PREFACE. THE Author of this small Volume begs leave to bespeak the indulgence of the reader for any errors of the pen or the press, that he may dis cover. This favour he solicits, not from consciousness of haste or negligence; for the Work has been longer detained, intra penetralia vestæ, than required by Horace, and been frequently, and carefully revised; but from the vast number of minute particulars, of which it is composed, and the corresponding quotations and references, by which they are authenticated. These he has thrown into the lower margin, that they may occasion no interruption to the pleasure, which, he hopes, the reader will find in contemplating the learning and government, arts and manners, of the heroic times in Greece and Asia. At the same time, he flatters himself with the hope, that an account of the earliest period of classical antiquity, verified by these authorities, will also be acceptable to the student and the man of letters, as a substitute for a more systematic Archæologia Homerica; which, as far as he knows, is still a desideratum in literature, notwithstanding the Antiquitates Homerica of Feithius, which he suspects to be little known, and knows to be defective. Indocti discant, & ament meminisse periti. Plura recognosees: pauca docendus eris. THE AGE OF HOMER. INTRODUCTION. THE object of this Essay is to give a connected view of the state of science, arts and manners in Greece and Asia Minor, as delineated in the works of Homer and Hesiod, with some remarks on the writings and genius of Homer. A faithful and minute account of the learning, institutions and domestic customs of each remarkable period in the history of man, is still a desideratum in literature. Books of antiquities either make slight mention of the sciences, and the ornamental and useful arts, or omit them altogether; and they mingle the civil and military affairs of different ages, without either marking the peculiarities of each particular era, or tracing the progress of manners and civilization from one period to another. Such works are, in general, intended for books of reference, in which the student B |