book xi

. may be later (as Lauer maintained), or it may contain additions, which could easily be inserted in a description of the kind. And the last book is probably by a different hand, as the ancient critics believed. But the unity of the _Odyssey_ as a whole is apparently beyond the reach of the existing weapons of criticism.

_Chorizontes._--When we are satisfied that each of the great Homeric poems is either wholly or mainly the work of a single poet, a question remains which has been matter of controversy in ancient as well as modern times--Are they the work of the same poet? Two ancient grammarians, Xeno and Hellanicus, were known as the "separators" ([Greek: oi chorizontes]); and Aristarchus appears to have written a treatise against their heresy. In modern times some of the greatest names have been on the side of the "Chorizontes."

If, as has been maintained in the preceding pages, the external evidence regarding Homer is of no value, the problem now before us may be stated in this form: Given two poems of which nothing is known except that they are of the same school of poetry, what is the probability that they are by the same author? We may find a fair parallel by imagining two plays drawn at hazard from the works of the great tragic writers. It is evident that the burden of proof would rest with those who held them to be by the same hand.

The arguments used in this discussion have been of very various calibre. The ancient Chorizontes observed that the messenger of Zeus is Iris in the _Iliad_, but Hermes in the _Odyssey_; that the wife of Hephaestus is one of the Charites in the _Iliad_, but Aphrodite in the _Odyssey_; that the heroes in the _Iliad_ do not eat fish; that Crete has a hundred cities according to the _Iliad_, and only ninety according to the _Odyssey_; that [Greek: proparoithe] is used in the _Iliad_ of place, in the _Odyssey_ of time, &c. Modern scholars have added to the list, especially by making careful comparisons of the two poems in respect of vocabulary and grammatical forms. Nothing is more difficult than to assign the degree of weight to be given to such facts. The difference of subject between the two poems is so great that it leads to the most striking differences of detail, especially in the vocabulary. For instance, the word [Greek: phobos], which in Homer means "flight in battle" (not "fear"), occurs thirty-nine times in the _Iliad_, and only once in the _Odyssey_; but then there are no battles in the _Odyssey_. Again, the verb [Greek: rhegnymi], "to break," occurs forty-eight times in the _Iliad_, and once in the _Odyssey_,--the reason being that it is constantly used of breaking the armour of an enemy, the gate of a city, the hostile ranks, &c. Once more, the word [Greek: skotos], "darkness," occurs fourteen times in the _Iliad_, once in the _Odyssey_. But in every one of the fourteen places it is used of "darkness" coming over the sight of a fallen warrior. On the other side, if words such as [Greek: asaminthos], "a bath," [Greek: chernips], "a basin for the hands," [Greek: lesche], "a place to meet and talk," &c., are peculiar to the _Odyssey_, we have only to remember that the scene in the _Iliad_ is hardly ever laid within any walls except those of a tent. These examples will show that mere statistics of the occurrence of words prove little, and that we must begin by looking to the subject and character of each poem. When we do so, we at once find ourselves in the presence of differences of the broadest kind. The _Iliad_ is much more historical in tone and character. The scene of the poem is a real place, and the poet sings (as Ulysses says of Demodocus) as though he had been present himself, or had heard from one who had been. The supernatural element is confined to an interference of the gods, which to the common eye hardly disturbs the natural current of affairs. The _Odyssey_, on the contrary, is full of the magical and romantic--"speciosa miracula," as Horace called them. Moreover, these marvels--which in their original form are doubtless as old as anything in the _Iliad_, since in fact they are part of the vast stock of popular tales (_Marchen_) diffused all over the world--are mixed up in the _Odyssey_ with the heroes of the Trojan war. This has been especially noticed in the case of the story of Polyphemus, one that is found in many countries, and in versions which cannot all be derived from Homer. W. Grimm has pointed out that the behaviour of Ulysses in that story is senseless and foolhardy, utterly beneath the wise and much-enduring Ulysses of the Trojan war. The reason is simple; he is not the Ulysses of the Trojan war, but a being of the same world as Polyphemus himself--the world of giants and ogres. The question then is--How long must the name of Ulysses have been familiar in the legend (_Sage_) of Troy before it made its way into the tales of giants and ogres (_Marchen_), where the poet of the _Odyssey_ found it?

Again, the Trojan legend has itself received some extension between the time of the _Iliad_ and that of the _Odyssey_. The story of the Wooden Horse is not only unknown to the _Iliad_, but is of a kind which we can hardly imagine the poet of the _Iliad_ admitting. The part taken by Neoptolemus seems also to be a later addition. The tendency to amplify and complete the story shows itself still more in the Cyclic poets. Between the _Iliad_ and these poets the _Odyssey_ often occupies an intermediate position.

This great and significant change in the treatment of the heroic legends is accompanied by numerous minor differences (such as the ancients remarked) in belief, in manners and institutions, and in language. These differences bear out the inference that the _Odyssey_ is of a later age. The progress of reflection is especially shown in the higher ideas entertained regarding the gods. The turbulent Olympian court has almost disappeared. Zeus has acquired the character of a supreme moral ruler; and although Athena and Poseidon are adverse influences in the poem, the notion of a direct contest between them is scrupulously avoided. The advance of morality is shown in the more frequent use of terms such as "just" ([Greek: dikaios]), "piety" ([Greek: hoshie]), "insolence" ([Greek: hubris]), "god-fearing" ([Greek: theoudes]), "pure" ([Greek: hagnos]); and also in the plot of the story, which is distinctly a contest between right and wrong. In matters bearing upon the arts of life it is unsafe to press the silence of the _Iliad_. We may note, however, the difference between the house of Priam, surrounded by distinct dwellings for his many sons and daughters, and the houses of Ulysses and Alcinous, with many chambers under a single roof. The singer, too, who is so prominent a figure in the _Odyssey_ can hardly be thought to be absent from the _Iliad_ merely because the scene is laid in a camp.

_Style of Homer._--A few words remain to be said on the style and general character of the Homeric poems, and on the comparisons which may be made between Homer and analogous poetry in other countries.

The cardinal qualities of the style of Homer have been pointed out once for all by Matthew Arnold. "The translator of Homer," he says, "should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author--that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and, finally, that he is eminently noble" (_On Translating Homer_, p. 9).

The peculiar rapidity of Homer is due in great measure to his use of the hexameter verse. It is characteristic of early literature that the evolution of the thought--that is, the grammatical form of the sentence--is guided by the structure of the verse; and the correspondence which consequently obtains between the rhythm and the grammar--the thought being given out in lengths, as it were, and these again divided by tolerably uniform pauses--produces a swift flowing movement, such as is rarely found when the periods have been constructed without direct reference to the metre. That Homer possesses this rapidity without falling into the corresponding faults--that is, without becoming either "jerky" or monotonous--is perhaps the best proof of his unequalled poetical skill. The plainness and directness, both of thought and of expression, which characterize Homer were doubtless qualities of his age; but the author of the _Iliad_ (like Voltaire, to whom Arnold happily compares him) must have possessed the national gift in a surpassing degree. The _Odyssey_ is in this respect perceptibly below the level of the _Iliad_.

Rapidity or ease of movement, plainness of expression and plainness of thought, these are not the distinguishing qualities of the great epic poets--Virgil, Dante, Milton. On the contrary, they belong rather to the humbler epico-lyrical school for which Homer has been so often claimed. The proof that Homer does not belong to that school--that his poetry is not in any true sense "ballad-poetry"--is furnished by the higher artistic structure of his poems (already discussed), and as regards style by the fourth of the qualities distinguished by Arnold--the quality of _nobleness_. It is his noble and powerful style, sustained through every change of idea and subject, that finally separates Homer from all forms of "ballad-poetry" and "popular epic."[14]

But while we are on our guard against a once common error, we may recognize the historical connexion between the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ and the "ballad" literature which undoubtedly preceded them in Greece. It may even be admitted that the swift-flowing movement, and the simplicity of thought and style, which we admire in the _Iliad_ are an inheritance from the earlier "lays"--the [Greek: klea andron] such as Achilles and Patroclus sang to the lyre in their tent. Even the metre--the hexameter verse--may be assigned to them. But between these lays and Homer we must place the cultivation of epic poetry as an art.[15] The pre-Homeric lays doubtless furnished the elements of such a poetry--the alphabet, so to speak, of the art; but they must have been refined and transmuted before they formed poems like the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_.

A single example will illustrate this. In the scene on the walls of Troy, in the third book of the _Iliad_, after Helen has pointed out Agamemnon, Ulysses and Ajax in answer to Priam's questions, she goes on unasked to name Idomeneus. Lachmann, whose mind is full of the ballad manner, fastens upon this as an irregularity. "The unskilful transition from Ajax to Idomeneus, about whom no question had been asked," he cannot attribute to the original poet of the lay (_Betrachtungen_, p. 15, ed. 1865). But, as was pointed out by A. Romer[16], this is exactly the variation which a _poet_ would introduce to relieve the primitive _ballad-like_ sameness of question and answer; and moreover it forms the transition to the lines about the Dioscuri by which the scene is so touchingly brought to a close.

_Analogies._--The development of epic poetry (properly so called) out of the oral songs or ballads of a country is a process which in the nature of things can seldom be observed. It seems clear, however, that the hypothesis of epics such as the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ having been formed by putting together or even by working up shorter poems finds no support from analogy.

Narrative poetry of great interest is found in several countries (such as Spain and Servia), in which it has never attained to the epic stage. In Scandinavia, in Lithuania, in Russia, according to Gaston Paris (_Histoire poetique de Charlemagne_, p. 9), the national songs have been arrested in a form which may be called intermediate between contemporary poetry and the epic. The true epics are those of India, Persia, Greece, Germany, Britain and France. Most of these, however, fail to afford any useful points of comparison, either from their utter unlikeness to Homer, or because there is no evidence of the existence of anterior popular songs. The most instructive, perhaps the only instructive, parallel is to be found in the French "chansons de geste," of which the _Chanson de Roland_ is the earliest and best example. These poems are traced back with much probability to the 10th century. They are epic in character, and were recited by professional _jongleurs_ (who may be compared to the [Greek: aoidoi] of Homer). But as early as the 7th century we come upon traces of short lays (the so-called cantilenes) which were in the mouths of all and were sung in chorus. It has been held that the chansons de geste were formed by joining together "bunches" of these earlier cantilenes, and this was the view taken by Leon Gautier in the first edition of _Les Epopees francaises_ (1865). In the second edition, of which the first volume appeared in 1878, he abandoned this theory. He believes that the epics were generally composed under the influence of earlier songs. "Our first epic poets," he says, "did not actually and materially patch together pre-existent cantilenes. They were only inspired by these popular songs; they only borrowed from them the traditional and legendary elements. In short, they took nothing from them but the ideas, the spirit, the life; they 'found' (ils ont trouve) all the rest" (p. 80). But he admits that "some of the old poems may have been borrowed from tradition, without any intermediary" (ibid.); and when it is considered that the traces of the "cantilenes" are slight, and that the degree in which they inspired the later poetry must be a matter of impression rather than of proof, it does not surprise us to find other scholars (notably Paul Meyer) attaching less importance to them, or even doubting their existence.[17]

When Leon Gautier shows how history passes into legend, and legend again into romance, we are reminded of the difference noticed above between the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, and between Homer and the early Cyclic poems. And the peculiar degradation of Homeric characters which appears in some poets (especially Euripides) finds a parallel in the later chansons de geste.[18]

The comparison of Homer with the great literary epics calls for more discursive treatment than would be in place here. Some external differences have been already indicated. Like the French epics, Homeric poetry is indigenous, and is distinguished by this fact, and by the ease of movement and the simplicity which result from it, from poets such as Virgil, Dante and Milton. It is also distinguished from them by the comparative absence of underlying motives or sentiment. In Virgil's poetry a sense of the greatness of Rome and Italy is the leading motive of a passionate rhetoric, partly veiled by the "chosen delicacy" of his language. Dante and Milton are still more faithful exponents of the religion and politics of their time. Even the French epics are pervaded by the sentiment of fear and hatred of the Saracens. But in Homer the interest is purely dramatic. There is no strong antipathy of race or religion; the war turns on no political event; the capture of Troy lies outside the range of the _Iliad_. Even the heroes are not the chief national heroes of Greece. The interest lies wholly (so far as we can see) in the picture of human action and feeling.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A complete bibliography of Homer would fill volumes. The following list is intended to include those books only which are of first-rate importance.

The _editio princeps_ of Homer, published at Florence in 1488, by Demetrius Chalcondylas, and the Aldine editions of 1504 and 1517, have still some value beyond that of curiosity. The chief modern critical editions are those of Wolf (Halle, 1794-1795; Leipzig, 1804-1807), Spitzner (Gotha, 1832-1836), Bekker (Berlin, 1843; Bonn, 1858), La Roche (_Odyssey_, 1867-1868; _Iliad_, 1873-1876, both at Leipzig); Ludwich (_Odyssey_, Leipzig, 1889-1891; _Iliad_, 2 vols., 1901 and 1907): W. Leaf (_Iliad_, London, 1886-1888; 2nd ed. 1900-1902); Merry and Riddell (_Odyssey_ i.-xii., 2nd ed., Oxford, 1886); Monro (_Odyssey_ xiii.-xxiv. with appendices, Oxford, 1901); Monro and Allen (_Iliad_), and Allen (_Odyssey_, 1908, Oxford). The commentaries of Barnes, Clarke and Ernesti are practically superseded; but Heyne's _Iliad_ (Leipzig, 1802) and Nitzsch's commentary on the _Odyssey_ (books i.-xii., Hanover, 1826-1840) are still useful. Nagelbach's _Anmerkungen zur Ilias_ (A, B 1-483, [Gamma]) is of great value, especially the third edition (by Autenrieth, Nuremberg, 1864). The unique _Scholia Veneta_ on the _Iliad_ were first made known by Villoison (_Homeri Ilias ad veteris codicis Veneti fidem recensita, Scholia in eam antiquissima ex eodem codice aliisque nunc primum edidit, cum Asteriscis, Obeliscis, aliisque signis criticis, Joh. Baptista Caspar d'Ansse de Villoison_, Venice, 1788); reprinted, with many additions from other MSS., by Bekker (_Scholia in Homeri Iliadem_, Berlin, 1825-1826). A new edition has been published by the Oxford Press (_Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem_, ed. Gul. Dindorfius); six volumes have appeared (1875-1888), the last two edited by Professor E. Maass. The vast commentary of Eustathius was first printed at Rome in 1542; the last edition is that of Stallbaum (Leipzig, 1827). The Scholia on the _Odyssey_ were published by Buttmann (Berlin, 1821), and with greater approach to completeness by W. Dindorf (Oxford, 1855). Although Wolf at once perceived the value of the Venetian Scholia on the _Iliad_, the first scholar who thoroughly explored them was C. Lehrs (_De Aristarchi studiis Homericis_, Konigsberg, 1833; 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1865). Of the studies in the same field which have appeared since, the most important are: Aug. Nauck, _Aristophanis Byzantii fragmenta_ (Halle, 1848); L. Friedlander, _Aristonici_ [Greek: peri semeion 'Iliados] _reliquiae_ (Gottingen, 1853); M. Schmidt, _Didymi Chalcenteri fragmenta_ (Leipzig, 1854); L. Friedlander, _Nicanoris_ [Greek: peri Iliakes stigmes] _reliquiae_ (Berlin, 1857); Aug. Lentz, _Herodiani Technici reliquiae_ (Leipzig, 1867); J. La Roche, _Die homerische Textkritik im Alterthum_ (Leipzig, 1866) and _Homerische Untersuchungen_ (Leipzig, 1869); Ad. Romer, _Die Werke der Aristarcheer im Cod. Venet. A._ (Munich, 1875); A. Ludwich, _Aristarch's Homerische Textkritik_ (2 vols. Leipzig, 1884-1885); and _Die Homervulgata als vor-Alexandrinisch erwiesen_ (Leipzig, 1898).

The literature of the "Homeric Question" begins practically with Wolf's _Prolegomena_ (Halle, 1795). Of the earlier books Wood's _Essay on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer_ is the most interesting. Wolf's views were skilfully popularized in W. Muller's _Homerische Vorschule_ (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1836). G. Hermann's dissertations _De interpolationibus Homeri_ (1832) and _De iteratis apua Homerum_ (1840) are reprinted in his _Opuscula_. Lachmann's two papers (_Betrachtungen uber Homer's Ilias_) were edited together by M. Haupt (2nd ed., Berlin, 1865). Besides the somewhat voluminous writings of Nitzsch, and the discussions contained in the histories of Greek literature by K. O. Muller, Bernhardy, Ulrici and Th. Bergk, and in Grote's _History of Greece_, see Welcker, _Der epische Cyclus oder die homerischen Dichter_ (Bonn, 1835-1849); on Proclus and the Cycle reference may also be made to Wilamowitz-Mollendorf p. 328 seq.; E. Bethe, _Rhein. Mus._ (1891), xxvi. p. 593 seq.; O. Immisch, _Festschrift Th. Gomperz dargebracht_ (1902), p. 237 sq.; Lauer, _Geschichte der homerischen Poesie_ (Berlin, 1851); Sengebusch, two dissertations prefixed to the two volumes of W. Dindorf's _Homer_ in the Teubner series (1855-1856); Friedlander, _Die homerische Kritik von Wolf bis Grote_ (Berlin, 1853); Nutzhorn, _Die Entstehungsweise der homerischen Gedichte, mit Vorwort von J. N. Madvig_ (Leipzig, 1869); E. Kammer, _Zur homerischen Frage_ (Konigsberg, 1870); and _Die Einheit der Odyssee_ (Leipzig, 1873); A. Kirchhoff, _Die Composition der Odyssee_ (Berlin, 1869); Volkmann, _Geschichte und Kritik der Wolf'schen Prolegomena_ (Leipzig, 1874); K. Sittl, _Die Wiederholungen in der Odyssee_ (Munchen, 1882); U. v. Wilamowitz-Mollendorf, _Homerische Untersuchungen_ (Berlin, 1884); O. Seeck, _Die Quellen der Odyssee_ (Berlin, 1887); F. Blass, _Die Interpolationen in der Odyssee_ (Leipzig, 1905). The interest taken in the question by English students is sufficiently shown in the writings of W. E. Gladstone, F. A. Paley, Henry Hayman (in the Introduction to his _Odyssey_), P. Geddes, R. C. Jebb and A. Lang (see especially the latter's _Homer and his Age_, 1907).

The Homeric dialect must be studied in the books (such as those of G. Curtius) that deal with Greek on the comparative method. The best special work is the brief _Griechische Formenlehre_ of H. L. Ahrens (Gottingen, 1852). Other important works are those of Aug. Fick: _Die homerische Odyssee in der ursprunglichen Sprachform wiederhergestelt_ (Gottingen, 1883); _Die homerische Ilias_ (_ibid._, 1886); W. Schulze, _Quaestiones epicae_ (Guterslohe, 1892). On Homeric syntax the chief

## book is B. Delbruck's _Syntactische Forschungen_ (Halle, 1871-1879),

especially vols. i. and iv.; on metre, &c., Hartel's _Homerische Studien_ (i.-iii., Vienna); Knos, _De digammo Homerico quaestiones_ (Upsala, 1872-1873-1878); Thumb, _Zur Geschichte des griech. Digamma, Indogermanische Forschungen_ (1898), ix. 294 seq. The papers reprinted in Bekker's _Homerische Blatter_ (Bonn, 1863-1872) and Cobet's _Miscellanea Crilica_ (Leiden, 1876) are of the highest value. Hoffmann's _Quaestiones Homericae_ (Clausthal, 1842) is a useful collection of facts. Buttmann's _Lexilogus_, as an example of method, is still worth study.

The antiquities of Homer--using the word in a wide sense--may be studied in the following books: Volcker, _Uber homerische Geographie und Weltkunde_ (Hanover, 1830); Nagelsbach's _Homerische Theologie_ (2nd ed., Nuremberg, 1861); H. Brunn, _Die Kunst bei Homer_ (Munich, 1868); W. W. Lloyd, _On the Homeric Design of the Shield of Achilles_ (London, 1854); Buchholz, _Die homerischen Realien_ (Leipzig, 1871-1873); W. Helbig, _Das homerische Epos aus den Denkmalern erlautert_ (Leipzig, 1884; 2nd ed., ibid., 1887); W. Reichel, _Uber homerische Waffen_ (Vienna, 1894); C. Robert, _Studien zur Ilias_ (Berlin, 1901); W. Ridgeway, _The Early Age of Greece_ (Cambridge, 1901); V. Berard, _Les Pheniciens et l'Odyssee_ (Paris, 1902-1903); C. Robert, "Topographische Probleme der Ilias," in _Hermes_, xlii., 1907, pp. 78-112.

Among other aids should be mentioned the _Index Homericus_ of Seber (Oxford, 1780); Prendergast's _Concordance to the Iliad_ (London, 1875); Dunbar's _id._ to the _Odyssey and Hymns_ (Oxford, 1880); Frohwein, _Verbum Homericum_, (Leipzig, 1881); Gehring, _Index Homericus_ (Leipzig, 1891); the _Lexicon Homericum_, edited by H. Ebeling (Leipzig, 1880-1885) and the facsimile of the cod. Ven. A (Sijthoff; Leiden, 1901), with an introduction by D. Comparetti. (D. B. M.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This article was thoroughly revised by Dr D. B. Monro before his death in 1905; a few points have since been added by Mr. T. W. Allen.

[2] See a paper in the _Diss. Philol. Halenses_, ii. 97-219.

[3] Compare the _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_, published by Robert Chambers.

[4] Compare the branch of myrtle at an Athenian feast (Aristoph., _Nub._, 1364).

[5] The _Iliad_ was also recited at the festival of the Brauronia, at Brauron in Attica (Hesych. _s.v._ [Greek: branroniois]).

[6] _Contemporary Review_, vol. xxiii. p. 218 ff.

[7] The fact that the Phoenician Vau ([digamma]) was retained in the Greek alphabets, and the vowel [upsilon] added, shows that when the alphabet was introduced the sound denoted by [digamma] was still in full vigour. Otherwise [digamma] would have been used for the vowel [upsilon], just as the Phoenician consonant Yod became the vowel [iota]. But in the Ionic dialect the sound of [digamma] died out soon after Homer's time, if indeed it was still pronounced then. It seems probable therefore that the introduction of the alphabet is not later than the composition of the Homeric poems.

[8] See D. B. Monro's _Homer's Odyssey_, books xiii.-xxiv. (Oxford, 1901, p. 455 sqq.), and the abstract of his paper on the Homeric Dialect read to the Congress of Historical Sciences at Rome, 1903: _Atti del Congresso internazionale di scienze storiche_, ii. 152, 153, 1905, "Il Dialetto omerico."

[9] See the chapter in Cobet's _Miscellanea critica_, pp. 225-239.

[10] The existence of two groups of the Venetian Scholia was first noticed by Jacob La Roche, and they were first distinguished in the edition of W. Dindorf (Oxford, 1875). There is also a group of Scholia, chiefly exegetical, a collection of which was published by Villoison from a MS. Ven. 453 (s. xi.) in his edition of 1788, and has been again edited by W. Dindorf (Oxford, 1877). The most important collection of this group is contained in the _Codex Townleianus_ (Burney 86 s. xi.) of the British Museum, edited by E. Maass, (Oxford, 1887-1888). The vast commentary of Eustathius (of the 12th century) marks a third stage in the progress of ancient Homeric learning.

[11] _Prolegomena ad Homerum, sive de operum Homericorum prisca et genuina forma variisque mutationibus et probabili ratione emendandi._ scripsit Frid. Aug. Wolfius, volumen i. (1795).

[12] On this point see a paper by Professor Packard in the _Trans. of the American Philological Association_ (1876).

[13] _Die Composition der Odyssee_ (Berlin, 1869). A full discussion of this book is given by Dr E. Kammer, _Die Einheit der Odyssee_ (Leipzig, 1873).

[14] "As a poet Homer must be acknowledged to excel Shakespeare in the truth, the harmony, the sustained grandeur, the satisfying completeness of his images" (Shelley, _Essays_, &c., i. 51, ed. 1852).

[15] "The old English balladist may stir Sir Philip Sidney's heart like a trumpet, and this is much; but Homer, but the few artists in the grand style, can do more--they can refine the raw natural man, they can transmute him" (_On Translating Homer_, p. 61).

[16] _Die exegetischen Scholien der Ilias_, p. vii.

[17] "On comprend que des chants populaires nes d'un evenement eclatant, victoire ou defaite, puissent contribuer a former la tradition, a en arreter les traits; ils peuvent aussi devenir le centre de legendes qui se forment pour les expliquer; et de la sorte leur substance au moins arrive au poete epique qui l'introduit dans sa composition. Voila ce qui a pu se produire pour de chants tres-courts, dont il est d'ailleurs aussi difficile d'affirmer que de nier l'existence. Mais on peut expliquer la formation des chansons de geste par une autre hypothese" (Meyer, _Recherches sur l'epopee francaise_, p. 65). "Ce qui a fait naitre la theorie des chants 'lyrico-epiques' ou des cantilenes, c'est le systeme de Wolf sur les poemes homeriques, et de Lachmann sur les _Nibelungen_. Mais, au moins en ce qui concerne ce dernier poeme, le systeme est detruit.... On tire encore argument des romances espagnoles, qui, dit-on, sont des 'cantilenes' non encore arrivees a l'epopee.... Et c'est le malheur de cette theorie: faute de preuves directes, elle cherche des analogies au dehors: en Espagne, elle trouve des 'cantilenes,' mais pas d'epopee; en Allemagne, une epopee, mais pas de cantilenes!" (_Ibid._ p. 66).

[18] A. Lang, _Contemporary Review_, vol. xvii., N.S., p. 588.

HOMER, WINSLOW (1836-1910), American painter, was born in Boston, U.S.A., on the 24th of February 1836. At the age of nineteen he was apprenticed to a lithographer. Two years later he opened a studio in Boston, and devoted much of his time to making drawings for wood-engravers. In 1859 he removed to New York, where he studied in the night-school of the National Academy of Design. During the American Civil War he was with the troops at the front, and contributed sketches to _Harper's Weekly_. The war also furnished him with the subjects for the first two pictures which he exhibited (1863), one of which was "Home, Sweet Home." His "Prisoners from the Front"--perhaps his most generally popular picture--was exhibited in New York in 1865, and also in Paris in 1867, where he was spending the year in study. Among his other paintings in oil are "Snap the Whip" (which was exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876, and, in company with "The Country Schoolroom," at the Paris Salon the following year), "Eating Water-melon," "The Cotton Pickers," "Visit from the Old Mistress, Sunday Morning," "The Life-Line" and "The Coming of the Gale." His genius, however, has perhaps shown better in his works in water-colour, among which are his marine studies painted at Gloucester, Mass., and his "Inside the Bar," "The Voice from the Cliffs" (pictures of English fisherwomen), "Tynemouth," "Wrecking of a Vessel" and "Lost on the Grand Banks." His work, which principally consists of _genre_ pictures, is characterized by strength, rugged directness and unmistakable freshness and originality, rather than by technical excellence, grace of line or beauty of colour. He was little affected by European influences. His types and scenes, apart from his few English pictures, are distinctly American--soldiers in blue, New England children, negroes in the land of cotton, Gloucester fishermen and stormy Atlantic seas. Besides being a member of the Society of Painters in Water-color, New York, he was elected in 1864 an associate and the following year a member of the National Academy of Design.

HOMESTEAD, a borough of Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the Monongahela river, 8 m. S.E. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890) 7911; (1900) 12,554, of whom 3604 were foreign-born and 640 were negroes; (U.S. census, 1910) 18,713. It is served by the Pennsylvania and the Pittsburg & Lake Erie railways, and by the short Union Railroad, which connects with the Bessemer & Lake Erie and the Wabash railways. The borough has a Carnegie library and the C.M. Schwab Manual Training School. Partly in Homestead but chiefly in the adjoining borough of Munhall (and therefore not reported as in Homestead by the U.S. Census) is one of the largest plants in the United States for the manufacture of steel used in the construction of bridges and steel-frame buildings and of steel armour-plate, and this is its chief industry; among Homestead's other manufactures are glass and fire-bricks. The water-works are owned and operated by the municipality. Homestead was first settled in 1871, and it was incorporated in 1880. In 1892 a labour strike lasting 143 days and one of the most serious in the history of the United States was carried on here by the National Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers of the United States against the Carnegie Steel Company. The arrival (on the 6th of July) of a force of about 200 Pinkerton detectives from New York and Chicago resulted in a fight in which about 10 men were killed, and to restore order two brigades of the state militia were called out. See STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS.

HOMESTEAD AND EXEMPTION LAWS, laws (principally in the United States) designed primarily either to aid the head of a family to acquire title to a place of residence or to protect the owner against loss of that title through seizure for debt. These laws have all been enacted in America since about the middle of the 19th century, and owe their origin to the demand for a population of the right sort in a new country, to the conviction that the freeholder rather than the tenant is the natural supporter of popular government, to the effort to prevent insolvent debtors from becoming useless members of society, and to the belief that such laws encourage the stability of the family.

By the cessions of several of the older states, and by various treaties with foreign countries, public lands have been acquired for the United States in every state and territory of the Union except the original thirteen, and Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas. For a time they were regarded chiefly as a source of revenue, but about 1820, as the need of revenue for the payment of the national debt decreased and the inhabitants of an increasing number of new states became eager to have the vacant lands within their bounds occupied, the demand that the public lands should be disposed of more in the interest of the settler became increasingly strong, and the homestead idea originated. Until the advent of railways, however, the older states of the North were opposed to promoting the development of the West in this manner, and soon afterwards the Southern representatives in Congress opposed the general homestead bills in the interests of slavery, so that except in isolated cases where settlers were desired to protect some frontier, as in Florida and Oregon, and to a limited extent in the case of the Pre-emption Act of 1841 (see below), the homestead principle was not applied by the national government until the Civil War had begun. A general homestead bill was passed by Congress in 1860, but this was vetoed by President James Buchanan; two years later, however, a similar bill became a law. The act of 1862 originally provided that any citizen of the United States, or applicant for citizenship, who was the head of a family, or twenty-one years of age, or, if younger, had served not less than fourteen days in the army or navy of the United States during an actual war, might apply for 160 acres or less of unappropriated public lands, and might acquire title to this amount of land by residing upon and cultivating it for five years immediately following, and paying such fees as were necessary to cover the cost of administration; a homestead acquired in this manner was exempted from seizure for any debt contracted prior to the date of issuing the patent. A commutation clause of this act permitted title to be acquired after only six months of residence by paying $1.25 per acre, as provided in the Pre-emption Act of 1841. Act of 1872, amended in 1901, allows any soldier or seaman, who has served at least ninety days in the army or navy of the United States during the Civil War, the Spanish-American War or in the suppression of the insurrection in the Philippines, and was honourably discharged, to apply for a homestead, and permits the deduction of the time of such service, or, if discharged on account of wounds or other disability incurred in the line of duty, the full term of his enlistment, from the five years otherwise required for perfecting title, except that in any case he shall have resided upon and cultivated the land at least one year before the passing of title. Since 1866 mineral lands have been for the most part excluded from entry as homesteads.

In accordance with the provisions of the homestead law, 718,930 homesteads, containing 96,495,414 acres, were established in forty-two years, and besides this principal act, Congress has passed several minor ones of a like nature, that is, acts designed to benefit the actual settler who improves the land. Thus the Pre-emption Act of 1841 gave to any head of a family or any single person over twenty-one years of age, who was a citizen of the United States or had declared his intention to become one, permission to purchase not to exceed 160 acres of public lands after he had resided upon and improved the same for six months; the Timber-Culture Act of 1873 allowed title to 160 acres of public prairie-land to be given to any one who should plant upon it 40 acres of timber, and keep the same in good growing condition for ten years; and the Desert-Land Act of 1877 gave to any citizen of the United States, or to any person who had declared his intention to become one, the privilege of acquiring title to 640 acres of such public land as was not included in mineral or timber lands, and would not without irrigation produce an agricultural crop, by paying twenty-five cents an acre and creating for the tract an artificial water-supply. These several land acts, however, invited fraud to such an extent that in time they promoted the establishment of large land holdings by ranchmen and others quite as much as they encouraged settlement and cultivation, and so great was this evil that in 1891 the Timber-Culture and Pre-emption Acts were repealed, the total amount of land that could be acquired by any one person under the several land laws was limited to 320 acres, the Desert-Land Act was so amended as to require an expenditure of at least three dollars an acre for irrigation, and the original Homestead Act was so amended as to disqualify any person who was already proprietor of more than 160 acres in any state or Territory of the Union for acquiring any more land under its provisions; and in 1896 a residence of fourteen months was required before permitting commutation or the purchase of title. But even these measures were inadequate to prevent fraud. In 1894 Congress, in what is known as the Carey Act, donated to California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico and the Dakotas so much of 1,000,000 acres each of desert-lands as each should cause to be irrigated, reclaimed and occupied within ten years,[1] not less than 20 acres of each 160 acres to be cultivated by actual settlers; and in several of these states and territories irrigating companies have been formed and land offered to settlers in amounts not exceeding 160 acres to each, on terms requiring the settler to purchase ample and perpetual water-rights. In 1902, Congress appropriated the proceeds of the sales of public lands in these states and territories to form a reclamation fund to be used for the construction and maintenance of irrigation works, and lands reclaimed by this means are open to homestead entries, the entry-man being required to pay for the cost of reclamation in ten equal annual instalments without interest. When Texas was admitted to the Union the disposal of its public lands was reserved to the state, and under its laws every person who is the head of a family and without a homestead may acquire title to 160 acres of land by residing upon and improving it for three years; every unmarried man eighteen years of age or over may acquire title to 80 acres in the same way.

A short time before the National Homestead Act for aiding citizens to acquire homesteads went into operation, some of the state legislatures had passed homestead and exemption laws designed to protect homesteads or a certain amount of property against loss to the owners in case they should become insolvent debtors, and by the close of the century the legislature of nearly every state in the Union had passed a law of this nature. These laws vary greatly. In most states the exemption of a homestead or other property from liability for debts can be claimed only by the head of a family, but in Georgia it may be claimed by any aged or infirm person, by any trustee of a family of minor children, or by any person on whom any woman or girls are dependent for support; and in California, although the head of a family may claim exemption for a homestead valued at $5000, any other person may claim exemption for a homestead valued at $1000. In some states exemptions may be claimed either for a farm limited to 40, 80, 160 or 200 acres, or for a house and one or more lots, usually limited in size, in a town, village or city; in other states the homestead for which exemption may be claimed is limited in value, and this value varies from $500 to $5000. With the homestead are usually included the appurtenances thereto, and the courts invariably interpret the law liberally; but many states also exempt a specified amount of personal property, including wearing apparel, furniture, provisions, tools, libraries and in some cases domestic animals and stock in trade. A few states exempt no homestead and only a small amount of personal property; Maryland, for example, exempts only $100 worth of property besides money payable in the nature of insurance, or for relief, in the event of sickness, injury or death. To some debts the exemption does not usually apply; the most common of these are taxes, purchase money, a debt secured by mortgage on the homestead and debts contracted in making improvements upon it; in Maryland the only exception is a judgment for breach of promise to marry or in case of seduction. If the homestead belongs to a married person, the consent of both husband and wife is usually required to mortgage it. Finally, some states require that the homestead for which exemption is to be claimed shall be previously entered upon record, others require only occupancy, and still others permit the homestead to be designated whenever a claim is presented.

Following the example of either the United States Congress or the state legislatures, the governments of several British colonial states and provinces have passed homestead laws. In Quebec every settler on public lands is allowed, after receiving a patent, an exemption of not to exceed 200 acres from that of his widow, of his, her or their children and descendants in the direct line. In Ontario an applicant for a homestead may have not to exceed 200 acres of unappropriated public land for farming purposes by building a house thereon, occupying it for five years, and bringing at least fifteen acres under cultivation; the exemption of such a homestead from liability to seizure for debts is, however, limited to twenty years from the date of application for the land, and does not extend even during that period to rates or taxes. Manitoba, British Columbia, Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, West Australia and New Zealand also have liberal homestead and exemption laws.

See J. B. Sanborn, "Some Political Aspects of Homestead Legislation," in _The American Historical Review_ (1900); Edward Manson, "The Homestead Acts," in the _Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation_ (London, 1899); S. D. Thompson, _A Treatise on_ _Homesteads and Exemptions_ (San Francisco, 1886); P. Bureau, _Le Homestead ou l'Insaisissabilite de la petite propriete fonciere_ (Paris, 1894), and L. Vacher, _Le Homestead aux Etats-Unis_ (Paris, 1899). (N. D. M.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] In 1901 it was provided that the ten years should date from the segregation of the lands from the public domain.

HOMEYER, KARL GUSTAV (1795-1874), German jurist, was born on the 13th of August 1795 at Wolgast in Pomerania. After studying law at the universities of Berlin, Gottingen and Heidelberg (1813-1817), he settled as a _Privatdocent_, in 1821, at the university of Berlin, where he became ordinary professor of law in 1827. His principal works are his edition of the _Sachsenspiegel_ (in 3 vols., 1827, 3rd ed., 1861, containing also some other important sources of Saxon or Low German law), which is still unsurpassed in accuracy and sagacity of research, and his book on _Die Haus- und Hofmarken_ (1870), in which he has given a history of the use of trade-marks among all the Teutonic nations of Europe, and which is full of important elucidations of the history of law and also contains valuable contributions to the history of art and civilization. In 1850 Homeyer was elected a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, in the _Transactions_ of which he published various papers exhibiting profound learning (_Uber die Heimat_, 1852; _Genealogie der Handschriften des Sachsenspiegels_, 1859; _Die Stadtbucher des Mittelalters_, 1860; _Der Dreissigste_, 1864, &c.). He died on the 20th of October 1874.

HOMICIDE (Lat. _homicidium_), the general and neutral term for the killing of one human being by another. The nature of the responsibility of the slayer to the state and to the relatives of the slain has been one of the chief concerns of all systems of law from the earliest times, and it has been variously considered from the points of view of the sanctity of human life, the interests of the sovereign, the injury to the family of the slain and the moral guilt, i.e. the motives and intentions, of the slayer.

The earliest recorded laws (those of Khammurabi) do not contain any sweeping general provision as to the punishment of homicide. The death penalty is freely imposed but not for homicide. "If a man strike a gentleman's daughter that she dies, his own daughter is to be put to death, if a poor man's the slayer pays 1/2 mina." In the Mosaic law the general command "Thou shalt not kill" of the Decalogue is in terms absolute. In primitive law homicide, however innocent, subjected the slayer to the lawful vengeance of the kindred of the slain, unless he could make some composition with him. This _lex talionis_ (a life for a life) resulted: (1) in a course of private justice which still survives in the vendetta of Corsica and Albania, and the blood feuds arising out of "difficulties" in the southern and western parts of the United States; (2) in the recognition of sanctuaries and cities of refuge within which the avenger of blood might not penetrate to kill an innocent manslayer; and (3) in the system of wite, bote and wer, by which the life of every man had its assessed price payable to his chief and his next of kin.

It took long to induce the relatives of the slain to appreciate anything beyond the fact of the death of their kinsman or to discriminate between intentional and accidental homicide. By the laws of Khammurabi (206, 208) striking a man in a quarrel without deadly intent but with fatal effect was treated as a matter for compensation according to the rank of the slain. The Pentateuch discriminates between the man "who lieth in wait for" or "cometh presumptuously" on "his neighbour to slay him with guile" (Exodus xxi. 13, 14), and the man "who killeth his neighbour ignorantly whom he hated not in time past" (Deut. xix. 4). But even killing by misadventure exposed the slayer to the avenger of blood. "As a man goeth into the wood with his neighbour to hew wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the axe to cut down a tree and the head slippeth from the helve and lighteth upon his neighbour that he die: he shall flee into one of these cities (of refuge) and live" (Deut. xix. 5).

Under the early laws of Teutonic and Celtic communities the inconveniences of the blood feud were gradually mitigated (see CRIMINAL LAW) by the system of wite and wer (or eric), but the blood feud continued long in Friesland and Lower Saxony, and in parts of Switzerland until the 16th century. In England under the Norman system homicide became a plea of the crown, and the rights of the kindred to private vengeance and to compensation were gradually superseded in favour of the right of the king to forfeitures where the homicide amounted to a crime (felony).

Though homicide was thus made a public offence and not a matter for private vengeance, it took long to discriminate between those forms of homicide which should and those which should not be punished.

The terms of act in English law used to describe _criminal_ homicide are murder (_mord_, _meurtre_, _murdrum_), manslaughter and _felo de se_ (or suicide by a person of sound mind).

The original meaning of the word "murder" seems to have been secret homicide,--"_Murdrum proprie dicitur mors alicujus occulta cujus interfector ignoratur_" (_Dialogus de Scaccario_ i, x.); and Glanville says: _Duo sunt genera homicidii, unum est quod dicitur murdrum quod nullo vidente nullo sciente clam perpetratur, ita quod non assignatur clamor popularis_ (hue and cry), _est et aliud homicidium quod diciter simplex homicidium_. After the Conquest, and for the protection of the ruling race, a fine (also called _murdrum_) was levied for the king on the hundred or other district in which a stranger was found dead, if the slayer was not brought to justice and the blood kin of the slain did not present Englishry, there being a presumption (in favour of the Exchequer) that the deceased was a Frenchman. After the assize of Clarendon (1166) the distinction between the killing of Normans and Englishmen gradually evaporated and the term murder came to acquire its present meaning of deliberate as distinct from secret homicide. In 1267 it was provided that the murder fine should not be levied in cases of death by "misadventure" (_per infortunium_).[1] But at that date and for long afterwards homicide in self-defence or by misadventure or even while of unsound mind involved at the least a forfeiture of goods, and required a pardon. These pardons, and restitution of the goods, became a matter of course, and the judges appear at a later date to have been in the habit of directing an acquittal in such cases. But it was not until 1828 that the innocence of excusable homicide was expressly declared. The rule is now expressed in s. 7 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861: "No punishment or forfeiture shall be incurred by any person who shall kill another by misfortune, or in his own defence, or in any other manner without felony."

The further differentiation between different degrees of criminal homicide was marked by legislation of Henry VIII. (1531) taking away benefit of clergy in the case of "wilful murder with malice prepensed" (aforethought), and that phrase is still the essential element in the definition of "wilful murder," which is committed "when a person of sound memory and discretion unlawfully killeth any reasonable creature or being and under the king's peace with malice aforethought either express or implied" (3 Co. Inst. 47). The whole development of the substantive law as to murder rests on judicial rulings as to the meaning of malice prepense coupled with the extrajudicial commentaries of Coke, Hale and Foster; for parliament, though often tempted by bills and codes, has never ventured on a legislative definition. Much discussion has ranged round the phrase "malice aforethought," and it has undoubtedly been expanded by judicial decision so as to create what is described as "constructive" murder. According to the view of the criminal code commissioners of 1879 (_Parl. Pap._, 1879, c. 23, 45, p. 23) the term "malice aforethought" is now a common name for all the following states of mind:--

1. An intent, preceding the act, to kill or do grievous bodily harm to the person or to any other person:

2. Knowledge that the act done is _likely_ to produce such consequences, whether coupled with an intention to produce them or not:

3. An intent to commit any felony: or

4. An intent to resist an officer of police in the execution of his duty.

The third form of malice aforethought has been much controverted. When it was first recognized as creating a liability for wilful murder almost all felonies were capital offences: but even at the end of the 17th century Lord Holt expressed a view that it should be limited to felonies involving violence or danger to life, e.g. assault with intent to rob, or setting fire to a dwelling-house. And Sir James Stephen's opinion is that, to justify conviction of murder by an act done with intent to commit a felony, the act done must be one dangerous to life or known to be likely to cause death.

Starting with the definition above given, English law still retains so much of its medieval character as to presume all homicide to be "malicious, and therefore murder, unless it is either _justified_ by the command or permission of the law, _excused_ on the ground of accident or self-preservation, or _alleviated_ into manslaughter by being the involuntary consequence of some act not strictly lawful or occasioned by some sudden and sufficiently violent provocation." The truth of the facts alleged in justification, excuse or alleviation, is for the jury to determine: the question whether if true they support the plea for which they are put forward is for the court.

In the administration of the English criminal law as to homicide the consequences of too strict an adherence to the technical definitions of the offences are avoided (a) by the exercise of the jury of their powers to convict of manslaughter only even in cases where they are directed that the offence is murder or nothing; (b) by the report of the judge as to the particular circumstances of each case in which a conviction of murder has been followed by the statutory sentence of death; (c) by the examination of all the evidence in the case by the Home Office in order to enable the secretary of state to determine whether the prerogative of mercy should be exercised.

Homicide is justifiable and not criminal when the killing is done in the execution of the law. The most important case of justifiable homicide is the execution of a criminal in due course of public justice. This condition is most stringently interpreted. "To kill the greatest of malefactors deliberately, uncompelled, and extrajudicially is murder.... And further, if judgment of death be given by a judge not authorized by lawful commission, and execution is done accordingly, the judge is guilty of murder" (Stephen's _Commentaries_,