Note 265 — Chapter XXI · GRECIAN EPIC.—HOMERIC POEMS.

That the Iliad or Odyssey were ever recited with all the parts entire, at any time anterior to Solôn, is a point which Ritschl denies (Die Alexandrin. Bibliothek, pp. 67-70). He thinks that before Solôn, they were always recited in parts, and without any fixed order among the parts. Nor did Solôn determine (as he thinks) the order of the parts: he only checked the license of the rhapsodes as to the recitation of the separate books: it was Pesistratus, who, with the help of Onomakritus and others, first settled the order of the parts and bound each poem into a whole, with some corrections and interpolations. Nevertheless, he admits that the parts were originally composed by the same poet, and adapted to form a whole amongst each other: but this primitive entireness (he asserts) was only maintained as a sort of traditional belief, never realized in recitation, and never reduced to an obvious, unequivocal, and permanent fact,—until the time of Peisistratus.

There is no sufficient ground, I think, for denying all entire recitation previous to Solôn, and we only interpose a new difficulty, both grave and gratuitous, by doing so.