The Original Iliad: The Solution of the Homeric Question by Robinson Smith

Review by: Samuel E. Bassett

The Classical Journal, Vol. 26, No. 7 (Apr., 1931), pp. 555-556
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South
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 BOOK REVIEWS 555

theory of relativity introduced in the Appendix on "The Concept

of Time in the Timaeus."
ROGERMILLERJONES
UNIVERSITYOFCALIFORNIA
BERKELEY,CALIFORNIA

ROBINSON SMITH, The Original Iliad: The Solution of the

Homeric Question: Nice, 12 Rue de France, privately
printed (1929). Pp. 140.
By applying twenty-five criteria Smith has reduced the Iliad to
an "original" poem of 3,423 verses. This he translates, and adds
elaborate tables to substantiate his identification of "unoriginal"
verses. The Greek text and a considerable addition to the Intro-
duction are promised for 1931.
Even if space permitted, a detailed criticism would be unneces-
sary. A syllogism may be never so correct, yet if the truth of its
major premise is not established, the conclusion is worthless,
except as an exercise in logic. Smith's twenty-five major premises
are mere hypotheses. That Homer did not borrow his own verses,
that he must be logically consistent in unimportant details, that he
never neglected a digamma or used a man that he had
not developed that suppleness of the hexameter).Ey6[tEvov,
which is one of the
glories of our Iliad, these and the rest of Smith's criteria must
first be proven before they can be used to solve the Homeric
Problem. As long as we possess no poetry contemporary with the
Homeric poems and very little knowledge of Homer's times,
there cannot be a Homeric Question that is worth answering.
With our present data the Homeric poems, like the Parthenon,
contain their own module, or modules, which nineteenth-century
Homeric criticism found to be myriad. Quot ante dicta, tot con-
clusa is the only convincing answer of the nineteenth century
to the Homeric Question. Every Urilias differs from every other,
Bethe's Urmenis, e.g., contains only about 1,500 verses; to Smith
Q is "original," to Schwartz, Wilamowitz, and Bethe it is not
urspriinglich, etc., etc.
"The evil that men do lives after them." Leaf's great edition

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556 THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

of the Iliad is the basis of Smith's work. Leaf did his work in the
heyday of the nineteenth-century delusion that it is possible to
determine from our present evidence how the Homeric poems
were composed. Hence, while his commentary won lasting appre-
ciation and gratitude from every student of Homer, it left with
many who used it a deep impression of the importance of the
Homeric Question. Fortunately today that impression is growing
fainter. It augurs well for the future of this mechanical age that
the focus of Greek scholarship is passing from the mechanism to
the organism of Greek literature. The Homeric critics of the last
century were like the leech in Ebers' Uarda, who sought to find
the soul by dissecting the human brain and heart. The challenge
to Greek scholars of the present century is to breathe the breath
of life into the dry bones which the great Hellenists of the last
century described and classified with masterly skill. Some new
discovery, e.g. a Minoan epic, may cause the Homeric Unitarians
to change their views. But until new evidence is found, the
present tendency indicates that it will grow less and less fashion-
able in the best Homeric circles to evolve theories based on hy-
potheses which a growing number of scholars hold to be ground-
less. Today a new solution of the Homeric Problem commands
about as much interest as the discovery of a new author of the
plays of Shakespeare.
One's admiration for the faithful efforts of Smith is tempered
by the regret that his talents as a critic of poetry were not devoted
to a more profitable task. He regards his Original Iliad as "a
delight and glory to the human race." Most lovers of Homer will
find a still greater delight in our present Iliad.
SAMUEL E. BASSETT
UNIVERSITY OI VERMONT

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