[ 472 ] 
Lvcurgus himfelf had an interview with Homer in 
the ifie of Chios ; and Plutarch, likewife, was no 
ft ranger to the fame report (ff). 
As a farther confirmation, however, that we are. 
not very wrong in placing the age of thefe two poets 
as we have done, it may be remarked, that, in the 
defcription given by Hefiod of lucky and unlucky 
days, he tells us, r qjlwocS'oc yjivos ctpiqyw (56). But 
the firft perfon, among the Greeks, that called the 
laft day of the month by that name, or that ufed the 
word TPOnAI, if we believe Laertius, was Thales. 
Neither Homer nor Hefiod, therefore, if this ob- 
fervation be true, can be older than Olymp. XXXV. 
1. or the year before Chrift 637. when that philo- 
fopher was born. But as it mull have been fome 
time before he could apply himfelf to aftronomical 
ftudies, and probably not till the middle part of his 
life, or about the year before Chrift 600. the Odyfjy 
could not well have been compofed before. 
But Pififtratus, as we are informed byTully(58), 
firft collected Homer’s verfes, and digefted them in 
the manner we now have them. And Solon, ac- 
cording to Laertius (59), proved the right of the 
Athenians to the ifiand Salamis, from thefe lines of 
the Iliad : 
(55) Vit. Lycurg. 
(56) Dierum. v. 2. 
(57) In Vit. ejuf 
(58) Qui primus Homeri libros, confufos antea, fic difpofuifle di- 
citur, ut nunc habemus. De Oratore, 1 . iii. • ne/enrga']^ <njvz\a.fuv 
a.'wivuvz r kxi OJ'waziAv. Mlian. Var. Hiji. 1 . xiii. c. 14. 
( 59 ) In Vit. ejuf. 
Aia.; 
