ON THE ÆRA OF HESIOD.
The question of the æra when Hesiod flourished, and whether he were the
elder or the junior of Homer, or his contemporary, has given rise to
such endless disputes, that Pausanias declines giving any opinion on the
subject. Some of the moderns have attempted to ascertain the point from
internal evidence: 1st, by the character of style: 2dly, by philological
criticism: 3dly, by astronomical calculation.
In the first instance they are unfortunately by no means agreed. Justus
Lipsius asserts that a greater simplicity and more of the rudeness of
antiquity are apparent in Hesiod: Salmasius insists that Hesiod is more
smooth and finished, and less imbued with antiquity than Homer.
As to the argument of Heinsius respecting τεκμαιρομαι being used by Homer
in the sense of _to effect_ or _bring to pass_, and by Hesiod in that
of _to appoint_, _contrive_, or _will_; and as to the former being the
more ancient acceptation; the proof totally fails: inasmuch as Homer has
repeatedly used the word in the latter sense: and with regard to the use
of θεμιστας by Homer for law, when Hesiod uses νομους, which is asserted
not to have been known in Homer’s age, the objection is vague; unless we
suppose that Homer’s poems[8] contained every word in the language. The
argument of the celebrated Dr. Samuel Clarke, in favour of their being
of a different age, and of Hesiod being the junior, turns on the word
καλος; which in Homer is invariably made long in the first syllable;
whereas Hesiod makes it either long or short at pleasure: and on the word
οπωρινος; of which the penult is long in Homer, and short in Hesiod. But
should the argument affect their being coeval, it does not appear why
Hesiod might not be the elder: for who will be bold enough to decide
as to the most ancient quantity? nor could we possibly determine the
question, unless we were in possession of other poets, contemporary with
Homer, who should be found to conform exactly with the Homeric prosody:
in which case the disagreement of Hesiod might favour a presumption
of his belonging, at least, to a different age. The criticism seems,
however, in all respects unworthy of so acute a reasoner as Dr. Clarke:
for surely the difference of country alone might induce a difference of
prosodial usage, no less than a dissimilarity of dialect. But the most
decisive answer to all such minute criticisms appears to be, that all the
evidence afforded us on historical authority respecting the discovery,
collection, and arrangement of the poems ascribed to Homer, justifies the
presumption that their dialect, diction, and prosody have undergone[9]
such modifications and changes, as to baffle all chronological reasoning
drawn from the present state of the poems.
Scaliger and Vossius have thought that the æra of Hesiod could be
ascertained within seventy years, more or less, by astronomical
calculation, from the following passage of The Works and Days.
When sixty days have circled, since the sun
Turn’d from his wintry tropic, then the star
Arcturus, leaving ocean’s sacred flood,
First whole-apparent makes his evening rise.
It is singular that so great a philosopher as Dr. Priestley should also
have argued for the certainty of the same method of chronology in this
instance of Hesiod. (Lectures on History, Lect. xii. p. 99.) But neither
the accuracy nor the precise nature of the astronomical observation here
commemorated can possibly be ascertained. It is uncertain whether the
single star Arcturus may not be placed for the whole constellation of
Boötes; of which there are examples in Columella, and other writers.
It is wholly uncertain whether this rising was observed in Hesiod’s
own country, or even in Hesiod’s own time; a knowledge of both which
particulars is essential to our making a just calculation. We shall
scarcely ascribe to Hesiod a more scientific accuracy than to subsequent
astronomers; yet we find that even _their_ observations of the solstices
and of the risings and settings of the stars, are ambiguous, and most
probably fallacious. Hesiod makes the achronycal rising of Arcturus sixty
days after the winter solstice: many other writers, and particularly
Pliny, say the same. Now setting the difference between Hesiod and
Pliny at 800 years, this will make a difference of eleven days in the
time of the phænomenon. Both therefore cannot have written from actual
observation, and probably neither did. The ancients copied from each
other without scruple; because they knew not till the time of Hipparchus,
that the times of rising &c. varied by the course of ages. They seem
besides to have copied from writers of various latitudes: unconscious
that this also made a difference. We shall not then be disposed to rely
on this, or similar passages of Hesiod, for any secure data of chronology.
In the absence of internal evidence we are therefore referred to the
opinions of antiquity. There is a remark of Gibbon in that part of his
Posthumous Writings entitled “Extraits raisonnés de mes Lectures,” which
lays down an excellent rule of judgment in matters of chronology.
He very justly observes, that the differences of chronologers may be
reconciled by the consideration that they reckoned from different æras of
the person’s life. The fixing the date from different periods, as from
the birth or death, the production of a work,[10] or any other remarkable
event of a person’s life, might easily make the difference of a century.
“So that we may establish it as a rule of criticism, that where these
diversities do not exceed the natural term of human life we ought to
think of reconciling, and not of opposing them. There are, indeed, many
writers, with respect to Homer, whom it is impossible to conciliate;
since they take in so enormous a period as 416 years, from the return
of the Heraclidæ A. C. 1104 to the twenty-third Olympiad A. C. 688. But
besides that they are of inferior note, the great difference among them
leaves the authority of each to stand singly by itself.”
This reasoning very much diminishes whatever force might be derived
from the authority of names, to the computations of those writers who
contend that Hesiod is a century younger than Homer. These are the Latin
writers; whose concurrence is however so exact as to induce a belief of
their having merely copied from each other. Thus Velleius Paterculus,
who wrote his history 30 years after Christ, says that Homer flourished
950 years before his time; that is, before Christ 920; and Pliny about
the year 78 computed that Homer lived 1000 years before him; before
Christ 920. Paterculus follows Cicero in placing Hesiod 120 years after
Homer: Pliny, Porphyry, and Solinus, concur in the order of their ages,
and in the interval between them: varying only from ten to twenty or
thirty years. But on the plan laid down by Gibbon, this chronology might
be reconciled with that of Ephorus, and Varro: who, according to Aulus
Gellius, made Hesiod and Homer contemporaries: as did Plutarch and
Philostratus.
This opinion is supported by the ancient authority of Herodotus; and by
that of the Chronicler of the Parian Marbles. The authenticity of these
marbles has, indeed, been impugned by a learned dissertation of Mr.
Robertson, printed in 1788. To this an answer was published in 1789, by
Mr. Hewlett: and Mr. Gough has defended the genuineness of the Chronicle
in a Memoir of the Archæologia, vol. ix. Gibbon observes, “I respect that
monument as a useful, as an uncorrupt monument of antiquity: but why
should I prefer its authority to that of Herodotus? it is more modern:
(B. C. 264:) its author is uncertain: we know not from what source he
drew his chronology.”[11] The Parian Marble, however, if not a modern
forgery, may be allowed to stand on the same footing with other Greek
tablets of chronology.
Herodotus was born B. C. 484. He affirms Hesiod and Homer to have
preceded his own time by four hundred years: thus making them
contemporaries; and fixing their æra at B. C. 884.
The Chronicler of the Marbles fixes the æra of Hesiod at 944 years
B. C.: and that of Homer at 907; by which Hesiod is placed 37 years
before Homer; a difference, however, too trifling to affect the
chronological evidence in favour of their contemporary existence.
FOOTNOTES
[8] Robinson, Dissertatio de Hesiodo.
[9] “If we consider the chronology of Homer’s life to be sufficiently
established, one would be tempted to believe that his rhapsodies, as they
were called, have not only been arranged and digested in a subsequent
period, as has been asserted on good authority, but have even undergone
something similar to the _refaccimento_ by Berni of Boyardo’s Orlando.”
Essays annexed to Professor Millar’s History of the English Government.
[10] It is strange, however, that a critic like Gibbon should have
allowed himself to talk of a definite time when “Homer wrote his Iliad;”
in an age when alphabetic characters were not in use; when poets composed
only rhapsodies, or such portions as could be recited at one time; which
were preserved by oral tradition through the recitations of succeeding
bards.
[11] The first specimen of a regular tablet of chronology is said to have
been given by Demetrius Phalereus in his Αρχοντων Αναγραφη, about the
middle of the fourth century B. C. The historian Timæus, who flourished
in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, first arranged his narrative
in the order of Olympiads; which began B. C. 776. His contemporary
Sosibius, gave a work entitled Χρονων Αναγραφη: Apollodorus wrote the
Συνταξις Χρονικη: and on such chronologers rests the credit of all later
compilers, as well as of the Arundelian Marbles. DR. GILLIES.
We are informed by Dr. Clarke, in his “Travels,” that these marbles were
not found in Paros, but in the Isle of Zia.