The Iliad of Homer - Get a Free Blog

period of its first compilation." The
friends or literary employes of Peisistratus
must have found an Iliad that was
already ancient, and the silence of the
Alexandrine critics respecting the Peis-
[pg istratic "recension," goes far to prove,
xxiii]
that, among the numerous manuscripts
they examined, this was either wanting,
or thought unworthy of attention.
"Moreover," he continues, "the whole
tenor of the poems themselves confirms
what is here remarked. There is nothing,
either in the Iliad or Odyssey, which savours
of modernism, applying that term
to the age of Peisistratus—nothing which
brings to our view the alterations brought
about by two centuries, in the Greek language,
the coined money, the habits of
writing and reading, the despotisms and
republican governments, the close military
array, the improved construction of
ships, the Amphiktyonic convocations,