Iambics of Simonides; Cleomenes, the Purifications of Empedocles, and Hegesius the comedian, the Histories of Herodotus; that is, some portions of them I presume. Certain authors delivered their own productions in this way,[978] as Xenophanes, who composed both epics, elegies and iambics.[979] Footnote 975: Anim. ad Athen. xii. p. 371. Cf. Suid. v. Ῥαψῳδοί. t. ii. p. 678. Etym. Mag. 703. 32. Aristoph. Concionat. 674. Footnote 976: Ῥαψῳδὸν δὲ, καλῶς Ἰλίαδα καὶ Ὀδυσσεῖαν ἢ τι τῶν Ἡσωδείων διατιθέντα, τάχ᾽ ἂν ἡμεῖς οἱ γέροντες ἥδιστα ἀκούσαντες νικᾷν ἂν φαῖμεν πάμπολο.—Plat. de Legg. ii. t. vii. p. 243. Bekk. Again: Ἅμα δὲ ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι ἔν τε ἄλλοις ποιηταῖς διατρίβειν πολλοῖς κᾀγαθοῖς καὶ δὴ καὶ μάλιστα ἐν Ὁμήρῳ, κ. τ. λ. Ion. Plat. Opp. t. ii. p. 172. Footnote 977: Ὅτι δ᾽ ἐκαλοῦντο οἱ ῥαψῳδοὶ καὶ Ὁμηρισταὶ Ἀριστοκλῆς εἴρηκε, κ. τ. λ.—Athen. xiv. 12. Footnote 978: Athen. xiv. 12. Footnote 979: Diog. Laert. ix. 18. It has with reason been observed that although the name of the rhapsodic art would seem to have been invented posterior to Homer, the thing itself existed long before, and was held in greater honour than at any subsequent period. In fact, the poets of those times were themselves Rhapsodists, and for many ages the only ones, if it be true that Hesiod[980] was the first who reduced the chanting of other men’s poems into an art. Afterwards, from the age of Terpander the Lesbian (Olymp. 34) down to Cynæthos of Chios (Olymp. 69) supposed to have been the author of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, and a man of distinguished genius, the Rhapsodists sometimes chanted the poems of others, sometimes their own, and occasionally perhaps interpolated new verses into the golden relics of the past, as our modern actors often foist their one-legged jokes into the stage text of Shakespeare. There appears, however, to be no foundation for the notion, that nearly every one of these chanters was likewise a clever poet, which no ancient writer, I believe, asserts, and which the assertions of fifty would not render credible, though the probability is, that of those numerous rhapsodists some were themselves poets, and others desirous, without the genius, of being thought such; so that it is quite as likely that their vanity frequently laid claim to the works of others, where detection could be escaped, as that others were suffered to rob them of their just fame. Footnote 980: Ῥαψωδῆσαι φησὶ πρῶτον τὸν Ἡσιοδὸν Νικοκλῆς.—Schol. Pind. Nem. ii. 1. Cf. Dissen. ad loc. Wolf. Proleg. p. 96. sqq.