[84] Fabric., Bibliot. græc., p. 4, 22, 26, 30, etc.; Voyag. d’Anach., ch. 80.
[85] From the Greek word κύκλος: as one would say circuit, the circular envelopment of a thing.
[86] Court de Gébelin, Gén. allég., p. 119.
[87] Casaubon, In Athen., p. 301; Fabric., Bibl. græc. l. i., c. 17; Voyag. d’Anach., ch. 80; Proclus, cité par Court de Gébelin, ibid.
[88] Arist., De Poët., c. 8, 16, 25, etc.
[89] It is needless for me to observe that the birthplace of Homer has been the object of a host of discussions as much among the ancients as among the moderns. My plan here is not to put down again (en problème), nor to examine anew the things which have been a hundred times discussed and that I have sufficiently examined. I have chosen, from the midst of all the divergent opinions born of these discussions, that which has appeared to me the most probable, which agrees best with known facts, and which is connected better with the analytical thread of my ideas. I advise my readers to do the same. It is neither the birthplace of Homer nor the name of his parents that is the important matter: it is his genius that must be fathomed. Those who would, however, satisfy their curiosity regarding these subjects foreign to my researches, will find in La Bibliothèque grecque de Fabricius, and in the book by Léon Allatius entitled De Patriâ Homeri, enough material for all the systems they may wish to build. They will find there twenty-six different locations wherein they can, at their pleasure, place the cradle of the poet. The seven most famous places indicated in a Greek verse by Aulus Gellius are, Smyrna, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, and Athens. The nineteen indicated by divers authors, are Pylos, Chios, Cyprus, Clazomenæ, Babylon, Cumæ, Egypt, Italy, Crete, Ithaca, Mycenæ, Phrygia, Mæonia, Lucania, Lydia, Syria, Thessaly, and finally Troy, and even Rome.
However, the tradition which I have followed, in considering Homer as born not far from Smyrna, upon the borders of the river Meles, is not only the most probable but the most generally followed; it has in its favour Pindar; the first anonymous Life of Homer; the Life of this poet by Proclus; Cicero, in his oration for Archias; Eustathius in his Prolégoménes sur l’Iliade; Aristotle, Poétique, l. iii.; Aulus Gellius, Martial, and Suidas. It is known that Smyrna, jealous of consecrating the glory that it attributed to itself, of having given birth to Homer, erected to this great genius a temple with quadrangular portico, and showed for a long time, near the source of the Meles, a grotto, where a contemporaneous tradition supposes that he had composed his first works. Voyez La Vie d’Homère, par Delille-de-Sales, p. 49, et les ouvrages qu’il cite: Voyage de Chandeler, t. i., p. 162, et Voyages pittoresques de Choiseul-Gouffier, p. 200.
[90] Hérod., l. v., 42; Thucyd., l. i., 12.
[91] Marbres de Paros, Epoq. 28; Hérod., l. i., 142, 145, 149; Plat., De Leg., l. v.; Strab., l. xiv.; Pausan., l. vii., 2; Ælian., Var. Histor., l. viii., c. 5; Sainte-Croix, De l’état des Colon, des anc. Peuples, p. 65; Bourgainville, Dissert. sur les Métrop. et les Colon., p. 18; Spanheim, Præst., num. p. 580.
[92] Bible, Chron. ii., ch. 12 (et suiv.)