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[168] It is impossible to doubt that this famous passage really implies a knowledge of the art of writing, especially since A. J. Evans' remarkable discoveries in Crete (J. H. S. xiv. 270 ff., xvii. 327 ff.) have proved the existence of written symbols in countries touching the Aegaean Sea on all sides at a date far preceding even the earliest period to which the origin of Greek Epic poetry can be assigned. But of course this does not imply a general knowledge of the art, still less the use of it for literary purposes. It will be noticed that it is mentioned in close connexion with a Lykian family; this agrees well with the tradition that Lykia was colonized from Crete, which, so far as the evidence goes at present, seems to have been the principal, though by no means the only, home of the ‘Aegaean’ script. The epithet θυμοφθόρα, taken in connexion with the “θυμοφθόρα φάρμακα”, magic potions, of Od. 2.329 (which by the way come from Ephyre, though this can hardly be the same as Bellerophon's home), suggests that writing was regarded as a form of magic — a very usual idea among ignorant nations when the art is first introduced. The πίναξ may probably have been a double tablet of wood, such as was in common use later; πτυκτός suggests that it was closed and sealed, and allows us to infer that Bellerophon would have understood the “σήματα” had they been left open. For the only other possible allusion to writing in H. see 7.187. Elsewhere “γράφειν” and its compounds mean scratch only.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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