the preceding incidents of the poem, the reservation of the victims of slaughter to deck the funeral pile, and the sympathy which the poet takes pains to excite for the loss of Patroclus, require this full and splendid description of his burial. The twenty-fourth book is important as it seems to consummate the glory of the hero by placing Priam at his feet, and developing so fully the finer feelings of heroism. The first and second His ven

parts of the poem have thus a similar termination. geance on the Greeks ends in a magnanimous refusal of their presents. His vengeance on the Trojans in a restoration of the body of his foe, and a liberal allowance of time for the funeral rites.

Aristotle then has not erred when he praised the perfect unity of the Iliad. The very proposition of the poet (sein grundsatz) is a head of Medusa which turns to stone every audacious hand that would rob him of a single book. It is incredible that a poem at once so unique and so complete, so admirable in its construction, so perfect in its minutest details should have been produced without any aid from writing. It would be a miracle. To this art then is Homer indebted for his superiority over all predecessors.

III.

ABSTRACT OF DR. THIERSCH'S TREATISE ON THE AGE AND NA TIVE COUNTRY OF HOMER.

Proposition. The Homeric Poems appeared in European Greece immediately after the Trojan war.

I. THE AGE.

The precise period of the Trojan war cannot be ascertained. Computations vary from 1284 to 1184 B. C.

Ancient writers differ much about the age of Homer. According to the Arundelian Marbles he flourished 277 years after the Trojan war, or 900 B. C. The calculation given in the life of Homer attributed to Herodotus, is not only inconsistent with that given in Herodotus' history, but with itself. It puts Homer 168 years after the Trojan war, and 622 years be

fore Xerxes crossed the Hellespont, which event occured 480 B. C. This of course drives us from the previous calculation respecting the time of the Trojan war 1184 to 1270 B. C. The circumstances of the narrative, and the character of the poetry it contains, prove that it is one of the Cyclic poets and not the true Homer whose life is here given. Plutarch, in his life mentions three opinions; one making Homer coeval with the Trojan war, another 100 years later, and another 150. Gellius makes him contemporary with Solon and Hesiod, Cornelius Nepos 160 years before Rome-900 B. C. Cicero is quite selfcontradictory in his various conjectures on the subject. Madame Dacier puts Homer 300 years after the Trojan war. Payne and Knight make him coeval with the Ionian migration. Mitford puts Homer four generations after the Trojan war. Dodwell considers him a son of Telemachus. Wood makes different calculations. Wolf dates his time at 1000 B. C. Schubart places him in the court of the Aeneades.

The opinion that Homer lived after the Ionian migration has little foundation. 1. Its prevalence among the Ancients is easily accounted for, as the poems, being found among the islands of Asia, would not naturally be referred to a European origin. 2. Various incidents mentioned in the Iliad and Odyssey, particularly the appearance of bards at feasts in the latter, and the analogies of other lands, indicate the age of heroes and bards to be the same. 3. The omission, except in a single instance, of all allusion to the death of Ulysses, and the manner in which the history of Agamemnon's family is related, no mention being made of the fate of Orestes, intimate that the poet was nearly contemporary with his heroes. 4. If it be said that the poet transfers himself for the time being to the age of which he writes, and makes his heroes speak consistently, it may be replied that this is a stroke of art too great for the simplicity of the poet of a childlike age. 5. The song of the voσtos, relating the return of the heroes from Troy, is spoken of* as if it related to recent incidents. 6. From the Iliad and Odyssey it appears that there were bards contemporaneous with the heroes. Now it is unreasonable to suppose that the succession of bards was interrupted for two hundred years. It is impossible that the events of the heroic age could have been preserved without song. And the circumstances of the period immediately after the return from Troy, with the ease and luxury in which the

heroes live, point to that as the most favorable period for these poets to flourish. 7. They must have appeared during the peaceful period of eighty years that elapsed between the Trojan war and the Doric invasion of Peloponnesus. 8. In proof of this, the freshness of the descriptions, and the lifesomeness of the scenes in the poems may be appealed to. These traits could not have been so prominent a century after the events related, when their impression must in a measure have worn away. 9. Especially would the circumstances of the Ionian migration have crowded from the memory, and from the mouth, the events of Troy, as oral tradition continues fresh only till the next wonderful event supplants it. 10. Nor can we imagine that a poet who wrote in the simplicity and artlessness of so early a period could draw a sketch of the past without betraying his own more recent age, by blending its features with the outlines of the picture. 11. No mention is made of the important events which occurred during the long interval between the Trojan war, and the Ionian migration, events which the communicative disposition of the poet would incline him to mention, as he does the heroes of the ante-heroic age.

If it be said in opposition to this view, that true epic poetry always selects distant and fabulous antiquity instead of seeking inspiration from the present time, we reply, that it is the artificial Epopoea of more modern times from Virgil to Klopstock which sings of antiquity. Not so the Homeric and Ossianic poems. The true theory is, that the infancy of a nation is its original epic age. Again, if appeal be made to Il. V. 304, olo viv Bootol, we reply, there is reason to believe that this passage is the interpolation of some rhapsodist. 1. Because it is unlike Homer who nowhere speaks of his heroes as giants. 2. The interpolation might naturally have been invented by a later rhapsodist to remove the strangeness of this sort of warfare. 3. There are several passages* which would require the same qualification, in which it seems to be omitted owing to the difficulty of making it harmonize. 4. The etymology of the word Zequάdeov throws suspicion on the passage. And if we are referred to the poet's appeal to the muses for aid in giving the catalogue of the ships, we reply, 1. That we cannot suppose the poet to be so superstitious as really to depend on such aid for recalling distant and forgotten events to mind. 2. Several critics attribute this passage to a later age, and consider it an interpolation.

* Iliad VII. 264.

II. THE COUNTRY.

Our view of this follows from the preceding, yet both may be confirmed by noticing some independent proofs.

There are

country.

numerous hostile theories relative to Homer's

1. Bryant makes his native place Ithaca, in proof of which he relies chiefly on the poet's love for Ithaca. The critic con

founds the poet and his hero.

2. Schubart makes Homer a Trojan, and proves it from the superior polish and character given to the Trojans. He appeals to the pedigree of Dardanus,* which is more extended than that of any Grecian hero. But that passage is an interpolation, and if it were not, the pedigree might be given, as more interesting because more unknown to the Greeks than their own. The same kind of reasoning would prove Homer to be a Phenician. Against this theory it may be further remarked that Homer makes no effort in describing the Trojan character. His more prominent and distinct characters are all Grecians, while between one Trojan and another there is little distinction. With the geography of Greece Homer seems to be accurately familiar, but appears ignorant and self-contradictory with respect to Troy. Moreover Homer represents Grecian warriors as superior in military art, and Grecian women in dress. The aggrandizement of the Grecian name was the chief motive for the faithful transmission of the poems. And if the poet had wished to depreciate them, materials were at hand which he has not used.

3. The more general opinion is that Asia, either Ionia or Aeolia was the land where first appeared the Homeric poems.

The circumstances of the contention upon this subject among the Ionian States, generally appealed to by the Asiatic party is rather an argument against them, as it shows that they could never come to any agreement. The long preservation of particular rhapsodies among them would account for the common claim. The evidence of an Ionian origin drawn by Wood from the winds described as blowing on the Asiatic shore, is not decisive. The poet would speak of the winds as if he were on the shore, whatever might be his situation. Iliad II. 535 is another Asiatic passage where the poet speaks of the Locrians as

* Iliad XX. 216.

† Odyssey VII. 56.

dwelling on the other side of Euboea. But this passage is pronounced by Knight to be an interpolation. II. II. 626, contain

ing a similar proof, is shown to be spurious by the unhomeric use of vaio for valetάw. If these passages were genuine they would only prove the Asiatic and separate origin of the Catalogue of ships which appears evident from the inconsistency of the statistics with other parts of Homer. Each ship is made

to contain 120 men, horses, etc., though elsewhere described as small enough to be dragged on shore like a boat. The catalogue would also be more interesting and useful to Asiatic colonists than native Greeks.*

Against the Asiatic origin it may be remarked, 1. That Homer makes no mention of Smyrna, his reputed birth-place, or of the river Meles, from which he is called Melesigenes. He makes no mention of the Ionian States, and the Aeolian and Phrygian States in Asia he seems to know only by report. On the contrary in all his descriptions of European Greece, he is evidently at home.† 2. The monarchical sentiments found in various passages‡ would hardly proceed from an Ionian Republican. 3. The common supposition that Homer acquired his intimate knowledge of Greece by travels, is rendered improbable, when we consider how difficult communication between the two countries was rendered by the distractions of the age. 4. There are several passages which could come only from a European Greek. He makes the sun rise and set in the ocean, whereas an Asiatic Greek would make it rise from behind wooded mountains, as his east was dry land. 5. In II. XII. 239, Cópos refers undoubtedly to unexplored regions in the northwest of Europe. But an inhabitant of Asia could not so use it, but must refer it to Greece his west, which would be extremely unnatural. 6. It ought not to be objected to this view that it is destitute of historical support, since the traditions of that period are themselves unsupported, and it is easy to account for their discrepancy with it.