THE LIVES AND CHARACTERS O F THE GREEK AND ROMAN CLASSICS. I HOME R. T has been the fruitlefs Labour of many concerning the Circumftances of Homer's Life; every Man having the utmost Avidity to know the Perfon he cannot but admire: but, unhappily, this is a Curiofity that can never be thoroughly gratified; the most celebrated of Mankind will for ever be the most unknown. Not but that the Ancients have written his Life, but the Circumftances related in it, efpecially in that afcribed to Herodotus, are fupported chiefly on fabulous Traditions: All his Biographers deviate fo much into Superftition, and fo wonderfully vary in their Relations, that no Dependence can be placed in the Accounts VOL. I. which B which are given, particularly with respect to Egypt and Greece, the two great native Regions of Fiction and Fable. EUSTATHIUS has recorded a ftrange Relation, delivered down to Pofterity by Alexander Paphius, concerning Homer's Birth and Infancy. That he was born in Egypt of Damafagoras and Ethra, and brought up by a Daughter of Orus, the Priest of Isis, who was herself a Prophetefs, and from whofe Breafts Drops of Honey would frequently diftil into the Mouth of the Infant. In the Night-time, the first Sounds he uttered, were the Notes of nine feveral Birds; in the Morning he was found playing in Bed with nine Doves: The Sibyl who attended him used to be feized with a Poetical Phrenzy, and to utter Verfes, in which the commanded Damafagoras to build a Temple to the Mufes. This he performed in obedience to her Infpiration, and related all these Things to the Child when he was grown up; who in Memory of the Doves which played with him during his Infancy, has in his Works preferred this Bird to the Honour of bringing Ambrofia to Jupiter. HELIODORUS, who had heard of this Claim which Egypt put in for Homer, endeavours to ftrengthen it, by naming Thebes as the particular Place of his Birth. He allows alfo, that a Prieft was his reputed Father, but that his real Father, according to the Opinion of Egypt, was Mercury. He fays, that while the Priest was celebrating the Rites of his Country, and therefore flept with his Wife in the Temple, the God knew her, and begot Homer: That he was born with fome Tufts of Hair upon his Thigh, which were a Token of illicit Generation, from whence he was called o unç (Femur) Homer, by the Nations through which he migrated. That he himself gave the Occafion, for which this Story of his Divine Extraction is fo much unknown; because he neither told his Name, Race, nor Country, being afhamed of that Exile, to which his reputed Father had driven him from among the confecrated Youths, on account of that external Mark, which their Priests deemed a Teftimony of an unlawful Conception. THAT Poetical Genealogy which is delivered down as Homer's in the Greek Treatife of the Contention between him and Hefiod, records this Account of his Defcent. The Poet Linus was born of Apollo, and Thoöfe the Daughter of Neptune; Pierus of Linus; Oeagrus of King Pierus, and the Nymph Methone; Orpheus of Oeagrus, and the Mufe Calliope; from Orpheus came Othrys; from him Harmonides; from him Philoterpus; from him Euphemus; from him Epiphrades, who begot Menalops the Father of Dius; Dius had Hefiod the Poet, and Perfes by Pucamede the Daughter of Apollo; then Perfes had Maon, on whofe Daughter Crytheis, the River Meles begot Homer. Here is a miraculous Genealogy, induftrioufly contrived to raise our Ideas to the higheft; especially if we reflect that Harmonides is derived from Harmony, Philoterpus from Love of Delight, Euphemus from beautiful Diction, Epiphrades from Intelligence, and Pucamede from Prudence. It is not improbable, but the Inventors meant by a Fiction of this Nature to perfonify fuch Qualifications |