RHAPSODISTS, in antiquity, persons who made a business of singing pieces of Homer's poems. Cuper informs us, that the Rhapfodi 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. After the two antagonists had finished their parts, the two pieces or papers they were written in were joined together again; whence the name, viz. from ῥαπτός, ἕνος, and ὁ κατάκτημα: but there seem to have been other Rhapfodi of more antiquity than these 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 have been. See Bard.