Abstract

An aspect of Pisistratus, which has not hitherto been utilized in this question , appears to justify another presentment of the evidence which connects him with the Homeric tradition. I shall endeavour to be brief and not to repeat what is common property or irrelevant. The literature and the bearing of the controversy are given with his usual clearness by P. Cauer, Grundfragen der Homerkritik,2 pp. 125 sqq. Cauer's private doctrine, that Homer was for the first time written down by Pisistratus, I consider sufficiently refuted by C. Rothe, Die Was als Dichtung, pp. 5–13. Fantastic views lately promulgated in England are1 dealt with conclusively to my mind by Mr. A. Lang, The World of Homer, pp. 281 sqq., to whose account nothing for controversial purposes need be added. On looking back over the literature I find myself most in agreement with Hans Flach, whose treatise, Die litterarische Thdtigkeit des Peisistratos, 1885, has been unduly depreciated. I shall have to repeat my own views expressed in the Classical Review, 1901, p. 7; 1907, p. 18; and in the Classical Quarterly, 1909, p. 84