Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/53

Rh haps, been of considerable duration in Greece. Even the first sketch of the Iliad and Odyssey may have been intended to be sung on these occasions, as Demodocus sang the celebrated poem on the contest between Achilles and Ulysses, or the taking of Troy by means of the wooden horse. It is clear also that the Homeric poems were intended for the especial gratification of princes, not of republican communities, for whom the adage "The government of many is not good; let there be one lord, one king ," could not possibly have been composed: and although Homer flourished some centuries later than the heroic age, which appeared to him like some distant and marvellous world, from which the race of man had degenerated both in bodily strength and courage; yet the constitutions of the different states had not undergone any essential alteration, and the royal families, which are celebrated in the Iliad and Odyssey, still ruled in Greece and the colonies of Asia Minor. To these the minstrels naturally turned for the purpose of making them acquainted with the renown of their forefathers, and whilst the pride of these descendants of heroes was flattered, and the highest enjoyment secured to them, poetry became the instrument of the most various instruction, and was adapted exclusively for the nobles of that age; so that Hesiod rightly esteems the power of deciding law-suits with justice, and influencing a popular assembly, as a gift of the Muses, and especially of Calliope, to kings.

But even before Homer's time heroic poetry was not only employed to give an additional zest to the banquets of princes, but for other purposes to which, in the later republican age, it was almost exclusively applied, viz., the contests of poets at public festivals and games. A contest of this nature is alluded to in the Homeric description of the Thracian