Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/123

111 HOMER 111 necessity. That it was the mode of recitation contemplated by the author of the Iliad or Odyssey it is impossible to believe. The difference made by substituting the wand or branch of laurel for the lyre of the Homeric singer is a slighter one, though not without significance. The recitation of the Hesiodic poems w r as from the first unaccompanied by the lyre, 1 i.e., they were confessedly said, not sung ; and it was natural that the example should be extended to Homer. For it is difficult to believe that the Homeric poems were ever &quot; sung &quot; in the strict sense of the word. We can only suppose that the lyre in the hands of the epic poet or reciter was in reality a piece of convention, a &quot;survival&quot; from the stage in which narrative poetry had a lyrical character. Probably the poets of the Homeric school that which dealt with war and adventure were the genuine descendants of minstrels whose &quot; lays &quot; or &quot;ballads &quot; were the amusement of the feasts in an earlier heroic age ; whereas the Hesiodic compositions were non- lyrical from the first, and were only in verse because that was the universal form of literature. It seems, then, that if we imagine Homer as a singer in a royal house of the Homeric age, but with more freedom regarding the limits of his subject, and a more tranquil audience than is allowed him in the rapid movement of the Odyssey, we shall probably not be far from the truth. Time and Place of Homer. The oldest direct references to the Iliad and Odyssey are in Herodotus, who quotes from both poems (ii. 53). The quotation from the Iliad is of interest because it is made in order to show that Homer supported the story of the travels of Paris to Egypt and Sidon (whereas the Cyclic poem called the Cypria ignored them), and also because the part of the Iliad from which it comes is cited as the &quot;Aristeia of Diomede.&quot; This was therefore a recognized part of the poem. 2 The earliest mention of the name of Homer is found in a fragment of the philosopher Xenophanes (of the Gth cen tury B.C., or possibly earlier), who complains of the false notions implanted through the teaching of Homer (l &quot;PX^ S KCt ^ &quot;OfJ-ypov eTret /ze/xa^Kacri Travres). The passage shows, not merely that Homer was well known at Colophon in the time of Xenophanes, but also that the great advance in moral and religious ideas which forced Plato to banish Homer from his republic had made itself felt in the days of the early Ionic philosophers. Failing external testimony, the time and place of the Homeric poems can only be determined (if at all) by in ternal evidence. This is of two main kinds : (1) evidence of history, consisting in a comparison of the political and social condition, the geography, the institutions, the manners, arts, and ideas of Homer with those of other times ; (2) evidence of language, consisting in a com parison with later dialects, in respect of grammar and vocabulary. To these may be added, as occasionally of value, (3) evidence of the direct influence of Homer upon the subsequent course of literature and art. (1) The political condition of Greece in the earliest times known to history is separated from the Greece of Homer by an interval which can hardly be overestimated. The great national names are different : instead of Achceans, Argives, 1 So Pausanias (ix. 30, 2), who supports his opinion from Hesiod, Theog., 30-32. And so Aristophanes (Nv b., 1355-64) distinguishes between sinyiny an ode from Simonides and saying (A. fai) a piece of yEschylus. In the second case the myrtle branch is taken instead of the lyre. 2 The difficulty which has been made because the title Aio^Sovs ApicrTfia. i given in the MSS. to the fifth book, whereas the quotation in question comes from the sixth, is due to an oversight. Putting aside the modern division into books, ami looking to the narrative, we see that the Aristeia of Diomede extends from the beginning of Book v. to ver. 311 in Book vi. See the Journal of Philology, vol. ii. p. 214. Danai, we find Hellenes, Dorians, lonians, ^Eolians names either unknown to Homer, or mentioned in terms more significant than silence. Mycenae is no longer the centre of empire; new empires, polities, and civilizations have grown up, Sparta with its military discipline, Delphi with its religious supremacy, Miletus with its commerce and numberless colonies, ^Eolis and Ionia, Sicily and Magna Grsecia. While the political centre of Homeric Greece is Mycenae, the real centre is evidently Bceotia. The Catalogue of the Ships begins with Bceotia ; the list of Boeotian towns is much the longest ; and they sail, not from the bay of Argos, but from the Boeotian harbour of Aulis. This position is not due to its chiefs, who are all of inferior rank. The importance of Boeotia for civilization is further shown by the ancient worship of the Muses on Mount Helicon, and the fact that the oldest poet whose birthplace is known was the Boeotian Hesiod. Next to Boeotia and the neigh bouring countries, Phocis, Locris, Athens, it appears that the Peloponnesus, Crete, and Thessaly are the most im portant seats of Greek population. In the Peloponnesus the face of things vas completely altered by the Dorian conquest, no trace of which is found in Homer. The only Dorians known in Homer are those that the Odyssey (xix. 177) places in Crete. It seems difficult to connect them with the Dorians of history. The eastern shores of the ^Egean, which the earliest historical records represent to us as the seat of a brilliant military empires (Lydia and afterwards Persia), are almost a blank in Homer s map. The line of settlements can be traced in the Catalogue from Crete to Rhodes, and embraces the neighbouring islands of Cos and Calymnos. The colonization of Rhodes by Tlepolemus is related (//. ii. 661 ff.}. and seems to mark the furthest point reached in the Homeric age. Between Rhodes and the Troad the only name is Miletus, and that is still in the hands of &quot; barbar ous speaking&quot; Carians. Even the Cyclades Naxos, Paros, Melos are unknown to the Homeric world. The disposi tion of the Greeks to look to the west for the centres of religious feeling appears in the mention of Dodona and the Dorlonsean Zeus, put in the mouth of the Thessalian Achilles. To the north we find the Thracians, known from the j stories of Thamyris the singer (II. ii. 595), and Lycurgus, j the enemy of the young god Dionysus (II. vi. 130). Here the Trojan empire begins. It does not appear, however, that the Trojans are thought of as people of a different language. As this is expressly said of the Carians, and of the Trojan allies who were &quot; summoned from afar,&quot; the contrary rather is implied regarding Troy itself. The mixed type of government described by Homer consisting of a king guided by a council of elders, and bringing all important resolutions before the assembly of the fighting men does not seem to have been universal in Indo-European communities, but to have grown up in many different parts of the world under the stress of similar con ditions. The king is the commander in war, and the office probably owed its existence to military necessities. It is not surrounded with any special sacredness. There were ruling families, laying claim to divine descent, from whom the king was naturally chosen, but his own fitness is the essence of his title. The aged Laertes is set aside ; the young Telemachus does not succeed as a matter of course. Nor are any very definite rights attached to the office. Each tribe in the army before Troy was commanded by its own king (or kings) ; but Agamemnon was supreme, because he was &quot; more a king &quot; (/JcuriAeuTepos) than any other. The assembly is summoned on all critical occasions, and its approval is the ultimate sanction, A king there-
 * civilization, giving way before the advance of the great