However, as analogies are never satisfactory, let us be content to note that the _Iliad_ confessedly differs in character from the _Cypria_, as the epic differs from the verse-chronicle. On this point von Wilamowitz Moellendorff appears to agree, as does Mr. Murray, who studies the subject in the spirit of the learned German. To repeat his statement, he writes, "These various books or masses of tradition in verse form were growing up side by side for centuries."[12] Now, "masses of tradition" certainly grew up through many centuries, before and after Homer's time; but the _Iliad_ is not merely "a mass of tradition." It is a splendid work of art, fashioned, in our view, by a great poet, out of masses of tradition, while what we know of the _Cypria_ is a compilation, partly from hints in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, with popular tales or _Märchen_ thrown in; and is animated by a distinct _tendenz_, a partisan desire to debase the favourite heroes of Homer, and to exalt a hero, Palamedes, who, to myself, seems intended to represent the Ionian share in the Trojan war, neglected as it is by Homer. To justify these criticisms as most probable on the evidence, it is necessary to offer an analysis of the _Cypria_, as far as its contents are known to us from fragments and epitomes. The _Cypria_ opened thus: Zeus takes counsel on the problem of over-population. He "resolves to relieve of her burden Earth that nourishes all, by raising the great strife of the Ilian war, that death may lighten the weight: the heroes were slain in Troyland, _but the Will of Zeus was accomplished._"[13] The following account of the early part of the _Cypria_ is given by the Scholiast in the famous "Venice A" manuscript of the _Iliad_. He enters here into more details than Proclus in his epitome of the work. "They say that Earth, burdened by the abundance of men, all impious as they were, prayed to Zeus to be relieved. Zeus then caused the Theban war, whereby he destroyed many. Later again he called Momus (Mockery) into council, 'the counsel of Zeus,' Homer styles it, though he might have destroyed the human race altogether by deluges and thunderbolts. But Momus prevented this, and suggested to Zeus the marriage of Thetis with a mortal, and the begetting of a beautiful daughter from these two causes arose war involving both Hellenes and barbarians, from which time Earth was lightened of her burden, so many men were slain. The narrative is by Stasinus, the author of the _Cypria_..."[14] In this version Themis is not mentioned as the adviser of Zeus; perhaps she suggested the Theban, and Momus the Trojan war.