Readers there were none, at least until the century preceding Solôn and Peisistratus: from that time forward, they gradually increased both in number and influence; though doubtless small, even in the most literary period of Greece, as compared with modern European society. So far as the production of beautiful epic poetry was concerned, however, the select body of instructed readers, furnished a less potent stimulus than the unlettered and listening crowd of the earlier periods. The poems of Chœrilus and Antimachus, towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, though admired by erudite men, never acquired popularity; and the emperor Hadrian failed in his attempt to bring the latter poet into fashion at the expense of Homer.[244] [242] The Homeric hymns are proœms of this sort, some very short, consisting only of a few lines,—others of considerable length. The Hymn (or, rather, one of the two hymns) to Apollo is cited by Thucydidês as the Proœm of Apollo. The Hymns to Aphroditê, Apollo, Hermês, Dêmêtêr, and Dionysus, are genuine epical narratives. Hermann (Præf. ad Hymn. p. lxxxix.) pronounces the Hymn to Aphroditê to be the oldest and most genuine: portions of the Hymn to Apollo (Herm. p. xx.) are also very old, but both that hymn and the others are largely interpolated. His opinion respecting these interpolations, however, is disputed by Franke (Præfat. ad Hymn. Homeric. p. ix-xix.); and the distinction between what is genuine and what is spurious, depends upon criteria not very distinctly assignable. Compare Ulrici, Gesch. der Ep. Poes. pp. 385-391. [243] Phemius, Demodokus, and the nameless bard who guarded the fidelity of Klytæmnêstra, bear out this position (Odyss. i. 155; iii. 267; viii. 490; xxi. 330; Achilles in Iliad, ix. 190). A degree of inviolability seems attached to the person of the bard as well as to that of the herald (Odyss. xxii. 355-357). [244] Spartian. Vit. Hadrian. p. 8; Dio Cass. lxix. 4: Plut. Tim. c. 36. There are some good observations on this point in Näke’s comments on Chœrilus, ch. viii. p. 59:— “Habet hoc epica poesis, vera illa, cujus perfectissimam normam agnoscimus Homericam—habet hoc proprium, ut non in possessione virorum eruditorum, sed quasi viva sit et coram populo recitanda: ut cum populo crescat, et si populus Deorum et antiquorum heroum facinora, quod præcipium est epicæ poeseos argumentum, audire et secum repetere dedidicerit, obmutescat. Id vero tum factum est in Græciâ, quum populus eâ ætate, quam pueritiam dicere possis, peractâ, partim ad res serias tristesque, politicas maxime—easque multo, quam antea, impeditiores—abstrahebatur: partim epicæ poeseos pertæsus, ex aliis poeseos generibus, quæ tum nascebantur, novum et diversum oblectamenti genus primo præsagire, sibi, deinde haurire, cœpit.”