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08513_Field_TCGG T278.txt
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1996-04-10
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of course designed for public reading, and long after
private reading became common, rhapsodes made a
profession of reciting epic. Pisistratus, who had
something (we do not know how much) to do with
regularizing the text of Homer, also instituted the public
reading of his poems at the Panathenaic festival. From
Diogenes Laertius (1.2.57) we learn that ‘Solon provided
that the public recitations of Homer shall follow a fixed
order; thus the second reciter must begin from the place
where the first left off.’
Prose no less than poetry was presented orally, as
we know from reports concerning Herodotus and others,
and the practice of oral presentation affected the nature
of prose as it did of poetry. The elaborate attention to
sound which characterizes Gorgias’ pioneer productions