There is sufficient evidence that most of the characteristic features of Aeschylus' story were not invented by him, though as to his sources our information is not very satisfactory. The lost Oresteia of Stesichoros was doubtless one of his chief authorities, and there is some reason for believing that the version given in this work differed from the Homeric account quite as much as that of Aeschylus. Beyond Stesichoros we may perhaps think of the Cyclic poems, especially the Nostoi; but it is very doubtful if they would have furnished such a very markedly divergent form of the story. Stesichoros himself is said to have treated his authorities with great freedom. But some of the non-Homeric features can hardly be due to deliberate alteration. We may notice especially the differences in the personal relations of Agamemnon's family. In the Iliad he is the son of Atreus; Stesichoros and others call him son of Pleisthenes. In the Iliad he has three daughters, Laodice, Chrysothemis and Iphianassa; Aeschylus gives him two, Electra and Iphigeneia, the latter of whom seems to have figured also in the Cypria[366]. There is also a good deal of discrepancy in regard to the scene of the events. In the Iliad and Odyssey Agamemnon belongs to Mycenae; in Aeschylus' account this place is forgotten and the story transferred to Argos, while Pindar, apparently also Stesichoros and Simonides[367], placed it at Amyclai (close to Sparta). Now these are just the kind of corruptions and discrepancies which characterise popular poetry everywhere. Taken together with the other non-Homeric features discussed above they seem to me to afford ground for suspecting that Stesichoros and his followers drew upon a popular and perhaps Doric or Peloponnesian version of the story[368] which was independent of Homeric poetry. Their work then would be similar in more than one respect to that of those Norse poets who rehabilitated the old story of Sigurðr and Guðrún after the (strophic) type of their own national poetry.
The course of our discussion has led us to conclude that the Homeric poems are products of court poetry or minstrelsy in direct continuation of that type of minstrelsy which we considered at the beginning of the chapter. As yet however we have expressed no definite opinion as to the length of time involved in their development, although we have noticed that the evidence commonly adduced in favour of a long interval between the earliest and latest portions of the poems is highly unsatisfactory. It must be admitted that beyond a certain point the evidence at our disposal does not admit of anything more than an estimation of probability.
We have seen that there is good reason for believing that the history of heroic poetry in Aeolis and in England proceeded on similar lines in several respects, and also that the chief monument of English heroic poetry was probably composed within not much more than a century after certain events which it records. Now in any comparison between English and Greek heroic poetry we must of course leave out of account the frequent Christian allusions which occur in the former (cf. p. [47] ff.); for there is no reason whatever for supposing that any change comparable with the introduction of Christianity came over the Greek world during the times which saw the development of Homeric poetry. Apart from this element anachronisms are not very numerous or marked; but they do occur. Thus the road which leads to the Danish king's dwelling is described as a Roman road (straet), paved with stone (Beow. 320), while the members of the same king's court (ib. 768) are termed 'inhabitants of a chester' (ceasterbuendum). Such cases may be compared with the Homeric inconsistencies discussed in the last chapter—e.g. perhaps the occasional use of iron for weapons. It can hardly be maintained, I think, that the latter are of greater significance than the anachronisms in English heroic poetry.
This absence of striking anachronisms decidedly favours the view that the period involved in the development of Homeric poetry was not very long. Against such a conclusion it may of course be urged that there is a constantly recurring phrase (οἷοι νῦν βροτοί εἰσι) which contrasts the 'men of the present day,' i.e. the men of the poet's own time, with the heroes of the siege of Troy, emphasizing the superior strength of the latter. But it is quite unnecessary to suppose that a long interval of time is intended here. The old Nestor uses almost the same expression in Il. I 272 (τῶν οἳ νῦν βροτοί εἰσιν ἐπιχθόνιοι), when he compares the men among whom he was then living with those he had known in his youth. Again, in Od. VIII 122 f., Odysseus contrasts the 'men of the present day' (ὅσσοι νῦν βροτοί εἰσιν ἐπὶ χθονὶ) with the 'men of old' (ἀνδράσι προτέροισιν); but by the latter phrase he means persons belonging to the generation next above his own (Heracles and Eurytos). The same usage occurs elsewhere. Thus in Il. IX 524 Phoinix speaks of the 'glories of those heroes that were of old' (τῶν πρόσθεν ἐπευθόμεθα κλέα ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων); but the story which he proceeds to relate is of Meleagros, the uncle of Diomedes. Indeed persons of more than two generations back are seldom mentioned in the Homeric poems.
An expression very similar to the one last quoted is used by Hesiod (Theog. 99 ff.) when he speaks of the minstrel as singing the "glories of men of old and the blessed gods who hold Olympos[369]." Here of course the reference is not to persons of the last generation, but to the heroes of Homeric poetry. In the Works and Days, vv. 156 ff., 174 ff., the Heroic Age is distinguished with all possible clearness from the period in which the poet himself lived. It is not to be overlooked that antiquarian interest forms a prominent feature in all Hesiodic poetry. Even in the Works and Days it is obvious enough, although such topics have little in common with the main theme of the poem. In the Catalogue we meet with such characters as Hellen and Doros, who owe their existence to speculations in tribal origins. The poetry of the following period seems to have been essentially of a genealogical character.
For such antiquarian interest the Homeric poems furnish no evidence, except perhaps in the Nekyia. Not only are the genealogies of the heroes seldom carried back more than two generations, but—what is more important—there is scarcely any reference to their descendants, beyond the first generation. Again, Achilles is said to have been singing the 'glories of heroes' (κλέα ἀνδρῶν) when he received the embassy (Il. IX 189); but it is not stated that these were heroes of former times. The songs of Demodocos and Phemios deal with the adventures of the Achaeans at Troy and on their return home. That this is no accident is shown by Od. I 351 f., where Telemachos pleads in excuse for Phemios that "men always prize that song the most which rings newest in their ears." No sentiment could well be more foreign to the tone of Hesiodic or post-Hesiodic poetry than this. If any poet of that school had interested himself in contemporary history our knowledge of the eighth century would not be the blank which unfortunately it is. Clearly the only heroic poetry known to them was the κλέεα προτέρων ἀνθρώπων. That means very much the same thing as Einhard's ueterum regum actus et bella or the antiquorum actus regumque certamina sung by Bernlef (cf. pp. [80], [87]). At such a time if anyone was composing a heroic poem it would probably have seemed natural enough to use the formulae with which several of the Edda poems begin: "It was long ago," or "It was in early times that," etc. On the other hand Telemachos' remark would be perfectly appropriate in the earlier stages of Teutonic poetry. We have seen (p. [85]) that in Beowulf one of the Danish king's knights begins to compose a poem on the hero's adventure within a few hours of the event. Procopius' account of Hermegisklos and Radiger (p. [97] ff.) must also be borne in mind, although this story may not have attained the form of an epic poem.
The conclusion then to which the Teutonic evidence leads us is that at all events the type of narrative was fixed very early. The growth of the Homeric poems may or may not have taken longer than that of their Teutonic counterparts. Records of the eighth century B.C. speak of κλέεα προτέρων ἀνθρώπων; records of the eighth century A.D. speak of antiquorum actus. But in neither case do the poems themselves give expression to a consciousness of the antiquity of the events which they relate.