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101 



termined in favour of the Athenian*. Three other li- 

 tigated cases of ufupe.tr ami dominion are said to have 

 been determined by reference to Homer'* geography. 

 In Homer** age tbere was no other way of acquiring 

 knowledge but by travelling. To the curiosity respect- 

 ing hi* own *pecie*, which mu*t have possessed the 

 ardent mind of the poet, and impelled him to brave the 

 danger* of sea and land, the renew** Strabo add* 



very probable motive of his travel*, which we* the at the year 

 wish to make hi* fable accord with the mythology of date of the 

 the people whom he introduced on hi* scene of action. 

 For thi* purpose, say* Strabo, he eomnked the reli- 

 rds and the oracle* that were suspended in 

 At that period there were hardly any 

 onument* known. The priests held 

 the sceptre of public opinion, and all history was con- 

 signed to the oracles. Diodorus says, that Homer vi- 

 sited the i!e of Del pho*. After the second sacking of 

 Grecian Thebe* by Alcmeon. the prophetaai Manto, 

 daughter of the famed Tirwias, had been sent to Del. 

 phi a* making part of the spoils, where she acquired 

 greet renown by her talent for competing cracks. The 



to 



meeting of Homer with *uch a Udy ia 

 the imagination. Homer, *ay* the histo 



i of the oracle, either a* 

 or author it? to give weight to hie works. 



It would" be curious to aatertain in what state Ho- 

 I the poetry of Greece when he eomraane*!. 

 leatioi. ie involved in almost im- 

 WhiW be ia hailed aa the father, 



I ..*** .^BBBS>^*) e*lW eumt * - I >>* ,ammtu,UU> .Tif 



ws \xt taiiniy no* i n-r u 



libiuy ow r bncMBy t* 

 s an teffToc to BUB. TIM 



of them were i 

 who, it t* said. 



The aaantiiai of Suides/that Homer drew his' story of 

 the load from that of Corrnno*. who c*ia|)*iii. k du- 

 ring the Trojan war, seems to be only the dream of a 

 lexicographer. Tactace, a versifier of the ISth cen- 

 tury, who mane a ceaBmentary upon Lycopisren, and 

 a bad poem called the Chiliad*, would have me be. 



borrowed hi* Iliad from Dictys Cre 



. . . t _ ^^. 



i wnier to who. 

 but not original, 

 in the reign of one of the Canars, in a < 



tBffOWf) OpCTI bjf Ml M-nrta*B^WMM.a> Iw MMI W MV told 



that Dictyt followed Hnmeae-M to the siege of Troy, 

 and wrote a history of it in | 



The story of Homer'* i 



MI the theory of Bryant, which 

 *wd the 



timef, 



mer to have fb*wd the material* of hi* 



of Egypt, and to have allegorised the 



ttW BCtlOQ O* OVMJMI 



for it merit* net the 



Ho. 



drawn from Egyptian tfaeogony, and 

 ( .rerce. MeitesMM ie evidently the 

 Agamemnon is the Turkish word Aga i 

 nan, whose hern resounded at the touch of the . g 

 day The wealthy Mycrne never existed but in the 

 vanity of TtMcydidee, and the credulity of Heredotaa. 

 Troy never existed but 00 the <-ho*se of the N.lr. ll.r 

 pan of thi* hypothesis i* quite upon a par 



with its etymology, which, with its Ag*J and Memnons 

 is not so inverting, but equally credible with Swift's 

 derivation of Hector, Ajax, and Alexander. 



The epoch of Homer has been not less a subject of 

 disputation than his country. Herodotus says in his 

 Euterpe, that he lived 4OO yean before hi* own (the 

 historian's) time. In the chronicle of the Parian mar- 

 ble*, Homer is said to have been in hi* highest renown 

 at the rear of the chronicle 675, which would place the 

 date of the Iliad 2707 yean from the beginning of the 

 present century ; but venerable as the authority of the 

 Parian marble* may appear, they seem to assign a later 

 date to the great poet than his writings, and the man. 

 nen of society which he describes, render probable. It 

 is more consistent with his writings to suppose, that he 

 waa born not long after the siege of Trey, and that he 

 had Jniabml both his poems half a century after the 

 town was taken. As the first interesting stories he 

 beard when a boy were those of the exploits performed 

 in the Trojan war, in his riper yean he bad still an op- 

 portunity of convening with the old men who had 

 been engaged in it. Their immediate descendants 

 would, according to this supposition, be hi* contempo- 

 raries ; he might know their grandchildren, and live to 

 see the birth of the fourth generation. It i* true, that 

 thi* hypothesis makes the birth of Homer prior to the 

 Ionian migratioa, which Thucyd.de* place* 80 years 

 after the siege of Troy ; but in this there is no solid 

 objection, aa we know that there were Ionian* in Asia 

 pnor to the colony of that name being brought thither. 

 The r it.sjma.au i' i of Homer ascribing double the 

 strength of modern men to one of the heroes of the 

 Ibad, -a P. decisive preof that be looked back tea very 



strength of men'* m-mediate eaculuii may be found in 

 i of the middle ages, that moat have been 

 within fifty years of the lifetime of those 

 to whom die poet ascribe* a siae and 

 wrteasing sober belief. The account which 

 Homer give* of the family of JEnaaa continuing to 

 reign over the Trojan* after the Greek* bad densoKab. 

 ed Troy, though at variance with Virgil'* fable, (a t-ir- 

 c-Jsm>ajseof no grant cenMqaanr* aa to its credibility.) 

 has all the air of having been drawn from contempora- 

 ry mfi-i.aalii.il, Such an account of the family of 

 Jb-M* to would have been difficult, as well as useless, 

 for Homer to have forged. Now the succession of 



to the kingdom of Troy 

 the poet ha* left on record. The 

 gration moat probably disturbed that very 

 in their pasacanosj* ; and from Homer, who 

 in his hiatoi ical accounts, being silent 

 disturbance, it may be inferred, that 

 with it. The other 

 assigned to our poet, 



make* him contemporary with Lycurgus, and, connect- 

 ed with it, there i* a tradition of Homer and the law- 

 giver having met in the island of Chios. But the pie. 

 Z._ -I.:.,, Hom(f , exllioit( doee * accor a 



When we look to the vermmili- 

 we must believe that lie paint- 

 ed the natural world and all it* manner* from the life. 

 There ia no trace of his affecting to give it an antiqua- 

 ted air, or of wishing, as a modern poet would proba- 

 bly be m-Hmed to do, to study simplicity of obieit* for 

 picturesque effect ; on the contrary, whenever he luxu- 

 riate* in desciiptiuu it ia in painting artificial objects. 

 Those who bring down Homer, therefore, so low as the 

 time of Lycurgus, seem to forget that such a poet aud 



he did net live to be acquainted 

 and later era which has been i 



HOOMT. 



