represented
ov only when due to o + o, or o + compensatory lengthening : not when
due to o + v. Cp. Meisterhans, Grammatik der Attischen Inschriften
p. ii (1885).
3 Fick (/lias, p. XXXIII, 1885) quotes Ritschl as expressing a similar
view so long ago as 1834. Ritschl's view, however, — as the quotation
shows, — was essentially different. He thought that Homer went over
from Greece with the Aeolian emigrants, and composed short Aeolic
lays at Smyrna. Then a series of Ionian poets enlarged and lonicised
them. But this process was complete before 776 B.C.
144 HOMER. [CH. IV.
additions were made to both epics. Fick dwells on the
fact that in the undoubtedly old parts of Homer we find
Aeolic forms which could not have been metrically replaced
by the corresponding Ionic forms, and which were therefore
retained by the Ionic translator. Conversely, in the later
parts, which were Ionic from the first, we find forms which
metrically resist Aeolicising. His theory suggests the
following remarks.
Estimate 43- (i) The first question which has to be decided is,
of it. 'What is Aeolic, or Ionic?' In regard to alleged 'Aeo-
lisms' in Homer, Fick has to prove, not only that they
were Aeolic, but also that they were not old Ionic. We
have no sufficient evidence as to the state of the Greek
dialects arc. 900 — 600 B.C. The Aeolic inscriptions are all
later than the fifth century B. c. The Ionic evidence,
though less scanty, is not less inadequate for this purpose.
It was the habit of the ancient grammarians to set down
any Homeric archaism as an ' Aeolism,' if it happened to
exist in Aeolic also, and sometimes even when it did not.
The digamma itself was long called * Aeolic,' and regarded
as peculiarly belonging to that dialect, — an error, as we
now know. Hinrichs1 has greatly reduced the number of
Aeolisms in Homer. Further scrutiny may perhaps reduce
it still more2.
1 De Homericae elocutionis vestigiis Aeolicis (Jena, 1875).
2 In the Philologus (XLIII. i. 1—31) Karl Sittl has examined the
residuum of Homeric 'Aeolisms' left by Hinrichs. His results are
epitomized by M. W. Humphreys in Amer. Jonrn. Phil. v. 521.
Thus : (i) He eliminates from the 'Aeolisms ' those which do not eren
occur in Aeolic. E.g., the 'Aeolic ' v (for o) has been unduly extended.
It occurred only in the Aeolic vi = ot of the locative (also Doric). (2)
Fick assumes an Aeolic uekoo-t as parent of the Homeric telicoffi.
When f preceded by a consonant began a word, all Greeks sometimes
prefixed e (as if we had £8felKO<ri). But, fetKOffi, having lost its initial
5, was no longer entitled to an initial c. The Homeric IfelKotri was a
false formation on the analogy of words which had not lost the con-
sonant before /". The Aeolians never vocalised initial /". The apparent
examples are all aspirated, and not Aeolic. (3) As to long d, the
non-Ionic uses of it in Homer are almost confined to proper names
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 145
44. (2) Fick's view implies that the Ionic version, made
about 530 — 500 B. c., at once and for ever superseded in
general favour the original Aeolic Homer, though the latter
had been familiar throughout Hellas for generations. This
is incomprehensible. And, supposing that this happened,
can we further suppose that ancient literature would have
preserved no reference to the fact of the transcription which,
at a blow, had robbed the Aeolian race of its most glorious
inheritance, — one which, for so long a period, all Greeks
had publicly recognised as belonging to it? There were
flourishing Aeolian states then, and Aeolian writers. To
take a rough parallel, suppose that at the present day an
Englishman should clothe the poems of Robert Burns in
an English dress : would the transcription be likely to super-
sede the Scottish original as the standard form of the poems
throughout the English-speaking world ? Yet this is what
Fick supposes the Ionic Cynaethus to have accomplished in
the case of the Aeolic Homer.1 The unexampled success of
Cynaethus becomes still more astounding when we observe
how limited his poetical skill is assumed to have been. He
left a great many Aeolisms in his Homer. Why ? Because
their direct Ionic equivalents would not scan.
But the fact is that the Pindaric scholium is an utterly
taken from old lays. Many seeming examples can be explained : thus
apiffrov (//. 24. 124) should be dftpiffTov (like aftKovre) : 8a\6s (//. 13.
320) should be dafe\6s. (4) Pronouns. TOL, reiv, TVV-TJ, Teas, dfj.fj.6s, are
admittedly archaisms. This may be true also of the 'Aeolic' dfj.fj.es,
vfj.fj.es (etc.), if once written afj.fj.es (or afj.fj.ts), vfj.fj.ts (=jv<rfj.e's), whence,
by suppression and compensation yfJ-ts, v/j.h, and by analogy y/j.e'es
(wets), i>fj,ees (vfj-ecs). These are only specimens of Sittl's analysis. It
may be added that Hinrichs was not slow to make a vigorous reply.
1 Prof. Fick appeals to instances of inscriptions, or other short pieces,
presumably composed in a dialect different from that in which they
have come down to us. For example, he thinks that the couplet of
Simonides on the Peloponnesians slain at Thermopylae (Her. 7. 228)
was originally in the Laconian dialect, thus: pvpidaiv TTOKO. rrjde
rptaKariais e^axovro \ *K HeXoTroj'j'ao'w x^AtaSej reropes. Between such
cases, and the lonicising of Homer by Cynaethus, the difference, he
says, is only 'one of degree' (Ilias p. ix). But surely it is also a
difference of kind.
J. 1°
146 HOMER. [CH. IV.
insufficient basis on which to build the hypothesis about
Cynaethus. And it would be easy to show that Homer had
been known in Ionic from an earlier date. Simonides of
Ceos was born 556 B.C., and was therefore already of mature
age at the time when the supposed 'Ionic redaction' was
made. The Homer known to his boyhood and youth must
then, according to Fick, have been Aeolic. But he quotes
//. 6. 148 (one of the certainly older parts of the epic), in
Ionic, as by 'the man of Chios,' meaning Homer ; whom he
therefore regarded as an Ionian poet. It will hardly be
maintained that by 'the man of Chios' he meant his con-
temporary Cynaethus1.
45. (3) The pre-Homeric epic lays were doubtless
Achaean. Those Homeric forms which can be proved to have
existed in post-Homeric Aeolic admit of two different explan-
ations, which do not, however, necessarily exclude each other.
One of them may apply to some instances, and the other to
others, (i) These forms, or some of them, may have
belonged also to an older Ionic. Those who deny this
have to prove the negative, (ii) If originally peculiar to
Achaean (or old Aeolic), such forms may have been
adopted by old Ionian poetry because they were asso-
ciated, through Achaean lays, with epic composition. Pick's
theory of the late and wholesale transcription is altogether
incredible2. But, whether the original Homeric dialect
was Achaean or old Ionic, it may be granted that it had
undergone modifying influences at the hands of Ionian poets
and rhapsodes, tending to bring it somewhat nearer to the
later Ionic, and so increasing that appearance of a 'mixed
dialect ' which it now presents. A modernising process, in
1 If the Simonides is he of Amorgos (p. 88 n. 2), we are taken
back to 660 B.C.
2 Apart from that hypothesis, however, he has done good service
in promoting a closer study of the Homeric dialect. The question as to
how far the Aeolic in which he has clothed the epic is, or is not, possible
Aeolic, matters little : his version is given mainly for the purpose of
illustration. His Aeolic Odyssey has been reviewed by Christ in the
Philol. Anzeiger (xiv. 90—98), by Cauer in the Zeitschr. f. d. osterr.
Gymnas. (x. 290 — 311), and by Hinrichs in the Detitsch. Litteratur-
zeltung (1885 pp. 6 — 9), who are all opposed to the theory.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 147
this limited sense, was entirely compatible with the pre-
servation, in all main features, of its essentially ancient
character-,
46. The evidence of Homeric language has thus been
found to agree with the evidence furnished by the subject-
matter of the poems. Their claim to a high antiquity is con-
firmed. In connection with their age, there is a further ques- The tale
tion which must now be briefly noticed. We saw that, as a ^m™^
general picture of an early civilisation, the Homeric poetry histori-
has the value of history. But how much of historical fact cal*
can be supposed to reside in the story of the Trojan War?
The tale of Troy, as we have it in Homer, is essentially
a poetic creation ; and the poet is the sole witness. The Analogy
romance of Charlemagne embodies the historical fact m
w romance*
that an Emperor once ruled Western Europe from the
Eider to the Ebro. It also departs from history in send-
ing Charlemagne on a crusade to Jerusalem, because,
when the romance arose, a crusade belonged to the ideal of
chivalry. Analogy might suggest that an Achaean prince Limit of
had once really held a position like that of Agamemnon ;
also, that some Achaean expedition to the Troad had
occurred, whether this Achaean prince had himself borne
part in it or not. Both inferences are probable on other
grounds. Some memorable capture of a town in the Troad
had probably been made by Greek warriors ; beyond this
we cannot safely go. It is fantastic to treat the siege of
Troy as merely a solar myth, — to explain the abduction of
Helen by Paris as the extinction of the sunlight in the
WTest, and Troy as the region of the dawn beset and
possessed by the sunrise. It is equally fantastic, and more
illogical, to follow the 'rationalising' method — to deduct
the supernatural element, and claim the whole residuum as
historical fact. Homer says that Achilles slew Hector with
the aid of Athene. We are not entitled to omit Athene,
and still to affirm that Achilles slew Hector1.
1 See the article in the Edinburgh Review on Schliemann's flios,
No. CCCXiv., pp. 517 ff. (1881). Freeman's essay on 'The Mythical and
10 — 2
148 HOMER. [CH. IV.
47. After the recent excavations in the Troad, an im-
pression appeared to exist in some minds that the Homeric
narrative of the Trojan War had been proved historical,
because remains had been found which (it was alleged) might
be those of Troy. It is well, then, briefly to state the relation
between the evidence of the Homeric text and the evidence
of those excavations.
Site of The Iliad shows a personal acquaintance with the plain
TroT* of Tr°y' ancl w*th tne dominant features of the surrounding
landscape1. In the site of Troy, as described by Homer,
the capital feature is the acropolis, — 'lofty', 'windy',
'beetling', — with those precipitous crags over which it was
proposed to hurl the wooden horse2. This suits one site
Bunar- only m the Trojan plain, — that above the village of
bashi. Bunarbashi, on the lower slopes of the hills which fringe the
plain to the south. Here the hill called the Bali Dagh
rises some 400 feet above the plain, with sheer sides
descending on S. and S.W. to the valley of the Mendere
(Scamander). A little N.W. of Homeric Troy two natural
springs. sPrm§s rose- A nttle N.W. of Bunarbashi these springs
still exist, and no others like them exist anywhere else in
the plain. As Prof. Ernst Curtius well says, — 'This pair
Romantic Elements in Early English History ' is a lucid and excellent
statement of the critical principles applicable to such cases.
1 Cp. 'A Tour in the Troad' (Fortnightly Review, April, 1883,
p. 514^)' Perhaps the thing which most surprises a reader of
Homer is the absence of high mountains from the neighbourhood of the
Trojan plain. Ida (5700 feet) is only a pale blue form on the S.E.
horizon, some 30 miles away. The island peak of Samothrace (5,200
feet, 45 miles off to the N.W.) — Poseidon's watching-place, as Ida is
that of Zeus — is a more impressive feature of the view. In the plain can
still be found 'wheat-bearing' tracts (//. 21. 602), — the 'reedy marsh'
(Od. 14. 474) — 'elms, willows and tamarisks' (//. 21. 350); the cry of
the heron (//. 10. 274) may still be heard; an eagle 'of dark plumage'
(//. 24. 316) may still be seen there, — or cranes, leaving the Troad
for northern climes, 'when they have escaped the winter' (//. 3. 4).
2 Od. 8. 508, 77 Kara irerpawv pd\4eiv tptiaavras eif aKprjs. In
Troy, p. 18, Dr Schliemann 'most positively' asserted that Troy had no
acropolis.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 149
of rivulets is the immutable mark of nature, by which the
height towering above is recognised as the citadel of Ilium1/
Though the site at Bunarbashi has not yet been thoroughly
explored2, pottery has been found there which is referred to
1000 — 900 B.C.3 Since Le Chevalier's visit in 1785, the
striking features of agreement between Bunarbashi and the
Homeric picture of Troy — features unique in the Trojan
plain — have been emphatically recognised by a series of
the most competent observers, including Leake, Moltke,
Forchhammer, Kiepert, Ernst Curtius, and Tozer4. Leake
remarked that any person at all accustomed to observe the
sites of ancient Greek towns must fix on Bunarbashi 'for the
site of the chief place of the surrounding country.' The
same opinion was expressed to Prof. E. Curtius by Count
Moltke, — that 'he knew no other site in the Trojan plain for
a chief town of ancient time.'
48. The low mound of Hissarlik stands in the open His-
plain, about three miles from the Hellespont. It measures
some 325 yards by 235, and stands only some 112 feet above
the plain. This mound marks the site of a historical Greek
town, to which the first settlers gave the name of 'Ilium'
(perhaps about 700 B.C.), and which existed here down to
Roman times. In the mound have been discovered (i)
remains of this Greek town, (2) some prehistoric remains.
Dr Schliemann asserts that the prehistoric remains are those
of Homeric Troy. If this means that they represent a
prehistoric town which gave rise to the legend of Troy, the
assertion is one which can no longer be either proved or
disproved. No objects found at Hissarlik tend in the slightest
degree to prove it. On the other hand, one important fact
is certain. The low site at Hissarlik is in the strongest con-
1 History of Greece, vol. I. ch. iii. p. 79 (transl. Ward).
2 'Eine genaue Untersuchung hat noch nicht stattgefunden, so viel
ich weiss' (Prof. E. Curtius, in a letter of Feb. 9, 1884).
3 This is admitted by Dr Schliemann; Troja, p. 268.
4 See their testimonies in my article, ' Homeric Troy,' Fortnightly
Review, April, 1884, p. 447.
150 HOMER. [CH. IV.
trast with the site of spacious and ' lofty ' Troy as described
by Homer, while the site at Bunarbashi is as strikingly in
harmony with that description. The solitary phrase in the
Iliad which favours Hissarlik, — //. 20. 2i6f., where Ilios is
'in the plain,' — belongs to a passage which, as Dr Christ
has proved, is not only later than the bulk of the Iliad, but
is one of the latest additions of all, — having been added
by some dweller in the Troad, desirous of glorifying the
Aeneadae, after the Greek Ilium had been built in the plain1.
The Homeric hymn to Aphrodite, which also celebrates the
Aeneadae, is probably of the same age (the seventh century
B.C.), and from a kindred source. The Greek settlers at
Hissarlik naturally affirmed that their ' Ilium ' stood on the
site of Troy ; in proof of it, they showed the stone on which
Palamedes had played draughts. Their paradox, a mere
birth of local vanity, was as decisively rejected by sound
criticism in ancient as in modern times2.
Origin 49. The Homeric poet who created the Troy of the
Homeric -f^ad probably knew — personally, or by description — a strong
picture town at Bunarbashi as the ruling city of the surrounding
f' district. The legend of a siege, on which the Iliad is
founded, may, or may not, have arisen from the actual
siege of an older town at Hissarlik, which, in the poet's
day, had already perished. He would easily be led to
place the Troy of his poem in a position like that of the
existing city on the Bali Dagh. He would give it a 'lofty'
and 'beetling' acropolis. He would endow it with handsome
1 //. 20. 216 Krltrae d£ AapSavlrjv, eirel OUTTW "IXios I/XT) | £v TreSi'y irf~
iroXtfTTO. As Prof. Michaelis said early in 1884 (see Fortn. Revieiu,
April, 1884, p. 452), 'it would not be difficult to show that the whole
part in T in which Ilios £v TreSt'y TreTro'Xioro belongs to an £fj,j36\i/j.ov
which is not in good accord with the main part of the book.' Later in
the same year Christ's Iliad appeared. He shows (Proleg. p. 76) that
//. 20. 75—353 is one of the latest interpolations, due to a rhapsode 'qui
in agro Troiano magis quam in Musarum nemoribus versatus esse vide-
tur.' Its author has imitated various passages in bks. 5, 6, 12, 17, 21,
and even 8.
2 See the Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. III. pp. 203 — 217.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 151
buildings. His epic would reproduce the general course of
the rivers, and that striking feature, the natural springs at
the foot of the hill, just outside the city gates. Impressed
by the strength of the acropolis, — with its sheer precipices
descending to the narrow valley of the Scamander, and its
command of the plain stretching towards the Hellespont, —
he would see in this natural strength a confirmation of the
legend that the resistance of Troy to the united force of the
Achaeans had been prolonged and stubborn.
But, while the site at Bunarbashi thus supplied the
dominant features of his conception, he might also modify
the picture by traits taken from other scenes known to him,
or from imagination. His topography might be in some
measure eclectic, or even freely poetical1. With regard to
the tactical data — those furnished by the incidents of warfare
in the Iliad — they cannot be treated with the rigour applic-
able to a military history. It has been shown2, however,
that, if so treated, they are conclusive against the notion
that the poet imagined his Troy at Hissarlik, while on the
other hand they can be brought into general accord with the
site at Bunarbashi.3
We find, then, that the essentially poetical story of the
Trojan War, as presented by Homer, contains nothing
incompatible with the other evidence for the age of the
poems, but nothing, on the other hand, which can help to
fix that age by any definite relationships to historical fact.
50. The lost poems of the Epic Cycle require notice The
here, as they help to fix the lower limit for the age of the *?pl J
1 See my paper on 'The Ruins at Hissarlik,' Journ. Hellen. Stud.
in. pp. 192 ff.
2 By Mr George Nikolaides, in his 'IXtaSos Srpar^-yt/cr; Aiaovcew?
(1883), — a development of his earlier work, 'Topographic et plan strate-
gique de 1'Iliade.'
3 On the question of Bunarbashi versus Hissarlik, Prof. Michaelis
wrote to me in 1884;— 'Certainly, ^nrercu rj/j-ap orav TTOTC the full truth
will come to light; and I have little doubt that it will not be far from
what you have exposed in your articles in the Joiirnal of Hellenic
Studies.'
152 HOMER. [CH. IV.
Homeric poems.1 The Epic Cycle2 was a body of epic
poems by various hands, arranged in the chronological
order of the subjects, so as to form a continuous history
of the mythical world. It began with the marriage of
Heaven and Earth — whence sprang the Giants and the
Cyclopes — and went down to the slaying of Odysseus by his
son Telegonus.
When this body of epics was first put together, we do
not know. The earliest notice of it is due to a gram-
marian named Proclus,3 who lived probably about 140
A.D., and wrote a 'Manual of Literature' (X/^o-To/Aafltia
ypafjifji.aTLKTj)* In this manual he gave short prose summaries,
or ' arguments,' of the poems which formed the Epic Cycle.
Extant fragments of the manual give what he said about
the poems in one part of the Epic Cycle, — viz., the part
concerning the war of Troy.
1 See, on this subject, the papers by Mr Monro in the Journal of
Hellenic Studies, vol. IV. pp. 305 ff., vol. v. pp. i ff.
'ETTIKOS Kv'/cXos. The word KVK\OS meant: — (i) a routine, generally:
esp. in the language of the Homeric scholiasts, the conventional epic
manner: thus, a stock phrase, like 'A^cnon/ x<*?u OXITUVUV, is said to be
TOU /ci/c\ou: see Monro /. c. p. 329. (2) An epigram so made that the
first and last lines could change places, — as in the epitaph on the
tomb of Midas, Plat. Phaedr. 264 D. Aristotle has KVK\OS in this sense
(referring to some epigram ascribed to Homer in Soph. Elench. 10. 6).
(3) A comprehensive summaiy, whether in verse or prose; — as the
iffTopticbs KVK\OS (a prose outline of mythology) ascribed by Suidas to
Dionysius of Miletus. 'E-y/cuKAios iraidela, £yK. fj.a6r)fj.ara = s>im'p\y 'usual'
course of instruction, studies, &c. But KVK\IKOS commonly had a bad
sense, 'conventional, trite.' Esp. as epithet of poet or poem, it implied
(i) trite epic material, (2) epic mannerism, (3) a merely chronological
order of treatment: thus Callimachus tauntingly applied it to Apollonius
Rhodius (TO Tronj/ta TO KVK\IKOV Anthol. 12, 43), and Horace speaks of
a scriptor cyclicus who begins the Trojan war from the double egg
(Ars Poet. 135).
3 Conjecturally identified by Welcker with Eutychius Proclus of
Sicca, who taught the Emperor M. Antoninus.
The patriarch Photius (9th cent.), in his Bibliotheca, gives some
extracts from the XpTjcrTo/xctfleia, of Proclus, with an account of that
work, and of the Epic Cycle as epitomised therein.
4 The fragments are included in Gaisford's Hephaestion (new ed.,
Oxford, 1855).
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 153
51. The Trojan chapter of the Cycle contained eight Analysis
epics, Homer's Iliad standing second, and Homer's Odyssey ^ ^
seventh. The chief facts about the other epics may be Cycle.
i" most briefly and clearly shown in a tabular form.
1. Cypria (Kvirpia): n books. Author doubtful (Stasmus of Cy-
prus?). Date, circ. 776 B.C.
Subject: — Zeus resolves to reduce the burdens of the teeming earth
by a great war, and sends Discord to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.
'Judgment of Paris,' giving the prize to Aphrodite. Paris carries off
Helen. War of Troy down to the point at which Zeus resolves to
help the Trojans by withdrawing Achilles. Hero of the epic — Paris.
The Cypria seems to have been a sort of chronicle, beginning from the
first cause of the Trojan War, and going down to the point at
which the Iliad opens.
Non-Homeric traits: — Apotheosis of the Dioscuri who in Homer (//.
3. 243) are merely dead men. — Story of Iphigenia (whom the Cypria
distinguished from Homer's Iphianassa, //. 9. 145). Story of Pala-
medes. Helen is now the daughter of Nemesis — who, pursued by
Zeus, changes into many shapes to elude him. Cassandra has the gift
of prophecy, which Homer does not give to her.
2. Homer's Iliad.
3. Aethiopis (AWio-jris): 5 books. Author, Arctinus of Miletus,
'circ. 7/6 B.C.
Subject: — After the funeral of Hector (Iliad 24), the Amazon
queen, Penthesileia, comes to the aid of Troy. Her death. Exploits
and death of Memnon. Death of Achilles. Ajax and Odysseus con-
tend for his arms: the latter obtains them. Hero of the epic — Achilles.
Non-Homeric traits: — The worship of "men after their death as
'heroes' (Achilles and Memnon being made immortal). A ritual of
purification from the guilt of homicide, under the favour of Apollo
Kaddpffios.
4. Little Iliad ('IXids Mt/cpa) : 4 books. Author doubtful (Lesches
of Mitylene?). Date, circ. 700 B.C.
Subject: — Trojan war, from the award of the Achillean arms to
Odysseus, down to the capture of Troy: including the return and
healing of Philoctetes, and the episode of the wooden horse. Hero of
the epic — Odysseus. — The poem seems to have been directly inspired
by the tone of the Odyssey, and to have had more material in common
with Homer than any other of the Cyclic epics.
Non-Homeric traits : — The magic Palladium (image of Pallas), on
which the fate of Troy depends. Story of Sinon (Virg. Aeneid n).
Story of Aethra, mother of Theseus, carried off from Attica by the
Dioscuri.
154 HOMER. [CH. IV.
5. Iliupersis ('IXtou Trtptns) : i books. Author, Arctinus of Miletus,
circ. 776 B.C.
Subject: — The Trojans resolve to dedicate the wooden horse on
their acropolis. Laocoon and one of his sons are killed by serpents.
Aeneas and some followers, warned by this portent, retire from
Troy to Mount Ida. Fall of Troy. Departure of the Greeks.
Hero of the epic — Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles.
Non-Homeric traits: — Episode of Laocoon and flight of Aeneas.
Sacrifice of Priam's daughter, Polyxena, at the tomb of Achilles —
indicating hero-worship. Other points (as the stories of Sinon and
Aethra) are common to this poem and the Little Iliad.
6. Nostoi (Nooroi) : 5 books. Author, Agias of Troezen, circ. 750
B.C.
Subject: — The adventures of some heroes on their return from
Troy, — chiefly those of Meuelaus, who visits Egypt, and of Agamemnon,
who is slain by Clytaemnestra. The poem was a sort of tragic Odyssey,
bridging the passage from Homer to Aeschylus.
Non-Homeric traits: — Death of Calchas, on meeting a greater seer
than himself (Mopsus, at Colophon). Journey of Neoptolemus to
Epeirus — where the Molossi are first named. The shade of Achilles
warns Agamemnon of his doom. The enchantress Medea.
7. Homer's Odyssey.
8. Telegonia (TrjXeyovla): i books. Author, Eugammon of Cyrene,
circ. 566 B.C.
Subject: — Telegonus, son of the enchantress Circe by Odysseus,
unwittingly slays his father in Ithaca. Made aware of his sin, he
takes his sire's corpse, with Telemachus and Penelope, to his mother.
She makes the living immortal : Telegonus is wedded to Penelope,
and Telemachus to Circe.. In the earlier part, Odysseus was made to
marry a Thesprotian queen, Callidice. Here is seen the wish to work
in genealogies of families claiming descent from Odysseus.
Sum- 52. The foregoing sketch shows that some of the
iary' earliest Cyclic epics, dating from circ. 7766.0., presuppose
the Iliad, being planned to introduce or to continue it. In
some copies the Cyclic Aethiopis was actually pieced on to
the twenty-fourth book of the Iliad1. But that book was
certainly one of the later additions to the epic. It would
1 The last verse of the Iliad (24. 804) is us 61 y dpfoeirov rd(f>ov
"EKTopos linroSa.fj.oLo. The Aethiopis was linked to it by reading, us o'i
y dfj-fpie-rrov rd(f)ov "E/cropos • f}\0e 8' 'A.jj.a£u>v, \ "Aprjos OvyaT-qp /j.eya-
X^ropos dvdpo<f>6i>oio. This is mentioned in the Victorian scholia on the
Iliad (p. 101, n. i). Cp. Welcker, Epic Cycle, II. 170.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 155
appear, then, that the Iliad must have existed, in something
like its present compass, as early as 800 B.C.; indeed, a con-
siderably earlier date will seem probable, if due time is
allowed for the poem to have grown into such fame as
would incite the effort to continue it. As compared with
the Iliad and Odyssey, the Cyclic epics show the stamp of a
later age (a) in certain ideas, — as hero-worship, purifying
rituals, etc. : (b} in a larger circle of geographical knowledge,
and a wider range of mythical material.
The external evidence of the Epic Cycle thus confirms
the twofold internal evidence of Homeric matter and
Homeric language. The bulk of the Homeric poems must be
older than 800 B. c., although some particular additions to
them are later.
53. We may now collect the results of the preceding General
inquiry, and consider how far they warrant any definite con- JesuS °
elusions respecting the origin of the Homeric poems. The
Iliad must be taken separately from the Odyssey.
At the outset, the ground may be partly cleared by Views
setting aside two extreme views, which few persons, ^^be
acquainted with the results of recent criticism, would now rejected,
maintain. One of these is the theory with which Lachmann's
name is especially associated, — that the Iliad has been
pieced together out of short lays which were not originally
connected by any common design (§ 14). The other is the
theory which was generally prevalent down to Wolf's time,
— that the Iliad is the work of one poet, Homer, as the
Aeneid is the work of Virgil. In England, if nowhere else,
this view is still cherished, though more often, perhaps, as a
sentiment than as an opinion. Most Englishmen have
been accustomed to read the Iliad with delight in the spirit
of the whole, rather than with attention to the characteristics
of different parts. This, too, is the way in which modern
poets have usually read Homer ; and as, consequently, the
poets have mostly believed in Homeric unity, an impression
has gained ground, especially in England, that throughout
156 HOMER. [CH. IV.
the Homeric poems there exists a personal unity of genius,
which men of poetical genius can feel, and which is
infinitely more significant than those discrepancies of detail
with which critics occupy themselves. This popular im-
pression has been strengthened by a special cause,
Decep- 54. The traditional style of Ionian epos — developed in
unity of t^ie course of generations — gives a general uniformity of
the epic effect which is delusive. The old Ionic, with its wealth of
liquid sounds, with its union of softness and strength, was
naturally fitted to render the epic hexameter musical, rapid,
and majestic Epic usage had gradually shaped a large
number of phrases and formulas which constantly recur
in like situations, without close regard to circumstances
which distinguish one occasion from another1. An Ionian
poet who wished to insert an episode in the Iliad had this
epic language at command. Even if his natural gifts were
somewhat inferior to those of the poet whose work he was
enlarging, the style would go far to veil the inequality. Mr
Matthew Arnold says: — 'The insurmountable obstacle to
believing the Iliad a consolidated work of several poets is
this — that the work of great masters is unique ; and the Iliad
has a great master's genuine stamp, and that stamp is the
grand style? Now, ' the grand style ' spoken of here, in so
far as it can be claimed for the whole epic, is simply the
Ionian style of heroic epos. If we look closer, we see that
the manner of the tenth book, for instance, is unlike that
of the rest ; the twenty-fourth book, and some other books
or passages, have traits of style which are their own; the
'Catalogue' is distinct in style from its setting. Suppose that
the poems of the Epic Cycle had been extant as one work
under Homer's name, with no record of their several authors.
The 'grand style' could doubtless have been claimed for
that work ; not, perhaps, in an equal degree with the Iliad t
but still in a sense which could have furnished an argument
like the above for unity of authorship. On the other hand,
1 According to Carl Eduard Schmidt, the sum of the repeated
verses in the two epics amounts to sixteen thousand.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 157
this traditional epic style imposes a special caution on all
precise theories of composite authorship. It makes it harder
to say exactly where one hand ceases and another begins.
55. Yet the defenders of Homeric unity may find com- Conser-
fort in the thought that, if the old form of their faith has be- vatj,ve
tendency
come untenable, much of its essence has been preserved of recent
and reinvigorated. In the doctrine of Wolf himself, as we studies'
have seen, the analytic element was tempered by a strongly
conservative element ; he conceded to Homer * the greater
part of the songs,' and an influence which guided the
composition of the rest. The analytic element in his theory
was that which arrested attention, because, when it was
published, it was sharply contrasted with the old belief in
one Homer; and hence his work has often been associated
with a purely destructive tendency which was quite foreign
to its spirit. The great result of recent criticism has been
to develope the conservative element in Wolf's doctrine;
not, however, exactly in Hermann's way, but by adjusting
it to the more correct point of view taken by Nitzsch, —
that the original Iliad was already an epic poem, and not
merely the lay of a primitive bard.
56. Everything tends to show that the Iliad was planned
by one great poet, who also executed the most essential parts
of it. By the * primary ' Iliad we shall here denote the The
first form which the poet probably gave to his work, as
distinguished from the enlarged form afterwards given to
it, partly (perhaps) by himself, partly by others.
There is no doubt that the first book of the exist-
ing Iliad formed the beginning of the primary Iliad. The
probable compass of the primary poem may best be judged
by the nature of the theme from which it sets out, — a
quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon. Such a feud
between two prominent heroes is found elsewhere as a
popular motif of epic song. The minstrel Demodocus (Od.
8. 75) sang 'a lay whereof the fame had then reached the
wide heaven ; namely the quarrel between Odysseus and
Achilles, son of Peleus, how once on a time they contended
158 HOMER. [CH. IV.
in fierce words at a rich festival of the gods ; but Agamem-
non, king of men, was inly glad, when the noblest of the
Achaeans fell at variance.' Such a subject would give
scope for brilliant speeches, exhibiting the general character-
Special istics of the disputants. The poet who planned the Iliad,
tagesT" — whether he had, or had not, poetical precedent for taking
of the a quarrel between heroes as his subject, — was presumably
subject, original jn his perception of the peculiar advantage which
belonged to his choice of persons. A grievance against a
subordinate chief would not have warranted Achilles in
withdrawing his aid from the whole Greek army. But
Agamemnon, as supreme leader, represented the Greek
army : when wronged by Agamemnon, Achilles had excuse
for making the quarrel a public one. And the retirement
of the most brilliant Greek hero, Achilles, left the Greeks
at a disadvantage, thus creating an opportunity for the
efforts of minor Greek heroes, and also for the pictures of a
doubtful warfare.
57. Unless, then, we are prepared to assume that the
Poet w^° san§ 'tne wratn of Achilles' was insensible to the
'Iliad' special capabilities of his theme, we can scarcely refuse to
first. believe that his epic was more than an ' Achilleid,' cele-
brating a merely personal episode. It must have been,
from the first, an * Iliad/ including some general descrip-
tion of that struggle between Greeks and Trojans in which
a new crisis was occasioned by the temporary withdrawal of
Achilles. Precisely the distinction of the poet's invention
(I conceive) was the choice of a moment which could
combine the personal interest of a feud between two heroes
with the variety and splendour of large battle-scenes.
Its And the plot of this primary Iliadt as foreshadowed in
compass, the first book, must have comprised the following series of
events. Agamemnon wrongs Achilles, who retires from the
war. Zeus promises Thetis that he will avenge her son by
causing the Greeks to be discomfited. The tide of fortune
presently turns in favour of the Trojans; the Greeks are
hard pressed, and, in attempting to succour them, Patroclus
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 159
is slain. The death of his friend rouses Achilles; he is
reconciled to Agamemnon, and, after doing great deeds
against the Trojans, slays their foremost champion, Hector.
These events are contained in books i, n, and 16 to 22
inclusive, which probably represent the substance of the
primary Iliad, — allowance being made for later interpola-
tions, large or small, in books 16 — 22. In this primary
Iliad, the turning-point is book n, which relates the
discomfiture of the Greeks, in accordance with the promise
of Zeus.
58. We may now ask how this primary Iliad would Enlarge-
have been viewed by a poet — whether the first, or another — ^nt '
who desired to enlarge it without materially altering the plot, primary
Two places in it would naturally recommend themselves, in
preference to others, for the insertion of new matter ; viz.,
the place between books i and u, and that between books
ii and 1 6. But it is also evident that, of these two places,
the former would be a poet's first choice. The purpose of
Zeus to humiliate the Greeks might well be represented as
effecting itself only gradually, and by a process consistent
with vicissitudes of fortune. Thus there was no poetical
necessity that book i should be closely followed by
book ii.
The general contents of books 2 to 7 inclusive agree Books
with the supposition that this group represents the earliest 2 to 7'
series of additions made (not all at one time or by one
hand) to the primary Iliad. From book 2 we except the
'Catalogue,' which was a much later interpolation. The
older part of book 2 contains the deceptive dream sent by
Zeus, which fills Agamemnon with hopes of victory, and
beguiles him into preparing for battle ; the Council of the
chiefs ; and the Assembly of the army. Books 3 and 4 are
closely connected, the main subjects being the truce
between Greeks and Trojans, and the single combat of
Menelaus and Paris, which has no decisive issue, Paris
being saved by Aphrodite. Books 5 and 6, again, hang
together, the prowess of Diomede being the central theme,
l6o HOMER. [CH. IV.
In book 7 we have a second duel, — this time between
Ajax and Hector, — which, like the former, is indecisive, —
the combatants making gifts to each other at the end of it.
Then the Greeks bury their dead, and build the wall at
their camp.
The general characteristic of these six books (2 — 7) is
that we have a series of detached episodes, while 'the pur-
pose of Zeus,' announced in book i, remains in suspense.
Books 59. Different and more difficult conditions had to be
I5< satisfied by any new work which should be inserted in the
other manifestly available place, — viz., between book n and
book 1 6. Zeus having utterly discomfited the Greeks in
book u, poetical fitness set a limit to the interval which
could be allowed to elapse before Patroclus, the precursor
of Achilles, should come to the rescue in book 16. And as
the end of book 1 1 already forms a climax — the distress of
the Greeks being extreme — in adding anything between
that point and book 16 it was necessary to avoid an
anti-climax. These requirements are fulfilled by the Battle
at the Camp, told in books 12, 13, 14 and 15. It is the
last desperate defence of the Greeks. The Trojans are
rushing on to burn the ships. Ajax can barely keep the
foes at bay. Then, at the supreme crisis, Patroclus arrives,
in the armour of Achilles.
These four books (12 — 15), apart from some interpo-
lations, possess all the intrinsic qualities of great poetry.
The best proof of it is that, though the struggle is thus
drawn out, our interest in it does not flag. When, however,
the Iliad is read continuously, it is difficult to resist the
belief that book 1 1 was originally designed to be followed
more closely by book 16. Books 12 to 15, thus read,
impress the mind rather as a skilful and brilliant ex-
pansion.
60. Our primary Iliad, consisting of books i, n, and
1 6 to 22, has now been enlarged by the accession of these
two groups; books 2 — 7 before book 11, and books 12 — 15
after it. The original plot preserves its simplicity. The
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. l6l
only difference is that the purpose of Zeus is now delayed,
and the agony of the Greeks is prolonged.
Let us next suppose that a poet, conscious especially of Books
rhetorical gifts, found the Iliad in this enlarged form. If 8 and 9'
he wished to insert some large piece of his own work, how
could he best proceed, without injury to the epic frame-
work? The part between books n and 16 would no longer
tolerate any considerable amplification. If, again, the series
of episodes between books i and n should be merely
extended, the effect would be tedious, and the delay in 'the
purpose of Zeus' would appear excessive.
But another resource remained. Without fundamentally
changing the plot, it was possible to duplicate it. The
Greeks might be twice discomfited. After the first reverse,
they might sue for help to Achilles — and be rejected; — an
episode full of splendid opportunities for poetical eloquence
and pathos. If such an episode were to be added, the right
place for it evidently was immediately before the original
(now to be the second) discomfiture of the Greeks in book n.
The poet who conceived this idea added books 8 and 9
to the Iliad. Book 10 did not yet exist.
6 1. Books 23 and 24 form a sequel. They are con- Books
cerned with a subject always of extreme interest to Greek 23 an^
hearers — as, at a later period, the Attic dramatists so often 4
remind us — the rendering of due burial rites to the chief
hero slain on either side, Patroclus and Hector. The
episode of the funeral games in book 23 (from v. 257 to the
end) was certainly a separate addition, and is probably
much later than the preceding part of that book, which
relates the burial of Patroclus. The case of books 23 and
24 differs in one material respect from that of the other
books which we have been considering in the light of
additions to the primary Iliad. If books 23 and 24 are
viewed simply in relation to the plot, there is no reason
why they should not have belonged to the primary Iliad
itself. It is the internal evidence of language and style
which makes this improbable. Book 24 is in many ways so
J. ii
162 HOMER. [CH. IV-
fine, and forms so fitting a conclusion to the Iliad, that
Dr Christ would ascribe it either to the first poet himself,
or to a successor executing his design. A hint of that
design may (it is suggested) be found in book 23, where
the gods protect the corpse of Hector from disfigurement
(184 — 191). On this view, books 23 and 24 would at least
be' decidedly older than book 9.
These three books, however, have several traits in
common with each other, and with the Odyssey, which
distinguish them from the undoubtedly older parts of the
Relation Iliad, And I am disposed to think that book 24, at least,
° t°° < was mainly composed by the author of book 9. This view
book 9. is confirmed by a comparison of the speeches in the two
books, especially in regard to a particular trait — the
rhetorical enumeration of names of places in passages
marked by strong feeling1. A certain emotional character,
more easily felt than defined, pervades both books ; and in
both the conception of Achilles has distinctive features.
The love of contrast as a source of effect, which can be
traced in book 9, is equally present in book 24, where the
helpless old king supplicates the young warrior. And book
24 is itself a brilliant antithesis to book 9. The great
rhetorical poet who had shown Achilles inexorable to the
Achaean chiefs may have wished to paint a companion
picture, and to show him relenting at the prayer of the aged
Priam2.
Book jo. 62. All those parts of the Iliad which have thus far
been considered must be older than tire. 850 — 800 B.C.
Book 10 remains. As we have already seen (§ 18), it has a
stamp of its own, which clearly marks it as a later work,
1 E.g., with 9. 149 ff. and 381 f. I would compare 24. 544 ff.
2 Space precludes me from here developing in detail the resem-
blances between the two books. But I may refer to the five verses
which describe Achilles in his tent, as he is found by the Greek envoys,
(9. 186 — 191). Compare these with the five verses which describe him
in his tent as he is found by Priam (24. 471 — 476). While neither
passage imitates the other, the same mind can be felt in both.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 163
referable, perhaps, to arc. 750 — 600 B.C. A similar age The
may be assigned to ' the greater interpolations.' This name Sreater
will conveniently describe a class of passages which differ lations.
much in style and merit, — some of them containing parts of
great intrinsic brilliancy, — but which have one general
characteristic in common. Each of them presents the
appearance of a separate effort by a poet who elaborated a
single episode in a vein suited to his own resources, and
then inserted it in the Iliad, without much regard to the
interests of the epic as a whole. In this general character
we may recognise the mark of a period when the higher epic
art was declining, while poetical rhetoric and ingenuity
found their favourite occupation in giving an elaborate finish
to shorter pieces.
The following passages come under this class, (i) In
book 9, the episode of Phoenix, vv. 432 — 619 — where the
desire to tell the story of Meleager was one of the motives.
(2) In book n, the interview between Nestor and Patroclus,
vv. 596 — 848, or at least so much of it as is comprised in
665 — 762. (3) In book 18, the making of the armour of the
Achilles, vv. 369 — end. (4) The Theomachia, in book 20,
vv. 4 — 380, (including the combat of Aeneas and Achilles,
vv. 75 — 352, in which Aeneas is saved by Poseidon,) and
in book 21, 383 — end. (5) In book 23^ the funeral games,
vv. 257 — end. (6) The case of the 'Catalogue' in book 2
is peculiar. The list of the Greek forces (484 — 779) was
mainly the work of a Boeotian poet of the Hesiodic school,
and was probably composed long before it was inserted in
the Iliad. The list of the Trojan forces (816 — 877) seems
to have been a later adjunct to it by a different hand.
The above list might be enlarged if we included all the
passages, of any considerable extent, which have with more
or less reason been regarded as interpolations. But here
we must be content to indicate some of the more important
and more certain examples. Interpolations of the smaller
kind, which have been numerous throughout the Iliad, do
not fall within the scope of the present survey.
II 2
164 HOMER. [CH. IV.
Sum- 63. Thus, when the several parts of the Iliad are
theories considered in relation to each other and to the whole, the
of addi- result is such as to suggest that the primary Iliad has been
ms' enlarged by a series of additions, made at successive periods.
To the earliest period belong those additions which are
represented by books 2 to 7 and 12 to 15. To the next
period belong, probably, books 8, 9, 23 (to v. 256), and 24.
To the last period belong book 10 and the greater inter-
polations.
Age and It may now be asked how far it is possible to conjec-
ongm of ture the approximate age of the primary Iliad, and what
mary relations of age and authorship probably subsist between
lhad. it an(} the additions of the earliest period.
Achilles is a Thessalian hero, of the time when Achaean
princes ruled in Peloponnesus and over a great part of
northern Greece. The saga which the Iliad embodies un-
doubtedly belongs to Greece Proper, and to the Achaean
age. The Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus caused a
displacement of Achaean population, and impelled that
tide of emigration from Greece Proper which resulted in
the settlement of Greek colonies on the western coasts of
Asia Minor. The eleventh century B. c. is the period
traditionally assigned to this movement.
The Ionian emigrants certainly carried with them the
Achaean legend of the Iliad. But in what shape did they
carry it ? As a legend not yet expressed in song ? Or as
a legend which the Achaean bards of Greece Proper had
already embodied in comparatively rude and short lays ?
Or, lastly, as a poem of matured epic form — our Iliad, or
the more essential parts of it ?
Argu- 64. It is the last answer which is usually intended
SenEu°r when <the Eur°Pean origin' of the Iliad is affirmed,
ropean Arguments in favour of the European origin have recently
origm* been advanced by Mr Monro, to the following effect \
1 'Homer and the Early History of Greece,' in the English His-
torical Review, No. i, Jan., 1886.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 165
Two strata of mythical, or mythico-historical, narrative Two
can be distinguished in the Iliad. First, there are the
heroes of the Trojan war. Secondly, there are heroes in the
whom local traditions in Greece connect with an age before Iliad'
the Trojan war. Thus, in the time of the war, Corinth and
Sicyon are under the rule of Agamemnon. But there are
also notices of an earlier time, when Corinth had been
subject to the dynasty represented by Sisyphus, and Sicyon
to the dynasty represented by Adrastus. Now, if the Iliad
arose in Greece Proper, it is natural that the poet who
knew the legends of Agamemnon's empire should also
know the older local legends, and should be able to use
botli sets of legends without confusing them. But, if the
Iliad arose in Asia Minor, it is improbable that the Ionian
colonists, who carried the Achaean legends over with them,
should also have preserved a distinct memory of the older
local legends.
65. In estimating this argument, I would suggest that Estimate
the intellectual feat performed by the Ionian colonists, on °™J_1S
the hypothesis of an Asiatic origin for the Iliad, seems ment.
scarcely so difficult as the argument implies. The legends
of the Trojan war were presumably not the only legends
which Ionian emigrants would carry with them from Greece
to Asia. They would know also the more famous local
legends of Greece, such as those concerning Sisyphus of
Corinth, Adrastus of Sicyon, or the Perseid kings of Argos.
The references in the Iliad to such local legends are
extremely slight, being almost limited, indeed, as a rule, to
the mention of names. Such knowledge might very easily
have been preserved by tradition through several generations
of colonists. But suppose that the knowledge shown were
much fuller and more precise than it actually is : still the
particular difficulty in question — that of keeping two sets of
legends distinct — would exist only if the legends of the
Trojan war conflicted with the local legends in such a
manner that the latter would have been likely to be
obscured by the greater popularity of the former, unless
l66 HOMER. [CH. IV.
kept fresh by actual residence in or near the places con-
cerned. In the Iliad, however, there is no conflict of this
nature between two sets of legends. At the most, there is a
distinction between Achaean and pre-Achaean dynasties.
And, further, the clear evidence for this distinction is
confined to the Catalogue of the Greek forces. It is only
the Catalogue, for example, that represents Agamemnon as
ruling directly over Corinth, and over Sicyon, 'where
Adrastus formerly reigned1.' From the rest of the Iliad it
appears only that Agamemnon has the seat of his empire at
Mycenae, and exercises the authority of a suzerain over a
number of subordinate kings and chiefs. Apart from the
Catalogue, nothing in the Iliad is incompatible with the
supposition that the immediate ruler of Corinth, under the
emperor Agamemnon, was a king claiming descent from
Sisyphus, or of Sicyon, a king claiming descent from
Adrastus. But the Catalogue of the Greek forces was
unquestionally composed in Boeotia, long before it was
inserted in the Iliad. So far, then, as a distinction between
Achaean and pre-Achaean dynasties is clearly marked, it is
due to a poet who was certainly composing in Greece Proper.
The ar- 66. More force belongs (in my opinion) to another
from611 head of argument used by Mr Monro, which concerns
Homeric inferences that may be drawn from Homeric silence, es-
silence.
1 //. 2. 572. The mention of Sisyphus is in //. 6. 153. — Other
instances are the following, (i) Diomede is king of Argos in the
Catalogue (2. 563). The reign of Proetus at Argos is alluded to in
6. 157. Sthenelus, son of Perseus, and Eurystheus, son of Sthenelus,
are referred to as kings of Argos in 19. 116 flf. (Dr Christ regards 19.
90—356 as a later interpolation.) (2) The Catalogue makes Thoas
leader of the Aetolians, — remarking that Oeneus and his sons were now
dead: 2. 638 ff. (3) The Catalogue mentions Eurytus as a former
king of Oechalia (2. 596), but represents the contingent from Oechalia
as led by the sons of Asclepius, — Podaleirius and Machaon (2. 732). — As
to Castor and Polydeuces, the Iliad simply notices the fact of their
having died (3. 237). Neither in it nor in the Odyssey (u. 299) do they
appear as representing a dynasty of kings, anterior to the Pelopid
dynasty which began with Menelaus.
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 167
pecially on three points, (i) Several of the Ionian colonies
in Asia Minor claimed to have been founded by Neleidae,
descendants of the Homeric Nestor. These Neleidae, the
lonians said, had removed from Pylus to Athens. But the
Homeric poems nowhere connect Nestor's family with
Athens. If the Iliad had been shaped in the Ionian
colonies, the link between Pylus and Athens would probably
have been supplied, (ii) The name ' Ionian ' occurs once
(in the Iliad\ and ' Dorian ' once (in the Odyssey] ; the
name 'Aeolian ' is unknown to Homer. These tribal names
could hardly have failed to be more prominent if the poems
had arisen in Asia Minor, (iii) The Greek colonies in Asia
Minor are ignored by the Homeric poems. Even the
sequel of the Trojan war concerns European Greece alone.
No Homeric hero returns to Aeolis or Ionia. In one of
the Cyclic poems (the NO'CTTOI), on the other hand, Calchas
goes to Colophon.
67. What all this tends to show is, that the events, Infer-
persons and names of the Trojan legend had been fixed, 1°""""
from a time before the Ionian emigration, in such a manner fixity of
that poets could no longer venture to innovate in any
essential matter. Suppose, for instance, that a poet living
in Asia Minor wished to create Homeric honours for his
city or its founders. He could not do so, because every one
knew that the authentic Homer did not recognise that city
or those persons.
The question is, then, — Would this degree of fixity have
been already secured, if the Achaean legends had come to
Asia Minor, not yet in a matured epic form, but only in the
shape of comparatively rude Aeolian lays, which the Ionian
poets afterwards used as material ?
This is difficult to believe. It seems to me hardly
possible to explain the sustained resistance of the Homeric
legend to the intrusion of patriotic anachronisms except on
the supposition that its form had already been fixed, in the
greater lines, before it arrived in Ionia. And Dr Geddes
has shown very fully how strong are the marks of a Thessa-
1 68 HOMER. [CH. IV.
Thes- lian origin in certain parts of the Iliad. The area over
salian which he traces them is that of Grote's ' Achilleid ', — books
marks
in the i, 8, and ii to 22. But it will be found, I think, that the
primary area within which such marks are clearest is the more
Iliad,
limited one of our 'primary Iliad,' — books i, n, and 16
to 22.
The 68. These conditions of the problem would be satisfied
primary by a hypothesis which, if it cannot claim to be more, has at
perhaps least a considerable degree of probability in its favour. A
Thes- p0et; Hying in Northern Greece may have composed the
salian. - . . .... .
substance of the pnmary Jhad^ — books i, 11, and those
parts of books 16 to 22 which are essential to the plan of
the epic. His work may have been done in the eleventh
century B.C. The epic would then be brought by emigrants
from Greece to Asia Minor with its form already fixed to an
extent which would exercise a general control over subsequent
enlargements. The silence of the Iliad on the points noticed
above would be explained.
The It is impossible to say with any exactness what would
after01 ^ave ^een ^e comP^exi°n of the dialect used by a Thessalian
wards 1- poet circ. iioo — 1000 B.C. But it is at least certain that it
onicised. wouid have had a large number of word-forms in common
with the Aeolic of the historical age, since Aeolic was the
most conservative of the dialects in regard to the oldest
forms of the language. The original, or Achaean, dialect of
the Iliad would in Ionia be gradually modified under loni-
cising influences, through Ionian poets who enlarged the
epic, and rhapsodes who recited it. It would thus by
degrees assume that aspect of a 'mixed dialect' — Ionic, but
with an Aeolic tinge — which it now presents, and which
suggested Fick's theory of a translation from Aeolic into
Ionic.
Ancient 69. Such a modification of dialect would not, however,
suffice to explain the belief, practically universal in ancient
Asiatic Greece, which associated 'Homer' with the western coasts
Homer. of ^sja Minon T/his is a fact with which we have to reckon ;
and it is one which the advocates of a European Homer
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 169
have often esteemed too lightly. The general belief of
ancient Greece has a significance which remains unimpaired
by the rejection of local legends connecting Homer with
particular cities. The case is not that of a chain which can
be no stronger than its weakest link. The general belief
did not rest on the aggregate of local legends. Rather, the
several local claimants were emboldened to display their
usually slender credentials, because, while no one knew the
precise birth-place of Homer, most people were agreed that
he belonged to Asia Minor. We know, too, that, from
about 800 B.C., at least, Ionia was pre-eminently fertile in
epic poetry. It was also the mother-country of that poetry
which came next after the epic in order of development,
the elegiac and iambic.
70. The Asiatic claim to Homer seems, however, The Eu-
entirely compatible with the European origin of the Iliad. r°Pean
The earliest additions are probably represented, as we have be re-
seen, by the older parts of books 2 to 7. In these books ^SSf1
we can trace a personal knowledge of Asia Minor. It is in Asiatic,
them, too, that we meet with Sarpedon and Glaucus, the
leaders of the southern Lycians (cp. § 22), whose prominence
is probably due to the reputed lineage of some Ionian
houses. Book 12, again, shows local knowledge of Asia
Minor; Sarpedon and Glaucus figure in it; and it coheres
closely with books 13, 14, and 15. The older parts of
books 2 to 7, and 12 to 15, may have been added in Ionia
at a very early date. Books 8, 9, 23 (to v. 256), and 24 —
in parts of which Ionian traits occur — were also of Ionian
authorship, and can hardly be later than 850 — 800 B.C.
Thus, while the primary Iliad was Thessalian, the
enlarged Iliad would have been known, from a high
antiquity, as Ionian.
71. In books 2 to 7 (excluding the Catalogue) at least Author-
two poets have wrought. In book 3 it is proposed to decide the ear-
the war by a combat of two heroes, which takes place, but }ier en"
lar^e-
is indecisive: book 7 repeats the incident, only with different ments.
1 70 HOMER. [CH. IV.
persons. Both episodes cannot be due to the same hand,
and that in book 7 is probably the original. Can the earlier
poet of these books be the original poet of the primary Iliad,
working under the influences of a new home in Ionia? It
is possible ; and the possibility must be estimated from an
ancient point of view: the ancient epic poet composed with
a view to recitation; only limited portions of his work could
be heard at a time; and he would feel free to add new
episodes, so long as they did not mar his general design.
But, though possible, it seems very improbable, if the primary
Iliad was indeed a product of Northern Greece. A poet
who had migrated thence would have been unlikely to show
such sympathy with Ionian life and tradition as can be traced
in the allusions and persons of these books.
With regard to books 12 to 15, many features of their
economy, as well as the pervading style and spirit, seem to
warrant the opinion that their author, or authors, though
highly gifted, had no hand in the primary Iliad. Whether
he, or they, bore any part in the composition of books
2 to 7, there is nothing to show. Judging by the evidence
of style and tone, I should say, probably not. We have
seen that books 8 and 9 may be assigned to a distinct
author, who probably composed also the older parts of 24,
and perhaps of 23.
Predo- 72. If, however, the primary Iliad is rightly ascribed to
minant one pOet} the attempt to define the partnership of different
cance of hands in the enlargement has only a diminished interest; as
the first jt can have, at best, only a very indecisive result However
eminent were the gifts of the enlargers, it is to the poet of
the primary Iliad t if to any one, that the name of Homer
belongs, so far as that epic is concerned. It seems vain to
conjecture what relations existed between this first poet and
the enlargers of his work. There is no real evidence for a
clan or guild of 'Homeridae,' whom many critics (including
Dr Christ) have conceived as poets standing in some
peculiarly near relationship to Homer, and as, in a manner,
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 17 1
the direct inheritors of his art, in contradistinction to later
and alien poets or rhapsodes who also contributed to the
Iliad. As to the original 'rhapsodies' or cantos in which
the poem was composed, every attempt to determine their
precise limits is (in my belief) foredoomed to failure. In
some particular instances the result may be accurate, or
nearly so. But a complete dissection of the Iliad into cantos
must always be largely guess-work.
73. The argument noticed above, derived from Homeric
silence regarding the Asiatic colonies and the tribal names, O.nSin
applies to the Odyssey no less than to the Iliad. From a Odyssey.
date prior to the settlement of the Asiatic colonies the form
of the story was probably so far fixed as to preclude such
references.
It appears probable that the original 'Return of Odysseus'
was a poem of small compass, composed, before the Ionian
migration, in Greece Proper, though not with any close
knowledge of Ithaca and the western coasts (cp. p. 44).
Having been brought to Ionia by the colonists, it was there
greatly enlarged.
74. The broad difference between the case of the Iliad Ionian
and that of the Odyssey may be expressed by saying that the devel°P-
latter, in its present form, is far more thoroughly and the
characteristically Ionian. One cause of this may be that Poem-
the original 'Return of Odysseus' — native to Greece Proper
— bore a much less important relation to the final Ionian
form of the poem than the primary Thessalian Iliad bore to
the Ionian enlargement. This, indeed, would almost follow
from the respective natures of the two themes, if the com-
pass of the primary Iliad was rightly indicated above (§ 57).
The original 'Return of Odysseus' secured fixity of general
conception sufficiently to exclude allusions to the Ionian
colonies, and the like. But it left a much larger scope for
expansion, under specially Ionian influences, than the
primary Iliad had left. The subject of the Odyssey was
essentially congenial to lonians, with their love of maritime
172 HOMER. [CH. IV.
adventure, and their peculiar sympathy with the qualities
personified in the hero. The poem shows a familiar know-
ledge of Delos — the sacred island to which lonians annually
repaired for the festival of Apollo — and of the Asiatic coast
adjacent to Chios. Still more significant is the Ionian
impress which the Odyssey bears as a whole, — in the tone of
thought and feeling, in the glimpses of distant voyages,
and in the gentle graces of domestic life.
Author- 75. While few careful readers can doubt that the Odyssey,
p* as it stands, has been put together by one man, there are
parts which more or less clearly reveal themselves as additions
to an earlier form of the poem: especially the 'Telemachy'
(books i — 4), the latter part of book 23 (from v. 297), and
book 24. I believe, with Kirchhoff, that the original
'Return' existed in an enlarged Ionian form, before the
present, or finally enlarged, form was given to it by another
and later Ionian hand. But I much doubt whether the
original limits of the 'Return', and of the first enlargement,
can now be determined.
Rela- 76. If any reliance can be placed on internal evidence, it
tions may be taken as certain that the poet of the primary Iliad
Iliad. had no share in the authorship of the Odyssey. The differ-
ences of style, versification, and spirit are not merely of a
nature which could be explained by difference of subject;
the more these differences are considered, the more con-
vincingly do they attest the workings of a different mind.
It is, however, quite possible, and not improbable, that
the Ionian poet (or poets) who enlarged the Odyssey had
a hand in the enlargement of the Iliad. But, though un-
mistakeable affinities of language and manner can be traced
between the Odyssey and later parts of the Iliad (especially
books 9 and 24), we still seem to be left without adequate
evidence on which to found a presumption of personal
identity.
Age of with regard to the age of the Odyssey, we may sup-
Odyssey. Pose lnat tne original 'Return' was composed in Greece
CH. IV.] THE HOMERIC QUESTION. 173
Proper as early as the eleventh century B.C., and that the
first enlargement had been made before 850 B.C. The
Cyclic Little Iliad (arc. 700 B.C.) showed the influence of
the Odyssey ; but the only Cyclic poem which implies an
Odyssey complete in its present compass is the Telegonia,
which dated only from the earlier half of the sixth century
B.C. It cannot be shown, then, that Kirchhoff has gone too
low in assigning circ. 660 B.C. as the date of the second
enlargement.
77. In the foregoing pages the endeavour has been to Conclu-
present a connected view of the probabilities concerning su
the Homeric question, as they now appear to me. That
view differs, as a whole, from any which (so far as I know)
has yet been stated, but harmonises several elements which
have been regarded as essential by others. Care has been
taken to distinguish at each step (as far as possible) between
what is reasonably certain, and what is only matter of
conjecture, recommended by a greater or less degree of
likelihood. The limits within which any definite solution
of the Homeric problem is possible have been more clearly
marked — as we have seen — by the labours of successive
scholars; and, with regard to these general limits, there
is now comparatively little divergence of opinion. But
the details of a question in which the individual literary
sense has so large a scope must continue to wear different
aspects for different minds. There is little prospect of
any general agreement as to what is exactly the best
mode of co-ordinating the generally accepted facts or
probabilities. Where certainty is unattainable, caution
might prescribe a merely negative attitude; but an ex-
plicit hypothesis, duly guarded, has at least the ad-
vantage of providing a basis for discussion. The reader
is induced to consider how far he agrees, or dissents, and
so to think for himself. It is possible that the progress
of Homeric study may yet throw some further light on
174 HOMER. [CH. IV.
matters which are now obscure. The best hope of such
a gain depends on the continued examination of the
Homeric text itself, in regard to contents, language, and
style.
APPENDIX.
NOTE i, p. 61.
THE HOUSE AT TIRYNS.
THE ancient fortress of Tiryns stood in the S. E. corner of the plain of
Argos, about f of a mile from the shores of the Gulf. It was built on
a limestone rock, which forms a ridge measuring about 328 yards from
N. to S., with an average breadth of about 109 yards. The upper part
of the citadel was at the southern end, where the rock is highest. The
lower citadel was at the northern end. The upper and lower citadels
were separated by a section of the rocky plateau to which stairs led
down from the upper citadel, and which has been designated as the
middle citadel.
The excavations of Dr Schliemann have been confined to the upper
and the middle citadel. The exploration of the site thus remains in-
complete. The lower citadel still awaits an explorer. In the opinion
of some who can judge, an excavation of the lower citadel would
probably reveal the existence of chambers at a greater depth than has
yet been reached. Every one must share the hope expressed by the
correspondent of the Times (April 24, 1886), that this task may some
day be undertaken. It is in the lower citadel, as the same writer
observes, that the true key to the archaic history of the site may
possibly be found.
The only Homeric mention of Tiryns is in the Catalogue of the
Greek forces, which, as we have seen (p. 42), was mainly the work
of a Boeotian poet. He is enumerating the cities whose men were
led by Diomede and Sthenelus (//. 2. 559) :—
oi1 5' "Apyos T elxoj' TlpvvOd re retx'^eo'crai'.
The whole citadel of Tiryns is still encompassed by those massive
walls to which the epithet refers. They are formed of huge irregular
blocks of limestone, piled on one another, the interstices being filled
with small stones. It had always been supposed that, in such
'Cyclopean' walls the stones were unhewn, and were not bound by
I76
HOMER.
mortar, being kept in position simply by their great weight. In both
particulars the general belief has been corrected by the recent ex-
amination of the walls at Tiryns. It now appears that almost all the
stones, before being used, had been wrought with a pick-hammer on
one or several faces, and thus roughly dressed ; also that, as Dr F.
Adler had surmised, a clay mortar had been used for bonding.
The remains of a Byzantine Church, and of some Byzantine tombs,
exist at the S. end of the plateau of the upper citadel. At his earlier
visit to Tiryns, Dr Schliemann was disposed to think, from indications
on the surface, that the other remains, which he has since laid bare,
must be also Byzantine. These consist of house-walls, which now
stand nowhere more than about a yard above the ground, while in
some parts the destruction has been complete. From these remains,
Dr Dorpfeld, the architect employed by Dr Schliemann, has restored
the ground-plan of the original house, as shown in the accompanying
sketch. Dr Dorpfeld supposes the house to have been built by
THE HOUSE AT TIRYNS.
Phoenicians, about noo B.C., or earlier. Mr J. C. Penrose formerly
urged several objections to so early a date. The substance of his argu-
ment was reported in the Times of July 2, 1886, from which extracts
were here cited in the previous editions of this book. The points on
which he dwelt were chiefly three : — (i) 'A fundamental difference in
character of work' between the 'so-called palace at Tiryns' and the
APPENDIX. 177
really prehistoric work at Mycenae, such as the 'Treasury of Athens'
and the Gate of Lions. (2) Traces of the stone-saw ' all over the
newly-discovered remains.' (3) The presence of baked bricks, which,
' in the opinion of an experienced brickmaker,' could not have been
brought into that state simply by a fire in which the house was burned
down, if they had originally been raw bricks — as they ought to have
been, on the prehistoric hypothesis. But Mr Penrose has since revisited
the remains, under the guidance of Dr Dorpfeld, and has waived these
objections (Athenaeum, Nov. 12, 1887). The advocates of a 'pre-
historic' date are fully entitled to all the benefit of such a recantation.
If the question as to the age of the remains is ever to be settled, it can
only be settled by persons specially versed in ancient wall-building.
But the impression left on most minds by the discussion, so far as it has
yet gone, will be that there is ample room for disagreement, even among
the most skilful. The architectural evidence is not only scanty, but is
disastrously confused by the presence of ' some walls ' (to quote Mr
Penrose's most recent opinion) ' clearly of later date, which interfere
with the proper ground-plan.' The latest utterance of an expert is
Mr Stillman's (Times, Jan. 9, 1888), who refers to the arguments for a
Byzantine date.
It is perhaps hardly necessary for the present writer to observe that
he has never advanced any opinion whatever on this architectural ques-
tion, as to the age of the remains at Tiryns. For the purpose of this
Note, it is immaterial whether the older house-walls at Tiryns are
Phoenician, of noo B.C., or Greek, of any period. The question
with which this Note deals is solely the relation of the remains at
Tiryns to Homeric evidence.
It is affirmed by Dr Schliemann and Dr Dorpfeld that the houses
of the Homeric age, so far as they are known from Homer, were
on the same general plan as the house at Tiryns. Now, the
house of Odysseus in the Odyssey is the only Homeric house con-
cerning which we have data of a kind which enables us to form
a tolerably complete idea of the interior arrangements. Confirmatory
evidence on some points, and additional light on others, may be
gathered from the houses of Menelaus and Alcinous. These houses
appear to represent the same general ground-plan. But the house of
Odysseus is not merely described in more detail than the others. It
happens also to be the scene of an elaborate domestic drama, occupying
several books of the Odyssey. We have thus a searching test by which
to try the correctness of any notions which we may have formed as to
the plan of that house. The true plan must be such as to make the
house a possible theatre for that drama.
Let the matter at issue be distinctly understood, since some
confusion about it is traceable in Dr Schliemann's book Tiryns, as well
J. 12
1 78 HOMER.
as in the utterances of those who maintain his theory. If the Homeric
indications do not agree with the house at Tiryns, that fact does not, of
itself, prove that the house is not of the Homeric (or pre-Homeric) age.
No one would contend that all the houses of that age must have been
built on exactly the same plan. But in Tiryns (p. 227) appeal is made
specifically to the house of Odysseus. It is argued that the plan of that
house was in general agreement with the plan found at Tiryns, and
that the drama enacted in it could have been enacted at Tiryns.
Now, the evidence of the Odyssey proves that the poet had in his
mind a house of an entirely different kind from the house at Tiryns.
The difference is not merely a variation of detail. It is a difference of
type.
Dr Dorpfeld speaks with acknowledged weight when he speaks as
an architect on a question of ancient architecture. But the attempt to
dispose of the literary evidence of the Odyssey to which he devotes
a few lines at p. 227 of Tiryns is grotesquely superficial. It could not
have been offered, or accepted, by any one who had even a rudimentary
idea of what is meant by an adequate examination of literary evidence.
He notices only five verses in the whole epic. Of these five verses,
four (i. 333, 16. 415, 18. 209, 21. 64) are simply the oft-repeated
ffT-fj pa Trapci. ffra.6fj.bv rtyeos TnjKO. TTOITJTOU).
On this, he merely asserts, without attempting to prove, that the door
at the lower end of the hall is intended. The other verse (since he
thus has really only two) is 21. 236, where, before the slaying of the
suitors, Eurycleia is commanded
K\T]Tffai fj.eydpoto 66pas TTVKIVWS apapvias.
On this, he remarks that there is nothing to show that these doors
opened on the hall; and that the object of closing them was, ' not to
keep the suitors from escaping, but to keep the women undisturbed
within.'
In a foot-note on the same page (227) another passage is adduced
from Od. 6. 50 ff., where it is said that Nausicaa, after finding her
mother at the hearth, met with (£1^/3X777-0) her father as he was going
forth to the council. This argument assumes that the hearth at which
Nausicaa found her mother was in the women's apartments, and that, as
Nausicaa, coming thence, 'met' her father leaving the house, she
entered the hall by the door from the court. The answer is furnished
by Od. 7. 139 ff. We find Arete and Alcinous sitting together in the
men's hall near the ^%apa at its upper end, — where Penelope also sits
in 20. 55, and where Helen joins Menelaus (4. 121). Nausicaa, on
awaking, wishes to tell her dream to her parents. She goes &d
Su/uara, 'through the house,' from her own bed-chamber in the women's
apartments, to the men's hall, — the door between them being open. In
the hall she finds her mother. Her father she found, we may suppose,
APPENDIX. 179
in the prodomus or in the aule, ' about to go forth.' We cannot press
£vfj.p\riTO as if it necessarily implied that the two persons were moving
in exactly contrary directions. It means simply 'fell in with,' 'chanced
to find.'
The evidence of the Odyssey on this question is not to be gauged by
three phrases isolated from their context, and interpreted in a fashion
at once dogmatic and unsound. It must be tested by a close and
consecutive examination of the whole story, so far as it can illustrate
the plan of the house. Such an examination I have attempted to make
in the Journal of Hellenic- Studies, vol. VII. p. 170 ('The Homeric
House in relation to the Remains at Tiryns').
Reference to the accompanying plan will show that the house at
Tiryns has certain general features in common with the Homeric house.
The Homeric irpodvpov, or front gateway of the court, is represented at
Tiryns by a propylaeum, — a kind of gateway formed by placing two
porticoes back to back, — which in Greece had not hitherto been found
before the 5th century B.C. At Tiryns we have also a court-yard (auX?j)—
called the 'Men's Fore-Court' in the plan— with porticoes (aWowrai).
The prodomus, however, is not, at Tiryns, the space covered by the
atBovffa, or portico, but a distinct room beyond it (called 'Vestibule' in
the plan). Then there is the great hall, — the 'Men's Megaron' in the
plan. So far there is a resemblance, though only of the most general
kind.
But we now come to a difference much more striking and essential
than the points of likeness. At Tiryns the men's hall has no outlet
except the door by which it is entered from the 'Vestibule.' The
women's apartments are identified with a second and smaller hall,
completely isolated from the other, which has its own vestibule, its own
court, and its own egress.
There is nothing whatever to show that this smaller hall and
court really belonged to women. The more reasonable supposition
would be that they belonged to a second and smaller house, dis-
tinct from the larger house. The arbitrary manner in which such
theories can be formed or changed is curiously illustrated at p. 224 of
Tiryns. At Hissarlik in the Troad, as at Tiryns, there are the remains
of two buildings, a larger and a smaller, side by side. After pro-
pounding other views about them, Dr Schliemann had decided in
Troja that they were to be temples. But, because the smaller court
at Tiryns is to be the women's court, Dr Dorpfeld now says that the
larger building at Hissarlik was a dwelling for men, and the smaller
building beside it a dwelling for women. He doubts, however,
whether the smaller building at Hissarlik was not 'a smaller men's
house' (p. 224). Why, then, should not the smaller court at Tiryns be
a smaller men's court ?
12 2
l8o HOMER.
From the men's hall at Tiryns to the so-called women's hall the
only modes of access were by very circuitous and intricate routes.
They are thus described by Dr Dorpfeld (Tiryns, p. 236) : — 'In the
north-west part of the palace lies a small court, with colonnades and
adjoining rooms, which has no direct connection with the main court ;
it is the court of the women's dwelling. You must pass many doors
and corridors to reach this inner part of the palace. There appear to
have been three ways of reaching it. First, from the back-hall of the
great Propylaeum, through the long passage XXXVI., to the colonnade
XXXI. ; and from this, through the outer court XXX., to the east
colonnade of the women's court. Secondly, you could go from the
great court or from the megaron, past the bath-room, into corridor
XII., and then through passages XIV., XV., and XIX., to reach the
vestibule of the women's apartments. A third way probably went from
the east colonnade of the great court, through room XXXIIL, into the
colonnade XXL, and then along the first way into the court of the
women's apartments. All these three approaches are stopped in
several places by doors, and the women's apartment was therefore quite
separated from the great hall of the men's court.'
The above three routes can readily be traced on our plan by
means of the Arabic numerals which I have placed to represent
Dr Dorpfeld's Roman .numerals: — (i) for the first route, — 36, 31,
30: (2) for the second, 12, 14, 15, 19: (3) for the third, 33, 31, 30.
In the house of Odysseus, on the contrary, the women's apartments
were immediately behind the men's hall, and directly communicated
with it by a door. This is proved by many passages, among which are
the following.
r. In book 17 Odysseus comes to his house in the guise of
an aged beggar. Telemachus, to whom alone the secret is known, is
in the great hall with the suitors. Odysseus, with the humility proper
to his supposed quality, sits down 'on the threshold of ash, within the
doors' (17. 339):
ffe 5' iirl fj.e\lvov ovdou HvrocrQe dvpawv,
i.e. at the lower end of the hall, on the threshold of the doorway
leading into it from the prodomus. The suitors who, with their retinue,
numbered about a hundred and twenty, were feasting at a series of
small tables, which may be imagined as arranged in two rows from end
to end of the hall, leaving in the middle a free space in which the
twelve axes were afterwards set up. Telemachus sends food to Odysseus,
with a message that he should advance into the hall, and beg alms from
table to table among the suitors. Odysseus does so ; and, while he is
thus engaged, one of the suitors, Antinous, strikes him. Odysseus
then returns to his place on the ashen threshold. Meanwhile Penelope
APPENDIX. l8l
is sitting among her handmaids in the women's apartments (17. 505).
She hears— doubtless through one of the women-servants— of the blow
dealt by Antinous to the humble stranger ; and she sends to the hall
for Eumaeus. When he comes, she desires him to go and bring the
mendicant into her presence. He delivers her message to Odysseus,
who is still seated on the ashen threshold. Odysseus replies that he
would gladly go to Penelope; 'but,' he adds, 'I somewhat fear the
throng of the froward wooers For even now, as I was going
through the hall, when yon man struck me, and pained me sore, —
though I had done no wrong, — neither Telemachus nor anyone else
came to my aid.' That is, he declines to go to Penelope, because, in
order to reach her apartments, he would have to pass up the hall, among
the suitors, one of whom had already insulted him.
2. The supposed mendicant is then accommodated for the night
with a rough ' shake-down ' in the prodomus — the fore-hall or vestibule
of the megaron. As he lies awake there, he observes some of the
handmaids pass forth from the men's hall (20. 6) : —
K€LT typriyopouv red 5" £K pe-ydpoio ywaiKes
rfiffav.
But, after escorting Penelope to the interview with the stranger in the
hall, they had returned to the women's apartments (19. 60). Thus
again it appears that the direct way from the women's apartments to
the court lay through the men's hall.
3. The next day, while the suitors are revelling in the hall, and
taunting Telemachus, Penelope is sitting, as before, in the women's
apartments. She is not in her own room on the upper storey, to which
she presently ascends (21. 5), but on the ground-floor, level with
the hall. She places her chair 'over against' the hall (KO.T dvrrjffTiv,
20. 387), i.e. close to the wall dividing the hall from the women's
apartments; and thus 'she heard the words of each one of the men in
the hall' (20. 389). Similarly in 17. 541, being in the women's apart-
ments, she heard Telemachus sneeze in the hall. Such incidents would
be impossible in a house of the type supposed at Tiryns.
4. In preparation for the slaying of the suitors, Odysseus and his
son decide to remove the arms from the hall, and to carry them to a
room in the inner part of the house. That such was the position of the
armoury is made certain by the phrases used with regard to it, — data
(19. 4), ta(j)6peov (19. 32), fydov (22. 140). But, before doing this,
Telemachus, in the hall, 'called forth' the nurse Eurycleia (19. 15), and
said to her: 'Shut up the women in their chambers, till I shall have
laid by in the armoury the goodly weapons of my father.' Thereupon
'she closed the doors of the chambers' (19. 30), and the removal of the
arms was effected. Whence was Eurycleia 'called forth' into the
1 82 HOM-ER.
hall ? Evidently from the women's apartments immediately behind it,
as in the similar case at 21. 378. The doors which she closed were
those leading from the women's apartments into the hall. The arms
were then taken from the hall to the armoury by a side-passage (to be
noticed presently), which ran along the wall on the outside.
5. The threshold on which Odysseus first sat is called, as we have
seen, the threshold of ash (/tlXtvot), and was at the lower end of the
hall (17. 339). Next day, Telemachus makes him sit down 'by the
stone threshold' (irapb. \aivov ovd&v, 20. 258), which was clearly at the
upper end of the hall. The stone threshold is that which Penelope
crosses in passing from the women's apartments to the hall (23. 88).
Odysseus is still sitting by the stone threshold, when Eumaeus conies to
his side, and calls forth Eurycleia from the women's apartments, —
another indication that the door opening upon those apartments was at
the upper end of the hall.
It has been suggested that we can obviate the difficulty of supposing
the women's apartments at Tiryns to have had no communication with
the men's except by circuitous routes, if we imagine that, in a side-wall
of the men's hall, on the right hand of a person entering it, there once
existed a side-door, raised some feet above the level of the floor, and no
longer traceable in the existing remains of the house-walls, which are
nowhere more than about a yard in height. Such a side-door is
mentioned in Oil. 22. 126: <5/xro0tf/>?/ 5^ TLS ZffKev evd^r^ tri rot'xv>
This 6pffo0>jprj, or 'raised postern,' opened upon a passage (\atipr]),
which ran along the outside of the hall. (See the plan at p. 58.)
Let us suppose, then, that such an 6p<ro0ijpT) once existed at Tiryns,
though no trace of it is now visible. It would have necessarily been
the usual mode of access from the women's to the men's hall, as being,
at Tiryns, the only one which was not extremely circuitous. To it,
therefore, we should have to refer the often-repeated phrase concerning
Penelope as she enters the men's hall from the women's apartments :
ffrfj pa irapcL aro.Qfj.Qv rtyeos iri/KO. iroLtjTOio (i. 333, etc.). But this phrase,
'she stood by the door-post of the hall,' must refer to one of the
principal entrances to the hall. It is manifestly quite inapplicable to
a small raised postern in a side-wall.
Moreover, the hypothesis of an 6p(roOvpr) at Tiryns leaves a whole
series of difficulties untouched. The following are some of them, —
the first three turning on passages noticed above.
(1) Odysseus, being at the lower end of the hall, refuses to go to
the women's rooms because he would have to pass up the hall among
the suitors. At Tiryns he would only have had to turn his back upon
the suitors, and to leave the hall.
(2) The women, coming from their own sleeping-rooms at night,
issue from the men's hall, and pass by Odysseus sleeping in the pro-
APPENDIX. 183
domus. At Tiryns they would have gone out by the separate approach
to their own court. They could not have passed through the men's
hall, or its prodomus.
(3) Eumaeus, when at the upper end of the hall, is in the right
position to call forth Eurycleia from the women's apartments, and to
charge her privily to close them. At Tiryns, even with the hypothetical
6p<ro0vpr), this could not have so happened.
(4) After the slaying of the suitors, Telemachus, being in the
men's hall, calls forth Eurycleia by striking a closed door (22. 394)-
Now, the 6p(rod6p7] was at this time open (22. 333); so, also, was the
door at the lower end of the hall (22. 399). The door, leading to the
women's apartments, which Telemachus struck, must therefore be a
third door, distinct from both of these. It was the door at the upper
end of the hall, as the whole evidence of the Odyssey shows. In
the house at Tiryns it has no existence.
(5) In the house at Tiryns the armoury (0a\a/ios oirXuv) has to be
identified with one of the small rooms on the side of the women's hall
furthest from the men's hall. Such a position, — accessible from the
men's hall only by long and intricate routes, — is wholly irreconcileable
with that easy and swift access to the armoury which is required by the
narrative of the /j.vr)<TTit)po<j>ovia in book 22 of the Odyssey : see especially
vv. 1 06 — 112.
' A suggested restoration of the Great Hall in the Palace of Tiryns '
has been published by Prof. J. H. Middleton in the Journ. Hellen.
Studies, vn. 161. Some points in this call for notice, (i) In Od. 22.
142, — where the suitors, shut into the hall, are being shot down by
Odysseus from the threshold at its lower end, — the goat-herd Melanthius,
an ally of the suitors, contrives to escape from the hall, and to bring
armour for them from the armoury. The way in which Melanthius
left the hall is thus described : — 'he went up by the puryes of the hall': —
wy elirijjv dv£/3au>e MeXcii/flios, atwoXos
es 6a\dfj.ovs 'OSixrTjos ava pwyas fj.eydpoio.
What the pwyes were, is doubtful : to me it seems most probable that
they were the narrow passages, reached from the hall by the 6p<ro0tipr),
by which one could pass round, outside the hall, into the back part of
the house, where the armoury was. This was the view of Eustathius,
and it has recently been supported by Mr J. Protodikos, in his essay
De Aedibus Homericis (Leipsic, 1877). The Modern Greek povya,
* narrow passage,' is probably the Homeric p*w£, pwy6$, — w having
become ou as in the Modern <TKOV\IKI from cr/caX^, etc. ; and the old
noun of the 3rd decl. having given the stem for a new noun of the ist,
as in the Modern vii-^ro. from vt£, etc. Another suggested etymology
184 HOMER.
for povya, — from the low Latin ruga as = 'path', whence O. It. ruga
and Fr. rue (see Brachet s. v.),— fails to carry povya far enough back ;
and the way in which the poJyes are mentioned (Od. 22. 143) proves
that the word was in familiar use. Prof. Constant inides has given me
an illustration of the modern use which is curiously apposite. It is in a
folk-song from the country near Cyzicus. A monster is chasing a
princess : —
(TTOVS 8p6fj,ovs TT]V icw/iyaye,
fits T7)v av\}) TTJV Siw%yei,
K.a.1 /*£s TCUS povyais rats are? CMS
TOU TraXartoG TT/V tfrdavei :
* he hunts her to the streets, he pursues her into the court, and in the
narrow passages of the palace he overtakes her.'
Prof. Middleton favours a different view. Dr Dorpfeld had sugges-
ted that over the four pillars of the hall at Tiryns there may have been
a lantern, serving for the escape of smoke from the hearth, as well as
for light. [The late Mr James Fergusson, who had suggested such
an arrangement in the case of the Parthenon, thought it improbable, on
account of the dimensions, at Tiryns; where he rather believed that
the hall had been lighted by vertical openings in the upper parts of the
side-walls : Tiryns^ p. 218, n.] Prof. Middleton suggests that the pwyes
may have been windows in this lantern. He supposes that Melanthius
swarmed up one of the pillars in the hall, escaped by the windows on to
the roof, and thence descended by a stair to the armoury. But he has
overlooked some points in the Homeric story which appear conclusive
against this theory. The first exit of Melanthius — who goes twice to
the armoury — is not observed by Odysseus, or by any one of his three
supporters. This is an absurdity, if Melanthius had performed the feat
of climbing from the floor to the roof of the hall up one of the central
pillars, in full view of his alert adversaries. Further, Melanthius returns
from the armoury with twelve shields, twelve spears, and twelve
helmets (22. 144). His return is as unnoticed as his exit. But to
climb down the pillar, with the load just described, and yet entirely to
elude the observation of watchful enemies, would be a feat even more
remarkable than the furtive ascent. If the ptayes are to be lantern-
windows, some way, other than a pillar, must be shown by which they
could have been reached. (2) Prof. Middleton puts the 'stone threshold'
at the lower end of the hall (since he assumes that the hall had no door
at the upper end). He puts the threshold of ash in the prodomus.
But, on his view, the opffodvp-r) in the side- wall was the 'direct communi-
cation between the Megaron of the men and the women's apartments '
(p. 167). Yet, in passing from the women's apartments to the men's
hall, Penelope crosses the stone threshold (Od. 23. 88).
All the Homeric evidence tends to show that the Homeric house is
APPENDIX. 185
the prototype of the later Greek house of the historical age. A
dwelling on the supposed Tirynthian plan differs from this Greek type
in a vital respect. By placing the women in a practically separate
house, with a separate egress, it fails to provide for their seclusion in the
sense which ancient Greek feeling required.
The space which has here been given to this subject is amply
justified by its importance in two general aspects. First, — the in-
terpretation of the Odyssey is reduced to chaos, if these fragmentary
house- walls at Tiryns, — of doubtful age and origin, — are accepted as
at once sufficing to upset all the plainest evidence of the Homeric
text. Secondly, — this case is typical of a tendency which, in the
interests alike of archaeology and of scholarship, is to be deprecated.
No one questions the intrinsic interest and value of the Tiryns
remains, whatever may be their date or source. Nor is the classical
scholarship of the present day at all disposed to neglect the invaluable
light derived from classical archaeology. But when, as at Tiryns, it is
sought to bring monuments into relation with texts, then the difficulties
which those texts present should be either fairly answered or frankly
allowed.
NOTE 2, p. 136.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HOMERIC AND LATER CLASSICAL
GREEK.
The following synopsis exhibits the principal points of difference.
On the subject of this Note, as on those of Notes 3 and 4, students may
be referred for further illustrations to Mr Monro's Grammar of the
Homeric Dialect (Clarendon Press, 1882).
I. forms of words.
I. The number of strong aorists in Homer is much larger than in
later Greek. (A ' strong ' aorist is one formed directly from the verbal
stem, as £Xa/3oi> from XajS : a ' weak ' aorist is one formed with a suffix :
as Z\v-<ra. So in English ' took ' is a strong tense : ' loos-ed ' is a
weak tense.) 'Strong' tenses are mostly formed in the vigorous
youth of a language : then it ceases to add to their number, or even
drops some of them out of use, and tends to multiply ' weak ' tenses.
Further, certain kinds of strong aorist occur in Homer which afterwards
became extinct : viz., (i) the 2nd aor. midd. formed from the stem
without a connecting (or ' thematic ') vowel (like the o in t\a.p-o-v, the
e in £Xa/?-e-s), as dX-ro, 'leaped.' (ii) The reduplicated aor. act. and
midd., as dtdaev, XeXd]3ecr0cu, of which ijyajov is the only Attic example.
1 86 HOMER.
i. In post-Homeric Greek the vowels w and ij regularly mark
the subjunctive in all tenses. In Homer they mark it (chiefly in the
pres. subjunct.) only when the indicative has o or e. Thus Homer has
subj. ZXw/uev, the indie, being c'lXofJiev : but subj. tojjiev ('let us go'), the
indie, being tfj-ev.
3. In Homer, the perfect-stem (formed by reduplicating the verbal
stem) varies from long to short in different parts of the same perfect
(or pluperf.) tense: as dpypei, dpypus, but dpapvla: reOrjXei, but Te6a\via.
Here, as in the subjunct. with short vowel, Homer agrees with Vedic
Sanscrit. In Attic this variation is a rare exception, as in olS-a,
II. Syntax.
I. In Homer the Definite Article 6, 17, TO most often occurs in the
substantival use, i.e., as an independent pronoun. Attic (except in a
few special usages, such as 6 ^v...o 8t] has the attributive use, i.e.,
the art. is joined to a noun.
i. Besides the particle dv, Homer has also KCV, of which the mean-
ing is almost identical, the main differences being these: (a) KCV is
commoner than dv, the ratio in the Iliad being about four to one.
(b) dv is preferred in negative clauses, (c) dv is rarely used with the rela-
tive (8s, 8m, etc.), though often with temporal or final conjunctions
(#re, 8<f>pa, etc.). (d) while icev is frequent in two or more clauses of one
sentence (as //. I. 324), dv is esp. used in the second clause (//. 19. 228).
Briefly, dv is preferred to KCV where the sense is emphatic, or adversative.
3. The future indicative is used with dv or KGV.
4. The suljtmctive is used with dv or KSV in simple sentences (//.
3. 54 OVK dv roi x/ocu'ff/tflj 'shall not avail thee ').
5. The subjunctive is used after el, not only with dv or nev, but also
without it.
6. The subjunctive = an emphatic future in negative clauses (//. I.
262, ov8k tdu/JLcu., nor shall I see) : and also in the phrase K.o.1 Tort res
ei.7T77<7i (shall say), //. 6. 459 etc.
7. The optative in a simple sentence, without dv or KCV, can express
possibility ', usu. in a negative sentence (//. 19. 321), but sometimes in an
affirmative (Od. 3. 231).
8. Homer uses preposition s with the freedom of adverbs: separating
them (a) from the verb which they qualify ('tmesis'), or (b) from the
case which they govern. In later Greek this usage has much narrower
limits. This is another point of resemblance between Homeric language
and Sanscrit, in which prepositions never reached the stage of govern-
ing nouns.
APPENDIX. 187
NOTE 3, p. 139.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE LANGUAGE OF THE ILIAD
AND OF THE ODYSSEY.
I. Prepositions.
The following uses are found in the Odyssey, while they are eithei
absent from the Iliad, or occur only in certain later parts of it.
(r) &/j.(f>l=f about', with dat., after a verb of speaking or thinking:
4. 151 d/*0"05v(r?7i | fj.vde6fji.riv.
(2) Trepi with gen., similarly : I. 135 irepl Trarpbs gpoiro.
(3) jLterd with gen. = ' among' or 'with' : 10. 320 yuer ctXAwi' A^£o
tralp^y. (So twice in later parts of Iliad, 21. 458, the Oeuiv /xctxi?, and
24. 400.)
(4) iirl as = 'extending over' : I. 299 iravras lir dvOpwirovs. (So
in //. 9, 10, 24.)
(5) ?r/>6s with dat. = ' besides' : 10. 68 irpbs roiffi.
(6) &va with gen. : 2. 416 dvd vijos | ^aivu.
(7) Kara with ace. 'on' (business, etc.): 3. 72 /cord irpfav.
(8) tvl= 'among', with persons or abstract words : 2. 194 tv irafft.
This occurs in //., but almost exclusively in 9, 10, 23, 24.
(9) ^« = 'in consequence of : 3. 135 ftrivios e£ dXoijs. (So in //. 9.
566.)
II. Article.
The substantival use of the art. is more frequent in Homer than
the attributive (see Note 2). But certain special forms of the attributive
use are clearly more frequent in //. than in Od., or vice versa. Thus :
(i) The contrasting^^ is more frequent in //., as 2. 217 0oA*6s fyv,
XwAos 5' ertpov iroda, rw dt ol cjytiw, ' but then his shoulders ' — where TO>
contrasts them with the other members.
(ii) The defining use, often with a hostile or scornful tone (cp. iste),
is more frequent in Od. : as 12. 113 TTJV 6\or)v...'Kdpv^div, ' that dire
Charybdis': 18. 114 TOVTOV rbv avaXrov, 'this man — insatiate that he
is.'
III. Pronouns.
(1) The strictly reflexive use of £o is more frequent in //. than in
Od., in a ratio of more than a : i.
(2) r6 as a relative pron., in the adverbial sense * wherefore', often
occurs in //. (as 3. 176), but only once in Od. (8. 332).
(3) 5s is sometimes demonstrative in //. : never in Od. : unless in
4. 388, a doubtful example.
1 88 HOMER.
IV. Conjunctions, particles, adverbs, etc.
(1) on— 'that' is commoner in //. than in Od., which prefers ws or
oOVe/co.
(2) ouVe/ca as = ' that ' occurs several times after verbs of ' saying',
ptc., in Od., but only once in //. (n. 21).
(3) The combination /A£J/ o$v, marking a transition, is character-
istic of the Odyssey (with //. 9. 550).
(4) ovdtv in //. is usu. adv., 'not at all', or subst., 'nothing':
in Od. it is also an adj. (ovdlv tiros, 4. 350 etc.), and so once in //. 10.
216. (//. 24. 370 is not a clear instance.)
V. Dependent clauses.
(1) Final relative clauses as Od. 10. 538 pairis AeucreTcu...os K£V
TOI etir-gffi. Such clauses are decidedly more frequent in Od. than in //.
Of 24 examples brought by Delbruck (Synt. Forsch. I. 130-2), 17 are
from the Odyssey.
(2) Object clauses with e2 after verbs of telling, knowing, seeing,
thinking etc. : as Od. 12. 112 tvfaires \ etirws...vir€Kirpo<j>uyoi.fJi.i. This is
frequent in Od., but extremely rare in //.
NOTE 4, p. 140.
HOMERIC WORDS WHICH SHOW TRACES OF THE DIGAMMA.
(i) The following words, as used in Homeric verse, show traces of
a lost initial f. The effect of / appears either in warranting hiatus or
in making position (see p. 141). In almost all these words, however,
the Homeric observance of f is more or less inconstant. As regards
most of them, the f is attested, independently of metre, by the corre-
sponding forms in other languages. But it will be seen that an
asterisk is prefixed to a few words in the list. This means that, in
their case, such confirmatory evidence is either wanting or doubtful, and
that metre affords the principal (or the only) ground for supposing that
they once began with f.
L, to break. — aXis (rt. /eX, to press), enough. — aval;, lord, avaffffa,
. — *d/>ai6s, thin. — apva, apves, etc., lamb. [In Od. 9. 444, how-
ever, apyetos, a young ram, has no f.~[ — acrru, town. Sanscr. vdstu. — lap,
spring. Lat. ver. — etVotri, twenty. Lat. viginti. — el'Xw (/e\), to presst
iXffcu, dXe/s, ^eX/x^os: with the cognate d\ui>ai (cp. e-d\wi>). — el\tu
(/eX, perh. distinct from the last), to wrap round; elXvtfidfa, to roll;
with the cognate eX/<r<rw, to wind; ?Xt|, spiral. — ef/ayw (fepy), to keep
off. etpw (/ep), to say, fut. ^><?w. Cp. Lat. ver-bum, Eng. -word. —
eWu/zt (fes), to clothe; el/xa, kaB^. Lat. ves-tis.—$iros (fkir), word; etirew;
APPENDIX. 189
fy, voice. Cp. Lat. vox. — Hpyov, -work; £/>5o>. Cp. Eng. work. — tptiia,
to draw, £/apw, to go away. Cp. aV6-ep(re, tore away, and Lat. verro. —
&T7repos, evening. Lat. vesper. — fros, year. Cp. Lat. vetus. — * yvo\fs,
gleaming. — -fjpa in tiri ypa <f>£peiv, to gratify. Cp. Sanscrit rt. var, 'to
choose'; Zend vdra, 'wish', 'gift': Curtius Etym. § 659. — * fjplov, a
barrow. II. 23. 126. — t'axw> to cry aloud, laxr/, rjx.ti' (For ai5ia%oy, see
Note on Homeric Versification, § vill.) — Idelv, o!5a, eI5os. Lat. video,
Eng. TfzV. — *"IXtos. 50 instances make for /7Xios, and 14 against it. —
lov, violet, /oets, ioSvetfits. Lat. viola. — **I/>ts and Tyjos (connected with
eJ/Jw?). — ft, sinew, strength, foes, Z0i, £</>ia. Lat. vis. — l<ros, equal. —
frus, felloe of a wheel. — IT&), willow. Cp. Lat. vimen, vitis: Eng. withe.
— oT/cos, house. Lat. vicus : Eng. -wick in Berwick, etc. — ofoos, wine.
Lat. vinum. Eng. wmr. — ov'\a/i6s, /rm of battle (/eX).
Words which once began with /sometimes have e prefixed to them
in Homer: as ^XSwp, wM (/eXS): e-elicoffi: e-^/ryei: ^. And the
syllabic augment or reduplication can be prefixed as if /remained : t-dyr),
£-t\TreTO, 2-oi/ca, ^-eX/^pos, etc.
(2) The following words originally began with <rf. The rough
breathing represents the original <r. If, as is probable, the a had
already been lost in Ionic at a time when the sound / was still used,
the initial sound of such words would then have been 'f, like Eng. wh.
For example, there would have been a period when the word originally
pronounced swandano, and afterwards handano, would have been
whandano (favSdvw).
dvSavw (fffaS), to please, Homeric aor. etfaSov ( = ?fa.8ov), perf. part.
£t§ws : ydvs. Lat. suavis. — ZSva, a wooer's gifts, is prob. from the same
rt. — e/cup6s (fffeicvp), father-in-law. Lat. socer (where J0 = orig. sva, as
in somnus, = Sanscr. svdpnas) : cp. Germ. Schwiegervater. — &>, ew, ou,
61, £, pron. 3rd pers. sing., with possessive 16s, os. Sanscr. rt. sva: Lat.
sui, suus. This pron. is the only Homeric word in which f lengthens
a preceding short syllable which has not ictus: as //. 9. 377 ^/opeYw' |
ix. yap | eu <f>p&as eiXero K.T.\. ££, six. (Primitive form, svaks: Curt.
§ 584-)
The aspirate has been lost in -rjOea, from rt. o7e0. Cp. Sanscr. svadhd,
'one's own doing': from sva comes also Lat. sue-sco. — tffuv and elw6a
have no f in Horn. — Wvea., which also takes f, is perh. akin to ?0os,
,700s. — A similar instance is prob. ?TT?S, companion (<r/2-T??y, 'one's own
man ').
(3) Initial Sfi. — Se?crai, to fear, 5<?os, fcivos, SetXo's show the original
8/1 by often lengthening a short vowel before them. So also dfy, for
a long while, Srjpov, SrjOd. Curtius, with Benfey and Leo Meyer, regards
dfrjv, §fai> as shortened from difav, accusative from stem difa 'day'.
(4) Initial fp. — While initial p can represent an original ap (as in
^w), there are other instances in which t represents an original fp.
IQO HOMER.
Such are p^fw, to do, ptytb), to shiver, pt?a, pta, easily; before which a
short vowel is sometimes, but not always, lengthened: prjyvvfju, to
break, piirru, to throw, pa/coy, a rag; before which a short vowel
is always lengthened : pii>6s, a hide, pi fa, a root ; before which it
is usually lengthened.
(5) Medial /". — The loss of F from the middle of a word is some-
times shown (a) by contraction, as etpvaa, I drew, = eftpwa : Avicotipyov
= AvKo(>pyov: (b) by synizesis, as TroX^as (a disyllabic) from 7roX£fas. —
A lost f after a prep, in composition usually warrants hiatus, as 5ta-
eiir^fjifv: but there are exceptions, as aVciTr^/xej' (Od. i. 91).
(6) Total disappearance of f. In some words, which certainly
once had initial /, Homeric metre shows no trace of the fact. These
words begin with o, ov, or w.
6/xiw, to see; ovpos, ovpevs, watcher ; 6pf(rOai, to watch. Cp. Lat.
vereor: Germ, warten, wahren. — 6pos, mountain. Cp. Bop^as. Lat.
verr-uca, 'a wart', has been compared. — 'Oprvytr}, from 8prv£, 'a quail',
Sanscr. vartakas. — oxoi, oxea> chariot (cp. Lat. veho] ; ox\^w, to heave
up (cp. Lat. metis) ; 6x0tw, to be vexed (cp. Lat. vehement, vexo}. — 6fJ.<pri,
voice (/e?r, vox). — ov\aL, barley-groats, ouXoxurat (/eX). — ovpavos, sky
(Sanscr. vdrunas, rt. var, 'to cover'). — oirraw, to wound; uretXij (cp.
&-ovTos = dfovTos). — w^w, to push (Sanscr. rt. vadh, to strike: cp. 2-uffa
= £/axra). — wvoj, price (Sanscr. vasnds, Lat. ven-um, ven-eo, ven-dd).
NOTE 5.
HOMERIC VERSIFICATION.
The best treatment of the subject, for English students, will be
found in Prof. Seymour's Homeric Language and Verse (Boston,
U. S. A., Ginn and Co., 1885). The scope of this Note is limited to
giving a short view of the most essential matters, in a form convenient
for reference.
I. Dactyls and spondees.
In the Iliad and Odyssey dactyls are about thrice as frequent as
spondees. This is one of the causes to which the Homeric hexameter
owes its rapidity, as the Virgilian hexameter often owes its peculiar
majesty to the larger spondaic element — a condition which the Latin
language imposed, and which Virgil treated with such consummate
skill. Verses in which every foot except the sixth is a dactyl (TOV
5' a7ra/iei/36/uei'os irpoffty-r) TroSas UIKVS 'AxiXXetfs) are far more frequent in
Homer than in Virgil. On the other hand, verses in which every foot
except the fifth is a spondee ( Ut belli signum Laurenti Turnus ab arce)
are much commoner in Virgil than in Homer.
APPENDIX. Ipl
Verses are technically called 'spondaic' (<rirov8eid£ovTes <rn'xot,
ffirovdeiaica t-irr)) when the fifth foot is a spondee, whether the first four
feet are purely spondaic, or not. About 4 verses in every 100 of
the Iliad are, in this limited sense, 'spondaic,' — a larger proportion
than is found in Latin poetry. One or two apparent instances, however,
break the rule that the hexameter must not end with two words, each
of which is a spondee : thus in Od. 9. 306, ijw diav, we should write
7)601; and in Oaf. 14. 239, dr/fiov 07?/«s, 877,1100. Verses in which every
foot is a spondee are extremely rare : our texts have only three in each
epic (//. 2. 544, n. 130, 23. 221: Od. 15. 334, 21. 15, 22. 175,
repeated 192) ; and most, if not all, of these would admit a dactyl by
the restoration of uncontracted forms. In Latin, where the temptation
was stronger, there was a similar reluctance to imitate Ennius in his
olli respondet rex Albai longai.
II. Caesura.
'Caesura' is the 'cutting' (TO^TJ) of a metrical foot by the break
between two words; as in /jLrjviv \ aeide the dactyl is cut. Such a break
between words necessarily causes a slight pause of the voice ; which
may, or may not, coincide with a pause in the sense. Hence the
phrase, 'caesural pause'; and the caesura itself is sometimes called
simply a 'pause'.
In every metrical foot there is one syllable on which the chief strength
of tone, or ictus, falls. This is called the 'ictus-syllable'. It is the
first syllable in a dactyl (- ~ ~), and in a spondee (- -). It is also called
the arsis ('raising', as if the voice were raised on it); while the rest
of the foot is called the thesis ('lowering'). This is the current use of
the terms, derived from Roman writers. But the correct use — the old
Greek one — is exactly opposite : in it, 0&ns meant 'putting down the
foot', — hence the syllable marked by the beat or ictus: apcrts meant the
'lifting of the foot', — hence the syllable, or syllables, not so marked.
When caesura follows the ictus-syllable, it is called masculine,
because it gives a vigorous effect. When it comes between two
syllables, neither of which has ictus (such as the second and third
syllables of a dactyl), it is feminine.
The Homeric hexameter almost always has one or other of these
two caesuras in the third foot : thus : —
(1) Masculine caesura. //. i. i MVIV aetSe, Oe | d, A Htj \ Xi/tcioVw
'AxtXrjos. This is also called TOjtti) Trei/tfij/u/tepTjs, 'penthemimeral', as
following the fifth half-foot of the verse.
(2) Feminine caesura. Od. i. i avSpa /J.OL frveTre, \ Moucra, A iro\ \
trpoTrov, os /j.d\a iro\\d. This is described by Greek writers as the
TOW Kar& rplrov rpoxcuov. It is decidedly commoner in Homer than
the masculine caesura of the third foot. The preference for it is shown
IQ2 HOMER.
by the number of constant formulas, or 'tags,' which are adapted to it,
such as Trarrip dvdpuv re 6e<3v re, 6ea yXavKWTris 'Affyvr), etc. Those
adapted to the masculine caesura, such as 777777-0/365 -rjdt ptdovres, are
fewer.
The principal pause of the verse must never come at the end of the
third foot. Thus such a verse as this is impossible : — ATJTOVS Kal Atos
tKyovos' | ws pa<ri\T]i %o\w0e£s. This would cut the hexameter into two
equal parts, and so destroy the rhythm. But, when the principal
pause is not at the end of the third foot, a caesura in that foot is
sometimes, though very rarely, dispensed with. (The number of verses
with no caesura of the third foot is given by Seymour as 185 in the
Iliad, and 71 in the Odyssey: p. 83, § 40 c.) It is less uncommon for
the third foot to end with a word when the caesura saves the
rhythm: as //. 3. 185 tv&a. t8ov TrXeiffrovs <&ptiyas \ avepas.
The masculine caesura of the fourth foot is somewhat more frequent
in the Iliad than in the Odyssey, and often follows the feminine caesura
of the third foot, as //. i. 5 olwvolffi re Tracri' Aids 5' A ereXetero fiovXy.
This is the TO/AT) t<f)dr)/j.ifj.epris, as following the seventh half-foot of the
verse.
The feminine caesura of the fourth foot is avoided. Thus such a
verse as the following is very rare,—//. 23. 760 dyxi vdX', ws 8re rls re
yvvaiKbs A tv&voio. In //. 9. 394, where the MSS. have HrjXete 6-ffv poi
ZireiTa yvvaiKa A ya.fj.e(Tffera.i avros, Aristarchus amended ya^fffferai into
ye /iacrcrerai, which avoids this TO^IT) Kara reraprov Tpo^auov, since the
enclitic ye is considered as closely adhering to yvvaiKa.
III. The bucolic diaeresis.
As a metrical term, dialpe<ris means that the end of a foot coincides
with the end of a word. When the end of the fourth foot coincides with
the end of a word, that is the Sialpeacs (or SnroSia) /3ou/coXtK77, as being
a favourite rhythm with the bucolic, or pastoral, poets, such as Theo-
critus and Moschus. Thus in the Lament for Bion Moschus has this
diaeresis in 102 out of 128 verses. Many Homeric formulas (chiefly
designations of persons) are adapted to the bucolic diaeresis, — as <£ot)3os
'AirdXXwv, dia Qeduv, iaodeos <£ws, etc. The fourth foot is in this case
much oftener a dactyl than a spondee.
IV. Hiatus.
Hiatus s the non-elision of a vowel or diphthong at the end of a
word, when the next word begins with a vowel or diphthong. It is
allowed in Homeric verse under the following conditions.
i. After the vowel t, or u: //. 5. 50 ^yx.e'i 6£v6evTi: 6. 123 ris d£
2. When a caesura comes between the words: //. i. 569 /cat 6'
APPENDIX. 193
d/cefowra Kad \ rjffTO A £ | iriyvd/jiif/affa <pt\ov icrjp. The feminine caesura
of the third foot, as in this verse, is that which most frequently excuses
hiatus.
3. After the first foot: //. i. 333 avrap 6 £yv<a. This is rarer than
the next case.
4. Before the bucolic diaeresis: //. 5. 484 olov K ty fapoiev' Axcuol |
77 KCV ayotev.
5. When the vowel at the end of the first word is long, and belongs
to the ictus-syllable of a foot: //. i. 418 ^TrXeo' rf <re KCIK 1 77 atff\y
T£KOV tv fjL€"ydpoi<ni>.
6. When a long vowel, or diphthong, is made short before the
following vowel or diphthong: //. i. 29 rty 8' tyu ov \v<ru: ib. -28
fj.ri vv TOI ov •^pa.lfffj.-g. In //. 2. 87, Stivea ear: could be brought under
this head, if Hartel's doubtful view were accepted, that the final a
of the Greek neuter plural was originally long.— Hiatus under this
condition is sometimes called 'weak' (or 'improper') hiatus.
V. Lengthening of a short syllable.
A syllable which, according to ordinary rules, should be short
is often lengthened in Homeric verse.
1. This is sometimes due to the influence of a lost consonant,
viz.: —
(a) The digamma, F : II. n. 793 Trapenruv (ira.pfet.Truv). II. i.
70 8s ydri (frio-n). In //. 24. 154 os a£ei, el'ws Ktv aywv 'AxtX^'i TreXdcro-Tj,
the pronoun fe may have fallen out after os. The occurrence of ^?rei as
the first word of the hexameter (//. 22. 379, etc.) is perhaps traceable to
an original lirhi (eir£ + pron. stem sva). In //. 19. 35 the 5 i
is perhaps due to a vocalisation of f(&Trovenr<bv): see under vin.
(If) The spirant jod (j sounded like our y): II. 3. 230
6e5s us (yus).
(c) Initial a : II. i. 51 fitXos txeirevKts £<j>eir) (quasi crexeTreu/c^s, the
stem of fyu being cre%). So Od. 9. 74 ffvvex^s °-^ (quasi (rvcrcrex^s).
(d) <rf, in the pronoun of the 3rd person: //. 20. 261 ILyXefSr/s 5^
<ra.Kos iitv diro ?o xeipl vax^y (quasi <rfto) : 17. 196 6 5' apd y Traioi
diraffffev (quasi fff$}.
2. The metrical ictus is the most frequent cause for the Homeric
lengthening of a short syllable. But this general cause is often aided
by some further special cause. The instances in which ictus can be
pleaded may therefore be distinguished into groups.
(i) Thus there are instances in which — unless ictus is assumed as
the sole cause of the lengthening — the letter 0 seems to be treated as
a double consonant: //. 12. 208 a.l6\ov Q$IV. If the first syllable of
&<pi.v were really short here, the hexameter would be of the kind which
Greek metrists called peiovpos, — of which specimens have been left in.
J- 13
194 HOMER.
Greek by Lucian (in the Tpayvdoiroddypa), and in Latin by Terentianus
Maurus. (Cp. Hermann, Epitome Doctr. Metr.; 4th ed., 1869, P« "!•)
But, as the ancients saw, oQiv was here pronounced like oircpiv.
[Seymour, p. 93, § 41 n., remarks: '67r0is is now written for o0ts in
Hipponax Frg. 49, and is justified etymologically ; cf. Scur^w from the
stem of (ro06s, "Ia*xos from ldx<», &KXOV (fyov) Find. OL vi. 24, 0atd-
Xi-rwes Aesch. • Choeph. 1047.']— Cp. 0aT. 7. 119 Ze0u/)^ irvdovaa.—
In //. 10. 502 ictus helps to account for irl(f>a6tTKwv : but not so, z'<J. 478,
for Trl(f>av<7Ke. It is possible, indeed, that the t of the reduplication was
originally long.
(ii) The influence of ictus is sometimes reinforced by the natural
tendency of speech to avoid an uncomfortably long series of short
syllables. This conjunction of causes may probably be recognised
in Od. 12. 423 cTTtrofos ptpX-rjTo, as also in ayopdcurffe, airovtovro,
affdvaros, Ovyartpa. (though ffvydrrjp), lipla/j-id-rjy (though Ilpfa^os).
(iii) A pause in the sense can help ictus to lengthen a short
syllable: //. i. 19 tar^ai Upid^oio TroXti', eu d" ofcaS' {/t4r0cu. Od.
10. 269 (f>fi!iywfj.€v • £rt ydp Kev d\tij-cu/ji,ev KO.KOV tfjuap: i. 326 ei'ar*
dKo6oi>T€S' 6 8' 'A^cutD? voffTov deidev.
(iv) A short vowel is sometimes lengthened before X, ^, v, />, or
<r. In such cases, the influence of ictus usually helps, as //. 3. 222
frred vi<J>d5e<T<ni> : 23. 198 0X7? re ffetiaiTo: Od, 14. 434 die/ULoiparo: 22. 46
6ad ptfeo-Kov : but not always; thus in //. 22. 91 TroXXa \urff o(j.£vu, the
a has no ictus.
(v) A short vowel is lengthened before d in 5tos, 5e?<rcu, etc., of
which the stem was originally Sfi; and before 8fy. In these cases
ictus is always a helping cause. //. i. 33 tdeiffev §' o ytpw. The
formula ^dXa Sty occurs only at the end of a verse ; so, too, Zri Sijv,
except in Od. 2. 36, and 6. 33.
3. The vowel t. — In certain abstract nouns, the Homeric long i is
still unexplained, and ictus, at least, has nothing to do with it: //. i.
205 virepoir\l-ri<ri.: 2. 588 Trpo6vfj.iy<Ti: Oaf. 13. 142 drifti-giri. — In //. 6.
8 1 iravT-Q eTToix^ei'ot irplv avr £v x^pffl yvj>aiKwi>, the i of irplv merely
keeps its original length, the word being a contracted comparative. —
Final i in the Homeric dat. of the 3rd declension is sometimes short ;
sometimes (as regularly in Latin) it is long, as //. 7. 142 Kpdret ye.
The i of such an Ionic dat. as /UTJTI (//. 23. 318) is separately justified
by the contraction from fir/Tt-i.
4. Vocatival e is sometimes lengthened, partly through ictus, but
partly also because the voice naturally dwells a little on it : //. 4. 338
oJ vl£ Herewo.
5. Lastly, there are a few instances in which a short syllable at the
beginning of a verse cannot be explained on any of the special grounds
noticed above. If ictus is not the sole cause, it is uncertain what other
cause has helped. — II. 3. 357 did fj.ev d<nrlSos y\de (pafivijs 8f3pi/j,oi> ^7%os.
APPENDIX. 195
[Seymour suggests the influence of false analogy, through 8?
etc.] — //. 4. 155 (etc.) <f)l\e Kaffiyv-rjTe. The t of <f>i\ai (aor. imperat.
midd., //. 5. 117), and e<pL\a.ro (ib. 61), maybe compared, but have
analogies which make them less remarkable. [Leaf on //., /. c., notes
that, if <pi\os is for (cr)0<*-iXos, from stem <r/e, suus, the contraction would
justify the lengthening.] — //. 9. 5 Boptys Kal Ztfivpos (so again, but in
dative, //. 23. 193). It is simplest to regard Bo/> as lengthened by ictus,
and e??s as one syllable by synizesis. (Curtius supposed a pronunciation
VI. Shortening of a long syllable.
1. In Homeric, as in Attic, verse, a diphthong can be shortened
before a vowel following it in the same word : II. i. 489 Sioyevfys Hr)\fjos
vi6s. Od. 7. 312 TOCOS e<jji> otos e<r<ri. 20. 379 fywraibi/.
2. There are a few instances in which a vowel remains short before
the double consonants f, ovc : //. 2. 634 o't re ZaKvvdov fyov: ib. 824
ol 8k ZtXeiav Zvcuov : ib. 465 wpox^ovro 2Ka(j.dv8piov (and so a before
2,K<i/J.avdpe, 21. 223): Od. 5. 237 ZireiTa ffnt-rrapvov. Allowance must be
made for the greater freedom in the metrical treatment of proper
names which were indispensable to the poet ; and VKtirapvov might
then be excused by the analogy of 2/eaMa"fy>os. But it is also possible
that there were older alternative forms with a single consonant, as
Seymour suggests, comparing (T/ctS^a/iat, idova.ij.ai : afj-iKpos, /j.iKpos. He
illustrates a possible Acucvvdos by Aei/£i7T7ros for Zeti^tinros in a Boeotian
inscription. [Remark how well this agrees with the Boeotian origin of
the 'Catalogue, ''which furnishes both the examples of e before f : see
above, p. 41.] He also notes, however, that Za/cw0os was current as a
Greek name for Saguntum, and that the Z, in this particular name, may
have been sounded like 2, when analogy might help to account for
the e before Z£\eiai>.
3. The short first syllable of avopoT^ra (II. 16. 857, 22. 363, 24. 6)
is unexplained. The word is probably a corruption of some older word
equivalent to it in sense.
VII. Vowels of variable quantity. — Alternative forms.
Some vowels which, in later verse, were regularly short, are of
variable quantity in Homeric verse. When they are long, they
usually have ictus. But in many (at least) of these instances ictus
cannot be assumed as the only cause. Rather, as Seymour observes,
most of these vowels had originally been long, and were in process of
becoming short ; compare the Homeric To-os, /caXos, <papos with the later
tffos, KctXds, 0<Z/>os. — So a in 'ATroXXwi/, but a (with ictus) in 'ATroXXa^os
(//. I. 14): 'Apes, "Apes (5. 31): Sin?Xaos: fin iepos, tofj-ev, Kovli), in
196 HOMER.
several verbs in -[&, and comparatives in -tuv : tf in u'Swp, and in verbs
in -i5w. The i of the name Sidon is regularly long in later poetry, as in
Od. 4. 84 Sinewous: yet //. 23. 743 has SrSo^es.
Alternative forms. — Tl^e number of such forms has been noticed
above (p. 136) as characteristic of the Homeric dialect. They may be
roughly classified under two heads, as vocal and consonantal, (a) A
short vowel alternates with a long vowel or a diphthong : as <?us, r/us :
peos, vr)6s: Atovi/aos (Od. n. 325), kiiavvaos (II. 6. 135): vtos, veiaros:
•fjfjL^wv, r)(j.duv : /3a0e?is, /Saflenis : 6\ods, oXoios. So in verbal forms,
aya/mai, dya.iofj.aL: reX^w, reXe£w, etc. — A special cause of variety is
what is called ' metathesis (shifting) of quantity,' when, the first of two
vowels having been shortened, the second is lengthened. Thus -cio, in
the genitive, passes (through -770) into -ew ('ArpetSao, 'ArpeiSew).
Similarly such a form as ffr^w/j-ev (2nd aor. subj. t'crrTj/xi) comes from
<TTijofj.ev. (b} A single consonant alternates with a double consonant :
'A%iXXei5s, 'AxiXetfs: 'Odvcrffevs, 'Odvcrevs: fpiKKrj (II. 2. 729), T/jf/cT? (4.
202) : fyevai, 2/j.fJievai : /j.effov, peaaov : OTTOJS, STTTTWS, etc.
VIII. Synizesis. — Elision. — Apocope.
<rwlp)<Tis (a ' settling down ') means that two vowels collapse (as it
were) into one long sound, instead of either keeping their separate
metrical values, or coalescing into a diphthong. So in //. 3. 27, where
BeoeiS^a is the last word of the verse, ea forms one syllable. Cp. //. i.
15 xpvffty dva <TK-l}irrpti>'. 2. 367 yvdffeai B' : Od. I. 298 77 OVK duet?
(first words of verse). In //. i. 340 ef TTOTG dr) aure (not 5" aure) is
thus justified. — Synizesis was probably less frequent in the original
Homeric text than it is in ours, owing to the use of some older forms
which were afterwards modified ; e.g., IlTjXTjtdSew (//. i. i) was doubt-
less nTjX^iaSa'.
Elision. The diphthong at can be elided in the verbal endings
-fiat, -aai (except in the infin.), -rat, -crdai. — There is only one instance
in which the -cu of the nom. fem. plur. is elided, //. n. 272 ws <5£et'
odvvai, and the verse is doubtful. — 01 can be elided in /J.QI, <roi [//. r. 170],
TOI. — Elision of datival i occurs, though rarely : //. 5. 5 a<rr^p dTrupivy.
— dvri, irepi, T/, 6Yt, TO, 777)6, are not elided.
Apocope is the cutting off of a short final vowel before a consonant,
as //. i 8 TI'S r ap cr0we (for a/>a). So dfj. (dva) Trediov, KOLTT (Kara)
Trediov, KaffTopvvaa (KaravTOpvvaa, II. 17. 32), Trap (irapa) vyuv. In //.
i. 459 avtpvcrav probably comes from dvaftpvaav by apocope (dvftpvaav),
assimilation (afftpwav), and, finally, vocalisation of/" into u: as in //.
13. 41 aviaxoi =a/iaxo«, or a -f- fiaxy, (i-e. 'noiseless, ' if the a be privative,
or 'with cries,' if it be copulative). Cp. /cava£tus = KaTa/a£cus (Kardy-
vv(u), Hes. Opp. 666.— Besides the three prepositions just named, <MTO
APPENDIX. 197
and viro in composition can suffer apocope: Od. 15.
aTTOTT^^et : //. 19. 80 vpj3d\\eiv = VTro(3d\\eiv. Apocope was used
in the ordinary speech of some dialects (e.g. Her. i. 8, af
A LIST OF BOOKS ON HOMER.
The purpose of this list is not to give a full bibliography, even of
recent work. Its aim is to help the student by indicating the more
important books in each department, so that he may know, in outline,
what has been done for Homer up to the present time, and what are
the chief sources available for consultation. — Asterisks are prefixed to
a few books, which may be especially recommended to English students,
in sections I. III. IV. V.
I. Editions and Commentaries,
This list will include the more noteworthy of the old editions;
because, even where they have been superseded in a critical sense, they
retain their historical interest as land-marks in the modern study of
Homer.
A line may conveniently be drawn between the editions before and
after 1788, when Villoison, in his Iliad, based on Venetus A, first
published the ancient scholia of that MS.
After a date, 'f.' denotes that the publication of the work was
continued in the following year ; ' ff.', in the following years.
1. Editions before 1788. — Rditio princeps: Demetrius Chal-
condylas, Florence, 1488. — First Aldine edition, Venice, 1504: second,
1517. — Juntine edition, Florence, 1519- — Francini, Venice, 1537. —
Joachim Camerarius made the first modern essay in commenting on the
Iliad, 1538 ff. His complete commentary appeared at Frankfort,
1584. — Turnebus, Iliad, Paris, 1554. — H. Stephanus, in Poetae
Graeci prindpes heroici, Paris, 1566. — Barnes, with scholia and notes,
Cambridge, 1711. — Samuel Clarke, with notes and Latin version,
London 1729 ff. — Moor and Muirhead, Glasgow (Foulis Press), 1756
ff. — Ernesti, Leipsic, 1759 ff.
In connection with the earlier editions of Homer we should notice
the editio princeps of the Commentary of Eustathius (see p. 100),
published at Rome, 1542 ff. The latest ed. is that of G. Stallbaum,
Leipsic, 1825 ff.
2. Editions in and after 1788. — Villoison, Iliad, 'ad veteris Cod.
Veneti fidem recensita. Scholia in earn antiquissima ex eodem Cod.
aliisque nunc primum ed. cum asteriscis, obeliscis, aliisque signis
criticis.' Fol. Venice, 1788.— Wolf, Iliad, Halle, 1794. [The
198 HOMER.
Prolegomena appeared in a separate vol., in the spring of 1795.] His
ed. of both //. and Oaf., in 4 vols., Leipsic, 1804 ff., embellished with
32 designs after Flaxman,— whose 64 plates had first appeared in
1795. — The Grenville Homer (edd. Randolph, Cleaver, Rogers) with
Person's collation of the Harleianus (see p. 101), Oxford, 1800. —
Heyne, Iliad, Leipsic, 1802 ff. — W. Dindorf and F. Franke, Leipsic.
1826 ff.— Spitzner, Iliad, Gotha, 1832 ff.— Immanuel Bekker, Iliad,
Berlin, 1843: both epics (2 vols.), Bonn, 1858. The first scientific
attempt to attain a pre-Alexandrine text. — Kirchhoff, Odyssey, Berlin,
1859 : 2n(^ ed'» 1879. With notes and essays illustrating his views
as to the origin of the epic. — La Roche, Odyssey, Leipsic, 1867 f . :
Iliad, 1873 ff. The apparatus criticus, though full, is not always
accurate: see D. B. Monro in Trans. Oxf. Philol. Soc., 1886 — 7, p. 32.
— Nauck, Berlin, 1874 ff.— Fick, the poems translated back into the
supposed original Aeolic, Odyssey Gottingen, 1883 : Iliad, 1885 f. —
Hentze, text in Teubner's series, supplementing Dindorf, 1883. — Christ,
Iliad, with Prolegomena and critical notes, Munich, 1884. — Rzach, text
(with critical notes), Leipsic, 1886.
3. The interest of the editions above named is mainly (though not
exclusively) critical. The following editions may be mentioned as
valuable to students for the commentary which they supply, while at
the same time they also deal more or less with criticism of the text.
Heyne, Iliad (see above). — Nitzsch, Erklarende Anmerkungen zit
Homer's Odyssee, I — XII, Hanover, 1826 ff. — Nagelsbach, Anmer-
kungen zur Ilias (bks. I, II to 483, and III), 3rd ed. revised by
Autenrieth, Nuremberg, 1864. — Hayman, Odyssey, 3 vols., London,
1866 ff. With marginal references, various readings, notes, and
appendices. — Paley, Iliad, 2 vols., London, 1866 ff. [A 2nd ed. of
vol. II has appeared.] With an Introduction to each vol., and
commentary. — * Merry and Riddell, Odyssey I — XII, Oxford, 1876.
With critical notes and commentary. Vol. II (bks. XIII— xxiv) is in
preparation. — *Leaf, Iliad I — xil. With English notes [both critical
and exegetical] and Introduction. London, 1886. Vol. II (bks.
XIII — XXIV) is in preparation.
4. School editions, with commentary. — German. — Iliad. — La
Roche, Berlin, 1870 ff. — Faesi and Franke, Berlin, 1871 ff. — Ameis
and Hentze, Leipsic, 1872 flf. — Diintzer, Schoningh., 1873 f. — Odyssey.
Faesi and Kayser, Berlin, 1871 ff. The latest ed. has been revised by
Hinrichs. — Ameis and Hentze, Leipsic, new ed. 1874 ff. — Diintzer,
Schoningh., new ed. 1875 f. — English. — Iliad. — Paley, London, 1867. —
*Monro, bks. I— xn, Oxford, 1884.— * Pratt and Leaf (bks. i, IX, XI,
XVI— xxiv), London, 1880.— Odyssey. * Merry, Oxford, new ed.,
1884.— *J. E. B. Mayor, bks. IX— XII, London, 1873.
APPENDIX. IQQ
II. Scholia, and Works bearing on the History of the Text.
Scholia on the Iliad.— W. Dindorf, Oxford, 1875 ff. Four vols.
have appeared. — Scholia on the Odyssey. — W. Dindorf, Oxford, 1855.
History of the text. — Lehrs, De Aristarchi Studiis Homericis,
Leipsic, 3rd ed., 1882. — La Roche, Die homerische Textkritik im
Alterthum, Leipsic, 1866 [not always accurate in citing Ven. A, as
Monro shows: cp. above, p. 199, 1. 13]: Homerische Untersuchungent
1869. — Rb'mer, Die Werke der Aristarcheer im Cod. Venet. A.,
Munich, 1875. — Ludwich, Aristarchs Homerische Textkritik nach den
Fragmenten des Didymns, Leipsic, 1884 f.
III. Language.
Buttmann, Lexilogus, 3rd Eng. ed., London, 1846. [Still valuable,
especially as a model of critical discussion, though liable to correction,
on some points, by later results in comparative philology.] — Bekker,
Homerische Blatter, Bonn, 1863, 1872. — Ahrens, Griechische Formen-
lehre des Homer. Dialektes, Gottingen, 2nd ed., 1869. — Delbriick,
Syntaktische Forschungen, Halle, 1871 ff. — Hartel, Homerische Studien,
Vienna, 1871 ff. — Knos, De Digammo Homerico, Upsala, 1872 ff. —
Hinrichs, De Homericae Elocutionis Vestigiis Aeolicis, Jena, 1875. —
Cobet, Homerica, in his Miscellanea Critica, pp. 225 — 437, Leyden,
1876. — * Monro, A Grammar of the Homeric Dialect, Oxford, 1884. —
* Seymour, Introduction to the Language and Verse of Homer, Boston,
U. S. A., 1885.
IV. Lexicons and Concordances.
Lexicons. — Crusius, Leipsic, 1856. English transl. by H. Smith,
ed. T. K. Arnold, London, new ed. 1871.— *Ebeling, ib., 1871 ff.—
*Autenrieth, ib., 1877. English transl., with additions and corrections,
by R. P. Keep, London, 1877.— Seiler, ed. Capelle, ib., 1878.
Concordances. — Seber, Index Homericus, Oxford, 1780. [Still con-
venient, as containing both //. and Od. in one vol. It gives only the
number of the book and verse in which a word occurs, without quoting
the passage.] — * Prendergast, Iliad. (Every verse in which a given
word occurs is quoted in full under that word.) London (Longman),
l875- — *Dunbar, Odyssey. (On the same plan as the last.) Oxford,
1880.
V. Works illustrating the Antiquities of the Homeric Poems.
Bellum et excidium Troianum ex Antiqq. reliquiis, tabula praesertim
quam Raph. Fabrettus edidit Iliaca, delin. et adi. in calce commentario
illustr. ad. Laur. Begero. Berlin, 1699 (Leipsic, Rud. Weigel). 58
copper-plates, with text. [The tabula Iliaca is a marble relief, inscribed
(iriva.%), now in the Capitoline Museum at Rome. The central
200 HOMER.
subject is the destruction of Troy, while on either side are numerous
scenes from the Iliad and from other epics of the Trojan cycle. — The
work is perhaps of the ist cent. A.D.: see Bergk, Grk. Lit. i. 913-] —
Iliados picturae antiquae ex Codice Mediolanensi Bibliothecae Ambrosi-
anae. Rome, 1835. (Leipsic, Weigel.) This 'Codex Ambrosianus
pictus' was first published by Angelo Mai, Milan, 1819. — Inghirami,
Galleria Omerica. (A collection of ancient monuments illustrative of
Homer.) Florence, 1827 ff. — Volcker, Ueber Homer. Geographie und
Weltkunde. Hanover, 1830. — Gladstone, Studies on Homer, London,
1858: Juventus Mundi, 1869. — Nagelsbach, Die Homerische Theologie,
Nuremberg, 1861. — Brunn, Die Kunst bei Homer, Munich, 1868. —
*Buchholz, Die homerische Realien, Leipsic, 1871 ff. — * Harrison, Miss
J. E., The Myths of the Odyssey, London, 1882. — Bunbury, History of
Ancient Geography, vol. I. ch. 3 ('Homeric Geography'), London, 1883.
— * Helbig, Das homerische Epos aus den Denknidlern erldutert. Leipsic,
1884.
VI. The Homeric Question.
Robert Wood, Essay on the Original Genius of Homer, London,
1769. — Wolfs Prolegomena. Halle, 1795. — Volkmann, Geschichte und
Kritik der Wolfschen Prolegomena zu Homer. Leipsic, 1874. — Lach-
mann, Betrachtungen iiber Homers Ilias. Berlin, 3rd ed. 1874. — Her-
mann, Dissertatio de Interpolationibus Homeri. In Opusc. v. p. 52,
Leipsic, 1834. Ueber Homer und Sappho, ib. vi. pars i. p. 70, 1835.
De Iteratis apud Homerum, ib. vin. p. n, 1840. — Kochly, Iliadis
Carmina XVI. restituta. Turin, 1861. — Nitzsch, De Historia Homeri,
etc. (See above, p. 121, n. 3.) Hanover, 1830 ff. — Welcker, Der
epische Cyclus, Bonn, 1835 ff. — Grote, Hist, of Greece, Part I., ch.
xxi. (Vol. II., p. 160.) London, ist ed., 1848: new ed., 1870. —
Friedlander, Die homerische Kritik -von Wolf bis Grote. Berlin, 1853.
— Lauer, Geschichte der homerischen Poesie. Berlin, 1851. — Sengebusch,
two Dissertations Homericae, in Dindorf's Homer (Teubner). Leipsic,
1855 f. : new ed., 1873. — Paley> Introductions to Iliad (see under I.),
vol. I. pp. xi — li, 1866; vol. II. v — Iviii, 1871. See also his tract,
Homeri quae nunc exstant an reliqui cycli carminibus antiquiora iure
habita sint. London, 1878. — Nutzhorn, Die Entstehungs-weise der
Homerischen Gedichte, Leipsic, 1869. [Originally in Danish: Copen-
hagen, 1863.] — Kirchhoff, Die Composition der Odyssee. Gesammelte
Aufsdtze. Berlin, 1869. [His Odyssey, 2nd ed. 1879, should also be
consulted.]— Geddes, The Problem of the Homeric Poems. London,
1878. — Fick's views are given in his Odyssey, 1883, and Iliad (ist
half, 1885): see under I. — W. Christ, Prolegomena to the Iliad (see
under I.): 1884. — Wilamowitz, Homerische Untersuchungen. Berlin,
1884. — Leaf, Introduction to Iliad I — xn (see under I.), pp. xi — xxvi,
1886.— Seeck, Die Quellen der Odyssee. Berlin, 1887.
HOMER. 201
Histories of Greek Literature. — In regard to the Homeric question,
much that is valuable will be found in the work of Theodor Bergk, vol.
I., Berlin, 1872 : also in Bernhardy's History, vol. II. part I. (srded.,
Halle, 1877). The chapters on Homer in Mure's work are interesting
as a defence, marked by much ability and freshness, of the old
conservative view (vols. I. II., bk. ii., chaps, ii. — xvii.,2iid ed., London,
1854).
VII. English Translations.
Verse. — Iliad. Chapman. — Pope. — Cowper. — Lord Derby. —
Cordery (with Greek text).— Way (I— XII, 1886).— Odyssey. Pope.—
Worsley and Conington. — Schomberg (Gen. G. A., 1879). — Way. —
Lord Carnarvon (i — xu, 1886).
Prose. — Iliad. Lang, Leaf, and Myers. — Odyssey. Butcher and
Lang.— G. H. Palmer (i— xii, Boston, U.S.A., 1884).
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