Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/154

 138 HISTORY OF GREECE. It will be seen by what has been here stated, that that class of men, who formed the medium of communication between the verse and the ear, were of the highest importance in the ancient world, and especially in the earlier periods of its career, the bards and rhapsodes for the epic, the singers for the lyric, the actors and singers jointly with the dancers for the chorus and drama. The lyric and dramatic poets taught with their own lips the delivery of their compositions, and so prominently did this business of teaching present itself to the view of the public, that the name Didaskalia, by which the dramatic exhibition was com monly designated, derived from thence its origin. Among the number of rhapsodes who frequented the festivals at a time when Grecian cities were multiplied and easy of access, for the recitation of the ancient epic, there must have been of course great differences of excellence ; but that the more consid- erable individuals of the class were elaborately trained and highly accomplished in the exercise of their profession, we may assume as certain. But it happens that Socrates, with his two pupils Plato and Xenophon, speak contemptuously of their merits ; and many persons have been disposed, somewhat too readily, to admit this sentence of condemnation as conclusive, without taking account of the point of view from which it was delivered. 1 These Nake remarks, too, that the " splendidissima et propria Homericse poeseos oetas, ea qua; sponte quasi sua inter populum et quasi cum populo viveret," did not reach below Peisistratus. It did not, I think, reach even so low as that period. 1 Xenoph. Memorab. iv. 2, 10 ; and Sympos. iii. 6. Oladu n ovv tdvof rfit&iurepov {laijjijduv j A^Aov yap OTI rue inrovoiai; ovr l^iaravrat. 2i) Je 2r)y(T(/</?p6ro re Kal 'Ava^tfjuvSpu KOI upyvptov, uare ovdev ae TUV TTO^OV uiuv These VTTOVOICII are the hidden meanings, or allegories, which a certain set of philosophers undertook to discover in Homer, and whi ;h the rhapsodes were no way called upon to study. The Platonic dialogue, called Ion, ascribes to Ion the double function of a rhapsode, or impressive reciter, and a critical expositor of the poet (Isokrates also indicates the same double character, in the rhapsodes of his time, Panathenaic, p. 240) ; but it conveys no solid grounds for a mean estimate of the class of rhapsodes, while it attests remarkably the striking effect produced by their recitation (c. f, p. 535). That this class of men came to combine the habit of expositor) comment on the poet with their original profession of reciting, proves the tendencies of the age ; probably, it also brought them Into rivalry with the philosophers.