[448] We may probably add Odysseus. In the Odyssey the hero's subjects are regularly described as Ἀχαιοί. They are not called Ἀργεῖοι or Δαναοί, although the three names are used interchangeably as collective terms for the Greek army before Troy. Regarding the national affinities of the inhabitants of the Ionian Isles in later times we have little information; but the language was clearly of the 'north-west Greek' type. Indeed Aias the son of Oileus is the only one of the nine heroes in whose case Achaean nationality is distinctly improbable.
[449] The figures for the Iliad are: Ἀχαιοί 605, Ἀργεῖοι 176, Δαναοί 146; cf. Cauer, Grundfragen2, p. 220.
[450] Cf. especially Strabo, VIII 1. 2.
CHAPTER XIV.
FICTION IN THE HOMERIC POEMS.
We have now to consider briefly how far the use of fiction, i.e. of conscious, deliberate invention, was permitted in the composition of Greek heroic poetry. This question gave us considerable difficulty when we were discussing the Teutonic poems. It is assuredly not less difficult here. The higher artistic level of the Greek poems cannot but pre-dispose us in favour of the view that their use of fiction is of a more advanced type. This expectation is fully realised in the elaborate presentation of many of the scenes, whether the actors be human beings who may or may not have taken part in the events described, or divine beings whose mythical origin no one will dispute. In the σύστασις τῶν πραγμάτων the art of poetic invention is developed to a high degree of perfection.
The chief difference between our present problem and the one which we had to consider in Chapter VIII lies in the fact that here we are entirely without that contemporary historical evidence which enables us to recognise some characters or events in nearly all the Teutonic poems. The way lies open therefore for regarding the whole story of the siege of Troy as a product of fiction; and this is a view which many modern scholars have adopted. For an example we can scarcely do better than quote the words of the late Sir R. C. Jebb (Introduction to Homer, p. 147): "The tale of Troy, as we have it in Homer, is essentially a poetic creation; and the poet is the sole witness." The same scholar was prepared to grant that "some memorable capture of a town in the Troad had probably been made by Greek warriors"; but, he adds, "beyond this we cannot safely go." This attitude is doubtless perfectly correct from the historian's point of view. But if we approach the problem from the ethnologist's side we cannot rest satisfied with an attitude of scepticism owing to the absence of historical evidence. Our duty includes the question how far we are justified in admitting the use of fiction. The Iliad would still be a great monument of human genius even if all the characters and events in it could be proved to be historical. But if it is wholly, or almost wholly, a work of fiction we shall have to conclude that the Homeric poets had developed the inventive faculty to a degree which has scarcely been equalled even in our own days. That is a conclusion which we shall do well to adopt only after careful consideration, seeing that we are dealing with the earliest monument of European literature. Scepticism is required in this direction therefore just as much as in the other.
At the outset we are confronted by two considerations which amply justify this attitude. The first is the evidence of the Teutonic poems. Here, as we have seen, myth and folk-tale both play their parts, the latter often a very important part. But we have no proof that any one of the stories is a product of conscious fiction. Wherever we can put it to the test, the setting is found to be historical, at least in the earlier forms of the stories. In medieval poetry we meet with many fictitious stories of wars waged by imaginary kings of, let us say, Byzantium or Britain. But in poetry which is entirely free from scholastic influence, such as the old heroic poems or the poems of the Viking Age, we shall look in vain for trustworthy examples. The same remark is probably true of Slavonic and Cumbrian heroic poetry.
The other consideration is still more serious. It is the opinion of the ancient Greeks themselves. Here again we may quote Sir R. C. Jebb's work (p. [84]): "They held that his events and his persons were, in the main, real.... Thucydides differs from Herodotus in bringing down the Homeric heroes more nearly to the level of common men. But the basis of fact in Homer is fully as real to Thucydides as to Herodotus." The current hypothesis assumes that both were deceived, and with them the universal consensus of educated Greek opinion. But is not this a strange assumption? Those who hold that the Homeric poems are wholly the work of one author may cherish the belief that this person was so gifted as to be able to perpetrate a hoax upon his countrymen which in their most enlightened days they never succeeded in detecting. But I do not see how any such idea can be reconciled with the theory of evolution. The story was invented, we must presume, by the first poet and elaborated by his successors. Were these latter persons cognisant of the deception? If not, we must regard their contributions as negligible; and consequently we are brought back virtually to the theory of single authorship. And yet no one will suggest that the poets of several generations were accomplices in such a deception. The only alternative then, which remains, is that the poets invented and elaborated a romance, which they did not intend to be taken seriously. How greatly then has the history of Greek thought been misunderstood! It appears now that the period between the ninth and the fifth centuries was characterised not by intellectual emancipation but by the growth of credulity.