A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

Sources for
the earlier
periods.
A ncient
World, 69 ff.
The Iliad
and the
Odyssey.
Ancient
World, 83-5.
Seventh and
sixth centuries,
B.C.
68 Introduction to the Sources
This source we may supple-
materials are archaeological.
ment by a study of traditions and of the survival of religious,
social, and political institutions from that age to
later time. In such research it is extremely difficult, on
many points impossible, to determine what has actually
come down from the period under consideration and what
was added in later time.
The epic or Homeric age is represented by the two great
poems of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. For the
poet himself we have mere traditions so uncertain and
conflicting as to lead many scholars to doubt his existence.
It seems most probable, however, that Homer was a real
person who lived in Asia Minor, either at Smyrna or on the
island of Chios, about 800 B.C. The beautiful art and
material splendor he describes are in the main a memory
from the glorious past, whereas the religious, moral,
social, and political atmosphere of his poems is that of his
own time and people. Although some scholars are of the
opinion that his poems were written, it is more probable
that they were for a time handed down orally from generation
to generation in schools of minstrels, who found a
livelihood by chanting them at the courts of nobles and at
public festivals.
From the age of Homer no written
material, so far as
we know, came down to later time. About 700 B.C.,
however, some of the more progressive states began to
keep lists of magistrates, and a little later to reduce their
laws and treaties to writing. Such material proved useful
to later historians. Poets of the seventh and sixth
centuries, treating of their own personalities and of their
surroundings, now wrote out their compositions, which have
proved of the highest value for the study of those times.
The earliest of these poets was Hesiod, who lived in