HOMERIC POEMS PRESERVED UNWRITTEN. 15] eritics .have imagined, also, that the separate portions of which these two poems are composed were originally distinct epica' ballads, each constituting a separate whole and intended foi separate recitation ? Is it true, that they had not only no com- mon author, but originally, neither common purpose nor fixed order, and that their first permanent arrangement and integration was delayed for three centuries, and accomplished at last only by the taste of Peisistratus conjoined with various lettered friends? 1 This hypothesis to which the genius of Wolf first gave celebrity, but which has been since enforced more in detail by others, especially by William Miiller and Lachmann appears to me not only unsupported by any sufficient testimony, but also opposed to other testimony as well as to a strong force of inter- nal probability. The authorities quoted by Wolf are Josephus, Cicero, and Pausanias : 2 Josephus mentions nothing about Pei- structus, scd historiarum scientii apprime eruditus." (Dahlmann, Historische Forschungen, vol. ii. p. 176.) 1 ' Homer wrote a sequel of songs and rhapsodies, to be sung by himself for small earnings and good cheer, at festivals and other days of merriment ; the Iliad he made for the men, the Odysseus for the other sex. These loose songs were not collected together into the form of an epic poem until 500 /ears after." Such is the naked language in which Wolf's main hypothesis had been previously set forth by Bentley, in his " Remarks on a late Discourse of Freethinking, by Philelcutherus Lipsiensis," published in 1713: the passage remained unaltered in the seventh edition of that treatise published in 1737. See Wolf's Prolog, xxvii. p. 115. The same hypothesis may be seen more amply developed, partly in the work of Wolfs pupil and admirer, William Mailer, Homerische Vorschtile (the second edition of which was published at Leipsic, 1836, with an excel- lent introduction and notes by Baumgarten-Crusius, adding greatly to the value of the original work by its dispassionate review of the whole contro- versy), partly in two valuable Dissertations of Lachmann, published in the Philological Transactions of the Berlin Academy for 1837 and 1841. 2 Joseph, cont. Apion. i. 2 ; Cicero de Orator, iii. 34; Pausan. vii. 26, 6: compare the Scholion on Plautus in Kitschl, Die Alexandrin. Bibliothek, p. 4. yElian (V. H. xiii. 14), who mentions both the introduction of the Homeric poems into Peloponnesus by Lykurgus, and the compilation by Peisistratus, can hardly be considered as adding to the value of the testi- mony : still less, Libanius and Suidas. What we learn is, that some literwj ind critical men of the Alexandrine age (more or fewer, as tho case P)*J
