ABSTRACT
For us as for the ancients, the oldest Greek book is Homer. Owing to the excessive admiration for Homer, this passed into sheer idolatry and represented him as a sort of compendium of all knowledge and excellence. Two poems attributed to Homer by the consensus of the best criticism of antiquity, which we shall see reason to suppose correct in this matter: they are the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Apolline clergy also put in a claim for the seniority of certain ancient servants of their god; a local Delphic poetess, Boio, declared that an old hymn-writer, OLEN, was the first to use the hexameter; others gave the credit for this invention to the Pythian prophetess Phemonoe. No one supposes Shakespere or Molire to have written these plays in conjunction with anyone else; but when it comes to Homer, such arguments as the following have been offered, and taken, seriously.
