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INTRODUCTION
and Hesiod; (2) their poetical contest at Chalcis; (3) the death of Hesiod; (4) the wanderings and fortunes of Homer, with brief notices of the circumstances under which his reputed works were composed, down to the time of his death.
The whole tract is, of course, mere romance; its only values are (1) the insight it gives into ancient speculations about Homer; (2) a certain amount of definite information about the Cyclic poems; and (3) the epic fragments included in the stichomythia of the Contest proper, many of which — did we possess the clue — would have to be referred to poems of the Epic Cycle.
xlii
