io6 A N T I E N T M ETAPHYSICS. Book II. 



There Is no nation that I know, of whofc firft ages we are fo 

 particularly well informed, as of the Greek nation. There has 

 been, I am perfuaded, in every nation, what I call an Heroic Age, 

 that is, an Age of Men of extraordinary fize and ftrength of Body 

 as well as of Mind : But of the Heroic Age of Greece 'we have a 

 much more circumftantial account, and, I think, much better vouch- 

 ed, than of the fame Age of any other nation. The chief hiftorian 

 of this Age is Homer, who certainly lived near to it, I believe in the 

 next generation, and who ought not to be counted lefs an hiftorian 

 becaufe he wrote in verfe, the only way of writing at that time and 

 for many ages after. And, as I believe that the Greeks had the ufe 

 of letters before the time of the Trojan war, and, as I think, it is 

 impoflible that Homer could have been the firft writer in Greece, I 

 am perfuaded that he did not write from tradition only, though it 

 was then recent, but from records and the writings of other poets 

 before him : And particularly, I am perfuaded, that the catalogue of 

 the Greek forces, the number of the fhips of the feveral nations, 

 and the names of their leaders, were taken from fome written evi- 

 dence : Nor can I difbelieve the events of that war, as related by 

 him, any more than his catalogue, his genealogies, or his geogra- 

 phy ; Which laft is allowed by all antiquity to be moft exadly true ; 

 and accordingly it is ufed by Strabo as a kind of text for his geography 

 of Greece. But, if I were of the opinion ofthofe gentlemen, that the 

 Greeks of thofe days were juft fuch men as we are, I muft either 

 difbelieve entirely the fads related by this hiftorian of the Trojan zvar, 

 as Horace calls him *, or think them moft ridiculoufly exaggerated. 



For, if his heroes were fuch men as we, how could I believe that 

 they carried fuch a weight of armour, that they fought, run, fwam, 

 ate, and drank, as Homer has made them do ; and, if this be incre- 

 dible, 



* Trojanl Belli Scriptorem, maxime LoIH. 



Lib. I. Epift. 2. 



