Note 100 — Fabre d’Olivet

I have followed the tradition most analogous to the development of my ideas; but I am aware that, upon this point, as upon many others, I have only to choose. The historic fact, in that which relates to the sacerdotal archives which Homer consulted in composing his poems, is everywhere the same (au fond); but the accessory details vary greatly according to the writers who relate them. For example, one reads in a small fragment attributed to Antipater of Sidon and preserved in Greece Anthology, that Homer, born at Thebes in Egypt, drew his epic subjects from the archives of the temple of Isis; from another source, Ptolemy Ephestion, cited by Photius, that the Greek poet had received from a priest of Memphis, named Thamitès, the original writings of an inspired damsel, named Phancy. Strabo, without mentioning any place in particular, said in general, speaking of the long journeys of Homer, that this poet went everywhere to consult the religious archives and the oracles preserved in the temples; and Diodorus of Sicily gives evidence sometimes that he borrowed many things from a sibyl by the name of Manto, daughter of Tiresias; and sometimes that he appropriated the verse of a pythoness of Delphi, named Daphne. All these contradictory details prove, in reality, the truth; for whether it be from Thebes, Memphis, Tyre, Delphi, or elsewhere that Homer drew the subject of his chants, matters not with the subject which occupies me: the important point, serving as proof of my assertions, is, that they have been, in fact, drawn from a sanctuary; and what has determined me to choose Tyre rather than Thebes or Memphis, is that Tyre was the first mother city of Greece.