to him without controverfy. However, an eager defire to know fomething concerning him has occafion'd mankind to labour the point under thefe difadvantages, and turn on all hands to fee if there were any thing left which might have the leaft appearance of information. Upon the fearch, they find no remains but his name and works, and refolve to torture these upon the rack of invention, in order to give fome account of the person they belong to. The firft thing therefore they fettle is, That what pafs'd for his name must be his name no longer, but an additional title us'd inftead of it. The reafon why it was given, must be fome accident of his life. They then proceed to confider every thing that the word may imply by its derivation. One finds that 'Ones fignifies a thigh; whence arifes the tradition in Heliodorus, that he was banish'd Egypt for the mark on that part, which fhew'd a fpurious birth; and this they imagine ground enough to give him the life of a wanderer. A fecond find that "Ounggs fignifies an hostage, and then he must be deliver'd as fuch in a war (according to a Proclas) between Smyrna and Chios. A third can derive the name 'o u ogŵr, non videns, from whence he must be a blind man (as in the piece afcrib'd to x Herodotus.) A fourth brings it from 'Oμãs igav, fpeaking in council; and then (as it is in Suidas) he muft, by a divine inspiration, declare to the Smyrnaans, that they fhould war against Colophon. A fifth finds the word may be brought to fignify following others, or joining hinfelf to them, and then he must be call'd Homer for faying (as it is quoted from y Ariftotle in the life afcrib'd to Plutarch) that he would u Proc. vit. Hom. *Herod. vit. Hom. traditions. This, however, has not occafion'd them to defift from the undertaking; but ftill the difficulty which could not make them defift, has neceffitated them, either to deliver the old ftory with excufes; or elfe, instead of a life, to compofe a treatise partly of criticism, and partly of character; rather defcriptive, than fupported by action, and the air of history. His Time. They begin with acquainting us, that the Time in which he liv'd has ncver been fix'd beyond difpute, and that the opinions of authors are various concerning it: But the controverfy, in its feveral conjectures includes a space of years between the earliest and lateft, from twenty four to about five hundred, after the fiege of Troy. Whenever the time was, it feems not to have been near that fiege, from his own f Invocation of the Mufes to recount the catalogue of the fhips: "For we, fays he, have only heard a rumour, and know nothing particularly." It is remark'd by Velleius Paterculus, That it must have been confiderably later, from his own confeffion, that " mankind was but half as ftrong in his age, as in that he writ "of;" which, as it is founded upon a notion of a gradual degeneracy in our nature, difcovers the interval to have been long between Homer and his fubject. But not to trouble our felves with entring into all the dry difpute, we may take notice, that the world is inclin'd to ftand by the h Arundelian marble, as the * Ἡμεῖς ο κλέω οἷιν ακέομ ἔδί τι ἴδω. lliad 2. *. 487. Hic longè à temporibus belli quod compofuit, Troici, quàm quidam rentur, abfuit. Nam fermè ante annos 950 floruit, intra mille natus eft: quo nomine non eft mirandum quod fepe illud ufurpat, οἷοι νῦν βρίτοι εἰσι. Hoc enim ut bominem ita faculorum notatur differentia. Vell. Paterc, lib. 1. Vide Dacier, Du Pin, &c. concerning the Arundelian marble. moft most certain computation of thofe early times; and this by placing him at the time when Diognetus rul'd in Athens, makes him flourish a little before the Olym piads were establifh'd; about three hundred years after the taking of Troy, and near a thousand before the Chriftian Era. For a farther confirmation of this, we have fome great names of antiquity who give him a Cotemporary agreeing with the computation: iCicero fays, There was a tradition that Homer liv'd about the time of Lycurgus. k Strabo tells us, It was. reported that Lycurgus went to Chios for an interview with him. And even Plutarch, when he fays, Lycurgus receiv'd Homer's works from the grandfon of that Creophilus with whom he had liv'd, does not put him fo far backward, but that poffibly they might have been alive at the fame time. The next difpute regards his country, concerning which m Adrian enquir'd of the Gods, as a question not to be fettled by His Country. men; and Apion (according to n pli y) rais'd a Tpirit for his information. That which has encreas'd the difficulty, is the number of contesting places, of which Suidas has reckon'd up nineteen in one breath. But his ancient commentator, o Didymus, found the fubject fo fertile, as to employ a great part of his four thousand volumes upon it. There is a prophecy of the Sibyls that he fhould be born at Salamis in Cyprus; and then to play an argument of the fame nature against it, there is the oracle given to Adrian afterwards, that fays he was born in Ithaca. There are customs of Eolia and Egypt cited from his works, to make out by turns and with the fame 1 Blus. Cicero Qu. Tufcul. l. 5. * Strabo, l. 10. vitâ Lycurgi. to Azwv 'Ounge à Houde of Adrian's Oracle. Plin. 4. 30. cap. z2 Seneca Ep. 88. concerning Didymus. C 6 proba probability, that he belong'd to each of them. There was a school fhew'd for his at Colophon, and a tomb at los, both of equal ftrength to prove he had his birth in either. As for the Athenians, they challeng'd him as born where they had a colony; or elfe in behalf of Greece in general, and as the metropolis of its learning, they made his name free of their city (qu. Liciniá & Mutia lege, fays P Politian) after the manner of that law by which all Italy became free of Rome. All these have their authors to record their titles, but still the weight of the queftion feems to lie between Smyrna and Chios, which we must therefore take a little more notice of. That Homer was born at Smyrna is endeavour'd to be prov'd by an 9 Epigram, recorded to have been under the ftatue of Pififiratus at Athens; by the reports mention'd in Cicero, Strabo, and A. Gellius; and by the Greek lives, which pafs under the names of Herodotus, Plutarch, and Proclus; as alfo the two that are anonymous. The Smyrnaans built a temple to him, caft medals of him, and grew fo poffefs'd of his having been theirs, that it is faid they burn'd Zoilus for affronting them in the perfon of Homer. On the other hand, the Chians plead the ancient authorities of's Simonides and Theocritus for his being born among them They mention a race they had, call'd the Homerida, whom they reckon'd his pofterity; they caft medals of him; they Politian. Praf, in Homerum. Epigram on Pififtratus in the anonymous life before Homer. Simonides Frag. de brevitate vita, quoting a verse of Homer. Theocritus in Diofcuris, ad fin. Χίος αοιδός, Υμνήσας Πριάμοιο πόλιν ή νέας Αχαιών, Ιλιάδας τε μάχας thew u fhew to this day an Homerium, or temple of Homer, near Boliffus; and close their arguments with a quotation from the Hymn to Apollo (which is acknowledg'd for Homer's by " Thucydides) where he calls himfelf, "The blind man that inhabits Chios." The reader has here the fum of the large treatife of Leo Albatius, written particularly on this fubject w, in which, after having separately weigh'd the pretenfions of all, he concludes for Chios. For my part, I determine nothing in a point of fo much uncertainty; neither which of thefe was honour'd with his birth, nor whether any of them was, nor, whether each may not have produc'd his own Homer; fince x Xenophon fays, there were many of the name. But one cannot avoid being furpriz'd at the prodigious veneration for his character, which could engage mankind with fuch eargernefs in a point fo little effential; that Kings fhould fend to oracles for the enquiry of his birthplace; that cities fhould be in ftrife about it, that whole lives of learned men fhould be employ'd upon it; that fome fhould write treatises; that others fhould call up fpirits about it; that thus, in short, heaven, earth and hell fhould be fought to, for the decifion of a question which terminates in curiofity only. If we endeavour to find the pa rents of Homer, the fearch is as fruit- His Parents. lefs. Ephorus has made Man to be his father, by a neice whom he deflour'd; and this has fo far obtain'd, as to give him the derivative name of Maonides. His mother (if we allow the ftory of Maon) is call'd Crytheis: But we are loft again in uncertainty, if we fearch farther; Thucyd. lib. 3. Xenophon de Equivocis. Leo Allatius de paria Homeri. |