36 



EE V. EE0EESS0E D. S. MAEGOLIOUTH. D.L1TT., OX 



countryman, the translator of Ecclesiasticus, who two centuries 

 before had studied in Alexandria, then the focus of Homeric 

 learning, and thinks of epic poets as writing their works.* 



Of the author to whom the world owes the Iliad and the 

 Odyssev the Hellenes apparently knew little. They state, or 

 rather assume, that his name was Homeros, a Greek word 

 signifying " hostage," which when applied to a child — as a 

 novelist informs us — means hostage to each parent for the loyalty 

 of the other. Clearly this name might be given to any child, 

 whence no inference can be drawn from it. They also regularly 

 associate with his name the title Poet, variously interpreted as 

 " Author,'"' " Versifier," and " Romancer.''" Accordingly to all, this 

 title is pre-eminently his: according to some, it is his 

 exclusively. 



It was thought remarkable in antiquity that Homer did not, 

 like other authors, mention his own name at the beginning and 

 end of his works ; yet it was either known or suspected in some 

 quarters that this anonymity was only ostensible : that there 

 was somewhere a cryptic signature. The clearest hint of this 

 is to be found in the Latin verse translation of the Iliad, 

 perhaps of the first century of our era. Its author has 

 introduced his own name ITALICUS into his rendering of the 

 prologue by means of an acrostich. The eight lines whereby he 

 has rendered the seven of the origiDal begin successively with 

 the letters of his name / ram, T ristia, A tgue, etc. 



The employment of the cryptic signature can be traced to an 

 early period of Greek literature. Epicharmus, about 500 B.C., 

 is said to have armed most of his works with cryptic signatures, 

 proving that they were Iris. In the fourth century we read of 

 a poet substantiating his claim to the authorslrip of a 

 pseudonymous work by pointing to a cryptic mark of the kind. 



The presence of such a signature is almost always revealed by 

 something unnatural in the text which it underlies, since the 

 letters have to do double duty, and, like other servants, cannot 

 serve two masters with complete fidelity. The prologue of the 

 Iliad contains in profusion signs of an underlying cryptogram. 

 Every word of the first line is calculated to provoke criticism, 

 and four out of the five words of which it consists actually did 

 provoke it. We need only quote what has been said about its 

 first word, firjviv "Anger.''" This shocked antiquity as an 

 unlucky commencement ; a literary work should begin with a 



* xliv. •". tlT]yGVfj.€VOL (tttj fv ypacpr. 



