Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/69

47 LITERATURE OP ANCIENT GREECE. 47 much as he treats an Achrean subject with the elegance and geniality of an Ionian. But when Smyrna drove out the lonians, it deprived itself of this poetical renown ; and the settlement of the Homerids in Chios was, in all probability, a consequence of the expulsion of the lonians from Smyrna. It may, moreover, be observed that according to this account, founded on the history of the colonies of Asia Minor, the time of Homer would fall a few generations after the Ionic migration to Asia: and with this determination the best testimonies of antiquity agree. Such are the computation of Herodotus, who places Homer with Hesiod 4U0 years before his time*, and that of the Alexandrine chronologists, who place him 100 years after the Ionic migration, 60 years before the legislation of Lycurgusf: although the variety of opinions on this subject which prevailed among the learned writers of antiquity cannot be reduced within these limits. § 4. This Homer, then (of the circumstances of whose life we at leas know the little just stated), was the person who gave epic poetry its first great impulse; into the causes of which we shall now proceed to inquire. Before Homer, as we have already seen, in general only single actions and adventures were celebrated in short lays. The heroic mythology had prepared the way for the poets by grouping the deeds of the prin- cipal heroes into large masses, so that they had a natural connexion with each other, and referred to some common fundamental notion. Now, as the general features of the more considerable legendary collections were known, the poet had the advantage of being able to narrate any one action of Hercules, or of one of the Argive champions against Thebes, or of the AcliEcans against Troy; and at the same time of being certain that the scope and purport of the action (viz. the elevation of Hercules to the gods, and the fated destruction of Thebes and Troy) would be present to the minds of his hearers, and that the individual adventure would thus be viewed in its proper connexion Thus doubtless for a long time the bards were satisfied with illustrating single points of the heroic mythology with brief epic lays ; such as in later times were produced by several poets of the school of Hesiod. It was also possible, if it was desired, to form from them longer series of adventures of the same hero; but they always remained a collection of independent poems on the same subject, and never attained to that unity of character and composition which constitutes one poem. It was an entirely new phenomenon, which could not fail to make the greatest impression, when a poet selected a subject of the heroic tradition, which (besides its connexion with the other parts of the same legendary cycle) had in itself the means of awakening a lively interest, and of satisfying the mind , and at the same time admitted of such a development that the principal personages could be represented as acting each with a peculiar and iudi-
 * Herod, ii. 53. t Apollod. Fiagm, i. p. 410, ed. Heyiie.