The Iliad of Homer - Get a Free Blog

what time the practice of doing so became
familiar. The first positive ground
which authorizes us to presume the existence
of a manuscript of Homer, is in
the famous ordinance of Solon, with regard
to the rhapsodies at the Panathenaea:
but for what length of time previously
manuscripts had existed, we are
unable to say.
"Those who maintain the Homeric
poems to have been written from the beginning,
rest their case, not upon positive
proofs, nor yet upon the existing habits of
society with regard to poetry—for they
admit generally that the Iliad and Odyssey
were not read, but recited and
heard,—but upon the supposed necessity
that there must have been manuscripts
to ensure the preservation of the
poems—the unassisted memory of reciters
being neither sufficient nor trustworthy.
But here we only escape a smal-