Rhapsoists, in Antiquity, persons who made a business of singing pieces of Homer's poems. It has been said that the rhapsodi were clothed in red when they sang the Iliad, and in blue when they sung the Odyssey. They performed on the theatres, and sometimes strove for prizes in contests of poetry and singing. After the two antagonists had finished their parts, the two pieces or papers they were written in were soon joined together again, and hence the name, from συρρα, συν, and ἀσβεστον. But there seem to have been other rhapsodi 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 a member. See Homer.