declares that Lycurgus was the first to bring the poetry of Homer
into Peloponnesus: τὴν Ὁμήρου ποίησιν, παρὰ τῶν ἀπογόνων Κρεοφύλου
λαβὼν, πρῶτος διεκόμισεν εἰς Πελοπόννησον. This testimony is late
with reference to the fact it reports, but not late in the history
of Greek literature. Of the source from which it was derived by the
author who gives it us, we know nothing. No light is thrown upon it by
Ælian,[50] who adds the epithet ἀθρόαν to ποίησιν. Plutarch enlarges
the expression of the tradition, but seems to add little to its matter,
except that some portions of Homer were known before Lycurgus brought
the whole from Crete.[51] It is stated in the Republic of Plato,[52]
that Creophylus was a companion of Homer. Strabo[53] informs us that
he was a Samian; and Hermodamas, the master of Pythagoras, is said
by Diogenes Laertius[54] to have been his descendant. Now, we cannot
call any part of these statements history; but they exhibit a body
of tradition, of which the members, drawn from scattered quarters,
agree with one another, and agree also with the general probability
that arises out of a fact so astonishing as is in itself the actual
preservation of the poems of Homer. It is in truth this fact that
lays the best ground for traditions such as the one in question. If
they came before us artificially complete and embellished, that might
be made a ground of suspicion. But appearing, as this one does, with
an evident absence of design, there is every presumption of its truth.
Before considering the full force which attaches to it if it be true,
we will draw out the kindred traditions.
2. Of these, the next, and a most important one, is the statement of
Herodotus respecting Clisthenes, the ruler of Sicyon, who, when he
had been at war with Argos, ῥαψῳδοὺς ἔπαυσε ἐν Σικυῶνι ἀγωνίζεσθαι,
τῶν Ὁμηρείων ἐπέων εἵνεκα, ὅτι Ἀργεῖοί τε καὶ Ἄργος τὰ πολλὰ πάντα
ὑμνέαται[55]. He proceeds to say, that Clisthenes sought to banish the
memory of Adrastus, as being an Argive hero, from Sicyon. It is not
necessary to inquire what these Homeric poems may have included; but
the conclusion of Grote, that they were ‘the Thebais and the Epigoni,
not the Iliad[56],’ seems to me incredible. Nor is it correct that
the Iliad fails to supply matter to which the statement may refer. In
the Iliad, the name of Argos, though meaning it is true the country
rather than a city, is nearly associated with the chief seat of power,
and becomes representative of the whole Hellenic race in its heroic
infancy. This is surely honour infinitely higher, than any local fame
it could derive from the civil feud with Thebes. The Iliad, too, marks
most clearly the connexion of Adrastus with Argos--for it names Diomed
as the husband of his daughter or granddaughter, Ægialea[57]; it also
marks the subordinate position of Sicyon,
ὅθ’ ἄρ’ Ἄδρηστος πρῶτ’ ἐμβασίλευεν[58],
by making it a mere town in the dominions of Agamemnon, while Argos
figures as a sovereign and powerful city. There may therefore perhaps
be room to doubt whether Herodotus meant even to include the Thebais or
Epigoni in the phrase ‘Homeric poems.’
But the importance of the passage is not wholly dependent on these
considerations. It shows,
_a._ That there were, at Sicyon, State-recitations of Homer six
centuries before the Christian era, attended with rewards for the
successful performers.
_b._ That these recitations were in conformity with common use; for
they are named as something ordinary and established, which was then
set aside, not as a custom peculiar to Sicyon.
_c._ That the recitations depended upon the Homeric poems, since they
were entirely stopped on account of exceptionable matter which the
Homeric poems were deemed to contain.
_d._ That these recitations were in the nature of competitive contests
among the rhapsodists, when the best and most approved, of course,
would obtain prizes. This implies that the recitations were not single,
as if by poet laureates, but that many shared in them.
3. Next to this tradition, and nearly coeval with it, but reported by
later authority, is that respecting Solon and Athens. Dieuchidas of
Megara, an author of uncertain age, placed by Heyne[59] later than
Alexander, is quoted in Diogenes Laertius[60] as testifying to the
following effect concerning Solon: τά τε Ὁμήρου ἐξ ὑποβολῆς γέγραφε
ῥαψῳδεῖσθαι. οἷον ὅπου ὁ πρῶτος ἔληξεν, ἐκεῖθεν ἄρχεσθαι τὸν ἐχόμενον.
μᾶλλον οὖν Σόλων Ὅμηρον ἐφώτισεν, ἢ Πεισίστρατος. But we have also a
better witness, I think, in Lycurgus the orator, contemporary with
Demosthenes,[61] who gives a most striking account of the political
and martial use of the Homeric songs. He says, οὕτω γὰρ ὑπέλαβον ὑμῶν
οἱ πατέρες σπουδαῖον εἶναι ποιήτην, ὥστε νόμον ἔθεντο καθ’ ἑκάστην
πενταετηρίδα τῶν Παναθηναίων μόνου τῶν ἄλλων ποιήτων ῥαψωδεῖσθαι τὰ
ἔπη. ‘It was with these songs in their ears,’ he proceeds, ‘that your
fathers fought at Marathon; and so valiant were they _then_, that from
among them their brave rivals, the Lacedæmonians, sought a general,
Tyrtæus.’
_a._ Now, these words appear to carry the traditional origin of this
law, as far as the authority of Lycurgus will avail, back to the early
part of the seventh century, when Tyrtæus lived.[62]
_b._ Thus, at the period when Athens is just beginning to rise towards
eminence, she enacts a law that the poems of Homer shall be recited at
her greatest festival.
_c._ This honour she accords to Homer (whatever that name may have
imported) alone among poets.
_d._ This appears, from the connexion with Tyrtæus, to be a tradition
of a matter older still than the one mentioned by Dieuchidas. But
the two are in thorough accordance. For Dieuchidas does not say that
Solon introduced the recitations of Homer, nor does he refer simply
to the Panathenaica. He pretty clearly implies, that Solon did not
begin the recitations, but that he reformed--(by bringing them into
regular succession, which implies a fixed order of the songs)--what had
been introduced already; while Lycurgus seems to supply the notice of
the original introduction as having occurred before the time even of
Tyrtæus.
4. The argument from the sculptures on the chest of Cypselus,
representing subjects taken out of the Iliad, refers to a period nearly
corresponding with that of Tyrtæus, as Cypselus was probably born about
B. C. 700: and tends to show that the Iliad was famous in Corinth at
that date.[63]
5. The next of the specific traditions is that relating to Pisistratus.
To his agency it has been the fashion of late years to assign an
exaggerated, or even an exclusive, importance. But whereas the
testimonies respecting Lycurgus, Clisthenes, and Solon, (as well as the
Athenian legislators before him,) are derived from authors probably,
or certainly, of the fourth and fifth centuries B. C., we have none at
all respecting Pisistratus earlier than the Augustan age.[64] Cicero
says he first disposed the Homeric books in their present order;
Pausanias,[65] that he collected them, διεσπασμένα τε καὶ ἀλλαχοῦ
μνημονευόμενα; Josephus,[66] who, as we have seen, merely refers to the
report that the Iliad was not committed to writing until after Homer’s
time, is wrongly quoted[67] as a witness to the labours of Pisistratus.
An ancient Scholion, recently discovered,[68] names four poets who
worked under that prince. And it may be admitted, that the traditions
respecting Pisistratus have this distinctive mark--that they seem to
indicate the first accomplishment of a critical and literary task upon
Homer’s text under the direct care and responsibility of the sovereign
of the country.
Thus, the testimony concerning Pisistratus is of an order decidedly
inferior to that which supports the earlier traditions, and cannot with
propriety be put into the scale against them where they are in conflict
with it; but there is no reason to reject the report that he fixed the
particular order of the poems, which the law of Solon may have left
open in some degree to the judgment of the reciters, although they were
required by it to recite in order.
6. The dialogue, doubtfully ascribed to Plato under the name of
Hipparchus, states that that sovereign--
τὰ Ὁμήρου πρῶτος ἐκόμισεν ἐς τὴν γῆν ταυτηνὶ, καὶ ἠνάγκασε τοὺς
ῥαψῳδοὺς Παναθηναίοις ἐξ ὑπολήψεως ἐφεξῆς αὐτὰ διιέναι, ὥσπερ νῦν ἔτι
οἵδε ποιοῦσι[69].
As regards the matter of original introduction, this passage
contradicts all the foregoing ones. From the uncertainty who is its
author, it must yield to them as of less authority. But this is not
all. It is on the very face of it incredible: for it asserts, not that
his poetry was first arranged or adjusted, but first brought into
the country by Hipparchus. This is in itself absurd: and it is also
directly in the teeth of the statement, which can hardly be a pure
fiction, that Solon by law required the poems of Homer to be recited
at the Panathenæa. As regards the succession in reciting, it is quite
possible that he may have put the last hand to the work of his father.
However, the passage may deserve notice as a sign of the general belief
that the care of the poems of Homer, and provision for their orderly
publication in the only mode then possible, was a fit and usual part of
the care of States and their rulers.
The whole mass of the passages which have been cited may be thought to
bear primarily on the controversies which I have waived. But they have
a most important, even if secondary, bearing upon the question, whether
the received text is generally sound in its structure. The dangers
which menaced that text of course were referable to two sources: the
one, want of due care; and the other, falsification for a purpose: and
it is necessary to bring into one view the whole positive evidence
with respect to the preservation and publication of the Homeric poems,
in order to estimate the amount both of these dangers and of the
safeguards against them. I resume the prosecution of this task.
From the word ἀγωνίζεσθαι, applied by Herodotus to the recitations at
Sicyon, it is plain that they were matches among the rhapsodists. And
as the match did not in the main depend upon the original compositions
of the candidates, but on the repetition of what Homer was reputed to
have composed, the question arises, on what grounds could the prize be
adjudged? Partly, perhaps, for the voice and manner of the rhapsodist;
but partly also, nay, we must assume principally, for his comparative
fidelity to the supposed standard of his original. And, when we
consider the length of the poems, we may the more easily understand
how the retentiveness of memory required to give an adequate command
of them, might well deserve and receive reward. True, the vanity of
a particular rhapsodist might readily induce him to suppose that he
could improve upon Homer. But surely such an one would be subject to
no inconsiderable check from the vigilance, and the impartial, or
more probably the jealous, judgment of his contemporaries and rivals.
The aberrations, too, or interpolations, of each one inventor, would
be immediately crossed by those of every other; and the intrinsic
superiority of the great poet himself, and the extraordinary reverence
paid to his name, would thus derive powerful aid from the natural play
of human passions. I look upon the circumstance that these recitations
were competitive, and probably open to all comers, as one of the utmost
importance. Freedom, in such a case, would be far more conservative
than restriction.
The force of such considerations is abated indeed, but it is not
destroyed, by the fact that poems not composed by Homer were esteemed
to be Homeric. We have no means of knowing whether this false
estimation reached in general beyond the character of mere vulgar
rumour. We find, indeed, that Callinus ascribed the Thebais to Homer,
Thucydides the Pythian Hymn, and Aristotle the Margites. But, of these
three, the last judgment, for all we know, may have been a true one.
The Thebais was judged by Pausanias to be the best of the epics, after
the Iliad and Odyssey. It does not therefore follow, that because a
poet might assign this to him, he would also have assigned others. Few
authors show more slender marks of critical acumen than Herodotus;
but even he treats the notions that the Cyprian epic or the Epigoni
belonged to Homer in terms such as to show, that they were at most mere
speculations, and not established public judgments.[70]
Now, even in a critical age, it seems to be inevitable, that authors
of conspicuous popularity shall be followed on their path, not only
by imitators, but, where there is the least hope of even temporary
success, by forgers. We see, in the present day, attempts to vent
new novels under the name of Walter Scott. I have myself a volume,
purchased in Italy, of spurious verses, printed under the name of
her great, though not yet famous, modern poet, Giacomo Leopardi. In
periods far less critical, impostors would be bolder, and dupes more
numerous. But it cannot be shown that a number of other epics, or even
that any single one, had been generally ascribed to Homer with the same
confidence as the Iliad and Odyssey; nor that the same care, public or
private, was taken in any other case for the keeping and restoration of
the text.
Again, though the Spartan and Athenian traditions take no specific
notice of competition, yet we are justified in supposing that it
existed, because the practice can be traced to an antiquity more remote
than any of them. It is true that in Homer we have no example of
competition among bards actually exhibited; but neither do the poems
furnish us with an occasion when it might have been looked for. The
ordinary place of the bard was as a member of a king’s or chieftain’s
household. At the great assemblages of tribes, or of the Greek race, to
which the chiefs repaired in numbers, more bards than one would also
probably appear. Some light is thrown upon this subject by the passage
relating to Thamyris in the second Book of the Iliad.[71] He met his
calamity at Dorion, when on a journey; and it caught him Οἰχαλίηθεν
ἰόντα παρ’ Εὐρύτου Οἰχαλιῆος. Homer’s usual precision justifies our
arguing that, when he says he came, not simply from a place, but also
from, or from beside, the lord of a place, the meaning is, that he was
attached to that lord as the bard of his court or household. Again,
he was on a journey. Whither bound, except evidently to one of these
contests? This is fully shown by the lines that follow, for they
contemplate a match as then about to take place forthwith. For the
form of his boast was not simply that he could beat the Muses, but (to
speak in our phraseology) he vauntingly vowed that he would win, even
though the Muses themselves should be his rivals.
στεῦτο γὰρ εὐχόμενος νικήσεμεν, εἴπερ ἂν αὐταὶ
Μοῦσαι ἀείδοιεν.
Institutions which embrace competition have, from the character of
man’s nature, a great self-sustaining power; and there is no reason to
suppose that between the time of Thamyris and that of the Sicyonian
rhapsodists this method of recitation had at any time fallen into
abeyance. In a fragment of Hesiod[72], quoted by the Scholiast on
Pindar, we find the phrase ῥάπτειν ἀοιδήν; but on account of its
mention of Homer as a contemporary, this fragment is untrustworthy.
In other places, however, he distinctly witnesses to the matches and
prizes of the bards, and says that at the match held by Amphidamas
in Aulis, he himself won a tripod[73]. Again, Thucydides finds an
unequivocal proof of the competition of bards in the beautiful passage
which he quotes from the very ancient _Hymn_ to Apollo[74].
I do not think it needful to dwell in detail upon the means privately
taken for the transmission of the Homeric songs. Cinæthus of Chios
(according to the Scholiast on Pindar[75], quoting Hippostratus, a
Sicilian author of uncertain date), ἐῤῥαψῴδησε τὰ Ὁμήρου ἔπη (about 500
B.C.), for the first time at Syracuse. It may be observed that this
passage may probably imply the foundation of public recitations there.
Eustathius[76], quoting, as Heyne[77] observes, inaccurately, charges
Cinæthus with having corrupted the Homeric poems; but the words of the
Scholiast need not mean more than that he composed certain poems and
threw them into the mass of those which were more or less taken to be
Homeric. We need not enlarge upon Creophylus[78], or upon the Homeridæ
mentioned by Pindar, and, according to Strabo, claimed as her own by
Chios[79]. That name appears to be used freely by Plato[80], without
explanation, as if in his own time they formed a well-known school.
According to Athenæus[81], quoting Aristocles, a writer of uncertain
date, the name Ὁμηρισταὶ was given to the rhapsodists generally.
The Iliad and the Odyssey were known to Herodotus under their present
titles, as we find from his references to them. But it is justly argued
by Heyne, that there must have been known poems of their scope and
subject at the time when the other Cyclic poems were written, which
fill up the interval between them, and complete the Troic story[82];
that is to say, not long after the commencement of the Olympiads.
Again, it is needless to do more than simply touch upon the relation
of Homer to Greek letters and culture in general. He was the source
of tragedy, the first text-book of philosophers, and the basis of
liberal education; so much so, that Alcibiades is said to have struck
his schoolmaster for having no MS. rhapsody of the Iliad[83], while
Xenophon quotes Niceratus as saying that his father made him learn
the Iliad and Odyssey, and that he could repeat the whole of them by
heart[84]. Cassander, king of Macedon, according to Athenæus, could do
nearly as much. He had by heart τῶν ἐπῶν τὰ πολλά.[85]
Passing on from this evidence of general estimation, I come to what is
more important with respect to the question of the text--that is, the
state of the poems at the time of the Alexandrian recensions, as it is
exhibited by Villoison, from the Venetian Scholia on the Iliad which he
discovered. From this source appears to me to proceed our best warrant
for believing in the general soundness of the text.
The first tendencies of the Alexandrian school, as they are represented
by Zenodotus, appear to have been towards very free excision and
emendation. Aristarchus, its highest authority, is considered to
represent a reaction towards more sober handling. The plan of
expressing suspicion by _obeli_ was a good one--it raised the question
of genuineness without foreclosing it. The passages which he excluded
stand in the text, and many among them are not much damaged by the
condemnation. One particularly, in the speech of Phœnix,[86] appears
to me alike beautiful and characteristic. After all, the _obelos_ is
generally attached to lines of amplification and poetic ornament;
which could be dispensed with, and yet leave the sense not vitally
mutilated. But we may quote Aristarchus as a witness, on the whole,
to the substantial soundness of the text. For it is plain that the
affirmation of all his doubts would still leave us with the substance
of the Iliad as it is; while it seems that the judgment of mankind,
or rather its feeling, which in such a matter is worth more than its
judgment, has refused to go as far as he did, for his doubts or adverse
verdicts are recorded, but the lines and passages remain, are still
read and taught as Homer, and are not pretended to be distinguishable
by any broad mark of intrinsic inferiority. It is not meant that the
soundness of each line has been considered and affirmed to be free
from doubt, but that it has been felt that, while clear discrimination
in detail was impracticable, retention was, on the whole, safer than
exclusion. Nor is this because a principle of blind credulity has
prevailed. On the contrary, the same judgment, feeling, or instinct, be
it what it may, of civilised man, which has found it safest to adhere
to the traditional text of Homer, has likewise thought it safest to
rule the case of authorship adversely as to the Hymns. Under all the
circumstances, I find no difficulty in understanding such accounts as
that which tells us that the inquiry, which is the best edition of
Homer? was met with the answer, ‘the oldest;’--or such a passage as
that of Lucian,[87] who introduces Homer in the Shades, declaring that
the ἀθετούμεναι στίχες, the suspected and rejected verses, were all
his; whereupon, says Lucian, I recognised the abundant frigidity of the
school of Zenodotus and Aristarchus. This is in an ironical work; but
ironical works are often used as the vehicles of real opinions.
The Venetian Scholiast is full of familiar references to the different
editions of the text of the Iliad, as being standards perfectly well
known; and he thus exhibits to us, in a considerable degree, the
materials which the Alexandrian critics found existing, and with which
they went to work upon that poem.
The multitude of editions (ἐκδόσεις) which they had before them,
were partly state editions (αἱ πολιτικαὶ, αἱ κατὰ πόλεις, αἱ διὰ τῶν
πόλεων, αἱ ἀπὸ τῶν πόλεων), and partly those due to private care
(οἱ κατ’ ἄνδρα). These latter seem to have obtained the name in two
ways. The first was, when it was taken from particular editors who
had revised the text, such as Antimachus (contemporary with Plato),
Callimachus, and, above all, Aristotle, who prepared for Alexander the
Great the copy ἐκ νάρθηκος, and, again, the edition of Zenodotus, that
of Aristophanes, and the two separate editions of Aristarchus, all of
the Alexandrian school; or else they were named from the persons who
possessed them, and for whom they had been prepared by the care of
learned men. Among such possessors was Cassander, king of Macedonia.
The existence of these State editions is a fact full of meaning.
It appears to show nothing less than this, that the text was under
the charge of the public authorities in the several States. We have
particular names for six of these editions through the Venetian
Scholiast--those of Marseilles, Chios, Cyprus, Crete, Sinope, Argos. On
beholding this list, we are immediately struck by the fact that while
it contains names from the far East, like Sinope, and far West, like
Marseilles, it does not contain one name of a city in Greece Proper,
except Argos, and that a city having perhaps less communion than almost
any other considerable place with Greek literature in general. We ask
why do not Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Corinth, why do not Syracuse and
the great Greek towns of Sicily and Italy, appear with their several
Homeric texts? The most likely answer appears to be, not that these
six enumerated cities were more distinguished than others by the
carefulness of their provisions for the safety of the Homeric text, but
that for some reason, possibly from their lying less within the circle
of Greek letters at large, they still retained each their particular
text, whereas an approximation had been made to a common text,--of
which the cities most properly Greek in general availed themselves. For
sometimes there are certain signs supplied in the Scholia of a common
text prevailing in the State or national, and another in the private
editions, and this without reference to the six cities above mentioned.
In the supposition of such a tendency to divaricate, there is nothing
beyond likelihood; for private editors would be more free to follow
their own judgments or conjectures, whereas the public curators would
almost, as a matter of course, be more rigidly conservative. At any
rate, there are traceable indications before us to this effect; for the
Scholiast cites for particular readings--
αἱ ἐκ τῶν πόλεων, xxi. 351.
αἱ ἀπὸ πόλεων, xxii. 51.
αἱ ἀπὸ τῶν πόλεων, xix. 386.
and on the other hand--
αἱ κατ’ ἄνδρα, xxii. 103.