Editing Rhapsode (section)

==Performance==
It is certain that rhapsodes performed competitively, contending for prizes at religious festivals, and that this practice was already well-established by the fifth century BC. The ''[[Iliad]]'' alludes to the myth of [[Thamyris]], the Thracian singer, who boasted that he could defeat even the Muses in song. He competed with them, was defeated, and was punished for his presumption with the loss of his ability to sing.<ref>''Iliad'' 2.594-600; see [[scholia]] on this passage and [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], ''Library'' 1.3.3.</ref> Historically, the practice is first evident in Hesiod's claim that he performed a song at the funeral games for Amphidamas in Euboea and won a prize.<ref>Hesiod, ''[[Works and Days]]'' 650-662: see Hesiod, ''Theogony'' ed. [[M. L. West]] (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966) pp. 43-46.</ref> Competitive singing is depicted vividly in the ''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn to Apollo]]'' and mentioned in the two ''Hymns to Aphrodite''.<ref>''Homeric Hymn to Apollo'' 165-173; ''Homeric Hymns'' 5 and 9.</ref> The latter of these may evidently be taken to belong to [[Salamis, Cyprus|Salamis]] in Cyprus and the festival of the Cyprian Aphrodite, in the same way that the ''Hymn to Apollo'' belongs to [[Delos]] and the Delian gathering.

An early historical mention of rhapsodes occurs in the ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'' of [[Herodotus]] (c. 440 BC). He tells the story that at [[Sicyon]] the ruler [[Cleisthenes]] (600–560 BC) expelled the rhapsodes on account of the poems of Homer, because they promoted [[Ancient Argos|Argos]] and the [[Argives]].<ref>Herodotus 5.67.</ref> This description applies very well to the ''[[Iliad]]'', in which "Argives" is one of the alternate names for the Greek warriors; it may have suited the ''[[Thebaid (Greek poem)|Thebaid]]'' still better, since Argos was named in the first line of that poem. The incident seems to show that poems performed by rhapsodes had political and propagandistic importance in the Peloponnese in the early sixth century BC.

At [[Athens]], by 330 BC, there was a law that rhapsodes should perform the Homeric poems at every [[Panathenaea|Panathenaic festival]]; this law is appealed to as glory of Athens by the orator [[Lycurgus of Athens|Lycurgus]].<ref>Lycurgus, ''Against Leocrates'' 102. The ''Iliad'' was also recited at the festival of the Brauronia, at [[Brauron]] in Attica ([[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]] s.v. ''Brauronia'').</ref> Perhaps therefore such a custom was exceptional, and we do not know when or by whom it was introduced, although the Platonic dialogue ''[[Hipparchus (dialogue)|Hipparchus]]'' (not really by Plato, but probably of the fourth century BC) attributes it to [[Hipparchus (son of Pisistratus)|Hipparchus, son of Peisistratos (Athens)]].<ref>''Hipparchus'' 228b8. This, however, may be merely part of the historical romance of the Pisistratids: it is telling that [[Herodotus]] (7.6), who knew about Hipparchus' literary activities, knows nothing about this. The author of the ''Hipparchus'' makes (perhaps wilfully) all the mistakes about the family of [[Pisistratus]] which [[Thucydides]] notices in a well-known passage (6.54-59).</ref> The ''Hipparchus'' adds that the law required the rhapsodists to follow on from one another in order, "as they still do". This recurs in a different form in the much later statement of [[Diogenes Laërtius]] (1.2.57) that [[Solon]] made a law that the poems should be recited "with prompting". Many Athenian laws were falsely attributed to early lawgivers, but it is at least clear that by the fourth century the Homeric poems were a compulsory part of the Panathenaea, and were to be recited in order. They are too long for a single rhapsode or for a single day's performance. Therefore, they had to be divided into parts, and each rhapsode had to take his assigned part (otherwise they would have chosen favourite or prize passages).

Complementary evidence on oral performance of poetry in classical Greece comes in the form of references to a family, clan, or professional association of ''[[Homeridae]]'' (literally "children of Homer"). These certainly had an existence in the fifth and fourth centuries BC and certainly performed poems attributed to [[Homer]]. [[Pindar]] seems to count the Homeridae as rhapsodes;<ref>Pindar, ''Nemean Odes'' 2.1-5.</ref> other sources do not specifically confirm this categorisation.