This is the central point of the Homeric errors. The name of Homer, from
the very beginning, has no connection either with the conception of
æsthetic perfection or yet with the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. Homer as
the composer of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ is not a historical
tradition, but an _æsthetic judgment_.

The only path which leads back beyond the time of Pisistratus and helps
us to elucidate the meaning of the name Homer, takes its way on the one
hand through the reports which have reached us concerning Homer's
birthplace: from which we see that, although his name is always
associated with heroic epic poems, he is on the other hand no more
referred to as the composer of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ than as the
author of the _Thebais_ or any other cyclical epic. On the other hand,
again, an old tradition tells of the contest between Homer and Hesiod,
which proves that when these two names were mentioned people
instinctively thought of two epic tendencies, the heroic and the
didactic; and that the signification of the name "Homer" was included in
the material category and not in the formal. This imaginary contest with
Hesiod did not even yet show the faintest presentiment of individuality.
From the time of Pisistratus onwards, however, with the surprisingly
rapid development of the Greek feeling for beauty, the differences in
the æsthetic value of those epics continued to be felt more and more:
the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ arose from the depths of the flood and
have remained on the surface ever since. With this process of æsthetic
separation, the conception of Homer gradually became narrower: the old
material meaning of the name "Homer" as the father of the heroic epic
poem, was changed into the æsthetic meaning of Homer, the father of
poetry in general, and likewise its original prototype. This
transformation was contemporary with the rationalistic criticism which