GREECE. (LITERATURE.) 



529 



ncquainted with their different dialects than some 

 moderns, the Germans, for instance, are with theirs. 

 This may, perliaps, have been, in a great degree, the 

 effect of the universal popularity of Homer, the use 

 of a religious ritual, and the great mutual intercourse 

 of the nation. But, probably, the dialects were not, 

 in the earliest times, so distinct from each other as 

 they afterwards became ; and on this hypothesis we 

 must explain the peculiarities of the style of Homer 

 and Hesiod. " In Homer and Hesiod," says Ma- 

 thia, " forms and expressions occur, which gramma- 

 rians pronounce /Eolic, Doric, Attic, or the peculi- 

 arities of a local dialect. But they could hardly have 

 been such at the time of these poets, who would 

 have as little allowed themselves to employ such a 

 mixture, as a German poet would permit himself to 

 mingle together Lower Saxon, and High German 

 provincialisms. The language of Homer seems 

 rather to have been the language of the lonians of 

 that time. Of the forms common in Homer, all did 

 not remain in the Ionic dialect, but some, subsisted in 

 the ^Eolic-Doric only, others merely in the Attic. 

 The grammarians call that Attic, zEolic, Doric, etc., 

 in Homer, which was so at their time.'' The period 

 when these changes took place in the leading dia- 

 lects cannot be determined. It follows from ail this, 

 that, to have a thorough knowledge of the Greek 

 language, we must follow out, historically, the course 

 of its formation, taking no partial grammar as our 

 foundation, but extending; our view over all the varied 

 forms of tlie dialects a labour which this language, 

 so rich in classic models of every kind, and therefore 

 so perfect, so flexible, so expressive, so sweet in its 

 sound, so harmonious in its movements, and so 

 philosophical in its grammatical forms and whole 

 structure, merits, and richly rewards. At what 

 time this language first began to be expressed in 

 writing, has long been a subject of doubt. Accord- 

 ing to the general opinion, Cadmus, the Phoenician, 

 introduced the alphabet into Greece. His alphabet 

 consisted of but sixteen letters ; four (8 S * x) 

 are said to have been invented by Palamedes in the 

 Trojan war, and four more (z H v fi) by Simonides 

 of Ceos. That the eight letters mentioned, are 

 more modern than the others, is certain, partly from 

 historical accounts, partly from the most ancient in- 

 scriptions. As the lonians first adopted these let- 

 ters, and the Athenians received them from them, 

 the alphabet with twenty-four letters is called the 

 Ionic. The figures of the oldest Phoenician and 

 Greek letters differ very much trom the modern He- 

 brew and Greek letters. There have not been want- 

 ing persons, however, who assert that the art of 

 writing was practised among the Pelasgi before the 

 time of Cadmus. This opinion, not unknown to the 

 ancients, but corroborated by no single author of 

 authority, has not failed to meet with advocates in 

 modern times. Others, on the contrary, have ap- 

 peared, who place the origin of the art of writing in 

 Greece much later. The lirst who attracted atten- 

 tion to this point, was Wood, in his Essay on the 

 original genius of Homer. It is, at all events, of 

 great importance, for forming a proper judgment of 

 Homer, and deciding respecting Ante-Homeric poe- 

 try and literature, to ascertain whether the art of 

 writing was. or was not known in the time of Homer. 

 Wood's opinion is, that we may place the time 

 when the use of the alphabet became common in 

 Greece, and the beginning of prose writing, in about 

 the same period, 554 before Christ, and about as long 

 after Homer. In Homer's time, all knowledge, re- 

 ligion and laws were preserved by memory alone, and 

 for that reason were put in verse, till prose was in- 

 troduced with the art of writing. The argument 

 drawn from several ancient inscriptions on temples, 



Wolf has deprived of all its force : in his Prolegomena 

 to Homer, he has converted the question with more 

 precision into two: I. When did the Greeks become 

 acquainted with the art of writing? 2. When was it 

 common among them ? In solving the latter question, 

 it must be ascertained when convenient materials 

 for writing became common, and in what century the 

 writing of books was introduced among the Greeks. 

 Wolf proves not only that Homer committed to writing 

 nothing which he sang, the skins of animals not having 

 been used for writing till after him, nor Egyptian 

 papyrus till the time of Psammeticus, but that his 

 verses were never committed to writing till the middle 

 of the sixth century before Christ. It remains to 

 remark, that the Greeks originally wrote their lines 

 from right to left, then boustrophedon (see Bous- 

 trophedon) , and finally from left to right. 



Greek Literature. The origin of Greek literature, 

 that is, of the intellectual cultivation of the Greeks by 

 written works, is lost in an almost impenetrable ob- 

 scurity. Though there existed in Greece, in earlier 

 times, no actual literature, there was by no means a 

 want of what we may, not improperly, call literary 

 cultivation, if we free ourselves from the prejudice, 

 that the palladium of humanity consists solely in 

 written alphabetical characters. The first period 

 of Grecian cultivation, which extends to the invasion 

 of the Peloponnesus by the Heraclidaj and Dorians, 

 and the great changes produced by it, consequently 

 to eighty years after the Trojan war, and which we 

 may designate by the name of the Ante-Homeric 

 period, was indeed utterly destitute of literature ; but 

 it may be questioned whether it was also destitute 

 of all that culture, which we are accustomed to call 

 literary. The fables which are told of the intellectual 

 achievements of this period, have a certain basis of 

 truth. Among the promoters of literary cultivation, 

 in this time, we must distinguish three classes: 

 1. Those of whom we have no writings, but who are 

 mentioned as inventors of arts, poets and sages: 

 Amphion, Demodocus, Melampus, Olen, Phemius 

 and Prometheus. 2. Those to whom are falsely attri- 

 buted works no longer extant: Abaris, Aristeas, 

 Chiron, Epimenides, Eumolpus, Corinnus, Linus and 

 Palamedes. 3. Those to whom writings yet extant, 

 which, however, were productions of later times, are 

 attributed: Dares, Dictys, Horapollo, Musaeus, 

 Orpheus, and the authors of the Sibylline oracles. 

 This is not the place to inquire whether any and how 

 much of these writings is genuine. It is enough, 

 that the idea of such a forgery proves the existence 

 of earlier productions. And how could the next 

 period have been what it was, without previous pre- 

 paration ? If we may thus infer what must have been, 

 in order that the succeeding period should be what 

 it was, we learn, also, from the various traditions of 

 the Ante-Homeric period, that there existed in it 

 institutions which, through the means of religion, 

 poetry, oracles, and mysteries, had no small influence 

 on the civilization of the nation and the promotion of 

 culture ; for the most part, indeed, in Oriental forms, 

 and perhaps of Oriental origin ; and that these insti- 

 tutions, generally of a priestly character, obtained 

 principally in the northern parts of Greece, Thrace, 

 and Macedonia. We must here remark, that intel- 

 lectual cultivation did not prosper at once in Greece, 

 nor display itself simultaneously among all the tribes ; 

 that the Greeks became Greeks only in the process 

 of time, and some tribes made more rapid progress 

 than others. About eighty years after the Trojan 

 war, new commotions and a new migration began 

 within the borders of Greece. A portion of the in- 

 habitants emigrated from the mother country to the 

 islands and to Asia Minor. This change was in the 

 highest degree favourable to Grecian genius ; for the 

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