Homer and Hes'iod. 347 



with the nations of the Caucasus. Even Orpheus and Chiron 

 might be merely the poetical representation of the first eiForts 

 for the cultivation of the necessary arts. Be this as it may, 

 real advances were made by the family of the Asclepiadae, which 

 ascends nearly to this period, that is to say about 1300 years 

 before Christ. 



A century after, the famous Trojan war took place, in which 

 the Europeans contended against the Asiatics. The poems of 

 Homer, written about the year 950, that is about 200 years after 

 the event, shew us, that at this period the arts had made con- 

 siderable progress. The metals were forged and tempered; 

 arms chased and gilded ; cloths woven and dyed with the most 

 brilliani colours. Sculpture and painting had also been in- 

 vented. 



The Iliad and Odyssev contain some moral maxims; but 

 there are no traces in them of a philosophical doctrine, nor even 

 of a religious doctrine properly so called. The gods are only 

 men, stronger and more beautiful, but still vulnerable, and dif- 

 fering from other men only in having the faculty of concealing 

 themselves from view, and of rising in the air. 



The comparisons with natural objects which occur so fre- 

 quently in the verses of Homer, shew, that at this period very 

 accurate observations had been made on the manners of animals. 

 When that poet compares a hero pursued by common warriors 

 to a lion assailed by jackals, the picture which he draws of the 

 habits of the latter animals is as correct as brilliant. 



Hesiod may be considered as the contemporary of Homer, for 

 his two works bear the seal of the same epoch. In his Theo- 

 gony, we see mj'thological anthropomorphism in all its purity ; 

 some faint traces of pantheism appear in the history of the giants 

 and Titans. In his book of Days and Hotcrs, Hesiod incul- 

 cates upon men the necessity of labour, and gives some rules for 

 their guidance. He speaks of the culture of corn, the time of 

 tilling and sowing, &c. It is to be remarked that he always 

 indicates the time proper for these operations by the heliacal 

 rising of a star, which proves, that if the lunar year was already 

 established in Greece, it was, at least, little used in domestic life, 

 its mode of division necessarily rendering it inconvenient. He- 



