of Achilles (xi. 609; xvi. 72, 85). His argument, however,
rests on an assumption which we are apt to bring with us to the
reading of the Iliad, but which is not borne out by its language,
viz. that there was some definite atonement demanded by
Achilles, or due to him according to the custom and sentiment
of the time. But in the Iliad the whole stress is laid on the anger
of Achilles, which can only be satisfied by the defeat and extreme
peril of the Greeks.[1] He is influenced by his own feeling, and
by nothing else. Accordingly, in the ninth book, when they
are still protected by the rampart (see 348 sqq.), he rejects gifts and
fair words alike; in the sixteenth he is moved by the tears and
entreaties of Patroclus, and the sight of the Greek ships on fire;
in the nineteenth his anger is quenched in grief. But he makes
no conditions, either in rejecting the offers of the embassy or in
returning to the Greek army. And this conduct is the result,
not only of his fierce and inexorable character, but also (as the
silence of Homer shows) of the want of any general rules or
principles, any code of morality or of honour, which would have
required him to act in a different way.
Finally, Grote objected to the two last books that they prolong the action of the Iliad beyond the exigencies of a coherent scheme. Of the two, the twenty-third could more easily be spared. In language, and perhaps in style and manner, it is akin to the tenth; while the twenty-fourth is in the pathetic vein of the ninth, and like it serves to bring out new aspects of the character of Achilles.
Dr E. Kammer has given some strong reasons for doubting the genuineness of the passage in book xx. describing the duel between Achilles and Aeneas (79-352). The incident is certainly very much out of keeping with the vehement action of that part of the poem, and especially with the moment when Achilles returns to the field, eager to meet Hector and avenge the death of his friend. The interpolation (if it is one) is probably due to local interests. It contains the well-known prophecy that the descendants of Aeneas are to rule over the Trojans,—pointing to the existence of an Aenead dynasty in the Troad. So, too, the legend of Anchises in the Hymn to Aphrodite is evidently local; and Aeneas becomes more prominent in the later epics, especially the Cypria and the Ἰλίου πέρσις of Arctinus.
Structure of the Odyssey.—In the Odyssey, as in the Iliad, the events related fall within a short space of time. The difficulty of adapting the long wanderings of Ulysses to a plan of this type is got over by the device—first met with in the Odyssey—of making the hero tell the story of his own adventures. In this way the action is made to begin almost immediately before the actual return of Ulysses. Up to the time when he reaches Ithaca it moves on three distinct scenes: we follow the fortunes of Ulysses, of Telemachus on his voyage in the Peloponnesus, and of Penelope with the suitors. The art with which these threads are woven together was recognized by Wolf himself, who admitted the difficulty of applying his theory to the “admirabilis summa et compages” of the poem. Of the comparatively few attempts which have been made to dissect the Odyssey, the most moderate and attractive is that of Professor A. Kirchhoff of Berlin.[2]
According to Kirchhoff, the Odyssey as we have it is the result of additions made to an original nucleus. There was first of all a “Return of Odysseus,” relating chiefly the adventures with the Cyclops, Calypso and the Phaeacians; then a continuation, the scene of which lay in Ithaca, embracing the bulk of books xiii.-xxiii. The poem so formed was enlarged at some time between Ol. 30 and Ol. 50 by the stories of books x.-xii. (Circe, the Sirens, Scylla, &c.), and the adventures of Telemachus. Lastly, a few passages were interpolated in the time of Peisistratus.
The proof that the scenes in Ithaca are by a later hand than the ancient “Return” is found chiefly in a contradiction discussed by Kirchhoff in his sixth dissertation (pp. 135 sqq., ed. 1869). Sometimes Ulysses is represented as aged and worn by toil, so that Penelope, for instance, cannot recognize him; sometimes he is really in the prime of heroic vigour, and his appearing as a beggarly old man is the work of Athena’s wand. The first of these representations is evidently natural, considering the twenty eventful years that have passed; but the second, Kirchhoff holds, is the Ulysses of Calypso’s island and the Phaeacian court. He concludes that the aged Ulysses belongs to the “continuation” (the change wrought by Athena’s wand being a device to reconcile the two views), and hence that the continuation is the work of a different author.
Ingenious as this is, there is really very slender ground for Kirchhoff’s thesis. The passages in the second half of the Odyssey which describe the appearance of Ulysses do not give two well-marked representations of him. Sometimes Athena disguises him as a decrepit beggar, sometimes she bestows on him supernatural beauty and vigour. It must be admitted that we are not told exactly how long in each case the effect of these changes lasted. But neither answers to his natural appearance, or to the appearance which he is imagined to present in the earlier books. In the palace of Alcinous, for instance, it is noticed that he is vigorous but “marred by many ills” (Od. viii. 137); and this agrees with the scenes of recognition in the latter part of the poem.
The arguments by which Kirchhoff seeks to prove that the stories of books x.-xii. are much later than those of book ix. are not more convincing. He points out some resemblances between these three books and the Argonautic fables, among them the circumstance that a fountain Artacia occurs in both. In the Argonautic story this fountain is placed in the neighbourhood of Cyzicus, and answers to an actual fountain known in historical times. Kirchhoff argues that the Artacia of the Argonautic story must have been taken from the real Artacia, and the Artacia of the Odyssey again from that of the Argonautic story. And as Cyzicus was settled from Miletus, he infers that both sets of stories must be comparatively late. It is more probable, surely, that the name Artacia occurred independently (as most geographical names are found to occur) in more than one place. Or it may be that the Artacia of the Odyssey suggested the name to the colonists of Cyzicus, whence it was adopted into the later versions of the Argonautic story. The further argument that the Nostoi recognized a son of Calypso by Ulysses but no son of Circe, consequently that Circe was unknown to the poet of the Nostoi, rests (in the first place) upon a conjectural alteration of a passage in Eustathius, and, moreover, has all the weakness of an argument from silence, in addition to the uncertainty arising from our very slight knowledge of the author whose silence is in question. Finally, when Kirchhoff finds traces in books x.-xii. of their having been originally told by the poet himself instead of being put in the mouth of his hero, we feel that inaccuracies of this kind are apt to creep in wherever a fictitious story is thrown into the form of an autobiography.
Inquiries conducted with the refinement which characterizes those of Kirchhoff are always instructive, and his book contains very many just observations; but it is impossible to admit his main conclusions. And perhaps we may infer that no similar attempt can be more successful. It does not indeed follow that the Odyssey is free from interpolations. The Νεκυία of book xi. may be later (as Lauer maintained), or it may contain additions, which could easily be inserted in a description of the kind. And the last book is probably by a different hand, as the ancient critics believed. But the unity of the Odyssey as a whole is apparently beyond the reach of the existing weapons of criticism.
Chorizontes.—When we are satisfied that each of the great Homeric poems is either wholly or mainly the work of a single poet, a question remains which has been matter of controversy in ancient as well as modern times—Are they the work of the same poet? Two ancient grammarians, Xeno and Hellanicus, were known as the “separators” (οἱ χωρίζοντες); and Aristarchus appears to have written a treatise against their heresy. In modern times some of the greatest names have been on the side of the “Chorizontes.”
If, as has been maintained in the preceding pages, the external evidence regarding Homer is of no value, the problem now before us may be stated in this form: Given two poems of which nothing is known except that they are of the same school of poetry, what is the probability that they are by the same author? We may find a fair parallel by imagining two plays drawn at hazard from the works of the great tragic writers. It is evident that the burden of proof would rest with those who held them to be by the same hand.
The arguments used in this discussion have been of very various calibre. The ancient Chorizontes observed that the messenger of Zeus is Iris in the Iliad, but Hermes in the Odyssey; that the wife of Hephaestus is one of the Charites in the Iliad, but Aphrodite in the Odyssey; that the heroes in the Iliad do not eat fish; that Crete has a hundred cities according to the Iliad, and only ninety according to the Odyssey; that προπάροιθε is used in the Iliad of place, in the Odyssey of time, &c. Modern scholars have added to the list, especially by making careful comparisons of the two poems in respect of vocabulary and
