■ imp Wm HniPn&8 inHi timmmmm mWmmm HHraHi HhL B ■Br 111 MISCELLANEA HOMERICA, &C. &C, SHORTLY TO BE PUBLISHED. ON THE SAME PLAN, AND BY THE SAME AUTHOR, PROLEGOMENA TO DEMOSTHENES AND NOTES ON THE TEXT OF THE ORATIONS WHICH FORM THE SUBJECTS OF EXAMINATIONS IN TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. MISCELLANEA HOMERICA; BEING A COMPILATION OF ORIGINAL AND SELECTED ARTICLES ON THOSE POINTS OF GREEK LITERATURE WHICH ARE AUXILIARY AND NECESSARY TO '< HE CRITICAL STUDY OF HOMER. BY HENRY OWGAN, A. B., EX-SCHOLAR, AND CLASSICAL MODERATOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE. 'OXwc oe KctXa v6[ii& v-ipij Kai dXrjOiva, ra dtairaprb^ apkoKOvra Kai iraaiv. — Longinus, tt. w^.7. 5 ] DUBLIN: & WILLIAM CURRY, JUN. & COMPANY, 9, UPPER SACKVILLE-STREET. M.DCCC.XL. DUBLIN : PRINTED liV R,. CBAISBERnV. TO THE REV. GEORGE SIDNEY SMITH, D.D PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL GREEK, T.C.D. Dear Sir, Homer remarks, that every man is best qualified to appreciate those faculties and qualifications which he himself possesses ; for this reason, it is, that I take the liberty of making you the Maecenas of these pages. Should the obser- vations contained therein prove worthy of your acceptance and patronage, adequate to the impor- tance of the subject, and useful to the Undergradu- ates of the College to which we belong, no more sincere gratification, or more acceptable recompense could return to Your's very truly, HENRY OWGAN. 30, College. PREFACE In the laborious and unrequited occupation of teaching the Greek and Latin languages, I have had frequent occasion to observe with regret, that while the Greek Theatre, the Miscellanea Graeca Dramatica, Miscellanea Virgiliana, the Horatius Restitutus, &c, all excellent on their respective subjects, tend to alleviate the labour of the student in acquiring an acquaintance with the other classics, the votary of the creator of epic poetry was un- aided by any similar panoramic aggregate of col- lateral information, of which an almost unlimited quantity is, at present, indispensable, for the at- tainment of those distinctions awarded by our University to a proficiency in the most attractive of all literary pursuits, to the study of which we are invited by an inducement more powerful than even that constituted by the unintermitted alternations of colossal grandeur, majestic sublimity, and beauty the most minutely symmetrical ; that inducement Vlll PREFACE. is, that it is only by a critical and idiomatic ac- quaintance with these languages, the most perfect offspring of human intellect, that we are enabled to study without impediment, and to understand without obscurity, the writings which embody the history and precepts of our heaven-descended religion. To the earliest of these, the nearest in the aera of their production, and the most cognate in ethical tendency and manners of their age, are the poems of Homer. In addition to this reply to the frequent inquiry, suggested by prejudice or its parent ignorance, after the "utility of classical learning," it has been as frequently demonstrated, that to enumerate briefly a few of the secondary advantages derivable from the possession of these treasures of antiquity, is to repeat, that whatever profit results from ex- panding and strengthening the intellect, and forming a correct taste, is to be expected from this study ; that the relics of Roman and Grecian lite- rature contain the choicest fruits of human genius ; that the poets, the orators, and the philosophers of Greece, have, in their respective departments, brought home, and laid at our feet, the richest tro- phies which ever had been the meed of successful imagination; that the historians of these early PREFACE. IX times hold up to us a view of things "nobly done and worthily spoken ;" that the genius and inspiration which breathed them, live, and will live, unimpaired and undecaying in the writings which remain to us ; and that as long as taste, genius, and learning shall he valued among men, so long shall these precious relics be held more dear and more sacred, as they become more an- cient. Much or all of the apathy, which, though gra- dually disappearing, still prevails with respect to these pursuits, is mainly attributable to an utilita- rian spirit, which inconsistently requires, in the matter of education, an absence of that ornament, which it would not be content, in other particulars, to dispense with. The love of decoration is one of the most prevalent and irrepressible instincts of our nature : by it we are led to perceive, and be struck with the beauty of external objects, before the consideration of their utility suggests itself to us ; it is one of the first, few, and strongest im- pulses of the infant in years and the infant in civilization, the child and the savage ; and, though its tendencies may become higher, and its objects more noble, with the progress of years and refine- ment, it is still but the same love of decoration, X PREFACE. the same graceful failing of human vanity which acquires vigor as its moves. In our garments, our habitations, and the most common-place appliances of our daily life, mere utility, not admitting of a separation from orna- ment, draws it around us in infinite shapes : to it we are indebted for the existence of that art, which perpetuates the features of the mighty dead, and makes their virtue and genius to speak to us from the inanimate walls and the consecrated canvass ; of that which " graves its dream of loveliness on stone," and presents to us, in all but breathing and moving life and substance, its creations of ideal majesty and beauty ; and of that which has taught man to bestow upon the structures of his own hands, the unfading beauty and the enduring- strength and grandeur which have made them ha- bitations worthy of the presence of a God. In all that is ours, it is present, from ourselves shall it be absent ? Shall we, created by a nature, all whose works are poetry, walk abroad through a world of grace and symmetry, and shall our own minds, the divine portion of our being, remain the only un- sightly and unadorned thing, with no fair propor- tions in which to present itself? That divine portion requires that the domicile, which it con- PREFACE. XI descends to inhabit, should, itself included, be treated as something better than a patent digester, and be animated by something more than a Gal- vanic vitality. Many fantastic tricks has man played in his time : he has fancied himself many things, even an animated structure of glass; but he has in these latter days outfancied all these fan- cyings in imagining himself a dead iron balance, or a peripatetic multiplication table. Having gone thus far in defence of my subject, I shall leave my treatment thereof at the mercy of my readers and reviewers (i quibus hsec, sint qualiacunque, arridere velim," and briefly acknow- ledge my obligations to Messrs. Knight, Heyne, Wolfe, Wachsmuth, Barker, Clinton, Thiersch, Dawes, Mitford, Drs. Buttmann and Kennedy, Sir W. Drummond, Sir E. L. Bulwer, &c., from whose valuable works or observations this work has been partly compiled. H. O. 30, College. CONTENTS. Page. Chapter I. — Chronology of Homer and History of his Works. — Pseudo-Herodotus. — Herodotus. — Parian Mar- bles.— Mr. Clinton, Apollodorus, Eratosthenes, and Aristo- tle. — Bode. — Descent of the Heracleidae, Ionic Migration, Lycurgus. — Thiersch. — Solon, — Historical Authority of Homer. — 'Aoidol. — Unity of Homer. — Xwpi&vreg. — Wolf, Heyne, Knight. — Art of Writing, Phoenicians, Josephus. — Plutarch.— Heraclides Pont— Papyrus, dupOkpcu. — Priority of Poetry to Prose. — Library of Pisistratus. — Library of Polycrates. — Archilochus. — iElian. — 'Pa-^doi. — Homeridae. — Strabo, Harpocration, Suidas, Montbel, Hesychius. — Longinus. — Musical Contests.— Cleisthenes.— Isocrates. — Plato. — Xenophon. — Hipparchus, Recitation of Homer. — Pisistratus. — AiaaKevatTrdi. — AiopOiaral. — AiopOwosig k, . 66 The Twenty-fourth Iliad, its continuity, &c. . . .92 Chapter IX. — Salebrje Interpretationem et Critics.— Odyssey, Longinus. — Odyssey, a, j3, y, £, t, k, X, p, . . 93 Chapter X. — Mythology of Homer. — Two Classes ol'My- thi. — Ante-Homeric Mythology. — Cosmogonise and Theo- CONTENTS. XV Pace. goniae. — Hesiod. — Heraclean Poems. — 'Hoiot. — Harpyies. — Ate. — Dodona, according to Strabo, Cleanthes, Zenodo- tus, Herodotus, the 7re\eiad£g t ^Egyptian Oracle at Thebse. — Selli. — Origin of the Name Dodona. — Its Destruction. — Olympus. — Introduction of Celestial Actors into the Plots of the Poems, — Phoenician Mythology. — Mosaic History. — Epic and Tragic Fa\e. — ^Egyptian Mythology, Danaus, Orpheus, Musdeus, Melampus, &c. — Worship of Idols. — Dedication of Robes. — Worship of the Sun. — Oracles. — Mysteries. — Worship of the Serpent. — Sir E. L. Bulwer. — Temples and Treasure-Houses, 107 The Homeric Hades. — Oceanus. — Diodorus Sic, Eus- tathius, Plato, &c. — ^Ethiopians. — Cimmerians, Cymry, Cimbri. — Claudian. — Mela, Pliny, Strabo. — Islands in the Atlantic. ^-Tzetzes, Avernus. — Servius. — Antipodes. — Land in the Atlantic known to the Ancients, . . .124 Chapter XI. — Heroic Age, State of Society. — Sir E. L. Bulwer.— Herodotus. — Patriarchal Society. — Nobility and lower Order, distinguished.— Citizens, Slaves, and Foreign- ers. — Penestae and Heilots, — Emigrants, &c. — Hospitality. — Sanctuaries. — Three classes of Nobles. — Castes. — Sacer- dotal Families, 129 Government. — Pelasgi. — Hellenes. — Monarchies. — Succession. — Oligarchy. — Plebeians. — Expiation of Crimes by Exile. — Democratic tendency of the Odyssey. — Phaea- cians. — Pelasgi.— Leleges. — Caucones. — Dryopes. — Cari- ans. — Hellenes. — Early History. — Tradition. — First Prose Writers. — Cretan Constitution. — Kingdom of Argos. — Sicyon. — Corinth. — Southern Peninsula, .... 134 Chapter XII. — Language of Homer. — Greek Alphabet. — Cadmus, Palamedes, &c. — Euclides.— Euripides. — Sopho- cles. — Coins of Thrace and Macedon. — Languages of the Ancient Latins, Etrurians, and Osci. — Language of Poetry and Prose. — JEolic, Doric, Ionic, Attic. — Loss of P. — In- scriptions.— ./Era of Pisistratus. — Heraclean Table. — Ruins of Peloponesus, Boeotia, and Phocis. — Silence of Homer about himself.— Advancement of Languages.— Differences between the Iliad and Odyssey. — Error of Thiersch and Buttmann.— Second Aorists. — Syllabic Quantity.— Effect of P.— Insertion and omission of Consonants.— Duplication of Consonants, Liquids.— Language of the Gods. — Syllabic XVI CONTENTS. Page. Augment. — Obsolete Inflexions. — Declensions. — Old Latin Declensions.— Iotacism. — Etrurian Alphabet. — First De- clension. — Paragogic aoicol, " Apyovrai Aiog ek wpooijuis. With reference to the name, the scholiast on Pindar says, that the descendants of Homer himself, who recited his poems, by hereditary right, exclusively appro- priated this title, and are thus to be distinguished from the paipqSoi, who had no claim to the appellation. We are informed by Strabo, that the inhabitants of Chios endeavoured to substantiate their claim to the nativity of Homer, on the ground of the existence of Ho- meridse among them. Timaeus, a sophist, and author of a glossary on Plato, describes them as synonymous with pa-ip(i)So'i. Harpocration, the author of a diction- ary of the Ten Attic Orators, when remarking the occurrence of this word in Isocrates, (towards the end of the panegyric on Helen,) describes them as a family of Chios, the descendants of the poet, and adds, that Seleucus suggested a different etymology of the word (sc. ofxrjpog, a hostage). Suidas has merely transcribed these two. Montbel, in his History of Homeric Poetry, derives the word from o^uou up&v, on the authority of Hesychius, who thus explains it, ojuov iipfioaQai, kcu avp.(p{j)vuv : according to him then, those who sing in concert, in which sense, and applied to the Muses, it occurs in the Oeoyovia. According to the xcopiZovreg, bearing the form of a patronymic, it gave rise to a belief in the existence of a Homer. The strongest and AND HISTORY OF HIS POEMS. 11 clearest refutation of their doctrine is, that such of the ancients themselves as we have been able to form a literary acquaintance with, are believers in the ex- istence of one Homer, the individual author of the two great epics. The great difference of character be- tween the poems, the Iliad being the more dramatic, and the Odyssey the more narrative of the two, is at- tributed, as well as the other discrepancies, to the in- creased age of the poet, when engaged in the latter work, by Longinus, in his beautiful simile of the meri- dian sun, contrasted with the more softened and sub- dued splendor of the evening. These Homeridae ap- pear, on the whole, to have been a school, or sect, of a character similar to that of the Riiners of the North, the Druids of the Celts, the Bards of Germany, and Troubadours of Provence, who were, respectively, the appropriators of their national literature. As they spread through Greece, the most distinguished among them was Cynethus, a cotemporary of zEschylus : they occasionally took the liberty of adding and altering ; and Pindar, in the passage above quoted, attributes to them the practice of preluding their epic chaunts with a hymn. There appears a distinction between the Homeridae and paxpt^doi in this particular, that the former recited nothing but their own compositions, whereas the latter were indiscriminate in their selec- tions. This, subsequently, became a system of such notoriety, that musical contests were instituted at Si- cyon, Orchomenos, Argi, and Athens. Herodotus re- lates of Cleisthenes, a king of Sicyon, that, while en- gaged in hostilities against the Argives, he interdicted these recitations, the poems which supplied the mate- rials, containing the praises of the Argives. Isoerates, in a panegyric, attributes to the ancient Athenians the glory of having instituted a festival in which were re- \2 CHRONOLOGY OF HOMER, cited extracts from Homer. These rhapsodists, so necessary to society before the invention of writing, lost, on its discovery, their entire importance, and, as we find in Plato and Xenophon, became eventually objects of contempt ; and early in the fourth century b. c, were held to be mere itinerary buffoons. It has been, upon several occasions, asserted that the Iliad and Odyssey did not appear in any regularity or con- tinuity of form until the time of Socrates and Xeno- phon ; but, in the diologues of Socrates (Plato), Euthy- demus boasts of the possession of a copy of Homer. And in Xenophon's Banquet, Niceratus professes to repeat the Iliad and Odyssey from memory. Nume- rous testimonies concur in attributing to the era of Pisistratus the transcription and arrangement of Homer, the most ancient of which is that of Cicero, (de Oratore, 3, 34.) Plato, who quotes some lines of Homer, which are not to be found in the present editions, states, that Hipparchus ordained the periodical recitation of Homer at the Athenaea, or, (as they were styled after their establishment, on an improved scale, by Theseus,) Panathenaea. Previously to this, however, (according to Diog. Laert), certain improvements had been ef- fected by Solon, in the manner of recitation ; and this measure naturally prepared the way for those of Pisis- tratus ; to which Elian, in the passage above named, alludes. Of two scholiasts, on Dionysius of Thrace, who both corroborate these statements, one adds an order of Pisistratus, that an obolus should be paid for every line of Homer rescued from oblivion ; and the second concludes his testimony with an anachronism, in making Zenodotus cotemporary with Pisistratus. The services of this monarch, in this particular, are testified by an inscription on his statue ; he reigned at Athens at three several intervals, from 561 to 528 B.C.; AND HISTORY OF HIS POEMS. 13 between these dates, therefore, must be fixed the time of the first transcription, in the present order, which, notwithstanding all the care bestowed on it, must have been deplorably imperfect, distorted, as it necessarily was, by ignorance of philological details, by national and individual prejudice, and other motives of a per- verting tendency ; but, after a brief interval, the earliest efforts of criticism were directed to the correction of their most glaring errors, in the arrangement and emendation of the text, which operations are expressed by the phrase SiaaiczvaZZiv. The frequent occurrence of the name ^laaKtvaarai, in Villoison's edition of the Venetian Scholia, shews that there was in active occu- pation such a body of literati ; and that the text of Homer had undergone extensive corrections and emen- dations, previously to the time of the Alexandrine SiopOurai. Of these, the principal were Zenodotus, whose emendations still appear in the Venetian School ; and to whom is sometimes attributed the division of the two poems into twenty-four books, each designated by the letters of the alphabet ; his uk/jit) is placed at about 250 b. c. : Aristarchus, who flourished about the same time, and gave the most strenuous opposition to the system styled 7rpayfxaTiKrj, which, having been originated and supported by the Stoics of the day, consisted in explaining Homeric mythi as adumbrations of physical phenomena : Aristophanes, a native of Byzantium, the inventor of Greek accentuation, as designated by the marks in present use, about 200 b. c. : and Crates, who was the first to animate the Romans with the spirit of literary criticism. Before this time, there had been in existence, at Alexandria, several editions, or SiopQuaHQ, of Homer, of which there were two classes, the kcit av$pa, and the Kara 7toAhc ; supposed to be the terms of their classification in the library of Ptolemy Phila- 14 CHRONOLOGY OF HOMER, delphus ; bearing also the names of those individuals, or communities, by whom they had been severally presented. Of the latter class, the most known were those copies which bore the names of Chios, Argi, Sinope, Cyprus, and Massilia ; and of the former, that styled £K rov vapOrjicog, being the copy emended by Aristotle himself, and kept in Alexander's celebrated casket. The object to which the labours of the SiopOujTai were principally directed, was the investi- gation of the correctness of these of the SicKJKzvaaTat, and accordingly, they erased unscrupulously whatever, in the copies left by them, appeared of questionable authenticity. The most zealous in this work of re- trenchment was Aristarchus, who, together with the others above mentioned, were the most remarkable of Ptolemy's seventy-two grammarians. In addition to the Iliad and Odyssey, twenty-one other poems, together with the hymns, are attributed to Homer. 1. The Batrachomyomachia (the war of the frogs and mice), usually assigned to Pigres, brother to Artemisia, the widow of Mausolus, and queen of Halicarnas- sus. Mr. Knight conceives more probability in sup- posing it to be the work of an ancient Attic writer, both from its having been inscribed on StXroi, not SicpOepai', and from containing the earliest mention of the crowing of the cock, as a matter of habitual occur- rence : this bird, coming originally from India, was called by the Greeks TrepcjUog opvig, and appears en- graved on the coins of the Samothracians, and Sicilians of Himera, in the sixth century b. c. 2. The 'Aycuv, sc. of Homer and Hesiod, generally presumed to be spurious. 3. The 'At£ l7rra7T£kToc, which, by being written in Iambics, conclusively refutes its claims to a place in this catalogue. 4. Apaxvofiayla) 5. repavo- fia\ia. 6. tyapo/jLaxia* The several subjects of which AND HISTORY OF HIS POEMS, 15 are indicated by their names. 7. KipictoTrtg. On the subject of a species of cicadas. 8. The Margites, who 7roXX' rjTriGTaTO ipya, KaKwc 8' ?'/7rtGTaro iravTa ; the first satyric poem, which constituted the model of the old comedy, as in the Iliad and Odyssey was contained the germ of Greek tragedy, and is quoted and eulogised by Aristotle, Plato, and Callimachus. 9. EirSakafiia. 10. EmKiKXiSsr, i. e., " quorum prasmia turdi essent." 1 1 . 'A/za£ovm. 12. Tvwtiai. Suspected of having pro- ceeded from the Pseudo-Herodotus. 13. 'Etpecndjvri. 14. 'OixaXiag aXwaig. Supposed to have been com- posed by a comparatively recent poet named Creophy- lus. 15 and 16. 0??j3cu'c and Eirlyovoi. On the sub- ject of the two Theban wars, the first opening with the words "Apyog aude, Qea ; and the second with Nvv civt, oirXoripwv avdpiov, ap\ojjiiOa, Movcrca. Suspected by Herodotus. 17. Kv-n-pia "Enr}. A Cyclian Epic in ten books, comprising from the marriage of Peleus and Thetis to the first scenes of the Iliad(o). 18. "iXiag t\acr to 18 mr. bryant's hypothesis. which I have above made but a superficial allusion. Finding himself, then, at the beginning of the Trojan war, he says, " Every step we take is on fairy ground," and sets out with this declaration of his Homeric creed : "I do not believe that Helena of Sparta was ever carried away by Paris, and consequently that no such war ever took place as we find described by the poet, and that Troy in Phrygia was never besieged. Indeed, I am confident, it never existed." In support of these assertions, he adduces the following argu- ments, viz. : that Varro does not hold to be authentic any records preceding the first Olympiad, whom Thu- cydides, as far as his national prejudices would allow, supports by the confession that " OvSiv irpo tuv TpwtKtov, Si aaOivEiav kcu afii^iav aXXijXwv, lirpa£>av aOpooi." Next to this, Helen was a full-grown woman in the time of Theseus, to whom she bore a daughter named Iphis, and was rescued by her brothers, who, to make such an attempt, must have been adults ; and this precludes the belief of her being but seven years old, as some authors have affirmed : the same brothers were of the crew of the Argo, and this expedition was undertaken seventy-nine years before the out-breaking of the Trojan war; according to this chronology, she must have been about 104 years old at the close of the siege, (see II. w. 76.5,) and ten years older when Tele- machus saw her as beautiful as Diana ; besides, many of the Grecian chiefs, Idomeneus, Ulysses, Menes- theus, and Agamemnon, must have been about the same age. After this, he objects the improbability of the abduction of Menelaus' wife being considered by the other chiefs an adequate provocation ; added to the difficulty and delay of communication, as the Greeks did not, in that age, venture far to sea ; and, according to Herodotus, thought it a long and perilous mr. bryant's hypothesis. 19 voyage to Delos. (See Herod. Urania, 133.) The number of ships collected on this occasion amounted, according to Homer, to 1186; whereas six or seven centuries after, in an important political struggle, they made up but 271 to meet the Persians at Artimisium, and at Salamis 390. At Marathon, the number of troops was but 10,000; whereas the levy at Aulis reached ten times that number ; and the improbability of their having acted on so large a scale in concert, and for such a cause, is evinced by the desertion of Leonidas at Thermopylae. On the abduction of Helen by Theseus, her brothers alone rose to the rescue. We learn, that till the Peloponnesian war, the Greeks waged their wars, on the same system as that adopted by the Romans, previously to the siege of Veii, cam- paigning during the summer only. Considering the great inferiority of the Trojans, admitted in the fol- lowing passages of the Iliad, j3. 121, £.788, 0.55, 130, t. 352, and ir. 698, it is, according to Mr. B., next to impossible, that the town could have remained so long untaken ; or that, while the general body of the army continued inactive before Troy, detachments should have been sent to effect the capture of subordinate towns in the neighbourhood ; it would be a natural apprehension too, that their ships could not last ; and indeed, symptoms of incipient decay are acknowledged by the poet himself, (II. |3. 135,) and yet Menelaus uses his ships for eight years after. Homer, when recording the construction of a foss and wall, of which Aristotle says 6 ttXcktciq, ttoiyityjq rjQavKrev, naturally anticipates an inquiry concerning its disappearance, and accordingly (jul. 16) takes his pre- caution in the shape of a design on the part of Nep- tune and Apollo ; and the means resorted to by them are, a confluence of all the Idaean rivers to the site of 20 mr. bryant's hypothesis. the wall; but unfortunately the Granicus and the CEsepus ran into the Propontis about sixty miles distant, and the Rhesus was near the mouth of the Bosphorus, in Bithynian Thrace, and though it rose in Ida, yet its source was at the more distant side, and in this inundation, all the intervening towns must have been ruined. Now, as to the existence of Troy itself, no vestiges of the town or ruins could be found by Julius Caesar, ac- cording to Lucan, nor could Demetrius Scepsius or Strabo discover any traces. Alexander of Macedon would have rebuilt it, could he but discover where ; and the town which he did repair and enlarge, must have been far from the site of Homer's Troy ; of course, it was but prudent policy in the inhabitants to encourage the belief that they were identical. If the city had ever existed, ruins must have been visible, being vestiges which do not hastily disappear, comparing the length of time during which the ruins of Paestum, Palmyra, and Nicopolis have shewn their places and proved their magnificence. Stra- bo mentions an kpivsog, but as that tree could not have lasted for eleven centuries, it must have been another ; and the agreement of other features in the scenery with Homer's description, proves nothing, as having made that plain the scene of his epic, he may as easily delineate the scenery which he found, as by sub- stituting any other, altogether outrage probability. Strabo's account of the Callicolone would have it at the eastern side of the city, whereas Homer has placed it on the western : the relative positions too of this tpivaog, and the tomb of Uus, as defined by Homer, are inverted by Strabo. (See II. A. 166.) Mr. B. notices the fact of the names Ilium and Ilienses subsequently found existing in the district, but not Troja nor Trojani ; in fine, he advances the con- mr. bryawt's hypothesis. 21 jecture that Homer was an Egyptian, who first pro- mulgated to the Greeks the knowledge of the existence of the Muses as deities ; while they were in reality but priestesses in the Egyptian temples, corresponding in number, which is rendered probable by the epithet fiovarjyETrjg applied to Osiris. On the festival alluded to in the text, II. a. 423, sq., he remarks, that according to Diodorus Siculus, it was customary with the Egyp- tians to carry the statue of Serapis across the Nile (wKsavbg) for twelve days, after which it was brought back. He also observes, that the title iroijuiveg \awv, so universally applied to Homer's heroes, is originally Egyptian ; and that the absence of the mention of the use of fish as an eatable, is in accordance with the ab- horrence in which that aliment was held by the Egyp- tians and Syrians ; also that the poet's praise of the Athenians, whose name he couples with that of Erec- theus, is attributable to the Egyptian origin of that monarch and his followers, as well as of Cecrops ; and that Clemens Alexandrinus alludes to a statement made by some preceding authors to the effect that Homer was an Egyptian. Mr. B. quotes more than a single authority, to prove that our poet received the materials of both his epics from Phanites, an Egyptian scribe, the writer of the same having been a priestess of Memphis, by name Phantasia, which name, though apparently Greek, is really Egyptian, derived from the word "hant," or " hont," (signifying " a priest,") which in Greek became " phant," and is accordingly a cor- ruption of phant-Isis (i. e. the priestess of Isis). A formation similar to that of the words, Hierophantus, Diophantus, Iophantus, &c. ; or, according to other accounts, that he obtained part of his history from Daphne, a lady of Thebes, of which he was himself, according to the same accounts, a native. Of this 22 mr. Bryant's hypothesis. opinion appears to be the writer of his epitaph, which runs as follows : — "EvOaSe Osiog 'O/xripog, 6g 'EXXada iraaav azure, Or)[3r]g iicytyaiog ti')q ZKaTOVTcnrvXov . It appears too that Strabo found a Troy in Egypt, a few miles below Memphis, built by the Trojans who came with Menelaus, (compare Od. §. 355,) and that Diodorus Siculus speaks of the quarries of the Trojan Mountain, which supplied material for the building of the pyramids and of Troja .ZEgyptia. Now Mr. B. says, that if we admit the probability of the conjecture that Troy was in Egypt, we shall then see that the introduction of Memnon, the Ethiopian, is reasonable ; this Troy being the inlet to Egypt on the East, and therefore a post, the defence of which was worth the exertion and interference of a prince of Upper Egypt ; it being more probable that the Ethiopians of that region had assisted in the defence of Troy, than they who dwelt either on the Tigris, in India, or Arabia ; none of whom could, by any possibility, have come to the Phrygian Troy. There remain still three other arguments of the same tendency with the foregoing, the first of which is, the great diversity of accounts of the war, and the heroes concerned, found in the several writers on the subject, some of whom preceded Homer, whom Mr. B. seems inclined to place about the eighteenth Olympiad, such being the chronology of Euphorion ; of these authors were Sisyphus Cous, and Syagrius, with a lady named Helena, which several accounts of the war, and its conductors, were said to have been introduced by Melampus, and Cadmus, which latter, it would appear, came from Egyptian Thebes, not from Phoenicia. A few specimens of the inconsistency of these statements with those of Homer will suffice : sc. according to Eusebius, Helen was removed, not by Paris, but by Menestheus Ilieus; mr. bfiyant's hypothesis. 23 and Ptolemy Hephaestion writes, that the commander of the European forces was not Agamemnon, but Protesilaus : Achilles the son of Peleus, and Achilles the son of Thetis, are two different individuals : Achilles was neither the son of Peleus nor Thetis, but of Philomela, daughter of Actor, according to Dei- machus: Achilles was not slain by Paris, but by Pen- thesilea ; and Memnon was never at Troy, and was, consequently, never slain by Achilles : JEneas never left Asia, and the town Scepsis, near Ida, was founded by Ascanius and Astyanax : the history of Polydorus, by Homer, differs from that found in Euripides and Virgil. The second argument is, Homer gives Greek names to the heroes and deities of the Phrygians, who, from the most remote antiquity, in which they did not consider themselves inferior even to the Egyptians, were most definitely distinct from the Greeks, and whose chief deities were Attis and Cybele, not Apollo and Minerva. He also gives his heroes of both parties names derived from the appellations and attributes of deities, an instance of which occurs in the name of Agamemnon, which was the Lacedaemonian title of Zevg, and which Mr. B. deems a derivative from aybg, and the Egyptian name Memnon : in conjunction with the name of this prince, occurs the epithet iroXvxpvaog, applied to Mycene, which it did not deserve, being inferior in wealth and antiquity to Argi and Lacedae- mon : with respect to these heroes, it is impossible that they could, to the number of fifty-five, have escaped all the dangers of the campaign for nine years, or that they could, either the vanquished or victors, have been the founders of new settlements, as iEneas in Italy, or Ulysses in Spain, among the Turditani. The third argument is, that some philosophers, parti- cularly Aristotle and Zeno, have interpreted both the 24* mr. bryant's hypothesis. entire Iliad, and its episodes, as so many allegories of physical and moral phenomena ; agreeably to which doctrine, the scholiast on II. y, 74, says, Kara Se tov V(tlkov \6yov, ' HiroWiov, "R\ioq tov, avaTrivEi ra vypa GTOiyua ; ' Adr\vi) lari ). Mr. B., however, in support of his own hypothesis, observes, that from the facts of the poet never having mentioned Smyrna, nor the Meles, and of his evincing a more intimate ac- quaintance with Grecian scenery and geography than with Asiatic, he must have been an European Greek, and, if so, an Ithacan ; and did, most probably, repre- sent his own character and fortunes, under the name and in the history of Ulysses. The rest of the bio- graphy alluded to above, he rejects as impossibilities, REFUTATION MR. BRYANT S HYPOTHESIS. 2.) sc. that Mentes, a trader and master of a ship, having arrived at Smyrna, persuaded the young poet, whose curiosity and love of adventure he wished to gratify, to accompany him on his voyage, in. the course of which they visited Etruria and Spain ; and eventually put into Ithaca, where Homer, suffering from an af- fection of the eyes, was compelled to sojourn with Mentor ; and where he eventually lost his sight, which having subsequently recovered, he removed to Colo- phon, where he composed the Iliad and Odyssey. Mr. B. thinks it more probable that they were composed at Ithaca, from the many allusions to Ithaca, and the neighbouring islands, contained in the Odyssey : and at the same time, that the name Mentor is Egyptian, de- rived from " Men-tor," the tower of Menes ; he also admits the probability of the poet's having travelled very extensively by sea, from his acquaintance with its phenomena, &c, evinced by the texts, II. p. 263, sq., II. r. 375, Od. f . 313, 390, and 51 . CHAPTER III. REFUTATION OF MR. BRYANT'S HYPOTHESIS. In the investigation of the arguments adduced by Mr. Bryant, it will easily be discovered that they are cha- racterized rather by ingenuity than truth, when there is found, as is possible, in the epics of Homer, as much of historic truth, as is perhaps interwoven in the plot and composition of any other epic submitted to an equal strictness of examination. It will be readily conceded, that the introduction of allegory into the 26 REFUTATION OF MR. BRYANT'S HYPOTHESIS. construction of a poem, even to a considerable extent, does not usually furnish any argument, to subvert the belief of its foundation on fact, and that such a basis, for su ch a sructure, is all that can reasonably be required. " That Helena of Sparta was ever carried away by Paris," may not be more true, than that Europa of Tyre was ever carried away by Jupiter in the shape of a bull ; but, it may be nevertheless true, that Europa of Tyre was the most valuable and most considered acquisition of a party of pirates, from the European side of the JEgean, in one of their most successful descents upon the Asiatic coast ; in retaliation for which, the Asiatic pirates, in their turn, appropri- ated the most distinguished of the Greek princesses, together with a considerable quantity of other valuable property, which is repeatedly mentioned in Homer, whenever the full extent of the aggression is intended to be expressed. (II. y. 70, &c.) Thus, the expedition for the recovery of Helen will be redeemed from the imputation of being a mere exploit of extravagant and romantic knight-errantry, and will come to be looked upon as an attempt to repel and resent a national in- sult ; as a contest in which the pride and patriotism of every Grecian chief would urge him to interfere ; on which were brought to bear the same feelings which urged the Argonauts to the recovery of the golden fleece(5). It was a motive far more powerful than the personal influence of Pelias in the one case, or Mene- laus in the other, which prompted to the undertaking these several enterprises. His next objection, con- nected with this part of the subject, is the impossibility of an intercourse between places so remote, sufficient to produce so extensive a participation in such a de- sign ; and yet he expresses his astonishment, both at the length of the preparation, and the absence of that communication (which he still deems impossible) be- tween the army before Troy and their friends in Greece, and which communication, we learn from the Iliad, (tt. 13.) was actually maintained: he quotes on this subject a confession from Thucydides, that the Greeks never acted in concert before the Trojan war, which is the very last quotation that he could prudently have adduced : the obvious inference from such a confession being, that they did, on that occasion, act in concert. It will appear that so far from the Greeks of that age entertaining any apprehension of danger, or difficulty, attending voyages of reasonable distance, that the JEgean was constantly infested by pirates, iLvx^q irap- Oifuvoi, KdKov aWoSairoluL (pipovTEQ, (Od. y. 74.) It must, of course, be granted, that they were grossly ignorant of navigation, and other nautical science ; but the general belief in the Argonautic expedition, and the accounts which we find of voyages undertaken to Italy, Sicily, and even Spain, (see the statements of the Pseudo-Herodotus, quoted by Mr. B. when speaking of Mentes, and the plantation of a Phoenician colony at Tartessus (Gades,) in the last-mentioned country, previously to the foundation of any of their African settlements,) shew that such an objection, to the prac- ticability of the expedition in question, is hypercritical. His next argument is deduced from the fact, that the number of troops and ships collected on this occasion exceeded the levies and armaments prepared for the reception of the Persians, six or seven centuries after : as to the number of troops, I would answer, by request- ing him to account for the Cimbri and Teutones having opposed Marius with a levy of 300,000 men, when it would be impossible to draw together, under arms, any thing like a proportionate army from the same part of modern Europe, with all the advantages, or (in this 28 REFUTATION OF MR. B&YANT's HYPOTHESIS. case) disadvantages of civilization : the accumulation of years is not generally expected to produce a corres- ponding accession in the numbers or physical power of the inhabitants of a country. With respect to the ships, a falling off in their numbers is to be expected, proportioned to that in the number of men; and it will be also admitted, that an increase in the size of the vessels will very naturally account, independently of the other cause, for this diminution. We know that biremes were first built and employed by the Ery- thraeans, about 300 years after the fall of Troy, and, together with triremes, subsequently constructed by the Corinthians, and receiving occasional improve- ments and modifications even to the rerraEpaKOVTtprjg of Demetrius, continued in use for about 900 years from that date, sc. to the battle of Actium, after which they were disused. Thucydides definitely asserts, that even the Athenians, before the time of Themistocles, used no decked galleys ; those spoken of by Homer must, for these reasons, in addition to the evidence deducible from the Odyssey (ju. 100), have been monocrota, i.e. im- pelled by a single tier, on the gunwale, and undecked, almost mere gx^'m, of a structure scarcely, if at all, more complicated than that of the boats used by the Ukraine Tartars, of which, in a few days, they usually construct large quantities ; and the repair of those of Menelaus, or probably the construction of new vessels, was not impossible. He observes too, that the Greeks never campaigned during the winter, until the war of Deceleia ; but, that winter campaigns were not resorted to anywhere, until required by circumstances, is no argument against the truth of that innovation having taken place when it was deemed necessary. The tents of the Greeks before Troy, such as we find them des- cribed in 11. id. 4 19, sq. appear not unsuited to a winter REFUTATION OF MR. BRYANl's HYPOTHESIS. 29 residence. Mr. B., when representing the improba- bility, for chronological reasons, of the same Helen having been the prize of Theseus and Paris, states that the distance in time between the Argonautic and Trojan expeditions was seventy-nine years ; whereas, I find, that according to the computation of Mr. Clinton, who does not decide hastily, but thirty-one years inter- vened ; and from the age of Helen, and her brothers, which, at the time of the former expedition, is fixed by Mr. B. at twenty-five years, may be reasonably deducted eight or ten ; and these subtractions will place Helen, at the time of her second abduction, with- in that age to which many ladies, even in the days of modern degeneracy, retain their attractions. The next alleged improbability is, that of the city itself having either remained unmolested for nearly ten years, while the neighbouring towns suffered the severity of the war, or, if assaulted, having withstood the efforts of the assailants during that time ; the former of which cases, if it be the real one, confirms what has been advanced above respecting the nature of the expe- dition ; if the latter, why should the historic truth of this siege admit of doubt rather than that of Veii, Numantia, Saragossa, and the other adducible in- stances of protracted sieges? besides, an inferiority of numbers, to a certain degree, on the part of the de- fenders, is naturally calculated to produce an effect, the reverse of that which Mr. B. would seem to anti- cipate. To deny the reality of the war at Troy, on the ground that the poet does not, adequately and with matter-of-fact precision, account for the disappearance of the Grecian rampart and foss, is as unreasonable as to refuse credence to the account of the pestilence in II. a. because the agent is Apollo, and the mean*, his 30 REFUTATION OF MR. BRYANT'S HYPOTHESIS. characteristic weapons : the allegory, in both cases, it is almost superfluous to explain : the demolition of the rampart by an influx of the sea, being adumbrated in the one case ; and the malaria produced by the action of the sun's rays on the marshes of the Trojan plain, represented in the other. The employment of the Idaean rivers for this purpose, in the service of a deity, is as much within the limits of poetic probability as the workmanship of Achilles' shield by Vulcan : we would not be justified in denying the occurrence of a single combat between Achilles and iEneas, because the latter hero is removed by a deity through the air ; and to deny the existence of the city itself, because no ves- tiges remain, and because geographers cannot deter- mine with accuracy its position, is to deny to the speed of time, its undermining and wasting efficacy ; to re- fuse to decay the power to blight, and to efface the most beautiful as well as the most durable creations of human grandeur and human ingenuity. It is true that the hand of time has been known to fall lightly where that of man, in vengeance or hate, has left undone the work of sated animosity ; but this leniency is not to be everywhere looked for, and when a long night of unil- lumined barbarism has rolled away, the dawn of lite- rature and civilization finds, that the flight of ages, if silent, has not been ineffectual. What the tendency can be of the objection that the names Ilium and Ilienses, not Troja and Trojani, were found subse- quently existing in the district, is difficult to discover; as neither pair of names, being Latin, could have been used there before a very recent date. And, if the names v lA*ov and Tpoit] are signified, Homer uses them both, the former indeed more frequently, and applied to the city alone ; the latter signifying both city and district. REFUTATION OF MR. BRYANT's HYPOTHESIS. 31 Now, as to Homer being of Egyptian origin, we find Mr. B. proving the greater likelihood of Homer's resi- dence in Ithaca than in Asia, by the comparative paucity of his allusions to Asiatic history and scenery. The same argument, differently directed, will success- fully defeat his claims to any other than a Grecian na- tivity, his allusions to Egyptian history and manners being barely as many as may be expected from any native of Greece, whither had been imported, with Erec- theus, Cecrops, and Danaus, many of the manners, festivals, and legends of Egypt; which were perpetu- ated in the Eleusinian Mysteries, a transcript of the search of Isis, and in the legendary Styx and its ferry- man; the caemetery at Memphis, the only access to which was afforded by the river, and a boat of papyrus, (Virgil's Sutilis Cymba) being the foundation, on which was based this superstition. The festival alluded to in II. a. 423, sq. is also the type of an Egyptian cere- mony ; the Homeric Oceanus need not, however, be understood as a name of the Nile, if we define it, with Plato, to be a large river flowing round the earth. The epitaph quoted by Mr. B. must be of very recent date, the Greek not being classic, and the name of Thebes being written in the singular number, while Homer uses the plural, (II. t. 381.) (6.) Respecting the Egyptian Troy, we learn from Od. S. S55, that Menelaus arrived only at the island Pharos, where he consulted Proteus ; and, if the Troy spoken of had been built by his followers (captives they must have been, else they would have called it by a different name,) it could not have been the city which was besieged. At Od. 8. 368, we find fish used as an article of food ; as also at Od. /u. 330, sq. : the abstinence from fish, which, according to Eustathius, was only we to. woWa, 32 REFUTATION OF MR. BRYANT'S HYPOTHESIS. is by him attributed merely to tbe idea, that the occu- pation of fishing was beneath the heroic character ; his words are, 6v Oe/iig aXieveiv rovg ripooag ; but, even admitting the remark to be correct, it could prove nothing ; for Herodotus (Euterpe. 92) definitely states, that fish constituted the ordinary food of considerable numbers of the Egyptians, particularly such as were dwelling on the banks of the river : the Syrians alone being the cnrixOvEg. It would be interesting to inquire, how much of Homer, either plot or episode, could, with any possibility, have flowed from an Egyptian source. The characters, the names, the manners, the scenery, the traditions and legends, except those of a theological nature, which are principally Phoenician, are all obviously and palpably Greek ; the only bor- rowed ingredient, then, must have been the mere frame- work, the plot ; which, from its simplicity, the skill of the poet being naturally more prominent in the filling up, need not, if it were not drawn from history, have exceeded any imagination of ordinary fertility to in- vent. If Homer and his narrative had both been of Egyptian origin, no plausible reason can be advanced for his not having gratified his national vanity, by representing his drama, with the scenery in which it had been first acted. We read, that on the in- troduction of the use of papyrus into Greece, it was dis- covered, with surprise, that down to that time the Egyptians had no records of a higher literary cha- racter than mere rituals; poetry was out of the ques- tion, as the intonation of their language was as remote from rhythmical harmony, as earth from heaven, (Knight's Prolegomena.) The objection that Homer gives Greek names to the two hostile nations, will operate as strongly against the Egyptian theory, as against the Phrygian, that is, if it have any influence REFUTATION OF MR. BRYANT'S HYPOTHESIS. 33 at all, as the Greeks usually changed foreign names, in their terminations at least, into the soft sounds of their own language, as we find to be the case in the names of the kings of Persia ; Darwesh is smoothed into Darius ; Chosroes into Cyrus ; and Giamscheed al- together changed into Achaemenes ; and foreign deities were, naturally called by the names of such as corres- ponded, of their own ; thus, the Astarte of the Phoeni- cians was the Luna of the Latins, the Teutat and Beil of the Celts, were the Latin Mercury and Apollo, &c. Again, if Troy was in Egypt, who were the assailants ? If Greeks, and if they feared to cross the JEgean to Phrygia, it is not likely that they could have had the hardihood, to risk a voyage to Egypt : this would be far more improbable, than that the Ethiopians should have come to Troy. If I may hazard a conjecture on the subject of the Ethiopians, I would venture, what I conceive to be a rational solution of the fable of Tithonus and Aurora ; thus, Tithonus is the son of the king of Troy ; his brother Priam is the heir to the crown ; he, accordingly, collects as many as a love of novelty and adventure could induce to follow his for- tunes, (a practice not uncommon in this age,) and plants a colony, the distance of which eastward gave rise to the legend of his amour with Aurora. These settlers, as was customary, either unopposed, or by compulsion, incorporate with the natives, and the whole race are called by a name, which, like almost all names of antiquity, formed adjectively, literally sig- nifies " of dark complexion." And Memnon, the son of this Tithonus and a foreign mother, appears, with the strength of the new colony, to relieve the distress of the mother-city. As to Mycenae, we read in our Grecian histories that it was the earliest capital of Argolis, and that its maritime situation, its harbour F 34 REFUTATION OF MR. BRYANT's HYPOTHESIS. Nauplia, and consequent commercial importance, de- cided the superiority in favour of Argi, by which having been eventually superseded, Mycenae was at last destroyed by the Argives, b. c. 568. Of the irpay- juartjcr), the absurdity and elaborate trifling are un- worthy of a serious refutation; one remarkable in- stance, however, of its extreme nonsense, may not be uninteresting : sc. The entire narrative of the war at Troy is merely an ethical mythus : Helena (fr. i\eiv 9 vovv) is the personification of mental beauty and moral excellence : the Trojans are the unrefined, animal, and unintellectual portion of society, from whom the Greeks, who are their moral opposites, rescue and appropriate the Helena. The formation of the names given by Homer to his heroes, constitutes a question obviously distinct from that of the historic truth of the narrative : the generality of Greek names, as has been already observed, being formed adjectively, and expressive of some quality or action of the possessor; confirmative of this, was the practice of changing the names of many celebrated Greeks, on their arriving at that age, when the development of their respective qualities be- came prominent, as in the cases of Stesichorus, Bel- lerophon, &c. Mr. B. conceives another improbability, sc. that any, either of the victors or vanquished, could have become the founders of new settlements, and this ob- jection is equally unconnected, as the preceding, with the subject to which its application was intended ; as Homer tells us, totidem verbis, that the descendants of ./Eneas, in the third generation, were kings of Ilium in his time. II. u. 306-7, vvv de j3irj. k. r.X. which is the latest historic allusion in Homer. To his own remarks on this part of the subject, Mr. B. suggests a very satisfactory answer, when he says, " Homer borrows REFUTATION OF MR. BRYANT'S HYPOTHESIS. 35 the titles and secondary appellations of the gods, these he confers on his heroes, and when persons after- wards found these names and titles, or names similar to these, in remote places where they traded, or made their abode, they imagined that the poet's heroes had settled there." It appears injudicious in Mr. B. to support himself on the authority of the Appendicist of the Pseudo-Herodotus, after having accused the same of being absurdly wrong in a matter of chronology, in fixing the era of Homer, subsequently to the period when Lesbos began to be the mother of cities ; when the capture of a city of Lesbos is mentioned in- the Iliad, (.271. The remaining observations of Mr. B. being unconnected with the subject of the controversy, it is unnecessary to allude to, save only as far as they, or the refutation of them, may form a vehicle of in- formation. The principal of those which seemed based on error, is the observation, that Homer, from the majority of his allusions to Ithaca, and the adjacent islands the Echinades, must, if not an Ithacan, have at least written there ; but the fact is, that Homer's geographical allusions are those only which are inci- dental to the action of each particular poem ; as in the Iliad we find the scenery of the Asiatic coast, the ./Egean, and its islands, so to the Odyssey, the scene of which lies farther west, belong delineations of the physical features of the Ionian, and its islands. This difference, which has been elsewhere observed, gave rise to the partial belief of each poem having had its own separate author, that of the Iliad being a native of North-Eastern Greece ; and of the Odyssey, a South-Western. The difficulty intruded into the ex- position of the phrase " broad Hellespont," appears to me to have been always a "nodus in scirpo," as the words explain themselves. The Hellespont, on account of its current, was naturally considered by the Greeks 36 CONTROVERSY OF THE XQP1Z0NTE2. to be a river, and as such remarkable for its breadth ; in which opinion, as opposed to the common theory, I find myself supported by the position of the tombs of Achilles and Ajax, which are situated at the mouth of the Hellespont, and, in fact, on it. The words, irXarvg 'EWricnrovTOQ, may also probably be understood to signify, " the broad part of the Hellespont ;" for this interpretation there exists an analogy in Latin, an instance of which will be found in " ferox atas," (Hor. Od. 2, 5, 10.) This remark, though properly forming a part of the " Salebrse interpretationum," I suffer to remain here, in company with other corrections of Mr. Bryant's errors. CHAPTER IV. CONTROVERSY OF THE XQPIZONTES. The question relating to the shield of Achilles described in II. 6f)oi, the members of the council,) as .distinguished from the general body of the people. The analogous epithet, applicable to our own aristocracy, would be " well-gartered English- men." The boot appears to have been a distinctive badge of the Roman nobility also. Vid. Hor. Sat. 1, 6, 27. SALEBRyE interpretation™ et CRITICyE. 67 37. TevzSolo re l(j)i avaaauQ, ""Icpt is here generally understood to signify " power," but being obviously derived from the Hebrew V^ ipha, from which it is but slightly altered, it would seem, more properly, to mean " light," as addressed to the sun, of whose motion the verb a/n(j)i(dij5r)Kug, in the preceding line, is also cha- racteristic : to this interpretation may be objected the presence of the word in such phrases as li fidx^Oai, but, here too, the new meaning is applicable, in the sense of afi(j>a<)6v } and in opposition to XaOprj. (Vid. ij. 243. 59. 'ArpliSri, vvv a/uLfiE TraXtjUTrXaxOtvrag otu), "A\p airovQGT7)Guv. The clearest exposition of the sense of these words is afforded by Virgil's parallel, Mn. 2, 175, " Omina ni repetant Argis, numenque reducant." We know that it was customary with the ancients, when the progress of an expedition assumed an unpromising aspect, to consult again their oracles, or resort anew to their omens ; and to continue to do so until the re- sult was favourable. YlXaZuv is literally applied to the repulse of a weapon from a shield or armour ; and, in a secondary sense, means to send any thing back in the direction in which it had come. Agreeably with this view I would translate thus : " I would recommend our proceeding homeward, (sc. ad omina repetenda,) and returning hither again." 130. Agamemnon, in this speech, seems to allude, by the contiguity of the words OzoukeX' and KkiiTTt, to the deception practised by the beautiful Achilles in the case of Lycomedes' daughter, and to suspect that he had suborned Calchas and Chryses, for the purpose of obtaining Chryseis for himself. 250. JVkra $e tqitutohjiv avaoatv. The question respecting the age of Nestor is generally supposed to be satisfactorily settled, by counting thirty years for 68 SALEBRjE interpretationum et CRITICS. each of the three generations, and fixing his age at ninety years, which would not be a very unusual or remarkable period of life for a hero to have attained, consistently with the use of his mental and physical faculties. Bardyllis, king of the Illyrians, and Massi- nissa of Numidia, both fought on horseback at that age ; and if generations are to be counted at this rate, scarcely one even in the present age does not live out more than two. The most correct and probable me- thod of reckoning, appears to be that of supposing Nestor to live two generations, sixty years, after his coevals had died away ; which sixty years, added to seventy, as a reasonable allowance for the first period, would make 130, which would be not an impossible age, and yet sufficiently uncommon to call for the notice of the poet. 402. 'EicaToyxeipov. " The Greeks frequently]com- bined the symbolical animals, especially in engravings upon gems, where we often find the forms of the ram, goat, horse, cock, and various others blended into one ; so as to form Pantheic compositions signifying the various attributes and modes of action of the deity. Cupid is sometimes represented wielding the mask of Pan, and sometimes playing upon a lyre while sitting on the back of a lion ; devices of which the enigmatical meaning has been already sufficiently explained. The Hindoos, and other nations of the eastern parts of Asia, expressed similar combinations of attributes by sym- bols loosely connected, and figures unskilfully com- posed of many heads, legs, arms, &c, which appear from the epithets, hundred-headed, hundred-handed, &c, so frequent in the old Greek poets, to have been not wholly unknown to them."— R. P. Knight. |3. 144. Kv/Liara ficucpa 0aAa is that designated twiovpa: if the latter space had been intended, it could not have been such a distance, as when diminished by the running of the two Greeks, v. 355, would have been altogether, or very nearly equal to a spear's-cast, v. 357. 505. *H ItcQipoi v\p60av S£ fnO' iTnrriwv tn\ Ta6zvTi loiKtog. The point of resemblance here is, most probably, that both are remotely con- spicuous. 830. AeipioevTa. This epithet is designative of color, £. 18. "Avto)q, ic without cause." The phenomenon here alluded to, is that technically called a " ground- swell," visible when that part of the sea, agitated by the wind, communicates its motion to another region, at which the wind has not yet arrived. 141. "Ou ol ivi (pptveg, " he has no feeling," (hu- manity, consideration.) 392. 'EkXvgOti §1 OaXacTGa. The idea contained in this line forms an ingredient in the conception of ter- ror and wildness, composed of, and heightened by, the grouping of similar images in the following lines. o-. 117. Bir] 'HpcucAr/oc. The knowledge of him ap- pears to have come into Europe, through Thrace : he was worshipped in Thasos by the Phoenician colony there planted, about five generations before the birth SALEBRiE INTERPRETATIONS ET CRITIC.E. 81 of the Theban hero, who was distinguished by the same name. In the Homeric age he appears to have been utterly unknown to the Greeks ; the Hercules of the Iliad and Odyssey being a mere man ; preeminently distinguished indeed for strength and valour, but ex- empt from none of the laws of mortality. His original symbolical arms, with which he appears on the most ancient medals of Thasos, were the same with those of Apollo ; and his Greek name, which, according to the most probable etymology, signifies " the glorifier of the earth," is peculiarly applicable to the sun. The Romans held him to be the same as Mars. 398. eing V vireSlgaro koAtto). The legend of the fall of Vulcan into the sea, appears like a vestige of one of the mystic fables of Eastern mythology, which represented in various mythi physical phenomena : that which seems to be revived here, contains the adumbra- tion of the production of life, from the combined action of heat and moisture. (t. 570. Aivov S' vtto KaXbv aside. " The string pleasingly accorded with his delicate (tenor) voice." Among the specimens of Greek music which have come down to us are three hymns, addressed seve- rally to Calliope, Apollo, and Nemesis, attributed to Dionysius : they were published from a manuscript in the possession of Cardinal St. Angelo, at Rome, by Vincent Galileo, in his discourse on ancient and mo- dern music, printed at Florence in 1581. Burette re- printed them in 1720, with modern notes, from a Greek manuscript in the Royal Library at Paris. A fourth fragment was discovered by Kircher in a Sicilian mo- nastery; it contained eight lines of the first Pythian of Pindar, written (according to Alypius) in Lydian characters. The music is simple, and runs through only six notes, a proof that its composition was antique, M H2 SALEBBLE INTERPRETATIONS ET CRITICS. at least previous to the invention of the heptachord lyre. 590. Xopbv. The Egyptians were the first who invested the dance with that character of sublimity which has entitled it to the praises of poets and philo- sophers : the inventors of a mystic language, the sym- bols of which still grace their venerable monuments, they made their dances too, hieroglyphic representa- tions of actions. They composed on a model of grave solemnity their serious dances, whereof the figures represented the revolutions of the stars, and the un- changing order and harmony of the universe. With them it was ever connected with religious ceremonies. They instituted in honour of Apis (the sun), one which expressed their sorrow r for his absence and joy for his return. Among the Greeks, Orpheus was the inventor of sacred dances, or, rather he was the first, who, having introduced into his own country a form of cere- monious worship, ventured to consecrate to the cul- ture of the Deity, the expression of pleasure. To the familiar dances of his youth, he added evolutions bor- rowed from the priests of Sais or Colchis. The sublime harmony of his lyre impressed on the minds of his people the lofty truths which his genius matured and revealed. In the course of time, the Greeks, charmed with the order and harmony which these dances created, in their religious observances, made them to constitute a part of ceremonies into which they were less admissible, namely, their dramatic representations. Mr. Knight says : — " Dancing was a part of the ceremonial in all mystic rites. The ancient Indians paid their devotions to the Sun, in a dance imitative of his motions, which they performed every morning and evening, and which was their only act of worship. In Greece, the Cnosian dances were peculiarly sacred to Jupiter, as the Nyssian were to SALEBR.E INTERPRETAT10NU3VI ET CRITICS. 83 Bacchus, both of which were under the direction of Pan, who, being the principle of universal order, par- took of the nature of all the other gods ; they being personifications of particular modes of acting of the great all-ruling principle ; and he, of his general law of preestablished harmony ; whence upon an ancient earthen vase of Greek workmanship, he is represented playing on a pipe, between two figures, a male and female ; over the latter of which is written N0022, and over the former AAKOS, while he himself is dis- tinguished by the title MOAKOS; so that this compo- sition explicitly shews him in the character of universal harmony, resulting from mind and strength, these titles being, in the ancient dialect of Magna Grascia, where the vase was found, the same as vovr, ciXkyj, and ji6\tty\. The ancient dancing, however, which held so high a rank among liberal and sacred arts, was entirely imita- tive, and esteemed honourable, or otherwise, in propor- tion to the dignity or indignity of what it was meant to express. The highest was that which exhibited military exercises and exploits, with the most perfect skill, grace, and agility, excellence in which was often honoured by a statue in some distinguished attitude, and it is highly probable, that the figure commonly called ' the fighting gladiator,' is one of these." r. 130. A version of the fable of Pandora's box. 223. "A/irjroc §' bXiyiGTog. The first of these words being proparoxyton signifies not " the harvest," but u the harvest-tfi/wtf / the sentence then illustrates the at\pa in v. 221. Thus, " Soon comes a cloy of the con- flict, whereof the sword strews upon the earth abundant haulm, but the harvest-time is short, once Jupiter, &c, that is, tJds exercise of the sword cannot be long con- tinued. 312. rip-KovTic. The present participle signifies 84 SALEBR.E INTERPRETATIONUM ET CRITICS. merely the endeavour. The same idea is conveyed by Virgil in " lenibat," JEn. 6, 467. v. 7. Noa^ d)Kzavoio. " Caussam comminiscitur Sch. br. ne per suam auctoritatem, 7rpe(7J5i)Tarog vTrapx<*)v, obstet certamini Deorum. Diversam interpretationem video in paraph, s£co rou wk. h. e. loco, situ. At mimine trepidandum est, cum poetae liceat figmenta sua, prout visum fuerit, variare." — Dr. Kennedy. 155. "Okveov. "Okvqq, only in a secondary signifi- cation, means " reluctance, fear :" it primarily signifies " a heron ;" this bird was considered an ill omen, and such, of course, caused the intermission or abandon- ment of any enterprise. 164. Aeojv wg aivrrjg, sq. " As a predatory lion, which the assembled multitude, an entire district, de- sign to slay ; he, at first contemptuously, advances, till some ardent youth wounds him with a lance, when, open-mouthed, he crouches for a spring : foam mantles his teeth, and his dauntless spirit vents the audible fury of his breast ; he lashes with his tail his sides and haunches, and goads himself to the combat ; with flashing eye he bounds ahead in his rage, to rend his human foe, or fall among the foremost of the crowd." 202. 'Hjuev KepTojaiag tjS' atavXa. Here atcrvXa and K^pTo/uiag do not contain a repetition of the same idea. "AivvXa is not derived from aicrav avXav: the final syl- lables are merely an adjective termination as Ka/u7rvXog. A similar opposition occurs in v. 255, zrea kcu ovkI. The usage of the word in " ne na d not even a lance," ouSs is literally " ne quidem," though its Latin deri- vative is " haud." 72. "la from lew ; 7ei from trj/xt. 104. The quantity of the penultima of IXlov in this line is unusual; the interposition of F accounts for it, i'XtF-ou, iXtoFo. Vid. infra, " on syllabic quantity." 131. Tavpovg — 'linrovQ. One of the most ancient sacrificial customs of the Greeks was offering the lives of oxen and horses to their river-gods ; the former, as their voices or horns represented the sound or form of their streams ; the latter, as their speed was emble- matic of that of the rivers. 276. ap, " instantly." To suppose that this word is ever an adverb of time is an error. Vide Glossary. 317. f OToc $ f aoTrip IXaif sq. ** As Hesperus, the fairest star enthroned in heaven, moves amid other stars at dead of night, so flashed the lance's head," &c. SALEBR.E INTERPRETATIONUM ET CRITICS. 87 351. XpvGq £pv oXoQvpofiai, " Give me thy hand, that I may weep farewell ;" understand 'Iva, and change the modal vowel. 82. Kat l$i]Tov Tt leal vararov auv deideu—Hymn. Apoll. 307. r Iir7ro. and its tend- ency ; the diction requiring pathos rather than energy, and the continuation of the action of the poem having for its object the aggrandizement of the hero. Heyne, in his justification of such a closing scene, has fallen into the error of supposing that an epic poem should SALEBR.E INTERPRETATIONUM ET CRITICS. 93 necessarily leave no strong impression on the reader's mind, forgetting that the excitement of sympathy is seldom proportioned to the turbulence of the scene witnessed or delineated. CHAPTER IX. ODYSSEY. I translate part of the ninth section of Longinus de Subl., relating to Homer. " You will not, perhaps., my friend, deem me prolix if I lay before you one other passage of the poet relating to the affairs of men ; that you may perceive how he is wont to rise with his heroes to their valorous deeds. A sudden gloom and in- explicable darkness overspreads the host of the Greeks ; then Ajax in his distress prays: ' Jupiter! father! do thou at least extricate the sons of the Greeks from this gloom — restore the clearness of day- — grant to our eyes their vision, and in the light, e'en destroy us. ? Here is in truth the feeling of an Ajax ; he does not petition for safety, (that would be a request beneath the dignity of a hero,) but conscious that, in the torpid gloom, he could exert his valour in no glorious exploit, with a feeling of indignation at being incapacitated for the combat, he prays for the speediest return of light, sure to find at least a death-shroud worthy of his heroism ; though Jove himself be marshalled against him. But it is Homer who here breathes his inspira- tion into the strife, and is moved by no other affection than * the frenzy of Mars, the wielder of the lance,' or • of the devouring fire raving in the thickets of the 94 SALEBRiE INTERPRETATIONUM ET CRITICS. deep forest,' and ' the foam mantles his teeth.' He shows, however, in the Odyssey, (for I feel these addi- tional observations for many reasons necessary,) that the characteristic of exalted genius on its ebb, is a fondness for fable : for it is evident from other reasons, that this composition was posterior to the other, as well as from the incidental mention of the Ilian calamities, as so many episodes of the Trojan war, and from his having herein discharged the debt of those sorrows and scenes of woe to which he had, as it were, long since foredoomed his heroes. The Odyssey is nought save a continuation of the Iliad, ' for there lies the martial Ajax, there Achilles, there too Patroclus, in wisdom equal to a God, and there my own darling son ;' and, for the same cause, I take it, the whole structure of the Iliad, written in the vigour of his genius, he constituted interlocutory and full of action ; while the greater part of the Odyssey is narrative, (the peculiarity of old age,) hence one may compare the Homer of the Odyssey to the setting sun, whose ma- jesty, divested of his meridian intensity, still remains: for he does not here sustain the same freshness of thought which pervades the Ilian poems, the same uni- form and undepressed sublimity, the same outpouring of continuous feeling, nor the same versatile and ora- torical power of expression, thronged with a luxuriant clustering of images drawn from nature ; but, like the ocean ebbing to its former level, and sinking within its proper limits, so the reflux of receding grandeur evinces itself in legendary and fabulous aberrations. But, when I say this, I do not forget the tempests of the Odyssey, the descriptions of the Cyclops, and some other subjects. I speak indeed of old age, but still the old age of a Homer: in all these, however, the narrative invariably predominates over the action. SALEBR.E INTERPRET ATIONUM ET CRITICS. 95 I have, as I already observed, entered into this di- gression to shew that native sublimity, on its decline, sometimes deviates into spiritless loquacity ; for in- stance, in the accounts of the wind-bag and the trans- formation into swine by Circe, which Zoilus has styled squeaking porkets, the circumstances of Jupiter having been reared as a nestling by the doves, and of the per- son fasting ten days after a shipwreck, with the incre- dible details of the massacre of the suitors : of such, what could one say, but that they are in reality the dreams of a God. There is yet another reason why the Odyssey should form a subject for study ; that you may perceive, that the decline of a vigorous imagina- tion in great historians and poets, weakens itself into a delineation of morals ; for such, in some degree, are those passages which form the picture of tranquil life, sketched by him in the palace of Ulysses, and may be deemed a species of comedy, the transcript of human manners." Odyssey, a. 2. Jltpbv TrroXUOpov. The adjectives hpbg, qgloq, Stocj OeGTrlviog, &c, being poetically em- ployed to express the excess of any thing over others of the same kind in size, magnificence, &c. ; these words may be translated " the magnificent or imperial city." 20. 'A^y^>. Suidas is authority for the existence, in Thessaly, of a temple of that name ; and Cineas, for that of a town, Rhegus, whence the oracle was removed to Epirus. The name TrsXaayiicE is easily explained from Herodotus, Clio, 52, sq., where he says, " The whole worship of the Pelasgi consisted of sacrifices ; as I remember to have heard at Dodona ; but they had not, at this pe- riod, distinguished their deities by names, with which they were not yet acquainted : the general name 9eol was commemorative of the tutelary power which they were supposed to exercise ; and subsequently, of their individual appellations, many were imported from Egypt, among the most recent, that of Dionysus ; the rest, after a time, they obtained on divine authority, at Dodona : this oracle is considered to have been the most ancient, and at this period, the only one among the Greeks. From this time the nominal designation of the deities was constantly included in the ceremonies of their worship, and was perpetuated by the Hellenes. Whence the several deities derived their origin, or, whether or not they had existed, collectively, during all time, and in what corporeal forms they were recog- nized, was not until very lately ascertained. Homel- and Hesiod were the originators of Greek theogony ; they assigned to them their names, honours, profes- sions, and forms. Of the oracles of the Greeks, both Hellenic (European) and Lybian, the Egyptians give the following account : the priests of the The ban Jupiter say, that two priestesses were brought away from Thebes by the Phoenicians, of whom one was ascertained to have been sold in Libya, and the other to the Greeks, where they afterwards severally estab- lished oracles. The statement of the Dodonaean seers is this: that of two black doves, which had flown from 1 14 MYTHOLOGY OF HOMER. Egyptian Thebae, one arrived in Libya, and. one among them, and sitting on a beech-tree, uttered a human voice ; saying, that on that spot, should the oracle of Jupiter be ; which, as a divine mandate, the natives obeyed ; that the other, on her appearance among the Libyans, ordered, in like manner, the establishment of the oracle of Ammon (Jupiter). These women were, in my opinion, called doves by the Dodonasans, because they were foreigners, and appeared to them, before they became acquainted with the Greek lan- guage, to utter the inarticulate sounds of birds. The report of their blackness contained an allusion to their Egyptian origin. The system of prediction at Dodona, bears a close resemblance to that of Egyptian Thebae." Thus writes Herodotus. In the Pelasgi were included the Thesproti, Chaones, and other nations in this neighbourhood ; in this region also inhabited a branch of the same tribe, the FpaiKoi, who gave to their ter- ritory the subsequently universal name Grascia. Aris- totle, Meteor. 1, 14. Here too dwelt the %£X\oi. By those who are of opinion, that the invocation of this Jupiter by iVchilles, a Thessalian, is in accordance with his national rites, this name of Jupiter is prefer- ably referred to the Pelasgi of Thessaly, UsXaayia yap Trporspov r) QeaaaXia IkoXuto, $%, bv /ecu irsXaGyacbc, wg virb YleXaayivv r^w/xevoc. The posterity of iEolus possessed a part of Thessaly, in which was situated Arne, founded by Bceotus, whence the inhabitants are called Boeotians, and with these took refuge the Cad- masi, forced to emigrate from Thebes. In about sixty years after the capture of Troy, these Boeotians, to- gether with the Cadmaei, on being dislodged by the Thessalians, retired into Bceotia, to which they then gave their name. (Diodorus, 4, 67.) And, in like man- ner, the Pelasgi, exiled by the CEoles, on their occu- MYTHOLOGY OF HOMER. 115 pation of Arne, retreated to Dodona. The Pelasgi, and their name, continued long in Thessaly and several other districts. We find the name Pelasgiotis ; and the region about Scotussa was named Pelasgia, where Suidas, quoted by Strabo, says that there stood a temple of Jupiter, whence his worship was transferred to Dodona. Some read in this line YleXapyiicE, which they derive from the traditionary existence of a white mound, Xocpog apybg, called ireXapyiKov, within the sacred precincts of Dodona. Others again read IlfXao-- tlke ; ov 7riXag lar\v 6 arjp, Ztvg yap IgtIv ?? rov koctjulov \fsvxfj, aspwdrjg ovaa. These persons, in the spirit of grammatic or philosophic trifling, fancied a contrast between 7rtXacrTiKs and ty]X66l vaiwv, which Achilles uses simply because he was far from home. An an- cient legend, according to scholia A. and B., says, that Deucalion, in obedience to the response of the 7reXdag, planted a colony of those who survived the deluge (referred by some to Delphi), and called it after Do- done, one of the Oceanides. The account is given by Thrasybulus and Acestorides, mythological writers. This name, according to Acestodorus, was derived from Dodonus, or Dodon, the son of Jupiter and Europa. Herodianus deduces the name from the river Dodon. Ip the scholiast B. other particulars are given, which however are post-Homeric, such as the oracular authority of kettles, &c. On the subject of the pro- phetesses, Homer appears to differ from the account of Herodotus, as may be collected from the term viro- fyriTai ; who were probably, however, but the interpre- ters of the neXdaStg. He also mentions the oak, Od. £. 327, alluded to also in the fragment of Hesiod, quoted by the scholiast on Sophocl. Trach. 1082; an idea taken probably from the practice of the uncivilized natives, o( living in hollow trees, consonant with the habits of 116 MYTHOLOGY OF HOMER. the most ancient Pelasgi. From the Selli, to whom the care of the temple particularly belonged, were chosen the vwo^rirai. The hypotheses of the river Selleis deriving its name from the Selli, and they from the river, have been variously adopted. The mountain Tomarus, or Imams, was adjacent, from which we find, in remarks on Od. 7r. 403, that the ministers of the temple were called Tomouri. The Selli, according to some accounts, were more properly called Helli, and, under either name, must have been Pelasgi, who were all eminently observant of sacred rites. They adopted a style of life retired and eccentric; not unlike that of mendicant monks. From Alexander Pleuronius we learn that the Helli were a Tyrrhene people, with whom this form of worship was national and hereditary ; these Tyrrheni being Pelasgi, and generally confounded with the Tyrrheni of Hetruria. In the 140th Oh b. c. 220, Dodona shared the general devastation of Epirus by the iEtolians, in the Social War, (Polyb. 4, 67, 3,) which was followed by a similar storm on the Roman conquest, when not less than seventy cities of Epirus were, in one day, levelled with the ground. Olympus. The belief that Olympus was the favourite residence of the deities, took its rise, among the Pieres, who lived at its base, principally from the summit of the mountain being invisible, wrapt in perpetual clouds, and supposed to be ever unvisited by the winds (Od. £. 42): the same causes which, among the Phrygians, ef- fected the consecration of Ida, and a similar supersti- tion among the North American Indians. Jupiter, "lSriOsv f.i^iu)v, was believed to have inhabited particu- larly the piov of Olympus, which was the neck, or column, supporting the crowning platform. Although it cannot be a matter of doubt, that the personages of Grecian mythology, being, like almost MYTHOLOGY OF HOMER. 117 all other institutions of antiquity, of oriental origin, were, at their creation, allegorical personifications of abstract moral qualities or physical phsenomena; yet, it will become equally evident, on investigation of the occasions and circumstances of their intervention and agency in the action of the two Homeric poems, that they are employed by the poet as mere dramatis per- sona?, distinguished, of course, by many of their ori- ginal characteristic symbols and occupations ; and that they are introduced into the plots of the Iliad and Odyssey with no deeper meaning than the human characters, acting and speaking, designing and counter- plotting, as the abettors and partisans of the hostile in- terests. It has been remarked, that Homer's deities are judiciously divided between the two parties : the Greeks temperate and prudent, are assisted by Pallas and Juno. The Trojans are aided by Mars, an ill-re- gulated, warlike spirit ; Venus, luxury and effeminacy ; and Apollo, the personification of heat, ecstatic music, and passionate poetry. Jupiter, the universal nature, or celestial influences, alternates between them. Nep- tune is altogether in the Greek interest, as they are lords of the sea. Hermes and Diana do not interfere prominently ; but, according to the Egyptian tradition, are opposed. The others, Kronos, Demeter, Hades, are not at all participators in the combat. Phcebus, in his proper capacity, sends a plague; when Achilles, warned by Juno, (the state of the air,) takes measures for its remedy. When provoked to anger, Pallas (pru- dence) tranquillizes him: but this is, perhaps, the very widest extent to which, consistently with its inseparable dignity, an allegorical meaning can be applied to the presence of the Gods in this poem, not because such allusions would be in themselves unworthy, but that they would imply an attention to minor subtleties and 118 MYTHOLOGY OF HOMER. cumbrous machinery unsuited to the simple grandeur of an epic. As Oriental mythology, probably Phoeni- cian, (which of all foreign influences most materially affected the more recent theology of the Greeks,) sup- plied the persons and attributes of deities ; so tradi- tional perversions of the Mosaic histories have formed the foundations of many of their imputed actions, as the war of the Titans, suggested evidently by the con- fusion at Babel ; the fall of Vulcan and relegation of Apollo and Neptune, by the degradation of the rebel- lious angels. The loves of the angels alluded to in Genesis, vi. 4, have been transferred to the terrestrial amours of the heathen deities ; and the facts which supplied the Greeks with the materials of Deucalion's flood, and Phaeton's conflagration, need scarcely be pointed to in Noah's deluge and " the fire-shower of ruin" on Sodom and Gommorah. The few inhabitants of the Homeric heaven appear to be, all of them, creations of the philosophy above alluded to. The Zlvg, w Hp?], 'A-n-oWiov and" Aprs/dig, HoauSwv and Qirig, are to be easily traced to the realities of nature which they represent. The moral quality personified in Mi- nerva is equally obvious. The character of Mars, the opposite to this, embodies the " vis consilii expers," whose subordinate associates are Atijj.bg, oj3oc,' Evvw, ?r^ov, (of Latona,) whose oracle was established at Butoo, in Egypt ; the Delphic, which most probably owed its immediate origin to the Cretans ; the Clarian, in Ionia, founded by Mopsus, grandson of Tiresias ; and, above all, that of Dodona ; but these, as oracles, were post- Homeric. The mysteries, from so much of them as is divulged in Od. X. and iEneid 6, appear to have been a dramatic presentation of all that was anticipated in a future life, of which Homer's conception appears particularly gloomy ; at least, he seems to entertain a less consolatory idea of a future state than Virgil. (Vid. Od. X. 486, sq.) Of the serpent- worship, which at first sight appears the most inexplicable of all ancient ceremonies and sys- tems, no mention is found in Homer, except perhaps II. ju. 208, be considered an allusion. Vide supra in loco. Having been the visible medium of the suspension of human immortality and happiness, it would seem the least likely to become an object of veneration ; but such the fact was. There is, however, one principle, on which its worship is explicable : it was venerated through fear, not gratitude: the cry of eva! eva! during the celebration of its rites, (the origin of the Greek Ivoi, and Latin evoef) was evidently uttered in commemoration of the name of its victim. A tribe of Indians, obviously from the same motive, were recently, if they are not still, in the habit of offering propitiatory adoration to the principle of evil. The name too, ayaObg dai/uKjjv, with which it was complimented, was applied with the same view. On this subject, Sir E. L. Bulwer writes thus : "In Homer, we behold the mythology of MYTHOLOGY OF HOMER. 123 an era, for analogy to which we search in vain the records of the East : that mythology is inseparably con- nected with the constitution of limited monarchies, with the manners of an heroic age — the power of the sovereign of the aristocracy of heaven, is the power of a Grecian king over a Grecian state : the social life of the gods is the life most coveted by the Grecian heroes : the uncertain attributes of the deities, rather physical or intellectual than moral — strength and beauty, saga- city mixed with cunning, valour with ferocity, inclina- tion to war, yet faculties for the inventions of peace; such were the attributes most honoured among men, in the progressive, but still uncivilized age, which makes the interval, so preeminently Grecian, between the mythical and historic times. Vain and impotent are all attempts to identify that religion of Achaian warriors with the religion of Oriental priests : it was indeed symbolical but of the character of its believers ; typical but of the restless, yet poetical, daring, yet graceful temperament, which afterwards conducted to great achievements and imperishable arts : the coming events of glory cast their shadows before in fable." It appears then, as a general inference, that the theology of Homer, though varying somewhat between the Iliad and Odyssey as different eras, is not that sym- bolical system which prevailed among the more modern Greeks. Those deeply mystic personifications, Pan, Silenus, Bacchus, Cupid, &c, do not appear in the genuine text t nor do the Dioscuri, or Hercules, there rank as deities, or higher beings than human ; on the most ancient coins, however, sc. of the eighth or ninth centuries, b. c, appear many emblems of this idolatry; and in these particulars, notwithstanding minor discrepancies, the mythology of the two poems is the same. 124 MYTHOLOGY OF HOMER. On the subject of one of the peculiarities of Homeric mythology, Mr. Knight says, it would seem that there were yet in Greece no temples of the Gods ; no allusion to any such occurs, except II. ]3. 549, manifestly interpo- lated; but, at Orchomenos and Delphi were repositories of consecrated treasures (II. i. 381, sq.) ; of these build- ings, the magnificence and durability may be inferred, from the almost perfect preservation of one at Mycenae. This was, however, a consequence of the veneration with which these places were regarded by the captors of cities : the treasure-house at Thebes, taken and razed a short time before the Trojan war, by the Epi- goni, remained unimpaired to the time of Herodotus. THE HOMERIC HADES. The idea that Homer's uKeavbg and the Nile were identical, has been transmitted through a series of authors, from Diodorus Siculus, who merely says that the ancient Egyptian name of the Nile was o/csa^rjv, which he Hellenizes to wKtavog. On this subject He- rodotus says : " I know not of any river by name Oceanus ; but I believe that Homer, or some preceding poet, invented the name and used it in his poetry." (Euterpe, 23.) Eustathius (Od. A. 63S,) considers it a poetical license, not inconsistent with poetic truth. Strabo, taking up the particular phrase, 7rorajiolo poov toKtavoTo, (Od. &. 1,) understands it of some particular part of the Ocean. Plato, as has been already re- marked, speaks of it as a river. Hesychius says, that it signifies " the air," and that toKeavoto tropov means tov alpa Ug ov at ip v X (lL T ^ ov teXbvtwvtwv airoyhipovai ; and accordingly the scholiast on Hesych. interprets, (OKiavbv fiaOudimiv by iv ro7 aipi ! But let us make MYTHOLOGY OF HOMER. 125 Homer his own interpreter, from II. £. 200, <£. 195, and Od. S. 563, it is evident that he speaks of it as " a boundary," and that he uses the word in the same sense as other writers; he says (II. a. 423,) that the Ethiopians dwelt on the ocean, and (Od. a. 22,) that they were the most remote of men ; but here Strabo must again be quoted ; speaking of their territory, (lib. 1, p. 54,) he defines it by, rbv ko.9* oXov jizGYiixfipivbv icXijua Tzrayfxivov ; for all those parts of Africa that bordered on the ocean, were inhabited by Ethiopians ; this, therefore, is the ocean alluded to by Homer, and the TrttpciTa tbKsavolo, v. 452, are the straits of Gades ; the name Oceani ostium is used by Cicero (Lex. Man.) and Mela (lib. 3, 15,) to signify the f return Gaditanum. The voyage of Ulysses appears to be nothing but a poetical history of the adventures of Phoenician navi- gators, who were in the habit, before the time of Ho- mer, of passing the Straits, and founding cities on the western cast of Africa. Homer says that the Cimmerians dwelt on the ocean, (Od. A. 13,) from which it has been inferred, that Homer's veicvia was situated in Italy, because Ephorus locates the Cimmerians in the region about Avernus, and says, that they lived in caverns (argillae.) But these were not the only Cimmerians : the denomi- nation comprised the Britons, as their name, Cymry, implies ; together with the Cimbri of Germany. Dio- dorus says, that all the Celtic tribes were identical with the Asiatic Cimmerii. Claudian's idea of the position of the Homeric Hades is thus expressed : — " Est locus, extremum qua pandit Gallia litus, Oceani praetentus aquis, ubi fertur Ulysses, Sanguine libato, populum movisse silentem." Eustathius treats the whole description as a fable, deriving the name from 7T£fn npia, or epav Kitfuvoi. In 126 MYTHOLOGY OF HOMER. Od. A. 14, sq., their country is described as involved in darkness; and in w. 11, as drjjmog ovdpuv, " a place of darkness" loca nocte silentia late ; and this seems to have been the prevailing idea of the ancients respect- ing all countries situated in the far West. In this, their allusion was to the shortness of the days in winter. Mela (lib. 3-6) speaks of their " noctes per hyemes ob- scurae." Pliny asserts that there were even " nulli per brumam dies" (2, 75) ; and Strabo complains of the obscurity of the climate, when he says that " tjXlovq 6v\ lyovai KaOapovg :" it was the same sort of darkness for which Thulc was proverbial ("Nigra? litora Thules." Statius, 4, 4, 62.) Another characteristic of the place mentioned by Homer is XsvicaSa Trtrprjv, which, accord- ing to his custom is set down as fabulous by Eusta- thius : this, by a bare possibility, may refer to the white cliffs of Britain ; the more southern islands, the Hesperides, being alluded to in the name Elysium. Strabo (lib. 4, c. 4,) seems to have perceived the same resemblance, which he thus expresses : " IIc/cu §1 Tr)g Ar}/x?7rpoc, Kat Tr)g KopriQ^iGTOTepa, on r) or Xo^-kum dojuLuj was publicly provided ; and these were most probably claimed by the following persons, in addition to the heroes, viz. : foreign work- men, (Qyitzq), soothsayers expressly summoned, priests, artists, and physicians, (Od. p. 385,) and lastly heralds, (Od. r. 135,) who, as such, were already regarded within the pale of protection. HEROIC AGE STATE OF SOCIETY. 133 Merchants and beggars traversed the country, equally exempt from danger. Hospitality was, in a word, ex- hibitedin its strongest influence, in the treatment of those, who, strictly speaking, were a kind of outlaws. Fugitives from their countries, and victims of persecution, when they became suppliants for help, (iKirat,) were supposed to be under the protection ofZevg hitnog, during their flights under that of Zevg QvZiog, or at Orchomenos, Xa^ixnog ; extradition was never thought of (comp. Euripides, Me- dea, 725, sq.) Regular sanctuaries, however, appear to belong to a later age. The members of the aristocracy were designated either as the old (yipovrtg), the preemi- nent (z^oxot), or the best (apioTifee). In considering the various significations of the word ilpwg, our attention must be directed to the two extremes of the scale. In its most exalted meaning, the hero derives his name from Olympus, or is received into it, on the completion of his earthly career : in its secondary sense, every one is a hero, who in any respect whatever, rises above the multidude, for instance the herald, (Od. . — II. B. In the political camp, before the walls of Troy, the heroes, for the most part, sovereign princes at home, stood towards Agamemnon in the relation of an aris- tocracy, (comp. Od. £. 34). A glance at the nation- ality of the Pelasgi, leads us to suppose, that a condition similar to that of families, and patriarchal government, prevailed among them. Another state of things arose with the Hellenic chivalry, and their contentious mili- tary chiefs. The erection of a citadel may have oc- casionally marked the commencement of an heroic monarchy : this was the case in the Trojan annals, HEROIC AGE GOVERNMENT. 135 (II. were written by Callias, an author of old comedy, who pre- ceded Sophocles by some years. On some Thracian and Macedonian coins, which, from their shape, being quadrangular, could not have been struck more re- cently than the fifth or sixth century, b. c. rj and io are engraved ; and on others V, the original form of Y. On the coins of the Macedonian kings, the old language LANGUAGE OF HOMER. 143 may be traced down to the asra of Philip, the son of Amyntas, who introduced and transmitted to his succes- sors the use of the Attic. Though the assertion may at first sight appear startling, it will be found that the languages of the ancient Latins, Etrurians, and Osci, are the sources to which are to he traced the real form and genius of the language of Homer. Of its original structure, the ignorance of transcribers and emenda- tors has suffered nothing to remain, but the metre, and a few traces of grammatical analogy. It is demonstra- ble, that neither epenthesis, metathesis, or any other grammatical figures, were employed in the formation of the Homeric language. That which renders any inquiry after the real state of the text perplexing, is, that the Greek language was, at the time of the com- position of his poems, in a state of transition. "The Greek language/'saysHeyne, "has had the sin- gularly good fortune of havingbeen cultivated through the medium of poetry, before prose had received or claimed any attention ; and hence, that unparalleled sweetness and elegance, from the softening of consonants, and the greater frequency of the concourse of vowels, which constitute the debt of grammar to the licenses and exigencies of poetical construction. Even after Homer, a considerable richness and variety of syntax, pre- sented in the compositions of the lyric and dramatic writers, took their rise, to which alterations and transi- tions, the final accession was made in the numerus of oratorical euphony, substituting for diaereses, con- tractions and diphthongs : the Tonic pronunciation, however, (to instance by a verbal termination,) ea, ee, fcv, must have fallen more softly on the ear, than the corresponding Attic ei, dv, 17, r? ; so that even the Ionic form of the second sing, si, for r?, was retained." On this subject the established belief among scholars is, 144 LANGUAGE OF HOMER. that this language is not to be considered a congeries of different dialects ; but, that in it are to be found the germs of all those varieties, which subsequently diverged into them ; and that it was the proper language of Epic poetry, as the old Attic was of dramatic, alone suited to the style of expression, and metre of the Epos, for which it was fashioned. Writers on dialects, when illustrating the ./Eolic, have judiciously taken their instances from Homer, and, though with less dis- crimination, have drawn their specimens of Attic from the same source ; and these poems do certainly contain many of the characteristics (for such they eventually became) of iEolic, Doric, Ionic, and Attic. These varieties were for a time supposed to have been ac- quired by Homer, in a series of travels, and blended with his native dialect, whatever that was ; but that will appear the truer philology, which discovers in them the cognate forms of one, the same language ; when it is forced on the observation, that the several steps of the same language, in its progress from bar- barism to refinement, have originated the idea of a diversity ; and that by the iEolic should be understood the primitive language of all Greece, at a time when the distinctions of aioXig, 'lag, and arOig were yet un- known. In this progression, each preceding generation of forms contained the germs of the next succeeding; for these innovations in the usages of a language are never but gradual, and many new forms of expression start into being before their predecessors have yet died away ; thus in the .ZEolic are to be found Ionic forms, and in the Ionic, old Attic. To mark definitely the limits of any one, would require an accuracy of distinction capable of determining the boundary be- tween light and shade. We have whatever authority LANGUAGE OF HOMER. 1 45 accompanies the assertion of the Pseudo-Herodotus, to support the claim of an iEolic origin for Homer, but in any case the iEolic and early language of Greece are in general understood to be identical. The generally alleged cause of the blending of the supposed different dialects, is the series of migrations consequent upon the descent of the Heraclidse on Peloponesus, which produced so indiscriminate an intercourse between the iEolic and Ionic (Attic) tribes, resulting from the proximity of their Asiatic settle- ments. Of the loss of the genuine dialect of Homer, Mr. Knight, in addition to the remarks at the opening of this chapter, says, " it cannot be a matter of wonder, if the work of transcription began so recently, (as the age of Pisistratus,) that the Alexandrine grammarians had derived so little information from their copies, when the transcribers who had taken them from the recitations of rhapsodists, and were neither solicitous, nor well informed in matters of antiquity, had used either their own respective dialects, or those of the rhapso- dists, any of which must have been considerably al- tered from the true text, and that to such a degree, that not even in the oldest copy in the library, were they likely to find the digamma ; nor, had they met it in the Argive or Cretan copy, would they have con- sidered it anything but an absolute character, peculiar to a barbarous dialect, altogether inconsistent with the polished elegance of Homer. " It was only from abbreviated inscriptions cut on laminaa, or stone, that the natural features of the old language could have been ascertained, and from such alone could any law be deduced, agreeably to which, from a comparison of copies, and metrical analogy, one uniform, genuine, and whole edition could be compiled ; but the system of revision acted on by the ancient u 14G LANGUAGE OF HOMER. critics, was remotely different. Of the inscriptions which still exist, there is scarcely one which I would venture to refer to any earlier date than that of Pisis- tratus, for on the most ancient coins, none of which can boast of antiquity much more remote, a single character stands for the name of a nation; the letters which are few, are all initial, and no inscription whatever of the age of Homer can be looked for. Of these which are in existence, the most genuine are naturally such as were found among less civilized nations, where the old language was likely to remain unadulterated ; to this class belongs the Heraclean table, cut about the end of the fourth century, b. c, and presenting a dialect which approximates most to the original language. Were it possible to institute a search through the ruins of Peloponesus, Bceotia, and Phocis, others would pro- bably be found no less ancient, the relics of a genera- tion equally unrefined and unsophisticated." Other authors of antiquity, by leaving in their writings some mention of themselves and their coun- tries, have given clues to the inquirers after their respective ages ; but the author of the Iliad and Odys- sey, by refraining altogether from autobiographical allusion, has bequeathed to the lovers of his name, and admirers of his genius, all the excitement of uncertainty, respecting the time and place marked by his existence. From the genius of his language, however, and the quantities of some syllables, the inference is obvious, that the author of either poem (if they were not identi- cal) preceded Hesiod, for the same process of advance- ment is common to all languages : all progressing from the more resolved and uneven, to the more contracted and equable. On this principle especially, the Iliad appears referrible to an earlier date than the Odyssey. The same simple delineation of manners, the same air LANGUAGE OF HOMER, M7 of antique grandeur and natural grace pervades both ; yet some forms of expression in the Odyssey sound like the echo of a more advanced stage of civilization. The use of the phrases xQ y H ULara (f ov KTWHara of the Iliad,) Xivxv, /3u/3X«i/oe otvog (of the ^Egyptian by- blis,) Qt)TEvw, implying the idea of voluntary and mer- cenary slavery : an intermediate caste between the freeman and slave, both absent from, and inconsistent with the state of society, pourtrayed in the Iliad. Other words, present in both poems, assume a more modern (contracted) form in the Odyssey, and bear the impress of the first footsteps of that regularity, and polish which characterize the Attic dialect. To this class belong vujvvfioc;, for the more ancient vwvvimvog, (itself contracted from the participial form vojw/uvoq ;) Biairig for Qwrciaioq ; aypolrr^g for aypoiwr^g ; rjovg, cont. gen. of riwg, for r]6og; Soaro for SoaaaaTO ; the monosyllabic forms for klol and Kpla ; reOvtwg and TTBnrewg for the forms rt9vt]U)g and it^ttt^wq ; for yzpaufj which in the Iliad is a trisyllable, is substituted in the Odyssey ypdiri, ypr\vg and yprjvg, which originally ypafvg is the parent of the Latin gravis ; hence the forms yzpaFbg, &c, should be restored to the Iliad, In the construction of sentences, little difference is perceptible, it may, however, be remarked, that the conjunction £7rrjv is constructed with an indicative in the Odyssey, which is altogether foreign from the Iliad. Many of those forms, both of verbs and nouns, which have been considered dialectic varieties of the common forms, are those parts which happen to have occurred, and remain of forms since obsolete, as larlri. nop^aXtg, rafxvu), 7rTw(j(jtiv, SvatTo, firjtJETo, which latter Thiersch and Buttmami erroneously consider to be forms of the first aor. mid., and are really imperfect tenses from lixropai, and />/;%, as in the com- mon dialect yvvaiKa, from the obsolete ywalZ ; Scurvog and SatTriQ, genitives of obsolete forms of Salg ; Kapr\a- TOg, Kapr]Tog, and Kparbg ; TroXiog and iroXsog ; vitcvg and vEKpbg ; aX/a and ajcXr} ; avXig and avXrj ; viorog and vara ; fxaariv and \xacmya ; avTia.Ty)g ; sSrjruoc and £§0)^77 ; da'ldeg and ctarcu ; e^etpaSet' and a&eipai ; rifxara and rtfxspa 1 kovlt} and »covt£ j kp? and KptOai ; ?r t crup sc and rso-o-apec 5 7T£X«ae and TrlXsta; TroXirjTag and TroXirai ; (JjeiSojXti and (peida) ; (frrifxtg and ^rj/irj ; ^u£*v and ^vyi? ; XP 0L1 'l anc ^ Xi°^£ 5 Gimvai and 0£a ; Qvpiov, Ovpcrpa, and 0upat ; kX'iglov and kXigiyi : u7r£jOwVovandu7T£jOwoy ; ^L^(jovir\dr]v and SiSwvoe; StSovec and StScJviOi; crooc and cue; Sjuwat and S/xw£c; Sa/cpuov and Sa/cpi> ; dicrfiara and $£07104 ; KzXevOa and kIXeu^oc ; ovap and ovapoc ; 7rpo0vpata and irpoQvpa ; Trpoawiraai and 7rpo(7W7roc ; apvfioc and apse (of which no singu- lar appears ;) ^vio^a and ?5vioxoc J trjrfjpoe and \r\Tpog ; via, t/iea and vtov ; MfXav^u? and MtXav&oe ; Ilarpo- jcXiJa and Harpo/cXac* (from an obs. nom. Ilarpo*) and JlarpoicXoc. Many differences in syllabic quantity are to be attributed to the different wants of the epic and tragic metres, as KaXog and laog Homeric : KaXog and Xaog Attic : the abbreviation of several quantities produced in the Attic, as the accus. plur. of the first decl. ag; a in XXa.og ; tin the oblique cases of iXevaric, in Kovtr], Xlt)v, fxvpiKYi, opvig, StSovfc, and in the most re- duplicated forms always in those longer than trisyllabic* except 7rl(j>av(jK(x}, II. k. 478. A variation occurs in the quantity of u (to be accounted for by such an use of the digamma, as Dawes exemplifies in the case of Xvio) visible in aXvu), Ijoqruw, ironrvvto, IQulo, A difference is LANGUAGE OF HOMER. 1 19 observed between Qvw with a long and that with a short penultima, the former said to signify sacrificor, the latter insanio. The terminations arm and aro in the third plural perfect and pluperfect passive, for vtcil and vto, have been evidently resorted to for the formation of dactyls. Many short vowels, initial and medial, are rejected for similar purposes, sc. to form GTaxvg, areao-m), yXctKTOaTog, Ota-rig, and before the final <})lv; r, as in TTToXig, TTToXtfiog ; /3, as /mtfifiXsTai, /u£/i/3Xwke ; 0, in fiaXOciKog, StxOa; the transposition of pas in aTapwiTog, for ciTpair., fiaadiGTog, for /3paS. : Opaaog for dap., re- tained by the tragic poets ; the duplication of conso- nants, particularly liquids, as aXXr\Krog, TpiXXtarog, iXXUirov, zfifxevcu, 1'u/uf.izXiag, fjjiXofXfjiaSrjg, avvt(piXog, tvveirt, ayavvujiog, KaTUfifjLov ; and of a, as in oacrov, 7rp6(j(jLo, Ivtfucrcya, &c. The duplication of a in the 150 LANGUAGE OF HOMER dative plural, (for the formation of dactyls,) is generally preceded by a duplication of the c, as in ox&avi, /3s- Xieacrt, &c, but this occurs only when the interposi- tion of the additional vowel creates a second short syllable before am ; for instance, this addition is not made in such words as orij0£o-)v, and II. w. 12; II. w. 475, and or. 421 ; or. 175, and X 522, &c.,) and the abbreviation of diphthongs, both in sound and form, as fiaQ£r\g for fiaQur\g, Qr\\£ag for OrjXdag ; j3oXo/xcu for j3ouXojuat, (which, according to Dr. Buttman, was the original orthography, the syllable being merely elongated, and there being no distinction between o, v, and w ; hence, the Spartans, for the negative ov, used 6 ;) otog and viog, with their first syllables short. This principle may be more fully illustrated by a review of the de- clensions and conjugations, as they appear in Homer, compared with their more modern forms. Declensions. In the primitive language, all nouns increased in the genitive case, either by the addi- tion of a syllable, or the division of the final syl- lable into two, as oCofxa-arog, Bifiig, lgtoq, KEpav-arog, rpifipriQ, tog, &c, &c. The termination toq appears to have belonged to the gen. of all nouns ending in ig, but to have been variously altered into irog, 1$og, idog and log : of this latter the Attic ewg was a corruption, from which, in its turn, grammarians, ignorant of the old form, and perceiving a necessity for a long syllable, formed the monstrous termination yog : this, however, appears to have been rather cautiously resorted to, for Gregory, Bishop of Corinth, a gramma- rian of the age of the Comneni, writes ttoXioc, not rroXriog. In no language can contracted syllables be resolved into any other elements, than those which composed them ; in Attic Greek, therefore, a and ov, contracted from tci, or ee, ao, or £0, should, whenever a dissyllable is required, be resolved into sa, or ss, ao or so, not into u and ov ; thus, Kparog is resolvable into Kaparog, not Kpaarog, as /3Xf/ro into ]3oX£ro ; the resolution of i, IvvrjFt, lvvr\i, \vvij, for which an analogy is discoverable in the gen. masc. of this and the second declension, sc. aFo, a&>, i, : others for the gen. sing, by syncope of o, and paragoge of $1 : but, though the (j> might have been substituted for the second vy bg and Zvybv, " the bridge of a lyre," and a " cattle-yoke." The change of the termination aog into eojg is con- sidered a peculiarity of the Attic dialect : its iambic form recommended it to the Attic poets, in preference to aog, which is trochaic, and therefore, more suited to dactylic measure. The syllable 01, is in other cases in the genuine parts of Homer, always long ; but the Ionic gen. 010 is always so placed, that its penultimais the first syllable of a foot, and therefore, though natu- rally short, long by ictus : the final o is, of course, al- ways short: of every accus. plur., the original termina- tion was ag: the accus. plur. of this declension, is therefore a contraction : thus, ofag, oag, ovg. Third Declension. — In nouns of this declension, a di- versity of nominative forms appears, but the casual ter- minations have been less changed from their primitive forms, than those of the preceding two : in this few peculiarities occur more than such contractions or elongations, as must appear to be the natural conse- quences of dactylic versification, sc. Otfiig, Bin 156 LANGUAGE OF HOMElt. OijuiTog, and elong. OifucrTog; icopvg, KvpvQog, cont. icopvog, Kopvv, and icopvOa, which suggests the idea of a double line of inflexion ; Ktpag, Kepara, Kipaa 9 and cont. Kspa ; \\C) for lx<*>p ; aXcpi for aXtyirov ; Sa> for Sw/xa, &c. — nouns in ap make their gen. sing, in arog, a\d(f>ap-aTog ; ovOap-ctTog. It has been shewn above, that o- and p were on some occasions interchangeable, which hypothesis will give to this inflexion an appear- ance of primitive regularity ; thus, ovQap, ovOag, i. e. ovOarg, (another consonant being frequently omitted before the final g } ) ovOarog; ovSag makes in the gen. toe, dat. a. Nouns in evg have two lines of inflexion, running through all the cases, from the two genitives eog and t]og, contracted in the nom. plur. (but not in Homer) to stg, and rig. Mr. Knight says, " nouns in evg have retained in Homer the original forms of all the oblique cases : no contraction occurs except in the dat. plur. ; thus, tFg, G. eFog, D. eFi, A. eFa, V. sF, D. N. A. V. efe, G. D. eFoiv, P. N. sFec, G. eFwv, D. eFeai or eFai, A. sPag, V. eFec. In this declension we find that the syllable ev (eF) is never separated by diaeresis, from which we can infer that both were not originally vowels ; the only instance of a contraction in the accus. sing, is Zeitv, (^Eschrion. Sam. Epigram.) and thus, or in its old form, §we-wroc, and xpuQ-wTOQi cannot properly be classed among nouns terminating in wg, being really Xi° w «C and iog " lux" on the contrary was (j>dog. which form it always bears in Homer. Fripwg, too, has the second syllable always long in the oblique cases in Homer, though short in Pindar. It appears from their coins, that the digamma was used even in medtis vocibus by the ancient Thebans. Heraclides, the most learned of the old grammarians, says, that in the dialects of the Argives and Cretans, and the ancient copies of Homer, participles in tig, from verbs in rjjut, originally ended in evg; and, though the concurrence of vg did grate upon the fastidious ears of the moderns, yet the forms of the Latin participles in the gen. antis, entis, and zmtis, corresponding to the Greek avrog, tvrog, and ovrog, shew the original forms to have been avg, evc» and ove, which, by the omission sometimes of er, sometimes of v, became oc, tig, and wv, as Tiring, rvtpOug, tvtttlov, from Tv\pavg, rv(pd(vg, and rv-nrovg ; and their feminincs, from their primitive orthography tv^civtevci, TvtyOtvrLcra, &c., passed through, avraa, circra, &c, to their pre- LANGUAGE OF HOMER. 159 sent forms; hence, the long quantity of the penultima : the dat. plur. too, passed through the following modifi- cations, TVTTTOVTECri, TOVTGl, TOVGt, TOVGl, &C. ; OCCa- sionally the ov, Be ppeya, &c. From the gen. in avTog and ovrog, the r began about Homer's time to disappear, as Kpovi'jjvog, aapTrriBovog, waiava, &c. It has been re- marked that 7 has disappeared from nouns ending in t£, as jurjwyS, juf)w£, GoX-my^,, (toXtti^, ; hence, ara\- 7ritcTriQ instead of craXiriyKTrig : but the lost letter was v, not y, the original shape of the termination being tvyg, and ivyr^g. Whenever the final £ is composed of kc, not ye, and the penultima of the gen. long, as KtjpvKog, 6ivikoq, a t seems to have disappeared from vktoq, iKTog, &c. : thus, opvig, opvlOog, and the Doric 6/ovtS, opvi^og, both came from opvixg, (opvt£,) opvt\- dog. The same diversity which we observe in nouns, appears also in adjectives : we find the masculine de- scending from one nom., while the feminine belongs to another, &c, as triovog, M., itieipag, F. ; 7rpi(j(5vg, M., npeafia, I\ ; iog and iivg, ei) and tju, Gen. efog and eoio : TroXvg, noXXbg, M., iroXXi), F., 7roXv and ttoXXov, N. ; Xtyvg and puXt^og, Xiyvpbg and peiXix^og ; 7roXu- Batcpvg and TroXvdaKpvTog ; tig, of which the feminine comes from the obsolete tog, ia, (pia,) i'ov ; with nu- merous other varieties arising partly from a difference of root, partly from the contractions and elongations required by the metre ; derivative and compound ad- jectives in og, are inflected in the Epic dialect, as well as in the old Attic, with but two terminations. 160 LANGUAGE OF HOMER. Pronouns. Of the personal pronouns, the Epic forms are : Sing. N. eyojv eyo) G. sfieo, e/xev, ef.iew, fisv e/xeOsv D. kfxoi, fioi. Old Dor. ifisiv A. efts, fie N. GV, TVViJ G. ahv, aev, as, ouo, ckQev, cko, rtoio D. aoi, rot, ri'iv, and Old Dor. rtv A. ak, ce Dual. VOJ, ViOlV, VOJl v&'iv G. 60, lio, kv, to D. sol, 67, 6i, \v. Dor, eiv, iv • A. £, £, ££, /ttiv Old GfU), (TCpbJl c " tnv widow >" xvpii G. t'siov, (11. u). 387, alone.) A riva, ri, indef. tivci, Tl A. rivag, indef. nvag. LANGUAGE OF HOMER. 161 o, ?j, to, is in Homer either a relative, or demon- strative pronoun ; as Side 6sbi, u they the Gods ;" the poems contain no article, the datives to1. In like manner the futures rv^w, j3oa(To> (j>t\ri and iotu), then we should read e gOm and taQu>; every tense, of which the participle ends in wv, should form its imperfect third sing, in frco ; participles 164 LANGUAGE OF HOMER. in ug, should in like manner produce ijrw ; however, eeTa) passes through drw, into -qrw. Of the optative ar/, Heraclides says, that, of participles in wv, the optative should be o«* from etdv, then *ot; and that optatives ending in ur\v come from participles in eig, on which account the iEol. participle should end in eig, not u)v ; so from fiXug and dug, arose j3Aao, Quo. Of the Sicilian aor. opt. the second plural ends in are, as SiaKpivO&iTe. As from one present arise many perfects, so to one perfect are attributed several presents, as 0eipu> 3 kteivu), Ktivbg, &c,, or the .ZEolic Eyeppw, i\ai 9 IcpiXaro, &c, and this view of the inflexion removes the necessity of Heyne's conjecture of a verb « r ^ r V«C £X ££ * * s unknown to Homer, nor indeed is its absence a philo- logical defect in the Homeric text ; yet, in Homer we find the third plur. perf. and p. perf. formed by arm and aro 9 which in Attic Greek are expressed by fizvoi uat and r)og,) yivro, &c. ; thus also, vow, yvooj, yv(ot(TK(i), yvwGKUJ, as dopw, OopiGKU), OpWCTKU), fioXu), /uoXio-Kw, fiXwGKU), &c, and because, when verbs do receive a reduplication, its consonant is a repetition of that with which the verb begins ; if, therefore, the verb be ^wo-kw, the reduplication should be vlvloq ^«tq' 168 LANGUAGE OF HOMER, Xaipz, (Od. /3. 35,) where the admission of the augment tfjLoyna, Idocrav, would unite those words which sense and rythm require to be separated, it is omitted. 3. The augment never intervenes between 7repi, and the verb to which it is attached, nor in such as SicKTrnrriv, dicKJTKiaav, &c. : the rythm requires its omission also in order to produce the third trochaic caesura, as ayoprjv^e KoktcFaaTo, II. a. 54-. It is also either omitted, or ad- mitted to favour the feminine caesura, in the fourth foot, and the trochaic in the fifth. Of the temporal augment, originally a syllabic, and coalescing eventually with the initial vowel, the usage is not so clearly defined ; in verbs beginning with a, ai f av, and e, there appears considerable variation ; in the forms ivdov* kvpov, tvyjLTO, e-jrev^aro, it does not appear ; in verbs begining with i, it is uniformly pre- sent, and in o and ot almost always ; before reduplica- tion, it frequently appears, as ripape, topope, t^Ajxto, rjpripsiGTo, &c. Of this augment, Dr. Buttmann says, the temporal augment which supplies the place of the reduplication of the perfeet, is never omitted in the Epic poets, when the vowel is short, with the single exception of avwya, which no longer occurs as a per- fect ; but when the vowel is long by nature, the aug- ment is unnecessary. And of the other, that " it never comes between the preposition and the Homeric verb, when the verb uncompounded is in use, nor before a preposition ;" but those verbs which would serve as instances of the first clause of this latter law, either do not occur in Homer, or the presence of the augment is obviated by some of the above-mentioned causes : the only available instance, the verb avrifioXeu) ap- pears augmented, avr£j3oArj were pronounced by the Dorians . Of verbs in jut, those parts which present them- selves in Homer come equally from the corresponding conjugations in to. Of these the essential difference is the absence of the modal vowel : they end in r\fii from a root in a, in »jjut from £, in ifii from i, in tofii from o, and in vfxi from v. Of 'Urrj/u, an example of the first formation, the imperfect and first aor. are transi- tive. In II. /3. 525, fi. 56, Earaaav being transitive, is an abbreviation of torrjo-av, the first aor., though in the latter passage Wolf reads zotckjciv, which would be a syncopated form of the pluperfect ; this distinction of breathing is laid down by Aristarchus, see Venet. Sch. on II. ju. 56. Thiersch considers 'iaraaav a genuine and uncontracted pluperfect; he also suspects that Earacrav is not an abbreviation Eanqaav, because no instances occur wherein or^cra, orfjo-av, orija-e, &<\, are similarly abbreviated. Those having the radical e, such as TtOijfn, retain many more forms from the cognate con- jugation in euj, as et'iQei, irapTiOet, irpoQeovai, eolg, eoi, with the second aors. Oio, Qrjg, 6rj, Oelo/ulev, a7roQdofj.cn, &c. Of those in ifii, only two vestiges are to be found, a7To but, at whatever time the marks (') and () were brought into use, the latter had the power of an aspirate, and the former off : if this be not granted, the ' is a power- less and superfluous mark. An additional argument for this doctrine, is furnished by the use of the charac- ters h and h, sc. FHPAKAE1AA, hAIPEGENTES, &c, and since this Vaw had two powers, the one that of a consonant, and the other that of a sort of aspirate, THE DIGAMMA. ItO an expedient was resorted to by the Greeks, consistent with their usual particularity, of omitting it from the number of other consonants, and superscribing it. That the powers of the Greek . 288, is to be replaced by 7rp Cotmjtcl a va.% , or 7rp wrog "pa ava£ : fcporfovrec ava%, p. 453, by KpoTeovre av. 'EvovcrOriog avaKrog, o. 363, by 'EvpiHjOrjog aiOXcjv, according to Eustathius : ap/mar avaKTtJv, ir. 370, by apfxa avaKrojv, which is defended by the presence of the dual number, cl^clvte, that is, " having, each pair of them, broken a chariot, not chariots," fxol ava^, 7r. 523, by jue ava% : both readings are equally unob- jectionable, as either is an cnra% lipy]p.ivov : avdaare/uLEv ? Apy£ioiariv, r. 124, by "'kpyuoiai avaaauv, paralleled by Od. t). 62 ; zvavra IIovEiSawvog avaKrog, v. 66, by ' apa vctKTog, av Uoa : 7rqii)(rav avaKTt, in w. 449, (which book presents more difficulties and inconsistencies, than any other part of the poem,) by either, irot^aav ayavol or woviovTo avaKTt, and 452 of the same book, by orau- potcri avaKTa, rqty]<7. ttvkv ; Kvcaive Se Ovjuov avaKrog, Od. £• 438, by Ovpov 8' laive avaKrog, or, rather Irjve, paralleled by II. r. 174, $. 597, and Od. o\ 548; ^Au0' Pvclktoq, Od. 7T- 14, by ?j\0£ civa/croc, t6%ov, Od. 0. 56, )by ro£a aya/cro?, sanctioned by the frequent use of this word in the plural number. riawEp avdaaug, Od. o>. 30, (which, as well as the same book of the Iliad, pre- sents unusual anomalies, and is considered spurious by Aristarchus and Aristophanes,) by fig lavaaatg. On the usage of this imperfect, it is remarked that it never begins a verse in Homer, nor does it occur where it may not be replaced by eFavacro-ov. In the second case, the laws of Heroic measure re- quire, that every word beginning with a vowel, of which the first syllable is long, any short syllable should end in a vowel, and that before the same, every syllable ending in a consonant, which, if followed by a vowel, would be necessarily short, should be produced, and therefore, to all such, F is prefixed. In like manner, any word, whose THE DIGAMMA* 17? first and second syllables are short i requires the produc- tion of any such preceding syllable, as, followed by a vowel, would be short, and, therefore, here also, the inser- tion off is necessary. Under the former of these two canons, are comprised such words as acrrv, diruv, ioyov, iXtog, ipig, icrog, oiSa, olkoq, olvoq, &c. ; the latter ex- tends to all such as zirog, tireog, eovu), la\rj, 'ikeXoq, &c. F appears to have been inserted, not merely before vowels, but also before the semivowels X, p., v, p, as in II. e. 358, noWa FXto-o-Ojucva ; and hence the pheno- mena of duplicated consonants, as eWafie, zpp&v. Many words beginning now with p, as priyvvfii, p'nrrti), did originally open with F, which is perpetuated in the Attic practice of ascribing to the initial p the power of a duplicated consonant, and still more evidently, in that of doubling the initial p, after an augment. This system of orthography, dictated to subscribers, by what they conceived to be the necessity of metre, was subse- quently adopted in prose ; and superfluously, as the initial p of an uncompounded word, retained singly its producing power ; this use of F before p does not, however, imply its presence before an initial vowel in composition, which occurs but in two instances, ap-tyi- Fevvvfit, and TrpoaFeXetv. Tt is probable that it was also very frequently employed to prevent an ungraceful concourse of vowels in the middle of words; its most unusual position, however, was after S and a, as in iFuvoQ, and o-Fou, pronounced as the English words, " dwell,'" and " swain" F exercises another influence too, beside that which it possesses in common with other consonants: it has been remarked, that the first syllables of such words as \vw, tloj, &c, vary in quantity, in the future tenses of which, \iktw, tIgm, there is, however, no variation, which is satisfactorily to be accounted for, only by the effect of F. Sup- 2 k 178 THE DIGAMMA. posing this to have intervened, the quantity of that syllable will depend on its position, sc. if the division of the syllables be Xu-Fw, it will naturally remain short, as in the other case, XvF-w, the intervening consonant of course acquires a double sound, and consequently produces the preceding vowel; but, in the case of the future, this alternative does not exist, and this power it exercises on the initial, as well as on the medial vowels of words, as fi& avSpi Ff/ctAr?, 11. 8. 86 , et passim. Its analogy to this part of the subject, suggests some re- marks on the digammated word " Siliise," (Horace, Carm. 1, 23-4;) the production of its first syllable being ascribable solely to the influence of this, espe- cially as it is not a parallel to such diaereses as " solti- ende," &c. in Tibullus, where the preceding syllable does not retain its long quantity. (15) The vowel Y frequently arrogates the place and power of F : the termination known to us as evg was in the primitive dialect, zFg, as Arpevg, ArptFc, from the genitive of which comes the patronymic ArptFtSrig, as from "E/crwp, 'EKTopiSrig, &c., which appears more pro- bable from the partiality of the formation of the heroic ■ line, to the quadrisyllabic form ; and this destroys the imaginary climax of Eustathius, II. 7. 182, erected on the supposition of the words of the verse, consisting successively of one, two, three, four, and five syllables. Among the Ionians, the terminations r}Fg } and sFg, were in indiscriminate use ; as vr\Fg, commonly vr)vg, and v*Fg } commonly vevg : from the long form of proper names, as IlrjXrjFc, came such patronymics as UrjXriFiadrtg : that which was idrig, after the short syllable, became uiSrig after the long. In accordance with the rules foregoing, the follow- ing emendations are proposed : II. a. 409, for a/Lift a\a c'Xo-cu Axacouc? is substituted FuXai Axa^ovg, supported THE DIGAMMA. 179 by the analogy of the words FaXftc, FaAr} ( im;cu, &c, and FtFeXfnvoi evSoQi TrvpyCov, before which it is pro- posed to read kekopegOe, for rjaOe. On the analogy of KOpzcrat, &C, a. 529, for ETTEppuxjavTo. EFEppuaavro, dictated by the incongruity of the prepositions liri and airo. For (jTrjr e\e\lxOevteq, k. 587, orf/re FeXixOevteq, as in Jul. 74. For hitraftivrit y. 389, Facra^vrj, in order to remove the augment from the participle. For £wvoxo£tj & 3, sFotvoxoFa, to avoid the double aug- ment, as £wk£(j eiLXttei, rilidei, &c, should be replaced by FeFoltei, FeFoXttei, FolSei, &c. For aacrafjLriv, i. 116, aFacrafj.r)v f the (commonly styled) doubtful quantity of the a, in the two first syllables of this word, is to be explained on the same principle as that of Auw, rtw, (supra.) As to the varying quantity in aarog, exhibited in II. £. 271, aaciTov, Od. 0. 91, adarov, Od. x- id. ; for the first example is suggested the reading avaaaTOv, or avaFacTTOv, from a steretic, and afaZa), Icedo : the se- cond is properly avaFaroc, " innocaus" fr. aFarr7, noxa. For EaSora, l. 173, FeFclvSotci, as from )£av5avw, comes KExavdora. It is also proposed to produce the ttcktl in this line, by understanding not iravm, but 7raFa:d, as tetv- (jjudi from TETvcpaFm ; rimTOvai from 7i>7rroFo7, &c. For av'iaxoi,v. 41, aiaxoc 9 L e. aFiFaxpi, or rather aFFtFaxof. For EEpro, Od. o. 459, FfFfp/cro, as inV. 295, FEFEpyfiEvov. To this character, called by grammarians, from its shape, digamma, Thiersch attributes a sound, origi- nally that of F, subsequently softened into V, (W,) in Latin before E and I ; and in Greek into $ and /3, as Fipig became fiipig among the Lacedaemonians ; the substitution of y for F, he refers to the ignorance of transcribers, misled by the similarity of form. It was commonly changed in the middle of words into Y, which vowel, as well as o or t, frequently replaced it at the beginning also. The original form of the letter 180 THE DIGAMMA. was retained in the Latin and Etrurian alphabets : on the coins of Capua, and the Heraclean tables, it assumes the shape C, and is used as la X^> iK/Liag, dvXa.fj.6g, ovXog, etcricu), eaceXog, epyuj, tepyw, ep- yaO(o, spew, epvu), trwGiog, fjica, rjXog, hp.ai, "iXiog, l-ireg, v lpig, loj-n, b^6vr\, u)X%, ojg. Of others, nothing can be decided from their unfrequency in Homer, as evrepa, y'lXiKtg, fiXiKir) : others have lost it in Homeric Greek, as eXog, 'EXivrf, clkti], avfip, and vBwp. Those which without any exception retain F, are aXwvat, apa'iog, eBvov, Weipai, Wvog, ecnrepog, errjg, eppa), r)voip/iov,loSv£- (pig, lovOag, ovXa/xog. The inconsistencies in the use of F are, in many cases, such as neither the ignorance of transcribers, nor the consequent alterations to which the poems were subjected, can account for. Priscian, "de ArteGrammatica," says, that the iEolians conceded no prosodiac power to the digamma, and that after Be, and its compounds, ode, wBe, ovde, and p.r}Be, it was sup- pressed, as afi/meg B\ (F)eipavav, which effect is attributed also to ye and bye, hence a general rule is deducible, that F disappears after an apostrophe . Several anomalies may be accounted for, by ob- serving that many words, though retaining it in their simpler form, lost it in their derivatives; and, that the same words, at the same epoch, appeared either with or without it, whether initial or medial, as required by the metre ; and herein it is analogous to other conso- nants, which were frequently removed for metre's sake, as kiljv, livv ; Xel^u), cVj3w ; irepi, Ipi, &c. In debateable cases, such readings as are favourable to F should be 182 THE DIGAMMA. used, as its subsequent omission is more likely, than its having been dispensed with by the poet. For its restoration in some cases, the paragogic v, and par- ticles of similar prosodiac power, may be removed. Instances of hiatus (the principal argument of Spitz- ner, against the existence of F) may be removed by the insertion of particles, consistently with idiom, and not un- frequently by an alteration in the arrangement of words, (vid. infra.) One ofthe most remarkable cases occurs after the second plural of tenses in re, which originally ended in rsg, as did the nom. dual of oblique declensions. The medial F appeared in connexion with consonants, into a variety of which it was convertible both in Greek and Latin, as sylva, com&uro, cumis, ju^-jS-Xw, ya/uL-fi-poQ : &c, and between open vowels, in such cases as cuw, aCcr- (TU), big, icXrjic'j &c, which is confirmed by the fact, that such are never contracted into aiw s clcrcru), 6lg, &c. ; its most usual conversion is into v, as in future tenses, Xiw, x^Fo-w, \tv(T &c. We sometimes find a final F in vocatives, as j3ao-i- XfF, fdacriXlv. The Bishop of St. David's, in a letter to the Bishop of Durham, in refutation of part of Dr. Marsh's Horas Pelasgicse, controverts the following assertions of the Doctor, " that the Greek F, and the Latin F, must have been the same in sound, because they were the same in form, and alphabetic arrangement ;" and, " that the ancient pronunciation of the Latin F was identical with the modern;" the first, by the fact of the same analogy not holding good between the Greek and Hebrew alphabets, as he assumes between the Latin and Greek ; and the second, by a satisfactory analogical proof of the difference between the ancient and modern pronunciation of the Latin F ; thus, Te- rentianus Maurus says, as above quoted, " F. littera a THE D1GAMMA. 183 Graeca # recedit, lenis et hebes sonus," whence, it would appear, that, unaccompanied by the aspiration which the modern pronunciation lends to it, it coincided in sound with the modern V, and resembled our F, in its smooth consonantsound, but differed from it in having no vowel expression. The F, was, like our V, both vowel and consonant, and this will probably account for the ancient Latin grammarians representing the digamma by V, rather than F, though in figure, the latter re- sembled the ./Eolic letter. Though Dionysius gene- rally expresses it by ou, yet, in some proper names, such as Fidense, he represents it by <£, which, in an- swer to Dr. M., the bishop asserts not to be opposite or inconsistent, being both labials. B and W also are letters belonging to the same organ, and no physical impossibility prevents their interchange. The conjec- ture that F is double Y, is based on a peculiarity in the name of the latter character : the addition of the epithet \pi\ov, implying the existence of some corres- ponding Saav, as the £ has its correlative rj, and the o its u), and as this relation exists in the Latin alphabet between F and V. And if this hypothesis be correct, its inference coincides with Dawes' opinion ; for as Y is Latinized by V, of course, double Y is equivalent to double V, i. e. W. The same doctrine is supported by a sorites also, (the first premiss of which is denied by Dr. M., and reasserted by the bishop, on principles already alluded to,) which runs thus : the Greek F was pronounced like the Greek ov ; the Greek ou, like the French ou ; and the French ou, like the English W ; ergo, the Greek F was equivalent in sound to the English W. That the Greeks were in the habit of lending to a particular set of words beginning with vowels, an initial sound which sometimes too intervened in the middle parts of words, cannot be doubted: that this 184 THE DIGAMMA, was a species of breathing, but not the aspirate, and that it had the use and place of a consonant, are pro- positions equally undeniable : it is commonly attributed to the iEolians. Thus, does Heyne open his excursus on the digamma, and proceeds to this effect. With what sound the Greeks expressed this breathing, no investi- gation can now ascertain; it is, however, generally believed to have an affinity to the labial sounds, be^ cause it has been replaced in Latin by V ; among the Dorians, particularly the Lacedaemonians, by B and Y ; it also passed, in what way does not appear, into y, and occasionally into S; that it corresponded with the Latin vaw, we learn from Quinctilian. That it be- longed particularly to the Cohans was a prevalent belief among the ancients, transmitted by the gram- marians to the present time : thus, Apollonius Dyscol, asserts in fragm. App. Maitt. p. 427, 432, (where rov ebv iraXda, should be written rov Fov ircuda, ra ka icaSea, altered to tcl Fa, and arap yzQzv, to arep FeOev.) In the fragment of Sappho quoted by Longinus, we have aXXa Kajiifxlv yXwcraa Fzaye or FeFaye ; but the words wg yap zi$u) ere, immediately before, are opposed to this, for FeiBu) would not suit the metre. This belief was en- couraged by another which drew the Latin language from an iEolic source. For this later tradition, after the most careful investigation, I find no adequate basis. What intercourse could the Latins, or their descendants the Romans, possibly have had with the ./Eolians, sufficient to account for their being indebted to them, even for their language ? — all ancient history contradicts the assertion. On the contrary, they who did emigrate into Italy and incorporate with the Aborigines, a tribe of Ausones, from whom the Latins were descended, were the Pelasgi : its proper name would therefore be the Pelasgic digamma. It is, however, the safest theory THE DIGAMMA. 185 to regard it, as belonging to the common dialect of the ancient Greeks. That the Hellenes, having been either descended from, or blended with the Pe- lasgi, used a language common to both, may be easily inferred from what is related concerning them. The iEoiians who felt a partiality for old customs, natu- rally retained the digamma longer than any others ; accordingly, when the derivation from a Greek source of any part of the Latin language was intended to be expressed, it was called /Eolic ; and this occurred particularly in the case of this letter. The know- ledge of these particulars would be more certainly established, if the treatise of Tvpavvlujv, " irepX rfje'Pw^at- k?iq SiaXeKrov, on ear\v ItcTrig 'EWtivikijq" was extant — he did not say Ik rrig 'AioXikyiq. Others have spoken with less caution. Quinctilian says, " iEolica ratione, cui sermo noster simillimus est." Since the digamma was common to all the ancient Greeks, and its use varied with time and other changing influences, it cannot be a matter of wonder, if all the instances which occur in the old i^Eolic do not also appear in Homer. The poets, in general, adopted or dispensed with archaeisms, according to metrical neces- tity. Many iEolisms, therefore, are to be found, which do not appear in Homer, and v. v. ; to this subject be- longs what Dionysius Hal. relates of Velia, sc. that it is derived from RAoe, 'i\og ; and in Homer no use of the digamma in this word appears. The conjectures and imaginings of the later gram- marians respecting the ^Eolic dialect have been many. How could Gregorius Corinthius, Johannes Philoponus, and men of the same class, in whose time not even a vestige of anything /Eolic remained, or even the Alexandrines and their successors, have attained any 2 b 186 THE DIGAMMA. knowledge of the primitive y£olic dialect ? Whatever knowledge they possessed, was derived from the co- temporary lyric poets. The more momentous ques- tions appear to me to be those respecting the use of the digamma among the ancients ; its extent; the uni- formity of its use in particular words; the number and exact limits of that set of words to which it is believed to have belonged ; its metrical use ; and the particular time at which the use of it was neglected. These in- quiries, however, are to be pursued only as they refer to Homer. That the use of the digamma was lost at an early period, appears from the fact, that its absence is an almost invariable criterion of those lines which the rhapsodists have intruded into the text of Homer; this neglect of it soon degenerated into a total igno- rance. Its total disappearance may be dated at the period of the transcription of these poems at Athens, sc. the age of Solon; this disappearance created many hiatus, the occurrence of which before a particular set of words first awakened a suspicion, which ended in a search after the lost letter. These two observations present themselves upon in- vestigation. 1 . That all the more recent poets who used the digamma, receded from the Homeric usage, in their inconstant employment of it. 2. That hiatus was in some words retained, m others avoided, and, that hence arose many prosodiac laws, inapplicable to the genuine parts of Homer. The poets to whom these observations particularly apply, are Hesiod, and Apol- lonius Rhodius. Pindar is inconsistent, apparently, in his use of the digamma ; but from Theocritus, it is altogether absent. The aspirates, both vowel and consonant, were frequently elided ; hence crvc, vg, 0rj, »j, &c. ; and fu- ture tenses sometimes appear without the characteris- THE D1GAMMA. I 8 i tic . 91, x- 51- The Doric form used by Hesychius, as a gloss, is acifiaKTog ; he writes also aacrrog, and aarog, omitting the first a, and aarrog : formerly, pwv } the sounds ae being the more customary and agreeable ; fr. ado/iaL. Of this verb, the aor. pass. aaaOriv, he considers to be occasionally used in a middle sense, (according to the Attic usage,) and the middle aarai, II. r. (pt. 95, and 129, in an active signification. "Ayavog, ayaFog, " praeclarus, superbus ;" fr. ayaFio, whence, ayr\}.u, and aya/uai. ^AyytXtag, and ayytkiri. A question has been raised respecting the existence of the first of these forms in 190 GLOSSARY. Homer. Dr. B., in order to prevent the confusion of the double syntax, IXQtiv (evena) ayyeXirfg, and eXOeiv Citg, or rather tVi) ayye\ir)v, believes in the existence of both: in Od. k. 245, n . 263, o. 41, re. 334, and m 353, the feminine is decidedly the construction : the debateable passages are II. 7. 206, 8. 384, X. 140, v. 252, and o. 640. We see that the passages where a masculine substantive is used, or a different syntax re- quired, occur all in the Iliad ; this perhaps may render the inconsistency of construction or orthography more defensible. Though Eustathius mentions only the feminine form, the Alexandrine grammarians admitted both. The debateable passages above specified, I would translate thus, II. y. 206, " when he came hither an ambassador, concerning you," &c, 8. 384 ; " the Greeks sent forward Tydeus as an ambassador," X. 150; "when he came as an ambassador," v. 252; lit. "have you come, an ambassador of, (i. e. to communi- cate) anything ?" o. 640 ; " who used to go as an am- bassador, of (to announce) the tasks imposed by, &c. ;" establishing, in this way, the use of the masculine in the Iliad, and the feminine in the Odyssey. "Ayyoej eog, " a vessel surrounded with hoops ;" fr. ay^w, ayyb), Lat. ango. 'Ayepwxog, " ferox, superbus;" fr. «. int. •y£pae-£X w J u one invested with too many honors ;" rather fr. ysyz- P u) X a } P* °f ytp&vota, fr. yep(o, (gero,) i. e. citram gero, hence, with a neg. " one who does not care." Dr. B. says, this was used by the rhetoricians, who borrowed it from the Asiatics, (as it does not occur in pure Attic,) in the sense of" wild," "unmanageable." In Homer and Pindar it is used in a favourable sense only, applied principally to Asiatics : " the only Eastern nation whom Homer compliments with it, are the Mysians," vid. II. k. 430. Pindar writes 7rXoi'rou arefyavfOfi ayipw\ov : put- GLOSSARY. 191 ting all these together, the epithet probably refers to external display, dignity of appearance, (rejuivoTrjg. Alcaeus and Archilochus use it as a reproach. 'Ajkcu, " the arms," literally " a curve ;" the parent of ayicv\oQ, angulus, ayictov. 'Ayicoivri, uncus, ancus, &c : ajKaXig, " an arm-full." "Ayx^ <( near >" P r °p. dative singular of ay%, " the elbow." 'Ayiveio, elong. of ayu). "A&w, a&w, FaSw, aSlw, placeo, hence rj£o/xcu, Fr)$ojucu, 'aSojuat/saSa ; but laSa, from f aStw, undigammated, vid.y. 173, |u. 80 ; different from this, Heyne says, is 'acta, aaw, satio, undigam. : And again, another variety "aSo>, 'a&w, undigam. ; whence cJSrj, aSBri, vid. v. 315. Surely, satio and placeo are but different modifications of the same idea. Bentley and Knight have FaBco, Fadr^v, FaSoe, FadriKOTeg. Hesychius has FavSavw, yavdavu), yaSsiv, yaStaQcu, whence, yriOiu), yavofim, and the Latin gaudeo. Ionice fidoj, whence tcvov, l&vov, and avaedvog, i. e. aasSvbg, by a duplication of the negative. With respect to adriKOTEQ, (for the syllable being long, the second § is unnecessary,) Dr. Buttmann, admitting its forma- tion from aSis), the source of a^rjaai, aaai, &c, with a<$oc, and aSriv, ace. to him an adverb, remarks that it does not express the idea of satiety, but of disgust, dislike, or pain, as adrjcFetev, Od. a. 134; besides, he asks rather triumphantly, whether " wearied with sleep' can signify "with the want of it." To answer both together; the ideas of " disgust" and "satiety" are certainly as much modifications of the same idea, as " satio" and " placeo." Dr. B. says, full of sleep, and satiated with sleep are not synonymous ! this requires no comment. What difference would he suggest be- tween full of wine, and satiated with wine f the ideas of pleasure and satisfaction in one set of instances, (II. 1. 192 GLOSSARY. 489, &c.) and of dislike arising from satiety, in another, do not of course imply a difference in the primary sense ; but even without this, virvog can, very idiomatically, signify the want of sleep. Horace has " ludo fatigatum- que somno," which can possibly bear no other meaning. Euripides, Hec. writes yiyvwvicE rriv ar)v aXicrjv, " re- member your weakness." Virg. also writes, "vis-alto vulnere," "the sense of faintness, {want of strength) from the deep wound." There is, in fact, no more common idiom. "Ay pew, an ancient form of tupsw, of which only the imperative aypei, (as an interjection,) age, tenez, occurs in Homer. — B. Hence, avrdypsTog, Od. tt. 148, and avOdiperog, are synonyms. 'AeacrjQ, afaiKriQ, indignus, iniquus, unseemly, impro- per, hence aFuKtXiog. 'Aff'joo), aFeipu) ; fr. zipw, Fupio, necto : rjFapev, k. 499 ; its derivatives are not digammated ; avvyjopog, irap^o- pog, hence rjopfiev, yopfxat, whence aopro, y. 272, aop- rrip, aop. Bentley writes Faoptg, midieres, i. 327, and JrwpecjcTi, £. 486. ' AScvk^Cj " insuavis ;" fr. a-yXevKrig . "Aekwv, aFsKCJv, quia Fskwv, hence aFejcrjrf, aFf/ca^o- fxai. "AeXXa, from tXXw, aXsw, '/XXw, aXfw, &C, forms of eXdvvw, hence Lat. pro-cella. 'AeXttw, to despair, aFeXirto, hence aFsXTrrig, Od. c. 408. 'Aepyog, dFepyog, quia Fepyov. ^AiiOegctu), aFridecrGii), k. 493, quia FtiQog. "AZw ; fr. aw spiro, to dry by blowing upon ; keItcii $' aZopivo, aZofiat to revere, from x«£°A ta< > " to retire, give way to." y Ai)(Tv\og, v. ai(Tv\og, violent us, fr. a-i]Sio. GLOSSARY. 193 'A/&/C, " Hades, Orcus," aFiSr^g, quia FaBio : also aF^Cj aFidog, aFidrjXog. "AiSp£c,aRSptc;fr.iff»j/*t, Ra-rjjut; hence aFidpdr},7). 198. 'A/'w, aFnx), exhalo and audio, which is derived from it. The quantity of a is doubtful in Homer, comp. K . 160, 532, A. 463, o. 252, . 388, &c. 'Aiwv, 6, " a number of years, a length of time " i7 attov, life, lit. the spinal marrow. 'Ak?)v, accus. of clkt], punctura, (sub. /car,) " i/s so;- rowful silence " Dr. B. says, aicsojv, and tWjv are both adverbs ; fr. a-xcuvio, by an Ionic change of ^ to k ; the former being the neuter singular of a/caoc, aor. Att. twv ; the latter the feminine accusative singular atcaav, atcariv, clkyiv, like airpiaTrjv, &c. * The accents differ, but in Homer the blending of traditional forms with the conjectures of grammarians, has produced the ir- regularity. 'Adrnj.ovuv, el to be at a loss, in perplexity " fr. a-Srifiog, lit. " not at home." — B. 'Adivbg, from its primary sense of " greatness," "in- tensity," " density," bears in the following passages, the annexed meanings, II. /3. 87, with iizXiaaawv, " nu- merous," II. 7T. 451; Kiip, "compact," c, " a thick state of the air ;" tpefievvrj, " a dark state of the air." Of r)£pLoc, Dr. B. says, that it comes from rjpi, mane, " in the morning," vid. II. a. 497 ; q€p{i| S' av£/3*/, according to him, " she 2 c 194 GLOSSARY. ascended in the morning," because, "a verb joined with an adjective, instead of an adverb, must be limited to ideas of time, except some words particularized by usage, avfievoQ, WeXovrrig, and some ideas of order, as 7rpwTog, vgtcltoq, &c." Homer, then, has no adjective, rjipiog from rjipi, dative singular of arip, in which case " the euphonious f" need not have been inserted : why should he not ? why may not riipiog, as well as rrpu)- toq, &c, and those words <( particularized by usage," be joined with a verb, without referring to time? and why should it not be better sense and sound to say, t( she ascended through the air" and " the high-soaring cranes" (II. y. 7,) as to say, " she ascended in the morn- ing" and " the early cranes ? particularly, when Vir- gil writes " aerice grues" &c, notwithstanding that Dr. B. is of opinion that Virgil did not, in these in- stances, intend to repeat the idea of Homer ! "AXrjjUt, FaX^t, " colligo me" fr. aXiu), FaXta>, whence FaXfjvat, FaXac, tFaXrj, FaXrj, Heyne. Rather aXrivai, and saXrjyat; fr. e'XXw, as IcrraX^v from crrtXXu). 'A*rjroc, II. . 395; fr. ayr\Tog ; fr. ayctfxcu, as aipew fr. aypsw.— B. 'A/SrjXoc, afidrjXog, " destructive," " causing to dis- appear ;" fr. a, and t'SrjXoc ; fr. tSetv, i. e. SfjXoc, as £kyi\oq, from KY}\tlv ; apt^Xoc, fr. apt-iSrjXoc ; the se- cond l being removed, and F changed into r}, II. £. 172, &c. Fifth, Beauty, neatness of per ■- sonal appearance" Od. \p. 153, 157. Sixth, " an anti- septic," II. 7r. 670, r. 38, xp. 186. Seventh, " a perfume," Od. S. 446 ; but this and the sixth are probably synony- mous. Dr. B. denies this to be an adjective, because i.$u)Sr) cannot be supplied in all cases ! and understands tififipoaior, (with which, he says, tifxfipoairi has no con- 196 GLOSSARY. nexion,) a/uj^poTog, aj3poroc, &c, only in their literal senses. Why may not they, like others of similar meanings, signify merely the exellence of any thing over others of the same class ? 'AjbLvjLiiov, "excellent, irreprehensible," antique, ap.vy- fxu)Vj afxvFfXwv. "A\ig, FaXig, satis, II. c. 349 ; f\ ovx aXig, correct to ?j 6v FaXig. "AXujuii, (aXtV/cw, not occurring in Homer ;) FaXwjiu, in potestatem venio, capior ; hence FaXwvcu, [jl. 172, FaXouaxt, /3. 374 ; FaXovrt, *. 487 ; FaXotrjv, FaXt^v, FaXw, FaXiou). "Aval, Fava%, ant. Fava»crc, and Favac, whence voc. ava. 'Av^p, according to Dionysius Hal. Favrip. Heyne does not consider it digammated. 'AoXXfo, aFoXFrjc, vid. £. 498, £. 270. Heyne says, " ad Homerum nolim talia referre." 'A via, because aviFa, also aveia : aviFpov, aviFapov, and Suid. aviaypov. "A^/ui?, qu. a\ifxr\ : fr. aicr), as aityvog ; fr. atyivog. ' 'Ajufpiyvog. This adjective applied always to a spear, has been made to bear two interpretations ; viz. " double-pointed" i. e. having a blade or lance at each end of the handle, or " two-edged," i. e. with but one lance, which was quadrangular, having two acute, and two obtuse angles. 'AfxQacvireWog. Of this epithet, three principal etymologies have been suggested. 1. kv7teX\ov, is said to come from kvtttw, and thus the compound signi- fies a cup ; f arco Keicv^wg, the rim ie curving inwards." 2. With the same derivation, that its form was " com- posed of two curves," Schol. Ven. 3. According to Dr. Buttmann, kvttzXXov is a diminutive oficv/Lij3ij: it signifies then, " having a KvirtXXov at both sides, or GLOSSARY. 197 different ends ;" in illustration of his idea of its shape, he quotes Aristotle describing the cells of bees, as afX(f>iorov ; fr. CLfiapTCLVW. 'AfioXyug, signifies among the Achaeans aKfxy) ; hence vvicrbg afxoXyy, " the noon of night." 'Airetkiu), in its primary meaning, signifies "to speak loud,'' to harangue an assembly," from a^AXa*, the name of the popular assembly among the Dorians. Of the same family are the words tjwvu), tiros, tty? &c . ; 198 GLOSSARY. this verb is not a compound, nor is anaraw, being a form of cnratyuv, a reduplication of a7rrEa-0at, acj>{) ; nor avaivofxai, coming from the neg. a, av, or ava, and the usual verbal termination aivw, lit. " to say no" in the mid. " to refuse." Dr. B. says, " many old verbs, apparently compounded with prepositions, are not so ; the syllables av, air, ev, £7t, Si, and Kar, are some of the most familiar in the language, and occur in all parts of words, and therefore, in the beginning, without being the same as the prepositions : in any case, a derivation from a preposition, or the existence of a common root, is as probable as a composition ; this is more evident in the instances of words, which are too short to con- sist of two parts. 'A7n7VT7, Schol. Pindar ; " apjma e% fifiioviov Z^X~ e*v." f A7rrof7r>7Cj airroFeirrig, quia Ff7rw, II. 0. 219. 'Apcuoe, Fapatog, " varus, tenuis" 'Apyeiog, apyeiFog, hence Lat. Argivus. "ApSw, apdp.bg ; Fapdu), Fapdpog ; vzoapdza, vtofap- &a. "Ape, the nominative singular does not occur in Homer ; Fapvog, &c, contracted from the participle Fapevg-eig. 'Aprifizvog, derived from the old verb tppw : hence the old Latin name of Mars, " Berber" in the Carmen Arvale of Numa, carved on brass, and exhumed at Rome, a. d. 1778 : this, in Greek letters, and the Ionic dialect, is FepFeg, or apeFg. 'AvapivOog, " a bath" " lavacrum " fr. amg, sordes, and afxlg, vas. 'AaKr)9rig, cKTKeOrig, " incolumis," lit. "tectus; fir. a, valde, and gkzw, (TKtVw, tego. "Apto, Fapw. — Knight. "ApKTTQVi FapivTov, vid. a), II. 124. GLOSSARY. 199 "ApKtog, sc. iilaQog, II. k, "certain." — B. "Aotv, Facrrv, II. j3, 801, 803. 'Atz/iPu), lit. " to cut off" fr. aTrb-Tijxvw. 'Avia\og, II. v, 41, aRaY/>c, Dawes, aFiFa\og, ahw- a^oe, i. e. avi. — Knight. 'AvaraXiog, " aridus," FavaraXeog. *A(f>ap, " continuo " fr. r?^o, p. m. of cltttu), necto. "Aevoq ; fr. aty(u), hence Lat. habeo ; or from j3£j3pux £v > P* ^4, must have come from /3pv?a>, or, have been formed as it is, without any present tense. — B. BouXo/xeu, antiq. fi6Xop.ai, the elonga- tion of o being ov, as irovXvg, fiovvog, &c. ; the sounds appear to have been similar ; the negative ov, being gOO GLOSSARY. expressed among the Spartans, by o, of ]3ouXojucu , and lOiXtt), the former expresses an active wish, malle, im- plying the power of accomplishing ; the latter a passive wish, velle. Bporog, " mortalis" fr. joat>, "poroe, or /3op, )3o- poroc. raX^vr; ; fr. yeXau), " rident sequora ponti." — Ov. TivTO, Fevro, evro, eXto, tXero, as ?iv^o^> for rJX^ov. Tt^vpa, "any thing joined by nails;" fr. ytyw, yiy 0(j>a, wh. yocpog, y6ju(j)og. TXavKOg, " csesius" " grey " qu. yaXcaicog, h.yaXa. TvaXov. The dwprfe ararbg, " inflexible corslet," consisted of two yvaXa, or plates, one of which pro- tected the breast, the other the back, clasped together at each side ; that protecting the back was removed by Alexander the Great. Of the other, the Od)pr)Z moXog, there were two species, the tcpacwTog and the aXvmdix)- Tog, sc. woven of hooks and rings, the latter being the same as the chain-armour of the moderns. Aar)p, SaFrjp, Lat. levir, qu. devir, as lachryma, dachryma ; fr. SaKpv/uia. Aatypuv, either fr. Sdig or Sarjvcu, "warlike" or "prudent " the former always in the Iliad, the latter in the Odyssey. It signifies, in the later poets, " heart- rending." Auirvov, " ccena ;" fr. di-rro), ^a-rrcj, Lat. dapes. Aevrepog, " proximus " fr. Eevfit : as in Lat. secun- dus, qu. sequundus ; fr. sequor. AtaicTopoQ, or diaKTup, are verbal substantives of the same verb, from which Siaicovog, or Stafcwv is a par- ticiple, sc. Siaicu), Sujkw, "to hasten;" the quantity of the a prevents ayio being considered the source.^ — B. Atwag, fr. Se'kw, $Uag, as lupus, Xi/Kog ; pello, kIXXw. At}, " quidem" " scilicet," for das, imper. of Saw, scio. GLOSSARY. 201 AoaaaaTO, " visum est ;" fr. Sda>, Sdarai (Sedrat, Od. ?. 2£2.) SaavaaTO, and Soatxcraro, as Boclcfgoj ; fr. Qclcktgu)* Aova£; ft*. Sove&j, lit. " a reed shaken by the wind." Aop7rog; fr. %£piru) 3 Spzirii). Apifivg ; fr. Sepw, qu. SepifAvg. AvcrrjXeyrjg ; fr. Svc-dAcyw, lit. " oratf who does not care" " relentless." Avarrivog ; fr. dvg-l0r} } ) should come from eno^ac, rather than aVro/zat ; as the e must have origi- nated in the F, which more probably belonged to eVo- Hai, than the other. On the pleonastic use of e, Heyne says, " Omnino usu poetarum epicorum antiquorum receptum fuit, ut e praefigerent pleonastice; pro I, pronunciarunt ££; ov, cov ; klg pro tig. v. ad tt. 208. % dva U$va ; de hoc vide et ZXdo/jLcii, UXdofiat. Neque aliam originem habuisse videtur argumentum £, cum antiquius tempora augmento carerent; quod nunc inter antiquioris Ionismi vestigia referimus." After thus accounting for the origin of the augment, he proceeds to say, that in some cases c was prefixed to an initial digamma, as cFayc, &c, to which e, and a second digamma, prefixed, constituted the first reduplication, as Knew, Fa/cw, tFoiica, FtFoiica : and that the additional c sometimes was employed, where a F did not separate it from the initial vowel of the verb, as hfiLy tiaafiriv, saaa^rjv. Of this word (Id(p0r}) the same critic says " sine digammo." "Eap, Fzap ; haoivog, Fuapivog: lap, is not contracted 2d 202 GLOSSARY. in Homer to ?jp, which is a different word, signifying opOpov, and is not digammated. "Eada, eFada, evada, FeFaSa : in this word the quan- tity of the a varies, owing, according to Heyne, to the double form, a$w, rj&o, and 'aSw, a$£(t>. "EaXrj, eFaXrj. Vide aXrivai, supra. Eovov, Fecvov, eFecvov edvov, aveFedvov* "EASojitai, FeXdofxai. II. e. 481 . ^EeX/mivog, eFeXfievog ; fr. F^Xeo). "EeXTrofiai, eFeXnofxai. 'Elpyw, sFepyio. 'EicrcraTO, sFeaGaTo; fr. fa>, Few. "EOsipa, FtOeipa, * e coma" II. tt. 795. r E0ev, FeOev. "EOvog, FeOvog. "EtSw, Feidoj, FtBov, Lat. video ; hence Fao-aro, 2H£f« est ; ziaaro, Sdfir) ; hence also Fa&aX^ioc, fc/ooFuSrjc, OtoFei^Cj loFeidrjQ, and ctXXoFfS?7c, Od. v. 194. "Eikogi, FeiKOGi, and fF^KOcr*, Vid. X. II. 25. "E^kco, FeiKt), Fouca, Bentley, Ffot/ca, Vid. It. a. 126, &c. ; FtFouca also appears, as in y. 158 and 170, and FeFcokuv, as |3. II. 58; Fnicajg, y. 386; hence Fao-Kw, FzFiGKb) FsiKtXog, FuceXog, £7nF£iK£\og, OtoFziKeXog, aFu- Kr\g, aFiKwg ,\. 336, aFuKur}, aFziKtXiog aFeicriXiog, and aFeiKiZto, ETriFeiKYig, juevoFeiKrig — aKw 3 cedo, has no di- gamma — hXap, hXiw, liXvio, lifia, upyio, %ipi*), necto, Wu), snag, zicaOev, EKaarog, ticaTzpBe and 'iicriXog, are digammated. ^EcGog, ZKdTog, ZKi)(5o\og, ZKdTrjfioXog, ZKanifiiXtTrig, l/c»]Tt, zicvpog, and ekwv, are digammated. "EXeyxog, properly " trial by battle ;" fr. tXstv ey\og> r EX£vr). Dionys. Hal., and after him, Bentley, write FtXnn) ; it appears undigammated in II. X. 125, &c. GLOSSARY. 203 'EXto'e, FeXeog, " a cook's table ;" cXcoe, " pity," undigammated, 'EXto-o-w FeXidaoj ; but tXeXtcro-w-^w, has no digamma. "EXiru), FeXttcj, FeXtto/zcu ; II. i. 40, &c. ; FojXttct, 8FoX?ra, and FtFoXira, as in Od. j3. 275, II. r. 328, &c. In w. 312, correct vanv livXirei, to iwc F£Fa>X7ra. 'EXtt^c, F^XTrtc ; Od. tt. 101, and r. 84. "EXw, FeXw, volvo, glomero, includo ; as II. a. 409, where correct aXaS' eXcrai, to ciXa FeXaai. Dawes reads FetXai (w«Xai ;) vid. X. 413 ; a. 294, daXavcry r tXvai, correct to OaXdcray FeXgm'i (p. 295, fFeXa-at, &c. ; also FeiXu), hence FaXo/xevoe, e. 203, and FaXcw ; uXvlj, FeiXvu), vid. Od. ^ 479, hence FeXvw, FaXu/ja, FaXv$aa>, FaXu<£a£a>, FtXiKtg, FeXiKCJireg, FuXnrodzg. These words, however, Heyne says, occur in such positions as to render the presence of the digamma doubtful, sc. II. /u. 293, fiovaiv ekiZiv may, or may not be fiovcrl FeXi^iv ; but in 7r. 569, Tpwsc zXikiottoq cannot be altered ; vid. Od. ix. 355, II. . 2S3 and 329, with ?. 318. Dawes 206 GLOSSARY. writes, mroFEp'^E, ft. ap-yw. Dr. B. says, cnroEpaE is the aor. of cnroipSb), fr. airb-apdoj, lit. " to wash away ;" of these, either is preferable to the first etymology, which is Heyne's, Eppoj being a neut. verb ; Ipvu), or kpvoj, " to draw," makes v short in its inflexions in Homer, though long with the Attic poets : in the mid. voice, contracted to pvo/mai, for the metre's sake, it sig- nifies " to draw to ones self, i. e. " to rescue" When a long syllable in this verb is required in Homer, the ^£ Fepel ; ip. 787, for vpfx kpzw, read vpfxi Fepeii) ; and Od. y. 20, for ovk Ip&t, read bv FepsEi. "EpojEOi), in its primary meaning, " to undulate ;" secondly, " to withdraw, to hasten away ;" and, hence, thirdly, " to cease, to desist." — B. 'EpifiivOoi, fr. 6po(3og, hence opFog, Lat. ervum. 'Evte, a dialectic variety of ote ; vvte is ») evte, or r/ OTE. 'Edflfc, ZaOog, FevOvcFecjOoc, Od. a. 165, II. w. 94. "EcrnEpog, FEGTTEpvQ, FEffiTEpiog, Lat, Vcspcrus* GLOSSARY. 207 "Erepog, halpog, Ftrepog, Ftratpog ; ace. to Bentley ? Fett?o sodalis, II. g. 239, ?r. 674, &c. "Eroe, annus, Ferog, II. /3. 328, &C. ; hence avro- Ferrig, k&aFzrrig, 7revTaFerr)Qog, £7rraFE7Tje, ftvaFErrje. For £7T£r?7(7£oc, Od. 7], 118, read £F£rr](noc, lirrizTavog, Od. 0. 233, supply zmFtravog. 'Erwcnog, F£rw, EityU, erj/uai, rj/ui, rjjmai, sedeo, and its tenses, with KaBr)jiai, and 7rapr}fiai } are undigammated, as also are ew, tau, fiffw, mitto, its tenses and compounds ; but t£^af, cupio, i. e. we mitto, i. q. opiyo/iai, me extendo, appears al- ways Fi^ai, as if from a different root, sc. F*ew, Fix]yn, as in II. |3. 589, £ . 434, &c. ; in Od. ]3. 327, correct irep hrai, to y£ Firjrat ; Od. k. 246, is spurious ; II. nt * " making a violent use of the hands." Z«a, ?la, Od. 8. 41, and r. 593 ; qu. '<£a, fr. SSw. Zg^upoe, ZepJiyrus, Lat. Favonius ; fr. So^oc, as evpog, fr. rjwf. W H, swa, Fr?, Fjjc : fr. oc, Foe- "HiSav, Ftjd&jv, from a§w, FaSw. f H&5c, FijSvc, II. X. 378 ; thus, flSw, FjjSw ; there was also r/Sw, whence rjSoe, X. 318. HFapc, vide aapa>. ^ROoq, FyiQoq, solitct sedes, vid. II. ?. 511 ; juetci Fridaa, which should, on the authority of Knight and Bentley, and the analogy of Od. £. 411, be read for jusra r ri0«i, hence, II. k. 493, aFnOeaciov. "Hta, viatica, Frjia, vide Od. fi. 329 ; e^itpOiro Friia Travra, and II. 8. 363 ; but II. v, 103, \<>kuv t via ttI- Xovreu, with Od. j3. 289, £. 266, and i. 212, are not analogous. "Htoc, a title of Apollo, Ft}iog ; ctju^i , vide lv\ Fyivottl -^oXk^, cr. 343, Od. k. 360 ; fr. evw, (j>ivw, and w^, quia occcecans oculos. 'Upiyevua, " the parent of the dawn ;" this adjective must signify actively, the accent being on the verbal part of the compound, and the substantive part being too far off to receive it. *Hp, Frjp, because tap, Feap — ^p in" the signification, " morning ," is undigammated. "Hpa, \aptVi Frjpa ; hence tmFripa (jiiptov. 'Hpi'ov, tumulus, Frfptov, vide II. ip. 126, fxzya F»i- /otov. "Hjorj, Juno, FHprj, (^uncertain,) vide irorvia Fripr), and Xpv€pw, analogous to 0wp. 9w//, II. v. 669, " a fine ,■" fr. 0£*w, aliquid impo- situm, Owprjl, vide yvaXov. 'IayJ?, FiaxHy and ic*x w > Fiax<*>> FiFax<*>> hence the variety in the quantity of the i, comp. II. S. 456, 506, p. 37, X. 463, with a. 482, , beginning with t, are digam- mated ; ISpis, FtSptc, 7roAuF($ptc, aFiSp«rj, &c. 2e 210 GLOSSARY. "lO/ia, Fifties, (uncertain,) vid. 7n\da. ^Iptg, Fcpig, vid. II. X. 27. r l(Tog, and '/a-oe, Fioog, vid. Sal/jiovi Fiaog. "IcrrjjuLL, novi, Furnfii, vid. II. . Ate, " a lion ;" according to Aristarchus Xic : Xte, " /if^fl ,*" fr. Xeioc. Atyojv, "a harbour," and Xi/nvr}, "a lake," (formed by the overflowing of the sea ;) fr. X/j3a>, p. pass., i. q. Ae£j3oj, from which came also Xu/jluv, " amarshy meadow? Aoiybg, "pestilence," fr. oXoiog, oXotFog, aXoiyog ; or fr. Xvyoog. Api/xbg, idem; fr. Xv\ix\, or XiXoifxai, p.p. ofXoiV 212 GLOSSARY. A6\oQi " an ambuscade " fr. \i\o\a ; hence Lat. locus. Aou). Nsjueaaa), (without a case,) " to feel a scruple, to stand in awe," &c, (with a dat.) " to envy" " to emu^ late" Nwpo, " inflexible ;" fr. vi'i-pinco, analogous to po- 7ra\ov } p(i)7rr)'iovt &C. SavOog, " yellow" " light brown " fr. l^avOrjv ; fr. £cuvw. SvXov, lit. "cut wood" fv.%vw. Dr. B. considers a7ro?vw, and cnroZwu), the same verb. BvXoxoq, "a thicket" a favourable place for an ambuscade ; fr. ?w, \6xoq. &(TTog, lit. " carved " fr. Ziuj. "Oapeg, " conjuges ;'* fr. aFtipiVjjungo, in II. e. 486, Bentley writes Fwpso-o-t, it was more probably bapsaai, vid. x- 128. "Oy Kog> "prominence" "elevation;" fr. cy/cco, i. q. Iviynb). 'OSa£, "tt^/s the teeth" fr. 6Sa£a>, oSafcw, Sa/cw, "OX/3oc, "wealth;" fr. 3Aw, vo/iw, " to roll," "to accumulate." T OiSa, FotSa, and otfyia, Fot^a, vid. II. 0. 234. v O»?£, oir'i'iov, FoiriZ, Foirjiov, according to Bentley, vid. II. r. 43; Od. i. 483, &c. T OtKct, Fo, as odafi, fr. Sclku). '0\o(f>vpofjiai, " to weep, to excite compassion;^ fr. oXottto), " to rend the hair ;" perhaps, also, fr. o\og, and vp(jj, lit. " to be confused, distracted." "OXuoa, a species of " rye," called in Italy olira. y O/daX6g, " umbilicus ;" fr. 6jude, (j>aXbg. ^OKvoeig, " made of 6£va," i. q. 7T£uk»] ; the mean- ings of these are analogous, both containing the idea of bitterness. "Og, "suus," Fog, fov, Fov ; Ntoropa diFov 7raiSog, &c. 'OuXajuoe, FovXafiog, " sl crowd ;" fr. ovXog, from itXccci. ^OvXoc, " crispus ;" fr. FfXw, FsiXho ; ovXoc, i. q. oXooc, FoXoFoc according to P. Knight, vid. II. /3. 8 ; (5cktk Wi ouXe oveipe. 'O/xow, "to swear " fr. o^uou, together. "OpKog, 1 . " aw oath r 2. " the thing sworn by ." opKiov, 1. " a treaty ;" 2. " £^£ victim, by the sacrifice of which it was ratified''' v Ovpov, " a distance," " a limited space," Fovoov. "0, owotz 'lkyitcll is correct, and that l^kviaa, oirore ocrjrat would be improper ; here the present also may be employed, provided only that it do not express an event now tak- ing place, (which would not be uncertain :) but one in- definite, and therefore, in some degree, or some part of it, depending on something yet unknown, as r<£ vvv cot fxlv eyit) c,eivog (friXog, "Ajoytt jueccw It /ml, cv cT Iv AvKiy, ore kev rwv drjiutov 'iKtojuai, i. e. "if ever 1 shall come there;" and as the subjunctive cannot be em- ployed to express past events, it appears that any- thing in these, which is indefinite, must be expressed by the optative, the proper vehicle of whatever, with- out any regard to time, exists as yet only in the mind ; hence iroWaKt juliv %hvi. 33,340; x . 156; w. 387; Od.rj. 230, &c. 'O^eXXw, " to increase, advance, promote ;" bfyiikw, " to owe," this verb is used in the second aor. to ex- press a wish, the accomplishment of which, something has already occurred to prevent, and thus differing from those which are expressed by ei, tide, and by wc, 218 GLOSS ARY. vug av, of which the former express a wish possible- but improbable ; the latter one both possible and pro- bable. niipivg, II. w. 267, " a hurdle? " a wicker case, laid on a frame supported by wheels ;" perhaps, fr. Triipoj, sc. quia virgce invicem se transeunt. Tlepovrj, lit. " the pin" or tongue of a buckle, while TTopTrri is " the ring" or frame in which the pin turns ; they are also supposed to signify different instruments altogether ; iripovr\, designating a clasp worn on the shoulder ; wop-im, on the breast. UepKvbg, II. a>. 816, generally supposed to mean "black /' perhaps the truer interpretation is "spot- ted" fr. TTEipw ; the propriety of this will be perceived from the Lat. "maculis distinctus" YloLKiXoCi " beautifully or skilfully made" applied to works of art ; fr. nodoj, kg\qq. IIots, " when ?" used also to lend force to an inter- rogation, as TiVrf, tl-ttote, hence Lat. meapte,nostrapte, &c. ; tandem is also used in the same interrogative sense, sc. quid tandem ? ri iron ; Ubn, original form of irpbg, occurs in composition, 7TOTld£pKOjUai, TTOTtflXiu), &C. Upoxoog, Od. 8. 52 ; " a wide, flat vessel, into which water was poured from one more high and narrow," " a ewer.' 9 Upd)r}v, lit. " the day before yesterday ;" qu. irpwUv, {r]fiipav-) nvO/mriv, " the base" " the lower part of anything ;" fr. fivQbg, i. q. fiadog. TlCog, " how" interrog. : wwg, " somehow" indef. In general, any particle admitting a double accentuation, possesses, when more strongly accented, a more em- phatic meaning, sc. 7rou, " where ?" nov, " somewhere ;" Tig, " who ?" Tig, " some one, &c. GLOSSARY. 219 IIgju, u a flock (of sheep ;") fr. ttwjj, i. qu. Tpifyw. 'PiyeSavoQ, lit. " withered from the cold ;" fr. piyog and Savbg. ( Podo$aicTv\oQ } an epithet of Aurora; lit. "rosy- fingered" " having the ends of the fingers stained a rose color ;" this practice of staining the fingers with senna is still common among the x\siatics, and forms a part of the same system of decoration with the painting of the eyes, for the antiquity of which see EsseMel, xxiii. 40. It is doubtful whether this epithet is to be considered to allude to the particular hue of the early dawn, or merely ornative, as those applied to Juno and Minerva ; though XzvK&Xevog and yXavKCJirtg have been also thought to contain allusions to physical phseno- mena. 'PvGiov, " booty" "plunder ;" lit. "the performance of a vow to the gods for deliverance from danger." Saicoe, (to,) "a shield;" fr. aeoxtKa, p. of craw, i. q. 3Za\7riy%, lit. " a conch-shell" " a trumpet." 2aujOwr?7p, " the handle-end of a spear" or, a socket in which it was inserted, when standing erect ; fr. crab), as (TTavpog, fr. oraon Erf^avrj, lit. " the coronal suture of the cranium;'" in Homer it signifies, 1. " the leaf of a helmet /' 2. " a helmet " 3. " the brow of a roch" ^Tpevyop.ai, " to endure a lingering death;" lit. " to waste away, drop by drop ;" fr. orpayS, qu. GTpayytvo- fXClL* Sopoc, i. q. awooQ, "an urn" (for the bones of the dead ;) fr. cra£w, sarcio, qu. caopbg* TaXavpivoQ, epithet of Mars; lit. "bearing a shield" raXaw, pivog. TaXavra, lit. " (the dishes of) a balance " Lat. lances. Taxa. It is remarked that ra\u is an adverb of 220 GLOSSARY. time, sign. " quickly" while ra\a is a conjunction. " perhaps " in Homer, however, it is always an adverb, except perhaps in II. X. 653. TeXog, lit. " the end." In Homer it conveys other different ideas, all, however, modifications of this, as, fjivOujv tAoc II. t. 56, " the object of our conference ;" (frvXaKwv reXog, k. 56, " the company" or " station of the guards ;" Oavarolo riXog, passim, " death" i. e. " res mortis, " the event," or circumstance of death" as x°P OLO riXog, " a dance" Sec. TiJ, " take" imp. of tyj/ui, for rri&i. Tifxrj, lit. " revenge" "satisfaction " fr. tiu>, punio, and 2. honor o. T6%ov, " a bow," the several parts of which are, the vevpa, strings; the Kopuvai, the ends, to which the string is attached ; and the Trrixyg, u the handle" the straight part in the centre between the two curves, In the plur. it signifies " the implements of archery," in general. TpiyXrivoQ, lit. highly polished ;" fr. rptg, valde, and yXrivri, fr. yXaw, " to sparkle ,*" hence yXrjvog^ splen- dor, and the old English, gleen, to shine, {gleam ;) hence, (C gleening armor." — Prior. Of the same signi- fication is TjOtyXfuxtv, fr. yXow, "to polish" hence, "gloss" Tp\g conveys the same idea in TptWiGTog, " earnestly desired." TpnrXy, (sub. rlfxy,) adv. " threefold" dat. sing, of Tp'nrXoog. TpvZu), (onomatopoeia,) f * to speak in a low, indistinct voice," " to murmur as a dove." TpvQaXua, i. q. rpHpaXua, " a helmet {with a large plume") TvtyXbg, " blind " fr. tvtttw and Xaag. f Y7rtti, the primitive form of vrrb. GLOSSARY. 221 "Ywarog, " the highest ,*" qu. viripTarog, or " the strongest ;" fir. vwb, i. e. the best suited to constitute a basis. 'Yirepfiiog, "haughty " always used in an unfa- vourable sense, as is also, f Y7T£p0iaXoc, qu. v7rep(pva\og, lit. " overgrown:" but, 'Yirtphvwp, as well as ayrivcop, are used in both good and bad senses. 'YTrepKydrietg, cont. r\g, and Dor. ag, whence vtt£qk.v- Savrag, " elated by, exulting in success" 'Y-n-epifov, (sub. otKrjjua,) " the upper chamber" im- mediately beneath the roof: the popular derivation is virlp and wov, which Juvenal had in view, when he described it as the place " tenues ubi reddunt ova pa- lumbes /' but it is merely an extension of virepog, as, 7raTp(jL>iog 9 irarpt^og, of Trarpbg. 'Y-n-TivfiTrig, " arrived at the age of puberty " fr. tJv»j, (obsol.) " the mouth" hence, ?5vtov, " the bit of a bridled &a\og, " the cone of a helmet" passing from the top of the helmet to the neck ; when, in addition to this, it came down in front, the helmet was called L(j)a\og ; into this the \6og was inserted — this should not be confounded with the (f>a\ripa, or studs, which secured the Xlj3c, " a vein" fr. o£oc, " conical" a conformation of the head sup- posed by the ancients to denote impudence. This adj. is properly applied to earthen vessels which were warped in the baking; fr. Qwyu) : the most probable etymology is 6£vg, with the asp. . XrjXoc, " a coffer ;" fr. x* w > analogous to x £ tXoc« Xipvririg, fern, of x^p^Cj (t poor " fr. the obsol. \ipi*>i whence Lat. careo. 222 DIALECTS. Xuptvg, " a labourer," hence, in general, " one in alow grade of society ;" in II. a. avdpt x^i:— this word is commonly mistaken for an adj. XYfpajj.bg, i( a cavern " fr. x£**>> X" w > \aivd). XXcuva, " an outer garment" " a cloak " q. x^ va * fr. \r)vog, Xavog, " wool," or, fr. yXiaivu), " to warm " fr. xaXaw, as heat acts by relaxation. XXovvrig, according to the old grammarians, " living alone " synon. with licTOfjiiag. Xoavog, lit. " a funnel" thence, " the cavity of a smelting furnace," " a mould of clay in which metals are cast," " a crucible." tyvxn, " the soul" anima } the vital principle ; as distinguished from (j>pr)v, mens, (" the intellectual prin- ciple," " the mind" lit. the prcscordia,) and dvfiog, animus t " the passions" *12X£, for avXa% } FwX?, II. v, 707, Kara FoAkcl. "Qpeo-crt, PwptGGi, II. £. 486. r Qc, ace. to Bentley, Fwc and Sfwg : it can receive the F only when it follows the word with which it is connected, as Xvkol Fwg, II. 8. 470; Oebg Fwe, &c. CHAPTER XV. DIALECTS. Of those different dialects of Greek, which were once supposed to appear blended in Homer, some account may not be uninteresting. The concurrent testimony of the ancients admits that frequent colonial migrations took place in the early DIALECTS. 223 ages of Greece. Many of the northern tribes, inhabi- tants of Hellas, migrated, under the conduct of princes of the family of Deucalion, from their former habitation into the southern regions. These tribes, using the dialect subsequently called iEolic, partly appropriated Bceotia, some proceeding farther, settled in Argolis and Laconia : these, however, when the Heraclidae returned to Peloponesus, dislodged thence, fled to that part of the Peninsula called Ionia, which the new inhabitants, from the name of their leader, thenceforth called Achaia, whereof the former inhabitants were nume- rously compelled to take refuge in Attica ; hence the confusion of the iEolic (spoken by the Achaeans) with the old Ionic, and of the Ionic with the arQig, will be accounted for. This affinity of the iEolic and Ionic dialects was still more confirmed by the proximity of the Asiatic settlements of these tribes. The Ionians (for they still retained the name, with the additional epithet of Attic, that of JEgialean distinguishing those Ionians who remained in Peloponesus) remained long in the most friendly intercourse with the aboriginal Attics, which explains the affinity of their language to the Attic, as well as to the iEolic. Shortly after the plantation of the Attic colonies in Asia (Ionia) a similar emigration took place of the Achaeans to the adjacent part of Asia, hence called iEolia. The Ionic dialect, not a little improved by the intimacy of their tribe with the Attics, attained eventually such a degree of refine- ment as altogether to supersede the iEolic. The Ionians having acquired this literary supremacy, held up a precedent in their dialect, to be accurately followed by all aspirants to the fame of successful authorship. Homer constituted the ideal of poetic excellence, and the imitation of him formed the general system of practice in the art. The Athenians at length, 224 DIALECTS. rising to a political superiority over the other tribes, cultivated their language to such perfection as to excel in purity, pathos, and all the artificial beauties of com- position, without, however, emulating the sweetness and smoothness of Ionic harmony, and to merge in the prevailing popularity of the new Attic all other forms ; as in the Tuscan, were lost, the various provincialisms of modern Italy. The languages of Greece then are the iEolic or Doric, and the Ionic or Attic. Of the Doric three varieties are enumerated, sc. those of Homer, Pindar, and 'Theocritus. Of the Ionic, three, that of Homer, Herodotus, and Hippocrates, with the cotemporary variations, enumerated by Herodotus : and of the Attic the four asras are those of Homer and the tragic writers, the historians, the orators, and the Atti- cists. The concourse of vowels borrowed from the iEolians, the Ionians adopted more freely. At the time when the augment was being added, and other modifications and improvements in process of adoption, Homer is supposed to have composed, and to the opportune state of the language at this time are perhaps to be attributed many of his beauties. To the softness both of climate and popular habits are to be referred the resolutions of the Ionic, as the commercial and every- day habits of the Athenians will account for their con- tractions. On the primitive, unsophisticated form of speech which Homer calls the language of the gods, of which some specimens are retained by him, vide supra. The particulars in which Pindar and Theocritus differ from Homer, and each other, are, that crasis and elision are more freely adopted by them : sc. 7repl suffers elision both out of and in composition ; aphseresis also, as a> 'yaOi, w 'XevOspe, w 'vcKraa, &c. ; their law of position is also less strict ; sc. Pindar suffers the correption of a vowel before 7A, 0A, Op, and V, TO\)\& IkXvC TTOTVICL p.l]T1)p. Of the form called ttoXltikoc, or Xoyoucrig, i. e. resembling prose in its intonation, II. X. 672, is adduced as a spe- cimen. The name fietovpog is applied to those verses which end in an Iambus, instead of a spondee, of which II. ju. 208, alo\ov 6. 462, rig ctinjertv, and mirovp'iv, 495. No genuine Greek word, except 2k and 6vx, ends in any consonant, but V, p, a, §, cannot begin a spondee. And 3. A short vowel, followed by an initial vowel, cannot begin cither a dactyl or spondee. 286 VERSIFICATION OF HOMER. These remarks naturally suggest others respecting syllabic quantity generally. In this, the most remark- able phenomenon is that noticed by Dawes, in the canon, sc. a long vowel or diphthong in the end of a word, when the next word begins with a vowel, is made short. The principle on which this abbreviation is effected, is a species of elision, which, from the two times of which the long vowel or diphthong consists, removes one ; leaving but a single time, i. e. a short syllable. This elision, or abbreviating influence, how- ever, is counteracted of course by the ictus, and also fails to act on any long syllable, formed by the coalition of a long final vowel, with a short one preceding, such as eio, (the s being mute;) these are invariably long; in violation of this principle, occur II. a. 15, and 374, Xpycritt) ava gk7]tttq^ ; y. 152, SevSpiq IcfrsZo p.zvoi, and A. 605, xTfxp^w ijiteio. Of these instances, the first may be reconciled to the law, by reading (jk{]ittq(^ ava yjpv- ai^ ; the second, by substituting StvSpto; and the third by emending to 'AxiAAa), r'nrre di at X9 e ^' ^ syllable formed by the coalition of two long vowels, or a diphthong not final is always long, or a crasis of a long vowel and diphthong, vide II. f. 349, rj ov\ &\ig, &c. A syllable consisting of a naturally short vowel, followed by 5, ?, \p, or tivo consonants, the first not a mute, and the second X or p, is long by position, whether they be in the same syllable or not ; in some cases this position is violated, as II. /3. 465, irpo\iovTo ^Kafxav^ptov, 63b, oi re ZaKwQov, and 824, ot Ss ZiXnav; but only because the proper names could not otherwise be introduced. A syllable formed of a short vowel, followed by any mute and p, or by an aspirate or lenis mute, and\, is of doubt- ful quantity, as the vowel and following consonants are pronounced or not, in the same syllable ; vide II. a. 13, 109, 609 ; 0. 323; <. 382 ; Od. k. 234, &c. VERSIFICATION OF HOMER. 237 On this subject, Mr. Knight says, " in no poetry, at any time, could a syllable be really made short before two consonants : — the penultima t, in such words as ' AiyvnTioi, lariaia, should be sounded as a soft breath- ing like the Y in our own language, as yet, yes, &c. sc. kiyvn-r-yoi, &c. ; — nor in Homeric versification can a syllable be considered short, in which two liquids, a mute and liquid, a consonant breathing or liquid, or any other similar combination of letters followed by a vowel, except A or p following a consonant. Such in- stancs as Tvorap.oio SfcajuavSjOOu, cigtv ZeXeirjg, vXrjecrcra ZaKwOog, are not violations of this principle ; for the ancient ^Eolians and Ionians wrote Kap.avdpoc, AsXeia, AaicvvOog, &c, as we see on the coins of Zancle and Naxos, AcivkXyi and Nax«L>v." The Attics and Alexandrines used to shorten a syllable before any liquid subjoined to any of the lenes or aspirate mutes ; this practice is observed in the Batrachomyomachia, which, together with the causes already adduced, tells strongly against its claims to any other than an Attic origin. The ancient poets used to elide a long vowel or diphthong before a short initial vowel ; the usage of the Attics was different, with them the long syllable formed crasis with the other ; this was the consequence of the Attics employing a more oxyton pronunciation ; hence, also, the difference of syllabic quantity in the words t'Acwe, vtwg, &c. ; the pronunciation of the Latins was, after the ancient ex- ample, baryton, admitting no accent on the last syllable of any word, except where it was necessary to dis- tinguish two words similarly spelt. Crasis does not occur in Homer, except between the article or pro- noun, and an initial short vowel following : Kaya, irpov- TTB/iipt, wpovrvipE, &c, should be written separately kol zyw, &c, for, had the first syllables of such words been %38 VERSIFICATION OF HOMER. made long by crasis, they would stand, in some in- stances, as the initial syllables of lines. Words as yet, were merely in juxta-position, not in actual conjunc- tion, on which principle, in compound verbs, the aug- ment is never prefixed to the preposition, but always comes between it and the verb. Among the Attic poets, not including the comedians, the aspirate or dense breathing, F-, exercised no prosodiac power what- ever ; but in Homer, Heliodorus attributes to it the power of producing, which, in order to prevent the indiscriminate occurrence of hiatus, (which could occur only in caesura,) must be conceded. In Pindar also, it must have had the same power, for hiatus occurs only in these places where h or F, in the old dialect, fol- lowed a vowel. Respecting the metrical power of the other breath- ing H, nothing can be now ascertained, as it had been obsolete before the time of the Alexandrines, except in some obscure towns of Italy, Crete, and Peloponesus, which, in their search after vestiges of the original language, they injudiciously disregarded. Priscian, however, attributes to it the same power as to the aspi- rate : he states, that the iEolians used to employ the digamma as a simple consonant, sc. 6i6/j.evog FeXevav ; the Latins made a similar use of its equivalent V, sc. at Venus; they also used it as a double consonant, sc. Ntcrrojoa Se Fov 7rmdbg, while the Latins attributed the same power to V, in the perfect and pluperfect tenses of the fourth conjugation, sc. cupli, cuplvi, &c. : they sometimes considered it of no effect, as afi^Q 8' Fetpa- vav ; by the Latins, too, its presence was similarly overlooked, sc. "sine i?ividia" Ter., where the four first syllables must be scanned as a tribrach : it also supplied the place of the aspirate on some occasions. It appears from the statement of Priscian, (Gram. VERSIFICATION OF HOMER. 239 A.D. 600,) that the ^Eolic poets elided e before F, from Se, t£, ye, &c, but in Homer, it is of so rare occurrence, and in all passages not interpolated, the irregularity is so easily emended, that the reality of the practice is questionable. On the same authority it has been transmitted that the ^Eolians also used F for h in the personal pronoun, 3rd sing.; and in Homer a short vowel is always sustained before its dat. sing., whence Bentley and Heyne have written Fot ; that only one case should have had this peculiarity of pronunciation is so incre- dible, that it must be extended to the others also : although this orthography may possibly have been resorted to merely to distinguish it from the nom. plur. From the Heraclean table it appears that the digamma may be suppressed in compound words, as itydifxog, from Fig, Fii ; as k and A were removed from apapKejg and \eifiu) ; but when a consonant, liquid or breathing, was removed, the following syllable was made long, as tjwq, from haFoc ; ?\vg, from hzvq ; rieXiog, from aFaXiog ; rj/uii, from £j was at first written n'//3rj. When 240 VERSIFICATION OF HOMER. two aspirates or liquids come together, or one or other of these is joined to a mute, the syllable will be long. The practice of the Attic poets in this particular was to consider a vowel short before ajx, kv, ttv, and r/x, but in these combinations, the first letter received scarcely any pronunciation : in Homer, on the contrary, a vowel before these is always long ; though he admits of the junction of X or p to a mute, without any ex- tension of the preceding vowel. We find te/ulvei in one instance, II. v. 707. We also read avSpoY^ra and ^eyvafupEv, where we may, without violence, read a$po- Trira, iyafxipev, or iicafupEv, particularly when the adj. adpbg, " adult," offers itself as a very probable etymo- logy for aSporriQ. A short vowel preceding a and a mute, is long in Greek, though generally short in Latin ; we read, however, ttoXvgtcl^vXov 6 1 'Iormictv, but this being a proper name, is not amenable to any law, and Hermann supposes the extrusion of a letter, as laXbg and tvttclvov have been written for Iv&Xbg and TVfxiravov. We also find a syllable short before GKEirapvov, Od. t. 237, which may be similarly accounted for. With respect to the metrical power of the digamma, it may be remarked, in addition to previous observa- tions, that the digamma was the characteristic letter of the oblique cases of masculine and neuter words ter- minating in og and vg, feminines in id, tog, or vg, a and r\, though it is required in the genitive plural by metre only ; analogy, however, requires its presence alike in all ; sc that oFo was the gen. sing, of 2nd decl., ov having been probably oF, for v could not have been in- troduced by any etymology, though it frequently re- placed the F ; thus, the gen. of Uirsog is TIeteujo, which must have been UeteoFo : the long quantities also in 'iXTou and avtiplov, which occur each but once, were originally FtAioFo and avEiptofo', it also effected the VERSIFICATION OF HOMER. 241 productions of such quantities as \epuijv, xepzfuv, from \ffpeFc ; and that of the v, in kh. 318, fr. iXvfog. Dawes, not supposing the aspirate sufficient to sustain the metre, would prefix F to the possessive and relative pronouns ; but the power of both breathings was the same. In a line of Alcman, the pronoun 6v begins with h ; but, in Homer, the same word is written kov, toio, and siqog, occasionally contracted to ov ; hence it appears that the word was KcFoc, the regular adjective of ho, which was variously declined FeFaFog, or KFeFo and zFoio, contracted to kFoF, written at present kov, and by an elision of €, bv. The authors of the Ven. Sch. explain kriog to be the gen. of zvg, bonus, the gen. plur. of which is latov or heaFwv. Though the ancient gram- marians have laid down rules for regulating the posi- tion of h, yet it does not appear to have been directed by any. The aspirate, both vowel and consonant, as well as F, were frequently elided, as, . y. 152,) precede an initial vowel, and this was the only hiatus admitted by the Latin poets. On this subject Dawes' canon is, " a long final vowel or diphthong, preceding an initial vowel, is short," (except sustained by ictus.) This effect is accounted for above by supposing a species of elision not sufficiently decisive to remove the final vowel, but only sinking its quantity : these, however, sometimes retain their long quantity even in thesis, when the hiatus occurs between two feet, and is therefore almost imperceptible, as n lv, qc kcikojq ; this occurs most fre- quently in the fourth thesis, as II. |3. 231, S. 410. The diphthong m is never thus situated, except when sepa- rated by punctuation from the following word, as KuvQaiy a AX', II. e. 685, in which case also the hiatus is unobtrusive ; nor is a hiatus after a short vowel offensive if that vowel be i of the dat. sing, ord decl., or v ; or if they are separated by punctuation; between the first and second feet ; in trochaic caesura of the third; or, in medio versu, as remarked by Hermann. It is conjectured that other hiatus after short vowels, in which cases they are vitiosi, should be removed by the insertion of F or particles : by the former the greater number of instances in Homer may be removed, and such as these two cannot amend must be accounted for by the hypothesis, that it was considered by transcribers an Epic peculiarity, and the neglect of metrical accu- racy. To the later Epic poets, to whom F was un- known, the Iliad and Odyssey, with their hiatus, presented &n exemplar vitiis imitabile. Hiatus appears 244 VERSIFICATION OF HOMER. with peculiar frequency in Herodotus, from the omission of the ephelcustic v, though the softness of the Ionic pronunciation might, at first view, appear abhorrent from the irregularity. In Hesiod, it is remarkable that no cases occur which may not be satisfactorily ex- plained by an ignorance or omission of F. A wide difference of practice, in this particular, among the Lyric and dramatic writers is not naturally a matter of wonder. Three modes of emendation have been proposed, by which the hiatus vitiosus (a short final vowel unelided) may be avoided ; elision, the theory of particles, and the theory of pronouns ; as to the first, vowels accented or not are subject to elision ; as to its application, it is the opinion of Hermann, Bekker, Spitzner,andThiersch, that, in consequence of the impossibility of making its effect a general remedy, elision should not be considered admissible into the text of Homer, even before a con- sonant, wherever the same effect can be produced by the substitution of other forms, as m for sl in the aor. opt. termination, efiev for kjuei*, &c. The diphthong at, in verbal terminations is removeable by elision, where frequently, as all other cases of elision, it may be allowed to stand, and be merged in synizesis. The elision of at in a nom. case b^u{m), II. X. 272, is an airat liprjjidvov, w T hich may be avoided in the same way, and is by Bentley altered to 6%u odvvr). The elision of a also occurs in a solitary instance vtst km$, II. or. 458, for which synizesis may likewise be substituted ; that of oi occurs in pot and toi. The removal of a is un- limited, unfrequent, however, in the verbal termination era, and never occurring in ava, either verb or substan- tive. The elision oft is equally indiscriminate; but t$z, the final ?c and the opt. tie are exceptions. The elision of i occurs in the dat plur. oc&t and ym : Thiersch, VERSIFICATION OF HOMER. 24:5 however, would prefer these forms, in all instances, to oig and yg ; in the dat. sing. 3rd decl. except after a vowel, and only in about six instances ; and in dat. plur. of the same, in o-$i, and in verbal terminations seldom ; in adverbs of place also, aXXodi, avroOi, &c, except when they come from substantives, on never suffers elision, or standing for ore. O is cut away from tovto, dvo, airb, and the verbal terminations aro, ero, ovro, oiaro ; but to, ttqo, the Ion. gen. olo, the pronouns l/uuo, that /usya is employed when its final syllabi ^46 VERSIFICATION OF HOMER. in apcriQ ; when in dicng, peyaW By applying the same system of emendation to those instances, where an amphibrach has been supposed to stand legitimately, viz. II. a. 193, K . 407, X. 411, o. 539, 0. 602; Od. S. 90, 120, g. 365, 424, i,. 280, i. 233, v. 315, o. 109, and r. 367; in the first seven, together with the ninth, tenth, and eleventh of which instances, the line begins with Eujg 6, which reading has been legitimized both in the manner above stated, and by lengthening the 6 in thesis, leaving the 'iojg a monosyllable as it is ; in these ten lines, then, by reading ewq 6 je, both these distortions may be dispensed with ; in the six other examples, the received readings are ewg tyw, ewq £7rr)X- OoV, E(jjg £7Tf?X#£, EU)Q ZVl, ELOQ 'tKOlTO, and E(OQ 'ikoio. where by reading eiog ap kyw, &c, the regularity of the prosody can be restored. On the same principle an anapaest is avoided in Od. o. 83, by reading avrojg ap\ Other similar defects may be remedied by substituting for the common readings priviv airo p enrwv, II. r. 35, curb p* Epay, and airo p* EpcrEiE, ([>. 233, and 329 ; 0iXe p' EKVpl, y. 172; ovtl pa, rj. 142 ; and ap' to^ov, o. 478. Corrections of the same nature may be effected in II. a. 156, j3. 264, £. 487, £. 62, 81, i. 403, 409, 440, k. 557, X. 36, 444, p. 144; Od. i. 276, 392, k. 464, p. 109, v. 213, &c. On the contrary, many metrical anomalies are pro- duced by the unjustifiable insertion of i'Ss, of which Mr. Knight questions the right to stand any where in Homer, it being always possible to replace it with ad- vantage by other conjunctions. The third theory, that of pronouns, suggests the removal of hiatus by reading eov, eoI, and ££, for 60, 67, e ; the instances of the operation of this theory, are of numerous and continual occurrence. With this sub- ject is connected the doctrine of the pavagogic v, this VERSIFICATION OF HOMER. 247 Thiersch considers to be superfluous, and, therefore, inadmissible in cases where it neither affects the pro- duction of a syllable, (where the syllable is already long,) nor obviates hiatus, as Wtjksv troXXag, kbv Zclko- tov ; to fill a hiatus, then, according to him, appears to be its most probable use. After syllables long by cae- sura, it is not considered by Wolf to be admissible ; there are, however, a few cases so situated, and in Begiq, several, where the rejection of the v would pro- duce a cacophony, as avzyuypnazv d>Yj°°C> H. y« 35 ; kvpzv §' IvpvuTra, a. 498. Of the paragogic y, Heyne suggests three uses : first, to avoid hiatus in the middle of a verse ; second, to produce a species of awa(pEia, being placed at the end of a line when the next begins with a vowel ; and third, to elongate a short syllable ending in £ or i. Crasis. — The instances of crasis in Homer, are aa into a ', oa into w ; oe and oo into ov ; at av into av, at c into a ; and ov s into ov. Apliceresls. — Wolf has excluded from Homer. Apocope. — The prepositions irapa, ava, Kara, vtto, ivi, ttqoti, and apa, are affected by apocope, (taking it for granted that the final vowels have not been added to the original forms ;) ava, before liquids and tt, ]3, , loses the two last letters, as aWi^ai, a/m/M^at, &c. Kara before a consonant, changes r into that consonant, and before two consonants, loses it altogether, vtto is similarly affected in the form vfifiaXXeiv. Synizesis. — Genitives in aog always remain open ; datives in at remain open or not, as the metre re- quires, as do also genitives in vog\ datives in vi too, and genitives in tog, are not affected by synizesis. Those vowels from between which the digamma dis- appeared, always remain open, as wi^e, tinrriv, aiSpig, avT^Li), &c. The adverb tv, before two consonants, is 24-S VERSIFICATION OF HOMEU. always divided, except irp, as ivirpvpvog, tW/orjcrroc ; occasionally before a mute and liquid, or a single con- sonant, but before a vowel synizesis always takes place. In compounding Greek words. — Nouns are joined with each other, with prepositions, with adverbs, and (which requires a fuller and more particular statement) with verbs. A word, with reference to composition, is called either airXovv, crvvdeTov, or irapaavvOeTov, as it is either simple, compound, or a derivative from a com- pound. Composition is of two kinds, crvvQeaig, and irapaOe- and (5i\og, though distinct in meaning, are so con- founded by Sophocles, (Ajax, 658, 834,) as to be indis- criminately applied to the same idea. NOTES (1) The Parian, Arundel, or Oxonian Marbles, as they are variously called, having been found in Paros, where they had been engraved, were removed thence by a Jew, in the em- ployment of the celebrated antiquary Pieresc, and having been seized (including the Jew) by the Turks, and purchased from them by Mr. Petty, the agent of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, and Duke of Norfolk, they were brought to England A. D. 1627. They contained the history and chronology of Athens during 1318 years, from the aera of Cecrops, 1582, B. C, to the Archonship of Diognetus, 264, B. C. ; but some of the stones having been removed to repair a chimney ! they at present extend only to the Archonship of Diotimus, 354, B. C. ; they were composed, according to Sir I. Newton's Chro- nology, about sixty years after the death of Alexander the Great. The dates are not given in Olympiads, but are merely counted back from the time then present. The history was continued by Timaeus Siculus, and after him, by Polybius. (2) Papyrus, a species of mulberry, which it closely re- sembles in appearance, and under the family of which (Morus) it is classed by Linnaeus, still furnishes the materials from which the Chinese and Japanese manufacture paper ; it also supplies some articles of clothing to the South Sea Islanders. The account of the illiberal jealousy of Ptolemy, which created a necessity for the manufacture of parchment (pergamena) in Pergamus, by which material it was eventually superseded, i?- too generally known to need repetition. 254 NOTES. (3) The Cyprian verses have most probably acquired this name from the place of their first known recitation. In addition to the reason adduced by Herodotus, (vide supra, p. 47,) for doubting their authenticity, Mr. P. Knight grounds his dis- belief of their genuineness on the termination ot § e hi r^oty, of one of the opening lines, the last word being always a tri- syllable, TgopiYi, in Homer. (4) The word Nile signifies in the language of the Indians of the East, " black/' or " dark blue" its present name thus expressing the idea contained in the ancient " Melas." The circumstance asserted by travellers, that the Niger and Nile are identified by the Arabs, presents a curious analogy to the identity of the latter with the Greek name. (5) The story of the golden fleece, forms part of a legend (that of the Argonautic expedition,) to which, except in the word Hellespont, Homer makes no allusion. The name is commonly understood to allude to the figure-head of the vessel, having been the head of a ram. That under the allegorical name of the fleece, is presented the idea of a large amount of treasure is believed ; but the particular and proper allusion, conveyed in the term, is to the practice among the ancients, of intercept- ing the golden sands of their rivers, by laying fleeces of wool across the streams. (6) The unsettled state of political (national) rights, in the Heroic age, rendered the occupation and immediate fortifica- tion of a small and favourably circumstanced site, (the acropo- lis,) the first necessary step towards the establishment of a town. If the occupants maintained their position, the next measure was the extension of the state by the union and ac- cession of the inhabitants of the surrounding district, and these two distinct and combined establishments, received a name in the plural, as Athence, Thebce, Syracuse?, &c, while plural names in the masculine gender were generally borrowed from that of the inhabitants, as Argi, Delphi, &c. (7) The names hotfao-a and 'WSoris, applied to these copies, are considered by Mr. P. Knight to imply a refutation of Mr. Wolfs doctrine, which would rather require them to be called NOTES. 253 (8) Homer appears to have been acquainted with but few external decorations in architecture, least of all with such as are the result of scientific arrangement, and symmetry of parts. When intending to express the most refined magnificence, he merely speaks of the polish of the stonework, and internal splendour, as in the description of the palace of Alcinous. The use of colossal human figures as columns, most probably took its rise in jEgypt. Those of the Memnonium at Thebes, and the Temple of Apis at Memphis, (erected about 600, B. C.,) are male figures, those in the latter edifice being about eighteen feet high. In Greece there were but two specimens of this species of architecture ; the Persian portico at Sparta was supported by male figures in Asiatic costume ; this was destroyed at an early date by an earthquake, common in that country. The others, those supporting the portico of the Pandroseum at Athens, are generally supposed to commemo- rate the captivity of the Caryatides, whose story is told by Vitruvius; but the application to them of the name xogoti, which properly belonged only to native Athenians, appears inconsis- tent with this belief; they may, perhaps, with more probability, be supposed to represent a procession of canephorce. The 0oAo? mentioned by Homer, Od. %. 456, was supported by a single column in the centre : the nearest approach made by the ancients, before 01. 112, to the construction of a scientific arch, was that of horizontal courses of stones, projecting gra- dually till they met, like the Cyclopian arch in the old walls of Arpinum. (9) It has been observed that the story to which this pas- sage appears to relate, is not alluded to in the genuine parts of the Homeric poems. The favourite theory on this subject would consider the Cretan labyrinth an imitation of an ^Egyp- tian design of the same nature, which Herodotus distinctly asserts to have been the work of the twelve kings, i. e. about 600 or 700 years after any possible date of the Cretan : this difficulty may be considerably diminished by observing, that long before the sera of Daedalus, statues and other works of art were called Da^dalean, (Pan*. Boeot. c. 3), that the name 256 NOTES. dxQuXos may therefore signify merely " an artist ;" and that Homer does not speak of a labyrinth at all. (10) The most frequent designation of this territory by Homer, is Argos, (/Varo^orov, or 7r&Xctvyi>tov.) The question of the precise extent of Agamemnon's kingdom, has afforded material for much discussion. Heyne conjectures, that by it is intended the whole Peloponesus ; it has been also conjec- tured, that the term vtjcroi was employed to signify the " cities" of that district. (11) This sublime allegory of human arrogance, and re- tributive humiliation, has been variously interpreted and ac- counted for : the principal incident in the fable is, by some mythologists, supposed to have been suggested by the punish- ment of Lot's wife. By those who enumerate twelve children of Niobe, she is conjectured to be an allegory of the year, mourning over the irremeable flight of time. Pausanias de- scribes the mountain Sipylus, mentioned by Homer, as pre- senting, at a distance, the figure of a colossal female statue, in an attitude of sorrow, which resemblance, as it is approached, becomes less distinct, until it is, at last, altogether impercep- tible. (12) The Telchines, whose name seems to be derived fr. &i\ya, qu. hXyTvig, are spoken of by Sir I. Newton, to the fol- lowing effect ; that the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus brought into Greece the knowledge of many strange arts and sciences ; that the Curetes, a class or family of Phoenicians, particularly eminent in this particular, emigrated to different countries, where they received different names, being in Phry- gia called Corybantes ; in Crete, Idsei Dactyli ; in Rhodes, Telchines; in Samothrace, Cabiri; in Euboea, their settle- ment was called Calchis, from their skill in working copper, iron being then unknown ; in Lemnos they were believed to be the assistants of Vulcan ; by their geological knowledge, Cadmus discovered the gold mines in Pangseus, and those of copper at Thebes, where copper ore is still called Cadmeia. When they made armour of iron, they also invented a species of dance, accompanied with various noises, from which Solinus conceives the first idea of music to have been taken. NOTES. 257 (13) This allegory denotes the inseparable union of elo- quence and harmony. So persuaded were the ancients of the necessity for the combination of harmonious intonation and eloquence of diction, that Aristotle and Cicero have even laid down laws, prescribing the particular quantities of the final syllables of a perfectly formed period. (14) The alphabet of Cadmus wanted £, y h 6. |, y, 4^ and a>, consisting thus of only fifteen letters ; the first addition to this number consisted of v, £, y, 6, introduced like the others from the East ; to these were added, at an early date,