[Footnote 5: Xen. Sympos. iii. 6. Nikêratus says that he heard the rhapsodes nearly every day. He professes to be able to repeat both the Iliad and the Odyssey from memory.] [Footnote 6: Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 10; Sympos. iii. 6; Plato, Ion, 530 E. Steinhart cites this judgment about the rhapsodes as if it had been pronounced by the Xenophontic Sokrates himself, which is not the fact (Steinhart, Einleitung p. 3).] [Footnote 7: Diogenes Laert. ii. 11; Nitzsch, Die Heldensage des Griechen, pp. 74-78; Lobeck, Agloaphamus, p. 157. Seneca, Epistol. 88: "modo Stoicum Homerum faciunt--modo Epicureum . . . modo Peripateticum, tria genera bonorum inducentem: modo Academicum, incerta omnia dicentem. Apparet nihil horum esse in illo, cui omnia insunt: ista enim inter se dissident."] [Side-note: The popularity of the Rhapsodes was chiefly derived from their recitation. Powerful effect which they produced.] The Rhapsodes, in so far as they interpreted Homer, were probably not less disposed than others to discover in him their own fancies. But the character in which they acquired most popularity, was, not as expositors, but as reciters, of the poems. The powerful emotion which, in the process of reciting, they both felt themselves and communicated to their auditors, is declared in this dialogue: "When that which I recite is pathetic (says Ion), my eyes are filled with tears: when it is awful or terrible, my hair stands on end, and my heart leaps. Moreover I see the spectators also weeping, sympathising with my emotions, and looking aghast at what they hear."[8] This assertion of the vehement emotional effect produced by the words of the poet as declaimed or sung by the rhapsode, deserves all the more credit--because Plato himself, far from looking upon it favourably, either derides or disapproves it. Accepting it as a matter of fact, we see that the influence of rhapsodes, among auditors generally, must have been derived more from their efficacy as actors than from their ability as expositors. [Footnote 8: Plato, Ion, 535 C-E. The description here given is the more interesting because it is the only intimation remaining of the strong effect produced by these rhapsodic representations.] [Side-note: Ion both reciter and expositor--Homer was considered more as an instructor than as a poet.] Ion however is described in this dialogue as combining the two functions of reciter and expositor: a partnership like that of Garrick and Johnson, in regard to Shakspeare. It is in the last of the two functions, that Sokrates here examines him: considering Homer, not as a poet appealing to the emotions of hearers, but as a teacher administering lessons and imparting instruction. Such was the view of Homer entertained by a large proportion of the Hellenic world. In that capacity, his poems served as a theme for rhapsodes, as well as for various philosophers and Sophists who were not rhapsodes, nor accomplished reciters.