The Hymns to Aphroditê, Apollo, Hermês, Dêmêtêr, and Dionysus, are genuine epical narratives. Hermann (Præf. ad Hymn. p. lxxxix.) pronounces the Hymn to Aphroditê to be the oldest and most genuine: portions of the Hymn to Apollo (Herm. p. xx.) are also very old, but both that hymn and the others are largely interpolated. His opinion respecting these interpolations, however, is disputed by Franke (Præfat. ad Hymn. Homeric. p. ix-xix.); and the distinction between what is genuine and what is spurious, depends upon criteria not very distinctly assignable. Compare Ulrici, Gesch. der Ep. Poes. pp. 385-391.
[243] Phemius, Demodokus, and the nameless bard who guarded the fidelity of Klytæmnêstra, bear out this position (Odyss. i. 155; iii. 267; viii. 490; xxi. 330; Achilles in Iliad, ix. 190).
A degree of inviolability seems attached to the person of the bard as well as to that of the herald (Odyss. xxii. 355-357).
[244] Spartian. Vit. Hadrian. p. 8; Dio Cass. lxix. 4: Plut. Tim. c. 36.
There are some good observations on this point in Näke’s comments on Chœrilus, ch. viii. p. 59:—
“Habet hoc epica poesis, vera illa, cujus perfectissimam normam agnoscimus Homericam—habet hoc proprium, ut non in possessione virorum eruditorum, sed quasi viva sit et coram populo recitanda: ut cum populo crescat, et si populus Deorum et antiquorum heroum facinora, quod præcipium est epicæ poeseos argumentum, audire et secum repetere dedidicerit, obmutescat. Id vero tum factum est in Græciâ, quum populus eâ ætate, quam pueritiam dicere possis, peractâ, partim ad res serias tristesque, politicas maxime—easque multo, quam antea, impeditiores—abstrahebatur: partim epicæ poeseos pertæsus, ex aliis poeseos generibus, quæ tum nascebantur, novum et diversum oblectamenti genus primo præsagire, sibi, deinde haurire, cœpit.”
Näke remarks, too, that the “splendidissima et propria Homericæ poeseos ætas, ea quæ sponte quasi suâ inter populum et quasi cum populo viveret,” did not reach below Peisistratus. It did not, I think, reach even so low as that period.
[245] Xenoph. Memorab. iv. 2, 10; and Sympos. iii. 6. Οἶσθά τι οὖν ἔθνος ἠλιθιώτερον ῥαψῴδων; ... Δῆλον γὰρ ὅτι τὰς ὑπονοίας οὐκ ἐπίστανται. Σὺ δὲ Στησιμβρότῳ τε καὶ Ἀναξιμάνδρῳ καὶ ἄλλοις πολλοῖς πολὺ δέδωκας ἀργύριον, ὥστε οὐδέν σε τῶν πολλοῦ ἀξίων λέληθε.
These ὑπονοῖαι are the hidden meanings, or allegories, which a certain set of philosophers undertook to discover in Homer, and which the rhapsodes were no way called upon to study.
The Platonic dialogue, called Iôn, ascribes to Iôn the double function of a rhapsode, or impressive reciter, and a critical expositor of the poet (Isokratês also indicates the same double character, in the rhapsodes of his time,—Panathenaic, p. 240); but it conveys no solid grounds for a mean estimate of the class of rhapsodes, while it attests remarkably the striking effect produced by their recitation (c. 6, p. 535). That this class of men came to combine the habit of expository comment on the poet with their original profession of reciting, proves the tendencies of the age; probably, it also brought them into rivalry with the philosophers.