[254] There are just remarks of Mr. Mitford on the possibility that the Homeric poems might have been preserved without writing (History of Greece, vol. i. pp. 135-137).

[255] Villoison, Prolegomen. pp. xxxiv-lvi; Wolf, Prolegomen. p. 37. Düntzer, in the Epicor. Græc. Fragm. pp. 27-29, gives a considerable list of the Homeric passages cited by ancient authors, but not found either in the Iliad or Odyssey. It is hardly to be doubted, however, that many of these passages belonged to other epic poems which passed under the name of Homer. Welcker (Der Episch. Kyklus, pp. 20-133) enforces this opinion very justly, and it harmonizes with his view of the name of Homer as coextensive with the whole Epic cycle.

[256] See this argument strongly maintained in Giese (Ueber den Æolischen Dialekt, sect. 14. p. 160, seqq.). He notices several other particulars in the Homeric language,—the plenitude and variety of interchangeable grammatical forms,—the numerous metrical licenses, set right by appropriate oral intonations,—which indicate a language as yet not constrained by the fixity of written authority.

The same line of argument is taken by O. Müller (History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, ch. iv. s. 5).

Giese has shown also, in the same chapter, that all the manuscripts of Homer mentioned in the Scholia, were written in the Ionic alphabet (with Η and Ω as marks for the long vowels, and no special mark for the rough breathing), in so far as the special citations out of them enable us to verify.

[257] Nitzsch and Welcker argue, that because the Homeric poems were heard with great delight and interest, therefore the first rudiments of the art of writing, even while beset by a thousand mechanical difficulties, would be employed to record them. I cannot adopt this opinion, which appears to me to derive all its plausibility from our present familiarity with reading and writing. The first step from the recited to the written poem is really one of great violence, as well as useless for any want then actually felt. I much more agree with Wolf when he says: “Diu enim illorum hominum vita et simplicitas nihil admodum habuit, quod scripturâ dignum videretur: in aliis omnibus occupati agunt illi, quæ posteri scribunt, vel (ut de quibusdam populis accepimus) etiam monstratam operam hanc spernunt tanquam indecori otii: carmina autem quæ pangunt, longo usu sic ore fundere et excipere consueverunt, ut cantu et recitatione cum maxime vigentia deducere ad mutas notas, ex illius ætatis sensu nihil aliud esset, quam perimere ea et vitali vi ac spiritu privare.” (Prolegom. s. xv. p. 59.)

Some good remarks on this subject are to be found in William Humboldt’s Introduction to his elaborate treatise Ueber die Kawi-Sprache, in reference to the oral tales current among the Basques. He, too, observes how great and repulsive a proceeding it is, to pass at first from verse sung, or recited, to verse written; implying that the words are conceived detached from the Vortrag, the accompanying music, and the surrounding and sympathizing assembly. The Basque tales have no charm for the people themselves, when put in Spanish words and read (Introduction, sect. xx. p. 258-259).

Unwritten prose tales, preserved in the memory, and said to be repeated nearly in the same words from age to age, are mentioned by Mariner, in the Tonga Islands (Mariner’s Account, vol. ii. p. 377).

The Druidical poems were kept unwritten by design, after writing was in established use for other purposes (Cæsar, B. G. vi. 13).

[258] Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. pp. 368-373) treats it as a matter of certainty that Archilochus and Alkman wrote their poems. I am not aware of any evidence for announcing this as positively known,—except, indeed, an admission of Wolf, which is, doubtless, good as an argumentum ad hominem, but is not to be received as proof (Wolf, Proleg. p. 50). The evidences mentioned by Mr. Clinton (p. 368) certainly cannot be regarded as proving anything to the point.

Giese (Ueber den Æolischen Dialekt, p. 172) places the first writing of the separate rhapsodies composing the Iliad in the seventh century B. C.

[259] The songs of the Icelandic Skalds were preserved orally for a period longer than two centuries,—P. A. Müller thinks very much longer,—before they were collected, or embodied in written story by Snorro and Sæmund (Lange, Untersuchungen über die Gesch. der Nördischen Heldensage. p. 98; also, Introduct. pp. xx-xxviii). He confounds, however, often, the preservation of the songs from old time,—with the question, whether they have or have not an historical basis.

And there were, doubtless, many old bards and rhapsodes in ancient Greece, of whom the same might be said which Saxo Grammaticus affirms of an Englishman named Lucas, that he was “literis quidem tenuiter instructus, sed historiarum scientiâ apprime eruditus.” (Dahlmann, Historische Forschungen, vol. ii. p. 176.)

[260] “Homer wrote a sequel of songs and rhapsodies, to be sung by himself for small earnings and good cheer, at festivals and other days of merriment; the Iliad he made for the men, the Odysseus for the other sex. These loose songs were not collected together into the form of an epic poem until 500 years after.”

Such is the naked language in which Wolf’s main hypothesis had been previously set forth by Bentley, in his “Remarks on a late Discourse of Freethinking, by Phileleutherus Lipsiensis,” published in 1713: the passage remained unaltered in the seventh edition of that treatise published in 1737. See Wolf’s Proleg. xxvii. p. 115.

The same hypothesis may be seen more amply developed, partly in the work of Wolfs pupil and admirer, William Müller, Homerische Vorschule (the second edition of which was published at Leipsic, 1836, with an excellent introduction and notes by Baumgarten-Crusius, adding greatly to the value of the original work by its dispassionate review of the whole controversy), partly in two valuable Dissertations of Lachmann, published in the Philological Transactions of the Berlin Academy for 1837 and 1841.

[261] Joseph, cont. Apion. i. 2; Cicero de Orator, iii. 34; Pausan. vii. 26, 6: compare the Scholion on Plautus in Ritschl, Die Alexandrin. Bibliothek, p. 4. Ælian (V. II. xiii. 14), who mentions both the introduction of the Homeric poems into Peloponnesus by Lykurgus, and the compilation by Peisistratus, can hardly be considered as adding to the value of the testimony: still less, Libanius and Suidas. What we learn is, that some literary and critical men of the Alexandrine age (more or fewer, as the case may be; but Wolf exaggerates when he talks of an unanimous conviction) spoke of Peisistratus as having first put together the fractional parts of the Iliad and Odyssey into entire poems.

[262] Plato, Hipparch. p. 228.

[263] “Doch ich komme mir bald lächerlich vor, wenn ich noch immer die Möglichkeit gelten lasse, dass unsere Ilias in dem gegenwärtigen Zusammenhange der bedeutenden Theile, und nicht blos der wenigen bedeutendsten, jemals vor der Arbeit des Pisistratus gedacht worden sey.” (Lachmann, Fernere Betrachtungen über die Ilias, sect. xxviii. p. 32; Abhandlungen Berlin. Academ. 1841.) How far this admission—that for the few most important portions of the Iliad, there did exist an established order of succession prior to Peisistratus—is intended to reach, I do not know; but the language of Lachmann goes farther than either Wolf or William Müller. (See Wolf, Prolegomen. pp. cxli-cxlii, and W. Müller, Homerische Vorschule, Abschnitt vii. pp. 96, 98, 100, 102.) The latter admits that neither Peisistratus nor the Diaskeuasts could have made any considerable changes in the Iliad and Odyssey, either in the way of addition or of transposition; the poems as aggregates being too well known, and the Homeric vein of invention too completely extinct, to admit of such novelties.

I confess, I do not see how these last-mentioned admissions can be reconciled with the main doctrine of Wolf, in so far as regards Peisistratus.

[264] Diogen. Laërt. i. 57.—Τὰ τε Ὁμήρου ἐξ ὑποβολῆς γέγραφε (Σόλων) ῥαψῳδεῖσθαι, οἷον ὅπου ὁ πρῶτος ἔληξεν, ἔκειθεν ἄρχεσθαι τὸν ἀρχόμενον, ὥς φησι Διευχίδας ἐν τοῖς Μεγαρικοῖς.

Respecting Hipparchus, son of Peisistratus, the Pseudo-Plato tells us (in the dialogue so called, p. 228),—καὶ τὰ Ὁμήρου ἔπη πρῶτος ἐκόμισεν εἰς τὴν γῆν ταυτηνὶ, καὶ ἠνάγκασε τοὺς ῥαψῳδοὺς Παναθηναίοις ἐξ ὑπολήψεως ἐφεξῆς αὐτὰ διϊέναι, ὥσπερ νῦν ἔτι οἵδε ποιοῦσι.

These words have provoked multiplied criticisms from all the learned men who have touched upon the theory of the Homeric poems,—to determine what was the practice which Solon found existing, and what was the change which he introduced. Our information is too scanty to pretend to certainty, but I think the explanation of Hermann the most satisfactory (“Quid sit ὑποβολὴ et ὑποβλήδεν.”—Opuscula, tom. v. p. 300, tom. vii. p. 162).

Ὑποβολεὺς is the technical term for the prompter at a theatrical representation (Plutarch, Præcept. gerend. Reip. p. 813); ὑποβολὴ and ὑποβάλλειν have corresponding meanings, of aiding the memory of a speaker and keeping him in accordance with a certain standard, in possession of the prompter: see the words ἐξ ὑποβολῆς, Xenophon. Cyropæd. iii. 3, 37. Ὑποβολὴ, therefore, has no necessary connection with a series of rhapsodes, but would apply just as much to one alone; although it happens in this case to be brought to bear upon several in succession. Ὑπόληψις, again, means “the taking up in succession of one rhapsode by another:” though the two words, therefore, have not the same meaning, yet the proceeding described in the two passages, in reference both to Solôn and Hipparchus, appears to be in substance the same,—i. e. to insure, by compulsory supervision, a correct and orderly recitation by the successive rhapsodes who went through the different parts of the poem.

There is good reason to conclude from this passage that the rhapsodes before Solôn were guilty both of negligence and of omission in their recital of Homer, but no reason to imagine either that they transposed the books, or that the legitimate order was not previously recognized.

The appointment of a systematic ὑποβολεὺς, or prompter, plainly indicates the existence of complete manuscripts.

The direction of Solôn, that Homer should be rhapsodized under the security of a prompter with his manuscript, appears just the same as that of the orator Lykurgus in reference to Æschylus, Sophoklês, and Euripidês (Pseudo-Plutarch. Vit. x. Rhetor. Lycurgi Vit.)—εἰσήνεγκε δὲ καὶ νόμους—ὡς χαλκᾶς εἰκόνας ἀναθεῖναι τῶν ποιητῶν Αἰσχύλου, Σοφοκλέους, Εὐριπίδου, καὶ τὰς τραγῳδίας αὐτῶν ἐν κοινῷ γραψαμένους φυλάττειν, καὶ τὸν τῆς πόλεως γραμματέα παραναγιγνώσκειν τοῖς ὑποκρινομένοις· οὐ γὰρ ἐξῆν αὐτὰς (ἄλλως) ὑποκρίνεσθαι. The word ἄλλως, which occurs last but one, is introduced by the conjecture of Grysar, who has cited and explained the above passage of the Pseudo-Plutarch in a valuable dissertation—De Græcorum Tragœdiâ, qualis fuit circa tempora Demosthenis (Cologne, 1830). All the critics admit the text as it now stands to be unintelligible, and various corrections have been proposed, among which that of Grysar seems the best. From his Dissertation, I transcribe the following passage, which illustrates the rhapsodizing of Homer ἐξ ὑποβολῆς:—

“Quum histriones fabulis interpolandis ægre abstinerent, Lycurgus legem supra indicatam eo tulit consilio, ut recitationes histrionum cum publico illo exemplo omnino congruas redderet. Quod ut assequeretur, constituit, ut dum fabulæ in scenâ recitarentur, scriba publicus simul exemplum civitatis inspiceret, juxta sive in theatro sive in postscenio sedens. Hæc enim verbi παραναγιγνώσκειν est significatio, posita præcipue in præpositione παρὰ, ut idem sit, quod contra sive juxta legere; id quod faciunt ii, qui lecta ab altero vel recitata cum suis conferre cupiunt.” (Grysar, p. 7.)

[265] That the Iliad or Odyssey were ever recited with all the parts entire, at any time anterior to Solôn, is a point which Ritschl denies (Die Alexandrin. Bibliothek, pp. 67-70). He thinks that before Solôn, they were always recited in parts, and without any fixed order among the parts. Nor did Solôn determine (as he thinks) the order of the parts: he only checked the license of the rhapsodes as to the recitation of the separate books: it was Pesistratus, who, with the help of Onomakritus and others, first settled the order of the parts and bound each poem into a whole, with some corrections and interpolations. Nevertheless, he admits that the parts were originally composed by the same poet, and adapted to form a whole amongst each other: but this primitive entireness (he asserts) was only maintained as a sort of traditional belief, never realized in recitation, and never reduced to an obvious, unequivocal, and permanent fact,—until the time of Peisistratus.

There is no sufficient ground, I think, for denying all entire recitation previous to Solôn, and we only interpose a new difficulty, both grave and gratuitous, by doing so.

[266] The Æthiopis of Arktinus contained nine thousand one hundred verses, as we learn from the Tabula Iliaca: yet Proklus assigns to it only four books. The Ilias Minor had four books, the Cyprian Verses eleven, though we do not know the number of lines in either.

Nitzsch states it as a certain matter of fact, that Arktinus recited his own poem alone, though it was too long to admit of his doing so without interruption. (See his Vorrede to the second vol. of the Odyssey, p. xxiv.) There is no evidence for this assertion, and it appears to me highly improbable.

In reference to the Romances of the Middle Ages, belonging to the Cycle of the Round Table, M. Fauriel tells us that the German Perceval has nearly twenty-five thousand verses (more than half as long again as the Iliad); the Perceval of Christian of Troyes, probably more; the German Tristan, of Godfrey of Strasburg, has more than twenty-three thousand; sometimes, the poem is begun by one author, and continued by another. (Fauriel, Romans de Chevalerie, Revue des Deux Mondes, t. xiii. pp. 695-697.)

The ancient unwritten poems of the Icelandic Skalds are as much lyric as epic: the longest of them does not exceed eight hundred lines, and they are for the most part much shorter (Untersuchungen über die Geschichte der Nördischen Heldensage, aus P. A. Müller’s Sagabibliothek von G. Lange, Frankf. 1832, Introduct. p. xlii.).

[267] Plutarch, Solôn, 10.

[268] The Homeric Scholiast refers to Quintus Calaber ἐν τῇ Ἀμαζονομαχίᾳ, which was only one portion of his long poem (Schol. ad Iliad. ii. 220).

[269] Knight, Prolegg. Homer, xxxii. xxxvi. xxxvii. That Peisistratus caused a corrected MS. of the Iliad to be prepared, there seems good reason to believe, and the Scholion on Plautus edited by Ritschl (see Die Alexandrinische Bibliothek, p. 4) specifies the four persons (Onomakritus was one) employed on the task. Ritschl fancies that it served as a sort of Vulgate for the text of the Alexandrine critics, who named specially other MSS. (of Chios, Sinôpê, Massalia, etc.) only when they diverged from this Vulgate: he thinks, also, that it formed the original from whence those other MSS. were first drawn, which are called in the Homeric Scholia αἱ κοιναὶ, κοινότεραι (pp. 59-60).

Welcker supposes the Peisistratic MS. to have been either lost or carried away when Xerxês took Athens (Der Epische Kyklus, pp. 382-388).

Compare Nitzsch, Histor. Homer. Fasc. i. pp. 165-167; also his commentary on Odyss. xi. 604, the alleged interpolation of Onomakritus; and Ulrici, Geschichte der Hellen. Poes. Part i. s. vii. pp. 252-255.

The main facts respecting the Peisistratic recension are collected and discussed by Gräfenhan, Geschichte der Philologie, sect. 54-64, vol. i. pp. 266-311. Unfortunately, we cannot get beyond mere conjecture and possibility.

[270] Wolf allows both the uniformity of coloring, and the antiquity of coloring, which pervade the Homeric poems; also, the strong line by which they stand distinguished from the other Greek poets: “Immo congruunt in iis omnia ferme in idem ingenium, in eosdem mores, in eandem formam sentiendi et loquendi.” (Prolegom. p. cclxv; compare p. cxxxviii.)

He thinks, indeed, that this harmony was restored by the ability and care of Aristarchus, (“mirificum illum concentum revocatum Aristarcho imprimis debemus.”) This is a very exaggerated estimate of the interference of Aristarchus: but at any rate the concentus itself was ancient and original, and Aristarchus only restored it, when it had been spoiled by intervening accidents; at least, if we are to construe revocatum strictly, which, perhaps, is hardly consistent with Wolf’s main theory.

[271] See Wolf, Prolegg. c. xii. p. xliii. “Nondum enim prorsus ejecta et explosa est eorum ratio, qui Homerum et Callimachum et Virgilium et Nonnum et Miltonum eodem animo legunt, nec quid uniuscujusque ætas ferat, expendere legendo et computare laborant,” etc.

A similar and earlier attempt to construe the Homeric poems with reference to their age, is to be seen in the treatise called Il Vero Omero of Vico,—marked with a good deal of original thought, but not strong in erudition (Opere di Vico, ed. Milan, vol. v. pp. 437-497).

[272] In the forty-sixth volume of his collected works, in the little treatise “Homer, noch einmal:” compare G. Lange, Ueber die Kyklischen Dichter (Mainz, 1837), Preface, p. vi.

[273] “Non esse totam Iliadem aut Odysseam unius poetæ opus, ita extra dubitationem positam puto, ut qui secus sentiat, eum non satis lectitasse illa carmina contendam.” (Godf. Hermann, Præfat. ad Odysseam, Lips. 1825, p. iv.) See the language of the same eminent critic in his treatise “Ueber Homer und Sappho,” Opuscula, vol. v. p. 74.

Lachmann, after having dissected the two thousand two hundred lines in the Iliad, between the beginning of the eleventh book, and line five hundred and ninety of the fifteenth, into four songs, “in the highest degree different in their spirit,” (“ihrem Geiste nach höchst verschiedene Lieder,”) tells us that whosoever thinks this difference of spirit inconsiderable,—whosoever does not feel it at once when pointed out,—whosoever can believe that the parts as they stand now belong to one artistically constructed Epos,—“will do well not to trouble himself any more either with my criticisms or with epic poetry, because he is too weak to understand anything about it,” (“weil er zu schwach ist etwas darin zu verstehen:”) Fernere Betrachtungen Ueber die Ilias: Abhandl. Berlin. Acad. 1841, p. 18, § xxiii.

On the contrary, Ulrici, after having shown (or tried to show) that the composition of Homer satisfies perfectly, in the main, all the exigencies of an artistic epic,—adds, that this will make itself at once evident to all those who have any sense of artistical symmetry; but that, for those to whom that sense is wanting, no conclusive demonstration can be given. He warns the latter, however, that they are not to deny the existence of that which their shortsighted vision cannot distinguish, for everything cannot be made clear to children, which the mature man sees through at a glance (Ulrici, Geschichte des Griechischen Epos, Part i. ch. vii. pp. 260-261). Read also Payne Knight, Proleg. c. xxvii, about the insanity of the Wolfian school, obvious even to the “homunculus e trivio.”

I have the misfortune to dissent from both Lachmann and Ulrici; for it appears to me a mistake to put the Iliad and Odyssey on the same footing, as Ulrici does, and as is too frequently done by others.

[274] Plato, Aristotle, and their contemporaries generally, read the most suspicious portions of the Homeric poems as genuine (Nitzsch, Plan und Gang der Odyssee, in the Preface to his second vol. of Comments on the Odyssey, pp. lx-lxiv).

Thucydidês accepts the Hymn to Apollo as a composition by the author of the Iliad.

[275] Bernhard Thiersch, Ueber das Zeitalter und Vaterland des Homer (Halberstadt, 1832), Einleitung, pp. 4-18.

[276] Compare i, 295; ii. 145 (νήποινοί κεν ἔπειτα δόμων ἔντοσθεν ὄλοισθε); xi. 118; xiii. 395; xv. 178; also xiv. 162.

[277] Nitzsch, Plan und Gang der Odyssee, p. xliii, prefixed to the second vol. of his Commentary on the Odysseis.

“At carminum primi auditores non adeo curiosi erant (observes Mr. Payne Knight, Proleg. c. xxiii.), ut ejusmodi rerum rationes aut exquirerent aut expenderent; neque eorum fides e subtilioribus congruentiis omnino pendebat. Monendi enim sunt etiam atque etiam Homericorum studiosi, veteres illos ἀοιδοὺς non linguâ professoriâ inter viros criticos et grammaticos, aut alios quoscunque argutiarum captatores, carmina cantitasse, sed inter eos qui sensibus animorum libere, incaute, et effuse indulgerent,” etc. Chap. xxii-xxvii. of Mr. Knight’s Prolegomena, are valuable to the same purpose, showing the “homines rudes et agrestes,” of that day, as excellent judges of what fell under their senses and observation, but careless, credulous, and unobservant of contradiction, in matters which came only under the mind’s eye.

[278] W. Müller is not correct in saying that, in the first assembly of the gods, Zeus promises something which he does not perform: Zeus does not promise to send Hermes as messenger to Kalypsô, in the first book, though Athênê urges him to do so. Zeus, indeed, requires to be urged twice before he dictates to Kalypsô the release of Odysseus, but he had already intimated, in the first book, that he felt great difficulty in protecting the hero, because of the wrath manifested against him by Poseidôn.

[279] Odyss. ix. 534.—

[280] Wolf admits, in most unequivocal language, the compact and artful structure of the Odyssey. Against this positive internal evidence, he sets the general presumption, that no such constructive art can possibly have belonged to a poet of the age of Homer: “De Odysseâ maxime, cujus admirabilis summa et compages pro præclarissimo monumento Græci ingenii habenda est.... Unde fit ut Odysseam nemo, cui omnino priscus vates placeat, nisi perlectam e manu deponere queat. At illa ars id ipsum est, quod vix ac ne vix quidem cadere videtur in vatem, singulas tantum rhapsodias decantantem,” etc. (Prolegomen. pp. cxviii-cxx; compare cxii.)

[281] Lachmann seems to admit one case in which the composer of one song manifests cognizance of another song, and a disposition to give what will form a sequel to it. His fifteenth song (the Patrokleia) lasts from xv. 592 down to the end of the 17th book: the sixteenth song (including the four next books, from eighteen to twenty-two inclusive) is a continuation of the fifteenth, but by a different poet. (Fernere Betrachtungen über die Ilias, Abhandl. Berlin. Acad. 1841, sect. xxvi. xxviii. xxix. pp. 24, 34, 42.)

This admission of premeditated adaptation to a certain extent breaks up the integrity of the Wolfian hypothesis.

[282] The advocates of the Wolfian theory, appear to feel the difficulties which beset it; for their language is wavering in respect to these supposed primary constituent atoms. Sometimes Lachmann tells us, that the original pieces were much finer poetry than the Iliad as we now read it; at another time, that it cannot be now discovered what they originally were: nay, he farther admits, (as remarked in the preceding note,) that the poet of the sixteenth song had cognizance of the fifteenth.

But if it be granted that the original constituent songs were so composed, though by different poets, as that the more recent were adapted to the earlier with more or less dexterity and success, this brings us into totally different conditions of the problem. It is a virtual surrender of the Wolfian hypothesis, which, however, Lachmann both means to defend, and does defend with ability; though his vindication of it has, to my mind, only the effect of exposing its inherent weakness by carrying it out into something detailed and positive. I will add, in respect to his Dissertations, so instructive as a microscopic examination of the poem,—1. That I find myself constantly dissenting from that critical feeling, on the strength of which he cuts out parts as interpolations, and discovers traces of the hand of distinct poets; 2. That his objections against the continuity of the narrative are often founded upon lines which the ancient scholiasts and Mr. Payne Knight had already pronounced to be interpolations; 3. That such of his objections as are founded upon lines undisputed, admit in many cases of a complete and satisfactory reply.

[283] Lange, in his Letter to Goethe, Ueber die Einheit der Iliade, p. 33 (1826); Nitzsch, Historia Homeri, Fasciculus 2, Præfat. p. x.

[284] Even Aristotle, the great builder-up of the celebrity of Homer as to epical aggregation, found some occasions (it appears) on which he was obliged to be content with simply excusing, without admiring, the poet (Poet. 44 τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀγαθοῖς ὁ ποιητὴς ἡδύνων ἀφανίζει τὸ ἄτοπον.)

And Hermann observes justly, in his acute treatise De Interpolationibus Homeri (Opuscula, tom. v. p. 53),—“Nisi admirabilis illa Homericorum carminum suavitas lectorum animos quasi incantationibus quibusdam captos teneret, non tam facile delitescerent, quæ accuratius considerata, et multo minus apte quam quis jure postulet composita esse apparere necesse est.”

This treatise contains many criticisms on the structure of the Iliad, some of them very well founded, though there are many from which I dissent.

[285] In reference to the books from the second to the seventh, inclusive, I agree with the observations of William Müller, Homerische Vorschule, Abschnitt viii. pp. 116-118.

[286] Lachmann, Fernere Betrachtungen über die Ilias, Abhandlungen Berlin. Acad. 1841, p. 4.

After having pointed out certain discrepancies which he maintains to prove different composing hands, he adds: “Nevertheless, we must be careful not to regard the single constituent songs in this part of the poem as being distinct and separable in a degree equal to those in the first half; for they all with one accord harmonize in one particular circumstance, which, with reference to the story of the Iliad, is not less important even than the anger of Achilles, viz. that the three most distinguished heroes, Agamemnôn, Odysseus, and Diomêdês, all become disabled throughout the whole duration of the battles.”

Important for the story of the Achillêis, I should say, not for that of the Iliad. This remark of Lachmann is highly illustrative for the distinction between the original and the enlarged poem.

[287] I confess my astonishment that a man of so much genius and power of thought as M. Benjamin Constant, should have imagined the original Iliad to have concluded with the death of Patroclus, on the ground that Achilles then becomes reconciled with Agamemnôn. See the review of B. Constant’s work, De la Religion, etc., by O. Müller, in the Kleine Schriften of the latter, vol. ii. p. 74.

[288] He appears as the mediator between the insulted Achilles and the Greeks, manifesting kindly sympathies for the latter without renouncing his fidelity to the former. The wounded Machaon, an object of interest to the whole camp, being carried off the field by Nestor,—Achilles, looking on from his distant ship, sends Patroclus to inquire whether it be really Machaon; which enables Nestor to lay before Patroclus the deplorable state of the Grecian host, as a motive to induce him and Achilles again to take arms. The compassionate feelings of Patroclus being powerfully touched, he is hastening to enforce upon Achilles the urgent necessity of giving help, when he meets Eurypylus crawling out of the field, helpless with a severe wound, and imploring his succor. He supports the wounded warrior to his tent, and ministers to his suffering; but before this operation is fully completed, the Grecian host has been totally driven back, and the Trojans are on the point of setting fire to the ships: Patroclus then hurries to Achilles to proclaim the desperate peril which hangs over them all, and succeeds in obtaining his permission to take the field at the head of the Myrmidons. The way in which Patroclus is kept present to the hearer, as a prelude to his brilliant but short-lived display, when he comes forth in arms,—the contrast between his characteristic gentleness and the ferocity of Achilles,—and the natural train of circumstances whereby he is made the vehicle of reconciliation on the part of his offended friend, and rescue to his imperiled countrymen,—all these exhibit a degree of epical skill, in the author of the primitive Achillêis, to which nothing is found parallel in the added books of the Iliad.

[289] Observe, for example, the following passages:—

1. Achilles, standing on the prow of his ship, sees the general army of Greeks undergoing defeat by the Trojans, and also sees Nestor conveying in his chariot a wounded warrior from the field. He sends Patroclus to find out who the wounded man is: in calling forth Patroclus, he says (xi. 607),—

Heyne, in his comment, asks the question, not unnaturally, “Pœnituerat igitur asperitatis erga priorem legationem, an homo arrogans expectaverat alteram ad se missam iri?” I answer, neither one nor the other: the words imply that he had received no embassy at all. He is still the same Achilles who in the first book paced alone by the seashore, devouring his own soul under a sense of bitter affront, and praying to Thetis to aid his revenge: this revenge is now about to be realized, and he hails its approach with delight. But if we admit the embassy of the ninth book to intervene, the passage becomes a glaring inconsistency for that which Achilles anticipates as future, and even yet as contingent, had actually occurred on the previous evening; the Greeks had supplicated at his feet,—they had proclaimed their intolerable need,—and he had spurned them. The Scholiast, in his explanation of these lines, after giving the plain meaning, that “Achilles shows what he has long been desiring, to see the Greeks in a state of supplication to him,”—seems to recollect that this is in contradiction to the ninth book, and tries to remove the contradiction, by saying “that he had been previously mollified by conversation with Phœnix,”—ἤδη δὲ προμαλαχθεὶς ἦν ἐκ τῶν Φοίνικος λόγων,—a supposition neither countenanced by anything in the poet, nor sufficient to remove the difficulty.

2. The speech of Poseidôn (xiii. 115) to encourage the dispirited Grecian heroes, in which, after having admitted the injury done to Achilles by Agamemnôn, he recommends an effort to heal the sore, and intimates “that the minds of good men admit of this healing process,” (Ἀλλ᾽ ἀκεώμεθα θᾶσσον· ἀκεσταί τε φρένες ἐσθλῶν,) is certainly not very consistent with the supposition that this attempt to heal had been made in the best possible way, and that Achilles had manifested a mind implacable in the extreme on the evening before,—while the mind of Agamemnôn was already brought to proclaimed humiliation, and needed no farther healing.

3. And what shall we say to the language of Achilles and Patroclus, at the beginning of the sixteenth book, just at the moment when the danger has reached its maximum, and when Achilles is about to send forth his friend?

Neither Nestor, when he invokes and instructs Patroclus as intercessor with Achilles (xi. 654-790), nor Patroclus himself, though in the extreme of anxiety to work upon the mind of Achilles, and reproaching him with hardness of heart,—ever bring to remembrance the ample atonement which had been tendered to him; while Achilles himself repeats the original ground of quarrel, the wrong offered to him in taking away Brisêis, continuing the language of the first book; then, without the least allusion to the atonement and restitution since tendered, he yields to his friend’s proposition, just like a man whose wrong remained unredressed, but who was, nevertheless, forced to take arms by necessity (xvi. 60-63):—

I agree with the Scholiast and Heyne in interpreting ἔφην γε as equivalent to διενοήθην,—not as referring to any express antecedent declaration.

Again, farther on in the same speech, “The Trojans (Achilles says) now press boldly forward upon the ships, for they no longer see the blaze of my helmet: but if Agamemnôn were favorably disposed towards me, they would presently run away and fill the ditches with their dead bodies” (71):—

Now here again, if we take our start from the first book, omitting the ninth, the sentiment is perfectly just. But assume the ninth book, and it becomes false and misplaced; for Agamemnôn is then a prostrate and repentant man, not merely “favorably disposed” towards Achilles, but offering to pay any price for the purpose of appeasing him.

4. Again, a few lines farther, in the same speech, Achilles permits Patroclus to go forth, in consideration of the extreme peril of the fleet, but restricts him simply to avert this peril and do nothing more: “Obey my words, so that you may procure for me honor and glory from the body of Greeks, and that they may send back to me the damsel, giving me ample presents besides: when you have driven the Trojans from the ships, come back again”:—

How are we to reconcile this with the ninth book, where Achilles declares that he does not care for being honored by the Greeks, ix. 604? In the mouth of the affronted Achilles, of the first book, such words are apt enough: he will grant succor, but only to the extent necessary for the emergency, and in such a way as to insure redress for his own wrong,—which redress he has no reason as yet to conclude that Agamemnôn is willing to grant. But the ninth book has actually tendered to him everything which he here demands, and even more (the daughter of Agamemnôn in marriage, without the price usually paid for a bride, etc.): Brisêis, whom now he is so anxious to repossess, was then offered in restitution, and he disdained the offer. Mr. Knight, in fact, strikes out these lines as spurious; partly, because they contradict the ninth book, where Achilles has actually rejected what he here thirsts for (“Dona cum puellâ jam antea oblata aspernatus erat,”)—partly because he thinks that they express a sentiment unworthy of Achilles; in which latter criticism I do not concur.

5. We proceed a little farther to the address of Patroclus to the Myrmidons, as he is conducting them forth to the battle: “Fight bravely, Myrmidons, that we may bring honor to Achilles; and that the wide-ruling Agamemnôn may know the mad folly which he committed, when he dishonored the bravest of the Greeks.”

To impress this knowledge upon Agamemnôn was no longer necessary. The ninth book records his humiliating confession of it, accompanied by atonement and reparation. To teach him the lesson a second time, is to break the bruised reed,—to slay the slain. But leave out the ninth book, and the motive is the natural one,—both for Patroclus to offer, and for the Myrmidons to obey: Achilles still remains a dishonored man, and to humble the rival who has dishonored him is the first of all objects, as well with his friends as with himself.

6. Lastly, the time comes when Achilles, in deep anguish for the death of Patroclus, looks back with aversion and repentance to the past. To what point should we expect that his repentance would naturally turn? Not to his primary quarrel with Agamemnôn, in which he had been undeniably wronged,—but to the scene in the ninth book, where the maximum of atonement for the previous wrong is tendered to him and scornfully rejected. Yet when we turn to xviii. 108, and xix. 55, 68, 270, we find him reverting to the primitive quarrel in the first book, just as if it had been the last incident in his relations with Agamemnôn: moreover, Agamemnôn (xix. 86), in his speech of reconciliation, treats the past just in the same way,—deplores his original insanity in wronging Achilles.

7. When we look to the prayers of Achilles and Thetis, addressed to Zeus in the first book, we find that the consummation prayed for is,—honor to Achilles,—redress for the wrong offered to him,—victory to the Trojans until Agamemnôn and the Greeks shall be made bitterly sensible of the wrong which they have done to their bravest warrior (i. 409-509). Now this consummation is brought about in the ninth book. Achilles can get no more, nor does he ultimately get more, either in the way of redress to himself or remorseful humiliation of Agamemnôn, than what is here tendered. The defeat which the Greeks suffer in the battle of the eighth book (Κόλος Μάχη) has brought about the consummation. The subsequent and much more destructive defeats which they undergo are thus causeless: yet Zeus is represented as inflicting them reluctantly, and only because they are necessary to honor Achilles (xiii. 350; xv. 75, 235, 598; compare also viii. 372 and 475).

If we reflect upon the constitution of the poem, we shall see that the fundamental sequence of ideas in it is, a series of misfortunes to the Greeks, brought on by Zeus for the special purpose of procuring atonement to Achilles and bringing humiliation on Agamemnôn: the introduction of Patroclus superadds new motives of the utmost interest, but it is most harmoniously worked into the fundamental sequence. Now the intrusion of the ninth book breaks up the scheme of the poem by disuniting the sequence: Agamemnôn is on his knees before Achilles, entreating pardon and proffering reparation, yet the calamities of the Greeks become more and more dreadful. The atonement of the ninth book comes at the wrong time and in the wrong manner.

There are four passages (and only four, so far as I am aware) in which the embassy of the ninth book is alluded to in the subsequent books: one in xviii. 444-456, which was expunged as spurious by Aristarchus (see the Scholia and Knight’s commentary, ad loc.); and three others in the following book, wherein the gifts previously tendered by Odysseus as the envoy of Agamemnôn are noticed as identical with the gifts actually given in the nineteenth book. I feel persuaded that these passages (vv. 140-141, 192-195, and 243) are specially inserted for the purpose of establishing a connection between the ninth book and the nineteenth. The four lines (192-195) are decidedly better away: the first two lines (140-141) are noway necessary; while the word χθιζὸς (which occurs in both passages) is only rendered admissible by being stretched to mean nudius tertius (Heyne, ad loc.).

I will only farther remark with respect to the ninth book, that the speech of Agamemnôn (17-28), the theme for the rebuke of Diomêdês and the obscure commonplace of Nestor, is taken verbatim from his speech in the second book, in which place the proposition, of leaving the place and flying, is made, not seriously, but as a stratagem (ii. 110, 118, 140).

The length of this note can only be excused by its direct bearing upon the structure of the Iliad. To show that the books from the eleventh downwards are composed by a poet who has no knowledge of the ninth book, is, in my judgment, a very important point of evidence in aiding us to understand what the original Achillêis was. The books from the second to the seventh inclusive are insertions into the Achillêis, and lie apart from its plot, but do not violently contradict it, except in regard to the agora of the gods at the beginning of the fourth book, and the almost mortal wound of Sarpêdon in his battle with Tlepolemus. But the ninth book overthrows the fundamental scheme of the poem.