Homer and Rhapsodic Competition in Performance: Derek Collins

Oral Tradition, 16/1 (2001): 129-167
Homer and Rhapsodic Competition in Performance1

Derek Collins
Introduction
One legacy of Homeric studies since the pathbreaking work of

Milman Parry, Albert Lord, Gregory Nagy, and John Miles Foley has been
an emphasis on the earliest stages of composition and performance. These
scholars have shown in detail how poet-singers compose while they perform,
and perform while they compose epic poetry. However, we have yet to
apply the valuable insights gained from their research to later stages of a
poetic tradition, particularly after the poetic “texts” have become stable and
written down, while live performances of these “texts” continue. The time
has now come to attempt such an application, but with important
qualifications. This is because a performance tradition that takes place
against a body of fixed texts is governed by different rules, as it were, than
one that is as yet in a more fluid stage. For one, audience expectation will
be different, and greater allusive precision may be achieved by live
performers who modify and improvise textual elements to surprise, shock, or
delight their audiences. It is important to stress at the outset that a fixed text
need not be an impediment, and indeed it may be an impetus, to the
contingent and improvisational demands of live poetic performance.
Scholars are only beginning to apply these insights to the long
tradition of rhapsodic performances of Homeric poetry.2 Although
rhapsodes have received increasing attention in recent scholarship,3 there has
1
Earlier versions of this paper were given at the annual meeting of the American
Philological Association (December 1998), and before audiences at the Universities of
Michigan, Iowa, and Missouri. I wish to thank all the participants for their
encouragement and advice.
2
For a general overview of rhapsodes, see Aly 1920, Pfeiffer 1968:8-12, and Ford
1988:300-7.
3
See e.g. Nagy 1999 and Martin 2000.
130 DEREK COLLINS
still been no recent attempt to organize all of the evidence into a coherent
whole.4 This is not a task that I wish to undertake in the present paper.
Instead, in what follows I aim to broaden a line of exploration concerning
the competitive performance of rhapsodes,5 which has faltered due to an
ancient and modern prejudice against their “creative” abilities.6 We know,
for example, that improvisation7 and innovation within the tradition is
attested for rhapsodes as early as the mention of Kynaithos, sometime in the
late sixth century B.C.E., apart from the etymological evidence for the term
rhapsôidos, which may imply an improvisational capacity even earlier. We
have evidence of a variety of rhapsodic games, which can be used to argue
that rhapsodes were competent at many levels of poetic performance: they
could, for instance, competitively recite memorized verses, improvise verses
on the spot for elaboration or embellishment, and take up and leave off the
narrative wherever they saw fit, all the while setting metrical and thematic
challenges for their adversaries and attempting to win the audience to their
side. These performance tactics comport in many respects with what we
know about the quadrennial, greater Panathenaia, which unlike any other
festival furnishes us with actual “rules” for rhapsodic performances.
Moreover, the sophist Alcidamas, who elsewhere shows an interest in
rhapsodic performances (On Sophists 14), demonstrates several kinds of
rhapsodic improvisation in his Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi (“Contest of
Homer and Hesiod”) or some earlier version of the same, no doubt garnered
4
A point well emphasized by Herington 1985:167; see his discussion of
rhapsodes on pp. 10-15 and his partial collection of testimonia in Appendix II.
5
On competition in Greek poetry in general, see the fundamental article by
Griffith (1990).
6
Pavese (1998:64) and Nagy (1990a:42, 1996:113) remain opponents (correctly
in my view) of the simplistic distinction between a “creative” aoidos and “reduplicative”
rhapsôidos. This distinction still finds favor with some scholars, however, e.g. Powell
2000:118-19.
7
Fundamental here is Hammerstaedt 1996; I thank Johan Schloemann for this
reference. In this paper, I use the term “improvisation” to mean the spontaneous
recomposition of traditional material (diction, formulae, etc.), rearranged in a novel way.
McLeod (1961:323) compares the improvisation of rhapsodes with the formulaic nature
of oracles after 400 B.C.E.
HOMER AND RHAPSODIC COMPETITION 131
from his experience viewing rhapsodic contests.8 The Certamen as we have

it in manuscript form dates to the Antonine period, although much of the
content including the contest proper was probably contained in Alcidamas’
Mouseion.9 As I will show, in the “epic” part of the Certamen (107-37)
Alcidamas represents a hexameter dueling game that highlights the
importance of enjambement as a connective technique, which can be
compared to examples of enjambement found in Homeric poetry itself. At a
later stage of the Homeric performance tradition, rhapsodes and, possibly,
Homêristai continue to display improvisational skills during performances
as reflected in the “eccentric” Ptolemaic papyri of Homer.
This suggests that we will have to revise our notion that rhapsodes
merely “recited” memorized lines of Homer. Comparative research in
cultures with live song, storytelling, and poetic contests also argues
emphatically against such a notion. Clearly, rhapsodes also improvised their
memorized lines or deployed traditional material in novel ways, though I do
believe that they did so against the background of a stable body of texts,
fixed perhaps by the time of Hipparkhos.10 Throughout this discussion I will
stress that the technical features of their improvisation cannot be understood
apart from the competitive context in which they performed. Indeed, to
press the point further, the competitive context of rhapsodic performances
provides the best explanation for the types of creative improvisation that we
find.
8
Rhapsodic contests were frequent and widespread enough that we may safely
assume that Alcidamas, like thousands of other Greeks, had seen them. Cf. Xenophon,
Symposium 3.6, where Nikeratos says that he sees rhapsodes reciting “nearly every day.”
9
See Certamen 33 and 240, and the testimonia collected in Allen 1912:218-20.
Background on Alcidamas’ Mouseion and the relationship of the Certamen to the
Michigan papyrus 2754 can be conveniently found in Richardson 1981 and M. West
1967.
10
This is a highly contentious issue, and while I do not think there is evidence for
a Peisistratean recension per se, such rhapsodic improvisation as I will present it is more
readily understandable against the background of relatively (and perhaps rigidly) fixed
texts. See Allen 1924:226-38 for a collection of the primary evidence relating to the
Peisistratean question. Kotsidu (1991:188, n. 56) rightly stresses that the question of
Homeric recension and the Panathenaic rule need not be connected in any direct way.
My view of the Homeric texts at this stage corresponds with what Nagy (1996:110)
describes as his third, “definitive” period for Homeric textual fixation.
132 DEREK COLLINS
Modes of Innovation
The evidence of rhapsodic performance as we have it suggests that

there were at least three basic types of improvisational activity in which
rhapsodes engaged. The first involves the “stitching” or “weaving” of song,
the second involves the insertion of newly composed “Homeric” verses into
a preexisting text, and the third involves capping with hexameter verses. We
are often at pains to determine which of these types was employed at a given
performance venue, but we certainly have enough evidence to provide some
suggestive indications. Let us begin with some familiar passages and
scholia with regard to the etymology and meaning of the word rhapsôidos as
“he who stitches the song.” The locus classicus for this word, as well as for
the description of the mechanics of rhapsodic performance, is Pindar’s
Nemean 2.1-311 and the scholia on those lines. At the beginning of Nemean
2, Pindar claims that he will begin where the Homeridae begin (Pindar,
Nemean 2.1-3):
{Oqen per kai; JOmhrivdai

rJaptw`n ejpevwn ta; povll j ajoidoiv
a[rcontai, Dio;~ ejk prooimivou
From the very point where the Homeridae,

singers [aoidoi] of stitched-together [rhapta] utterances [epê], most often
begin, from a proem of Zeus
Pindar’s view that the Homeridae are singers of stitched-together utterances

agrees with the linguistic evidence that rhapsôidos must derive from the
verb rhaptô and the noun aoidê. 12 Scholars are in relative agreement on this
derivation as opposed to the other one attested in the Pindar scholia, which
holds that the first component of rhaps-ôidos derives from the noun rhabdos
“staff” (scholia to Nemean 2.1c 29-30 Drachmann). Matters are much more
complicated when it comes to defining exactly what it is that rhapsodes
11
All text citations of Pindar are taken from Snell and Maehler 1987. All
translations are by the author.
12
Schmitt 1967:300-30 and Chantraine 1968:s.v. rJayw/dov~. Cf. Tarditi
(1968:144), who argues that the basic activity of the rJayw/dov~ involves the interweaving
(intessere) of individual material into that derived from epic tradition, while performers
like the Homeridae stitch (cucire) together Homeric material. Such a distinction is too
rigid in my view because it presupposes a clear sense of what was “Homeric” versus
“individual” poetry, but this demarcation is not so clear.
weave. Of course they weave poetry or song, in the broad sense, but
opinions have differed since Harald Patzer’s important article on whether
they weave together patches or segments of narrative, or perhaps smaller
units of verse.13 The Alexandrian scholiasts on Nemean 2.1-3 are
themselves divided on this point.
There are several other testimonia in the same scholia, where we read
that the poetry of Homer had been at some unspecified time scattered and
divided into parts, so that to sing it rhapsodically meant to do something on
the order of sewing the parts together to produce a whole (scholia to Pindar,
Nemean 2.1c 30.5-8 Drachmann):
oiJ de; fasi th`~ JOmhvrou poihvsew~ mh; uJf j e}n sunhgmevnh~,
sporav d hn de; a[ l lw~ kai; kata; mev r h dih/ r hmev n h~, oJ p ov t e
rJayw/doièn aujth;n, eiJrmw/` tini kai; rJafh/` paraplhvsion poiei`n, eij~
e}n aujth;n a[gonta~.
Some say that, since the poetry of Homer had not been brought together
under one thing, and since it was otherwise scattered and separated
intoparts [merê], whenever they would sing it rhapsodically [rhapsôideô]
they would do something similar to sequencing or sewing, producing it
into one thing.
However one chooses exactly to define the word here for part, meros, clearly
this definition of rhapsôidos or rhapsôideô suggests that each part was a
longer segment of narrative, perhaps on the order of what we are told in
Plato’s Ion, where popular scenes from the Iliad or Odyssey are singled out
for mention by Socrates—such as Nestor’s advice to Antilokhos from Iliad
23, Odysseus at the moment when he leaps upon his threshold to kill the
suitors from Odyssey 22, or the scene when Achilles lunges at Hektor in
Iliad 22 (all featured at Ion 535b3-7), each of which might constitute a
performable “part.”14
13
As a response to Fränkel 1925, Patzer 1952:322-23 argued that the “stitch”
(Stich, i.e., a line of hexameter verse) was the basic unit of composition implied by
rhaptein, but he nevertheless conflated (like the scholiasts) the metaphors of weaving and
stitching found in the scholia to Pindar.
14
I do not agree with Taplin (1992:29-31), reflecting a wider assumption in
scholarship, that the entire Iliad and Odyssey, from what we know as their beginnings to
their ends, was performed at the Panathenaia. For the moment, I leave open the
possibility that “parts,” of the type just described in Plato’s Ion, could have been
performed in isolation and in no particular order. Cf. the testimony of Dionysios of
134 DEREK COLLINS
The scholia on Nemean 2.1-3 also include other descriptions of how

rhapsodes perform, notably from Philochorus (scholia to Pindar, Nemean
2.1c 31.7-9 Drachmann=FGrH 328 F 212):
Filovcoro~ de; ajpo; tou` suntiqevnai kai; rJavptein

th;n w/jdh;n ou{tw fhsi;n aujtou;~ proskeklh`sqai.
Philochorus says that they [=rhapsodes] were thus called on account of the
putting together [suntithêmi] and stitching [rhaptô] of the song [aoidê].
In this passage Philochorus, who may simply have rationalized his

explanation based upon Nemean 2.1-3, connects the idea of assembling
(suntithêmi) a song with the verb rhaptô. More tantalizing is that in
conjunction with this Philochorus then cites a fragment attributed, perhaps
wrongly, to Hesiod (F 357 Merkelbach-West):
ejn Dhvlw/ tovte prw`ton ejgw; kai; {Omhro~ ajoidoi;

mevlpomen, ejn nearoi`~ u{mnoi~ rJavyante~ ajoidh;n,
Foi`bon jApovllwna crusavoron, o}n tevke Lhtwv.
At that time, Homer and I, as singers, sang for the first time on Delos,
stitching together [rhaptô] a song [aoidê] in new hymns [humnos]
about Phoibos Apollo of the golden sword, whom Leto bore.
In this fragment Homer and Hesiod are imagined as rhapsodes who sing a
song about Apollo ejn nearoi`~ u{mnoi~ rJavyante~ ajoidh;n “stitching
together a song in new hymns.” What interests me here is that Hesiod and
Homer work together to sing one song about Apollo—a point that is often
overlooked, as some scholars assume that Homer and Hesiod each sing a
hymn to Apollo—and that they appear to do it by means of new verses or
segments (if we can extract those meanings out of humnos15 here), which
could mean that they improvise them.16
Argos (scholia to Nemean 2.1d 31.2 Drachmann) that early rhapsodes sang whatever
“part” of the tradition they wanted (e{kasto~ o{ ti bouvloito mevro~ h/d\ e).
15
Cf. Odyssey 8.429, where the expression ajoidh`~ u{mno~ implies that humnos is
a subdivision of song.
16
As Richard Martin has recently argued (2000:411-15), if Hesiod F 357 MW can
be taken to refer to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, we may plausibly account for the
Delian and Pythian division of that poem as the competitive contributions performed
respectively by “Homer” and “Hesiod.” As to the Homeric poems themselves, especially
Balanced against all of this evidence for a stitching metaphor, in

which preexisting segments are brought together into a whole, the scholia to
Nemean 2.1-3 also contain hints of a different kind of metaphor for
rhapsodic activity, that of weaving. Here I understand weaving to mean the
criss-cross combination of warp and woof. As an example, a fragment
attributed to Callimachus is adduced by the scholiast, in which the verb
huphainô is used to describe the activity of song being wrapped around a
staff:
kai; to;n ejpi; rJavbdw/ mu`qon uJfainovmenon

.............
hjneke;~ ajeivdw dedegmevno~
and the narrative [muthos] woven around a staff [rhabdos]

.............
I received and sing continuously (Callimachus 26.5, 8 Pfeiffer)
It has long been noted that this fragment hints at both derivations (from
rhabdos and rhaptô) for the first component of rhaps-ôidos. In the metaphor
behind the verb huphainô, threads of song corresponding to a warp and woof
are more easily imaginable here than patches or quilts, which is what the
sewing or stitching metaphor assumes.17 I take this hint—and it is nothing
more—to suggest a related kind of activity in which rhapsodes weave
smaller segments of verse, or perhaps individual verses themselves, into a
larger whole.
For this reason, a fragment from the historian Menaikhmos in the
same Nemean 2 scholia (2.1d 14-15 Drachmann) may also be relevant. It
mentions the term stikhaoidos, which Menaikhmos says a rhapsode was thus
called because the rhabdos could also be called a stikhos. However, the
term stikhaoidos has been taken by scholars like Ritoók (1962:226, n.7) to
correspond not only with the false etymology of rhapsoidos as the singer
who holds the staff, but also with the idea of the “singers of lines of verse,”
or stikhoi. The word stikhaoidos is actually attested in the Greek Anthology
(16.316), and is there compared to the public speaker. Parenthetically, I note
that Menaikhmos might well have had the singing of verses in mind, as he
was a native of Sikyon, and Sikyon had its own earlier native tradition of
the Iliad, Eustathius already believed that many stylistic features could be explained
through Homer’s improvisation; see Van der Valk 1976:xxvi-xxvii with note 1, and
xxxix with note 3.
17
The sewing metaphor is embraced by Nagy 1996:66.
136 DEREK COLLINS
rhapsodic contests. Indeed, our first mention of rhapsodic performance at

contests comes by way of Herodotus, who mentions the contests at Sikyon
that were banned by Kleisthenes (5.67).18
A second type of improvisational activity by rhapsodes is attested in
one final example from the scholia to Nemean 2 (2.1c 9-18=FGrH 568 F 5):
JOmhrivda~ e[legon to; me;n ajrcaiòn tou;~ ajpo; tou` JOmhvrou

gevnou~, oi} kai; th;n poivhsin aujtou` ejk diadoch`~ h/\don: meta; de;
tau`ta kai; oiJ rJayw/doi; oujkevti to; gevno~ eij~ {Omhron ajnavgonte~,
ejpifanei`~ de; ejgevnonto oiJ peri; Kuvnaiqon, ou{~ fasi polla; tw`n
ejpw`n poihvsanta~ ejmbalei`n eij~ th;n JOmhvrou poivhsin. h\n de; oJ
Kuvnaiqo~ to; gevno~ Ciò~, o}~ kai; tw`n ejpigrafomevnwn JOmhvrou
poihmavtwn to;n eij~ jApovllwna gegrafw;~ u{mnon ajnatevqeiken
auj t w/ ` . ou| t o~ ou\ n oJ Kuv n aiqo~ prw` t o~ ej n Surakouv s ai~
ejrayw/vdhse ta; JOmhvrou e[ph kata; th;n xqV jOlumpiavda, wJ~
JIppovstratov~ fhsin.
Originally they called the descendants of Homer the Homeridai, who sang
[aoidô] his poetry in succession ; after this the rhapsôidoi could no longer
trace their lineage to Homer. Apparently they were from Kynaithos, who,
they say, after composing [ poieô] many utterances [ epê] they [= the
rhapsodes] put them into [ emballô] the poetry of Homer . Kynaithos’s
family was from Chios, and of the poems that bear Homer’s name, he
wrote the Hymn to Apollo and attributed it to Homer.19 This Kynaithos
was the first to sing rhapsodically [ rhapsôideô] the epics of Homer in
Syracuse, in the 69th Olympiad [504/1 B.C.], as Hippostratos says.
In this rather long example, we learn both about the clan of the
Homeridae, who once claimed to have descended from Homer, and then
about Kynaithos, who is said to have been the first to person to sing the
epics of Homer rhapsodically at Syracuse.20 We also learn in the next
sentences in this passage that Kynaithos composed his own utterances (epê),
which here most likely mean individual verses, and then put them into the
poetry of Homer. We do not know whether Kynaithos composed his
18
As Nagy (1990b:22, n. 22) suggests, the context of Kleisthenes’ war with Argos
makes it likely that the content of these epic performances involved material from the
Theban cycle.
19
Cf. Martin (2000:419, n. 58), who suggests that the expression ajnatevqeiken
aujtw/` may mean that Kynaithos “dedicated it [the hymn] to him (autôi=Apollo)” (italics
in original).
20
For more on Kynaithos, see M. West 1975.
utterances extempore during a performance and passed them off as Homer’s,

or whether this is something he did prior to his performance. Either way,
two points are important here: 1) the Homeric poems are envisioned by this
commentator (that is, Hippostratos) as being relatively fixed, and 2)
Kynaithos composed lines that he then inserted into Homer. This story
represents a type of rhapsodic improvisation in which a rhapsode creates his
own lines for performance and display against the background of a more
stable body of Homeric narrative. What remains implicit in the description
of Kynaithos is why (beyond some generic desire for notoriety) he composed
epic verses and a hymn and passed them off as Homer’s. I will return to this
point later, but the evidence for rhapsodic performance as it accumulates
will suggest that Kynaithos created new material to compete with his
rhapsodic opponents rather than with Homer.
Later Greek literature gives us a third series of improvisational
activities by rhapsodes, all roughly organized around the principle of
capping. As scholars have observed,21 the Certamen itself depicts several
different types of poetic competition: hexameter exchanges of philosophical
questions and answers (lines 75-101, 140-75), completion of verse couplets
or capping (107-37), and recitation of complete passages (180-204).22 If we
can be reasonably sure that the hexameter exchange of philosophical
questions and answers is at least as old as the sixth century,23 as the contest
between Kalkhas and Mopsos suggests,24 I see no reason why these other
forms of competition cannot be as old.
21
E.g., Dunkel 1979:252-53.
22
Although not involving rhapsodes, Dunkel (1979:252-53), following Dornseiff
1944:135, points to the parallel between these modes of poetic competition and those
represented in Aristophanes’ Frogs between Aeschylus and Euripides: general tests of
sofiva (1420-65), recitation of passages (1126-87), capping a couplet given by the
opponent (lhkuvqion ajpwvlesen, 1208-45). As an additional mode in the Frogs, the
judge has them recite a line simultaneously to weigh the “heaviness” of its imagery
(1378-1403).
23
See Richardson 1981:1-2.
24
From Hesiod’s Melampodia=Frag. 278 MW. Cf. the tradition of the rhapsodic
performance (rhapsôidêsai) of Empedocles’ Purifications (31 A 1 Diels-Kranz).
138 DEREK COLLINS
Let us now turn to a more detailed examination of the types of

improvisational activity that we find in Alcidamas’ Certamen.25 The
Certamen is important not only because it depicts a fictional poetic contest
that illustrates many of the features of rhapsodic performance for which I
have been arguing, but also because we know that Alcidamas valued the
extemporaneous speaking ability of sophists (On Sophists 3, 22-23, 24, 34),
which he called kairov~,26 and that he depicts this ability in several ways in
the Certamen.27 One of the most striking of these involves what I would call
the epic part, lines 107-37, where the fictional Hesiod and Homer are made
to duel with mock-epic hexameter lines. In this connection I am following
the work of Ritoók, who believed that the Certamen represented the best
point of support for the basic, archaic notion of the rhapsode as a creative
stitcher of verse (1962:228-29). To be fair to Ritoók, however, I must note
that he followed Davison in believing that rhapsodes merely recited
memorized verses at an event like the Panathenaia. What I am interested in
is the knowledge of hexameter versification that is presupposed by the
fictional Hesiod and Homer, and whether we may generalize from that to
actual rhapsodic performances in Alcidamas’ day.
With respect to the epic part of the Certamen, Konrad Heldmann has
observed that “the problem consists in continuing one verse, which must be
as absurd as possible, through another verse so that both together to a certain
extent produce a meaningful unity.”28 This is true, yet it all but wrings out
the humor and improvisational artistry of the game. Even Wilamowitz had
recognized in 1916 that the Certamen was, as he put it, “ein besonderes
25
All text citations from the Certamen are taken from Allen 1912. For general
background to the Certamen, especially the issue of dating, see Richardson 1981, which
is a response to M. West 1967.
26
See the discussion by Ritoók (1991:160) and the more detailed analysis of
Alcidamas’ views in O’Sullivan 1992.
27
For example, cf. the amphibolos gnômê at Certamen 170-71, where Hesiod
asks: th`~ sofivh~ de; tiv tevkmar ejp j ajnqrwvpoisi pevfuken… (“what is the mark of
wisdom for men?”), to which Homer replies: gignwvskein ta; parovnt j ojrqw`~, kairw/`
d j a{m j e{pesqai (“to perceive present affairs correctly, and to keep pace with the right
moment”). The translation cannot do full justice to this exchange, which among other
things can be taken to reflect the skills demanded in the very improvisational game in
which Hesiod and Homer are engaged.
28
Heldmann 1982:81. The original reads: “Die Aufgabe besteht darin, einen Vers,
der möglichst absurd sein muß . . . durch einen anderen Vers so fortzusetzen, daß beide
zusammen eine einigermaßen sinnvolle Einheit ergeben. . . .”
Spiel ejx uJpobolh`~” (“a special game by cue”).29 In any event, the humor
in the Certamen is already evident in Hesiod’s opening gambit to Homer
(lines 97-98), Mou`s j a[ge moi tav t j ejovnta tav t j ejssovmena prov t j
ejovnta / tw`n me;n mhde;n a[eide, “Come, Muse, sing to me nothing” (mêden
aeide—which is clearly a pun on the opening line of the Iliad, and perhaps
simultaneously of Iliad 1.70 and Hesiod’s Theogony, 38) “of what exists,
what will come, and what has come before,” su; d j a[llh~ mnh`sai
ajoidh`~, “you [Homer] remember another song.” This last line plays on the
standard ending of many Homeric hymns, where the voice of the poet says
that he will now remember another song. Here Hesiod would rather Homer
not sing anything traditional, and this request in some sense authorizes the
improvisational gaming to follow.
The game continues with Hesiod’s first challenge verse, in which he
says: dei`pnon e[peiq j ei{lonto bow`n kreva kaujcevna~ i{ppwn (“then they
took as their meal the flesh of cattle, and the necks of horses . . .”). At this
point, which is to say right after the bucolic diaeresis, the noun aukhên looks
as if it is going to remain the object of the verb haireomai (“take”), until
Homer successfully enjambs the next line with a verb and participle in
agreement with the noun, e[kluon iJdrwvonta~ (“they unyoked [those necks]
dripping with sweat”), and then fills out the rest of the line with a further
comment, ejpei; polevmoio korevsqhn (“when they had tired of war”). This
does not just take a meaningless line of verse and turn it into a meaningful
one, as Heldmann had so flatly observed, but rather successfully converts the
outlandish idea of eating horses—a barbaric practice, perhaps reminiscent of
what Herodotus tells us about the Scythians (4.61)—into a more mundane
one about relieving them from their burdens during wartime.
These examples suggest that the game entirely depends upon
enjambement, particularly upon where the sense break occurs in the lead
verse spoken by Hesiod, which structures what kind of word can be placed
in the runover position at the beginning of Homer’s following line.
Moreover, we are simply not able to recover from the texts themselves any
metalinguistic signals, such as changes in intonation or emphasis, let alone
any kind of gestural cues, that could have been used by one rhapsode to
signal the next rhapsode as to exactly what feature of the lead verse he
would need to focus on for his enjambement. But we may take such clues
for granted, I believe, in a medium like this where dramatic enactment (or,
shall we say, mimêsis) also consitutes part of the rhapsodic performance of
29
Wilamowitz 1916:402. The expression ejx uJpobolh`~ , to be discussed below,
is from Diogenes Laertius 1.57=FGrH 485 F 6 and refers to rhapsodes at the Panathenaia.
140 DEREK COLLINS
Homer.30 We may recall that the rhapsode Ion tells Socrates how he is able
to move his audience to tears with a riveting performance, or inadvertently
to laughter with a poor one (Plato, Ion 535b-e). 31
Sometimes the fictional Homer in the Certamen must wait until he
hears the words that occupy the whole adonic at verse-end before he can
know how to enjamb them. So for example at lines 119-20, Hesiod sings
that w}~ oi} me;n daivnunto panhvmeroi, oujde;n e[conte~ (“so they feasted
all day long, having nothing”), at which point Homer should be confounded,
yet he twists the idea around by enjambing an adverb oi[koqen (“having
nothing . . . from home ”) ajlla; parei`cen a[nax ajndrw`n jAgamevmnwn
(“but Agamemnon lord of men supplied them”). On this occasion the
enjambement is an adverb, at other times it may be a noun or participle
coordinated with the end of the previous verse by its case.
In this section of the Certamen, where the challenge is one of
responding to amphiboloi gnômai (102-3), Homer’s technical mastery of
enjambement is what is on display. Even if he does not win in the end, there
can be no question that Alcidamas is manipulating a rhapsodic framework,32
which resembles what we are told about rhapsodes at the Panathenaia.
Moreover, references to improvisation (skhediazein)33 are explicit elsewhere
in the Certamen (skhediasai 279, again Homer), and therefore make it likely
that Alcidamas is presenting a composite picture of rhapsodic and
improvisational performance in the section on hexameter-dueling.
30
Herington 1985:12-13. Rhapsodes are frequently compared to actors at Plato,
Ion 532d, 536a, and Republic 395a; Aristotle, Rhetoric 1403b22 and Poetics 1462a5-6;
and Alcidamas, On Sophists 14. On the comparison between sophists and oral poets in
Alcidamas, see Ritoók 1991.
31
Ion (Plato, Ion 535e) comes right to the point: dei` gavr me kai; sfovdr j
aujtoi`~ to;n nou`n prosevcein: wJ~ eja;n me;n klaivonta~ aujtou;~ kaqivsw, aujto;~
gelavsomai ajrguvrion lambavnwn, eja;n de; gelw`nta~, aujto;~ klauvsomai ajrguvrion
ajpolluv~ (“I must pay very close attention to them [the audience], since if I set them
crying, I myself will laugh because of the money I get, but if I set them laughing, I
myself will cry because of the money I lose”).
32
Note the usage of the verb rhapsôideô to describe Homer at Certamen 56. Cf.
Plato, Republic 600d, in which both Homer and Hesiod are described as rhapsodes
(rhapsôideô).
33
For a discussion of the terminology of improvisation, see Hammerstaedt
1996:1215.
It turns out that what Alcidamas’ Homer is doing with these

enjambements is not unlike what we can find in the Homeric poems
themselves. As those who have studied enjambement34 have well
recognized, the runover position is one of the most characteristic features of
Homeric style.35 As an example from Homer of the kind that we have just
seen, where a verb is enjambed and governs a noun in the preceding verse,
consider these lines from the Iliad: 36
o}~ kai; nu`n jAcilhà e{o mevg j ajmeivnona fw`ta

hjtivmhsen
And now he has Achilles, a much better man than him,

dishonored
(Iliad 2.239-40)
In this example we see that the noun phôs (“man”) is governed by a

verb in the runover position, and lest we think this is a formula, consider this
next verse in which the same noun in the same position is governed by a
different verb:
e[gco~ me;n tovde kei`tai ejpi; cqonov~, oujdev ti fw`ta

leuvssw
This spear of mine lies on the ground, and I can no longer any man
see
(Iliad 20.345-46)
In the Certamen Homer also enjambs infinitives to limit and transform

a leading verse from Hesiod. So for example at lines 131-32, Hesiod’s lead
verse says: aujta;r ejpei; spei`savn te kai; e[kpion oi\dma qalavssh~
(“but when they poured libations and drank, the swell of the sea . . . ,”),
which makes no sense until Homer enjambs it with the infinitive
34
On Homeric enjambement in general, I mention only Basset 1926; Edwards
1966; Kirk 1976:146-82; Foley 1990:152, 163-64; and Higbie 1990. The work on
enjambement by Bakker 1990 and 1997:152-55, focusing as it does on cognitive units
rather than the runover position in hexameter verse, is not relevant to the game in the
Certamen.
35
Edwards 1966:138.
36
All text citations of Homer are taken from Monro and Allen 1920, and Allen
1917.
142 DEREK COLLINS
pontoporein and makes it depend on m e l l ô , pontoporei`n h[mellon

ejussevlmwn ejpi; nhw`n (“there were minded to sail [the swell of the sea] on
well-benched ships”). We may compare this to another example from the
Iliad, which although not exactly the same, similarly enjambs an infinitive
that governs a preceding noun:
ejxevlet j a[speta pollav: ta; d j a[ll j ej~ dh`mon e[dwke

daitreuvein, mhv tiv~ oiJ ajtembovmeno~ kivoi i[sh~.
[Neleus] took a huge amount; but the rest he gave to the people
to distribute, so that no one would go away without a just share.
(Iliad 11.704-5)
In this example, Nestor recalls how his father Neleus, in a dispute with the
king of Elis, took for himself a vast amount of spoil and “the rest he gave to
the people to distribute, so that no one would go away without a just share.”
Here the infinitive daitreuein is enjambed in what appears to be a redundant
way, as Bassett once noted about this line (1926:122), and the rest of the line
does not appear to add anything substantial to the sense. If Neleus gave
spoils to the people, he clearly did so for them to distribute among
themselves. More striking is the fact that Zenodotus actually rejected line
705 and Aristarchus athetized it, believing that it borrowed a verse (it is
almost identical with Odyssey 9.42). Yet I want to suggest that this is
exactly the kind of thing we should expect from a performing rhapsode, who
at this point could have used the enjambing infinitive and the remainder of
the verse as a transition to the next part of the story, which in fact does shift
somewhat as it begins to describe another battle between the men of Pylos
and Elis.
In the epic part of the Certamen as a whole, the bucolic diaeresis and
verse-end, as we might expect, are the most prominent sense breaks that are
used by the fictional Homer to create his enjambements. In passing, I note
that there is a pervasive assumption underlying current Homeric
enjambement studies of a performance model involving one singer, for
whom enjambement has served diachronically as a mnemonic device. If I
am right, however, enjambement can also serve the immediate performance
demands of rhapsodes competitively leaving off and taking up the narrative
stream where they see fit. It is tempting to speculate further that rhapsodic
gaming of this kind actually generated longer narratives,37 but even if that
37
Cf. Martin (2000:410) again on the Homeric Hymn to Apollo . His notion of
expansion of Homeric formulae can be found at 1989:209-10 (splitting and replacement),
214-15 (elaboration), and 216-19 (telescoping).
cannot be proven, we may more narrowly conclude that such gaming

contributed to the development of enjambement as a connective technique.
The most prominent rhapsodic competition that we know about took
place at the Panathenaia in Athens. In this competition rhapsodes performed
by exchange and by cue in a manner that seems to reflect, albeit indirectly,
what we observed in the Certamen. I will only discuss here the two most
prominent testimonia for what J. A. Davison (1955, 1958) once called the
“Panathenaic Rule.” The first relates how the rules were laid down by
Hipparkhos:
JIppavrcw/, o}~ tw`n Peisistravtou paivdwn h\n presbuvtato~ kai;

sofwvtato~, o}~ a[lla te polla; kai; e[rga sofiva~ ajpedeivxato,
kai; ta; JOmhvrou e[ph prw`to~ ejkovmisen eij~ th;n gh`n tauthniv,
kai; hjnavgkase tou;~ rJayw/dou;~ Panaqhnaivoi~ ejx uJpolhvyew~
ejfexh`~ aujta; diievnai, w{sper nu`n e[ti oi{de poiou`si.
Hipparkhos, who was the eldest and wisest of the sons of Peisistratos, and
who, among the other many and beautiful deeds that he displayed as proof
of his wisdom, first brought the utterances of Homer to this land
[=Athens], and required [anankazô] the rhapsodes at the Panathenaia to go
through [ dia-ienai] these things [ auta=utterances] in sequence [ ephexês],
by relay [ex hupolêpseôs], as they [=rhapsodes] still do even now.
([Plato], Hipparchus 228b-c)
In this passage we are told that Hipparkhos, a son of Peisistratos, first

brought the Homeric poems (epê, which most likely means in written
form38) to Athens, 39 and then required that rhapsodes at the Panathenaia go
through them in sequence (ephexês40) and by relay (ex hupolêpseôs, from the
verb hupolambanô “to take up, reply”). This idea of relay is crucial, because
as we have seen in the example of the Homeridae, they also stitched or wove
their poetry together by turn-taking, and it seems to me that if this practice
38
I agree with Nagy (1996:133) that texts of Homer were not essential to the
origin and early development of rhapsodic competitions, but I believe that written texts
are assumed by the author of this passage. At Alcidamas, On Sophists 14, written texts
are also assumed in the performance of rhapsodes and actors.
39
Cf. the related account of Lycurgus, who brought the Homeric poems from the
descendants of Kreophylos of Samos back to the Spartans (Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus
4.4). Discussion in Burkert 1972 and Nagy 1996:79, with testimonia given in his
Appendix 1.
40
I take ephexês to refer to the sequence of performance by rhapsodes, that is, one
after another, rather than to the sequence of poetic material. Cf. Schwartz 1940:5.
144 DEREK COLLINS
was institutionalized by Hipparkhos, then it must in some sense represent a

distinguishing characteristic of rhapsodic performance at the Panathenaia,41
as opposed to, say, the competitions between kithara or pipe players. The
Panathenaia might have allowed for the display of various improvisational
techniques, such as embellishing and the sequencing of scenes in expansion,
as well as a clever pick-up through enjambement by one rhapsode from the
previous rhapsode. Although the evidence does not permit definitive
answers here, it is important to stress that all of these possibilities are
conceivable within Hipparkhos’ rules for performance. Any claim that the
entire Iliad and Odyssey were recited from beginning to end at the
Panathenaia is simply insupportable.42
The idea of exchange between rhapsodes is refined in the reference to
the Panathenaic Rule in Diogenes Laertius, who attributes it to Solon:
tav te JOmhvrou ejx uJpobolh`~ gevgrafe rJayw/dei`sqai, oi|on o{pou oJ

prw`to~ e[lhxen, ejkei`qen a[rcesqai to;n ejcovmenon.
He [=Solon] wrote a law that the poetry of Homer was to be performed

rhapsodically [rhapsôideô] by cue [ex hupobolês, from hupoballô], so that
where the first person left off, from that point the next one would begin.
(Diogenes Laertius 1.57 [Life of Solon])
Here we read that Solon wrote a law that the poetry of Homer was to be
performed rhapsodically ex hupobolês “by cue,” and that where the first
singer left off, the next one would begin at that point.43 What this means
exactly is not as clear as scholars like H. A. Shapiro would have us believe:
41
There may be ideological implications to the Panathenaic rule as well, which I
intend to address in a forthcoming work. Some attempt has been made to treat the
democratic nature of the Panathenaia (particularly with respect to the euandria contest)
after the accession of Kleisthenes; see Neils 1994.
42
E.g. by Sealey (1957:342, 349); strong hints of the same position can be found
in Shapiro (1993:104). Doubts on this point have (rightly in my view) been expressed by
Burkert (1987:50) and Boyd (1994:118). Kotsidu (1991:44), although suggesting that die
Reihenfolge des Textes—whatever this is exactly—had to be maintained by rhapsodes,
does not assume that both epics were performed at the Panathenaia. Yet she does assume
that at least one of them was performed in its entirety. This same view was expressed
much earlier by Meyer (1918:332). As we shall see, the evidence as we have it does not
even support this claim.
43
Cf. the related but derivative accounts of the “Panathenaic Rule” in Lycurgus,
Against Leocrates 102 and Plutarch, Pericles 13.6.
it could mean, as he argues (1993:104), that after a coherent scene, of the

kind mentioned earlier in connection with Plato’s Ion, one rhapsode stops
and the next one begins. But there is no reason to assume that possibility
only. It could also be the case that two rhapsodes may both be engaged in
singing by turns the same “scene,” just as Homer and Hesiod were engaged
on Delos to sing one hymn to Apollo, and they alternated with one another
in producing it. We do not know the frequency with which rhapsodes, given
this performance mode, might have alternated with one another. In the list
of performable scenes given by Socrates in the Ion (535b), the possible
length appears to vary from as little as seven lines (Iliad 22.430-36
concerning Hekabe) to several hundred (Iliad 24.144-717 on Priam).
Although Ion in Plato’s dialogue can recite whole scenes himself, this does
not mean that recitation on such a scale was the only performative mode at
the Panathenaia.44 If this is correct, it provides an answer to the interesting
problem of how rhapsodes were prevented from arbitrarily appropriating to
themselves the better scenes (a point originally raised by Sealey [1957:343]),
however we conclude what makes a scene better or worse in Homer. This
concern does not arise if rhapsodes are performing the same scenes together,
and equally importantly, it does not arise if we assume that what was
competitive about rhapsodic performance lay not primarily in the content of
what was performed, but rather in the technical and dramatic skill with
which it was performed.
The term ex hupobolês deserves a special note. I follow LSJ’s basic
translation of this phrase, but I do not agree with their suggestion that
rhapsodes recited from an external cue, as if the cue here were some kind of
actor’s prompt.45 Research in cultures with living oral traditions shows that
in competitive poetic contests oral cues can be given by one singer to
another in performance, without any difficulty and at times with great
virtuosity. The cues are sometimes as simple as a given word that is handed
off, as it were, leaving it up to the next singer to do something innovative
with it, or to do something that is not necessarily innovative but nonetheless
shows a mastery of the game. As one non-Greek example, I cite a dueling
rhyme game discussed by Alan Dundes (1987) that has been documented
among modern Turkish boys, aged roughly 8-14. In this rather simplistic
44
And it certainly does not exclude the kinds of improvisation, especially the
addition or elaboration of verses, for which I have been arguing.
45
Cf. Boyd 1994:115, n.16, where he unnecessarily posits the existence of
“attendants” or “officials” who preside over the competition and who clock each
rhapsode’s performance.
146 DEREK COLLINS
game, the object is to cast an opponent into a passive homosexual role. One
boy starts by giving an image, say a bear (in Turkish, ayı). The next boy
must then say something clever like “let a violin bow enter the bear,” saying
it in such a way that the final word of his sentence, “bow” (yayı), rhymes
with the word for bear. The violin bow, by the way, is a particularly
appropriate image because it is long and thin, and the bowing motion itself
suggests sexual motion. Then the first boy must find an equally apposite
retort, perhaps something to the effect that it is better if a real man replaces
the bow and enters the second boy, again making his line-end rhyme with
the previous line-end.46 Provided each boy makes a successful retort with
end-rhyme, linking image to image, the game continues, sometimes with
dozens of exchanged lines. Sometimes the exchanged lines are improvised
on the spot, but just as frequently certain of them are in fact traditional
responses, and so part of the object of the game is to show by means of these
responses how well one has mastered the traditional repertoire. The loser
will be the boy who fails poetically to thwart his opponent’s attempts to cast
him in a passive homosexual role or who breaks the rhyme scheme. As
these non-professional games show, cueing and exchange between players
are dictated by the internal dynamics of the game and by the tradition.
Similarly in the case of Greece, we need not look beyond the performing
rhapsodes themselves for the hupobolê.
We actually have later evidence in Greece (particularly in Ionia) that
rhapsodic exchange, as a general performance mode, also took place at the
non-professional level of boys’ games. Plato in the Timaeus (21b) mentions
that boys at the festival of Apaturia were said to engage in “rhapsodic
contests” (aithla rhapsôidias) set up by their fathers, where the objective
was apparently to exchange the elegiac verses of Solon. Perhaps the most
interesting boys’ games are documented in inscriptions from Chios and
Teos, dated to the second century B.C.E., set up to commemorate the
victors. In the inscription from Chios (CIG 2214=SIG 959), we read about
competitions between different age levels of boys in rhapsôidia, as well as
anagnôsis (reading), kitharismos/kitharisis (lyre-playing), and psalmos
(harp-playing), not to mention more physical exercises like the diaulos
(running race). Dittenberger, following Boeckh, in his commentary on this
inscription, relates this description of events to the inscription from Teos
(CIG 3088=SIG 960n1), which lists many of the same competitive events
but also mentions an event hupobolês antapodoseôs for the older age-set of
boys (hêlikia). This is possibly some kind of give-and-take competition by
cue, a game Wilamowitz (1884:266) connected to the Certamen. The give-
46
These examples in Dundes 1987:86.
and-take competition seems parallel to the mention of rhapsôidia in the

Chios inscription, as well as to the more advanced and specialized rhapsodic
competitions at the Panathenaia. Following Dittenberger and Boeckh, I
would argue that the reference to hupobolê certainly suggests the exchange
of poetic verses, and again that, contrary to LSJ, these boys’ competitions, as
in the Turkish example, need not entail any external prompt. Rhapsodes,
moreover, with their extensive memorization and mastery of Homeric
texts,47 would surely not have needed any external cue by which to exchange
verses.
There is widespread evidence from all over Greece that rhapsodic
performances continued vigorously for centuries—the Panathenaia itself is
attested down to the third century C.E.48 But when we look at the period
between roughly the fourth and first centuries B.C.E., some innovations in
the structure and content of professional rhapsodic performances begin to
emerge. Victory lists for this period found in inscriptions from a wide array
of cities in Greece, usually in the context of festivals in honor of gods or
local cult heroes, which have been thoroughly studied by Maria Pallone,49
show quite clearly that not only rhapsodes were victorious, but also a new
breed of contestant, the poihth;~ ejpw`n or “poet of epic,” began to win.
Pallone has explained that, beginning in the fourth century, new works of
poetry in hexameter began to be composed for these festival contests, and
that they were performed either by a rhapsode or occasionally by the poet
himself, who may be listed as victorious under both the title of poet and
rhapsode.50 Typically the content of these new epic creations is
mythological, historical, or what Pallone calls “court” epics. So for example
there were poems composed about the deeds of Herakles or the Argonauts,
the exploits of Dionysus, as well as more localized stories about individual
communities and their foundation legends. As a model for these
compositions, Pallone suggests (1984:163), we might compare the seventh-
and sixth-century B.C.E. compositions of the Epic Cycle poems, attributed
47
Memorization by rhapsodes is assumed at Xenophon, Symposium, 3.6.
48
See the inscriptions cited in M. West 1996:1312. Cf. Herington 1985:
Appendix II.
49
Pallone 1984. Cf. the brief treatment of this period in Gentili 1990:174-76.
50
E.g. Inscriptiones Graecae 7.419.14-17 (first century B.C.E.).
148 DEREK COLLINS
to rhapsodes such as Leskhes of Lesbos or Arktinos of Miletus,51 which

covered the exploits of Herakles and the Theban and Trojan wars. However,
the difference between the Hellenistic compositions and those of elite
Alexandrian poets such as Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, and
Theocritus, to name only a few, are that the former were composed for
popular performance and competition at these localized festivals, not for a
narrow circle of literati directly associated with the Library of Alexandria.52
Variatio Homerica
We may correlate this period of innovation in rhapsodic

performances, roughly from the fourth to the first centuries B.C.E., with a
small corpus of Homeric papyri from the Ptolemaic period (305-145 B.C.E.)
that stand out for the peculiarity of their divergences from the vulgate of
Homer. The Ptolemaic papyri of Homer, collected and edited by Stephanie
West (1967), give us many examples of so-called “plus-verses,” which are
additional verses that survive but do not appear in the vulgate Homer as it
becomes standardized after the editorial activity of Aristarchus, perhaps in
150 B.C.E. or so. These papyri, dating from about 300 to 150 B.C.E. are
considered “eccentric” or “wild” because they diverge so much from the
Roman papyri of Homer, which deviate much less from the medieval
manuscripts. As West points out, these papyri “cannot be explained by the
processes of mere mechanical (that is to say, scribal or copyist) corruption”
(1967:11). The divergences simply show too intimate a knowledge of the
Homeric texts to be errors in the usual sense, and are more readily
understandable as the product of a still lively poetic tradition.53
Many scholars, including Thomas Allen (1924:267), have argued that
these variations are specifically due to the performance of rhapsodes.54 This
51
See Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1.144 and Aly 1920:246 on Leskhes’
contest with Arktinos. Leskhes is said to have won.
52
Pallone 1984:162-64 and Gentili 1990:174.
53
Foley (1990:22-26, espec. 26) presents a forceful argument for this view and
emphasizes the contribution of rhapsodes.
54
Stephanie West is another; see S. West 1967:13, and her essay “The
Transmission of the Text” in Heubeck et al. 1988:33-48, espec. 35, though I emphatically
disagree with her notion that rhapsodes thought of themselves as “improving” the text.
same conjecture was made in the nineteenth century (in the wake of
Friedrich August Wolf’s rhapsodic Liedertheorie of the composition of the
Iliad and Odyssey), but at that time scholars like Arthur Ludwich regarded
rhapsodes (such as Kynaithos) as inferior forgers and falsifiers of the
Homeric text.55 Allen adopted this same prejudice when, following
Ludwich, he argued that rhapsodes were attempting to “increase and
improve” the Master (1924:326), that is Homer, whence he proceeded to
give an allusion to Mozart’s supplements to Handel. More recently, Michael
Apthorp has argued along similar lines that the Ptolemaic papyri should be
understood as “lapses of memory” or the result of inevitable “alterations and
additions to the poems in the process of recitation” by rhapsodes that arise
during an oral performance (1980:67-68). Instead, it is more likely that
these papyri reflect new ground rules for (competitive) improvisation in
performance, or the representation of improvisation in performance in
Hellenized Egypt. As we have seen, the papyri appear during the same
period in which other types of innovation in rhapsodic performances in
Greece emerge, which included the creation of new epic material. So it is
more pertinent to ask why some Greeks in Egypt preferred, at least in the
eccentric papyri, to reorganize the text of Homer rather than to create new
material. Their actions reflect a very specific performance demand, rather
than merely, as others have argued,56 a generalized reintroduction of fluidity
into the textual tradition.
In this connection it is worth noting two related details about
rhapsodes that involve the manipulation of Homeric material within
individual verses, which give added dimension to the potential subtlety of
their performances. The first involves an anecdote in Plutarch about
Ptolemy II Philadelphus on his wedding day.57 Ptolemy II married his sister
55
See Ludwich 1898:159-64, espec. 160, n.1, where he specifically attacks the
earlier arguments of Kirchoff (1893:903), who thought that the variations derived from
“Memorirexemplare der Rhapsoden” who used the variations in performance, along the
lines of what we are told about Kynaithos (see above). Although it is not clear that
rhapsodes created their own texts as memory-aides for performance, Kirchoff’s point
about a rhapsode’s freedom to manipulate Homer in performance is very close to my
own. Ludwich (1898:160-61), however, refused to regard rhapsodes like Kynaithos as
anything but forgers, and certainly not poets. We should distinguish between what the
variations tell us about improvisation in live performances from their relationship to the
origin of the vulgate text of Homer.
56
E.g., Nagy 1996:144.
57
Cf. the discussion of this passage in Nagy 1996:161-62.
150 DEREK COLLINS
Arsinoe, who would become one of the most important women rulers in
Egypt, yet at the time the marriage was considered scandalous by Greeks. In
any case, Plutarch relates the story of the rhapsode whom Ptolemy II had
hired to perform at his wedding, and this rhapsode became famous for
beginning his performance with a line from book 18 of the Iliad:
kai; oJ me;n rJayw/do;~ eujqu;~ h\n dia; stovmato~ pa`sin, ejn toi`~
Ptolemaivou gavmoi~ ajgomevnou th;n ajdelfh;n kai; pra`gma dra`n
ajllovkoton ãnomizÃomevnou kai; a[qesmon ajrxavmeno~ ajpo; tw`n ejpw`n
ejkeivnwn:
Zeu;~ d j {Hrhn ejkavlesse kasignhvthn a[locovn te (from Iliad
18.356)
and the rhapsode was the talk of everyone—the one who, at the wedding
of Ptolemy, who by marrying his sister was believed to be doing
something unnatural and unlawful, began with the following verses:
‘And Zeus summoned Hera, his sister and wife’ (from Iliad 18.356)
(Plutarch, Quaestiones convivales 736e)
Whoever this rhapsode was, he was clever enough to begin his

performance by adducing an apt line from Homer, but there is greater
subtlety to his recitation than scholars have noticed. In the vulgate of
Homer, this line does not say that Zeus summoned (kalevw) Hera, with its
more stately implication, but rather the following:
Zeu;~ d j {Hrhn proseveipe kasignhvthn a[locovn te
And Zeus addressed Hera, his sister and wife (Iliad 18.356)
In other words, according to the vulgate Zeus merely spoke to or addressed

(proseeiv p w) Hera at this point, since what follows this line is actually a
speech by Zeus. Although we do not know the source of Plutarch’s
quotation, it is possible that our rhapsode not only aptly quoted this line of
Homer, but also that he improvised the verb to make the whole line more
consonant with the circumstances of Ptolemy’s wedding.
The second example comes from the T scholia to Iliad 21.26. After a
description of Achilles’ slaughter of Trojans in the Xanthus river, the great
hero wearies of killing and then takes twelve Trojan youths as a recompense
for the dead Patroklos. Of Achilles’ fatigue specifically, we read:
. . . oJ d j ejpei; kavme cei`ra~ ejnaivrwn

. . . and when he tired in his hands from killing (Iliad 21.26)
The idiom in Greek requires that the noun cei` r a~, in the accusative,
represent the body part that is fatigued in connection with the verb kavmnw
“to weary,” while the participle ej n aiv r wn (from ej n aiv r w “to slay, kill”)
describes the action from which one is fatigued. However, the T scholia
report that a rhapsode named Hermodoros (otherwise unknown) placed a
different construction on this line. The scholion reads:
JErmovdwro~ oJ rJayw/do;~ cei`ra~ ejnaivrwn h[koue ‘ceirokopw` n ,’

katecrhvsato dev.
The rhapsode Hermodoros for cei`ra~ ejnaivrwn heard “hand-cutting,” and

used it wrongly.
If we distinguish Hermodoros’ interpretation of the line from the scholiast’s

condemnation of his syntactic knowledge, we may detect a hint of deliberate
playfulness and an “improvised” interpretation of Achilles’ actions at this
point in the narrative. By taking the noun cei`ra~ as the direct object of the
participle ejnaivrwn rather than with kavmnw, Hermodoros represents Achilles
as actually cutting off the hands of the twelve youths whom he will take in
the following lines (21.27-8) as recompense for Patroklos. Rather than a
misunderstanding or misapplication of Greek syntax, I interpret
Hermodoros’ play as a purposive improvisation meant to depict Achilles in a
more gruesome fashion. As in the previous example, such minor variations
considered from the standpoint of a modern textual editor or an Alexandrian
scholiast may seem irrelevant, and yet these very types of changes may be
further direct evidence of performance improvisations characteristic of
rhapsodes. The fact that Hermodoros’ interpretation is reported at all
suggests that his violation of Greek syntax nevertheless resulted in a
striking and memorable image.
Yet rhapsodes alone may not be the only performers responsible for
textual changes or improvised interpretations. We must also briefly consider
the figure of the oJmhristhv~ (Latin homerista),58 about whom much less is
known but who is closely related to the rhapsode. In at least one account
(Athenaeus 620b) the homêristês is actually said to be identical with the
rhapsode. There has been some dispute over the exact historical relationship
58
Nagy 1996:156-74 is fundamental. I draw heavily upon his discussion in what
follows.
152 DEREK COLLINS
between rhapsodes and homêristai, because the name homêristês, derived

from the verb homêrizein (“to act Homer”),59 in other contexts suggests that
they both recited and mimed Homeric poetry.60 Nevertheless, the
connection between them seems to relate to the degree of acting involved in
the performance of Homer, with the homêristai representing a more dramatic
phase in the tradition.
In the third quarter of the fourth century, when Demetrius of Phalerum
(ruled 317-307 B.C.E.) was at the height of his political and cultural
influence in Athens, we are told that he was the first to introduce those who
are now called homêristai into the theaters:
o{ti d j ejkalou`nto oiJ rJayw/doi; kai; JOmhristai; jAristoklh`~

ei[ r hken ej n tw/ ` peri; Corw` n . tou; ~ de; nu` n J O mhrista; ~
ojnomazomevnou~ prw`to~ eij~ ta; qevatra parhvgage Dhmhvtrio~ oJ
Falhreuv ~ . Camailev w n de; ej n tw/ ` peri; Sthsicov r ou kai;
melw/dhqh`naiv fhsin ouj movnon ta; JOmhvrou, ajlla; kai; ta;
JHsiovdou kai; jArcilovcou, e[ti de; Mimnevrmou kai; Fwkulivdou.
Klevarco~ d j ejn tw/` protevrw/ peri; Grivfwn ‘ta; jArcilovcou,
fhsivn, Simwnivdh~ oJ Zakuvnqio~ ejn toi`~ qeavtroi~ ejpi; divfrou
kaqhvmeno~ ej r rayw/ v d ei.’ Lusaniva~ d j ejn tw/` prwvtw/ peri;
jIambopoiw`n Mnasivwna to;n rJayw/do;n levgei ejn tai`~ deivxesi tw`n
Simwnivdou tina;~ ijavmbwn uJpokrivnesqai. tou;~ d j jEmpedoklevou~
Kaqarmou;~ ejrrayw/vdhsen jOlumpivasi Kleomevnh~ oJ rJayw/dov~, w{~
fhsin Dikaivarco~ ejn tw/` jOlumpikw`/. jIavswn d j ejn trivtw/ peri;
tw`n jAlexavndrou JIerw`n ejn jAlexandreiva/ fhsi;n ejn tw/` megavlw/
qeavtrw/ uJpokrivnasqai JHghsivan to;n kwmw/do;n ta; JHsiovdou,
JErmovfanton de; ta; JOmhvrou.
That rhapsodes were called also Homêristai Aristocles says in his book On
Choruses. Demetrius of Phalerum first introduced those now called
Homêristai into the theatres . Chamaeleon, in his book On Stesichorus ,
says that not only the poetry of Homer was sung melodically, but also that
of Hesiod and Archilochus, and even that of Mimnermus and Phocylides.
Clearchus, in the first of his two books On Riddles says, “Simonides of
Zacynthus, seated on a stool, used to perform rhapsodically the poetry of
Archilochus in the theatres.” Lysanias, in the first book of his On the
Iambic Poets, says that Mnasion the rhapsode used to act in public
performances some of the iambic poems of Simonides. And Kleomenes
the rhapsode performed rhapsodically the Purifications of Empedocles at
Olympia, as Dichaearchus says in his book the Olympic. Jason, in the
59
For the verb homêrizein in Achilles Tatius 8.9.2-3, see Nagy 1996:164-65.
60
Nagy 1996:167 contra (e.g.) Robert 1936:237.
third book of his work on the Divine Honors to Alexander, says that in the
great theatre of Alexandria Hegesias the comedian acted the poetry of
Hesiod, and Hermophantos acted that of Homer (Athenaeus 620b-c).
I quote this passage at length because it provides significant background on

the wide variety of poetry that was performed in theatres, such as the
hexameters of Hesiod and Empedocles, and also the iambic poems of
Archilochus and Simonides. Most significantly for the present, however, is
that the great theatre of Alexandria is singled out as the locale for the acting
(hupokrinomai) of Hesiod and Homer. To follow Athenaeus’ logic of
presentation, even the fact that the poetry of Homer and Hesiod was acted by
comedians (kwmw/dov~) in Alexandria can be seen as a development of the
greater theatricalization of Homeric performance begun by Demetrius.
Athenaeus says explicitly that the term homêristai was another name
given to rhapsodes, hence our need to confront the homêristai more directly.
In general our evidence for the nature of their performances is very scant,
but other literary evidence in conjunction with several papyri suggest that
both in large-scale public and smaller-scale private venues homêristai
performed well into the third century C.E. So, for example, one incidental
reference to what the homêristai did comes to us from the Interpretation of
Dreams by Artemidorus, dated to the third century C.E., in which there is an
anecdote about a surgeon who once dreamed that he was acting Homer. The
surgeon draws an analogy between the motions made by homêristai as they
gesture in performance and those made by a surgeon as he operates:
kai; ga;r oiJ oJmhristai; titrwvskousi me;n kai; aiJmavssousin, ajll j

oujk ajpoktei`naiv ge bouvlontai: ou{tw de; kai; oJ ceirourgov~
just as the homêristai injure and draw blood, but do not intend to kill, so
also does the surgeon (Artemidorus 4.2, ed. Pack).
Another passage from Petronius’ Satyricon is more descriptive, but

also gives some indication of the changing venues for homêristai
performances. In this passage, Trimalchio, a poorly educated but
degenerately wealthy aristocrat who is in the midst of feasting his friends at
his home, asks that everyone be festive and watch the Homeristae as they
make their entrance:
‘simus ergo, quod melius est, a primitiis hilares et Homeristas spectemus.’

intravit factio statim hastisque scuta concrepuit. ipse Trimalchio in
pulvino consedit, et cum Homeristae Graecis versibus colloquerentur, ut
insolenter solent, ille canora voce Latine legebat librum.
154 DEREK COLLINS
‘Let us be festive, which is better, from the start and watch the
Homêristai.’ Immediately a troupe entered clanging on their spears and
shields. Trimalchio himself sat on a cushion, and while the Homeristae
were dialoguing in Greek verses in their usual bombastic manner, he read
along in Latin in a loud voice. (Petronius, Satyricon 59.2-3)
There is much humor in this scene—of course, not only are the homêristai
lavishly decked out in military armor but their dialogue is loud and affected.
Moreover, Trimalchio obviously knows no Greek and therefore must read
along in his Latin translation of Homer to follow the performance.
Trimalchio becomes more of a fool in what follows, when he asks the
homêristai to stop while he explains the plot to them. He completely
confuses the characters by saying that the brothers concerned were
Diomedes and Ganymede (instead of Agamemnon and Menelaos); that their
sister was Helen, whom Agamemnon rescued and substituted a deer for
Diana. He goes on to say that Agamemnon gave his own daughter
Iphigeneia as a wife to Achilles, but that on account of this (instead of
Achilles’ armor) Ajax went insane (59.4-6). This is all quite absurd, but
finally, at the mention of Ajax, Trimalchio’s servants begin to scurry about
making preparations for the entry of a boiled calf, which is brought in on a
heavy tray with a helmet on its head. Then a man dressed as Ajax, possibly
a homêristês, comes in with a sword and begins to mime as if he were the
insane Ajax madly cleaving at herds of cattle, all the while collecting bits of
meat on the end of his sword and passing it to the guests who look on in
amazement (59.6-7). For our purposes, this parodic display does at least
support the idea that the homêristai, who not only performed in theatres but
as we have just seen could also be hired out for elite dinner parties, both
recited Homeric verses and mimed the dramatic action.61
Other evidence for homêristai performances comes from papyri dated
from the second-third centuries B.C.E. that are contemporary with the
eccentric papyri of Homer. As the papyrologist Geneviève Husson has
demonstrated, there are at least five papyri from Oxyrhynchus, some of
which are contracts for actual performances (with fees indicated) in which
homêristai are sometimes paired with mimes. This suggests that the
homêristai recited Homer while the mimes did the acting;62 however, the
61
Robert (1936:237) argued that homêristai only mimed Homeric battle scenes.
62
Husson’s third text, SB 7336 (1993:97, n. 18), mentions payment to a reader
(anagnôstês) who might have read out loud while the homêristai mimed the scenes. The
question remains: what exactly was read?
content of their performances is not described. But the setting would once
again have been of large-scale public performances like that of
rhapsodes—we know for example that the theatre at Oxyrhynchus could
hold upwards of 11,000 people63—and the context for these performances
would likely have been competitive. Indeed one papyrus, P.Oslo 3.189.19
studied by Husson (her text 2) mentions a contest of poets (agôn poiêtôn),
somewhat along the lines of the Hellenistic victory inscriptions discussed
earlier.
Taken together, then, this evidence for homêristai suggests that, by
virtue of their performance need to recite Homer, they too could be
responsible for the variations that we find in the eccentric papyri. If
rhapsodes are occasionally credited with textual changes in the Homeric
scholia,64 this may reflect their (historically) greater prestige as public
performers as compared to the homêristai. But from the standpoint of trying
to explain the Ptolemaic textual variation, we cannot exclude other
performers of Homer like the homêristai, 65 the content of whose
performances largely elude us but which could have demanded the special
effects achieved in the eccentric papyri.
To restate the argument briefly: the evidence we have for rhapsodic
performance suggests that they could competitively recite memorized verses,
improvise verses on the spot for elaboration or embellishment, and take up
and leave off Homeric (or other) narratives wherever they chose. Further
evidence suggests that rhapsodes could modify words within a verse, or
modify Greek syntax where plausible to create new meaning from a known
verse. To the extent that homêristai performed in a manner comparable to
rhapsodes, we may attribute the same skills to them. Viewed in this light,
the Ptolemaic eccentric papyri show direct evidence of this kind of
manipulation. What we now need to explain is the effects achieved by the
plus-verses, which are the distinguishing feature of these papyri.
The creation of a vivid and memorable image is a case in point. A
typical example comes from Iliad 22.316, in the scene where Achilles lunges
at Hektor. This is, by the way, one of the several performable scenes or
episodes mentioned by Socrates in Plato’s Ion (535b). In the Iliad scene,
Hektor and Achilles have exchanged some boasts and abuse, and then
63
Bowman 1986:144.
64
Ludwich (1898:163) already noted how infrequently rhapsodes are mentioned
in the scholia. Homêristai do not appear to be mentioned at all.
65
In this sense, it is irrelevant whether they are considered “low-class” actors, as
M. West (1996:1312) dismissively states.
156 DEREK COLLINS
Hektor calls upon his brother Deïphobos to give him a spear. Realizing that
Deïphobos is not near enough to do this, Hektor senses that his fate is near,
and so gathers himself together and makes a run at Achilles. At this
moment, Achilles charges in return, and we hear about his helmet, with its
golden plumes, glittering in the sun:
cruvseai, a}~ {Hfaisto~ i{ei lovfon ajmfi; qameiav~
golden, which Hephaistos had let fall thick along the crest of the helmet
(Iliad 22.316)
In the Papyrus labeled P12 (in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and
University Library in Heidelberg), datable to the early to mid-third century
B.C.E., we find three plus verses to accompany line 316, which I give
below:
P12 Iliad 22.316a, b, c = 22.133-35
316 [cruvseai, a}s {Hfaistos i{ei lovfo]n ajm[fi; qam]e≥[iav]s≥,
316a [seivwn Phliavda mel]ivhn kata; [dexio;n] w\mon

shaking the Pelian ash spear by his right shoulder
316b [deinhvn: ajmfi; de; calko;]s≥ ejlavmp[e]t≥o≥ [ei[kelos aujghì

dangerous; and the bronze all around shone like a ray
316c [h] puro;s aijqomevnou h] hjelivou] ajniovnt≥[os.

either of blazing fire or of the rising sun
Note especially that the enjambing word (seiôn) in 316a is a

participle, a frequent and flexible type of enjambement in Homer and the
Certamen, and that this is consistent with the uses of enjambement by
rhapsodes for which I argued earlier. In any case, these three verses are
identical to verses 133-35 from the same Book 22 of the Iliad, as transmitted
through the vulgate. Now the question is, simply, why do these plus verses
appear at line 316 in this eccentric papyrus?
I think we can provide an answer, but in order to do so we have also
to supply a little imagination. All we really have to suppose is that our
audience knows book 22 well enough to know the context of lines 133-35,
and that they were used in a rhapsodic or homeristic performance. Before
those lines occur, King Priam and Queen Hekabe have unsuccessfully
attempted to keep Hektor from battling Achilles. Hektor then reflects on the
tight position that he is in: if he retreats he will be ridiculed, but since he has
by his own recklessness endangered the Trojans, he feels compelled to

continue fighting. He then debates in his heart about refusing to fight,
giving up Helen, and even laying down his armor and propitiating Achilles.
This does not seem satisfactory either, and so he resolves to let Zeus decide
the victor. It is at this moment that we see Achilles beginning to close in on
Hektor, shaking his dangerous Pelian ash spear by his right shoulder with his
helmet blazing in the sun. So go verses 22.133-35. Now when Hektor sees
this, he can no longer stand his ground and so flees, frightened, toward the
base of the Trojan wall. Clearly the appearance and description of Achilles
is decisive for Hektor at this moment, yet it is not until Achilles’ next lunge
for Hektor, at lines 312 and following, with our plus verses in the papyrus,
that he will make the fatal spearthrust through Hektor’s throat.
Therefore what I am suggesting is that, given a hypothetical
performance context, lines 316a-c could well be an improvisation on the part
of one rhapsode or homêristês who is simply embellishing and intensifying
the description of Achilles at the fatal moment for Hektor. For an audience
who knows their Homer, they add even more pungency to the description of
Achilles’ final lunge at verse 312 and following. Of course we cannot
determine whether a rhapsode might have embellished line 316 as a virtuoso
flourish, or whether a homêristês used them parodically to accentuate the
presentation of a costumed mime, impersonating Achilles, as he stood there
brandishing a spear in defiance (as the following lines indicate).
In all this I am not suggesting that we assume a one-to-one
correspondence between papyrus P12, or any papyrus, and a given
performance, or that these texts are necessarily scripts or memory-aides for
performance. This suggestion goes back to Kirchoff in the nineteenth
century (1893:903) and, while it remains an attractive hypothesis, we still do
not know the true origin of these papyri. However, the advantage of the
approach outlined here is that it offers an alternative to attributing such plus
verses and variations to pedantic scribes or misinformed copyists, or to
dismissing them as uncreative interpolations of inferior performers. The
variations suggest that knowledge of Homeric texts, and an ability to
manipulate passages, was of primary importance to the authors and
performers of these papyri because the innovation here involves the novel
deployment of traditional material. The motivation for the variations is best
explained by the competitive context of rhapsodic performances or, possibly,
by the parodic context of homeristic performances. However, the
“stitching” nature of the variations in the papyri on the whole incline me
toward the rhapsodic performance scenario. What we can probably exclude
158 DEREK COLLINS
is the possibility that the variations are due to poets,66 because as we saw
earlier in the discussion of Hellenistic performances from the fourth to the
first centuries B.C.E., the so-called poets of epic (poihth; ~ ej p w` n ,
ejpopoiov~) typically were rewarded for the creation of new epic material
largely treating historical and mythological subjects.67 What we may
conclude is that these papyri reflect the interests of a delimited group of
performers/authors who specialized in Homer, because we do not find the
same extent of verse manipulation in Homeric papyri after 150 B.C.E., while
rhapsodic (and homeristic) performances continue until the third century
C.E. I regard it as more than probable that these papyri have issued from the
Ptolemaic equivalent of the Homeridae of Chios or the Kreophyleoi of
Samos.
Conclusion
Nearly fifty years ago Raphael Sealey cautioned his readers that in
regard to the Homeridae, the fifth-century clan from Chios who at one time
claimed exclusive descent from Homer (1957:315),
the distinction that has been drawn . . . between a poet and a mere reciter
is one that must be handled with care; doubtless there were men at some
time in Greece who did both things. They composed poems of their own
and they recited poems that they had learned from other poets; as reciters
they may have modified the poems that they learned by introducing much
of their own. Nevertheless it is possible to identify the extremes of the
distinction.
For Sealey, and many scholars before and after him, Phemios and
Demodokos in the Odyssey represent the poets (aoidoi) who compose while
they perform, while Ion, the rhapsode (rhapsôidos) featured in Plato’s
dialogue by that name, represents the opposite extreme of the largely
recitational performer. The case for creativity among rhapsodes has not
been made easier by the prejudices of Plato (as evidenced in the Ion) and
Xenophon, who ranks them among the stupidest of men (Symposium 3.6,
Memorabilia 4.2.10). For Plato and Xenophon, although rhapsodes may
recite Homer’s words correctly, they simply do not know what they mean.
66
Unless, as is occasionally attested, a given poet competes as both poet and
rhapsode, on which see Pallone 1984:162.
67
Pallone 1984:162-66.
Even in the largely defamatory treatment of rhapsodes in Plato’s

dialogue Ion, however, we may detect a hint of the importance of
improvisation. When Ion of Chios boasts of his victory at a rhapsodic
contest at Epidauros, he says:
Kai; mh;n a[xiovn ge ajkou`sai, w\ Swvkrate~, wJ~ eu\ kekovsmhka to;n

{Omhron: w{ste oi\mai uJpo; JOmhridw`n a[xio~ ei\nai crusw/` stefavnw/
stefanwqh`nai.
And indeed it is worth hearing, Socrates, how well I have embellished

[kosmeô] Homer; so that I think that I am worthy of being crowned with a
golden crown by the Homeridae (Plato Ion, 530d6-9).
The verb kosmeô (“embellish, adorn”), as others have noted,68 elsewhere in

the Ion refers to adornment with regard to clothing (530b5, 535d1), and in
itself cannot be translated as “improvise.” However, given the
improvisational skills of rhapsodes that we have seen, I suggest that Ion’s
“embellishment” of Homer be interpreted broadly to subsume the totality of
rhapsodic performance activities surveyed here—including mimetic and
gestural elements, vocal range, and improvisation of verses. Verbal
improvisation against tradition is thus integral (but admittedly not exclusive)
to the popular appeal of rhapsodic competition in performance, and we must
see that such competition is essentially a poetic game. The master of that
game, like Ion, will be the one who most deftly displays the range of
rhapsodic abilities discussed here.
The negative, conventional view of rhapsodes should be taken to
reflect the narrow intellectual preoccupations of Xenophon and especially
Plato, who sought to vitiate the claim that by knowing the “thought”
(dianoia) of Homer about a given subject, a rhapsode could translate that
into direct experience.69 Such hostile views are simply not commensurate
with the widespread evidence for public interest in rhapsodic performance
attested from the sixth century B.C.E. down to the third century C.E. This
evidence surely bespeaks the popularity of rhapsôidia as a mode of live
performance, and it is the hold of this type of performance over the
68
E.g., Boyd 1994:116.
69
Murray 1996:129. In the Ion, ridicule is sharply made of Ion’s claim that by
knowing from Homer the sort of speech appropriate to a general, he could in fact become
a general (Ion 540d-541c), on which see Stehle 1997:16. For more on the dianoia of
Homer, see Nagy 1999:143, n.4.
160 DEREK COLLINS
imagination of the Greeks that we should seek to explain. Although we

cannot be certain that all performances by rhapsodes were competitive, we
can be certain that the major contests, such as those at the Panathenaia and at
Sikyon, were indeed competitive.70
So why, to put it simply, were rhapsodic performances so engaging?71
One answer, as I have outlined it here, is that the damning opinions of Plato
and Xenophon have overshadowed a degree of creative improvisation in
rhapsodic performance. Such improvisation in the context of competition
allowed for spontaneity and audience engagement against the backdrop of an
extremely well known body of poetry. Moreover, Ion’s statement cited
above also suggests that his creative embellishment, rather than the
popularity of Homeric poetry itself, would prompt the Homeridae to reward
him. Thus a rhapsode’s ability to embellish was central to his technique.
The most important practical implication to be derived from this
perspective is that by incorporating a more fluid model of live performance
into our understanding of the performance tradition of Homer, we may be
able more effectively to account for variations in the manuscript tradition,
including the eccentric papyri.72 But we must first dismiss the idea that the
variations we find by rhapsodes (or homêristai for that matter) were meant
to compete with “Homer,” an idea that inevitably leads to the conclusion that
their innovations are inferior.73 Until we remove the stigma attached to
rhapsodes by the likes of Plato and Xenophon,74 we will not make any
headway in understanding the context for their variations. And yet these
70
Signaled foremost by the term agôn (e.g. Herodotus 5.67.1) and the verb
agônizesthai (e.g. Plato, Ion 530a).
71
Not all rhapsodic performances, of course, were engaging. Diodorus Siculus
14.109 reports that Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, sent rhapsodes to perform his own
poetry at the Olympic games in 388 B.C.E. At first the rhapsodes impressed the crowd,
but subsequently the badness (kakia) of Dionysius’ poetry was such as to cause the
audience openly to ridicule him and his rhapsodes.
72
Nagy’s work (1996:7-38) is essential here.
73
Cf. Labarbe (1949:425), who subordinates the verses attributed to rhapsodes to
the génie of Homer.
74
Similarly, Isocrates’ negative mention of rhapsodes who perform Homer and
Hesiod at the Lyceum (Panath. 18 and 33) should not be taken to reflect a rhapsode’s
verbal artistry. For the most part, the attacks of Plato, Xenophon, and, indirectly,
Isocrates are limited to a rhapsode’s ability to understand and interpret Homer; on which,
see Murray 1996:20-21.
variations, such as they are, may give us direct access to how Homer was
actually performed, and interpreted in performance, which simply cannot be
recovered from the vulgate alone. The analogy with the performance of
tragic poetry is instructive: we know that by 330 B.C.E. the Athenian
statesman Lycurgus sought, for better or worse, to curtail the improvisations
of actors with a decree limiting their lines to fixed texts of Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides ([Plutarch], Lives of the Ten Orators 841.43).75
My claim here is that we see the same underlying process at work in the
performance tradition of rhapsodes: fixed texts of Homer provided the
backdrop76 to innovations and extemporaneous flourishes produced in live
performances to win over the audience, which, as Plato’s Ion (Ion 535e)
reminds us, was always the ultimate arbiter of victory.77
University of Michigan
References
Allen 1912 Thomas W. Allen, ed. Homeri Opera 5 (Hymns, Cycle

fragments, etc). 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Allen 1917 , ed. Homeri Opera 3 and 4 (Odyssey). 2nd ed.

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Aly 1920 Wolfgang Aly. “ JRayw/dov~.” Real-Encyclopädie der

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75
For more, see Page 1934. In this connection we may also note the remarks of
Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 10.1.66, that the Athenians allowed Aeschylus’ tragedies,
unpolished and disorganized as they were, to be corrected by later poets, on which see
Nagy 1996:176. I intend to deal further with the implications of state-sponsored
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forthcoming work.
76
Foley (1991:6-9, espec. ch. 2) is essential to understanding the performance of
Homer as re-enactment against a body of known material. Further pertinent observations
can be found in Bakker 1993:10-12.
77
I would like especially to thank the specialist reviewer at Oral Tradition for
many helpful and clarifying suggestions.
162 DEREK COLLINS
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Oral Tradition, 16/1 (2001): 129-167

Homer and Rhapsodic Competition in Performance1

One legacy of Homeric studies since the pathbreaking work of

from his experience viewing rhapsodic contests.8 The Certamen as we have

The evidence of rhapsodic performance as we have it suggests that

{Oqen per kai; JOmhrivdai

From the very point where the Homeridae,

Pindar’s view that the Homeridae are singers of stitched-together utterances

The scholia on Nemean 2.1-3 also include other descriptions of how

Filovcoro~ de; ajpo; tou` suntiqevnai kai; rJavptein

In this passage Philochorus, who may simply have rationalized his

ejn Dhvlw/ tovte prw`ton ejgw; kai; {Omhro~ ajoidoi;

Balanced against all of this evidence for a stitching metaphor, in

kai; to;n ejpi; rJavbdw/ mu`qon uJfainovmenon

and the narrative [muthos] woven around a staff [rhabdos]

rhapsodic contests. Indeed, our first mention of rhapsodic performance at

JOmhrivda~ e[legon to; me;n ajrcai`on tou;~ ajpo; tou` JOmhvrou

utterances extempore during a performance and passed them off as Homer’s,

Let us now turn to a more detailed examination of the types of

It turns out that what Alcidamas’ Homer is doing with these

o}~ kai; nu`n jAcilh`a e{o mevg j ajmeivnona fw`ta

And now he has Achilles, a much better man than him,

In this example we see that the noun phôs (“man”) is governed by a

e[gco~ me;n tovde kei`tai ejpi; cqonov~, oujdev ti fw`ta

In the Certamen Homer also enjambs infinitives to limit and transform

pontoporein and makes it depend on m e l l ô , pontoporei`n h[mellon

ejxevlet j a[speta pollav: ta; d j a[ll j ej~ dh`mon e[dwke

cannot be proven, we may more narrowly conclude that such gaming

JIppavrcw/, o}~ tw`n Peisistravtou paivdwn h\n presbuvtato~ kai;

In this passage we are told that Hipparkhos, a son of Peisistratos, first

was institutionalized by Hipparkhos, then it must in some sense represent a

tav te JOmhvrou ejx uJpobolh`~ gevgrafe rJayw/dei`sqai, oi|on o{pou oJ

He [=Solon] wrote a law that the poetry of Homer was to be performed

it could mean, as he argues (1993:104), that after a coherent scene, of the

and-take competition seems parallel to the mention of rhapsôidia in the

to rhapsodes such as Leskhes of Lesbos or Arktinos of Miletus,51 which

We may correlate this period of innovation in rhapsodic

Whoever this rhapsode was, he was clever enough to begin his

Zeu;~ d j {Hrhn proseveipe kasignhvthn a[locovn te

In other words, according to the vulgate Zeus merely spoke to or addressed

. . . oJ d j ejpei; kavme cei`ra~ ejnaivrwn

. . . and when he tired in his hands from killing (Iliad 21.26)

JErmovdwro~ oJ rJayw/do;~ cei`ra~ ejnaivrwn h[koue ‘ceirokopw` n ,’

The rhapsode Hermodoros for cei`ra~ ejnaivrwn heard “hand-cutting,” and

If we distinguish Hermodoros’ interpretation of the line from the scholiast’s

between rhapsodes and homêristai, because the name homêristês, derived

o{ti d j ejkalou`nto oiJ rJayw/doi; kai; JOmhristai; jAristoklh`~

I quote this passage at length because it provides significant background on

kai; ga;r oiJ oJmhristai; titrwvskousi me;n kai; aiJmavssousin, ajll j

Another passage from Petronius’ Satyricon is more descriptive, but

‘simus ergo, quod melius est, a primitiis hilares et Homeristas spectemus.’

cruvseai, a}~ {Hfaisto~ i{ei lovfon ajmfi; qameiav~

P12 Iliad 22.316a, b, c = 22.133-35

316 [cruvseai, a}s {Hfaistos i{ei lovfo]n ajm[fi; qam]e≥[iav]s≥,

316a [seivwn Phliavda mel]ivhn kata; [dexio;n] w\mon

316b [deinhvn: ajmfi; de; calko;]s≥ ejlavmp[e]t≥o≥ [ei[kelos aujgh`i

316c [h] puro;s aijqomevnou h] hjelivou] ajniovnt≥[os.

Note especially that the enjambing word (seiôn) in 316a is a

by his own recklessness endangered the Trojans, he feels compelled to