that Paris, brought Helen to Troy in three days; whereas Homer afferts they were long driven from place to place. There are other things afcribed to him, fuch as the Heptapection goat, the Arachnomachia, &c. in the ludicrous manner; and the Thebais, Epigoni, or fecond fiege of Thebes, the Phocais, Amazonia, &c. in the ferious: which, if they were his, are to be reputed a real lofs to the learned world. Time, in fome things, may have prevailed over Homer himself, and left only the names of these works, as memorials that fuch were in being; but while the Iliad and Odyffey remain, he seems like a leader, who, though in his attempt of univerfal conqueft he may have loft his advanced guards, or fome tew ftragglers in the rear, yet with his main body ever victorious, paffed in triumph through all ages. 61 The remains we have, at pre- Monuments, coins, fent, of those monuments antiquity had framed for him, are but marbles, remaining of him. few. It could not be thought that they who knew fo little of the life of Homer, could have a right knowledge of his perfon: yet they had ftatues of him as of their gods, whofe forms they had never seen. Quinimo que non funt, finguntur (fays ** Pliny) pariuntque defideria non traditi vultus, ficus " in Homero evenit." But though the ancient portraits of him feem purely notional, yet they agree (as I think + Fabretti has observed) in representing him with a fhort curled beard, and diftinct marks of age in his forehead. That which is prefixed to this book, is taken from an ancient marble bust in the palace of Farnefe at Rome. In Boliffus near Chios, there is a ruin, which was fhewn for the houfe of Homer, which Leo Allatius went on pilgrimage to vifit, and (as he tells as) found nothing but a few ftones crumbling away with age, Raph. Fabret. Explicatio Veteris I Leo Allat. de patria Cicero pro Archia, Pliny, 1. 35. c. 2. over which he and his companions wept for fatisfaction. They erected temples to Homer in Smyrna, as appears from Cicero; one of thefe is fuppofed to be yet extant, and the fame which they fhew for the temple Janus. It agrees with + Strabo's defcription, a fquare building of ftone, near a river, thought to be the Meles, with two doors oppofite to each other, north and fouth, and a large niche within the eat wall, where the image ftood: but M. Spon denies this to be the true Homerium. Of the medals ftruck for him, there are some both of Chios and Smyrna ftill in being, and exhibited at the beginning of this effay. The molt valuable with refpect to the largeness of the head, is that of Amastris, which is carefully copied from an original belonging to the prefent Earl of Pembroke, and is the fame which Gronovius, Cuperus and Dacier have copies of, but very incorrectly performed. But that which of all the remains has been of late the chief amusement of the learned, is the marble called his Apotheofis, the work of Archelaus of Priene, and now in the palace of Colonna. We fee there a temple hung with its veil, where Homer is placed on a feat with a footstool to it, as he has described the feats of his Gods; fupported on each fide with figures reprefenting the Iliad and the Odyffey, the one by a fword, the other by the ornament of a fhip, which denotes the voyage of Ulyffes. On each fide of his footstool are mice, in allufion to the Batrachomyomachia. Behind is Time waiting upon him, and a figure with turrets on his head, which fignifies the World, crowning him with the laurel. Before him is an altar, at which all the Arts are facrificing to him as to their deity. On one fide of the altar stands a boy, reprefenting Mythology; on the other a woman, reprefenting History; after her is Poetry bringing the facred fire; and in a long following train, Tragedy, Comedy, Nature Virtue, Memory, Rhetoric, and Wif dom, in all their proper attitudes. • Cicero pro Archia, + Strabo, 1. 14. Το Ομήρειον, του τετραγωνος ἔχυσα νεῶν Ὁμήρε και ξοάνω, etc. de Smyrna. SECT. SECT. II. HA AVING now finished what was propofed concerning the history of Homer's life, I fhall proceed to that of his works; and confidering him no longer as a man, but as an auther, profecute the thread of his sto ry in this his second life, through the different degrees of esteem which those writings have obtained in different periods of time. It has been the fortune of several great geniuses not to be known while they lived, either for want of histo rians, the meanness of fortune, or the love of retirement, to which a poetical temper is peculiarly addic ed. Yet after death their works give themselves a life in Fame, without the help of an historian; and, not withstanding the meanness of their author, or his love of retreat, they go forth among mankind, the glories. of that age which produced them, and the delight of those which follow it. This is a fate particularly verified in Homer, than whom no canfiderable author is lefs known as to himself, or more highly valued as to his productions. * The first publication of his works by Lycurgus. The earliest account of these is faid by Plutarch to be fome time after his death, when Lycurgus failed to Afia: "There he had the first fight "of Homer's works, which were probably preferved "by the grandchildren of Creophilus; and having "obferved that their pleasurable air of fiction did not "hinder the poet's abounding in maxims of state, and. "rules of orality, he transcribed and carried with him "that entire collection we have now among us: for "at that time (continues this author) there was only "an obfcure rumour in Greece to the reputation of "these poems, and but a few fcattered fragments "handed about, till Lycurgus published them entire." Thus they were in danger of being loft as foon as they were produced, by the misfortune of the age, a want of taste for learning, or the manner in which they * Plut, vita Lycurgi,. were were left to pofterity, when they fell into the hands of Lycurgus. He was a man of great learning, a lawgiver to a people divided and untractable, and one who had a notion that poetry influenced and civilized the minds of men; which made him smoothe the way to his conftitution by the fongs of Thales the Cretan, whom he engaged to write upon obedience and con cord. As he propofed to himself, that the conftitution he would raise upon this their union fhould be of a martial nature, thefe poems were of an extraordinary value to him; for they came with a full force into his fcheme; the moral they infpired was unity; the air they breathed was martial; and their story had this particular engagement for the Lacedæmonians, that it thewed Greece in war, and Afia fubdued under the conduct of one of their own monarchs, who command ed all the Grecian princes. Thus the poet both pleaf ed the lawgiver and the people; from whence he had a double influence when the laws were fettled. For his poem then became a panegyric on their conftitution, as well as a register of their glory; and confirmed them in the love of it by a gallant defcription of thofe qualities and actions for which it was adapted. This made * Cleomenes call him the poet of the Lacedæmonians : and therefore when we remember that Homer owed the publication of his works to Lycurgus, we fhould grant too, that Lycurgus owed in fome degree the enforcement of his laws to the works of Homer. At their first appearance in Greece, Their reception. they were not reduced into a regular in Greece. body, but remained as they were brought over, in feveral feparate pieces, called (according to Elian) from the fubject on which they treated; as the battle at the ships, the death of Dolon, the valour of Agamemnon, the Patroclea, the grot of Calypfo, flaughter of the wooers, and the like. Nor were thefe entitled books, but rhapsodies; from whence they who fung them had the title of rhapfodifts. It was in this manner they began to be difperfed, while their poetry, their history, the glory they afcribed to Greece Plutarch Apophtheg. † Ælian 1. 13. cap. 14. in general, the particular description they gave of it, and the complement they paid to every little fstate by an honourable mention, fo influenced all, that they were transcribed and fung with general approbation. But what feems to have most recommended them was, that Greece which could not be great in its divided condition, looked upon the fable of them as a likely plan of future grandeur. They feem from thenceforward to have had an eye upon the conqueft of Afia, as a proper undertaking, which by its importance might occafion union enough to give a diverfion from civil wars, and by its profecution bring in an acquifition of honour and empire. This is the meaning of *Ifocrates, when he tells us, "That Homer's poetry 66 was in the greater esteem, because it gave exceeding "praise to those who fought against the Barbarians. "Our ancestors (continues he) honoured it with a 66 place in education and mufical contests, that by of"ten hearing it, we should have a notion of an origi"nal enmity between us and those nations; and that "admiring the virtue of those who fought at Troy, .66 we fhould be induced to emulate their glory." And indeed they never quitted this thought, till they had fuccessfully carried their arms wherever Homer might thus excite them. But while his works were fuffered der at Athens. to lie in a distracted manner, the Digefted into orchain of story was not always per ceived, fo that they loft much of their force and beauty by being read diforderly. Wherefore as Lacedæmon had the first honour of their publication by Lycurgus, that of their regulation fell to the fhare of Athens in the time of † Solon, who himself made a law for their * Οἶμαι δί καὶ τὴν Ὁμήρε ποίησιν μείζω λαβειν δόξαν, ότι και λῶς τῆς πολεμησάνας τοῖς βαρβάροις ἐνεκωμίασε· καὶ διὰ τέτο βαληθῆναι τῆς Προγόνες ἡμῶν ἔντιμον αὐτῇ ποιῆσαι τὴν τέχνην, ἐν τε τοῖς τῆς μεσικῆς ἀθλοῖς, καὶ τῆ παιδεύσει τῶν νεωτέρων ινα πολύ λάκις ακέοντες τῶν ἐπῶν, ἐκμανθάνωμεν τὴν ἔχθραν τὴν πρὸς αὐτ τὲς ὑπάρχεσαν, καὶ ζηλΰντες τάς ἀρετὰς τῶν σρατευσαμένων ἐπὶ Τροίαν τῶν αὐτῶν ἔργων ἐκείνοις ἐπιθυμῶμεν. Ifocrat. Paneg. † Diog. Laert, vit, Sol. recital. |