Homer, of course, played the largest part in these literary studies; from early times “he was given an honourable place in the teaching of the young.”[253] Vast quantities of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ were learnt by heart. Nikeratos, in Xenophon,[254] says: “My father, wishing me to grow up into a good man, made me learn all the lines of Homer; and now I can repeat the whole of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ from memory.” Such prodigious feats were, no doubt, assisted by the rhapsodes, who could be heard at Athens declaiming Homer “nearly every day.”[255] The Hellenes did not let their greatest poet lie neglected, to be “revived” at long intervals. Homer was supposed to teach everything, especially soldiering and good morals. “I suppose you know,” continues Nikeratos,[256] “that Homer, the wisest of men, has written about all human matters. So whoever of you wishes to excel as a householder or public speaker or general, or desires to become like Achilles or Aias or Nestor or Odusseus, let him come to me.” Then he proceeds to show how, for example, the poet gives full directions about the proper way to drive a chariot in a race. Aristophanes[257] makes the shade of Aeschylus say, “Whence did divine Homer win his honour and renown, save from this, that he taught drill, courage, the arming of troops? Many a man of valour he trained, and our own dead hero, Lamachos. I took my print from him, and represented many deeds of valour done by a Patroklos or lion-hearted Teukros, to rouse my countrymen to model themselves upon such men, when they heard the trumpet sound.” The great poet does not seem to have been taught pedantically; the attention of the boys was not concentrated simply on the difficulties of the Homeric vocabulary. In fact, probably they were little troubled with such points; the sense, the rhythm, and the beauty of the original do not depend upon an exact understanding of every word, as many a modern reader has discovered. In a fragment of Aristophanes,[258] a father asks his son the meaning of some hard words in Homer, such as ἀμένηνα κάρηνα [amenêna karêna] and κόρυμβα [korymba]; the son is quite unable to translate them, at any rate when separated from their context, and can only retort by asking his father to interpret some archaic phrases in Solon’s laws. A later comic poet[259] introduced a cook who insisted on using Homeric language, just as a modern _chef_ writes his _menu_ in French; the man who has hired him is ludicrously unable to understand his phrases, and has to go in search of a commentary. Explanations and interpretations of supposed moral allegories in Homer, and lessons drawn from a close study of his characters, were very popular in Hellas, and no doubt figured in the schools.