RHAPSODI, rhapped sts, in antiquity, persons who made a business of singing pieces of Homer's poems. Cuper informs us, that the rhapsodi were clothed in red when they sung the Iliad, and in blue when they sung the Odyssey. They performed on the theatres, and sometimes strove for prizes in contests of poetry, singing, &c. But there seems to have been other rhapsodi of more antiquity than those people, who composed heroic poems or songs in praise of heroes and great men, and sung their own compositions from town to town for a livelihood, of which profession Homer himself is said to be.