ABSTRACT
The substitution of a nation of Homers for a single Homer was only a case of mythology constructed according to the principles discovered by Giambattista Vico himself: mythology which must be retranslated into scientific prose. The most elementary facts about Homer are unknown: it is precisely concerning the man whom they considered the greatest luminary of Greece that the ancients leave us most completely in the dark. The historic figures whom Vico finds before Homer are the rhapsodes, men of the people who wandered independently about the fairs and festivals of the Greek cities reciting the songs of Homer. Vico tried to explain this fact by the democratic habits which compelled orators studiously to avoid the cultivation of lofty and fanciful modes of expression, which would have puzzled the people and hindered their full and clear comprehension of the point at issue. The Biblical literature would have given Vico materials of great value for the study of primitive poetry.
