THK MFK AND WORK OF IIOMKR. 



41 



In spite then of Dion Ohrysostom's assertion, Homer, like 

 other authors, has mentioned his own uame both al the begin- 

 ning and at the end of each poem, and those who, following his 

 instruction, seek the prayers of Homer and the Iliad are aide to 

 find them. The cryptograms perform some four functions. In 

 the first place they are prayers offered, as they should he, in 

 secret to the Header of secrets. Secondly; they vindicate the 

 Poet's claim to authorship against the possibility of dispute. 

 Thirdly, they furnish evidence of his extraordinary command of 

 the language which he writes; for even the easiest of these 

 puzzles could scarcely have been constructed by anyone else. 

 Fourthly, they enable the Poet to drop his mask and tell us 

 si >mething about himself. 



First we must endeavour to interpret his date, 871 or 874. 

 The only document which helps us in this matter is the Parian 

 Chronicle of the year 264 B.C., which has not indeed an era, but 

 uses as the beginning of history a year which synchronizes with 

 1582 B.C. If this be the era of the chronogram, the resulting 

 date is 711 or 708 B.C., of which the latter is the first year of 

 Olympiad xviii. Now this very Olympiad xviii was given as 

 the date of Homer by Euphorion of Chalcis, who was born 

 280 B.C. Probably then Euphorion noticed the chronogram, and 

 interpreted it by the same era. He made Homer contemporary 

 of the Lydian king Gyges, whose reign, according to him, began 

 then. The synchronism of Gyges seems to be in accordance 

 with the Chronicle, though it places Homer far earlier. 



There are, however, certain internal considerations which 

 bring us near the date 708. The chain of Greek poets other 

 than Homer can be traced to about Olympiad xxvii ; and all 

 these, as the Hellenic critics observed, are imitators or repro- 

 ducers of the Iliad and Odyssey. It must be remembered that 

 those who make this assertion had access to a far larger mass of 

 Greek poetry than we, and that their opinion is thoroughly 

 borne out by what we have. Now, a commentary must be later 

 than its text, yet not necessarily much later. The generation 

 which intervenes between Olympiad xviii and Olympiad xxvii 

 is quite sufficient for our purpose. And indeed we should 

 expect that imitation would commence very soon when once 

 the great classics had spread far and wide. 



On the other hand it can be shown that the Ionic colonies 

 were earlier than the composition of the Iliad, and these are 

 first mentioned in Oriental documents about the year 725 B.C. 

 In the last chapter of Isaiah Yavan figures as a nation with 

 which communication has only just been established. The date 



