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| 1 | 245 | 490 | 735 | 980 |
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(B.C. 1); and the opening of Egypt to Grecian commerce, which took place
about the same period, would furnish increased facilities for obtaining
the requisite papyrus to write upon. A reading class, when once formed,
would doubtless slowly increase, and the number of manuscripts along with
it; so that before the time of Solon, fifty years afterwards, both readers
and manuscripts, though still comparatively few, might have attained a
certain recognized authority, and formed a tribunal of reference against
the carelessness of individual rhapsodes."(26)
But even Peisistratus has not been suffered to remain in possession of the
credit, and we cannot help feeling the force of the following
observations--
"
There are several incidental circumstances which, in our opinion,
throw some suspicion over the whole history of the Peisistratid
compilation, at least over the theory, that the Iliad was cast
into its present stately and harmonious form by the directions of
the Athenian ruler. If the great poets, who flourished at the
bright period of Grecian song, of which, alas! we have inherited
little more than the fame, and the faint echo, if Stesichorus,
Anacreon, and Simonides were employed in the noble task of
compiling the Iliad and Odyssey, so much must have been done to
arrange, to connect, to harmonize, that it is almost incredible,
that stronger marks of Athenian manufacture should not remain.
Whatever occasional anomalies may be detected, anomalies which no
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