FOOTNOTES:
[356] In Od. IV 17 ff. two acrobats give a performance while Menelaos' minstrel is singing, and in VIII 261 ff. Demodocos' song on the love of Ares and Aphrodite is both accompanied and followed by dancing. More usually however the minstrel's song and music is the only form of entertainment.
ἐκ γὰρ Μουσάων καὶ ἑκηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος
ἄνδρες ἀοιδοὶ ἔασιν ἐπὶ χθόνα καὶ κιθαρισταί·
ἐκ δὲ Διὸς βασιλῆες· ὁ δ' ὄλβιος ὅντινα Μοῦσαι
φίλωνται· γλυκερή οἱ ἀπὸ στόματος ῥέει αὐδή.
[358] Cf. Breal, Pour mieux connaître Homer, p. 24: "Attribuer à la poesie populaire une composition en vingt-quatre chants, quelle folie!" But one must bear in mind the length sometimes attained by Bosnian poems (cf. p. [101]). I may remark here that this work—like many others dealing with the Homeric poems—frequently uses arguments which would not have been put forward if attention had been paid to the heroic poetry of other European peoples.
[359] Cf. especially a letter from Daniel, bishop of Winchester, to St Boniface, written about the year 720 (Jaffé, Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum, III 71 ff.).
[360] The suppression of the poet's personality is not a mark of heroic poetry as such, but of epic or narrative heroic poetry.
[361] Unfortunately there seems to be hardly any material which might enable us to estimate the popularity of heroic names in Greece in early times (cf. pp. [42] ff., [64] ff.). Note however may be taken of the existence of a prince named Hector in Chios, perhaps shortly after the time of Agamemnon of Cyme.
[362] Athenaeus (281 b, 395 d) mentions a poem called Κάθοδος Ἀτρειδῶν, of which nothing seems to be known elsewhere. As it contained at least three books it can hardly have formed part of the Nostoi.
[363] Cf. Aristotle, Poet., XXIII 4, where it is stated that the Iliad and Odyssey provide material for only one or two tragedies each, the Cypria for many and the Little Iliad for eight.
[364] The 'purification' of the house of Odysseus (Od. XXII 437 ff.) is of an essentially different character: cf. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 24 f.
[365] This incident may also be compared with a passage in the Iliad (IX 453 ff.). Phoinix' speech (perhaps designedly) shows a nearer approximation to this type of religion (cf. also v. 568 ff.) than any other part of the Homeric poems.
[366] The version of the sacrifice given in the Cypria (cf. p. [235]) is probably to be regarded as later than the other, although it occurred in what was doubtless a much earlier poem.
[367] Cf. Pindar, Pyth. XI 32; Stesichoros (Bergk), fragm. 39.
[368] The Spartans possessed a tomb of Agamemnon at Amyclai (cf. Pausanias, III 19. 6). Indeed, from Herodotus, VII 159, it would seem that they claimed him as one of their own kings as far back as the time of Xerxes. It has been suggested that a similar version of the story is implied in Od. IV 514 f.; but the inference is doubtful. Aigisthos rules Mycenae (after Agamemnon's death in III 305.)
εἰ γάρ τις καὶ πένθος ἔχων νεοκηδέϊ θυμῷ
ἄζηται κραδίην ἀκαχήμενος, αὐτὰρ αοιδὸς
Μουσάων θεράπων κλέεα προτέρων ἀνθρώπων
ὑμνήσῃ μάκαράς τε θεοὺς οἱ Ὄλυμπον ἔχουσιν, κ.τ.λ.