The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c41.s1.38

v2.c41.s1.38

⁸ When legendary accounts can be checked, their extraordinary inaccuracy is seen; cf., e.g., the 'pseudo-Kallisthenes' version of the history of Alexander the Great; the Charlemagne cycle with its colossal exaggeration of the reverse at Roncesvalles in the *Roman de Roland* (a case which should give pause to all arguments of a great Bhāratan war); the utter confusion of the legend of Dietrich of Bern (Theodoric of Verona)—see Chadwick, *The Heroic Age*, pp. 23 f.; the amazing development of the Vergilian tradition (Comparetti, *Virgilio in medio evo*). To treat as historical the Indian traditions, which confuse hopelessly recent history, when they deal with events 900–1000 B.C., is explicable only on the theory that those who do so are ignorant of any history save that of India, and are wholly unversed in the principles of historical evidences. The various accounts of the basis of the Bhāratan war are all vitiated by this naïve lack of criticism. The Homeric controversy is peculiarly instructive as to the difficulty of securing results of historic value; thus Leaf (*Homer and History*) surrenders the Catalogue of Ships (*Iliad*, ii.) as an invention (contrast T. W. Allen, *The Homeric Catalogue of Ships*, 1921; *Homer*, 1924). See also U. v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, *Die Ilias und Homer*; E. Schwartz, *Zur Entstehung der Ilias* (1918); Cauer, *GGA.* 1917, pp. 201 ff.; Bethe, *GGA.* 1919, pp. 141–9; J. A. Scott, *The Unity of Homer* (1921).