From Thales downward we trace a succession of astronomical and physical theories, more or less successful, into which I do not intend here to enter: it is sufficient at present to contrast the father of the Ionic philosophy with the times preceding him, and to mark the first commencement of scientific prediction among the Greeks, however imperfect at the outset, as distinguished from the inspired dicta of prophets or oracles, and from those special signs of the purposes of the gods, which formed the habitual reliance of the Homeric man.[211] We shall see these two modes of anticipating the future,—one based upon the philosophical, the other upon the religious appreciation of nature,—running simultaneously on throughout Grecian history, and sharing between them in unequal portions the empire of the Greek mind; the former acquiring both greater predominance and wider application among the intellectual men, and partially restricting, but never abolishing, the spontaneous employment of the latter among the vulgar.

Neither coined money, nor the art of writing,[212] nor painting, nor sculpture, nor imaginative architecture, belong to the Homeric and Hesiodic times. Such rudiments of arts, destined ultimately to acquire so great a development in Greece, as may have existed in these early days, served only as a sort of nucleus to the fancy of the poet, to shape out for himself the fabulous creations ascribed to Hephæstus or Dædalus. No statues of the gods, not even of wood, are mentioned in the Homeric poems. All the many varieties, in Grecian music, poetry, and dancing,—the former chiefly borrowed from Lydia and Phrygia,—date from a period considerably later than the first Olympiad: Terpander, the earliest musician whose date is assigned, and the inventor of the harp with seven strings instead of that with four strings, does not come until the 26th Olympiad, or 676 B. C.: the poet Archilochus is nearly of the same date. The iambic and elegiac metres—the first deviations from the primitive epic strain and subject—do not reach up to the year 700 B. C.

It is this epic poetry which forms at once both the undoubted prerogative and the solitary jewel of the earliest era of Greece. Of the many epic poems which existed in Greece during the eight century before the Christian era, none have been preserved except the Iliad and Odyssey: the Æthiopis of Arktinus, the Ilias Minor of Lesches, the Cyprian Verses, the Capture of Œchalia, the Returns of the Heroes from Troy, the Thêbaïs and the Epigoni,—several of them passing in antiquity under the name of Homer,—have all been lost. But the two which remain are quite sufficient to demonstrate in the primitive Greeks, a mental organization unparalleled in any other people, and powers of invention and expression which prepared, as well as foreboded, the future eminence of the nation in all the various departments to which thought and language can be applied. Great as the power of thought afterwards became among the Greeks, their power of expression was still greater: in the former, other nations have built upon their foundations and surpassed them,—in the latter, they still remained unrivalled. It is not too much to say that this flexible, emphatic, and transparent character of the language as an instrument of communication,—its perfect aptitude for narrative and discussion, as well as for stirring all the veins of human emotion without ever forfeiting that character of simplicity which adapts it to all men and all times,—may be traced mainly to the existence and the wide-spread influence of the Iliad and Odyssey. To us, these compositions are interesting as beautiful poems, depicting life and manners, and unfolding certain types of character with the utmost vivacity and artlessness: to their original hearer, they possessed all these sources of attraction, together with others more powerful still, to which we are now strangers. Upon him, they bore with the full weight and solemnity of history and religion combined, while the charm of the poetry was only secondary and instrumental. The poet was then the teacher and preacher of the community, not simply the amuser of their leisure hours: they looked to him for revelations of the unknown past and for expositions of the attributes and dispensations of the gods, just as they consulted the prophet for his privileged insight into the future. The ancient epic comprised many different poets and poetical compositions, which fulfilled this purpose with more or less completeness: but it is the exclusive prerogative of the Iliad and Odyssey, that, after the minds of men had ceased to be in full harmony with their original design, they yet retained their empire by the mere force of secondary excellences: while the remaining epics—though serving as food for the curious, and as storehouses for logographers, tragedians, and artists—never seem to have acquired very wide popularity even among intellectual Greeks.

I shall, in the succeeding chapter, give some account of the epic cycle, of its relation to the Homeric poems, and of the general evidences respecting the latter, both as to antiquity and authorship.

CHAPTER XXI.
GRECIAN EPIC.—HOMERIC POEMS.

At the head of the once abundant epical compositions of Greece, most of them unfortunately lost, stand the Iliad and Odyssey, with the immortal name of Homer attached to each of them, embracing separate portions of the comprehensive legend of Troy. They form the type of what may be called the heroic epic of the Greeks, as distinguished from the genealogical, in which latter species some of the Hesiodic poems—the Catalogue of Women, the Eoiai, and the Naupaktia—stood conspicuous. Poems of the Homeric character (if so it may be called, though the expression is very indefinite,)—being confined to one of the great events, or great personages of Grecian legendary antiquity, and comprising a limited number of characters, all contemporaneous, made some approach, more or less successful, to a certain poetical unity; while the Hesiodic poems, tamer in their spirit, and unconfined both as to time and as to persons, strung together distinct events without any obvious view to concentration of interest,—without legitimate beginning or end.[213] Between these two extremes there were many gradations: biographical poems, such as the Herakleia, or Theseïs, recounting all the principal exploits performed by one single hero, present a character intermediate between the two, but bordering more closely on the Hesiodic. Even the hymns to the gods, which pass under the name of Homer, are epical fragments, narrating particular exploits or adventures of the god commemorated.

Both the didactic and the mystico-religious poetry of Greece began in Hexameter verse,—the characteristic and consecrated measure of the epic:[214] but they belong to a different species, and burst out from a different vein in the Grecian mind. It seems to have been the more common belief among the historical Greeks, that such mystic effusions were more ancient than their narrative poems, and that Orpheus, Musæus, Linus, Olên, Pamphus, and even Hesiod, etc., etc., the reputed composers of the former, were of earlier date than Homer. But there is no evidence to sustain this opinion, and the presumptions are all against it. Those compositions, which in the sixth century before the Christian era passed under the name of Orpheus and Musæus, seem to have been unquestionably post-Homeric, nor can we even admit the modified conclusion of Hermann, Ulrici, and others, that the mystic poetry as a genus (putting aside the particular compositions falsely ascribed to Orpheus and others) preceded in order of time the narrative.[215]

Besides the Iliad and Odyssey, we make out the titles of about thirty lost epic poems, sometimes with a brief hint of their contents.

Concerning the legend of Troy there were five: the Cyprian Verses, the Æthiopis, and the Capture of Troy, both ascribed to Arktinus; the lesser Iliad, ascribed to Leschês; the Returns (of the Heroes from Troy), to which the name of Hagias of Trœzên is attached; and the Telegonia, by Eugammôn, a continuation of the Odyssey. Two poems,—the Thebaïs and the Epigoni (perhaps two parts of one and the same poem) were devoted to the legend of Thebês,—the two sieges of that city by the Argeians. Another poem, called Œdipodia, had for its subject the tragical destiny of Œdipus and his family; and perhaps that which is cited as Eurôpia, or verses on Eurôpa, may have comprehended the tale of her brother Kadmus, the mythical founder of Thebês.[216]