Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/144

 128 HISTORY OF GREECE. the other Alexandrine critics on the text of the Iliad and Odya- sey, it has, indeed, been customary to regard those two (putting aside the Hymns, and a few other minor poems) as being the only genuine Homeric compositions : and the literary men called Chorizontes, or the Separators, at the head of whom were Xenon and Hellanikus, endeavored still farther to reduce the number by disconnecting the Iliad and Odyssey, and pointing out that both could not be the work of the same author. Throughout the whole course of Grecian antiquity, the Iliad and the Odys- sey, and the Hymns, have been received as Homeric : but if we go back to the time of Herod 5tus, or still earlier, we find that several other epics also were ascribed to Homer, and there were not wanting ' critics, earlier than the Alexandrine age, who regarded the whole Epic Cycle, together with the satirical poem called Margites, the Batrachomyomachia, and other smaller pieces, as Homeric works. The cyclic Theba'is and the Epigoni (whether they be two separate poems, or the latter a second part of the former) were in early days currently ascribed to Homer: the same was the case with the Cyprian Verses : some even attri- buted to him several other poems, 2 the Capture of CEchalia, the Lesser Iliad, the PhokaVs, and the Amazonia. The title of the poem called Theba'is to be styled Homeric, depends upon evi- dence more ancient than any which can be produced to authenti- cate the Iliad and Odyssey : for Kallinus, the ancient elegiac poet (B. c. 640), mentioned Homer as the author of it, and his opinion was shared by many other competent judges. 3 From the 1 See the extract of Proclus, in Photius Cod. 239. 3 Pausan. ix. 9, 3. The name of Kallinus in that passage seems certainly correct: T& 61 tiry ravra (the ThebaYs) Ka/l/ltvof, u(f>iKOfievof O.VTUV if uvr/ftriv, rjaev 'Ofiripav Tdv troiijaavTa elvai KaA/Uvu 6e TroA/lot re nal ul-ioi ?i6yov Kara TOVTU lyvuoav. 'Eyu 6e rr/v TTOiTjffiv TO.VTTJV /J.ETU ye 'I/Uu- 5a Kal 'Qdvaoeiav kiraivu ivikiara. To the same purpose the author of the Certamen of Hesiod and Homer, and the pseudo- Herodotus (Vit. Homer, c. 9). The ' /Ltiapeu tfcAaaia, alluded to in Suidas as the production of Homer, may be reasonably identi- fied with the ThebaVs (Suidas, v. "O/^pof). The cyclographer Dionysius, who affirmed that Homer had lircd both in the Theban and the Trojan wars, must have recognized that poet as author of the ThebaTs ns well as of the Iliad (ap. Procl. ad Hesiod. p. 3).
 * Suidas, v. "Ofiypof, Eustath. ad Iliad, ii. p. 330.