Rhapsode

Rhapsodes notably performed the epics of Homer[1] (Iliad and Odyssey) but also the wisdom and catalogue poetry of Hesiod and the satires of Archilochus and others.

Of these the first is etymologically correct; the second was suggested by the fact, for which there is early evidence, that the singer was accustomed to hold a staff (ῥάβδος rhabdos) in his hand, perhaps, like the sceptre in the Homeric assembly, as a symbol of the right to a hearing or to "emphasize the rhythm or to give grandeur to their gestures".

There are indications in Pindar and other authors that oral epic was still a living and popular tradition in the early fifth century BC;[6] all the later evidence, however, is that rhapsodes worked from written texts, and in some cases were compelled by law to do so.

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 Argos and the Argives.

The incident seems to show that poems performed by rhapsodes had political and propagandistic importance in the Peloponnese in the early sixth century BC.

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.

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").