Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/170

 154 HISTORY OF GREECE. which implies the existence (at the same time that it proclaims the occasional infringement) of an orderly aggregate, as well as ol manuscripts professedly complete. Next, the theory ascribes to Peisistratus a character not only materially different from what is indicated by Cicero and Pausanias, who represent him, not as having put together atoms originally distinct, but as the renovator of an ancient order subsequently lost, but also in itself unintelligible, and inconsistent with Grecian habit and feeling. That Peisistratus should take pains to repress the license, or make up for the unfaithful memory, of individual rhapsodes, and to ennoble the Panathenaic festival by the most correct recital of a great and venerable poem, according to the and orderly recitation by the successive rhapsodes who went through the different parts of the poem. There is good reason to conclude from this passage that the rhapsodes before Solon were guilty both of negligence and of omission in their recital of Homer, but no reason to imagine either that they transposed the books, or that the legitimate order was not previously recognized. The appointment of a systematic t>7ro/3o/Ui)f, or prompter, plainly indicates the existence of complete manuscripts. The direction of Solon, that Homer should be rhapsodized under tha security of a prompter with his manuscript, appears just the same as that of the orator Lykurgus in reference to -ffischylus, SophoklGs, and Euripides (Pseudo-Plutarch. Vit. x. Rhetor. Lycurgi Vit.) eiafivF.yK 6e Kal vopovf (if Xa^Kas finovat; uvatielvai TUV Trotq-iJv Ala^v/.ov, 2o0o/i^,eoi'f, ~Evpt- iridov, Kal raf Tpay<f)8i.ac avruv EV KOLVU ypcnjja/ievovc tyvhuTTeiv, Kal rtiv ri/f JTo/Uuf -ypauftaTea irapava-yiyvuoKEiv rolf VTroKpivofiEvotf ov yap E^r/v avruf (u/lAuf ) vTfOKpivca'&ai. The word d/l/Ujf, which occurs last but one, is intro- duced by the conjecture of Grysar, who has cited and explained the above passage of the Pseudo-Plutarch in a valuable dissertation De Grcecorum Traycedid, qualis fuit circa tempora Demosthenis (Cologne, 1830). All the critics admit the text as it now stands to be unintelligible, and various cor- rections have been proposed, among which that of Grysar seems the best From his Dissertation, I transcribe the following passage, which illustrates the rhapsodizing of Homer f vnopo%f/c : " Quum histriones fabulis interpolandis aegre abstinerent, Lycurgus legem supra indicatam eo tulit consilio, ut recitationes histrionum cum publico illo exemplo oiniuuo congruas redderet. Quod ut assequeretur, constituit, ut dum fabulae in scena recitarentur, scriba put licus simul exemplum civitatis inspiceret, juxta sive in theatro sive in postscenio sedens. HJBC enim verbi napavayivdianEiv est significatio, posita praecipue in prapositione ^ap<i, ut idem sit, quod contra sive juxta legere ; id quod faciunt ii. qui Iccta ab alters vet reritata cum raw conferre cupiunt." (Grysar, p. 7.)