Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/128

 110 HISTORY OF GKEECE. year : the annual Panathenaic festival, henceforward called the Lesser, was still continued. 1 have already noticed, at considerable length, the care which he bestowed in procuring full and correct copies of the Homeric poems, as well as in improving the recitation of them at the Panathenaic festival, a proceeding for which we owe him much gratitude, but which has been shown to be erroneously in- terpreted by various critics. He probably also collected the works of other poets, called by Aulus Gellius, 1 in language r.ot well suited to the sixth century B.C., a library thrown open io the public ; and the service which he thus rendered must have been highly valuable at a time when writing and reading were not widely extended. His son Hipparchus followed up the same taste, taking pleasure in the society of the most eminent poets of the day,' 2 Simonides, Anakreon, and Lasus ; not to mention the Athenian mystic Onomakritus, who, though not pretending to the gift of prophecy himself, passed for the proprietor and editor of the various prophecies ascribed to the ancient name of Mu- saeus. The Peisistratids were well versed in these prophecies, and set great value upon them ; but Onomakritus, being detected on one occasion in the act of interpolating the prophecies of Mu- sseus, was banished by Hipparchus in consequence. 3 The statues of Hermes, erected by this prince or by his personal friends in various parts of Attica, 4 and inscribed with short moral sen- tences, are extolled by the author of the Platonic dialogue called Hipparchus, with an exaggeration which approaches to irony but it is certain that both the sons of Peisistratus, as well as himself, were exact in fulfilling the religious obligations of the state, and ornamented the city in several ways, especially the public fountain Kallirrhoe. They are said to have maintained the preexisting forms of law and justice, merely taking care always to keep themselves and their adherents in the effective 1 Anl. Cell. N. A. vi, 17. 1 Hnroilot. v, 93, vii, 6. 'Ovo,uuKpirov, pr}atiQkdyQv KOI ^la&irrtv TUV xpyo ui T(JV Mcvaaiov. See Pausan. i. 22, 7. Compare, al>out the literary ten Jmcics of the Peisistratids, Nitzsch, De Historia Homeri, ch. 30, p. 169. 4 Philochor Frag. 69, ed. Didot ; Plato, Hipparch. p. 230.
 * Ilcrodot. vii, 6 ; Pseudo-Plato, Hipparchus, p. 229.