tendencies. In Ionia and the islands the epic poets followed the
Homeric tradition, singing of romantic subjects in the now
stereotyped heroic style, and showing originality only in their
choice of legends hitherto neglected or summarily and imperfectly
treated. In continental Greece (1), on the other hand, but
especially in Boeotia, a new form of epic sprang up, which for
the romance and PATHOS of the Ionian School substituted the
practical and matter-of-fact. It dealt in moral and practical
maxims, in information on technical subjects which are of service
in daily life -- agriculture, astronomy, augury, and the calendar
-- in matters of religion and in tracing the genealogies of men.
Its attitude is summed up in the words of the Muses to the writer
of the "Theogony": `We can tell many a feigned tale to look like
truth, but we can, when we will, utter the truth' ("Theogony"
26-27). Such a poetry could not be permanently successful,
because the subjects of which it treats -- if susceptible of
poetic treatment at all -- were certainly not suited for epic
treatment, where unity of action which will sustain interest, and
to which each part should contribute, is absolutely necessary.
While, therefore, an epic like the "Odyssey" is an organism and
dramatic in structure, a work such as the "Theogony" is a merely
artificial collocation of facts, and, at best, a pageant. It is
not surprising, therefore, to find that from the first the
Boeotian school is forced to season its matter with romantic
episodes, and that later it tends more and more to revert (as in
the "Shield of Heracles") to the Homeric tradition.


The Boeotian School