before his own time, consequently not much before 850 B C From the controversial tone in wh1ch he expresses himself 1t is edent that others had made Homer more ancient, and accordingly the dates given by later authorities, though very various, ge11erally fall w1th1n the 10th and 11th centuries B.C. But none oi these statements has any claim to the character of external edence.

The extant lives of Homer (edited in Westermanns Vilarum Strzp/ores Graeci mmores) are eight in number, including the piece called the Contest of Hesiod and H omer. The longest is w ritten in the Ionic dialect, and bears the name of Herodotus, but is certainly spurious. In all probability it belongs to the time which was fruitful beyond all others in literary forgeries, viz the znd century of our era.1 The other lives are certainly not more ancient The1r chief value consists 1n the curious short poems or fragments of verse which they have preserved-the so called Epzgmms, which used to be printed at the end of editions of Homer These are easily recognized as “ Popular Rhy mes, ” a form of folk-lore to be met with in most countries, treasured by the people as a k1nd of proverbs 2 In the Homeric rpzgsams the interest turns sometimes on the characteristics of particular local1t1es-Smyrna and Cyme (Epigr. iv.), Erythrae tlzpzgr yi, vn), Mt Ida (Eptgr. x), Neon Teichos (Epzgf. 1), others relate to certain trades or occupations-potters (Epzgr. x1), sailors, nshermen, goat herds, &c Some may be fragments of longer poems, but evidently they are not the work of any one poet The fact that they were all ascribed to Homer merely means that they belong to a period in the history of the Ionian and Xeolian colonies when “ Homer” was a name which drew to itself all ancient and popular verse.

Aga1n, comparing the “epigrams”

anecdotes told in the LIVCS of Homer, we can hardly doubt that they were the chief source from wh1ch these Lives were derived Thus 1n Epigr IV. we find a bl1nd poet. a native of »eol1an Smyrna through which tiows the water of the sacred Meles Here is doubtless the source of the chief incident of the Hcrodotean Lite -the blllll of Homer “ Son of the Meles ” The epithet ~eol1an implies h1gh antiquity, inasmuch as according to Herodotus bmyrna became Ionian about 688 B C Naturally the Ionians had their ow 11 version of the story-a version which made Horner come out with the first Athenian colonists. lhe same 1111e of argument may be extended to the Hymns, and even to some of the lost works of the post-Homeric or so-called “ Cyclic ” poets Thus'-1

lhe hymn to the Dellan Apollo ends with an address of the poet to h1s audience. When any stranger comes and asks who is the sweetest singer, they are to answer with one voice, the 'hhnd n1an that dwells in rocky Chios, his songs deserve the prize lOl all time to come ” Thucydides, who quotes this passage to show the ancient character of the Delian festival, seems to have no doubt of the IIOITICFIC authorship of the hymn Hence we may most naturally account for the belief that Homer was .1 Chian

2 'lhe Mazgz/es-a humorous poem which kept its ground as the reputed work of Homer down to the t1me of Ar1stotlebegan w1th the words, “There came to Colophon an old man, a divine singer, servant of the Muses and Apollo.” Hence doubtless the claim of Colophon to be the native city of Homera claim supported 111 the early times of Homer1c learning by the Colophoman poet and grammarian Antimachus. 5 The poem called the Cypria was said to have been given by Homer to Stasmus of Cyprus as a daughter's dowry. The connexion with Cyprus appears further in the predominance given in the poem to Aphrodate.

4 The L11/le Ilzad and the P]l0Ctll5, according to the Herodotean hfc, were composed by Homer when he lived at Phocaea with a certain Thestorides, who carried them off to Chios and there gained fame by reciting them as his own The name Thestorides octurs in Epzg y

with the legends and

Qee a paper in the D155 Phzlol Halenses, ii 97-219 (omparc the Popular Rhymes of Seo/land, published by Robert L liambcrs

5 A similar story was told about the poem called the Takzng of Oechalm (Oixahias "A}waI.s), the subject of which was one of the exploits of Heracles It passed under the name of Creophylus, a friend or (as some said) a son-in-law of Homer, but It was generally believed to have been 111 fact the work of the poet himself.

6. Finally the Thebaid always counted as the work of Homer. As to the Epigonl, which carried on the Tlieban story, some doubt seems to have been felt

These indications render it probable that the stories connecting Homer with different cities and islands grew up after his poems had become known and famous, especially in the new and flourishing colonies of Aeol1s and lonia. The contention for Homer, in short, began at a time whe11 his real history was lost, and he had become a sort of mythical figure, an “ eponymous hero, ” or persomfication of a great school of poetry. An interesting confirmation of this view from the negative side is furnished by the city which ranked as chief among the As1atic colonies of Greece, viz Miletus. No legend claims for M1letus even a vis1t from Homer, or a share in the authorship of any Homeric poem. Yet Arctinus of Miletus was said to have been a “ disciple of Homer, ” and was certainly one of the earliest and most considerable of the “ Cyclic” poets. His Aelhzopzs was composed as a sequel to the Iliad, and the structure and general character of his poems show that he took the Iliad as his model. Yet in his case we find no trace of the disputed authorship which is so common with other “ Cyclic ” poems. How has this come about? Why have the works of Arctinus escaped the attraction which drew to the name of Homer such epics as the Cypria, the Lztile Iliad, the Thebazd, the Eptgom, the T aklug of Oar/zalza and the Phocazs The most obvious account of the matter is that Arctinus was never so far forgotten that his poems became the subject of dispute. We seem through him to obta1n a glimpse of an early post-Homeric age in Ion1a, when the immediate disciples and successors of Homer were distinct figures in a trustworthy trad1t1on-when they had not yet merged their individuality in the legendary “ Homer ” of the Epic Cycle.

Reczlazirm of the Poems-'lhe rec1tat1on of epic poetry was called in historical times “ rhapsody ” (baglqséia). The word

5ou//cpéés is post-Homeric, but was known to Pindar, who gives

two different explanations of it-“singer of stitched verse ” (;5a1rnT»1/évréwv doiéoi), and “ singer with the wand ” (;5a;366s), Of these the first is etymologically correct (except that it should rather be “ stitcher of verse ”), the second was suggested by the fact, for which there is early evidence, that the reciter was accustomed to hold a wand in his hand-perhaps, like the sceptre 1n the HOm€l1C assembly, as a symbol of the right to a 3

hearing

The first notice of rhapsody meets us at S1C}O11, in the reign of Cleisthenes (600~560 B C), who “ put down the rhapsodises on account of the poems of Homer, because they are all about Argos and the Arg1ves ” (Hdt v. 67). This description applies VCIY well to the Ilzad, in which Argos and Arglves occur on almost every page It may have suited the Thebazd st1ll better, but there is no need to understand it only of that poem, as Grote does The l11Cld€11t shows that the poems of the Ionic Homer had gained in the 6th century B C., and in the Doric parts of the Peloponnesns, the ascendancy, the national importance and the almost canonical character which they ever afterwards retained. At Athens theie was a law that the Homeric poems should be recited (bail/cyéeialiat) on every occasion of the Panathenaea. This law Ib appealed to as an especial glory of Athens by the orator Lycurgus (Leocr 102) Perhaps therefore the custom of public recitation was exceptional,4 and unfortunately we do not know when OI by whom it was introduced The Platonic dialogue Hfppaztlzus attributes it to Hipparchus, son of Peisistratus This, however, is part of the historical romance of 3 Compare the branch of myrtle at an Athtman feast (»ristoph., Nab, IQQG4)

4 The Ilmd was also recited at the festival of the Brauronla, at

Brauron in Attica (Hesych. 5 v. Bpaz/pw:/Lots)