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68 ANCIENT GREECE. [CHAP, vi,them, and were it not for Homer, the names of Demodocusand Phemius had never become immortal.With the Greeks, epic poetry had an importance, whichit possessed among no other itpeople; was the source oftheir national education in poetry and the arts. It becameso by means of the Homeric poems. But boundless as wasthe genius of the Ionian barcl, a concurrence of favourablecircumstances was still needed, to prepare for his appearance, and to make itpossible.Epic poetry was of itself a fruit of the heroic age; justas the poetry of chivalry was the result of the age of chi-\^alry.The picture drawn for us by Homer of the heroictimes, leaves no room to doubt of it. The feasts of theheroes, like the banquets of the knights, were ornamentedwith song. But the more copious the stream is to whichit swelled, the more does it deserve to bo traced,possible,to itsorigin.as far asEven before the heroic age,we hear of several poets, ofOrpheus, Linus, and a few others. But if their hymns woreas we mustmerely invocations and eulogies of the gods,infer from the accounts which are handed down to \as respecting them, 1no similarity seems to have existed betweenthem and the subsequent heroic poetry ; although a transition not only became possible, but actually took place,whenthe actions of the gods were made the subjects of hymns, 2The heroic poetry, according to all that we know of it, preserved the character of narration;whether those narrationscontained accounts of the gods or of heroes ;3 " the actions1 'of gods and heroes, who were celebrated in song. In thesongs of Demodocus and Phemius, the subject is taken fromthe one and from the other ;he celebrates the loves of Mars4and Venus, no less than the adventures which took placebefore Troy. The latter class of subjects cannot be moreancient than the heroic age, even though we should esteemthe former as much older. But that age produced the classof bards, who were employed in celebrating the actions ofOur present Orphic hymns have this character, The more ancient ones,1if there were such, were nothing else. See Pausanias i%. p. 770 5and theverjr aneient hymn, preserved by Stobams. Stob. Kclog, i p, 40, in Hceren'aedition,2The proof of this is found in the hymns attributed to Homer.8OdysB.i. 338.4Odyss. viii. 266, etc,