Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/64

42 42 HISTORY OF THE hero, from whom they derived their name*. A memher of this house of Homerids was, prohably, " the blind poet," who, in the Homeric hymn to Apollo, relates of himself, that he dwelt on the rocky Chios, whence he crossed to Delos for the festival of the Ionians and the con- tests of the poets, and whom Thucydides-f took for Homer himself; a supposition, which at least shows that this great historian considered Chios as the dwelling-place of Homer. A later Homerid of Chios was the well-known Cinsethus, who, as we know from his victory at Syracuse, flourished about the 69th Olympiad. At what time the Homerid Par- thenius of Chios lived is unknown. But notwithstanding the ascer- tained existence of this clan of Homerids at Chios, nay, if we even, with Thucydides, take the blind man of the hymn for Homer himself, it would not follow that Chios was the birthplace of Homer : indeed, the ancient writers have reconciled these accounts by representing Homer as having, in his wanderings, touched at Chios, and afterwards fixed his residence there. A notion of this kind is evidently implied in Pindar's statements, who in one place called Homer a Smyrnsean by origin, in another, a Chian and Smyrnsean §. The same idea is also indicated in the passage of an orator, incidentally cited by Aristotle ; which says that " the Chians greatly honoured Homer, although he was not a citizen ||." With the Chian race of Homerids may be aptly compared the Samian family; although this is not joined immediately to the name of Homer, but to that of Creophylus, who is described as the contemporary and host of Homer. This house also flourished for several centuries ; since, in the first place, a descendant of Creophylus is said to have given the Homeric poems to Lycurgus the Spartan «[ (which statement maybe so far true, that Hie Lacedaemonians derived their knowledge of these poems from rhapsodists of the race of Creophylus) ; and, secondly, a later Creophylid, named Hermodamas, is said to have been heard by Py- thagoras**. § 2. On the other hand, the opinion that Homer was a Smyrnsean not only appears to have been the prevalent belief in the flourishing times of Greece tt, but is supported by the two following considerations : — first, the important fact, that it appears in the form of a popular legend, a mythus, the divine poet being called a son of a nymph, Critheis, and the Muller's Dorians, p. xii. seq. English Translation. J Suidas in lice^ivms. It may be conjectured that this viis &lirro^s, avbyovos Op-npov, is connected with the ancient epic poet, Thestorides of Phocsea and Chios mentioned in Pseudo-Herodot. Vit. Horn. § See Boeckh. Pindar. Fragm. inc. 86. t -3 I - • A. ft Besides the testimony of Pindar, the incidental statement of Scylax is jmarkable. ^vqvx iv %"Opvgo; nv, p. 35, ed. Is. Voss.
 * Niebuhr, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. nnte 747 (801). Compare the Preface to
 * Thucyd. iii. 104.
 * Aristot. Rhet. ii. 23. Comp. Pseudo-Herod. Vit. Horn., near the end.
 * [ See particularly Heraclid. Pont. ■roXiruav, Fragm. 2.
 * Suidas in nvfayooxg 1-a.y.ioi, p. 231, ed. Kuster.