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Pisistratus and Homer The Classical Quarterly http://journals.cambridge.org/CAQ Additional services for The Classical Quarterly: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Pisistratus and Homer. T. W. Allen The Classical Quarterly / Volume 7 / Issue 01 / January 1913, pp 33 - 51 DOI: 10.1017/S0009838800016736, Published online: 11 February 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009838800016736 How to cite this article: T. W. Allen (1913). Pisistratus and Homer.. The Classical Quarterly, 7, pp 33-51 doi:10.1017/ S0009838800016736 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAQ, IP address: 128.122.253.212 on 28 Apr 2015 PISISTRATUS AND HOMER. AN aspect of Pisistratus, which has not hitherto been utilized in this question (see p. 50), appears to justify another presentment of the evidence which connects him with the Homeric tradition. I shall endeavour to be brief and not to repeat what is common property or irrelevant. The literature and the bearing of the controversy are given with his usual clearness by P. Cauer, Grundfragen der Homerkritik,2 pp. 125 sqq. Cauer's private doctrine, that Homer was for the first time written down by Pisistratus, I consider sufficiently refuted by C. Rothe, Die Was als Dichtung, pp. 5-13. Fantastic views lately promulgated in England are1 dealt with conclusively to my mind by Mr. A. Lang, The World of Homer, pp. 281 sqq., to whose account nothing for con- troversial purposes need be added. On looking back over the literature I find myself most in agreement with Hans Flach, whose treatise, Die litterarische Thdtigkeit des Peisistratos, 1885, has been unduly depreciated. I shall have to repeat my own views expressed in the Classical Review, 1901, p. 7 ; 1907, p. 18; and in the Classical Quarterly, 1909, p. 84. I. THE AUTHORITIES. The passages of ancient authors which bear on this question fall into four groups—those dealing with the Panathenaea, those attesting the transport of the poems to Athens, those asserting the collection of the lays, those asserting interpolation. A. Lycurgus in Leocr. p. 102, fHovkopai, 8' vfuv /cal r&v 'Opijpov irapa- aj(iaffai eirwv. ovrco yap iiireKafjov vfiSiv oi irarepes <T7rov8alov ecvai Troir/TTjV &<TTG vofiov eOevro /caff' kKaarr^v irevreTripiha TSJV Tiavadrjvaicov /MOVOV ratv aXXcov TTOITJT&V pa^mBeia-ffai ra hrr), eiri&eigiv •jroiovfiepoi 77730? roii<; "EXXijro? ort ra KaXKiara rS>v epycov Trpoypovvro. The festival is named, but not the author of the law. An Athenian orator could hardly glorify Pisistratus, and Napo- leon III. is still ignored by the French Republic. The passage implies that the Hesiodic corpus, Eumelus, etc., were excluded from the Panathenaea. Isocr. Panegyr. XLII. = i59 olfiat, Se KOI TTJV 'Ofirjpov iroirjaiv /tetfoj Xafieiv Bo^av on KaKw TOVS Tro\e/j,rf<ravTa<> rois (Sap(3apoi,<; ipe/ca)fi[aa€, KOX Bia TOVTO i TOI)? Trpoyovov; rjfjuvv evrofiov avrov 7roifj<rai TTJV re^i/Tjv ev re rots TJ?? 1 So I wrote ; we must now say ' were.' NO. I. VOL. VII. 34 T. W. ALLEN /M>v(rncr)<; aff\oi<; ical rfj traiZevaei TSV vecorepav Xva iroXKaKit a.Kovovre<; rmv etrSiv eKfiavOdvcofiev TTJV fydpav TTJV vTrdpypvcrap irpb? ai/rovs KOX ^ifKovvre<; TO,<S apera? T&V <rTparev<rafieva>v TWV UVTCOV epyoov e'/ceii/ot? e-iriOv/AWfiev. This statement is vaguer than Lycurgus', inasmuch as both festival and legislator are omitted. To follow Isocrates1 argument literally the reference would be to the fifth century, not the sixth, if Homer owed his popularity to his coincidence with anti-Persian feeling. Probably Isocrates adapted the tradition to his purpose, and the vagueness is intentional. The first passage in which the Panathenaic regulations are ascribed to anyone in particular is in the Platonic Hipparchus 228 B. %£1. ov fuevTov /ca\to<> 7roioi.rjv ov 7rei06/jLevo<> dv&pl dya6q> icai <ro<pa>. III. TlVl TOVTCp ; KCU Tt yU.a\«7TO. ; ~S,d. 7T0\iTr} jjbkv iflSt TC KaX O~(0, Be vlel TOV iie QbKaiZcov, '\Tnrdp~)(a>, 05 rwv Ueicrio'Tpdrov iraihmv f/v KaX (roffxaraTO1;, o? aXka re TTOXXO. KOL Ka\a epya cro^ia? aTreSei^aro KaX ra 'OfiTjpov TT/XWTO? eKOfiiaev et? TT)P yrjv ravrr/vi, KOU rjudyKacre TOW pa-v/rwSoii? TVavadrfvaiov; ££ v7roX»;i|re&)? e<f>el;'f)<; avra Suevai, cbanrep vvv en, oi8e iroLovai. KO\ eV 'AvaKpeovra TOV Trjiov Trevrr/Kovropov crreiXa? i/co/ucrev et? rr)v irokiv %I/MOVLBT)V Se TOV K.elov irepi avTOV del et%e, /xeyaXot? /MMTOOIS Kal Scopoc^ TteiOaiv. No political embargo restrained the philosopher; he celebrated the tyrant's son as the Leone decimo or the Morgan of his day, purchasing treasures and concentrating men of letters. The author of the Hipparchus is unknown, but it must belong to the fourth century. The next text rests on the authority of a historian who may belong to the same century (Wilamowitz, Horn. Untersuch. 240 sqq.)- Diogenes Laert. I. 2, 56 (Life of Solon): TU Te 'O/jitfpov eg v7ro/3oX% yiypcKfte pa'^raSeio'Oai, olov OTTOV 6 irpwTO'i eXrjljev eKeWev dp^eaOai, TOJ/ e%6fievov. [taWov ovv %6\(ov "Ofir/pov icp&Tio-ev rj Tleio-io-TpaTOi, w? (fyrjo-i Ateu^tSa? ev e' M.eyaptKwv [FHG. IV. 3893. That Dieuchidas preferred the democrat to the tyrant or the tyrant's son follows from his national standpoint, which may be observed elsewhere in his fragments (see p. 50). The account of the regulation, its author apart, is evidently identical in these two sources. Dieuchidas seems to have omitted the festival, not a pleasing subject to a Megarian. There was then, at the end of the fourth century, a tradition believed in Athens and in Megara by orators philosophers and antiquaries, that Homer was recited at the Panathenaea exclusively and consecutively, under a regula- tion ascribed to Solon or Pisistratus. B. The passage from the Hipparchus cited above contains the next tradition also: TO, 'Ofir/pov 7rpwTo? eKofiia-ev et? TT)V yrjv TavTr/vi—a. remarkable statement to have been made not more than one hundred and fifty years after the supposed event. That the Homeric poems were previously unknown in Greece is disproved by their diffusion and influence at Sicyon under Clisthenes (Herod. V. 67); that they had already arrived at Athens appears from the appeal made to them in the matter of Sigeion (see p. 46). Athenian history is an all but total blank before the affair of Sigeion, and we can make no state- ment about the early culture of Attica. It is singular that the historical imagination of the later fourth century conceived an epos-less Attica till the PISISTRATUS AND HOMER 35 time of the Pisistratidae. Hippostratus, the Sicilian antiquarian (see p. 43), said that Cynaethus first sang Homer in Syracuse, 01. 69 ; but the statement is generally thought incredible. The same achievement is ascribed to Lycurgus by Aelian V.H. XIII. 14. oijre Be AvKovpyo<; 6 Aa/ceBaifiopio1; ddpoav Trpa>ro<; es rrjv 'HXXdBa e/co/jucre TTJP 'Ofirfpov TToir)cnv • TO he dycoytftop TOVTO ef 'ICOVLW; rjvlxa d-ireBtjfiTjaev rf/ayev. vaiepov Be Ylei<rL<TTpaTO<; avvayayeop direcfirive rrjv 'IXidBa Kal 'OBvaveiav ; and Dio Prus. II. 45, eweC rot, Kal <j>aaiv avrbv eiraiver^p 'Ofirjpov yeveadai Kal irpwrov diro Kp^TTjf rj rrji 'Iwpuas icofitcrai rrjv troirjcnv eh rrjp 'EXXdBa. That Homer passed from East to West is true, and the legend in both its forms contains this fact. It is conceivable that the Homeridae, to explain the passing of the poems from their hands, circulated a legend that they had entrusted them to a Western lawgiver on his travels. This origin of the Lycurgus legend at least appears clearly from the older statement in the excerpts from Heraclides' UoXireiai (FHG. II. 210) : AvKovpyos iv Xdfup lyeve.ro Kal rrjv 'Ofirjpov iroiricriv irapa reap drroyovcov K.pem<f>v\ov \afta>v 7T/3<WTO? BieKO/uaev et? UeXo7r6vvr)<rov; and in Plutarch Lycurg. 4, who conceives Lycurgus as taking a copy from the heirs of Creophylus : eypdtyaro trpoQvfJM><i Kal avvrjyayev &>? Bevpo KOfiiwv. yv yap T6? ijBr) B6£a T&V eirwv dfiavpa 7rapa rol<i"EWT}cri,v, eKeKrrjvTO Be oi 7roWol fiipri nva <jnropdBi)v T^? •Koirjoero'i &>9 em^e Bia<f>epo/AeP7)$. Ephorus, on the other hand (ap. Strab. 482), reports the view that Lycurgus met Homer him- self at Chios. The story can hardly have been absent in Timaeus (fr. 4) and Dieuchidas (fr. 5). C. There is more abundant testimony to what Pisistratus is supposed to have done to the poems once in Attica. Cicero may take the lead {de Or. III. 137): sed, ut ad Graecos referam orationem, septem fuisse dicuntur uno tempore qui sapicntcs et haberentur et uocarentnr. hi omnes praeter Milesium Thalen ciuitatibus snis praefuerunt. quis doctior iisdem Mis temporibus, aut cuius eloquentia litteris instruction' fuisse traditur quam Pisistrati ? qui primus Homeri libros confusos antea sic disposuisse traditur ut mine habemus. rum fuit Me quidem cinibus suis utilis, sed ita eloquentia floruit ut litteris doctrinaque praestaret. Cicero's source is made out by Flach /. c. pp. 3 sqq. to have been Pergamene ; the links were Athenodorus son of Sandon, Asclepiades of Myrlea (p. 11, n. 3), Crates. Without insistence on details1 this result maybe accepted. Cicero starts from the Pergamene conception of Pisistratus as one of the Seven Sages (on which see p. 50); in his further statements he is supported by Pausanias VII. 26. 13 : Alyelpas Be ev ra> fiera^v Kal TleWrfviji; TroXicx/ia virrjKoov %IKV(OVI(OV Aopoveraa xaXov/ievr) eyevero /lev v-no rwp XIKVCOVIWP dvdo-raTOs, /Mvrjfioveveiv Be Kal "Ofiripov ev KaraXoyp rap avv 'AyapefivopL (fiacrip avrfjt; Troi-qcravra eiro<; offi 'TireprjO-'iTfv re Kal alneiprjp Aovoecrcrav.
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