the representatives might deliberate on the answer necessary to give him.
XIII. He that presented him, and all those representatives belonging to the Elders' Assembly, where he had recited, voted for him. It is said that one only opposed the measure, giving for his reasons, "that if they thought to feed homers,[1] they would find themselves encumbered with useless folks." From this time the name of Homer, bestowed thus opprobriously on Melesigenes in consequence of his misfortune, was most generally used in speaking of him; for the Cumæans, in their dialect, called blind persons homers. Strangers always used this name in discoursing of the poet.
XIV. The Archon concluded with saying, "that it was impolitic to maintain the blind man." This caused the majority of the representatives to vote against the measure, the second time, and thus the Archon obtained more votes than opposers. The presenting officer communicated with Melesigenes on the subject, informing him of the progress of the debate, and of the decree. Deploring his ill fortune, he recited these verses: "To what sad fate has father Zeus destined me? I, who have been carefully educated at the feet of a beloved mother during the time that the people of Phriconis,[2] skilful in taming horses, and breathing only war, raised the Æolian city, honourable Smyrna,[3] on the
- ↑ See Wakefield, Ep. to Fox, and Coleridge, sub init. Blomfield (Mus. Crit.) in reviewing Wakefield condemns the whole notion, and with reason. On the name signifying collector or arranger, see Welcker in Der Epische Cyclus, p. 127, and Wilson's Syst. of Hindu Mythology, Introd. p. lxii. For the various etymologies, Bode's Gesch. der Hellen. Dichtkst. vol. i. p. 55, n. 259, n.
- ↑ Larcher translates this "the people of Phricium." Phricium was a town and mountain near Thermopylæ. A colony from thence built Cumæ. Hence Cumæ is occasionally called Phriconis. See § xxxviii., and Herod. i. 149.
- ↑ Smyrna, as we have seen, (§ ii.) was built by the Cumæans. See note 6, p. ix.
