Historia silet! History is mute. We only know that from an uncertain period there were quinquennial recitations of "Homer," and Homer alone, at Athens, and that "Homer" was used in education. Beyond that all is "guesses of scholars." These guesses vary according to the taste and fancy of the learned.
In this conclusion every one who is accustomed to historical criticism will agree with Mr. Monro. Nothing can be made out of late and contradictory statements; nothing beyond the fact that "Homer" (whatever may be meant by "Homer") was quinquennially recited, under regulations, at Athens, and entered into public education.
Mr. A. W. Verrall, however, says: "In general, the very last thing that we get from disputants on either side is an exact construction and estimation of what, truly or falsely, is recorded about the history of Homer." Mr. Verrall writes thus in a Quarterly review of Mr. Murray's Rise of the Greek Epic, and of my Homer and his Age.
The questions as to what is "recorded" about "the history of Homer," I had treated in my Homer and the Epic (pp. 35, 38, 67-70), examining the evidence, such as it is, and the opinions of Wolf, Ritschl, and others; and siding with Mr. Monro (I may add, with Blass, Meyer, Nutzhorn, Mr. T. W. Allen, and many others). In Homer and his Age (pp. 46-50), I again went over the old ground, in reference to Mr. Leaf's changes of opinion.
Mr. Verrall writes:[10] "The texts, as we have said, are not treated fairly." Now really the texts are treated as the historian treats all texts that come into his province. The dates of the alleged events are set beside the dates of the texts concerning them; the texts are remote, contradictory, and unevidential; the best historians, and the historian who most carefully examined the popular traditions concerning Pisistratus and his sons, namely, Thucydides, say nothing about the alleged events.
Mr. Verrall also writes: "The record, such as it is, is hardly ever correctly represented. The most punctilious of scholars (Grote, for example) are in this matter not to be trusted."[11]
These are severe reproaches! Mr. Monro is not mentioned: are any of his remarks unfair and untrust-worthy?
Mr. Verrall says: "We cannot but think that the ancient record about the origin of Homer suffers unfairly from certain prepossessions which all would disclaim, but which are more easily disclaimed than abandoned."
For me, I frankly confess my own prepossessions, but consciousness of his bias is the safeguard of the historian; it compels him to make certain that he adds nothing to and takes nothing from what Mr. Verrall calls "the ancient record," and I call "the various ancient legends." Mr. Verrall insists that "internal evidence about the history of a book, if not controlled by record, is liable to infinitely elastic interpretation." Certainly, but there is no possibility of "control by record" in the case of the history of the Homeric poems.