David Binning Monro and Thomas William Allen

“ Moreover it is one thing to recognize that a literature is essentially oral in its form, characteristic of an age which was one of hearing rather than of reading, and quite another to hold that the same literature was preserved entirely by oral transmission.
The result of these various considerations seems to be that the age which we may call the Homeric—the age which is brought before us in vivid outlines in the Iliad and Odyssey—lies beyond the earliest point to which history enables us to penetrate. ”

“ It is at least remarkable that a legend of the national interest of the “tale of Troy” should be so definitely localized, and that in a district which was never famous as a seat of Greek population. It may be urged, too, that the story of the Iliad is singularly free from the exaggerated and marvellous character which belongs as a rule to the legends of primitive peoples. The apple of discord, the arrows of Philoctetes, the invulnerability of Achilles, and similar fancies, are the additions of later poets. ”

“ The splendid patronage of letters by the successors of Alexander, and especially the great institutions which had been founded at Alexandria and Pergamum, had made an impression on the imagination of learned men which was reflected in the current notions of the ancient despots. It may even be suspected that anecdotes in praise of Peisistratus and Hipparchus were a delicate form of flattery addressed to the reigning Ptolemy. Under these influences the older stories of Lycurgus bringing Homer to the Peloponnesus, and Solon providing for the recitation at Athens, were thrown into the shade. ”

“ The great national names are different: instead of Achaeans, Argives, Danai, we find Hellenes, subdivided into Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians—names either unknown to Homer, or mentioned in terms more significant than silence. At the dawn of Greek history Mycenae is no longer the seat of empire; new empires, polities and civilizations have grown up—Sparta with its military discipline, Delphi with its religious supremacy, Miletus with its commerce and numberless colonies, Aeolis and Ionia, Sicily and Magna Graecia. ”

“ It is Homer himself who tells us, in a striking passage (Il. iv. 437) that all the Greeks spoke the same language—that is to say, that they understood one another, in spite of the inevitable local differences. Experience shows how some one dialect in a country gains a literary supremacy to which the whole nation yields. So Tuscan became the type of Italian, and Anglian of English. But as soon as the dialect is adopted, it begins to diverge from the colloquial form. ”

“ The fact that there are so many traces of it in Homer is a strong proof of the antiquity of the poems, but no proof of admixture with Aeolic.
There is one sense, however, in which an admixture of dialects may be recognized. It is clear that the variety of forms in Homer is too great for any actual spoken dialect. To take a single instance: it is impossible that the genitives in -οιο and in -ου should both have been in everyday use together. The form in -οιο must have been poetical or literary, like the old English forms that survive in the language of the Bible. ”

“ It is needless to examine the attempts which have been made to harmonize these accounts. Such attempts usually start with the tacit assumption that each of the persons concerned—Lycurgus, Solon, Peisistratus, Hipparchus—must have done something for the text of Homer, or for the regulation of the rhapsodists. But we have first to consider whether any of the accounts come to us on such evidence that we are bound to consider them as containing a nucleus of truth. ”

“ In literature the effect of these ideas was to set up a false opposition between nature and art. As political writers imagined a patriarchal innocence prior to codes of law, so men of letters sought in popular unwritten poetry the freshness and simplicity which were wanting in the prevailing styles. The blind minstrel was the counterpart of the noble savage. The supposed discovery of the poems of Ossian fell in with this train of sentiment, and created an enthusiasm for the study of early popular poetry. Homer was soon drawn into the circle of inquiry. ”

“ As there is no law in Homer, so there is no morality. That is to say, there are no general principles of action, and no words which indicate that acts have been classified as good or bad, right or wrong. ”

“ In the Iliad even the epic “singer” is not met with. It is Achilles himself who sings the stories of heroes (κλέα ἀνδρῶν) in his tent, and Patroclus is waiting (respondere paratus) , to take up the song in his turn (Il. ix. 191) . Again we do not hear of poetical contests (except in the story of Thamyris already mentioned) or of recitation of epic poetry at festivals. The Odyssey gives us pictures of two great houses, and each has its singer. The song is on a subject taken from the Trojan war, at some point chosen by the singer himself, or by his hearers. ”

“ Chorizontes.—When we are satisfied that each of the great Homeric poems is either wholly or mainly the work of a single poet, a question remains which has been matter of controversy in ancient as well as modern times—Are they the work of the same poet? Two ancient grammarians, Xeno and Hellanicus, were known as the “separators” (οἱ χωρίζοντες) ; and Aristarchus appears to have written a treatise against their heresy. In modern times some of the greatest names have been on the side of the “Chorizontes.” ”

“ Against the theory which sees in Peisistratus the author of the first complete text of Homer we have to set the absolute silence of Herodotus, Thucydides, the orators and the Alexandrian grammarians. And it can hardly be thought that their silence is accidental. Herodotus and Thucydides seem to tell us all that they know of Peisistratus. The orators Lycurgus and Isocrates make a great deal of the recitation of Homer at the Panathenaea, but know nothing of the poems having been collected and arranged at Athens, a fact which would have redounded still more to the honour of the city. ”

“ When we do so, we at once find ourselves in the presence of differences of the broadest kind. The Iliad is much more historical in tone and character. The scene of the poem is a real place, and the poet sings (as Ulysses says of Demodocus) as though he had been present himself, or had heard from one who had been. The supernatural element is confined to an interference of the gods, which to the common eye hardly disturbs the natural current of affairs. The Odyssey, on the contrary, is full of the magical and romantic—“speciosa miracula,” as Horace called them. ”

“ And when in the third book Priam asks Helen about the Greek captains, or when in the seventh book nine champions come forward to contend with Hector, the want of the greatest hero of all is sufficiently felt. If these passages do not belong to the period of the wrath of Achilles, how are we to account for his conspicuous absence?
Further, the want of smoothness and unity which is visible in this part of the Iliad may be due to other causes than difference of date or authorship. A national poet such as the author of the Iliad cannot always choose or arrange his matter at his own will. ”

“ Certain prominent historical differences between Aeolic and Ionic (the digamma and ᾱ) are known to be unoriginal. The view that Homer underwent at any time a passage from one dialect to another may be dismissed. The tendency of modern dialectologists is to divide the Greek dialects into Dorian and non-Dorian. The non-Dorian dialects, Ionic, Attic and the various forms of Aeolic, are regarded as relatively closely akin, and go by the common name “Achaean.” They formed the common language of Greece before the Doric invasion. ”

“ The subdivision of a poem like the Iliad or Odyssey among different and necessarily unequal performers must have been injurious to the effect. The highly theatrical manner of recitation which was fostered by the spirit of competition, and by the example of the stage, cannot have done justice to the even movement of the epic style. It is not certain indeed that the practice of reciting a long poem by the agency of several competitors was ancient, or that it prevailed elsewhere than at Athens ”

“ Failing external testimony, the time and place of the Homeric poems can only be determined (if at all) by internal evidence. This is of two main kinds: (a) evidence of history, consisting in a comparison of the political and social condition, the geography, the institutions, the manners, arts and ideas of Homer with those of other times; (b) evidence of language, consisting in a comparison with later dialects, in respect of grammar and vocabulary. ”

“ And when we look to practice we find that cruel and even treacherous deeds are spoken of without the least sense that they deserve censure. The heroes of Homer are hardly more moral agents than the giants and enchanters of a fairy tale.
The religious ideas of Homer differ in some important points from those of later Greece. The Apollo of the Iliad has the character of a local Asiatic deity—“ruler of Chryse and goodly Cilla and Tenedos.” ”

“ In the first place, the statement that Lycurgus obtained the poems from descendants of Creophylus must be admitted to be purely mythical. But if we reject it, have we any better reason for believing the parallel assertion in the Platonic Hipparchus? It is true that Hipparchus is undoubtedly a real person. On the other hand it is evident that the Peisistratidae soon became the subject of many fables. Thucydides notices as a popular mistake the belief that Hipparchus was the eldest son of Peisistratus, and that consequently he was the reigning “tyrant” when he was killed by Aristogiton. ”

“ Analogies.—The development of epic poetry (properly so called) out of the oral songs or ballads of a country is a process which in the nature of things can seldom be observed. It seems clear, however, that the hypothesis of epics such as the Iliad and Odyssey having been formed by putting together or even by working up shorter poems finds no support from analogy. ”

“ Aristotle is said himself to have made a recension for the use of Alexander the Great. This is unlikely. His remarks on Homer (in the Poetics and elsewhere) show that he had made a careful study of the structure and leading ideas of the poems, but do not throw much light on the text.
The real work of criticism became possible only when great collections of manuscripts began to be made by the princes of the generation after Alexander, and when men of learning were employed to sift and arrange these treasures. ”

“ The taking of Briseïs from Achilles was an arbitrary act, and against all rule and custom. The council is more difficult to understand. The “elders” (γέροντες) of the Iliad are the same as the subordinate “kings”; they are summoned by Agamemnon to his tent, and form a small council of nine or ten persons. In Troy we hear of elders of the people (δημογέροντες) who are with Priam, and are men past the military age. So in Ithaca there are elders who have not gone to Troy with the army. ”

“ The effect of dialect on style was always recognized in Greece, and the dialect which had once been adopted by a particular kind of poetry was ever afterwards adhered to. The Epic of Homer was doubtless formed originally from a spoken variety of Greek, but became literary and conventional with time. ”

“ They are only parts of a single main event. Consequently the type of epic poem which would be produced by an aggregation of shorter lays is not the type which we have in the Iliad. Rather the Iliad is itself a single lay which has grown with the growth of poetical art to the dimensions of an epic.
But the original nucleus and parts of the incidents may be the work of a single great poet, and yet other episodes may be of different authorship, wrought into the structure of the poem in later times. ”

“ One art of the highest importance remains. The question whether writing was known in the time of Homer was raised in antiquity, and has been debated with especial eagerness ever since the appearance of Wolf’s Prolegomena. In this case we have to consider not merely the indications of the poems, but also the external evidence which we possess regarding the use of writing in Greece. ”

“ Moreover, these marvels—which in their original form are doubtless as old as anything in the Iliad, since in fact they are part of the vast stock of popular tales (Märchen) diffused all over the world—are mixed up in the Odyssey with the heroes of the Trojan war. This has been especially noticed in the case of the story of Polyphemus, one that is found in many countries, and in versions which cannot all be derived from Homer. W. Grimm has pointed out that the behaviour of Ulysses in that story is senseless and foolhardy, utterly beneath the wise and much-enduring Ulysses of the Trojan war. ”

“ The longest is written in the Ionic dialect, and bears the name of Herodotus, but is certainly spurious. In all probability it belongs to the time which was fruitful beyond all others in literary forgeries, viz. the 2nd century of our era. [2] The other lives are certainly not more ancient. Their chief value consists in the curious short poems or fragments of verse which they have preserved—the so-called Epigrams, which used to be printed at the end of editions of Homer. ”

“ On comprend que des chants populaires nés d’un événement éclatant, victoire ou défaite, puissent contribuer à former la tradition, à en arrêter les traits; ils peuvent aussi devenir le centre de légendes qui se forment pour les expliquer ”

“ The hymn to the Delian Apollo ends with an address of the poet to his audience. When any stranger comes and asks who is the sweetest singer, they are to answer with one voice, the “blind man that dwells in rocky Chios; his songs deserve the prize for all time to come.” Thucydides, who quotes this passage to show the ancient character of the Delian festival, seems to have no doubt of the Homeric authorship of the hymn. ”