Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/146

 130 ins TORY OF GREECK. of Herodotus, that in his time the general opinion ascribed tc Homer both the Cyprian Verses and the Epigoni, though lie himself dissents. 1 In spite of such dissent, however, that his- torian must have conceived the names of Homer and Hesiod to be nearly coextensive with the whole of the ancient epic ; other- wise, he would hardly have delivered his memorable judgment, that they two were the framers of Grecian theogony. The many different cities which laid claim to the birth of Homer (seven is rather below the truth, and Smyrna and Chios are the most prominent among them,) is well known, and most of them had legends to tell respecting his romantic parentage, his alleged blindness, and his life of an itinerant bard, acquainted with poverty and sorrow. 2 The discrepancies of statement re- 2. Adrastus was king of Argos, and the chief of the expedition. It is therefore literally true, that Argos and tho Argeians were " the burden of the song" in these two poems. To this we may add 1. The rhapsodes would have the strongest motive to recite the Thebals nnd Epigoni at Sikyon, where Adrastus was worshipped and enjoyed so vast n popularity, and where he even attracted to himself the choric solemnities which in other towns were given to Dionysus. 2. The fleans which Kleisthenes took to get rid of Adrastus indicates a special reference to the Thebats : he invited from Thebes the hero Melanip pus, the Hector of Thebes, in that very poem. For these reasons, I think we may conclude that the 'O/w/pem i-Kij, alluded to in this very illustrative story of Herodotus, are the Thebals and the Epi- goni, not the Iliad. 1 Herodot. ii. 117 ; iv. 32. The words in which Herodotus intimates hi? own dissent from the reigning opinion, are treated as spurious by F. A. Wolf, and vindicated by Schweighhanser : whether they be admitted or not, the general currency of the opinion adverted to is equally evident. 2 The Life of Homer, which passes falsely under the name of Herodotus, contains a collection of these different stories : it is supposed to have been written about the second century after the Christian era, but the statements which it furnishes are probably several of them as old as Ephorus (compare also Proclus ap. Photium, c. 239). The belief in the blindness of Homer is doubtless of far more ancient date, since the circumstance appears mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to the Delian Apollo where the bard of Chios, in some very touching lines, recommends himself and his strains to the favor of the Delian maidens employed in the worship of Apollo. This hymn is cited by Thucydides as unquestionably authentic, and he doubtless accepted the lines as a descrip- tion of the personal condition and relations of the author of tho Iliad and