“It was at this period, about four hundred years after the war, that a

poet flourished of the name of Melesigenes, or Moeonides, but most probably the

former. He saw that these ballads might be made of great utility to his purpose

of writing a poem on the social position of Hellas, and, as a collection, he

published these lays connecting them by a tale of his own. This poem now

exists, under the title of the ‘Odyssea.’ The author, however, did

not affix his own name to the poem, which, in fact, was, great part of it,

remodelled from the archaic dialect of Crete, in which tongue the ballads were

found by him. He therefore called it the poem of Homeros, or the Collector; but

this is rather a proof of his modesty and talent, than of his mere drudging

arrangement of other people’s ideas; for, as Grote has finely observed,

arguing for the unity of authorship, ‘a great poet might have re-cast

pre-existing separate songs into one comprehensive whole; but no mere arrangers

or compilers would be competent to do so.’


“While employed on the wild legend of Odysseus, he met with a ballad,

recording the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon. His noble mind seized the hint

that there presented itself, and the Achilleis grew under his hand. Unity of

design, however, caused him to publish the poem under the same pseudonyme as

his former work; and the disjointed lays of the ancient bards were joined

together, like those relating to the Cid, into a chronicle history, named the

Iliad. Melesigenes knew that the poem was destined to be a lasting one, and so

it has proved; but, first, the poems were destined to undergo many vicissitudes

and corruptions, by the people who took to singing them in the streets,

assemblies, and agoras. However, Solon first, and then Peisistratus, and

afterwards Aristoteles and others, revised the poems, and restored the works of

Melesigenes Homeros to their original integrity in a great measure.”