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Title: Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3

Author: W. E. Gladstone

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STUDIES ON HOMER
AND

THE HOMERIC AGE.
BY THE
RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, D.C.L.
M. P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.

Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore.—Horace.

OXFORD:
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
M.DCCC.LVIII.

[The right of Translation is reserved.]

STUDIES ON HOMER
AND
THE HOMERIC AGE.

I. AGORÈ:
POLITIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE.

II. ILIOS:
TROJANS AND GREEKS COMPARED.

III. THALASSA:
THE OUTER GEOGRAPHY.

IV. AOIDOS:
SOME POINTS OF THE POETRY OF HOMER.

BY THE
RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, D.C.L.
M. P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore.—Horace.

OXFORD:
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
M.DCCC.LVIII.

[The right of Translation is reserved.]

ADVERTISEMENT.
Since the Sections which relate to Ethnology passed through the Press, the
First Volume of Mr. Rawlinson’s Herodotus has appeared. Earlier
possession of this important Publication would have emboldened me to
proceed a step further in the attempt to specify the probable or possible
form of the original Ethnic relation between the Pelasgians and the Hellenes
of the Greek Peninsula, but designating the latter as pure Arian, and the
former as Arian, with a residue or mixture of Turanian elements.
It has also been since the ‘Olympus’ was printed, that I have become
acquainted with Welcker’s recent and unfinished ‘Griechische Götterlehre,’
(Göttingen, 1857.) I could have wished to refer to it at various points, and
especially to avail myself of the clearer view, which the learned Author has
given, of the position of Κρόνος.
Founding himself in part on the exclusive appropriation by Homer of the
term Κρονίδης to Jupiter, he enables us to see how Jupiter may have
inherited the sole use of the title as being ‘the Ancient of days;’ and how
Κρόνος was a formation in the Mythology wholly secondary and posterior
to his reputed son. (Welcker, sectt. 27, 8. pp. 140-7.)
Another recent book, M. Alfred Maury’s Histoire des Religions de la Grèce
Antique, undertakes the useful task of unfolding largely the relations of the
Greek religion to the East. But the division of it which deals with Homer
specifically is neither complete nor accurate, and affords a new illustration
of the proposition which I chiefly desire to establish, namely, that Homer
ought to be treated as a separate and independent centre of study.
11, Carlton House Terrace, London,
March 15, 1858.

THE CONTENTS.

I. AGORÈ:
OR
THE POLITIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE.
Political ideas of later Greece Page 1
Their strong development in Heroic Greece 2
Germ of the Law of Nations 4
Grote’s account of the Heroic Polities 5
Their peculiar features, Publicity and Persuasion 6
Functions of the king in the Heroic Polities 8
Nature of the Pelopid Empire 9
Degrees in Kingship and in Lordship 10
Four forms of Sovereignty 12
First tokens of change in the Heroic Polities 12
Shown by analysis of the Catalogue 14
Extended signs in the Odyssey 17
Altered sense of Βασιλεὺς or King 18
New name of Queen 20
Disorganization caused by the War 21
Arrival of a new race at manhood 22
Increased weight of the nobles 24
Altered idea of the kingly office 25
The first instance of a bad King 27
Further change in the time of Hesiod 28
Veneration long adhering to the name 31
Five distinctive notes of Βασιλῆες in the Iliad 32
The nine Greek Βασιλῆες of the Iliad 35
The case of Meges 36
Of Phœnix 37

Of Patroclus and Eurypylus 38
Conditions of Kingship in the Iliad 39
The personal beauty of the Kings 40
Custom of resignation in old age 40
Force of the term αἴζηος 41
Gymnastic superiority of the Kings 44
Their pursuit of Music and Song 45
Ulysses as artificer and husbandman 46
The Kings as Gentlemen 47
Achilles in particular 48
Tenderness and tears of the Greek chiefs 49
Right of hereditary succession 50
Right of primogeniture 52
The Homeric King (1) as Priest 55
(2) as Judge 56
(3) as General 57
(4) as Proprietor: the τέμενος 58
His revenues, from four sources in all 59
Burdens upon them 61
The political position of Agamemnon 62
The governing motives of the War 64
Position of Agamemnon in the army 66
His personal character 67
The relation of sovereign and subject a free one 67
The personal attendants of the King 69
The Aristocracy or chief proprietors 69
The Trades and Professions 70
The Slaves of the Homeric age 72
The θῆτες or hired servants 74
Supply of military service 75
Whether there was a peasant-proprietary 77
Political Economy of the Homeric age 78
The precious metals not a measure of value 81
Oxen in some degree a measure of value 82

Relative scarcity of certain metals 84
Mode of government of the Army 85
Its military composition 88
Chief descriptions of fighting men 91
The Battle and the Ambuscade 92
The Βουλὴ or Council of the Greeks 94
It subsisted in peace and in war 97
Opposition in the Βουλὴ 98
Agamemnon’s proposals of Return 99
The influence of Speech in the Heroic age 102
It was a subject of regular training 103
Varied descriptions of oratory in Homer 104
Achilles the paramount Orator 105
The orations of the poems 106
The power of repartee 108
The power of sarcasm 109
The faculty of debate in Homer 111
The discussion of the Ninth Iliad 111
Function of the Assembly in the Heroic age 114
The formal use of majorities unknown 116
The great decisions of the War taken there 117
It was not summoned exclusively by Agamemnon 118
Opposition in the Agorè by the chiefs 119
Opposition by Thersites 120
Grote’s judgment on the case of Thersites 123
How that case bears witness to the popular principle 126
As does the Agorè on the Shield 126
Mode of addressing the Assembly 129
Its decisions in the Seventh and Ninth Iliads 129
Division in the Drunken Assembly 130
Appeal of Telemachus to the Ithacan Assembly 132
Phæacian Assembly of the Eighth Odyssey 134
Ithacan Assembly of the Twenty-fourth 136
Councils or Assemblies of Olympus 137

Judicial functions of the Assembly 139
Assembly the central point of the Polity 140
The common soul or Τὶς in Homer 141
Imperfect organization of Heroic Polities 143
II. ILIOS.
THE TROJANS COMPARED AND CONTRASTED WITH THE
GREEKS.
Relationship of Troy and Greece twofold 145
Greek names of deities found also in Troas 147
Include nearly all the greater deities 150
Worship of Vulcan in Troas 151
Worship of Juno and Gaia in Troas 153
Worship of Mercury in Troas 154
Worship of Scamander 155
Different view of Rivers in Troas 158
Essential character of Trojan River-worship 160
Trojan impersonations from Nature rare 162
Poverty of Mythology among the Trojans 165
Their jejune doctrine of a Future State 166
Redundance of life in the Greek system 168
Worship from hills 169
The nations compared as to external development of religion.—
1. Temples 170
2. As to endowments in land, or τεμένεα 172
3. As to Groves’ ἄλσεα 173
4. As to Statues of the Gods 174
5. As to Seers or Diviners 177
6. As to the Priesthood: Priesthood in Greece 179
Priesthood in later Greece 183
Priesthood among the Trojans 184
Comparative observance of sacrifice 187
The Trojans more given to religious observances 189
Homer’s different modes of handling for Greece and Troy 190
Moral superiority of his Greeks on the whole 192

Homer’s account of the abduction of Helen 193
The Greek estimate of Paris 197
Its relation to prevailing views of Marriage 200
And to Greek views of Homicide 202
The Trojan estimate of Paris 205
Public opinion less developed in Troy 206
The Trojans more sensual and false 207
Trojan ideas and usages of Marriage 210
The family of Priam 211
Stricter ideas among the Greeks 215
Trojan Polity less highly organized 216
Rule of Succession in Troy 217
Succession to the throne of Priam 219
Paris, most probably, was his eldest son 221
Position of Priam and his dynasty in Troas 223
Meaning of Τροίη and of Ἴλιος 224
Evidence from the Trojan Catalogue 225
Extent of his sovereignty and supremacy 228
Polity of Ilios: the Βασιλεύς 232
The Assembly 232
The greater weight of Age in Troy 234
The absence of a Βουλὴ in Troy 236
The greater weight of oratory in Greece 239
Trojans less gifted with self-command 242
And with intelligence generally 244
Difference in the pursuits of high-born youth 245
Difference as to αἰδὼς 246
Summary of differences 247
III. THALASSA.
THE OUTER GEOGRAPHY OF THE ODYSSEY.
Why it deserves investigation 249
Principal heads of the inquiry 251
The two Spheres of Inner and Outer Geography 252
Limits of the Inner Geography 255

The intermediate or doubtful zone 257
The Sphere of the Outer Geography 260
The two Keys of the Outer Geography 261
The traditional interpretations valueless 262
Manifest dislocations of actual nature 263
Postulates for examining the Outer Geography 264
The Winds of Homer 265
Special notices of Eurus and Notus 267
Of Zephyr and Boreas 268
Points of the Compass for the two last 270
For the two first 272
Scheme of the four Winds 273
Signification of Eurus 273
Homeric distances and rates of speed 275
Particulars of evidence on speed 277
The northward sea-route to the Euxine 280
Evidence from Il. xiii. 1-6 281
From Od. vii. 319-26 282
From Od. v. 44-57 283
From Od. xxiv. 11-13 285
Amalgamated reports of the Ocean-mouth 287
Open-sea passage to the Ocean-mouth 289
Homeward passage by the Straits, why preferred 290
Three maritime routes to the Ocean-mouth 291
Its two possible originals in nature 292
Straits of Yenikalè as Ocean-mouth 294
Summary of facts from Phœnician reports 295
Two sets of reports are blended into one 296
The site of Ææa; North-western hypothesis 298
North-eastern hypothesis 300
Argument from the Πλαγκταὶ 302
From the Island Thrinacie 302
Local notes of Ææa 303
Site of Ogygia 304

Argument from the flight of Mercury 305
From the floatage of Ulysses 306
From his homeward passage 308
Site of Scylla relatively to the Dardanelles 309
Why Ææa cannot lie North-westward 311
Construction of Od. xii. 3, 4 312
Construction of Od. v. 276, 7 315
Genuineness of the passage questionable 316
Its real meaning 317
Homer’s indications of geographical misgivings 318
Stages of the tour of Ulysses to Ææa (i-vi.) 320
Ææa and the Euxine (vi-viii.) 325
Remaining stages (viii-xi.) 327
Directions and distances from Ææa onwards 329
Tours of Menelaus and Ulysses compared 331
The earth of Homer probably oval 334
Points of contact with Oceanus 337
The Caspian and Persian Gulf belong to Oceanus 338
Contraction and compression of the Homeric East 340
Outline of Homer’s terrestrial system 342
Map of Earth according to Homer 343
EXCURSUS I.
Parentage and Extraction of Minos.
On the genuineness of Il. xiv. 317-27 344
On the sense of the line Il. xiv. 321 346
Collateral testimony to the extraction of Minos 347
EXCURSUS II.
On the line Odyss. v. 277.
Points of the question stated 349
Senses of δεξιὸς and ἀριστερὸς 350
Illustrated from Il. xiii 352
On the force of the Homeric ἐπὶ 354
Force of ἐπὶ with ἀριστερὰ 356
Illustrated from Il. ii. 353. Od. xxi. 141 358

From Il. i. 597. vii. 238. xii. 239, 249 359
From Il. xxiii. 335-7 360
From Il. ii. 526 362
Application to Od. v. 277 364
Another sense prevailed in later Greek 365
IV. AOIDOS.
SECT. I.
On the Plot of the Iliad.
The Theory of Grote on the structure of the poem 366
Offer related in the Ninth Book and its rejection 369
Restitution and gifts not the object of Achilles 371
The offer was radically defective 373
Apology needed in particular 375
Consistency maintained in and after Il. ix 377
Skilful adjustment of conflicting aims 379
Glory given to Achilles 380
Glory given to Greece 380
Trojan inferiority mainly in the Chiefs 382
But it pervades the poem 384
In the Chiefs it is glaring 385
Conflicting exigencies of the plan 387
Greeks superior even without Achilles 388
Harmony in relative prominence of the Chiefs 389
Retributive justice in the two poems 392
The sufferings of Achilles 394
Double conquest over his will 395
SECT. II.
The Sense of Beauty in Homer: human, animal, and inanimate.
His sense of Beauty alike pure and strong 397
Degeneracy of the popular idea had begun 398
Illustrated by the series of Dardanid traditions, (1) Ganymede 398
(2) Tithonus, (3) Anchises 400
(4) Paris and Venus 401
Homer’s sense of Beauty in the human form 402

His treatment of the Beauty of Paris 402
Beauty among the Greek chieftains 404
Ascribed also to the nation 405
Beauty of Nireus 406
Of Nastes and of Euphorbus 407
Beauty placed among the prime gifts of man 408
Homer’s sense of Beauty in animals 409
Especially in horses 410
As to their movements 411
As to their form and colour 413
Homer’s sense of Beauty in inanimate nature 416
The instance of Ithaca 417
Germ of feeling for the picturesque in Homer 419
Close relation of Order and Beauty 420
Causes adverse to the development of the germ 421
Beauty of material objects absorbed in their Life 423
SECT. III.
Homer’s perception and use of Number.
The traditional character of aptitudes 425
Conceptions of Number not always definite in childhood 427
Nor even in manhood 428
No calculations in Homer 430
Greek estimate of the discovery of Number 431
Enumerative addition in Od. iv. 412, 451 432
Highest numerals of the poems 432
The three hundred and sixty fat hogs 434
The Homeric ἑκατομβὴ 435
The numerals expressive of value 436
His silence as to the numbers of the armies 439
Especially in the Greek Catalogue 440
Case of the Trojan bivouac 442
Case of the herds and flocks in Od. xiv. 443
Hesiod’s age of the Nymphs 444
Case of the cities of Crete 445

No scheme of chronology in Homer 446
Case of the three Decades of years 448
Meaning of the γενεὴ of Homer 449
Homer reckons time by generations 451
Some difficulties of the Decades taken literally 452
Uses of the proposed interpretation 455
SECT. IV.
Homer’s Perceptions and Use of Colour.
Modern perceptions of colour usually definite 457
Signs of immature perception in Homer 458
His chief adjectives of colour 459
His quasi-adjectives of colour 460
Applications of ξανθὸς, ἐρυθρὸς, πορφύρεος 460
Of κύανος and κυάνεος 462
Of φοίνιξ 465
Of πόλιος 466
The quasi-adjectives of colour; χλωρὸς 467
The αἰθαλόεις of Homer 468
The ῥοδόεις and ῥοδοδάκτυλος 469
The ἰόεις, ἰοειδὴς, ἰοδνεφὴς 470
The οἴνοψ and μιλτοπάρηος 472
Αἴθων and its cognates; also ἀργὸς, αἴολος 473
Γλαυκὸς, γλαυκῶπις, γλαυκιόων 474
Χάροπος, σιγαλόεις, μαρμάρεος, ἠεροειδὴς 475
Conflict of the colours assigned to the same object 475
Great predominance of white and black 476
Remarkable omissions to specify colour 477
In the case of the horse among others 479
In the case of human beauty, and of Iris 482
In the case of the heavens 483
Causes of this peculiar treatment of colour 483
License of poetry in the matter of colour 484
Illustrated from Shakespeare 485
Homer’s contracted means of training in colour 487

His system one of light and dark 488
Colour in the later Greek language 491
Greek philosophy of colour 493
Nature of our advantage over Homer 495
Note on κύανος and χαλκός.
Meanings for κύανος heretofore suggested 496
Probably a native blue carbonate of copper 497
Χαλκὸς to be understood as hardened copper 499
SECT. V.
Homer and some of his successors in Epic Poetry; particularly Virgil and
Tasso.
Milton’s place among Epic poets 500
Difficulty of comparing him with Homer 501
The same as to Dante 501
Æneid and Iliad; their resemblances and contrasts 502
Contrast between form and spirit in the Æneid 503
Catalogue in the Iliad and in the Æneid 504
Character of Æneas in the Æneid 505
Character of Æneas in the Iliad 507
The fine character of Turnus 508
The false position of Virgil before Augustus 509
Difficulty of learning the poet from the poem 510
His false position as to religion, liberty, and nationality 511
Untruthfulness hence resulting 512
Homer is misapprehended through Virgil 513
In minor matters, e. g. Simois and Scamander 513
Νεκυΐα of Homer and of Virgil 515
Ethnological and genealogical dislocations 516
Action of the Twelfth Æneid 520
Unfaithful imitations of details 521
Maltreatment of the Homeric characters 522
And of the Homeric Mythology and Ethics 523
Æneas and Dido in the Shades beneath 525
The woman characters of Homer and Virgil 527

Virgil’s insufficient care of minor proprieties 528
And of the order of natural phenomena 529
Use of exaggeration in Homer and in Virgil 530
Contrast of principal aims respectively 531
Character of the Bard; not found in Virgil 532
Post-Homeric change in the idea of the Poet’s office 533
Virgil’s poetical disadvantages 534
Comparison of the Trojan War with the Crusades 535
Rinaldo and Achilles 535
Exaggerations of bulk in Homer and in Tasso 536
Mr. Hallam’s judgment on the Jerusalem 537
Tasso’s poetical disadvantages 538
The man Achilles in relation to the Iliad 539
Liberation of the Sepulchre in relation to the Gerusalemme 540
Intrusion of incongruous elements 542
Relative prominence of Tancredi and Rinaldo 543
The Woman-characters of Tasso 544
The Armida of Tasso 545
Her resemblances and inferiority to Dido 546
Her passion ill-sustained 546
Obtrusiveness of the amatory element 548
The Affront of Gernando 549
Difference in modes of describing personages 551
Battles and Similes of Tasso 552
Inferiority of the Return in the Gerusalemme 553
Tasso’s greatness except as compared with Homer 554
SECT. VI.
Some principal Homeric Characters in Troy.
Hector: Helen: Paris.
Homer’s character-drawing power 555
Corruption of the later tradition 556
Why specially destructive in his case 557
Mure’s treatment of the Homeric characters 558
The character of Hector set off with generalities 558

It became the basis for that of Orlando 559
The martial heroism of Hector second-rate 559
His boastfulness his only moral fault 561
Hectoring and Rodomontading 562
Hector’s sense of the guilt and shame of Paris 563
His responsibilities beyond his strength 565
Brightness of his character as to the affections 567
His piety, gentleness, and equity 568
Inequality of his character as a whole 569
Apparent reason for it 569
Opposite views of the character of Helen 571
Homer’s intention with respect to it 572
Two adverse mentions of her only 574
Homer’s epithets and simile for Helen 575
The case of Bathsheba 576
As to the free agency of Helen 577
Picture of Helen in Il. iii. 572
In Il. vi., Il. xxiv., Od. iv. 581
The marriage with Deiphobus 583
General estimate of the Homeric Helen 584
The character of Paris 585
His apathy, levity, and selfishness 586
His place in the War 587
Relation of his intellect to his morality 588
SECT. VII.
The declension of the great Homeric Characters in the later Tradition.
Physical conditions of the Greek Theatre 590
Absolute dependence on the popular taste 592
General obliteration of the finer distinctions 593
Mutilation of the Helen of Homer 593
The Helen of Euripides 595
Of Isocrates and of Virgil 597
Characters of Achilles and Ulysses in Homer 598
Mutilation of the Ulysses of Homer 601

Of the Achilles of Homer 602
The Achilles of Statius 604
Homeric characters in Seneca 605
New relative position of Trojans and Greeks 606
Trojanism in England 608
Imitations of Homeric characters by Tasso 609
The Troilus and Cressida 610
Shirley’s Ajax and Ulysses 612
Racine’s Iphigénie 613
Racine’s Andromaque 614
Conclusion 615

I. AGORÈ.
THE POLITIES OF THE HOMERIC AGE.
It is complained, and perhaps not without foundation, that the study of the
ancient historians does not supply the youth of England with good political
models: that, if we adjust our sympathies and antipathies according to the
division of parties and classes offered to our view in Rome, Athens, or
Sparta, they will not be cast in an English mould, but will come out in the
cruder forms of oligarchic or democratic prejudice. Now I do not wait to
inquire how far these defects may be supplied by the political philosophers,
and in particular by the admirable treatise of Aristotle. And it certainly is
true, that in general they present to us a state of political ideas and morals
greatly deranged: the choice lies between evil on this side in one form, and
on that side in another form: the characters, who can be recommended as
examples, are commonly in a minority or in exile. Nor do I ask how far we
ought to be content, having an admirable range, so to speak, of anatomical
models in our hands, to lay aside the idea of attaching our sympathies to
what we see. I would rather incite the objector to examine and judge
whether we may not find an admirable school of polity, and see its
fundamental ideas exhibited under the truest and largest forms, in a quarter
where perhaps it would be the least expected, namely, in the writings of
Homer.
As respects religion, arts, and manners, the Greeks of the heroic age may be
compared with other societies in the infancy of man. But as respects
political science in its essential rudiments, and as respects the application of
those principles by way of art to the government of mankind, we may say
with almost literal truth that they are the fathers of it; and Homer invites
those who study him to come and view it in its cradle, where the infant
carries every lineament in miniature, that we can reasonably desire to see
developed in manhood.
I cannot but deprecate the association established, perhaps unintentionally,
by Grote, where, throwing Homer as he does into hotch-pot, so to speak,

with the ‘legendary age,’ he expresses himself in
Strong development of
political ideas. his Preface[1], as follows. ‘It must be confessed
that the sentimental attributes of the Greek mind
—its religious and poetical vein—here appear in disproportionate relief, as
compared with its more vigorous and masculine capacities—with those
powers of acting, organizing, judging, and speculating, which will be
revealed in the forthcoming volumes.’ If the sentimental attribute is to be
contra-distinguished from the powers, I will not say of speculating, but of
acting, organizing, and judging, then I know of nothing less sentimental in
the after-history of Greece than the characters of Achilles and Ulysses, than
the relations of the Greek chiefs to one another and to their people, than the
strength and simplicity which laid in those early times the foundation-
stones of the Greek national character and institutions, and made them in
the social order the just counterparts of the material structures that are now
ascribed to the Pelasgians; simple indeed in their elements, but so durable
and massive in their combination, as to be the marvel of all time. The
influences derived from these sources were of such vitality and depth, that
they secured to an insignificant country a predominating power for
centuries, made one little point of the West an effective bulwark against the
East, and caused Greece to throw out, to the right and left, so many
branches each greater than the trunk. Even when the sun of her glory had
set, there was yet left behind an immortal spark of the ancient vitality,
which, enduring through all vicissitudes, kindled into a blaze after two
thousand years; and we of this day have seen a Greek nation, founded anew
by its own energies, become a centre of desire and hope at least to Eastern
Christendom. The English are not ashamed to own their political forefathers
in the forests of the Northward European Continent; and the later statesmen
with the lawgivers of Greece were in their day glad, and with reason glad,
to trace the bold outline and solid rudiments of their own and their country’s
greatness in the poems of Homer. Nothing in those poems offers itself, to
me at least, as more remarkable, than the deep carving of the political
characters; and what is still more, the intense political spirit which pervades
them. I will venture one step farther, and say that, of all the countries of the
civilized world, there is no one of which the inhabitants ought to find that
spirit so intelligible and accessible as the English: because it is a spirit, that
still largely lives and breathes in our own institutions, and, if I mistake not,
even in the peculiarities of those institutions. There we find the great

cardinal ideas, which lie at the very foundation of all enlightened
government: and then we find, too, the men formed under the influence of
such ideas; as one among ourselves, who has drunk into their spirit, tells us;

Sagacious, men of iron, watchful, firm,
Against surprise and sudden panic proof.

And again,

The sombre aspect of majestic care,
Of solitary thought, unshared resolve[2].

It was surely a healthful sign of the working of freedom, that in that early
age, despite the prevalence of piracy, even that idea of political justice and
public right, which is the germ of the law of nations, was not unknown to
the Greeks. It would appear that war could not be made without an
appropriate cause, and that the offer of redress made it the duty of the
injured to come to terms. Hence the offer of Paris in the Third Iliad is at
once readily accepted: and hence, even after the breach of the Pact, arises
Agamemnon’s fear, at the moment when he anticipates the death of
Menelaus, that by that event the claim to the restoration of Helen will be
practically disposed of, and the Greeks will have to return home without
reparation for a wrong, of which the corpus, as it were, will have
disappeared[3].
Before proceeding to sketch the Greek institutions as they are exhibited in
Homer, I will give a sketch of the interesting account of them which is
supplied by Grote. I cite it more for contrast than for concurrence; but it
will assist materially in bringing out into clear relief the points which are of
the greatest moment.
The Greek States of the historic ages, says Grote,
Grote’s account of the Heroic
Polities.
always present to us something in the nature of a
constitution, as the condition of popular respect
towards the government, and of the sense of an obligation to obey it[4]. The
man who broke down this constitution, however wisely he might exercise
his ill gotten power, was branded by the name of τύραννος, or despot, “as
an object of mingled fear and dislike.” But in the heroic age there is no

system, still less any responsibility[5]: obedience depends on personal
reverence towards the king or chief. Into those ‘great individual
personalities, the race or nation is absorbed[6].’ Publicity indeed, through
the means of the council and assembly, essentially pervades the whole
system[7]; but it is a publicity without consequences; for the people, when
they have heard, simply obey the orders of the king[8]. Either resistance or
criticism is generally exhibited as odious, and is never heard of at all except
from those who are at the least subaltern chiefs: though the council and
assembly would in practice come to be restraints upon the king, they are not
so exhibited in Homer[9], but are simple media for supplying him with
information, and for promulgating his resolves[10]. The people may listen
and sympathize, but no more. In the assembly of the Second Iliad, a
‘repulsive picture’ is presented to us of ‘the degradation of the mass of the
people before the chiefs[11].’ For because the common soldiery, in
conformity with the ‘unaccountable fancy’ which Agamemnon had
propounded, made ready to go home, Ulysses belabours them with blows
and covers them with scornful reproofs[12]; and the unpopularity of a
presumptuous critic, even when he is in substance right, is shown, partly by
the strokes that Ulysses inflicts upon Thersites, but still more by the hideous
deformities with which Homer has loaded him.
It is, I think, in happy inconsistency with these representations, that the
historian proceeds to say, that by means of the Βουλὴ and Ἀγορὴ we are
enabled to trace the employment of public speaking, as the standing engine
of government and the proximate cause of obedience, ‘up to the social
infancy of the nation[13].’ But if, in order to make this sentence harmonize
with what precedes and follows it, we are to understand that the Homeric
poems present to us no more than the dry fact that public speaking was in
use, and are to infer that it did not acquire its practical meaning and power
until a later date, then I must include it in the general protest which I beg
leave to record against the greater part of the foregoing propositions, in
their letter and in their spirit, as being neither warranted in the way of
inference from Homer, nor in any manner consistent with the undeniable
facts of the poems.
Personal reverence from the people to the sovereign, associated with the
duties he discharges, with the high attributes he does or should possess, and

with the divine favour, or with a reputed
Their use of Publicity and relationship to the gods, attaching to him,
Persuasion.
constitutes the primitive form in which the
relation of the prince and the subject is very commonly cast in the early
stages of society elsewhere than among the Greeks. What is sentimental,
romantic, archaic, or patriarchal in the Homeric polities is common to them
with many other patriarchal or highland governments. But that which is
beyond every thing distinctive not of Greece only, but of Homeric Greece,
is, that along with an outline of sovereignty and public institutions highly
patriarchal, we find the full, constant, and effective use, of two great
instruments of government, since and still so extensively in abeyance
among mankind; namely, publicity and persuasion. I name these two great
features of the politics and institutions of the heroic age, in order to
concentrate upon them the marked attention which I think they deserve.
And I venture to give to this paper the name of the Ἀγορὴ, because it was
the Greek Assembly of those days, which mainly imparted to the existing
polities their specific spirit as well as features. Amid undeveloped ideas,
rude methods, imperfect organization, and liability to the frequent intrusion
of the strong hand, there lies in them the essence of a popular principle of
government, which cannot, I believe, plead on its behalf any other
precedent so ancient and so venerable.
As is the boy, so is the man. As is the seed, so is the plant. The dove neither
begets, nor yet grows into the eagle. How came it that the prime
philosophers of full-grown Greece gave to the science of Politics the very
highest place in the scale of human knowledge? That they, kings in the
region of abstract thought, for the first and perhaps the only time in the
history of the world, came to think they discerned in the turbid eddies of
state affairs the image of the noblest thing for man, the noblest that
speculation as well as action could provide for him? Aristotle says that, of
all sciences, Πολιτικὴ is ἡ κυριωτάτη καὶ μάλιστα ἀρχιτεκτονική[14]; and
that ethical science constitutes but a branch of it, πολιτική τις οὖσα.
Whence, I ask, did this Greek idea come? It is not the Greece, but it is the
Rome of history, which the judgment and experience of the world has taken
as its great teacher in the mere business of law and political organization.
For so lofty a theory (a theory without doubt exaggerated) from so practical
a person as Aristotle, we must assume a corresponding elevation of source.
I cannot help believing that the source is to be found rather in the infancy,

than in the maturity, of Greek society. As I read Homer, the real first
foundations of political science were laid in the heroic age, with a depth and
breadth exceeding in their proportions any fabric, however imposing, that
the after-time of Greece was able to rear upon them. That after-time was in
truth infected with a spirit of political exaggeration, from which the heroic
age was free.
We shall have to examine the political picture presented by the heroic age
with reference to the various classes into which society was distinguished in
its normal state of peace: to the organization of the army in war, and its
mixture of civil with military relations: to the institutions which embodied
the machinery of government, and to the powers by which that machinery
was kept in motion.
Let us begin with the King; who constituted at
Functions of the King.
once the highest class in society, and the centre of
its institutions.
The political regimen of Greece, at the period immediately preceding the
Trojan war, appears to have been that described by Thucydides, when he
says that the tyrannies, which had come in with the increase of wealth, were
preceded by hereditary monarchies with limited prerogatives[15]: πρότερον
δὲ ἦσαν ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς γέρασι πατρικαὶ βασιλεῖαι. And again by Aristotle;
βασιλεία ... ἡ περὶ τοὺς ἡρωικοὺς χρόνους ... ἦν ἑκόντων μὲν, ἐπὶ τισὶ δὲ
ὡρισμένοις· στρατηγὸς γὰρ ἦν καὶ δικαστὴς ὁ βασιλεὺς, καὶ τῶν περὶ τοὺς
θεοὺς κύριος. The threefold function of the King was to command the army,
to administer justice chiefly, though not exclusively, between man and man,
and to conduct the rites of religion[16].
Independently of sovereignties purely local, we find in Homer traces of a
maritime Cretan empire, which had recently passed away: and we find a
subsisting Pelopid empire, which appears to have been the first of its kind,
at least on the Greek mainland. For the Pelopid sceptre was not one taken
over from the Perseids: it was obtained through Mercury, that is, probably
through contrivance, from Jupiter: and the difference probably consisted in
one or both of these two particulars. It comprehended the whole range of
continental Greece, πᾶν Ἄργος, to which are added, either at once or in its
progressive extension, the πολλαὶ νῆσοι (Il. ii. 108) of the Minoan empire.
Besides this, it consisted of a double sovereignty: one, a suzerainty or

supremacy over a number of chiefs, each of whom conducted the ordinary
government of his own dominions; the other, a direct, though perhaps not
always an effective control, not only over an hereditary territory, but over
the unclaimed residue of minor settlements and principalities in the country.
This inference may, I think, be gathered from the fact that we find the force
of Agamemnon before Troy drawn exclusively from his Mycenian
dominions, while he had claims of tribute from towns in the south-west of
Peloponnesus, which lay at some distance from his centre of power, and
which apparently furnished no aid in the war of Troy.
The Pheræ of Diocles lay on the way from Pylos to Sparta: and Pheræ is
one of the towns which Agamemnon promised to Achilles. It should,
however, be borne in mind that, as the family of names to which Pheræ
belonged was one so largely dispersed, we must not positively assume the
identity of the two towns.
Kingship in Homer is susceptible of degree; it is
Degrees in Kingship and in
Lordship.
one thing for the local sovereignties, such as those
of Nestor or Ulysses, and another for the great
supremacy of Agamemnon, which overrode them. Still the Greek βασιλῆες
in the Iliad constitute a class by themselves; a class that comprises the
greater leaders and warriors, who immediately surround Agamemnon, the
head of the army.
Of by much the greater part even of chiefs and leaders of contingents, it is
plain from the poem that though they were lords (ἄνακτες) of a certain tribe
or territory, they were not βασιλῆες or kings.
These chiefs and lords again divide themselves into two classes: one is
composed of those who had immediate local heads, such as Phœnix, lord of
the Dolopes, under Peleus at Phthia, probably Sthenelus under Diomed, and
perhaps also Meriones under Idomeneus: the other is the class of chieftains,
to which order the great majority belong, owning no subordination to any
prince except to Agamemnon. Among these, again, there is probably a
distinction between those sub-chiefs who owned him as a local sovereign,
and those who were only subject to him as the head of the great Greek
confederation.
It is probable that the subordination of the sub-chief to his local sovereign
was a closer tie than that of the local sovereign to the head of Greece. For,

according to the evidence supplied by the promises of Agamemnon to
Achilles[17], tribute was payable by the lords of towns to their immediate
political superior: not a tribute in coined money, which did not exist, nor
one fixed in quantity; but a benevolence (δωτίνη), which must have
consisted in commodities. Metals, including the precious metals, would,
however, very commonly be the medium of acquittance. Again, we find
these sub-chiefs invested with dominion by the local sovereign, residing at
his court, holding a subaltern command in his army. All these points are
combined in the case of Phœnix. On the other hand, as to positive duty or
service, we know of none that a sovereign like Nestor owed to
Agamemnon, except it were to take a part in enterprises of national concern
under his guidance. But the distinction of rank between them is clear.
Evidently on account of his relation to Agamemnon, Menelaus is
βασιλεύτερος, higher in mere kingship, or more a king, than the other
chiefs: Agamemnon boasts[18] that he is greatly the superior of Achilles, or
of any one else in the army; and in the Ninth Book Achilles seems to refer
with stinging, nay, rather with slaying irony, to this claim of greater
kingliness for the Pelopids, when he rejects the offer of the hand of any one
among Agamemnon’s daughters; No! let him choose another son-in-law,
who may be worthy of him, and who is more a king than I[19];

ὅστις οἷ τ’ ἐπέοικε, καὶ ὃς βασιλεύτερός ἐστιν.

But although one βασιλεὺς might thus be higher than another, the rank of
the whole body of Βασιλῆες is, on the whole, well and clearly marked off,
by the consistent language of the Iliad, from all inferior ranks: and this
combination may remind us in some degree of the British peerage, which
has its own internal distinctions of grade, but which is founded essentially
upon parity, and is sharply severed from all the other orders of the
community. We shall presently see how this proposition is made good.
It thus far appears, that we find substantially, though not very determinately,
distinguished, the following forms of larger and lesser Greek sovereignty:
I. That held by Agamemnon, as the head of Greece.
II. The local kings, some of them considerable enough to have other lords
or princes (ἄνακτες) under them.

III. The minor chiefs of contingents; who, though not kings, were princes or
lords (ἄνακτες), and governed separate states of their own: such as Thoas
for Ætolia, and Menestheus for Athens.
IV. The petty and scattered chiefs, of whom we can hardly tell how far any
account is taken in the Catalogue, but who belonged, in some sense, to
Agamemnon, by belonging to no one else.
There are signs, contained in the Iliad itself, that
First tokens of change in the
Heroic Polities.
the primitive monarchies, the nature and spirit of
which will presently be examined, were beginning
to give way even at the time of the expedition to Troy. The growth of the
Pelopid empire was probably unfavourable to their continuance. In any
case, the notes of commencing change will be found clear enough.
Minos had ruled over all Crete as king; but Idomeneus, his grandson, is
nowhere mentioned as the king of that country, of which he appears to have
governed a part only. Among obvious tokens of this fact are the following.
The cities which furnish the Cretan contingent are all contained in a limited
portion of that island. Now, although general words are employed (Il. ii.
649.) to signify that the force was not drawn from these cities exclusively,
yet Homer would probably have been more particular, had other places
made any considerable contribution, than to omit the names of them all.
Again, Crete, though so large and rich, furnishes a smaller contingent than
Pylos. And, once more, if it had been united in itself, it is very doubtful
whether any ruler of so considerable a country would have been content
that it should stand only as a province of the empire of Agamemnon. In the
many passages of either poem which mention Idomeneus, he is never
decorated with a title implying, like that of Minos (Κρήτῃ ἐπίουρος), that he
was ruler of the whole island. Indeed, one passage at least appears to bear
pretty certain evidence to the contrary. For Ulysses, in his fabulous but of
course self-consistent narration to Minerva, shows us that even the Cretan
force in Troy was not thoroughly united in allegiance to a single head. ‘The
son of Idomeneus,’ he says, ‘endeavoured to deprive me of my share of the
spoil, because I did not obey his father in Troas, but led a band of my own:’

οὕνεκ’ ἄρ’ οὐχ ᾧ πατρὶ χαριζόμενος θεράπευον
δήμῳ ἔνι Τρώων, ἀλλ’ ἄλλων ἦρχον ἑταίρων[20].

So likewise in the youth of Nestor, two generations back, Augeias appears
as the sole king of the Epeans; but, in the Catalogue, his grandson
Polyxeinus only commands one out of the four Epean divisions of ten ships
each, without any sign of superiority: of the other three, two are
commanded by generals of the Actorid family, which in the earlier legend
appears as part of the court or following of Augeias[21]. And wherever we
find in the case of any considerable Greek contingent the chief command
divided among persons other than brothers, we may probably infer that
there had been a breaking up of the old monarchical and patriarchal system.
This point deserves more particular inquiry.
In the Greek armament, there are twenty-nine
Shown by analysis of the
Catalogue.
contingents in all.
Of these, twenty-three are under a single head;
with or without assistants who, where they appear, are described as having
been secondary.
1. Locrians with 40 ships.
2. Eubœans 40
3. Athenians 50
4. Salaminians 12
5. Argives 80
6. Mycenians 100
7. Lacedæmonians 60
8. Pylians 90
9. Arcadians 60
10. Dulichians &c. 40
11. Cephallenians 12
12. Ætolians 40
13. Cretans 80
14. Rhodians 9
15. Symeans 3
16. Myrmidons 50
17. Phthians of Phylace 40
18. Phereans, &c. 11
19. Phthians of Methone &c. 7

20. Ormenians &c. 40
21. Argissans &c. 40
22. Cyphians &c. 22
23. Magnesians 40
966 ships.
Under brothers united in command, there were four more contingents:
1. Of Aspledon and Orchomenus, with 30 ships.
2. Of Phocians 40
3. Of Nisuros, Cos &c. 30
4. Of Tricce &c. 30
130 ships.
In all these cases, comprising the whole armament except from two states,
the old form of government seems to have continued. The two exceptions
are:
1. Bœotians; with 50 ships, under five leaders.
2. Elians; with 40 ships, under four leaders.
It is quite clear that these two divisions were acephalous. As to the Elians,
because the Catalogue expressly divides the 40 ships into four squadrons,
and places one under each leader, two of these being of the Actorid house,
and a third descended from Augeias. As to the Bœotians, the Catalogue
indicates the equality of the leaders by placing the five names in a series
under the same category.
An indirect but rather strong confirmation is afforded by the passage in the
Thirteenth Book[22], where five Greek races or divisions are engaged in the
endeavour to repel Hector from the rampart. They are,
1. Bœotians.
2. Athenians (or Ionians), under Menestheus, seconded by Pheidas,
Stichios, and Bias.
3. Locrians.
4. Epeans (of Dulichium &c.) under Meges, son of Phyleus, with Amphion,
and Drakios. The addition of the patronymic to Meges seems in this place to

mark his position; which is distinctly defined as the chief one in the
Catalogue, by his being mentioned there alone.
5. Phthians, under Medon and Podarces. These supplied two contingents,
numbered 17 and 19 respectively in the list just given; and they constituted
separate commands, though of the same race.
It will be remarked that the Poet enumerates the commanders of the
Athenians, Epeans, and Phthians; but not of the Locrians and Bœotians.
Obviously, in the case of the Locrians, the reason is, that Oilean Ajax, a
king and chief of the first rank, and a person familiar to us in every page,
was their leader. Such a person he never mixes on equal terms with
secondary commanders, or puts to secondary duties; and the text
immediately proceeds to tell us he was with the Telamonian Ajax[23]. But
why does it not name the Bœotian leader? Probably, we may conjecture,
because that force had no one commander in chief, but were an aggregation
of independent bodies, whom ties of blood or neighbourhood drew together
in the armament and in action.
Having thus endeavoured to mark the partial and small beginnings of
disorganization in the ancient form of government, let us now observe the
character of the particular spots where they are found. These districts by no
means represent, in their physical characteristics, the average character of
Greece. In the first place, they are both on the highway of the movement
between North and South. In the second, they both are open and fertile
countries; a distinction which, in certain local positions, at certain stages of
society, not only does not favour the attainment of political power, but
almost precludes its possession. The Elis of Homer is marked by two
epithets having a direct reference to fertility of soil; it is ἱππόβοτος, horse-
feeding, and it is also εὐρύχορος, wide-spaced or open. Again, the twenty-
nine towns assigned in the Catalogue to the Bœotians far exceed in number
those which are named for any other division of Greece. We have other
parallel indications; such as the wealth of Orchomenos[24]; and of Orestius
with the variegated girdle. He dwelt in Hyle, one of the twenty-nine, amidst
other Bœotians who held a district of extreme fertility[25], μάλα πίονα
δῆμον ἔχοντες. Now when we find signs like these in Homer, that Elis and
Bœotia had been first subjected to revolution, not in the shape of mere
change of dynasty, but in the decomposition, so to speak, of their ancient

forms of monarchy, we must again call to mind that Thucydides[26], when
he tells us that the best lands underwent the most frequent social changes by
the successions of new inhabitants, names Bœotia, and ‘most of
Peloponnesus’ as examples of the kind of district to which his remark
applied.
Upon the whole, the organization of the armament for Troy shows us the
ancient monarchical system intact in by far the greater part of Greece. But
when we come to the Odyssey, we find increasing signs of serious changes;
which doubtless were then preparing the way, by the overthrow of old
dynasties, for the great Dorian invasion. And it is here worth while to
remark a great difference. The mere supervention of one race upon another,
the change from a Pelasgian to an Hellenic character, does not appear to
have entailed alterations nearly so substantial in the character and stability
of Hellenic government, as did the Trojan expedition; which, by depriving
societies of their natural heads, and of the fighting men of the population,
left an open field to the operation of disorganizing causes.
Strabo has a remarkable passage, though one in which he makes no
particular reference to Homer, on the subject of the invasions and
displacements of one race by another. These, he says[27], had indeed been
known before the Trojan war: but it was immediately upon the close of the
war, and then after that period, that they gained head: μάλιστα μὲν οὖν κατὰ
τὰ Τρωικὰ, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα, τὰς ἐφόδους γένεσθαι καὶ τὰς μεταναστάσεις
συνέβη, τῶν τε βαρβάρων ἅμα καὶ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ὁρμῇ τινὶ χρησαμένων
πρὸς τὴν τῶν ἀλλοτρίων κατάκτησιν. Of this the Odyssey affords some
curious indications.
Among many alleged and some real shades of
Extended signs in the
Odyssey.
difference between the poems, we may note two
of a considerable political significance: the word
King in the Odyssey has acquired a more lax signification, and the word
Queen, quite unknown to the Iliad, has come into free use.
It will be shown how strictly, in the Iliad, the term
Altered meaning of ‘King.’
βασιλεὺς, with its appropriate epithets, is limited
to the very first persons of the Greek armament.
Now in the Odyssey there are but two States, with the organization of which
we have occasion to become in any degree acquainted: one of them Scheria,

the other Ithaca. Of the first we do not see a great deal, and the force of the
example is diminished by the avowedly mythical or romantic character of
the delineation: but the fact is worthy of note, that in Scheria we find there
are twelve kings of the country, with Alcinous[28], the thirteenth, as their
superior and head. It is far more important and historically significant that,
in the limited and comparatively poor dominions of Ulysses, there are now
many kings. For Telemachus says[29],

ἀλλ’ ἤτοι βασιλῆες Ἀχαιῶν εἰσὶ καὶ ἄλλοι
πολλοὶ ἐν ἀμφιάλῳ Ἰθάκῃ, νέοι ἠδὲ παλαιοί.

His meaning must be to refer to the number of nobles who were now
collected, from Cephallonia and the other dominions of Ulysses, into that
island. The observation is made by him in reply to the Suitor Antinous, who
had complained of his bold language, and hoped he never would be king in
Ithaca[30]:

μὴ σέ γ’ ἐν ἀμφιάλῳ Ἰθάκῃ βασιλῆα Κρονίων
ποιήσειεν, ὅ τοι γενεῇ πατρώϊόν ἐστιν.

It is, I think, clear, that in this place Antinous does not mean merely, ‘I hope
you will not become one of us,’ which might be said in reference merely to
the contingency of his assuming the controul of his paternal estates, but that
he refers to the sovereignty properly so called: for Telemachus, after having
said there are many βασιλῆες in Ithaca, proceeds to say, ‘Let one of them be
chosen’, or ‘one of these may be chosen, to succeed Ulysses;’

τῶν κέν τις τόδ’ ἔχῃσιν, ἐπεὶ θάνε δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς.

‘but let me,’ he continues, ‘be master of my own house and property.’ Thus
we have βασιλεὺς bearing two senses in the very same passage. First, it
means the noble, of whom there are many in the country, and it is here
evidently used in an improper sense; secondly, it means the person who
rules the whole of them, and it is here as evidently employed in its original
and proper signification. It seems very doubtful, however, whether, even in
the Odyssey, the relaxed sense ever appears as a simple title in the singular
number. The only signs of it are these; Antinous is told that he is like a

king[31] in appearance; and he is also expressly called βασιλεὺς in the
strongly and generally suspected νεκυΐα of the Twenty-fourth Book[32]. So
again, the kingly epithet Διοτρεφὴς is not used in the singular for any one
below the rank of a βασιλεὺς of the Iliad, except once, where, in addressing
Agelaus the Suitor, it is employed by Melanthius, the goatherd, one of the
subordinate adherents and parasites of that party[33].
This relaxation in the sense of βασιλεὺς, definite and limited as is its
application in the Iliad, is no inconsiderable note of change.
Equally, or more remarkable, is the introduction in
New name of Queen.
the Odyssey of the words δέσποινα and βασίλεια,
and the altered use of ἄνασσα.
1. δέσποινα is applied, Od. iii. 403, to the wife of Pisistratus, son of Nestor;
to Arete, queen of the Phæacians, Od. vii. 53, 347; to Penelope, Od. xiv. 9,
127, 451; xv. 374, 7; xvii. 83; xxiii. 2.
2. ἄνασσα is applied in the Iliad, xiv. 326, to Ceres only; but in the Odyssey,
besides Minerva, in Od. iii. 380, Ulysses applies it twice to Nausicaa, in Od.
vi. 149, 175; apparently in some doubt whether she is a divinity or a mortal.
I would not however dwell strongly on this distinction between the poems;
for we seem to find substantially the human use of the word ἄνασσα in the
name of Agamemnon’s daughter, Ἰφιάνασσα, which is used in Il. ix. 145.
3. Βασίλεια is used many times in the Odyssey; and is applied to
a. Nausicaa, Od. vi. 115.
b. Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, Od. xi. 258; but only in the
phrase βασίλεια γυναικῶν, which seems to resemble δῖα
γυναικῶν.
c. Arete, queen of the Phæacians, Od. xiii. 59.
d. Penelope, Od. xvi. 332, 7: and elsewhere.
Now it cannot be said that the use of the word is forborne in the Iliad from
the want of fit persons to bear it; for Hecuba, as the wife of Priam, and
Helen, as the wife of Paris, possibly also Andromache, (though this is much
more doubtful[34],) were all of a rank to have received it: nor can we
account for its absence by their appearing only as Trojans; for the title of

βασιλεὺς is frequently applied to Priam, and it is likewise assigned to Paris,
though to no other member of the Trojan royal family.
We have also two other cases in the Iliad of women who were queens of
some kind. One is that of Hypsipyle, who apparently exercised supreme
power[35] in Lemnos, but we are left to inference as to its character: the
other is the mother of Andromache[36],

ἣ βασίλευεν ὑπὸ Πλάκῳ ὑληέσσῃ.

She was what we term a Queen consort, for her husband Eetion was alive at
the time. In the Odyssey we are told that Chloris, whom Neleus married,
reigned at Pylos; ἡ δὲ Πύλου βασίλευε, Od. xi. 285. In this place the word
βασιλεύειν may perhaps imply the exercise of sovereign power. Be this as it
may, the introduction of the novel title of Queen betokens political
movement.
There are other signs of advancing change in the character of kingship
discernible from the Odyssey, which will be more conveniently considered
hereafter. In the meantime, the two which are already before us are, it will
be observed, exactly in the direction we might expect from the nature of the
Trojan war, and from the tradition of Strabo. We have before us an effort of
the country amounting to a violent, and also an unnaturally continued
strain; a prolonged absence of its best heads, its strongest arms, its most
venerated authorities: wives and young children, infants of necessity in
many cases, remain at home. It was usual no doubt for a ruler, on leaving
his country, to appoint some guardian to remain behind him, as we see from
the case of Agamemnon, (Od. iii. 267,) and from the language of
Telemachus, (Od. xv. 89); but no regent, deputy, or adviser, could be of
much use in that stage of society. Again, in every class of every community,
there are boys rapidly passing into manhood; they form unawares a new
generation, and the heat of their young blood, in the absence of vigorous
and established controul, stirs, pushes forward, and innovates. Once more,
as extreme youth, so old age likewise was ordinarily a disqualification for
war. And as we find Laertes and Peleus, and Menœtius, with Admetus,
besides probably other sovereigns whom Homer has not named to us, left
behind on this account, so there must have been many elderly men of the
class of nobles (ἀριστῆες, ἔξοχοι ἄνδρες) who obtained exemption from

actual service in the war. There is too every appearance that, in some if not
all the states of Greece, there had been those who escaped from service on
other grounds; perhaps either from belonging to the elder race, which was
more peculiarly akin to Troy, or from local jealousies, or from the love of
ease. For in Ithaca we find old men, contemporaries and seniors of Ulysses,
who had taken no part in the expedition; and there are various towns
mentioned in different parts of the poems, which do not appear from the
Catalogue to have made any contribution to the force. Such were possibly
the various places bearing the name of Ephyre, and with higher likelihood
the towns offered by Agamemnon to be made over to Achilles[37].
Again, as Cinyres[38] the ruler of Cyprus, and
Disorganization caused by
the War. Echepolus[39] the son of Anchises, obtained
exemption by means of gifts to Agamemnon, so
may others, both rulers and private individuals, have done. But the two
main causes, which would probably operate to create perturbation in
connection with the absence of the army, were, without much doubt, first,
the arrival of a new race of youths at a crude and intemperate manhood; and
secondly, the unadjusted relations in some places of the old Pelasgian and
the new Hellenic settlers. Their differences, when the pressure of the
highest established authority had been removed, would naturally in many
places spring up afresh. In conformity with the first of these causes, the
Suitors as a body are called very commonly νεοὶ ὑπερηνορέοντες[40], ‘the
domineering youths.’ And the circumstances under which Ulysses finds
himself, when he has returned to Ithaca, appear to connect themselves also
with the latter of the above-named causes. But, whatever the reasons, it is
plain that his position had become extremely precarious. Notwithstanding
his wealth, ability, and fame, he did not venture to appeal to the people till
he had utterly destroyed his dangerous enemies; and even then it was only
by his promptitude, strength of hand, and indomitable courage, that he
succeeded in quelling a most formidable sedition.
Nothing, then, could be more natural, than that, in the absence of the
sovereigns, often combined with the infancy of their children, the mother
should become the depositary of an authority, from which, as we see by
other instances, her sex does not appear to have excluded her: and that if, as
is probable, the instances were many and simultaneous, this systematic
character given to female rule should have its formal result on language in

the creation of the word Queen, and its twin phrase δέσποινα, or Mistress.
The extension of the word ἄνασσα from divinities to mortals might result
from a subaltern operation of the same causes.
In the very same manner, the diminished force of authority at its centre
would increase the relative prominence of such among the nobles as
remained at home. On reaching to manhood, they would in some cases, as
in Ithaca, find themselves practically independent. The natural result would
be, that having, though on a small scale, that is to say, so far probably as
their own properties and neighbourhoods respectively were concerned,
much of the substance of sovereignty actually in their hands, they should
proceed to arrogate its name. Hence come the βασιλῆες of Ithaca and the
islands near it; some of them young men, who had become adult since the
departure of Ulysses, others of them old, who, remaining behind him, had
found their position effectively changed, if not by the fact of his departure,
yet by the prolongation of his absence.
The relaxed use, then, of the term βασιλεὺς in the Odyssey, and the
appearance of the term βασίλεια and of others in a similar category, need
not qualify the proposition above laid down with respect to the βασιλεὺς of
the Iliad. He, as we shall see from the facts of the poem, stands in a
different position, and presents to us a living picture of the true heroic
age[41].
This change in the meaning of the word King was
Altered idea of the Kingly
office.
accompanied by a corresponding change in the
idea of the great office which it betokened. It had
descended from a more noble to a less noble type. I do not mean by this that
it had now first submitted to limitations. The βασιλεὺς of the Greeks was
always and essentially limited: and hence probably it was, that the usurper
of sole and indefinite power in the state was so essentially and deeply
odious to the Greeks, because it was felt that he had plundered the people of
a treasure, namely, free government, which they and their early forefathers
had possessed from time immemorial.
It is in the Odyssey that we are first startled by meeting not only a wider
diffusion and more lax use of the name of king, but together with this
change another one; namely, a lower conception of the kingly office. The
splendour of it in the Iliad is always associated with duty. In the simile

where Homer speaks of corrupt governors, that draw down the vengeance
of heaven on a land by crooked judgments, it is worthy of remark, that he
avoids the use of the word βασιλεύς[42]:

ὅτε δή ῥ’ ἄνδρεσσι κοτεσσάμενος χαλεπήνῃ,
οἳ βίῃ εἰν ἀγορῇ σκολίας κρίνωσι θέμιστας.

The worst thing that is even hinted at as within the limits of possibility, is
slackness in the discharge of the office: it never degenerates into an
instrument of oppression to mankind. But in the Odyssey, which evidently
represents with fidelity the political condition of Greece after the great
shock of the Trojan war, we find that kingship has come to be viewed by
some mainly with reference to the enjoyment of great possessions, which it
implied or brought, and as an object on that account of mere ambition. Not
of what we should call absolutely vicious ambition: it is not an absolute
perversion, but it is a clear declension in the idea, that I here seek to note

ἦ φῂς τοῦτο κάκιστον ἐν ἀνθρώποισι τετύχθαι;
οὐ μὲν γάρ τι κακὸν βασιλευέμεν· αἶψά τέ οἱ δῶ
ἀφνειὸν πέλεται, καὶ τιμηέστερος αὐτός.[43]

This general view of the office as one to be held for the personal enjoyment
of the incumbent, is broadly distinguished from such a case as that in the
Iliad, where Agamemnon, offering seven cities to Achilles[44], strives to
tempt him individually by a particular inducement, drawn from his own
undoubtedly rather sordid mind;

οἵ κέ ἑ δωτίνῃσι θεὸν ὣς τιμήσουσιν.

The moral causes of this change are in a great degree traceable to the
circumstances of the war, and we seem to see how the conception above
expressed was engendered in the mind of Mentor, when he observes[45], that
it is now useless for a king to be wise and benevolent like Ulysses, who was
gentle like a father to his people, in order that, like Ulysses, he may be
forgotten: so that he may just as well be lawless in character, and oppressive
in action. The same ideas are expressed by Minerva[46] in the very same
words, at the second Olympian meeting in the Odyssey. It would therefore

thus appear, that this particular step downwards in the character of the
governments of the heroic age was owing to the cessation, through
prolonged absence, of the influence of the legitimate sovereigns, and to
consequent encroachment upon their moderate powers.
And it is surely well worthy of remark that we
Instance of a bad King.
find in this very same poem the first
exemplification of the character of a bad and
tyrannical monarch, in the person of a certain king Echetus; of whom all we
know is, that he lived somewhere upon the coast of Epirus, and that he was
the pest of all mortals that he had to do with. With great propriety, it is the
lawless Suitors who are shown to be in some kind of relation with him; for
in the Eighteenth Odyssey they threaten[47] to send Irus, who had annoyed
them in his capacity of a beggar, to king Echetus, that he might have his
nose and ears cut off, and be otherwise mutilated. The same threat is
repeated in the Twenty-first Book against Ulysses himself, and the line that
conveys it reappears as one of the Homeric formulæ[48];

εἰς Ἔχετον βασιλῆα, βροτῶν δηλήμονα πάντων.

Probably this Echetus was a purchaser of slaves. It is little likely that the
Suitors would have taken the trouble of sending Irus away, rather than
dispose of him at home, except with the hope of a price; as they suggest to
Telemachus to ship off Theoclymenus and Ulysses (still disguised) to the
Sicels, among whom they will sell well[49].
The kingship, of which the features were so
Kingship in the age of
Hesiod.
boldly and fairly defined in the Homeric age, soon
passed away; and was hardly to be found
represented by any thing but its φθορὰ, the τυραννὶς or despotism, which
neither recognised limit nor rested upon reverence or upon usage, but had
force for its foundation, was essentially absolute, and could not, according
to the conditions of our nature, do otherwise than rapidly and ordinarily
degenerate into the positive vices, which have made the name of tyrant ‘a
curse and a hissing’ over the earth. In Hesiod we find what Homer nowhere
furnishes; an odious epithet attached to the whole class of kings. The θεῖοι
βασιλῆες of the heroic age have disappeared: they are now sometimes the
αἰδοῖοι still, but sometimes the δωρόφαγοι, the gift-greedy, instead. They

desire that litigation should increase, for the sake of the profits that it brings
them[50];

μέγα κυδαίνων βασιλῆας
δωροφάγους, οἳ τήνδε δίκην ἐθέλουσι δικάσσαι.

The people has now to expiate the wickedness of these corrupted kings;

ὀφρ’ ἀποτίσῃ
δῆμος ἀτασθαλίας βασιλέων·

A Shield of Achilles, manufactured after the fashion of the Hesiodic age,
would not have given us, for the pattern of a king, one who stood smiling in
his fields behind his reapers as they felled the corn[51]. Yet while Hesiod
makes it plain that he had seen kingship degraded by abuse, he has also
shown us, that his age retained the ideas both that justice was its duty, and
that persuasion was the grand basis of its power. For, as he says in one of
his few fine passages[52], at the birth of a king, the Muses pour dew upon
his tongue, that he may have the gift of gentle speech, and may administer
strict justice to the people. He then, or the ancient writer who has
interpolated him, goes on to describe the work of royal oratory, in thoughts
chiefly borrowed from the poems of Homer. But the increase of wealth, and
the multiplication of its kinds through commerce, mocked the simple state
of the early kings, and tempted them into a rapacity, before which the
barriers of ancient custom gave way: and so, says Thucydides[53], τὰ πολλὰ
τυραννίδες ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι καθίσταντο, τῶν προσόδων μειζόνων
γιγνομένων. The germ of this evil is just discernible in the Agamemnon of
the Iliad: and it is marked by the epithet of Achilles, who, when angry, still
knows how to strike at the weakest point of his character, by calling him
δημόβορος βασιλεὺς[54], a king who eat up, or impoverished, those under
his command. Whether the charge was in any great degree deserved or not,
we can hardly say. Helen certainly gives to the Achæan king a better
character[55]. But however that may be, the reproach was altogether
personal to the man. The reverence due and paid to the office must have
been immense, when Ulysses, alone, and armed only with the sceptre of
Agamemnon, could stem the torrent of the flying soldiery, and turn them
back upon the place of meeting.

Even in the Iliad, indeed, we scarcely find the
Veneration long adhering tostrictly patriarchal king. The constitution of the
the name.
state has ceased to be modelled in any degree on
the pattern of the family. The different classes are united together by
relations which, though undefined and only nascent, are yet purely political.
Ulysses, in his character of king, had been gentle as a father[56]; but the idea
which makes the king even metaphorically the father of his people is
nowhere, I think, to be found in Homer: it was obsolete. Ethnical, local, and
dynastic changes, often brought about by war, had effaced the peculiar traits
of patriarchal kingship, with the exception of the old title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν;
and had substituted those heroic monarchies which retained, in a larger
development, so much of what was best in the still older system. As even
these monarchies had begun, before the Trojan war, to be shaken here and
there, and as the Odyssey exhibits to us the state of things when apparently
their final knell had sounded, so, in the age of Hesiod, that iron age, when
Commerce had fairly settled in Greece, and had brought forth its eldest-
born child Competition[57], they had become a thing of the past. Yet they
were still remembered, and still understood. And it might well be that, long
after society had outgrown the forms of patriarchal life, men might
nevertheless cling to its associations; and so long as those associations were
represented by old hereditary sovereignties, holding either in full continuity,
or by ties and traditions not absolutely broken, much of the spirit of the
ancient system might continue to subsist; political freedom respecting the
tree, under the shadow of which it had itself grown up.
It should be easier for the English, than for the nations of most other
countries, to make this picture real to their own minds; for it is the very
picture before our own eyes in our own time and country, where visible
traces of the patriarchal mould still coexist in the national institutions with
political liberties of more recent fashion, because they retain their hold
upon the general affections.
And, indeed, there is a sign, long posterior to the account given by Hesiod
of the heroic age, and distinct also from the apparently favourable notice by
Thucydides of the πατρικαὶ βασιλεῖαι, which might lead to the supposition
that the old name of king left a good character behind it. It is the reverence
which continued to attend that name, notwithstanding the evil association,
which events could not fail to establish between it and the usurpations

(τυραννίδες). For when the office of the βασιλεὺς had either wholly
disappeared, as in Athens, or had undergone essential changes, as in Sparta,
so that βασιλεία no longer appears with the philosophical analysts as one of
the regular kinds of government, but μοναρχία is substituted, still the name
remained[58], and bore for long long ages the traces of its pristine dignity,
like many another venerable symbol, with which we are loath to part, even
after we have ceased either to respect the thing it signifies, or perhaps even
to understand its significance.
Such is a rude outline of the history of the office. Let us now endeavour to
trace the portrait of it which has been drawn in the Iliad of Homer.
1. The class of βασιλῆες has the epithet θεῖοι,
Notes of Kingship in the
Iliad.
which is never used by Homer except to place the
subject of it in some special relation with deity; as
for (a) kings, (b) bards, (c) the two protagonists, Achilles and Ulysses, (d)
several of the heroes who predeceased the war, (e) the herald in Il. iv. 192;
who, like an ambassador in modern times, personally represents the
sovereign, and is therefore Διὸς ἄγγελος ἠδὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν, Il. i. 334.
2. This class is marked by the exclusive application to it of the titular
epithet Διοτρεφής; which, by the relations with Jupiter which it expresses,
denotes the divine origin of sovereign power. The word Διογενὴς has a
bearing similar to that of Διοτρεφὴς, but apparently rather less exclusive.
Although at first sight this may seem singular, and we should perhaps
expect the order of the two words to be reversed, it is really in keeping; for
the gods had many reputed sons of whom they took no heed, and to be
brought up under the care of Jupiter was therefore a far higher ascription,
than merely to be born or descended from him.
3. To the βασιλεὺς, and to no one else, is it said that Jupiter has intrusted the
sceptre, the symbol of authority, together with the prerogatives of
justice[59]. The sceptre or staff was the emblem of regal power as a whole.
Hence the account of the origin and successive deliveries of the sceptre of
Agamemnon[60]. Hence Ulysses obtained the use of it in order to check the
Greeks and bring them back to the assembly, ii. 186. Hence we constantly
hear of the sceptre as carried by kings: hence the epithet σκηπτοῦχοι is
applied to them exclusively in Homer, and the sceptre is carried by no other
persons, except by judges, and by herald-serjeants, as their deputies.

4. The βασιλῆες are in many places spoken of as a class or order by
themselves; and in this capacity they form the βουλὴ or council of the army.
Thus when Achilles describes the distribution of prizes by Agamemnon to
the principal persons of the army, he says[61],

ἄλλα δ’ ἀριστήεσσι δίδου γέρα, καὶ βασιλεῦσιν.

In this place the Poet seems manifestly to distinguish between the class of
kings and that of chiefs.
When he has occasion to speak of the higher order of chiefs who usually
met in council, he calls them the γέροντες[62], or the βασιλῆες[63]: but when
he speaks of the leaders more at large, he calls them by other names, as at
the commencement of the Catalogue, they are ἀρχοὶ, ἡγεμόνες, or κοίρανοι:
and, again, ἀριστῆες[64]. In two places, indeed, he applies the phrase last-
named to the members of that select class of chiefs who were also kings:
but there the expression is ἀριστῆες Παναχαιῶν[65], a phrase of which the
effect is probably much the same as βασιλῆες Ἀχαιῶν: the meaning seems
to be those who were chief over all orders of the Greeks, that is to say,
chiefs even among chiefs. Thus Agamemnon would have been properly the
only βασιλεὺς Παναχαιῶν.
The same distinction is marked in the proceedings of Ulysses, when he
rallies the dispersed Assembly: for he addressed coaxingly,

ὅντινα μὲν βασιλῆα καὶ ἔξοχον ἄνδρα κιχείη,

whatever king or leading man he chanced to overtake[66].
5. The rank of the Greek βασιλεῖς is marked in the Catalogue by this trait;
that no other person seems ever to be associated with them on an equal
footing in the command of the force, even where it was such as to require
subaltern commanders. Agamemnon, Menelaus, Nestor, Ulysses, the two
Ajaxes, Achilles, are each named alone. Idomeneus is named alone as
leader in opening the account of the Cretans, ii. 645, though, when he is
named again, Meriones also appears (650, 1), which arrangement seems to
point to him as only at most a quasi-colleague, and ὀπάων. Sthenelus and
Euryalus are named after Diomed (563-6), but it is expressly added,

συμπάντων δ’ ἡγεῖτο βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Διομήδης.

Thus his higher rank is not obscured. Again, we know that, in the case of
Achilles, there were five persons, each commanding ten of his fifty ships
(Il. xvi. 171), of whom no notice is taken in the Catalogue (681-94), though
it begins with a promise to enumerate all those who were in command of
the fleet (493),

ἀρχοὺς αὖ νηῶν ἐρέω νῆάς τε προπάσας;

and in the case of the Elians he names four leaders who had exactly the
same command, each over ten ships (618). It thus appears natural to refer
his silence about the five to the rank held by Achilles as a king.
So much for the notes of this class in the Iliad.
Though we are not bound to suppose, that Homer had so rigid a definition
of the class of kings before his mind as exists in the case of the more
modern forms of title, it is clear in very nearly every individual case of a
Greek chieftain of the Iliad, whether he was a βασιλεὺς or not.
The class clearly comprehends:
The Nine Greek Kings of the
Iliad. 1. Agamemnon, Il. i. 9, and in many places.
2.
Menelaus
from Il. xix. 310, 311, where they remain with Achilles, while
3. Nestor
the other βασιλῆες, ver. 309, are sent away. Also for Ulysses,
4. Ulysses
see xiv. 379; and various places in the Odyssey.
5.
Idomeneus
6. Achilles, Il. i. 331. xvi. 211.

7. Diomed, Il. xiv. 27, compared with 29 and 379.

8. Ajax Telamonius, Il. vii. 321 connected with 344.

9. Ajax, son of Oileus.

Among the indications, by which the last-named chief is shown to have
been a βασιλεὺς, are those which follow. He is summoned by Agamemnon
(Il. ii. 404-6) among the γέροντες ἀριστῆες Παναχαιῶν: where all the
abovenamed persons appear (except Achilles), and no others. Now the
γέροντες or elders are summoned before in ver. 53 of the same book, and
are called in ver. 86 the σκηπτοῦχοι βασιλῆες. Another proof of the rank of
Oilean Ajax is the familiar manner in which his name is associated on terms
of equality, throughout the poem, with that of Ajax Telamonius.
But the part of the poem, which supplies the most pointed testimony as a
whole with respect to the composition of the class of kings, is the Tenth
Book.
Here we begin with the meeting of Agamemnon and Menelaus (ver. 34).
Next, Menelaus goes to call the greater Ajax and Idomeneus (53), and
Agamemnon to call Nestor (54, 74). Nestor awakens Ulysses (137); and
then Diomed (157), whom he sends to call Oilean Ajax, together with
Meges (175). They then conjointly visit the φύλακες or watch, commanded
by Thrasymedes, Meriones, and others (ix. 80. x. 57-9). Nestor gives the
watch an exhortation to be on the alert, and then reenters within the trench,
followed by the Argeian kings (194, 5);

τοὶ δ’ ἅμ’ ἕποντο
Ἀργείων βασιλῆες, ὅσοι κεκλήατο βουλήν.

The force of the term βασιλῆες, as marking off a certain class, is enhanced
by the lines which follow, and which tell us that with them, the kings τοῖς δ’
ἅμα, went Meriones and Thrasymedes by special invitation (196, 7);

αὐτοὶ γὰρ κάλεον συμμητιάασθαι.

Now in this narrative it is not stated that each of the persons, who had been
called, joined the company which visited the watch: but all who did join it
are evidently βασιλῆες. But we are certain that Oilean Ajax was among
them, because he is mentioned in ver. 228 as one of those in the Council,
who were anxious to accompany Diomed on his enterprise.
Ajax Oileus therefore makes the ninth King on the Greek side in the Iliad.

These nine King-Chiefs, of course with the exception of Achilles, appear in
every Council, and appear either absolutely or almost alone.
The line between them, and all the other chiefs, is on the whole preserved
with great precision. There are, however, a very few persons, with regard to
whom the question may possibly be raised whether they passed it.
1. Meges, son of Phyleus, and commander of the
Certain doubtful cases.
Dulichian Epeans, was not in the first rank of
warriors; for he was not one of the ten who,
including Menelaus, were ready to accept Hector’s challenge[67]. Neither
was he a member of the ordinary Council; but on one occasion, that of the
Night-council, he is summoned. Those who attended on this occasion are
also, as we have seen, called kings[68]. And we have seen that the term has
no appearance of having been loosely used: since, after saying that the
kings followed Nestor to the council, it adds, that with them went Meriones
and Antilochus[69].
But when Diomed proceeds to ask for a companion on his expedition, six
persons are mentioned (227-32) as having been desirous to attend him.
They are the two Ajaxes, Meriones, Thrasymedes, Menelaus, and Ulysses.
Idomeneus and Nestor are of course excepted on account of age. It seems
plain, however, that Homer’s intention was to include the whole company,
with those exceptions only. He could not mean that one and one only of the
able-bodied warriors present hung back. Yet Meges is not mentioned; the
only one of the persons summoned, who is not accounted for. I therefore
infer that Homer did not mean to represent him as having attended; and
consequently he is in all likelihood not included among the βασιλῆες by v.
195.
2. Phœnix, the tutor and friend of Achilles, is caressingly called by him
Διοτρεφὴς[70] in the Ninth Book; but the petting and familiar character of
the speech, and of the whole relation between them, would make it
hazardous to build any thing upon this evidence.
In the Ninth Book it may appear probable that he was among the elders who
took counsel with Agamemnon about the mission to Achilles, but it is not
positively stated; and, even if it were, his relation to that great chieftain
would account for his having appeared there on this occasion only (Il. ix.

168). It is remarkable that, at this single juncture, Homer tells us that
Agamemnon collected not simply the γέροντες, but the γέροντες ἀολλέες,
as if there were persons present, who did not belong to the ordinary Council
(Il. ix. 89).
Again, in the Nineteenth Book, we are told (v. 303) that the γέροντες
Ἀχαιῶν assembled in the encampment of Achilles, that they might urge him
to eat. He refused; and he sent away the ‘other kings;’ but there remained
behind the two Atreidæ, Ulysses, Nestor, and Idomeneus, ‘and the old
chariot-driving Phœnix.’ The others are mentioned without epithet,
probably because they had just been described as kings; and Phœnix is in all
likelihood described by these epithets, for the reason that the term βασιλῆες
would not include him (xix. 303-12).
On the whole then, and taking into our view that Phœnix was as a lord, or
ἄναξ, subordinate to Peleus, and that he was a sub-commander in the
contingent of Achilles, we may be pretty sure that he was not a βασιλεύς; if
that word had, as has I think been sufficiently shown, a determinate
meaning.
3. Though Patroclus was in the first rank of warriors he is nowhere called
βασιλεὺς or Διοτρεφής; but only Διογενὴς, which is a word apparently used
with rather more latitude. The subordinate position of Menœtius, the father
of Patroclus, makes it improbable that he should stand as a king in the Iliad.
He appears to have been lieutenant to Achilles over the whole body of
Myrmidons.
4. Eurypylus son of Euæmon[71], commander of a contingent of forty ships,
and one of the ten acceptors of the challenge, is in one place addressed as
Διοτρεφής. It is doubtful whether he was meant to be exhibited as a
βασιλεὺς, or whether this is a lax use of the epithet; if it is so, it forms the
only exception (apart from ix. 607) to the rule established by above thirty
passages of the Iliad.
Upon the whole, then the evidence of the Iliad clearly tends to show that the
title βασιλεὺς was a definite one in the Greek army, and that it was confined
to nine persons; perhaps with some slight indistinctness on the question,
whether there was or was not a claim to that rank on the part of one or two
persons more.

Upon viewing the composition of the class of
Conditions of Kingship in the
kings, whether we include in it or not such cases
Iliad.
as those of Meges or Eurypylus, it seems to rest
upon the combined basis of
1. Real political sovereignty, as distinguished from subaltern
chiefship;
2. Marked personal vigour; and
3. Either, a. Considerable territorial possessions, as in the case
of Idomeneus and Oilean Ajax;
b. Extraordinary abilities though with small
dominions, as in the case of Ulysses; or, at the least,
c. Preeminent personal strength and valour, accepted
in like manner as a compensation for defective
political weight, as in the case of Telamonian Ajax.
Although the condition of commanding considerable forces is, as we see, by
no means absolute, yet, on the other hand, every commander of as large a
force as fifty ships is a βασιλεὺς, except Menestheus only, an exception
which probably has a meaning. Agapenor indeed has sixty ships; but then
he is immediately dependent on Agamemnon. The Bœotians too have fifty;
but they are divided among five leaders.
Among the bodily qualities of Homeric princes, we may first note beauty.
This attribute is not, I think, pointedly ascribed in the poems to any person,
except those of princely rank. It is needless to collect all the instances in
which it is thus assigned. Of some of them, where the description is
marked, and the persons insignificant, like Euphorbus and Nireus[72], we
may be the more persuaded, that Homer was following an extant tradition.
Of the Trojan royal family it is the eminent and peculiar characteristic; and
it remains to an observable degree even in the case of the aged Priam[73].
Homer is careful[74] to assert it of his prime heroes; Achilles surpasses even
Nireus; Ulysses possesses it abundantly, though in a less marked degree; it
is expressly asserted of Agamemnon; and of Ajax, who, in the Odyssey, is
almost brought into competition with Nireus for the second honours; the
terms of description are, however, distinguishable one from the other.

Again, with respect to personal vigour as a condition of sovereignty, it is
observed by Grote[75] that ‘an old chief, such as Peleus and Laertes, cannot
retain his position.’ There appears to have been some diversity of practice.
Nestor, in very advanced age, and when unable to fight, still occupies his
throne. The passage quoted by Grote to uphold his assertion with respect to
Peleus falls short of the mark: for it is simply an inquiry by the spirit of
Achilles, whether his father is still on the throne, or has been set aside on
account of age, and the question itself shows that, during the whole time of
the life of Achilles, Peleus, though old, had not been known to have
resigned the administration of the government. Indeed his retention of it
appears to be presumed in the beautiful speech of Priam to Achilles (Il.
xxiv. 486-92).
At the same time, there is sufficient evidence
Custom of resignation in old
age.
supplied by Homer to show, that it was the more
usual custom for the sovereign, as he grew old,
either to associate his son with him in his cares, or to retire. The practice of
Troy, where we see Hector mainly exercising the active duties of the
government—for he feeds the troops[76], as well as commands them—
appears to have corresponded with that of Greece. Achilles, in the Ninth
Iliad, plainly implies that he himself was not, as a general, the mere
delegate of his father; since he invites Phœnix to come and share his
kingdom with him.
But the duties of counsel continued after those of action had been devolved:
for Priam presides in the Trojan ἀγορὴ, and appears upon the walls,
surrounded by the δημογέροντες, who were, apparently, still its principal
speakers and its guides. And Achilles[77], when in command before Troy,
still looked to Peleus to provide him with a wife.
I find a clear proof of the general custom of retirement, probably a gradual
one, in the application to sovereigns of the term αἴζηοι. This word is
commonly construed in Homer as meaning youths: but the real meaning of
it is that which in humble life we convey by the term able-bodied; that is to
say, those who are neither in boyhood nor old age, but in the entire vigour
of manhood. The mistake as to the sense of the term has created difficulties
about its origin, and has led Döderlein to derive it from αἴθω, with
reference, I suppose, to the heat of youth, instead of the more obvious

derivation form α and ζάω, expressing the height of vital power. A single
passage will, I think, suffice to show that the word αἴζηος has this meaning:
which is also represented in two places by the paraphrastic expression
αἰζήιος ἀνήρ[78]. In the Sixteenth Iliad, Apollo appears to Hector under the
form of Asius (716):

ἀνέρι εἰσάμενος αἰζηῷ τε κρατερῷ τε.

Now the Asius in question was full brother to Hecuba, the mother of Hector
and eighteen other children; and he cannot, therefore, be supposed to have
been a youth. The meaning of the Poet appears clearly to be to prevent the
supposition, which would otherwise have been a natural one in regard to
Hector’s uncle, that this Asius, in whose likeness Apollo the unshorn
appeared, was past the age of vigour and manly beauty, which is designated
by the word αἴζηος.
There is not a single passage, where this word is
Force of the term αἴζηος.
used with any indication of meaning youths as
contra-distinguished from mature men. But there
is a particular passage which precisely illustrates the meaning that has now
been given to αἴζηος. In the Catalogue we are told that Hercules carried off
Astyoche[79]:

πέρσας ἄστεα πολλὰ Διοτρεφέων αἰζηῶν.

Pope renders this in words which, whatever be their intrinsic merit, are, as a
translation, at once diffuse and defective:

‘Where mighty towns in ruins spread the plain,
And saw their blooming warriors early slain.’

Cowper wholly omits the last half of the line, and says,

‘After full many a city laid in dust’....

Chapman, right as to the epithet, gives the erroneous meaning to the
substantive:

‘Where many towns of princely youths he levelled with the ground.’

Voss, accurate as usual, appears to carry the full meaning:

‘Viele Städt’ austilgend der gottbeseligten Männer.’

This line, in truth, affords an admirable touchstone for the meaning of two
important Homeric words. The vulgar meaning takes Διοτρεφέων αἰζήων as
simply illustrious youths. What could Homer mean by cities of illustrious
youths? Is it their sovereigns or their fighting population? Were their
sovereigns all youths? Were their fighting population all illustrious? In no
other place throughout the Iliad, except one, where the rival reading
ἀρηιθόων is evidently to be adopted, does the Poet apply Διοτρεφὴς to a
mass of men[80]. If, then, the sovereigns be meant, it is plain that they could
not all be youths, and therefore αἴζηος does not mean a youth. But now let
us take Διοτρεφὴς in its strict sense as a royal title only; then let us
remember that thrones were only assumed on coming to manhood, as is
plain from the case of Telemachus, who, though his father, as it was feared,
was dead, was not in possession of the sovereign power. ‘May Jupiter,’ says
Antinous to him, ‘never make you the βασιλεὺς in Ithaca: which is your
right,’ or ‘which would fall to you by birth[81]:’

ὅ τοι γενεῇ πατρώϊόν ἐστιν.

When Telemachus answers, by proposing that one of the nobles should
assume the sovereignty. Lastly, upon declining into old age, it was, for the
most part, either as to the more active cares, or else entirely, relinquished.
Then the sense of Il. ii. 660 will come out with Homer’s usual accuracy and
completeness. It will be that Hercules sacked many cities of prince-
warriors, or vigorous and warlike princes.
Thus, then, it was requisite that the Homeric βασιλεὺς should be a king, a
könig, a man of whom we could say that actually, and not conventionally
alone, he can, both in mind and person. Such was the theory and such the
practice of the Homeric age. There is not a single Greek sovereign, with the
honourable exception of Nestor, who does not lead his subjects into battle;
not one who does not excel them all in strength of hand, scarcely any who
does not also give proofs of superior intellect, where scope is allowed for it

by the action of the poem. Over and above the work of battle, the prince is
likewise peerless in the Games. Of the eight contests of the Twenty-third
Book, seven are conducted only by the princes of the armament. The single
exception is remarkable: it is the boxing match, which Homer calls
πυγμαχίη ἀλεγεινὴ[82], an epithet that he applies to no other of the matches
except the wrestling.
But his low estimation of the boxing comes out in another form, the value
of the prizes. The first prize is an unbroken mule: the second, a double-
bowled cup, to which no epithet signifying value is attached. But for the
wrestlers (a contest less dangerous, and not therefore requiring, on this
score, greater inducement to be provided,) the first prize was a tripod, worth
twelve oxen; and the second, a woman slave, worth four. What, then, was
the relative value of an ox and a mule not yet broken? Mules, like oxen,
were employed simply for traction. They were better, because more speedy
in drawing the plough[83]; but, then, oxen were also available for food, and
we have no indication that the former were of greater value. Without
therefore resting too strictly on the number twelve, we may say that the
prize of wrestling was several times more valuable than that of boxing.
Again, the second prize of the foot-race was a large and fat ox, equal,
probably, to the first prize of the boxing-match[84]. Epeus, who wins the
boxing-match against the prince Euryalus, third leader of the Argives, was
evidently a person of traditional fame, from the victory he obtains over an
adversary of high rank. But Homer has taken care to balance this by
introducing a confession from the mouth of Epeus himself, that he was
good for nothing in battle[85];

ἦ οὐχ ἅλις, ὅττι μάχης ἐπιδεύομαι;

an expression which, I think, the Poet has used, in all likelihood, for the
very purpose of shielding the superiority of his princes, by showing that this
gift of Epeus was a single, and as it were brutal, accomplishment.
As with the games, so with the more refined
Accomplishments of the
Kings.
accomplishments. There are but four cases in
which we hear of the use of music and song from
Homer, except the instances of the professional bards. One of these is the
boy, who upon the Shield of Achilles plays and sings, in conducting the

youths and maidens as they pass from the vineyard with the grapes. It is the
bard, who plays to the dancers; but his dignity, and the composure always
assigned to him, probably would not allow of his appearing in motion with
such a body, and on this account the παὶς may be substituted; of whose rank
we know nothing. In the other cases, the three persons mentioned are all
princes: Paris is the first, who had the lighter and external parts of the
character of a gentleman, and who was of the highest rank, yet to whom it
may be observed only the instrument is assigned, and not the song. The
second is the sublime Achilles, whose powerful nature, ranging like that of
his Poet through every chord of the human mind and heart, prompts him to
beguile an uneasy solitude by the Muse; and who is found in the Ninth
Iliad[86] by the Envoys, soothing his moody spirit with the lyre, and singing,
to strains of his own, the achievements of bygone heroes. Again, thirdly,
this lyre itself, like the iron globe of the Twenty-third Book, had been
among the spoils of King Eetion.
But the royal and heroic character must with Homer, at least when exhibited
at its climax, be all comprehensive. As it soars to every thing above, so,
without stooping, must it be master of every thing beneath it. Accordingly,
the Poet has given it the last touch in the accomplishments of Ulysses. As
he proves himself a wood-cutter and ship-builder in the island of Calypso,
so he is no stranger to the plough and the scythe; and he fairly challenges[87]
Eurymachus the Suitor to try which of them would soonest clear the
meadow of its grass, which drive the straightest furrow down a four-acre
field.
So much for the corporeal accomplishments of the Greek kings and princes;
of their intellectual powers we shall have to treat in considering the
character of the governments of the heroic age.
But these accomplishments, mental and bodily,
The Kings as Gentlemen.
are not vulgarly heaped upon his characters by
Homer, as if they were detailed in a boarding-
school catalogue. The Homeric king should have that which incorporates
and harmonizes them all: he should be emphatically a gentleman, and that
in a sense not far from the one familiar to the Christian civilization of
Europe. Nestor, Diomed, Menelaus, are in a marked manner gentlemen.
Agamemnon is less so; but here Homer shows his usual discrimination, for
in Agamemnon there is a sordid vein, which most of all mars this peculiar

tone of character. It is, however, in the two superlative heroes of the poems,
that we see the strongest development of those habits of feeling and action,
which belong to the gentleman. It will be admitted that one of these traits is
the love of that which is straightforward, truthful, and above-board.
According to the vulgar conception of the character of Ulysses, he has no
credit for this quality. But whatever the Ulysses of Virgil or of Euripides
may be, the Ulysses of Homer, though full of circumspection, reserve, and
even stratagem in dealing with enemies and strangers, has nothing about
him of what is selfish, tricky, or faithless. And, accordingly, it is into his
mouth that Homer has put the few and simple words, which rebuke the
character of the informer and the tale-bearer, with a severity greater perhaps
even than, under the circumstances, was necessary. When he is recognised
by Euryclea, he strictly enjoins upon her the silence, on which all their lives
at the moment depended. Hurt by the supposition that she could (in our
homely phrase) be likely to blab, she replies that she will hold herself in,
hard as stone or as iron. She adds, that she will point out to him which of
the women in the palace are faithful, and which are guilty. No, he replies; I
will observe them for myself; that is not your business[88]:

μαῖα, τίη δὲ σὺ τὰς μυθήσεαι; οὐδέ τί σε χρή·
εὖ νυ καὶ αὐτὸς ἐγὼ φράσομαι καὶ εἴσομ’ ἑκάστην·
ἀλλ’ ἔχε σιγῇ μῦθον, ἐπίτρεψον δὲ θεοῖσιν.

Achilles as a Gentleman. As Homer has thus sharply exhibited Ulysses in
the character of a gentleman with respect to
[89]
truth , so he has made the same exhibition for Achilles with respect to
courtesy: protesting, as it were, in this manner by anticipation against the
degenerate conceptions of those characters, which were to reproduce and
render current through the world Achilles as a brute, and Ulysses as a
thorough knave. But let us see the residue of the proof.
In the first Iliad, when the wrath is in the first flush of its heat, the heralds
Talthybius and Eurybates are sent to his encampment, with the appalling
commission to bring away Briseis. On entering, they remain awe-struck and
silent. Though, in much later times, we know that

The messenger of evil tidings
Hath but a losing office,

he at once relieves them from their embarrassment, and bids them
personally welcome;

χαίρετε, κήρυκες, Διὸς ἄγγελοι, ἠδὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν·
ἆσσον ἴτ’[90]·

And he desires Patroclus to bring forth the object of their quest. More
extraordinary self-command and considerateness than this, never has been
ascribed by any author to any character.
Again, when in the Ninth Book he is surprised in his seclusion by the
envoys Phœnix, Ulysses, and Ajax, though he is prepared to reject every
offer, he hails them all personally, without waiting to be addressed and with
the utmost kindness[91], as of all the Greeks the dearest to him even in his
wrath; he of course proceeds to order an entertainment for them. But the
most refined of all his attentions is that shown to Agamemnon in the
Twenty-third Book. Inferior to Ajax, Diomed, and Ulysses, Agamemnon
could not enter into the principal games, to be beaten by any abler
competitor, without disparagement to his office: while there would also
have been a serious disparagement of another kind in his contending with a
secondary person. Accordingly, Achilles at the close makes a nominal
match for the use of the sling—of which we never hear elsewhere in the
poems—and, interposing after the candidates are announced, but before the
actual contest, he presents the chief prize to Agamemnon, with this
compliment; that there need be no trial, as every one is aware already how
much he excels all others in the exercise.
Yet these great chiefs, so strong and brave and wise, so proud and stern, so
equipped in arts, manners, and accomplishments, can upon occasion weep
like a woman or a child. Ulysses, in the island of Calypso daily pours forth
his ‘waterfloods’ as he strains his vision over the sea; and he covers up his
head in the halls of Alcinous, while Demodocus is singing, that his tears
may flow unobserved. And so Achilles, fresh from his fierce vengeance on
the corpse of Hector, yet, when the Trojan king[92] has called up before his
mind the image of his father Peleus, at the thought now of his aged parent,

and now of his slaughtered friend, sheds tears as tender as those of Priam
for his son, and lets his griefs overflow in a deep compassion for the aged
suppliant before him. Nor is it only in sorrow that we may remark a high
susceptibility. The Greek chieftains in general are acutely sensible of praise
and of blame. Telemachus[93] is delighted when Ægyptius commends him
as a likely looking youth: and even Ulysses, first among them all in self-
command, is deeply stung by the remark of the saucy Phæacian on his
appearance, and replies upon the offender with excellent sense, but with an
extraordinary pungency[94]. A similar temper is shown in all the answers of
the chieftains to Agamemnon when he goes the round of the army[95].
The hereditary character of the royal office is
Rights of Hereditary
Succession.
stamped upon almost every page of the poems; as
nearly all the chiefs, whose lineage we are able to
trace, have apparently succeeded their fathers in power. The only exception
in the order, of which we are informed, is one where, probably on account
of the infancy of the heir, the brother of the deceased sovereign assumes his
sceptre. In this way Thyestes, uncle to Agamemnon, succeeded his father
Atreus, and then, evidently without any breach of regularity, transmitted it
to Agamemnon.
And such is probably the reason why, Orestes being a mere child[96], a part
of the dignity of Agamemnon is communicated to Menelaus. For in the Iliad
he has a qualified supremacy; receives jointly with Agamemnon the present
of Euneus; is more royal, higher in rank, than the other chieftains: we are
also told of him[97], μέγα πάντων Ἀργείων ἤνασσε; and he came to the
second meeting of γέροντες in the Second Book αὐτόματος, without the
formality of a summons.
In a case like that of Thyestes, if we may judge from what actually
happened, the uncle would perhaps succeed instead of the minor, whose
hereditary right would in such case be postponed until the next turn.
The case of Telemachus in the Odyssey is interesting in many ways, as
unfolding to us the relations of the family life of the period. Among other
points which it illustrates, is that of the succession to sovereignty. It was
admitted by the Suitors, that it descended to him from his father[98]. Yet
there evidently was some special, if not formal act to be done, without
which he could not be king. For Antinous expresses his hope that Jupiter

will never make Telemachus king of Ithaca. Not because the throne was
full, for, on the contrary, the death of Ulysses was admitted or assumed to
have occurred[99]; but apparently because this act, whatever it was, had not
been performed in his case.
Perhaps the expressions of Antinous imply that such a proceeding was
much more than formal, and that the accession of Telemachus to the
supreme dignity might be arrested by the dissent of the nobles. The answer
too of the young prince[100] (τῶν κέν τις τόδ’ ἔχῃσιν) seems to be at least in
harmony with the idea that a practice, either approaching to election, or in
some way involving a voluntary action on the part of the subjects or of a
portion of them, had to be gone through. But the personal dignity of the son
of Ulysses was unquestioned. Even the Suitors pay a certain regard to it in
the midst of their insolence: and when the young prince goes into the place
of assembly[101], he takes his place upon his father’s seat, the elders
spontaneously making way for him to assume it.
It may, however, be said with truth, that
Rights of primogeniture.
Telemachus was an only son, and that accordingly
we cannot judge from his case whether it was the
right of the eldest to succeed. Whether the rights of primogeniture were
acknowledged among the Greeks of the heroic age, is a question of much
interest to our own. For, on the one hand, there is a disposition to canvass
and to dispute those rights. On the other hand, we live in a state of society,
to which they probably have contributed more largely than any other
specific cause, after the Christian religion, to give its specific form. Homer
has supplied us with but few cases of brotherhood among his greater
characters. We see, however, that Agamemnon everywhere bears the
character of the elder, and he appears to have succeeded in that capacity to
the throne of Atreus, while Menelaus, the younger, takes his inheritance in
virtue of his wife. Tyro, in the Eleventh Odyssey, is said to have borne, on
the banks of the Enipeus, the twins Pelias and Neleus. In this passage the
order in which the children are named is most probably that of age[102]. We
find Pelias reigning in Iolcus, a part of the original country of the Æolids:
while Neleus emigrates, and, either by or before marrying Chloris, becomes
king of Pylos in the south of Greece[103]. Of the two brothers Protesilaus
and Podarces, the former, who is also the elder, commands the force from
Phylace. He was, however, braver, as well as older. This statement of the

merits, ages, and positions of the two brothers raises a question applicable
to other cases where two brothers are joined without ostensible
discrimination in command. Of these there are four in the Catalogue. The
first is that of Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, whom their mother Astyoche bore
clandestinely to Mars, ὑπερώϊον εἰσαναβᾶσα. The expression seems to
imply, that it was at a single birth. But even by this supposition we do not
get rid of the idea of seniority in this case; nor can we suppose all the pairs
to have been twins. We naturally therefore ask, whether this conjunction
implied equality in command? We may probably venture to answer, without
much doubt, in the negative. On the one hand, there is nothing unlikely in
the supposition that the first named of two brothers was the eldest, and had
the chief command. While on the other hand it is certain, that there is no
case of two coequal commanders except it be among these four, which are
all cases of brothers; and which, under the interpretation which seems the
most natural one they can receive, would bear fresh testimony to the
prevalence of the custom of primogeniture. Again, among the sons of
Nestor, who are exhibited to us as surrounding him in the Third Odyssey,
we may perhaps find, from the offices assigned to them at the solemn
sacrifice and otherwise, decisive signs of primogeniture. Pisistratus steps
forward to greet Telemachus on his arrival, and leads him to his seat[104],
sleeps near him under the portico, and accompanies him on his journey. But
these functions appertain to him because he was the bachelor (ἠΐθεος) of the
family, as we are appropriately told in reference to his taking a couch near
the guest, while the married persons always slept in some separate and more
private part of the palace[105]. Pisistratus, therefore, was probably the
youngest son. But it is also pretty clear that Thrasymedes was the eldest.
For in the sacrifice he strikes the fatal blow at the ox: while Stratius and
Echephron bring it up, Aretus holds the ewer and basin, Perseus holds the
lamb, Pisistratus cuts up the animal and Nestor performs the religious rites
of prayer and sacrifice[106].
And again, when Pisistratus brings up Telemachus and the disguised
Minerva, he places them, evidently as in the seat of honour, ‘beside his
brother Thrasymedes and his father.’
This is in perfect consonance with our finding Thrasymedes only, together
with Antilochus who fell, selected for service in the Trojan war.

Upon this question, again, an important collateral light is cast by Homer’s
mythological arrangements. They are, in fact, quite conclusive on the
subject of primogeniture among the Hellenes. The Olympian order is
founded upon it. It is as the eldest of the three Kronid brothers, and by no
other title, that Jupiter stands at the head of the Olympian community. With
respect to the lottery, he is but one of three. His being the King of Air
invests him with no right to command the King of Sea. In the Fifteenth
Book, as he is of nearly equal force, Neptune declines to obey his orders
until reminded by Iris of his seniority. The Erinues, says the Messenger
Goddess, attend upon the elder. That is to say, his rights lie at the
foundation of the moral order. Upon this suggestion, the refractory deity at
once succumbs[107]. And, reciprocally, Jupiter in the Thirteenth Odyssey
recognises the claim of Neptune to respect as the oldest and best (of course
after himself) of the gods[108].—
Thus exalted and severed in rank, thus beautiful in person, thus powerful in
hand and mind, thus associated with the divine fountain of all human
honours, the Greek Βασιλεύς of the Iliad has other claims, too, to be
regarded as representing, more nearly perhaps than it has ever been
represented by any other class of monarchs, a benignant and almost ideal
kingship. The light of these great stars of heroic society was no less mild
than it was bright; and they might well have supplied the basis of that idea
of the royal character, which has given it so extraordinary a hold over the
mind of Shakspeare, and led him to adorn it by such noble effusions of his
muse.
The Homeric King appears before us in the
Function of the King as
Priest.
fourfold character of Priest, Judge, General, and
Proprietor.
It has already been remarked, that no priest appears among the Greeks of
the Troic age; and, in conformity with this view, we find Agamemnon in the
Iliad, and Nestor in the Odyssey, charged with the actual performance of the
rite of sacrifice; nor is it apparently committed to any other person than the
head of the society, assisted by his κήρυκες, officers who acted as heralds
and as serjeants, or by his sons.
But while this was the case in regard to what may be called state sacrifices,
which were also commonly banquets, we likewise learn, as to those of a

more private character, that they must have been performed by the head of
the household. To slay an animal for food is in every case to sacrifice him
(ἱερεύειν) whether in the camp, the palace of Nestor, the unruly company of
the Suitors, or the peaceful cottage of Eumelus; and every animal ready for
the knife was called an ἱερήϊον[109].
The judicial office of the king is made known to
As Judge and as General.
us, first, by the character of Minos. While on
earth, he had direct communications from Jupiter,
which probably referred to the administration of justice; and, in the Shades
beneath, we find him actually exercising the office of the judge. Nothing
with which we become acquainted in Homer has the semblance of criminal
justice, except the fines for homicide; and even these have no more than the
semblance only. The punishment was inflicted, like other fines, as an
adjustment or compensation[110] between man and man, and not in
satisfaction of the offence against public morality, peace, or order.
In the Second Iliad, the remonstrance of Ulysses with the commonalty
declares that it is the king, and to the king alone, to whom Jupiter has
committed the sceptre and the administration of justice, that by these he
may fulfil his regal office[111]:

εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω,
εἷς βασιλεὺς, ᾧ ἔδωκε Κρόνου παῖς ἀγκυλομήτεω
σκῆπτρόν τ’ ἠδὲ θέμιστας, ἵνα σφίσιν ἐμβασιλεύῃ.

Now the sceptre is properly the symbol of the judicial authority, as we
know from the oath of Achilles[112]:

νῦν αὖτέ μιν υἷες Ἀχαιῶν
ἐν παλάμῃς φορέουσι δικασπόλοι, οἵτε θέμιστας
πρὸς Διὸς εἰρύαται.

From the combined effect of the two passages it is clear that the duties of
the judicature, the determination of relative rights between the members of
the community, constituted, at least in great part, the primary function of
sovereignty. Still the larger conception of it, which includes the deliberative

office, is that presented to us in the speech of Nestor to Agamemnon, on the
occasion of the Council which followed the Night-assembly[113].

καί τοι Ζεὺς ἐγγυάλιξεν
σκῆπτρόν τ’, ἠδὲ θέμιστας, ἵνα σφίσι βουλεύῃσθα.

The judicial function might, however, even in the days of Homer, be
exercised by delegation. For in the Assembly graven on the Shield, while
the parties contend, and the people sympathize some with one and some
with the other, it is the γέροντες, or elders, who deliver judgment[114]. Of
these persons each holds the sceptre in his hands. The passage, Il. i. 237,
seems to speak of one sceptre held by many persons: this scene on the
Shield exhibits to us several sceptres. In the simile of the crooked
judgments, a plurality of judges[115] are referred to. But as we never hear of
an original and independent authority, like that of Il. ii. 204, in the senators
or nobles, it seems most likely that they acted judicially by an actual or
virtual delegation from the king.
The duty of the king to command his troops is inscribed on every page of
the Iliad; and the only limit to it seems to have been, that upon the approach
of old age it was delegated to the heir, or to more than one of the family,
even before the entire withdrawal of the sire from public cares. The martial
character of the sovereign was indeed ideally distinguishable from his regal
one; for Agamemnon was[116]

ἀμφότερον, βασιλεύς τ’ ἀγαθὸς, κρατερός τ’ αἰχμητής.

Still, martial excellence was expected of him. When Hippolochus
despatched his son Glaucus to Troy, he enjoined him always to be valiant,
and always to excel his comrades in arms[117].
Lastly, the king was a proprietor. Ulysses had very large landed property,
and as many herds and flocks, says Eumæus in a spirit of loyal
exaggeration, as any twenty chiefs alive[118]. And Homer, who always
reserves his best for the Lycians, has made Sarpedon declare, in an
incomparable speech, the virtual condition on which estates like these were
held. He desires Glaucus to recollect, why it is that they are honoured in
Lycia with precedence at banquets, and with greater portions than the rest,

why looked upon as deities, why endowed with great estates of pasture and
corn land by the banks of Xanthus; it is that they may the more boldly face
the burning battle, and be great in the eyes and in the minds of their
companions. So entirely is the idea of dignity and privilege in the Homeric
king founded upon the sure ground of duty, of responsibility, and of toil[119].
What Hippolochus taught, and Sarpedon stated, is in exact correspondence
with the practical part of the narrative of Glaucus in the Sixth Book. When
Bellerophon had fully approved himself in Lycia by his prowess, the king of
the country gave him his daughter in marriage, together with one half of his
kingdom; and the Lycians presented him with a great and fertile demesne.
This estate is called τέμενος; a name never
As proprietor; the τέμενος. applied in Homer but to the properties of deities
and of rulers. He uses the word with reference to
the glebe-lands of
Spercheius, Il. xxiii. 148.
Venus, Od. viii. 362.
Ceres, Il. ii. 696.
Jupiter, Il. viii. 48.
And to the domains of
Bellerophon, Il. vi. 194.
Æneas (promised by the Trojan community if he should slay Achilles), Il.
xx. 184.
Meleager, Il. ix. 574.
Sarpedon and Glaucus, Il. xii. 313.
The βασιλεὺς on the Shield, Il. xviii. 550.
Iphition (πολέων ἡγήτωρ λαῶν), Il. xx. 391.
Alcinous, Od. vi. 293.
Ulysses, Od. xi. 184, and xvii. 299.
On the other hand, the merely rich man (Il. xi. 68) has an ἄρουρα, not a
τέμενος; and the farm of Laertes is called ἀγρὸς, not τέμενος. And why?
Because it was a private possession, acquired by him apparently out of
savings (Od. xxiv. 206);

ὅν ῥά ποτ’ αὐτὸς
Λαέρτης κτεάτισσεν, ἐπεὶ μάλα πόλλ’ ἐμόγησεν.

The word τέμενος is probably from τέμνω, or from the same root with that
verb, and signifies land which, having been cut off from the original
common stock, available for the uses of private persons, has been set apart
for one of the two great public purposes, of government or of religion.
Besides their great estates, the kings appear to
Revenues and burdens on
them.
have had at least two other sources of revenue.
One of these was not without resemblance in form
to what we now call customs’-duties, and may have contained their
historical germ. In the Book of Genesis, where the sons of Jacob go down
to buy corn in Egypt, they carry with them a present for the ruler; and
doubtless the object of this practice was to conciliate the protection to
which, as foreigners, and perhaps as suspected persons, avowedly seeking
their own gain, they would not otherwise have had a claim. ‘Take of the
best fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present; a
little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds[120].’ In
conformity with the practice thus exemplified, when Euneus in the Seventh
Iliad despatches his ships from Lemnos to sell wine to the Greek army, in
return for which they obtain slaves, hides, and other commodities, he sends
a separate supply, χίλια μέτρα, as a present to the two sons of Atreus[121].
Agamemnon indeed is, in the Ninth Book, slily twitted by Nestor with the
largeness of the stores of wine, that he had contrived to accumulate.
So likewise we find that certain traders, sailing to Scheria, made a present
to Alcinous, as the sovereign, of the captive Eurymedusa. When we
compare this with the case of Euneus, the gift obviously appears to have
been a consideration for permission to trade[122].
The other source of revenue traceable in the Iliad was one sure to lead to the
extensive corruptions, which must already have prevailed in the time of
Hesiod. It consisted in fees upon the administration of justice. In the suit
described upon the shield, the matter at issue is a fine for homicide. But
quite apart, as it would seem, from this fine, there lie in the midst, duly
‘paid into court,’ two talents of gold, to be given at the close to him, of all

the judges, who should deliver the most upright, that is the most approved,
judgment[123]:

τῷ δόμεν ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴποι.

However righteous the original intention of a payment in this form, it is
easy to estimate its practical tendencies, and curious to remark how early in
the course of time they were realized.
On the other hand, the great possessions of the king were not given him for
his own use alone. Over and above the general obligation of hospitality to
strangers, it was his duty to entertain liberally the principal persons among
his subjects. Doubtless this provided the excuse, which enabled the Suitors
to feast upon the stores of Ulysses, without the shame, in the very outset, of
absolute rapine. And it would appear from the Odyssey that Alitherses[124]
and other friends of the royal house, frequented the table there as well as its
enemies, though not perhaps so constantly.
In the Seventh Iliad, after his fight with Hector, Ajax[125] repairs, not
invited, but as if it were a matter of course, to share the hospitality of
Agamemnon. In the Ninth Book, Nestor urges Agamemnon to give a feast
to the elders, as a duty of his office:

ἔοικέ τοι, οὔτοι ἀεικές[126],

adding,

πολέεσσι δ’ ἀνάσσεις[127],

and then to take their counsel. But perhaps the ordinary exercise of this duty
is best exhibited in the case of Alcinous, who is discovered by Ulysses on
his arrival entertaining his brother kings in his palace[128].
I have not here taken specific notice of the δώτιναι, or tributes, which, as
Agamemnon promised, Achilles was to receive, from the seven cities, that it
was proposed to place under his dominion. The expression is[129],

οἵ κέ ἑ δωτίνῃσι θεὸν ὣς τιμήσουσιν,
καί οἱ ὑπὸ σκήπτρῳ λιπαρὰς τελέουσι θέμιστας.

The connection of the ideas in the two lines respectively would appear to
show, that the δώτιναι may be no more than the fees payable to the
sovereign on the administration of justice.
Thus then the king might draw his ordinary revenues mainly from the
following sources:
First and principally, the public τέμενος, or demesne land.
Next, his own private acquisitions, such as the ἀγρὸς of Laertes.
Thirdly, the fees on the administration of justice.
Fourthly, the presents paid for licenses to trade.
The position of Agamemnon, the greatest king of
The position of Agamemnon.
the heroic age, constitutes in itself too
considerable a feature of Greek polity at that
period to be dismissed without especial notice.
He appears to have united in himself almost every advantage which could
tend to raise regal power to its acmè. He was of a house moving onward in
its as yet unbroken career of accumulating greatness: he was the head of
that house, supported in Lacedæmon by his affectionate brother Menelaus;
and the double title of the two was fortified with twin supports, by their
marriages with Clytemnestra and Helen respectively. This family was at the
head of the energetic race which ruled, and deserved to rule, in the Greek
peninsula; and which apparently produced such large and full developments
of personal character, as the world has never seen, either before or since, at
so infantine a stage of civilization. There were various kings in the army
before Troy, but among them all the race of Pelopids was the most
kingly[130]. Agamemnon possessed the courage, strength, and skill of a
warrior, in a degree surpassed only by the very greatest heroes of his nation;
and (according to Homer) evidently exceeding that of Hector, the chief
Trojan warrior opposed to him. He must have been still in the flower of his
age; and though neither gifted with extraordinary talents, nor with the most
popular or attractive turn of character, yet he possessed in a high degree the
political spirit, the sense of public responsibility, the faculty of identifying

himself with the general mind and will. Avarice and irresolution appear to
have been the two most faulty points in his composition.
His dominions were the largest which, up to that time, had been known in
that portion of the world: including Greece, from Mount Olympus to the
Malean Cape, reaching across to the islands on the coast of Asia Minor, and
even capable of being held to include the island of Cyprus. Before Troy, his
troops were πολὺ πλεῖστοι καὶ ἄριστοι (Il. ii. 577), which must imply, as his
ships were not greatly more numerous than those of some other contingents,
that they were of large size; and he also supplied the Arcadians, who had
none of their own, (v. 612.) Lastly, he bore upon him the mellow brightness
of the patriarchal age, signified by the title ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν.
Thucydides was not an antiquarian, or he would have left on his history
more marks of his researches in that department. But he seems to have
formed with care the opinions which he expresses on archaic Greece, in the
admirable introduction to his great work. Among them he says that, as he
conceives, the fear of Agamemnon operated more powerfully than the oath
given to Tyndareus[131], or than good will, in the formation of the
confederacy which undertook the war of Troy.
It seems clear from Homer, that the name and fame of Agamemnon were
known far beyond the limits of Greece, and that the reputation of being
connected with him was thought to be of value. For Menelaus, on his return
from Pharos to Egypt, erected there a funeral mound in his honour[132], ἵν’
ἄσβεστον κλέος εἴη; which he would not have done in a country, to whose
inhabitants that monarch was unknown. And again, when Ulysses is
challenged by the Cyclops to declare, to what and to whom he and his crew
belong, he makes the reply, that they are the subjects of Agamemnon, the
son of Atreus[133]:

λαοὶ δ’ Ἀτρείδεω Ἀγαμέμνονος εὐχόμεθ’ εἶναι,
τοῦ δὴ νῦν γε μέγιστον ὑπουράνιον κλέος ἐστίν.

Ulysses evidently conceives the fame of the great monarch, thus enhanced
by success, to have been likely to supply any one who belonged to him with
a defence against the formidable monster, before whom he stood.

The statements of Homer respecting the position
Governing motives of the of Agamemnon and the motives of the war, fall
War.
short of, but are not wholly at variance with, the
opinion which has been expressed by Thucydides. Of the oath to Tyndareus
Homer knows nothing: but he tells us of the oath, by which the Greek
chieftains had bound themselves to prosecute the expedition. Before setting
out, they had a solemn ceremonial at Aulis; they offered sacrifices, they
made libations, they swore, they pledged hands[134], they saw a portent, and
had it interpreted by Calchas[135]. But all this only shows that the Atreidæ
were conscious how formidable an enterprise they were about, and how
they desired accordingly that their companion kings should, after having
once embarked, be as deeply pledged as possible to go forward. It does not
tell us what was the original inducement to enter into the undertaking.
Again, it does not appear that the Greeks in general cared much about the
abduction or even the restoration of Helen. The only passage directly
touching the point is the one in which Agamemnon[136] expresses his
opinion that, if Menelaus should die of his wound, the army would probably
return home. It seems as if Agamemnon thought, that without doubt they
would then be in honour released from their engagement, and that they
would at once avail themselves of their freedom. The hope of booty,
however, would do much; and the members of a conquering race unite
together with great facility for purposes of war, through a mixture of old
fellow-feeling and the love of adventure, as well as through anticipation of
spoil. On the other hand, it was evidently no small matter to organize the
expedition: much time was consumed; a friendly embassy to Troy had been
tried without success; the ablest princes, Nestor and Ulysses, were
employed in obtaining cooperation. The general conclusion, I think, is, that
a combination of hope, sympathy, respect, and fear, but certainly a very
strong personal feeling, whatever its precise ingredients may have been,
towards the Pelopid house, must have operated largely in the matter. And it
is in this spirit that we should construe the various declarations of Homer
respecting those who came to the war, as courting the Atreidæ, and as acting
for their honour; namely these,

χάριν Ἀτρείδῃσι φέροντες. Od. v. 307.
Ἀγαμέμνονι ἦρα φέροντες. Il. xiv. 132.
τιμὴν ἀρνύμενοι Μενελάῳ σοί τε, κυνῶπα. Il. i. 159.

Before Troy, Agamemnon is always regarded by others as responsible for
the expedition, and it is plain that he so regards himself. The use of his
sceptre by Ulysses in the great effort to stem the torrent of the retiring
multitude, is highly significant of the influence belonging to his station; and
when Ulysses argues with the leaders, he rests his case on the importance of
knowing the whole mind of Agamemnon, while he strongly dwells on his
royal authority, and on the higher authority of heaven as its foundation.
His position, however, did not place him above the influence of jealousy
and fear: for he was gratified when he saw Achilles and Ulysses, the first of
his chieftains, at variance[137]. And his weight and authority depended for
their efficacy on reason, and on the free will of the Greeks. Agamemnon
takes Briseis from Achilles by an act of force; but he nowhere seeks to
move the army, or the individuals composing it, upon that principle; nor
does the prolongation of the service appear to have been placed beyond the
judgment of the particular chiefs and of the troops. Achilles not only
declares that he will go, but says he will advise others to go with him[138],
and asks Phœnix to remain in his tent for the purpose. The deference paid to
the Head is a deference according to measure; and the measure is that of his
greater responsibility, his heavier stake in the war[139]. His functions in
regard to the host are, to think for and advise it in council, and to stimulate
it by exhortation and example in the field. If we may rely on Homer, it was
essentially, so far as regarded the relation between the general in chief and
the rest of the body, a free military organization.
The Agamemnon of Homer does not appear to be
Personal Character of
Agamemnon.
intended by the Poet for a man of genius. But on
this very account, the dominance of political ideas
in his mind is more remarkable. On political grounds he is ready to give up
Chryseis[140]. On political grounds he quells his own avarice, and slays
Trojans instead of taking ransom for them[141]. He deeply feels the
responsibilities of his station, and care banishes his sleep. The amiable trait
in his character is his affection for Menelaus, and in this, as in many other

respects, he recalls the Jupiter of Homer, whose selfishness is nowhere
relieved, except by paternal affection.
Further, Agamemnon, though without genius, is a practitioner in finesse. In
his love of this art, I fear, he resembles the tribe of later politicians. He
resembles them, too, in outwitting himself by means of it: he is ‘hoist upon
his own petard.’ This seems to be, in part at least, the explanation of his
unhappy device in the Second Iliad, to prepare the people for an attack on
Troy, by counselling them to go home forthwith. The breakdown of his
scheme is, as it were, the first-fruits of retribution for his ἄτη in the First
Book.——
As, upon the whole, there is no idea of selfishness involved in the
prerogatives of the Homeric king, so is it clear that, except as against mere
criminals, there is no general idea of coercion. The Homeric king reigns
with the free assent of his subjects—an assent indeterminate, but real, and
in both points alike resembling his kingly power. The relation between ruler
and ruled is founded in the laws and condition of our nature. Born in a state
of dependence, man, when he attains to freedom and capacity for action,
finds himself the debtor both of his parents and of society at large; and is
justly liable to discharge his debt by rendering service in return. Of this we
have various indications in Homer, with respect to parents in particular.
Those who die young, like Simoeisius by the hand of Ajax[142], die before
they have repaid to their parents the cost, that is the care, of their education
(θρεπτρά). In a most remarkable and characteristic passage. Phœnix
describes how, when he was young, some deity restrained his wrath against
his father, and shows the infamy that would attend the taking away of that
life, in a country where voluntary homicide, in general, was regarded more
as a misfortune than a crime[143]:

ὅς ῥ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷ
δήμου θῆκε φάτιν, καὶ ὀνείδεα πόλλ’ ἀνθρώπων,
ὡς μὴ πατροφόνος μετ’ Ἀχαιοῖσιν καλεοίμην.

The reciprocal obligations of father and son are beautifully shown by
Andromache in her lament over Hector, when she speaks of her child[144]:

οὔτε σὺ τούτῳ
ἔσσεαι, Ἕκτορ, ὄνειαρ, ἐπεὶ θάνες, οὔτε σοὶ οὗτος.

As to the relation between the subject and the
The relation of sovereign and
subject free. sovereign authority, it seems everywhere to be
taken for granted. In the Twenty-fourth Odyssey,
the object of those who march against Ulysses is not to put down authority,
but to avenge the deaths of their sons and brothers. But there appears
nowhere in Homer the idea that in this relation could be involved a
difference of interest, or even of opinion, between class and class, between
governors and governed. The king or chief was uplifted to set a high
example, to lead the common counsels to common ends, to conduct the
public and common intercourse with heaven, to decide the strifes of
individuals, to defend the borders of the territory from invasion. That the
community at home, or any regularly subsisting class of it, could require
repression or restraint from the government, was an idea happily unknown
to the Homeric times.
Those classes, indeed, were few and simple. There was, first of all, the king;
and round him his family and his κήρυκες, the serjeants or heralds, who
were his immediate, and apparently his only immediate, agents. They
conveyed his orders; they assisted him in the Assembly, in sacrifice, and in
banquets. They appear to be the only executive officers that are found in
Homer. With these was the Bard, apparently also an indispensable member
of royal households. Both were recognised among the established
professions.
Next to the kings and other sovereigns, we must place the chief proprietors
of the country. In the Odyssey, we find the members of the aristocracy
having their own estates and functions, and sustaining the part of γέροντες,
or leaders in the Assembly. The judicial office, as we have seen from the
Shield and otherwise, was in their hands, probably by delegation. But it
would appear, that the distinction between them and the sovereign family
was rather a broad one; since, in almost every case, we seem to find the
prince contracting a marriage beyond his own borders. Laertes brings
Anticlea[145] from the neighbourhood of Parnassus; Theseus marries
Ariadne from Crete; Agamemnon and Menelaus, belonging to Mycenæ, are
united to the daughters of the king of Sparta; of the two daughters of

Icarius, Ulysses in Ithaca married Penelope, and Eumelus in Pheræ married
Iphthime (Od. iv. 797); one of the two, at least, and perhaps both, must have
married from a considerable distance; Menelaus sends his beautiful
daughter Hermione to be the wife of Neoptolemus in Thessaly: and the only
instance, even apparently in the opposite sense, seems to be that of his son
Megapenthes, who married a Spartan damsel, the daughter of Alector. But
then Megapenthes was not legitimate; he was born of a slave-mother, and
therefore he was not a prince[146]. All these facts seem to show us that the
royal houses formed a network among themselves, spread over Greece, and
keeping pretty distinct from the aristocracy: a circumstance which may, in
some degree, help to explain the wonderful patience and constancy of
Penelope.
Next to the nobles, and in the third place, we may
Other classes of the
community.
class what we should now call trades and
professions: observing, however, that, in Homer’s
time, both the useful arts and the fine arts had a social dignity, as compared
with that of wealth and station, which the former have long ago lost, and
which the later have not retained in as full manner as perhaps might be
desired, not for their own advantage merely, but to secure due honour for
labour, and the humanizing effect of this kind of labour in particular for
society at large. I draw the proof of their estimation in the heroic age, first,
from the manner in which they are combined under the common
designation of δημιοεργοὶ, and arranged in a mixed order, the preference
being only given by a more emphatic description to the bard[147]:

τῶν, οἳ δημιοεργοὶ ἔασιν,
μάντιν, ἢ ἰητῆρα κακῶν, ἢ τέκτονα δούρων,
ἢ καὶ θέσπιν ἀοιδὸν, ὅ κεν τέρπῃσιν ἀείδων;

Here I take τέκτονα δούρων to represent the entire class of artificers, of
whom many are named in Homer; in a poor country like Ithaca, depending
very much on the use of boats for fishing and for its communications, the
carpenters might naturally represent the whole.
And next, from the manner in which these arts were practised by princes, it
seems plain that there was nothing in the pursuit of them inconsistent with
high rank. The physicians, or surgeons rather, of the Greek army,

Podaleirius and Machaon, were themselves princes and commanders of a
contingent: and even Paris, who was not the man to demean himself by
employments beneath his station, seems to have taken the chief share in the
erection of his own palace[148]:

τά ῥ’ αὐτὸς ἔτευξε σὺν ἀνδράσιν, οἳ τότ’ ἄριστοι
ἦσαν ἐνὶ Τροίῃ ἐριβώλακι τέκτονες ἄνδρες.

Again, the bard of Agamemnon was appointed quasi-guardian[149] to
Clytemnestra in her husband’s absence: and Phemius, the bard of
Ulysses[150], proceeded to the Assembly of the Twenty-fourth Odyssey in
order to prevent any tumult, together with Medon the herald, who addressed
the people accordingly. The heralds, or serjeants, are also recognised as
δημιοεργοί[151]. Again, Alitherses, being the μάντις or seer of the island,
and apparently the only one, takes part in the debates both of the Second
and of the Twenty-fourth Books.
The professions, then, thus far are five:
1. Seers.
2. Surgeons.
3. Artificers.
4. Bards.
5. Heralds.
We may remark the absence of priests and merchants. Not that merchants
were unknown: we find them mentioned by Euryalus the Phæacian, as
πρηκτῆρες, but their business was esteemed sordid; it too much resembled
that of the kidnapper or swindler, and it is the reproach of seeming to
belong to this class that smartly stings Ulysses[152]. And even the merchant
Mentes, whose form was assumed by Pallas, belonged to the Taphians, a
tribe of pirates[153]. As yet, neither the order of priests would seem to have
been completely taken over from the Pelasgians, nor the class of merchants
formed in imitation of the Phœnicians.
After the classes we have named, come the great
Slaves in the Homeric age.
mass of the population, who till the ground and
tend the live stock for themselves or their
employers, if free, and for their lords if slaves. The fisherman, too, is

distinctly noticed[154] in Ithaca. Mr. Grote classes with the free husbandmen
the artisans[155], and separates both of them from the θῆτες, or hired
labourers, and the slaves. It appears to me, however, that we ought to
distinguish the artisans from the mere husbandmen, as having been in a
higher station. On the other hand, I see no passage in Homer which clearly
gives to the husbandmen as a class a condition superior to that of the hired
servants, or even, perhaps, the slaves. The evidence of the poems is not
clear as to the existence or extent of a peasant proprietary. We must beware
of confounding those conceptions of a slavery maintained wholesale for the
purposes of commerce, which our experience supplies, with its earliest
form, in which the number of slaves would seem to have been small, and
their ranks to have been recruited principally by war, with slight and casual
aid from kidnapping. In those times, the liability to captivity would seem to
have affected all men alike, independently of all distinctions whether in
rank or in blood. The sons of Priam were sold into slavery like any one else:
the only difference was, that, in proportion to the wealth of the parents,
there was a better chance of ransom. It would appear that the slaves of
Homer were properly, even when not indoor, yet domestic. The women
discharged the indoor and household offices: except that a few men
performed strictly personal services about their masters, as δρηστῆρες and
as carvers[156] (θεράποντε δαήμονε δαιτροσυνάων). But the men-slaves
were more largely employed out of doors in the care of flocks and herds,
fields and vineyards. Thus, the slaves were in a different position apparently
from the freemen, for they seem to have been gathered as servants and
attendants round the rich. It would appear, however, from the case of
Eumæus, who had a slave of his own, Mesaulios[157], that they might hold
property for themselves. Again, not Eumæus only, but in the Twenty-fourth
Odyssey Dolius and his six sons, sit down to table together with Ulysses,
and fondly clasp his hands. They bear arms too; and this could not have
been very strange, for Homer describes the arming of the sons without
remark, while he calls both the father and Laertes, on account of their old
age[158], ἀναγκαῖοι πολεμισταί. The moral deterioration of slaves is noticed
very strongly by Eumæus himself[159], though not with reference to himself.
We have, however, no reason to suppose that their outward condition was
inferior to that of the free labouring population in any thing, except that we
must presume they did not take part in the assemblies or in war. When

Achilles[160] in the infernal regions compares the highest condition there
with the lowest on earth, he does not choose the slave, but the labourer for
hire (θητεύεμεν is his expression), as the type of a depressed condition upon
earth. The state of the hired servant probably resembled that of the slave in
being dependent upon others, and fell beneath it in the point of security.
This is the more likely, because the point of the passage turns on the
poverty of the employer,

ἀνδρὶ παρ’ ἀκλήρῳ, ᾧ μὴ βιοτὸς πολὺς εἴη,

as constituting the misery of the servant.
Indeed, if we consider the matter a little further, we shall perhaps see the
greater reason to think, that the expression θητεύεμεν has been chosen
otherwise than at random. What do we mean by a hired servant, at a period
in the movement of society when money did not exist? We can only mean
one who was paid by food, clothes, and lodging, like a slave, but who was
not, like a slave, permanently attached to his master or his master’s estate.
The difference between the two would thus lie in the absence of the
permanent tie: a difference much more against the θὴς, than in his favour.
The position, then, of the slaves was probably analogous to that of domestic
servants among ourselves, who practically forfeit the active exercise of
political privileges, but are in many respects better off than the mass of
those who depend on bodily labour. It doubtless grew out of the state of
things in which slaves were practically servants, and servants of the rich,
that masters, or ἄνακτες[161], were regarded as constituting the wealthy
class of the community.
I stop for a moment to observe, that the view here
Supply of military service.
taken of the comparatively restricted numbers and
sphere of the slaves in heroic Greece may serve in
some degree to answer the question, why do we not hear of them in the
army of the Iliad? As men of equal blood with the Greeks themselves, they
would perhaps be dangerous comrades in arms. As persons established in
charge of the property of the lord, there would be a strong motive to leave
them behind for its care. It is very difficult to judge how far the state of
heroic Greece bore any resemblance to the feudal system of the later middle
ages, and whether it did not present a more substantial correspondence with

the allodial system of the earlier. We have before us a large number of
independent proprietors, each bound by usage probably to render personal
service, but we have nothing that resembles the obligation to bring so many
retainers into the field with reference to the size of the estate. And
accordingly, in the Iliad we do not find many merely personal retainers. The
menial services in the tent of Achilles are performed by the women-
captives, or by Patroclus in person. After Patroclus was dead, his tent was
attended only by Automedon, his charioteer, and by one other warrior.
Agamemnon had no other male attendants that we hear of, except his two
herald-serjeants, Talthybius and Eurybates, who discharged a double
function[162]:

τώ οἱ ἔσαν κήρυκε καὶ ὀτρηρὼ θεράποντε.

We may infer from the poems, that each independent family furnished one
or more of its members, drawn by lot, to serve in the expedition[163]. Such
is the declaration of the pseudo-Myrmidon to Priam: and again, in the
Odyssey we find Ægyptius[164] of Ithaca had sent one son to Troy, while he
kept three at home. The inference is strengthened[165] by the negative
evidence of the Twenty-fourth Odyssey. There[166] Dolius the slave appears
with no less than six sons: but no mention is made of any member of his
family as having attended Ulysses to Troy, although, if there had been such
a person, some reference to him here, in the presence of Ulysses just
returned, would have been most appropriate. Indeed, the six are introduced
as ‘the sons’ of Dolius, which of itself almost excludes the idea of his
having sent any son to the war.
Again, we see that the whole mass of the soldiery attended the assemblies,
and were there addressed by kings and chiefs in terms which seemed to
imply a brotherhood. They are ‘friends, Danaan heroes, satellites of
Mars[167],’ and it is hard to suppose such words could be addressed to
persons held in slavery, however mild, familiar, or favourable. The
employment of these terms may suggest a comparison with our own modes
of public address, according to which the word ‘Gentlemen’ would be
commonly used, though the audience should be composed in great part of
the humbler class. But all these words are so many proofs of that political
freedom, pervading the community and the spirit of its institutions as a

whole, which exacts this kind of homage from the great and wealthy on
public occasions.
It was a natural and healthful sign of the state of political society, that
slavery was held to be odious. But it was odious on account of its effects on
the mind, and not because it entailed cruelty or oppression. There is not, I
think, a single passage in the poems which in any degree conveys the
impression either of hardship endured, or of resentment felt, by any slave of
the period.
Neither, as has been said, is there any thing in
As to a peasant proprietary.
Homer, which clearly exhibits to us a peasant-
proprietary; or entitles us positively to assert that
the land was cultivated to a great extent by small proprietors, each acting
independently for himself. On the one hand, as has been remarked, we do
not find large numbers of personal retainers and servants about the great
men: but, on the other hand, Homer does not paint for us a single picture of
the independent peasant. In the similes, in the legends, on the Shield of
Achilles, in Ithaca, we hear much of large flocks and herds, of great
proprietors, of their harvest-fields and their vineyards, but nothing of the
small freeman, with property in land sufficient for his family, and no more.
The rural labour, which he shows us in action, is organized on a large scale.
The question, what after all was the actual condition of the Greek people in
the age of the Troica, is thus left in great obscurity. It is indeed at once the
capital point, and the one of which history, chronicle, and poem commonly
take the least notice. Upon the whole it would appear most reasonable,
while abstaining from too confident assertion, to suppose,
1. That, as respected primogeniture and the disposition of landed property,
society was aristocratically organized.
2. That this aristocratic organization, being founded on military occupation,
embraced a rather wide range of greater and of smaller proprietors.
3. That these proprietors, by superior wealth, energy, and influence, led the
remainder of the population.
4. That there may have existed a peasant-proprietary class in considerable
numbers, neither excluded from political privilege nor exempt from military
service, but yet not combined, under ordinary circumstances, by any

community of interest or of hardship; led, not unwillingly, by the dominant
Achæan race; and by no means forming a social element of such interest or
attractiveness, in the view of the Poet, as to claim a marked place or vivid
delineation, which it certainly has not received, on his canvass.
5. That the cultivation of the greater estates was carried on by hired
labourers and by slaves, between which two classes, for that period, no very
broad line of distinction can be drawn.
It is not within the scope of this work to enter largely upon the ‘political
economy’ of the Homeric age. But, as being itself an important feature of
polity, it cannot be altogether overlooked; and this appears to be the place
for referring to it.
There has been, of late years, debate and research
Political Economy of the
Homeric age.
respecting the name given to the important
science, which treats of the creation and
distribution of wealth. The phrase ‘political economy,’ which has been
established by long usage, cannot be defended on its merits. The name
Chrematistic has been devised in its stead; an accurate, but perhaps rather
dry definition, which does not, like the names Πολιτικὴ and Ἠθικὴ, and like
the exceptionable title it is meant to displace, take the human being, who is
the real subject of the science, into view. Homer has provided us
beforehand with a word which, as it appears to me, retrenches the phrase
‘economy’ precisely in the point where retrenchment is required. The
Ulysses of the Fourteenth Odyssey, in one of his fabulous accounts of
himself as a Cretan, states[168],

ἔργον δέ μοι οὐ φίλον ἔσκεν
οὐδ’ οἰκωφελίη, ἥτε τρέφει ἀγλαὰ τέκνα.

And I believe that, were it not too late to change a name, ‘political
œcophely’ precisely expresses the idea of the science, which, having its
fountain-head in good housekeeping, treats, when it has reached its
expansion and maturity, of the ‘Wealth of Nations.’
It was not surprising, that the Greeks of the heroic age should have a name
for the business of growing wealthy; for it was one to which Hellenes, as
well as Pelasgians, appear to have taken kindly. Of this we find various

tokens. Though the spirit of acquisition had not yet reached the point, at
which it becomes injurious to the general development of man, we appear
to have in the distinguished house of the Pelopids at least one isolated
example of its excess. We have the friendly testimony of Nestor, as well as
the fierce invective of Achilles[169], to show that in Agamemnon it
constituted a weakness: and he is distinguished in war from the other great
chieftains[170], by his habit of forthwith stripping those whom he had slain.
But Ulysses also, to whom we may be certain that Homer did not mean in
this matter to impute a fault, was, according to Eumæus[171], richer than any
twenty; and after making every allowance for friendly exaggeration, we
cannot doubt that Homer meant us to understand that, in the wealth of those
days, he was very opulent. The settlement from time to time of Phœnicians
in Greece, and the ready docility of the Hellenes in the art of navigation, are
signs to the same effect. The idea of wealth again is deeply involved in the
name of ὄλβος, which appears to mean a god-given felicity: and μάκαρ is
the epithet in common of the gods, the rich man, and the happy man[172].
Not that the Greeks of those times were, in a greater degree than ourselves,
the slaves of wealth, but that they spoke out in their simplicity, here, as also
with other matters, what we keep in the shade; and thus they made a greater
show of particular propensities, even while they had less of them in reality.
But, even more than from particular signs, I estimate the capacity of the
Homeric Greeks for acquisition from the state of facts in the poems. Here
we observe a remarkable temperance, and even a detestation of excess, in
all the enjoyments of the senses, combined with the possession, not only of
a rude abundance in meat, corn, and wine, but with the principle of
ornament, largely, though inartificially, established in their greater houses
and gardens; with considerable stores of the precious as well as the useful
metals, and of fine raiment; and with the possession of somewhat rich
works of art, both in metal and embroidery. This picture seems to belong to
a stage, although a very early one, in a process of rapid advance to material
wealth and prosperity. The wealth and the simplicity of manners, taken
together, would seem to imply that they had not yet had time to be
corrupted by it, and consequently that, by their energy and prudence, they
had gathered it promptly and with ease.
The commercial intercourse of the age, however, was still an intercourse of
barter. There can hardly be a stronger sign of the rudeness of trading

relations, than the Homeric use of the word
The precious metals not a χρεῖος. It signifies both the obligation to pay a
measure of value.
debt regularly contracted for value received (Od.
iii. 367), and the liability to sustain retaliation after an act of rapine (Il. xi.
686, 8). The possession of the precious metals was probably confined to a
very few. Both these, and iron, which apparently stood next to them in
value, formed prizes at the Games; in which, speaking generally, only kings
and chiefs took part. A certain approximation had been made towards the
use of them as money, that is, as the measure of value for other
commodities. For, as they were divided into fixed quantities, those
quantities were in all likelihood certified by some mark or stamp upon
them. Nor do we ever find mere unwrought gold and silver estimated or
priced in any other commodity. The arms of Glaucus are indeed
ἑκατομβοῖα[173], and they are χρύσεα. But this means gilded or adorned
with gold; an object made of gold would with Homer be παγχρύσεος. Such
are the θύσανοι, the gold drops or tassels of Minerva’s Ægis; each of which
is worth an hundred oxen. Thus gold, when manufactured, even if not when
in mass, had its value expressed in oxen[174].
It is possible that gold and silver may, to a limited extent, have been used as
a standard, or as a medium of exchange. The payment of the judge’s fee in
the Eighteenth Iliad suggests, though it does not absolutely require, this
supposition. Like writing in the Homeric age, like printing when it was
executed from a mould among the Ancients, the practice may have existed
essentially, but in a form and on a scale that deprived it of importance, by
limiting its extent.
The arms of Glaucus and Diomed, and the drops
Oxen in some degree a
measure of value.
of Minerva’s Ægis, are, as we have seen, valued
or priced in oxen. The tripod, which was the first
prize for the wrestlers of the Twenty-third Book, was valued at twelve oxen:
the captive woman, who was the second, accomplished in works of
industry, was worth four[175].
But Laertes gave for Euryclea no less than twenty oxen, or rather the value
of twenty oxen (ἐεικοσάβοια δ’ ἔδωκεν, Od. i. 431). We need not ascribe the
difference in costliness to the superior merit of Euryclea; but we may
presume the explanation to be, that Laertes, in time of peace, paid for

Euryclea the high price of an importing market; whereas the Greeks, in a
state of war before Troy, had probably more captives than they knew how to
feed. They were, at any rate, in the country of production: and the price was
low accordingly.
When we find it said that a woman slave was estimated at four oxen, we are
not enabled at once to judge from such a statement whether oxen were a
measure of value, or whether the meaning simply was, that a man, who
wanted such a slave, would give four oxen for her. But the case of Euryclea
clears up this point. For what Laertes gave was not the twenty oxen, but
something equal to them, something in return for which they could
ordinarily be had. Again, Lycaon brought Achilles the value of a hundred
oxen, a hundred oxen’s worth[176]. In this case, then, oxen are used as a
medium for the expression of value.
In a passage of the Odyssey, we find that the Suitors, when they try to make
terms with Ulysses in his wrath, promise as follows by the mouth of
Eurymachus[177];

τιμὴν ἀμφὶς ἄγοντες ἐεικοσάβοιον ἕκαστος,
χαλκόν τε χρυσόν τ’ ἀποδώσομεν, εἰσόκε σὸν κῆρ
ἰανθῇ.

This has been rendered as a double engagement to pay the oxen and the
metals. It seems to me, from the construction of the passage, as if it would
be more properly understood to be a declaration, that they would each of
them bring him a compensation of the value of twenty oxen in gold, and in
copper. If Eurymachus had meant to express the restoration of the live stock
of Ulysses, it is not likely that he would have spoken of oxen only,
especially in the goat-feeding and swine-feeding Ithaca.
There is another passage in the poems, which seems to carry a similar
testimony one point further. When Euneus sends ships with wine to the
Greek camp, the Greeks pay him for his wine, some with copper, some with
iron, some with hides, some with slaves, and some with oxen. Slaves, as we
have seen, would probably be redundant in the camp. The same would be
eminently the case with respect to hides; since they would be redundantly
supplied by the animals continually slaughtered for the subsistence of the
army. Even as to the metals, we need not feel surprise at the passage; for

they were acquired largely by spoil, and not greatly needed by the force,
since wear and tear scarcely constitute an element in the question of supply
for those times. But it is certainly more startling that any of the Greeks
should have sold oxen to the crews of Euneus. Neither in that age nor in this
would any merchants carry away oxen from a vast and crowded camp,
where they would be certain to be in the highest demand. I therefore
presume the meaning to be as follows; that those particular Greeks, who
happened to have more oxen than they wanted at the moment, sold them to
the people of the ships; and that the people of the ships took these oxen, in
exchange for wine, not intending to carry them away, but to sell them again,
perhaps against hides or slaves on the spot, as the live cattle would be
certain to find a ready and advantageous market among other Greeks of the
army.
Oxen therefore, in that age, seem to have come nearer, than any other
commodity, to the discharge of the functions now performed by the
precious metals: for they were both used to express value, and probably
purchased not for use only, but also with a view to re-sale. Thus the
Homeric evidence, with respect to them, is in conformity with the testimony
of Æschylus in the Agamemnon, who seems to represent the ox as the first
sign imprinted upon money[178].
The precious metals themselves were much employed for both personal
ornament and for art. This was, no doubt, their proper and established
application; and when they are stored, they are stored in common with other
metals not of the same class, and with a view, in all likelihood, to
manufacture.
It appears clear, from the Homeric poems, that
Relative scarcity of metals.
silver was more rare than gold. It is used, when
used at all, in smaller quantities: and it much more
rarely appears in the accounts of stored-up wealth. A like inference may be
drawn, perhaps, from the books of Moses; and it corresponds with the
anticipations we should reasonably form from the fact that gold is found in
a native state, and, even when mixed with other material, is more readily
fitted for use. The extensive employment of silver only arrives, when
society is more advanced, and when the use of money is more familiar and
minute. Payments in the precious metals on a somewhat large scale precede
those for smaller transactions. We are not however to infer, from the greater

rarity of silver, that it was more valuable than gold: the value depending,
not on the comparative quantities only, but upon the compound ratio of the
quantities as compared with the demand. It would however appear from a
passage in the account of the funeral games, that gold, if not silver, was then
much less esteemed than it now is. For, while a silver bowl was the first
prize of the foot-race, a large and fat ox (perhaps worth three ordinary ones)
was the second, and a half talent of gold was only the third[179].
The position of iron, however, relatively to the other metals, was very
different in the heroic age from what it now is: and probably its great rarity
was due, like that of silver, to the difficulty of bringing the metal into a state
fit for use; which could more readily be effected with copper, with tin, or
with κύανος, in whatever sense it is to be interpreted. Iron, however, would
appear to have been more valuable than these metals; greatly more
valuable, in particular, than copper, which is now worth from fifteen to
twenty times as much as iron. A mass of crude iron is produced at the
funeral games as a prize; and iron made into axe-heads forms another. No
other metal, below the rank of gold and silver, is ever similarly employed in
an unmanufactured state.—
Let us now turn to a brief view of the polity and organization of the army.
We perceive the organization of the Greek communities in a double form:
both as a community, properly so called, in time of peace, a picture supplied
by the Odyssey; and likewise as an army, according to the delineations of
the Iliad.
The differences are worth noting: but they do not
Mode of government of the seem to touch fundamental principles.
army.
Agamemnon governed the army by the ordinary
political instruments, not by the rules of military discipline. Aristotle[180]
quotes from the Iliad of his own day and place, and as proceeding from the
mouth of Agamemnon, the words,

πὰρ γὰρ ἐμοὶ θάνατος·

and Grote founds upon this citation the remark, that ‘the Alexandrian critics
effaced many traces of the old manners.’ But was this really a trace of the
old manners? Is there a single passage now remaining of the Iliad, a single

thought, a single word, which at all corresponds with the idea that
Agamemnon had in his own hands, in the shape of a defined prerogative,
the power of capital punishment? Aristotle certainly accepts the passage,
and contrasts this military power of Agamemnon with the restraints upon
him in the peaceful sphere of the ἀγορή; but I am by no means sure that
English institutions do not afford us the aid of far more powerful analogies
for appreciating the real political spirit of the Homeric poems, than any that
even Aristotle could draw in his own day from the orientalizing government
of Alexander. I do not, however, so much question the passage, as the
construction put upon it. The prerogatives of the Greek kings were founded
in general duty and feeling, not in law. When Ulysses belaboured Thersites,
it was not in the exercise of a determinate right, but in obedience to the
dictates of general prudence, which, upon a high emergency, the general
sense approved. Doubtless, if Agamemnon had caught a runaway from the
ranks, he might have slain him; but is it supposed that Ulysses might not?
What was the meaning of the advice of Nestor, to put the poltroons in the
middle of the ranks, but that their comrades about them should spear them
if they should try to run? There is no criminal justice, in the proper sense of
the term, though there is civil justice, in either of the Homeric poems; the
wrongs of man to man are adjusted or requited by the latter form of remedy,
but the ideas on which the former rests were unknown: there is no king’s
peace, more than there is a king’s highway: the sanctions of force are added
upon occasion to the general authority of office by those who bear it,
according to the suggestions of their common sense. Had it been otherwise,
Ulysses would never have put the wretched women in his household, who
could not, like the Suitors their paramours, be politically formidable, to a
death, which fully entitled him to say with the Agamemnon of the citation,
πὰρ γὰρ ἐμοὶ θάνατος. The general reverence for rank and station, the
safeguard of publicity, and the influence of persuasion, are the usual and
sufficient instruments for governing the army, even as they governed the
civil societies of Greece. In the Assembly of the army, the quarrel with
Achilles takes place: in the Assembly arises the tumultuary impulse to
return home: in the Assembly, that impulse having been checked, it is
deliberately resolved to see what they can do by fighting: in the Assembly it
is determined to ask a truce for burials, and to erect the rampart: in the
nocturnal Assembly that Council is appointed to sit, which sends the
abortive mission to Achilles. Every great measure affecting the whole body

is, as we shall find, adopted in the Assembly: and, finally, it is here that
Agamemnon explicitly confesses and laments his fault, and that the
reconciliation with Achilles is ratified.
We may therefore take the polity, so to speak, of the Greek army into a
common view with that of the Ithacan ἀγορή; but first it will be well to
sketch its military organization.
Next to the βασιλῆες came the ἔξοχοι ἄνδρες (Il.
Its military composition.
ii. 188), or ἀριστῆες, of the Greek army. They are
pretty clearly distinguished from the kings in the
speech of Achilles (ix. 334); when, after describing the niggardliness of
Agamemnon with respect to booty, he goes on to say,

ἄλλα δ’ ἀριστήεσσι δίδου γέρα καὶ βασιλεῦσιν·

which I understand to mean, he gave to these two classes prizes different, i.
e. proportioned to their respective stations.
The language of the Catalogue pointedly marks the same distinction in
other words. At the beginning, the Poet invites the Muses to tell him (ver.
487),

οἵτινες ἡγεμόνες Δαναῶν καὶ κοίρανοι ἦσαν,

and at the close he says (ver. 760),

οὗτοι ἄρ’ ἡγεμόνες Δαναῶν καὶ κοίρανοι ἦσαν.

These two verses appear to be in evident correspondence with each other:
and if so, we may the more confidently rely on the language as carefully
chosen to describe the two classes, first the kings as κοίρανοι (cf. Il. ii. 204,
207), and, secondly, the ἀριστῆες as ἡγεμόνες.
This class, it is probable, consisted,
First, of the leaders of the minor and less significant contingents.
Secondly, of lieutenants, or those who are named in the Catalogue as
holding inferior commands under the great leaders (such as Meriones,
Sthenelus, and Euryalus).

But, below the ἡγεμόνες of the Catalogue, there would appear to have been
several grades of minor officers, in command of smaller subdivisions of the
army. These would seem to have been described by a general name,
ἡγεμόνες. When Nestor (ii. 362) advises the distribution of the army
according to φῦλα and φρήτραι, it will, he says, have the advantage of
showing not only which of the soldiers, but which of the officers were
good, and which bad. Probably therefore there were officers of each φῦλον,
if not even, under these, of each φρήτρη.
Of the Greeks nine are named in Il. xi. 301-3, who were slain by Hector at
once, before he went among the privates (πληθύς). Of these nine no one is
mentioned in any other part of the poem; and since at the same time they
are expressly declared to be ἡγεμόνες, we may safely look upon them as
examples of the class of minor or secondary officers. From their names,
which have a strong Hellenic colour[181], we may venture at least to
conjecture, that this class was chiefly Achæan, or of Achæan rank, and that
the Pelasgian blood of the army was principally among the common
soldiers.
The maritime order of the armament, which required a commander for each
vessel, necessarily involved the existence of a class of what we may call
subaltern officers.
When Helen describes the chieftains to Priam from the tower, of whom
Idomeneus is one, she proceeds (Il. iii. 231);

ἀμφὶ δέ μιν Κρητῶν ἀγοὶ ἠγερέθονται.

Again, when Achilles went with fifty ships to Troy, he divided his 2500
men under five ἡγεμόνες, whom he appointed to give the word of command
(σημαίνειν) under him. The force thus arranged formed five στίχες or ranks,
Il. xvi. 168-72: and here the private persons are expressly called ἑταῖροι
(ver. 170). Most probably these ἀγοὶ of the Cretans, and these five
Myrmidon leaders, are to be considered as belonging to a class below the
ἀριστῆες, yet above the subalterns.
Lastly, we have to notice the privates, so to speak, of the Greek army, who
are called by the several names of λαὸς (Il. ii. 191. i. 54), δῆμος (ii. 198),
and πληθὺς (ii. 278).

In their military character they are indeed a mass of atoms,
undistinguishable from one another, but yet distinguished by their silence
and order, which was founded probably on confidence in their leaders.
No private or nameless[182] person of the Greek
The descriptions of fighting
men. army, however, on any occasion performs any
feat, either great or small: these are always
achieved by the men of birth and station: and the three designations we
have mentioned, the only ones which are used to designate the whole mass
of the soldiery, represent them to us as a community bearing arms, rather
than as an army in any sense that is technical or professional.
All these were entitled to attend the ἀγορὴ, or Assembly, if they pleased.
And accordingly, on the first Assembly that Achilles attended after
renouncing his wrath, we find that, from the great interest of the occasion,
even those persons were present who did not usually appear: namely, the
pilots of the ships, and others who probably had charge of them while
ashore, together with those who managed the provisioning of the force
(ταμίαι), or, in our language, the commissariat (Il. xix. 42-5).
In their strictly military capacity they were, however, divided into
1. ἱππῆες, who fought in chariots, commonly (Il. xxiii. 334-40) with two
horses. When there were three (xvi. 467-75), the outrunner was called
παρήορος. The chariot of Hector was drawn by four horses (viii. 185), but
we have no such case among the Greeks. Two persons went in each chariot;
of whom the inferior (ἠνίοχος) drove, and the superior (παρέβασκε) stood
by him free to fight. But probably none of these ἱππῆες were of the mere
πληθὺς of the army, or common soldiery.
2. ἀσπισταί, the heavy-armed, of the σταδίη ὑσμίνη. These use the longer
spear, the axe, the sword, or the stone.
3. ἀκοντίσται, using the lighter spear (Il. xv. 709. xxiii. 622. Od. xviii. 261).
4. τοξόται (Il. ii. 720. iii. 79).
Again, the men are distinguished by epithets according to merit; each being
ἔξοχος, μεσήεις, or χερειότερος (Il. xii. 269), or even κακός; and with the
last-named the precaution is taken to place them in the midst of their
comrades.

The policy of Nestor, which recommended the muster of the whole army,
with a view to stronger mutual support among those who had peculiar ties,
was entirely in harmony with what we meet elsewhere in the poems. For
instance, in the defence of the rampart in the Thirteenth Book, we find
Bœotians, Athenians, and Locrians[183], who were neighbours, all
mentioned as fighting side by side.
All ranks apparently went to the Assemblies as freemen, and were treated
there by their superiors with respect. It was not those of the common sort in
general, but only such as were clamorous for the tumultuary breaking up of
the Assembly, that Ulysses went so far as to hit (ἐλάσασκε) with the staff he
bore, the supreme sceptre of Agamemnon. In addressing them he used the
word δαιμόνιε, the same word which he employed to their superiors, the
kings and chiefs (Il. ii. 190, 200). When they heard a speech that they
approved of, they habitually and immediately shouted in applause[184],

Ἀργεῖοι δὲ μέγ’ ἴαχον ...
μῦθον ἐπαινήσαντες Ὀδυσσῆος θείοιο·

and they commented freely among themselves on what occurred (Il. ii. 271
and elsewhere).
The modes of warfare in the heroic age were very simple: the open battle
was a battle of main force, as regarded both the chieftains and the men,
relieved from time to time by a sprinkling of panics. But besides the battle,
there was another and a more distinguished mode of fighting: that of the
λόχος or ambuscade. And the different estimate of the two, which reverses
the popular view, is eminently illustrative of the Greek character.
In that epitome of human life, which Homer has
The λόχος or ambuscade.
presented to us on the Shield of Achilles, martial
operations are of course included. The collective
life of man is represented by two cities, one for peace and the other for war.
Two armies appear beneath the walls of the latter; and one of these takes its
post in an ambush[185]. Whenever persons were to be appointed out of an
army for this duty, the noblest and bravest were chosen. Hence Achilles
launches the double reproach against Agamemnon, that he has never had
spirit enough to arm either with the soldiery at large for battle, or with the
chiefs and prime warriors for ambuscade[186]. And the reason why the

ambuscade stood thus high as the duty and the privilege of the best, is
explained in an admirable speech of Idomeneus. It is simply because it
involves a higher trial, through the patience it requires, of moral as opposed
to animal courage.
The Cretan leader supposes the case to have occurred, when all the flower
of the army are picked for an ambush. ‘There,’ he says, ‘is the true criterion
of valour;

ἔνθα μάλιστ’ ἀρετὴ διαείδεται ἀνδρῶν·

and there it soon appears who is the hero, and who the coward; for the flesh
of the poltroon turns to one colour and another, nor can he settle his mind so
as to sit quiet, for his knees yield under him, and he shifts from resting on
one foot to resting on the other; his heart is fluttering in his breast, and his
teeth chatter, as he gives himself up for lost: but the brave man, from the
moment when he takes his place in the ambush, neither changes colour, nor
is over nervous; but only prays that the time may soon come for him to
mingle in the fearful fight[187].’ Then he goes on to commend Meriones as
one suited for such a trial.
In exact conformity with what we should expect from these descriptions, it
appears that Ulysses was the warrior who was preeminent in the λόχος,
while Achilles towered so immeasurably above all others in the field. When
the Greeks were concealed in the cavity of the Horse, and Helen came
down from the city imitating the voices of their wives, Menelaus and
Diomed were on the point of either going forth, or answering; but Ulysses
restrained them. One Anticlos was still unwilling to be silent; and Ulysses,
resolutely gagging him with his hand, ‘saved the lives of all the
Achæans[188].’ In all this we again see how the poems of Homer are, like
the Shield, an epitome of life. All the points of capital and paramount
excellence, for which he could find no place in the hero of the one poem, he
has fully represented in the hero of the other; and he has so exhausted,
between the two, the resources of our nature, and likewise its appliances as
they were then understood, that, had he produced yet a third Epic, not even
he could have furnished a third protagonist to form its centre, who should
have been worthy to count with Achilles and Ulysses among the undying
ideals of human greatness.

We have now considered the Greek community of the heroic age, as it was
divided in time of peace into classes, and as in time of war it resolved all its
more potent and energetic elements into the form of a military order.
We have also examined the position and functions of the king; who was at
once a person, a class, and a great political institution. It remains to
consider two other political institutions of heroic Greece, which not only,
with the king, made up the whole machinery both of civil and military
administration for that period, but likewise supplied the essential germ, at
least, of that form of constitution, on which the best governments of the
continent of Europe have, two of them within the last quarter of a century,
been modelled, with such deviations as experience has recommended, or
the change of times has required. I mean the form of government by a
threefold legislative body, having for one of its members, and for its head, a
single person, in whose hands the executive power of the state is lodged.
This form has been eminently favoured in Christendom, in Europe, and in
England; and it has even survived the passage of the Atlantic, and the
transition, in the United States of America, to institutions which are not
only republican, but highly democratic.
Of these two Greek institutions, we will examine
The Greek Βουλὴ or Council.
first the βουλὴ, or Council.
It was the usage of the Greeks to consider, in a small preliminary meeting of
principal persons, which was called the βουλὴ, of the measures to be taken
in managing the Assembly, or ἀγορή.
To the persons, who were summoned thither, the name of γέροντες appears
to have been officially applied. It had thus become dissociated from the idea
of age, its original signification: for Nestor was the only old man among the
Greek senators. Idomeneus, indeed, was near upon old age: Ulysses was
elderly (ὠμογέρων[189]), apparently not under fifty. The majority would
seem to have been rather under middle life; so that γέρων was, when thus
employed, a title, not a description. The βουλὴ was composed of the men of
greatest rank and weight; and no more required an advanced age among the
qualifications for it, than does the presbyterate of the Christian Church,
though it too signifies eldership.
Before the great assembly of the Second Book, we are told, not that
Agamemnon thought it would be well, as it were for the nonce, to consult

the kings or seniors of the expedition; but, in language which indicates a
fixed practice, that the choice of the place for the meeting was on this
occasion by the ship of Nestor, whose great age possibly either made
nearness convenient, or entitled him to this mark of honour:

βουλὴ δὲ πρῶτον μεγαθύμων ἷζε γερόντων
Νεστορέῃ παρὰ νηῒ Πυλαιγενέος βασιλῆος. Il. ii. 53.

These γέροντες were summoned[190] again by Agamemnon before the
sacrifice of the Second Book, which preceded the enumeration. On this
occasion they are not called a βουλή; probably because they were not called
for consultation.
The Council meets again in the Ninth Book[191], by appointment of the
Assembly, and sends the mission to Achilles[192]. In the same night, and
perhaps under the same authority, the expedition of Ulysses and Diomed is
arranged.
There is no βουλὴ indeed in the First Book, and none in the great Assembly
of the Nineteenth: but then both of these were summoned by Achilles, not
by Agamemnon, and neither of them were called for properly deliberative
purposes[193].
Again, Ulysses, in urging the Greeks not to quit the assembly of the Second
Book prematurely, reminds them that they ought to know fully the views of
Agamemnon, and that they have not all had the advantage of learning those
views in the βουλή.
In the Seventh Book, the Council held under the roof of Agamemnon forms
the plan for a pause to bury the dead, and erect the rampart. Accordingly,
when just afterwards a herald arrives with a proposal from Troy, he finds
the Greeks in their Assembly, doubtless an Assembly held to sanction the
project of the kings. That this amounted to an institution of the Greeks, we
may further judge from the familiar manner, in which Nestor mentions it in
the Odyssey to Telemachus, on seeing him for the first time, (Od. iii. 127).
‘Ulysses and I,’ he says, ‘never differed:’ οὔτε ποτ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ δίχ’ ἐβάζομεν,
οὔτ’ ἐνὶ βουλῇ[194].
Among other causes, which might tend to promote the establishment of the
Greek βουλὴ or Council, we may perhaps reckon with propriety the

inability of the old to discharge the full duties of sovereignty in the heroic
age. Bodily force usually undergoes a certain amount of decay, before the
mind has passed out of its ripeness; and both kings and subordinate lords,
who had ceased to possess the strength that was requisite for bearing the
principal burdens of government, might still make their experience
available for the public good in the Council; even as we find that in Troas
the brothers of Priam, with others advanced in life, were the principal
advisers of the Assembly[195].
I admit that we have no example to give of the use
The βουλὴ in time of peace.
of the βουλὴ by the Greeks during peace, so
precise as those which the Iliad supplies for time
of war. But even in war we do not find it except before Assemblies, which
had deliberative business to transact. Now the only deliberative Greek
ἀγορὴ which we meet with in time of peace is that of the Twenty-fourth
Odyssey. The absence of a sovereign and a government in Ithaca at that
time, and the utter discord of the principal persons, made a Council quite
impossible, and left no measure open except a direct appeal to the people.
It appears however clear, that the action of the βουλὴ was not confined to
war. For we not only find the γέροντες on the Shield[196], who sit in the
ἀγορὴ, exercising exclusively the office of judges, but they are also
distinctly noticed as a class or order[197] in the Ithacan Assembly, who had a
place in it set apart for themselves. Nor are we without a proof which,
though conveyed in few words, is complete, of the conjunction of the
Council with the sovereign in acts of government. For when Ulysses in his
youth undertook the mission to Messene, in the matter of the sheep that had
been carried off from Ithaca, he did it under the orders of Laertes, together
with his council[198]:

πρὸ γὰρ ἧκε πατὴρ ἄλλοι τε γέροντες.

And Nausicaa meets her father Alcinous, on his way to the βουλὴ of the
Phæacians.
Upon the whole, the βουλὴ seems to have been a most important auxiliary
instrument of government; sometimes as preparing materials for the more
public deliberations of the Assembly, sometimes intrusted, as a kind of
executive committee, with its confidence; always as supplying the

Assemblies with an intellectual and authoritative element, in a concentrated
form, which might give steadiness to its tone, and advise its course with a
weight adequate to so important a function.
The individuals who composed this Council were
Opposition in the βουλή.
of such a station that, when they acted separately,
King Agamemnon himself might have to
encounter resistance and reproof from them in various instances.
Accordingly, upon the occasion when Agamemnon made a survey of the
army, and when he thought fit to rebuke Ulysses for slackness, that
chieftain remonstrated with him something more than freely (ὑποδρὰ ἰδὼν)
both in voice and manner. So far from trusting to his authority, Agamemnon
made a soothing and even an apologetic reply[199]. Again, when on the same
occasion he reproved Diomed[200], Sthenelus defended his immediate Chief
in vainglorious terms. These the more refined nature of Diomed himself
induced him at once to disclaim, but they do not appear to have been
considered as involving any thing in the nature of an offence against the
station of Agamemnon. Again, though Diomed on this occasion restrained
his lieutenant, yet, when he meets Agamemnon in the Assembly of the
Ninth Book, he frankly tells him that Jupiter, who has given him the
honours of the sceptre, has not endowed him with the superior power that
springs from determined courage[201]; and even the passionate invectives of
Achilles in the First Book bear a similar testimony, because they do not
appear to have been treated as constituting any infringement of his duty.
In the βουλὴ[202], Nestor takes the lead more than Agamemnon. As to the
Assembly, the whole plan in the Second Iliad is expressly founded upon the
supposition, that the army was accustomed to hear the chiefs argue against,
and even overthrow, the proposals of Agamemnon. His advice that they
should return home, which Grote[203] considers only an unaccountable
fancy and a childish freak, is however capable of being regarded in this
view, that, before renewing active operations without Achilles, it was
thought wise to test the feeling of the army, and that it could not be more
effectually tried than by a recommendation from the commander-in-chief
that they should re-embark for Greece. The plan was over-refined; and it
may even seem ridiculous, because it failed, and simply kindled an
ungovernable passion, which would not listen to debate. But the proposal
does not bear that character in the Ninth Book, where the same suggestion

is renewed, without the previous knowledge of the chiefs, in the same
words, and at a time when the Greeks were in far worse condition.
When Agamemnon made it in order to be overruled it took effect: when he
made it in good earnest, it failed. If then the Greeks could be retained
contrary to his wish in the Ninth Book, it might be misjudged, but could
hardly be absurd, to expect a similar result in the Second, when they had
less cause for discouragement.
And why did it take effect? Simply because the Assembly, instead of being
the simple medium[204] through which the king acted, was the arena on
which either the will of the people might find a rude and tumultuary vent,
or, on the other hand, his royal companions in arms could say, as Diomed
says, ‘I will use my right and resist your foolish project in debate; which
you ought not to resent.’

Ἀτρείδη, σοὶ πρῶτα μαχήσομαι ἀφραδέοντι,
ἣ θέμις ἐστὶν, ἄναξ, ἀγορῇ· σὺ δὲ μή τι χολωθῇς.

The proposal of Agamemnon had been heard in silence[205], the mode by
which the army indicated its disinclination or its doubt. But the counter
proposal of Diomed, to fight to the last, was hailed with acclamation[206];

οἱ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἐπίαχον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν,
μῦθον ἀγασσάμενοι Διομήδεος ἱπποδάμοιο·

so that the Assembly was then ripe for the plan of Nestor, which at once
received its approval[207]:

ὣς ἔφαθ’· οἱ δ’ ἄρα τοῦ μάλα μὲν κλύον, ἠδ’ ἐπίθοντο.

Subsequently, in the βουλὴ of the same Book, Nestor tells Agamemnon that
it is his duty to listen as well as to speak, and to adopt the plans of others
when they are good (100-2). At the same time, the aged chieftain appears to
submit himself to the judgment of Agamemnon in the Council[208]. His
expressions are perhaps matter more of compliment than of business; and at
any rate we do not find any like terms used in the Assembly.

It was a happy characteristic of heroic Greece, that while she abounded in
true shame, she had no false shame. It was not thought that a king, who had
done wrong, compromised his dignity by atonement; but, on the contrary,
that he recovered it. So says Ulysses, in the Assembly of the Nineteenth
Iliad[209];

οὐ μὲν γάρ τι νεμεσσητὸν βασιλῆα
ἄνδρ’ ἀπαρέσσασθαι, ὅτε τις πρότερος χαλεπήνῃ.

This passage at once establishes in the most pointed manner both the right
to chide the head of the army, and the obligation incumbent on him, as on
others, where he had given offence to make amends.
Thus then a large liberty of speech and judgment on the part of the kings or
chiefs, when they differed from Agamemnon, would appear to be
established beyond dispute, a liberty which in certain cases resulted in his
being summarily overruled. I cannot therefore here subscribe even to the
measured statement of Mure, who, admits the liberty of remonstrance, but
asserts also the sovereignty of the will of Agamemnon. Much less to the
very broad assertions of Grote, that the resolutions of Agamemnon appear
uniformly to prevail in the Council, and that the nullity of positive function
is still more striking in the Agorè[210].
To that institution it is now time for us to turn.
The trait which is truly most worthy of note in the
Influence of Speech.
polities of Homeric Greece, is also that which is
so peculiar to them; namely, the substantive
weight and influence which belonged to speech as an instrument of
government; and of this power by much the most remarkable development
is in its less confined and more popular application to the Assembly.
This power of speech was essentially a power to be exercised over numbers,
and with the safeguards of publicity, by man among his fellow-men. It was
also essentially an instrument addressing itself to reason and free will, and
acknowledging their authority. No government which sought its power in
force, as opposed to reason, has at any time used this form of deception.
The world has seen absolutism deck itself with the titles and mere forms of
freedom, or seek shelter under its naked abstractions: but from the exercise

of free speech as an instrument of state, it has always shrunk with an
instinctive horror.
One mode of proving the power of speech in the heroic age is, by showing
what place it occupied in the thoughts of men, as they are to be gathered
from their language. Another mode is, by pointing to its connection, in
practical examples, with this or that course of action, adopted or shunned. A
third is, by giving evidence of the earnestness with which the art was
prosecuted, and the depth and comprehensiveness of the conceptions from
which it derived its form.
We shall presently trace the course of public affairs, as they were managed
by the Greeks of the heroic age in their public assemblies. For the present,
let us endeavour to collect the true sense of Homer respecting oratory from
his language concerning it, from the characters with whom he has
particularly connected it, and from the knowledge which he may be found
to have possessed of its resources.
Although it is common to regard the Iliad as a poem having battle for its
theme, yet it is in truth not less a monument of policy than of war; and in
this respect it is even more broadly distinguished, than in most others, from
later epics.
The adjectives in Homer are in very many cases the key to his inner mind:
and among them all there is none of which this is more true, than the grand
epithet κυδιάνειρα. He confines it strictly to two subjects, battle and debate,
the clash of swords and the wrestling of minds. Of Achilles, he says in the
First Book[211], (490)

οὔτε ποτ’ εἰς ἀγορὴν πωλέσκετο κυδιάνειραν,
οὔτε ποτ’ ἐς πόλεμον.

In every other passage where he employs the word, it is attached to the
substantive μάχη. Thus with him it was in two fields, that man was to seek
for glory; partly in the fight, and partly in the Assembly.
The intellectual function was no less essential to the warrior-king of Homer,
than was the martial; and the culture of the art of persuasion entered no less
deeply into his early training. How, says Phœnix to Achilles, shall I leave
you, I, whom your father attached to you when you were a mere child,

without knowledge of the evenhanded battle, or of the assemblies, in which
men attain to fame,

οὔπω εἰδόθ’ ὁμοιΐου πολέμοιο
οὐτ’ ἀγορέων, ἵνα τ’ ἄνδρες ἀριπρέπεες τελέθουσιν.

So he sent me to teach you the arts both of speech and fight[212],

μύθων τε ῥητῆρ’ ἔμεναι, πρηκτῆρά τε ἔργων.

Even so Ulysses, in the under-world, relates to Achilles the greatness of
Neoptolemus in speech, not less than in battle, (Od. xi. 510-16.)
Nay, the ἀγορὴ of little Ithaca, where there had been no Assembly for
twenty years, is with Homer the ἀγορὴ πολύφημος[213]. In a description, if
possible yet more striking than that of Phœnix, Homer places before us the
orator at his work. ‘His hearers behold him with delight; he speaks with
tempered modesty, yet with confidence in himself (ἀσφαλέως); he stands
preeminent among the assembled people, and while he passes through the
city, they gaze on him as on a god[214]. From a passage like this we may
form some idea, what a real power in human society was the orator of the
heroic age; and we may also learn how and why it was, that the great Bard
of that time has also placed himself in the foremost rank of oratory for all
time.
It is in the very same spirit that Ulysses, in the same most remarkable
speech given in the Odyssey[215], sets forth the different accomplishments
by which human nature is adorned. The three great gifts of the gods to man
are, first, corporeal beauty, strength and bearing, all included in the word
φύη; secondly, judgment or good sense (φρένες), and thirdly, the power of
discourse, or ἀγορητύς. To one man, the great gift last named is the
compensation for the want of corporeal excellence. To another is given
beauty like that of the Immortals; but then his comeliness is not crowned by
eloquence: ἀλλ’ οὔ οἱ χάρις ἀμφιπεριστέφεται ἐπέεσσιν. For χάρις in Od. xi.
367 we have μορφὴ ἐπέων.
In full conformity with this strongly developed
Varied descriptions of idea, the Poet places before us the descriptions of
Oratory.
a variety of speakers. There is Thersites[216],

copious and offensive, to whom we must return. There is Telemachus, full
of the gracious diffidence of youth[217], but commended by Nestor for a
power and a tact of expression beyond his years. There is Menelaus, who
speaks with a laconic ease[218]. There are the Trojan elders, or
δημογέροντες, who from their experience and age chiefly guide the
Assembly, and whose volubility and shrill small thread of voice[219] Homer
compares to the chirping of grasshoppers. Then we have Nestor the soft and
silvery, whose tones of happy and benevolent egotism flowed sweeter than
a stream of honey[220]. In the hands of an inferior artist, Phœnix must have
reproduced him; but an absorbing affection for Achilles is the key-note to
all he says; even the account in his speech of his own early adventures is
evidently meant as a warning on the effects of rage: this intense earnestness
completely prevents any thing like sameness, and thus the two garrulities
stand perfectly distinct from one another, because they have (so to speak)
different centres of gravity. Lastly, we have Ulysses, who, wont to rise with
his energies concentrated within him, gives no promise of display: but when
his deep voice issues from his chest, and his mighty words drive like the
flakes of snow in winter[221], then indeed he soars away far above all
competitors.
It is very unusual for Homer to indulge thus largely in careful and detailed
description. And even here he has left the one superlative, as well as other
considerable, orators, undescribed. The eloquence of Achilles is left to
describe itself; and to challenge comparison with all the choicest patterns
both of power and beauty in this kind, that three thousand years since
Homer, and all their ebbing and flowing tides, have brought within the
knowledge of man. Although he modestly describes himself as beneath
Ulysses in this accomplishment, yet in truth no speeches come near to his.
But Homer’s resources are not even now exhausted. The decision of
Diomed, the irresolution of Agamemnon, the bluntness of Ajax, are all
admirably marked in the series of speeches allotted to each. Indeed Homer
has put into the mouth of Idomeneus, whom he nowhere describes as an
orator at all, a speech which is quite enough to establish his reputation in
that capacity. (Il. xiii. 275-94.)
In reviewing the arrangements Homer has made, we shall find one feature
alike unequivocal and decisive. The two persons, to whom he has given
supremacy in oratory, are his two, his only two godlike heroes (θεῖοι), the

Achilles and the Ulysses, each of whom bears up, like the Atlas of tradition,
the weight of the epic to which he principally belongs.
How could Homer have conceived thoughts like these, if government in his
eyes had rested upon either force or fraud? Moreover, when he speaks of
persuasion and of strength or valour, of the action of the tongue and that of
the hand, he clearly does not mean that these elements are mixed in the
ordinary conduct of a sovereign to his subjects: he means the first for peace,
the latter for war; the first to be his sole instrument for governing his own
people, the latter for their enemies alone.
If, again, we endeavour to estimate the importance of Speech in the heroic
age by the degree in which the faculty was actually cultivated, we must take
the achievements of the Poet as the best indicators of the capacities of the
age. The speeches which Homer has put into the mouths of his leading
orators should be tolerably fair representatives of the best performances of
the time. Nor is it possible that in any age there should be in a few a
capacity for making such speeches, without a capacity in many for
receiving, feeling, and comprehending them. Poets of modern times have
composed great works, in ages that stopped their ears against them.
‘Paradise Lost’ does not represent the time of Charles the Second, nor the
‘Excursion’ the first decades of the present century. The case of the orator is
entirely different. His work, from its very inception, is inextricably mixed
up with practice. It is cast in the mould offered to him by the mind of his
hearers. It is an influence principally received from his audience (so to
speak) in vapour, which he pours back upon them in a flood. The sympathy
and concurrence of his time is with his own mind joint parent of his work.
He cannot follow nor frame ideals; his choice is, to be what his age will
have him, what it requires in order to be moved by him, or else not to be at
all. And as when we find the speeches in Homer, we know that there must
have been men who could speak them, so, from the existence of units who
could speak them, we know that there must have been crowds who could
feel them.
Now if we examine those orations, we shall, I
The orations of the Poems.
think, find not only that they contain specimens of
transcendent eloquence which have never been
surpassed, but likewise that they evince the most comprehensive
knowledge, and the most varied and elastic use, of all the resources of the

art. If we seek a specimen of invective, let us take the speeches of Achilles
in the debate of the First Iliad. If it is the loftiest tone of terrible
declamation that we desire, I know not where (to speak with moderation)
we can find any thing that in grandeur can surpass the passage (Il. xvi. 74-
9) beginning,

οὐ γὰρ Τυδειδέω Διομήδεος ἐν παλάμῃσιν
μαίνεται ἐγχείη, κ. τ. λ.

But if it is solemnity that is sought, nothing can, I think, excel the ναὶ μὰ
τόδε σκῆπτρον. (Il. i. 233-44.)
What more admirable example of comprehensive statement, which exhausts
the case, and absolutely shuts up the mouth of the adversary, than in the
speech of Ulysses to Euryalus, who has reproached him with looking like a
sharper? That speech consists of twenty lines: and I think any one who
attempts to give a really accurate summary of it will be apt to find that his
epitome, if it be at all complete, has become unawares a paraphrase. Nor is
Homer less successful in showing us, how he has sounded the depths of
pathos. For though the speeches of Priam to Achilles in the Twenty-fourth
Iliad are spoken privately, and from man to man only, and are therefore not
in the nature of oratory properly so called, they are conclusive, a fortiori, as
to his knowledge of the instruments by which the human affections might
be moved so much more easily, when the speaker would be assisted at once
by the friendliness and by the electric sympathies of a multitude.
All these are direct instruments of influence on
Repartee and Sarcasm.
the mind and actions of man. But of assaults in
flank Homer is quite as great a master. He shows
a peculiar genius for that which is properly called repartee; for that form of
speech, which flings back upon the opponent the stroke of his own weapon,
or on the supplicant the plea of his own prayer. There was one Antimachus,
a Trojan, who had grown wealthy, probably by the bribes which he received
from Paris in consideration of his always opposing, in the Trojan Agorè, the
restoration of Helen to the Greeks. His sons are mastered by Agamemnon in
the field. Aware that he had a thirst for money, they cry, ‘Quarter,
Agamemnon! we are the sons of rich Antimachus: he will pay well for our
lives.’ ‘If,’ replies the king, ‘you are the sons of that Antimachus, who,

when Menelaus came as envoy to Troy, advised to take and slay him, here
and now shall ye expiate your father’s infamy[222].’ Compare with this the
yet sharper turn of Ulysses on Leiodes in the Odyssey: ‘Spare me, Ulysses!
I have done no ill in your halls; I stopped what ill I could; I was but Augur
to the Suitors.’ Then follows the stern reply. ‘If thou dost avow that thou art
Augur to the Suitors, then often in prayer must thou have augured my
destruction, and desired my wife for thine own; wherefore thou shalt not
escape the painsome bed of death[223].’
But the weapons of sarcasm, from the lightest to the weightiest, are wielded
by Homer with almost greater effect than any others. As a sample of the
former, I take the speech of Phœnix when he introduces, by way of parable,
the Legend of Meleager. ‘As long as Meleager fought, all was well; but
when rage took possession of him—which (I would just observe) now and
then bewilders other great minds also—then,’ and so onward.
But for the great master of this art, Homer has chosen Achilles. As with his
invectives he grinds to powder, so with the razor edge of the most refined
irony he cuts his way in a moment to the quick. When Greece, in the person
of the envoy-kings, is at his feet, and he has spurned them away, he says,
‘No: I will go home: you can come and see me depart—if you think it worth
your while.’

ὄψεαι, ἢν ἐθέλῃσθα, καὶ αἴ κέν τοι τὰ μεμήλῃ.

Of this passage, Il. ix. 356-64, the following translation may give a very
imperfect idea[224]:

Of fight with Hector will I none;
Tomorrow, with the rising sun,
Each holy rite and office done,
I load and launch my Phthian fleet;
Come, if thou thinkest meet,
See, if thou carest for the sight,
My ships shall bound in the morning’s light,
My rowers row with eager might,
O’er Helle’s teeming main.
And, if Poseidon give his grace,
Then, with but three revolving days,
I see my home again;
My home of plenty, that I left
To fight with Troy; of sense bereft!

The plenty of his house (ἔστι δέ μοι μάλα πολλὰ) is the finishing stroke of
reply on Agamemnon, who had thought that his resentment, unsatisfied in
feeling, could be appeased with gifts.
In the same speech occurs the piercing sarcasm[225]:

ἦ μοῦνοι φιλέουσ’ ἀλόχους μερόπων ἀνθρώπων
Ἀτρεῖδαι;

The Greeks had come to Troy to recover the wife of Menelaus: and while
they were there, Agamemnon took for a concubine the intended wife of
Achilles. Was it, he asks, the privilege of the sons of Atreus alone among
mankind to love their wives? Agamemnon, too, being the chief of the two;
who had laid hold on Briseis, as he had meant to keep Chryseis, in
disparagement of his own marriage bed. Nor can the reader of this passage
fail, I think, to be struck with the wonderful manner in which it combines a
stately dignity, and an unimpeachable solidity of argument, with the
fierceness of its personal onslaught.
If the power of oratory is remarkable in Homer, so
The faculty of debate in
Homer.
likewise is the faculty of what in England is called
debate. Here the orator is a wrestler, holding his
ground from moment to moment; adjusting his poise, and delivering his

force, in exact proportion to the varying pressure of his antagonist. In
Homer’s debates, every speech after the first is commonly a reply. It
belongs not only to the subject, but to the speech that went before: it
exhibits, given the question and the aims of the speaker, the exact degree of
ascent or descent, of expansion or contraction, of relaxation or
enhancement, which the circumstances of the case, in the state up to which
they were brought by the preceding address, may require. In the Assembly
of the First Book, five, nay, six, successive speeches of Achilles and
Agamemnon[226] bring their great contention to its climax. But the
discussion with the Envoys deserves very particular notice. Ulysses begins
a skilled harangue to the offended hero with a
The discussion of the Ninth
Iliad.
most artful and well-masked exaggeration of the
martial fury of Hector. He takes care only to
present it as part of a general picture, which in other parts is true enough;
but he obviously relies upon it as a mode of getting within the guard of
Achilles. He next touches him upon the point, to which Priam afterwards
made a yet higher appeal; the tender recollection of his father Peleus, who
had warned him how much more arduous was the acquisition of self-
command, than that of daring. He then recites the gifts of Agamemnon: and,
encouraged perhaps by the kind greeting that, with his companions, he had
received, he closes by urging that, however hateful Agamemnon may be,
yet, in pity for the other Greeks, both high and low, and in anticipation of
their gratitude, he ought to arm. I shall not attempt to analyse the wonderful
speech of Achilles which follows, and to which some references have
already been made. Suffice it to say, that it commences with an intimation
to Ulysses that it will, in the opinion of the speaker, be best for all parties if
he tells out his mind plainly: an indirect and courteous reproof to Ulysses
for having thought to act upon him by tact and by the processes of a
rhetorician. After this follows such a combination of argument,
declamation, invective, and sarcasm as, within the same compass, I do not
believe all the records of the world can match. But the general result of the
whole is the announcement that he will return to Phthia the very next
morning; together with an absolute, unconditional rejection of all gifts and
proffers, until the outrage of Agamemnon is entirely wiped away[227]:
πρίν γ’ ἀπὸ πᾶσαν ἐμοὶ δόμεναι θυμαλγέα λώβην.

When he has concluded, all his hearers, abashed by his masculine wrath, are
silent for a while. Then Phœnix, in the longest speech of the poem, pours
forth his unselfish and warm, but prolix and digressive affection. This
speech displays far less of rhetorical resource, than that of Ulysses. Ulysses
had conceded, as it were, the right of Achilles to an unbounded resentment
against Agamemnon (300): Phœnix, on the contrary, by parable, menaces
him with retribution from the Erinūs, unless he shall subdue the mighty soul
within him. But Achilles, touched in his better nature, gives way a little to
the more ethical appeal, where he had been inflexible and invulnerable
before the intellectual and rhetorical address. He now bids Phœnix come
himself, and sleep in his encampment: there they can consider together, in
the morning, whether to go or to stay (618). Still he announces, that nothing
will induce him to quit the ships for the field (609). Next comes blunt Ajax
into the palæstra; deprecates the wasting of time; is for taking back the
answer, bad as it may be: Achilles has evidently made up his mind; and
cares not a rush for all or any of them. ‘What,’ says the simple man-
mountain, ‘the homicide of a brother or child is atoned for by a fine, and yet
here is all this to-do about a girl. Aye, and a single girl; when we offer seven
of the very best, and ever so much besides.’ Having thus reached the acmè
of his arts, he now aims at the friendly feeling of Achilles, and in a single
word bids him be placable to men whom he has admitted beneath his roof,
and whom he owns for as loyal friends as the whole army could find him.
The leverage of this straightforward speech, which is only saved by
kindliness from falling into rudeness, again produces an initial movement
towards concession on the part of the great hero. He replies in effect to
Ajax, ‘You have spoken well: I like your way of going to work: but my
heart swells and boils with the shame inflicted on me before the Greeks by
Agamemnon. Tell them then’—there is now no announcement of setting
sail; nay, there is no longer any need for debate in the morning whether to
set sail or not—‘tell them that I fight no more, till Hector, carrying slaughter
and fire, shall reach this camp, these ships. Keen as he may be, it will then
be time enough for ME to stay his onward path.’
Such is the remarkable course of this debate. But Ulysses, when they return
to Agamemnon—meaning probably to bring him and all the Greeks fairly to
bay—takes no notice of the partial relaxations of the iron will of Achilles,
but simply reports that he has threatened to set sail. Then comes the turn of

Diomed. ‘You were wrong to cringe to him. Of himself, he is arrogant
enough: you have made him worse. Let him alone; he will come when he
thinks proper, or when Providence wills it; and no sooner. My advice is that
we sleep and eat now, and fight at dawn. I, at any rate, will be there, in the
foremost of the battle.’
We will now proceed to consider the nature and
Function of the Assembly.
place of the ἀγορὴ or Assembly, in the heroic age:
and a view of the proceedings on several
occasions will further illustrate the great and diversified oratorical resources
of the Poet.
A people cannot live in its corporate capacity without intermission, and the
king is the standing representative of the community. But yet the ἀγορὴ, or
Assembly, is the true centre of its life and its vital motion, as the monarch is
of its functional or administrative activity; and the greatest ultimate power,
which the king possesses, is that of influence upon his subjects collected
there, through the combined medium of their reverence for his person, and
of his own powers of persuasion. In the case of the army before Troy, to the
strength of these ordinary motives is added, along with a certain spirit of
resentment for injury received in the person of Helen, the hope of a rich
booty on the capture of the city, and the principle of pure military honour;
never perhaps more powerfully drawn than in the Iliad, nor with greater
freedom from extravagances, by which it is sometimes made to ride over
the heads of duty and justice, its only lawful superiors.
First, it would appear to have belonged to the Assembly, not indeed to
distribute the spoil, but to consent to its distribution by the chief
commander, and his brother-leaders. To the former it is imputed in the
Ninth Book. But in the First Book Achilles says to him in the Assembly, We
the Greeks (Ἀχαιοὶ) will requite you three and four-fold, when Troy is
taken[228]. It is probable that he here means to speak of the chiefs alone,
(but only so far as the act of distribution is concerned,) because Thersites
uses the very same expression (ἅς τοι Ἀχαιοὶ πρωτίστῳ δίδομεν[229]) in the
Second Book. Therefore the division of booty was probably made on the
king’s proposal, with the aid of the chiefs, but with the general knowledge
and consent of the army, and in right of that consent on their part.

It must be remembered all along, that the state of political society, which
Homer represents to us, is that in which the different elements of power
wear their original and natural forms; neither much altered as yet by the
elaborate contrivances of man, nor driven into their several extremes by the
consequences of long strife, greedy appetite, and furious passions, excited
by the temptations which the accumulation of property presents.
In those simple times, when the functions of government were few, and its
acts, except perhaps the trial of private causes, far between, there was no
formal distribution of political rights, as if they could be made the object of
ambitious or contentious cupidity: but the grand social power that moved
the machine was in the determinations of the ἀγορὴ, however informally
declared.
Grote has observed, that in the Homeric ἀγορὴ no division of affirmative
and negative voices ever takes place. It would require a volume to discuss
all that this remark involves and indicates. I will however observe that the
principle surely cannot be made good from history or in philosophy, that
numbers prevail by an inherent right. Decision by majorities is as much an
expedient, as lighting by gas. In adopting it as a rule, we are not realizing
perfection, but bowing to imperfection. We follow it as best for us, not as
best in itself. The only right to command, as Burke has said, resides in
wisdom and virtue. In their application to human affairs, these great powers
have commonly been qualified, on the one hand by tradition and
prepossession, on the other hand by force. Decision by majorities has the
great merit of avoiding, and that by a test perfectly definite, the last resort to
violence; and of making force itself the servant instead of the master of
authority. But our country still rejoices in the belief, that she does not
decide all things by majorities. The first Greeks neither knew the use of this
numerical dogma, nor the abuse of it. They did not employ it as an
instrument, and in that they lost: but they did not worship it as an idol, and
in that they greatly gained. Votes were not polled in the Olympus of Homer;
yet a minority of influential gods carry the day in favour of the Greeks
against the majority, and against their Head. There surely could not be a
grosser error than to deny every power to be a real one, unless we are able
both to measure its results in a table of statistics, and to trace at every step,
with our weak and partial vision, the precise mode by which it works
towards its end.

We have seen, in the first place, that all the great
Great decisions all taken decisions of the War were taken in the Assembly
there.
of the Greeks. And here the first reflection that
arises is, how deeply this method of political action must have been
engrained in their habits and ideas, when it could survive the transition from
peace to war, and, notwithstanding its palpable inconveniences in a camp,
form the practical rule of its proceedings under the eye of the enemy.
The force of this consideration is raised to the utmost height by the case of
the Night Assembly in the Ninth Book. The Trojans, no longer confined to
their walls, are lying beside a thousand watch-fires, just outside the rampart.
Some important measure is absolutely demanded on the instant by the
downcast condition of the less than half-beaten, but still thoroughly
discouraged army. Yet not even under these circumstances would
Agamemnon act individually, or with the kings alone. He sends his heralds
round the camp (Il. ix. 11),

κλήδην εἰς ἀγορὴν κικλήσκειν ἄνδρα ἕκαστον,
μηδὲ βοᾶν·

to summon an Assembly noiselessly, and man by man. Can there be a more
conclusive proof of the vigour, with which the popular principle entered
into the idea of the Homeric polities? If it be said that such an operation
could hardly be effected at night without stir, I reply that if it be so, the
argument for the power and vitality of the Assembly is but strengthened: for
Homer was evidently far more careful to speak in harmony with the
political tone of his country than to measure out time by the hour and
minute, or place by the yard, foot, and inch; as valuing not the latter
methods less, but the former more.
The Greek army, in fact, is neither more nor less than, so to speak, the State
in uniform. As the soldier of those days was simply the citizen armed, so
the armament was the aggregate of armed citizens, who, in all except their
arms and the handling of them, continued to be what they had been before.
But when we find that in such great emergencies political ideas did not give
way to military expediency, we cannot, I think, but conclude that those
ideas rested on broad and deep foundations.
It further tends to show the free nature of the relation between the Assembly
and the Commander-in-chief, that it might be summoned by others, as well
as by him. We are told explicitly in the First Book, that Achilles called it
together, as he did again in the Nineteenth for the Reconciliation. On the
second of these occasions, it may have been his purpose that the reparation
should be as public as had been the insult: at any rate there was a
determination to make the reconciliation final, absolute, and thorough. But,
at the former time, the act partook of the nature of a moral appeal from
Agamemnon to the army. It illustrated, in the first place, the principle of
publicity so prevalent in the Greek polities. That which Calchas had to
declare, he must declare not in a ‘hole and corner,’ but on his responsibility,
liable to challenge, subject to the δήμου φάτις if he told less than the truth,
as well as to the resentment of the sovereign if he should venture on
divulging it entire. But secondly, it shows that Achilles held the Greeks at
large entitled and bound to be parties to the transaction. He meant that the
Greeks should see his wrong. Perhaps he hoped that they would intercept its
infliction. This at any rate is clear: he commenced the debate with measured

reproofs of Agamemnon[230]; but afterwards he rose, with a wider scope, to
a more intense and a bitterer strain[231].
When he found that the monarch was determined, and when he had
repressed the access of rage which tempted him to summary revenge, he
began to use language not now of mere invective against Agamemnon, but
of such invective as tended to set him at odds with the people. Then further
on, perhaps because they did not echo back his sentiments, and become
active parties to the terrible fray, he both taunts and threatens them. For he
begins[232], ‘Coward that thou art! Never hast thou dared to arm with the
people for the fight, or with the leaders for the ambush.’ And then[233].
‘Devourer of the people! over what nobodies thou rulest! or surely this
would be the last of your misdeeds.’ Again, in the peroration[234], ‘By this
mighty oath, every man among you shall lament the absence of Achilles.’
It has often been asserted that the principle of
Opposition in the Agorè.
popular opposition in debate is only represented
by Thersites. But let us proceed step by step. It is
at any rate clear enough that opposition by the confederate kings is at once
sufficiently represented in Achilles; and that it is not represented by him
alone, since in the Assembly of the Ninth Book, Diomed both strongly
reprehended Agamemnon, and proposes a course diametrically the reverse
of his; which course was forthwith adopted by the acclamations of the army.
Let us now pass on to Thersites. There is no more
The case of Thersites.
singular picture in the Iliad, than that which he
presents to us. It well deserves examination in
detail.
Homer has evidently been at pains to concentrate upon this personage all
that could make him odious to the hearers of his song, while nevertheless he
puts into his mouth not only the cant of patriotism, but also a case that
would perhaps have been popular, had he not averted the favour of the army
by his insolent vulgarity.
Upon its merits, too, it was a tolerable case, but not a good one; for he was
wrong in supposing Achilles placable; and again wrong in advising that the
Greeks, now without Achilles, should give way before the Trojans, to whom
they were still superior in war.

He is in all things the reverse of the great human ideals of Homer. As, in the
pattern kings and heroes, moral, intellectual, and corporeal excellences,
each in the highest degree, must be combined, so Thersites presents a
corresponding complication of deformities to view. As to the first, he is the
most infamous person (αἴσχιστος) in the army; and he relies for his
influence, not on the sense and honour of the soldiers, but on a vein of gross
buffoonery; which he displays in the only coarse allusion that is to be found
in all the speeches of the poems. As to the second head, his voluble speech
is as void of order as of decency[235]. As to the third, he is lame, bandy-
legged[236], hump-backed, round-shouldered, peak-headed, and lastly,
(among the καρηκομόωντες,) he is bald, or indeed worse, for on his head a
hair is planted here and there[237]. Lastly, hateful to all[238], he is most of all
hateful to, as well as spiteful against, the two paramount heroes of the
poems, Achilles and Ulysses: an observation inserted with equal ingenuity
and significance, because Homer, by inserting it, effectually cuts off any
favour which Thersites might otherwise have gained with his hearers from
seeming to take the side of the wronged Achilles. It is also worthy of note,
as indicating how Homer felt the strength of that bond which unites
together all great excellences of whatever kind. Upon a slight and exterior
view, the two great characters of Achilles and Ulysses appear antagonistic,
and we might expect to find their likes and dislikes running in opposite
directions. But as, in the Ninth Book, Ulysses is declared by Achilles to be
one of those whom he loves best among the Greeks[239], so here they are
united in carrying to the highest degree a common antipathy to Thersites.
While depriving the wretch of all qualities that could attract towards him
the slightest share of sympathy, Homer has taken care to leave Thersites in
full possession of every thing that was necessary for his trade; an ample
flow of speech (213), and no small power of vulgar invective (215).
Again, the quality of mere scurrility assigned to Thersites, and well
exemplified in his speech, stands alike distinguished in Homer from the
vein of fun, which he can open in the grave Ulysses of the Odyssey, even
while he is under terror of the Cyclops; and from that tremendous and
perhaps still unrivalled power of sarcasm, of which we have found the
climax in Achilles.

In the short speech of Thersites, Homer has contrived to exhibit striking
examples of malice (vv. 226, 234), coarseness (232), vanity (vv. 228, 231,
238), cowardice (236); while it is a tissue of consummate impudence
throughout. Of this we find the finest stroke at the end of it, where he
says[240],

ἀλλὰ μάλ’ οὐκ Ἀχιλῆϊ χόλος φρεσὶν, ἀλλὰ μεθήμων·
ἦ γὰρ ἂν, Ἀτρείδη, νῦν ὕστατα λωβήσαιο[241].

For here the wretch apes Achilles, whom (for the sake of damaging
Agamemnon) he affects to patronize, and, over and above the pretension to
speak of his feelings as if he had been taken into his confidence on the
occasion, he actually closes with the very line which Achilles, at the
moment of high passion, had used in the Assembly of the First Book (i.
232).
If we consider the selection of topics each by themselves, with reference to
effect, the speech is not without a certain εὐστοχία: he hits the avarice of
Agamemnon hard (226); and his responsibility as a ruler (234): while
pretending to incite the courage of the Greeks (235), he flatters their home-
sickness and faint-heartedness by counselling the return (236); and, in
supporting Achilles, he plausibly reckons on being found to have taken the
popular side. But if we regard it, as every speech should be regarded, with
reference to some paramount purpose, it is really senseless and
inconsequent. Dwelling as he does upon the wrong done to Achilles, and
asserting the placability of that chieftain, he ought to have ended with
recommending an attempt to compensate and appease him; instead of which
he recommends the Return, which had been just abandoned. But the real
extravagance of the speech comes out only in connection with his self-love;
when, like many better men, he wholly loses whatever sense of the
ridiculous he might possess. It is not only ‘the women whom we give you’
(227); ‘the service which we render you’ (238), but it is also ‘the gold[242]
that some Trojan may bring to ransom his son, whom I, or else some other
Greek, may have led captive.’ I, Thersites, or some other Greek! The only
Greek, of whom we hear in the Iliad as having made and sold on ransom
captives during the war, is Achilles[243]; and it is with him that Thersites
thus couples himself. Upon this, Ulysses, perceiving that he stands in

opposition to the prevailing sentiment of the Assembly, silences him by a
judicious application of the sceptre to his back and shoulders: yet not even
Thersites does he silence by force, until he has first rebuked him by
reasoning[244].
Such are the facts of the case of Thersites. Are we to infer from it, with
Grote, that Homer has made him ugly and execrable because he was a
presumptuous critic, though his virulent reproaches were substantially well
founded, and that his fate, and the whole circumstances of this Assembly,
show ‘the degradation of the mass of the people before the chiefs[245]?’
In rallying the Greeks, says the distinguished historian[246], Ulysses flatters
and soothes the chiefs, but drives the people with harsh reprimand and
blows. Now surely, as to the mere matter of fact, this is not quite so. It is not
the people, but those whom he caught carrying the matter by shouts, instead
of returning to hear reason in the Assembly, that he struck with the
sceptre[247]:

ὃν δ’ αὖ δήμου τ’ ἄνδρα ἴδοι, βοόωντά τ’ ἐφεύροι·

and it may be observed, that he addresses all classes alike by the word
δαιμόνιε[248]; which, though a term of expostulation, is not one of
disrespect.
If Thersites represented the principle of reasoning in the public Assembly,
we might well see in the treatment of him the degradation of the people. But
it is railing, and not reasoning, that he represents; and Homer has separated
widely between this individual and the mass of the army, by informing us
that in the general opinion Ulysses had rendered a service, even greater than
any of his former ones, by putting down Thersites. ‘Ulysses has done a
thousand good things in council and in war: but this is the best of all, that he
has stopped the scoundrel in his ribaldry[249].’
Thersites spoke not against Agamemnon only, but against the sense of the
whole army (212); and the ground of the proceeding of Ulysses is not laid
in the fact of his having resisted Agamemnon, or Agamemnon with the
whole body of the kings; but in the manner of his speech, and in his having
acted alone and against the general sentiment. Above all, we must recollect
the circumstances, under which Ulysses ventured to chastise even this

rancorous and foul-mouthed railer. It was at a moment of crisis, nay, of
agony. The rush from the Assembly to the ships did not follow upon an
orderly assent to a proposal, such as was generally given; but it resulted
from a tumultuous impulse, like that of blasts tossing the sea, or sweeping
down upon the cornfield (Il. ii. 144-54). If therefore Ulysses employs the
sceptre of Agamemnon to smite those who were shouting in aid of this
ruinous tumult (ii. 198), we need not take this for a sample of what would
be done in ordinary circumstances, more than the fate of Wat Tyler for a
type of British freedom under the Plantagenets. Odious too as was
Thersites, yet the army, amidst a preponderating sentiment of approval, still
appear to have felt some regret at his mishap[250];

οἱ δὲ, καὶ ἀχνύμενοί περ, ἐπ’ αὐτῷ ἡδὺ γέλασσαν·

for the first words would suggest, that they knew how to value the liberty of
thought, which had been abused, disgraced, and consequently restrained, in
his person. Surely it would be most precipitate to conclude, from a case like
this, that the debates of the Assemblies were formal, and that they had
nothing to do but to listen to a sham discussion, and to register or follow
decrees which were substantially those of Agamemnon only.
I believe that the mistake involved in the judgment we have been
canvassing is a double one: a mistake of the relation of Agamemnon to the
other kings and chiefs; and a mistake of the relation of the sovereigns
generally to their subjects. Agamemnon was strong in influence and
authority, but he had, as we have already seen, nothing like a despotic
control over the other kings. The kings were strong in personal ability, in
high descent, in the sanction of Jupiter, in possession, and in tradition: but
all their strength, great as it was, lay as a general rule in the direction of
influence, and not in that of violence.
I do not think, however, that we ought to be contented with the merely
negative mode of treatment for the case of Thersites. I cannot but conceive
that, upon an impartial review, it may teach more, than is drawn from it by
merely saying that it does not prove the Assembly to have been an illusion.
We must assume that Homer’s picture, if not historical, at least conformed
to the laws of probability. Now, what is the picture? That the buffoon of the
army, wholly without influence, capable of attracting no respect, when the

mass of the people had overcome their homeward impulse, had returned to
the Assembly, and were awaiting the proposition of the kings, first
continues to rail (ἐκολῴα) while every one else is silent, and then takes
upon himself the initiative in recommending the resumption of the project,
which they had that moment abandoned. If such conduct could be ascribed
by the Poet to a creature sharp-witted enough, and as careful as others of his
own back, does not the very fact presuppose that freedom of debate was a
thing in principle at least known and familiar?
In the scene depicted on the Shield of Achilles,
Agorè on the Shield in Il.
xviii.
new evidence is afforded us that the people took a
real part in the conduct of public affairs. The
people are in Assembly. A suit is in progress. The matter is one of homicide;
and the guilty person declares that he has paid the proper fine, while his
antagonist avers that he has not received it. Each presses for a judicial
decision. The people sympathizing, some with one, and some with the
other, cheer them on.

Λαοὶ δ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπήπυον, ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοί·
κήρυκες δ’ ἄρα λαὸν ἐρήτυον[251].

I understand the latter words as declaring, not that the heralds forbade and
put a stop to the cheering of the people, but either that they kept it within
bounds, or rather that, when the proper time came for the judges to speak,
these, the heralds, procured silence. According to the meaning of ἐρητύω in
Il. ii. 211,

ἄλλοι μέν ῥ’ ἕζοντο, ἐρήτυθεν δὲ καθ’ ἕδρας.

Now of the cheering of the people I venture to say, not that it raises a
presumption of, but that it actually constitutes, their interference. The rule
of every tolerably regulated assembly, charged with the conduct of
important matters, is to permit no expressions of approval or otherwise
during the proceedings, except from the parties immediately belonging to
the body. The total exclusion of applause in judicial cases belongs to a state
of mind and manners different from that of the heroic age. But the exclusion
of all applause by mere strangers to the business rests upon a truth common
to every age; namely, that such applause constitutes a share in the business,

and contributes to the decision. It will be remembered how the cries of the
Galleries became one of the grievous scandals of the first revolution in
France, and how largely they affected the determinations of the National
Assembly. The irregular use of such a power is a formidable invasion of
legislative or judicial freedom: the allowed possession of the privilege
amounts to participation in the office of the statesman or the judge, and
demonstrates the substantive position of the λαὸς, or people, in the
Assemblies of the heroic age.
But apparently their function was not completed by merely encouraging the
litigant, with whom each man might chance to sympathize. For we are told
not only that the Judges, that is to say, the γέροντες, delivered their opinions
consecutively, but likewise that there lay in the sight of all two golden
talents, to be given to him who should pronounce the fairest judgment
(xviii. 508);

τῷ δόμεν, ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴποι.

Thus it is plain that the judge who might do best was to get the two talents:
but who was to give them? Not the γέροντες or elders themselves, surely;
for among them the competition lay. There could be but one way in which
the disposal of this fee could be settled: namely, by the general acclamation
of the people, to be expressed, after hearing the respective parties, in favour
of him whose sentiments they most approved. And those, to whom it may
seem strange to speak of vote by acclamation, should remember, that down
to this day, in all deliberative assemblies, an overpowering proportion of the
votes are votes by acclamation, or by the still less definite test of silence.
The small minority of instances, when a difference of opinion is seriously
pressed, are now settled by arithmetic; they would then have been adjusted
by some prudent appeal to the general will, proceeding from a person of
ability and weight. Indeed even now, in cases when the numbers
approximate to those of the Greek army, there can be no bonâ fide decision
by arithmetic. The demand, however, that dissension shall be the only
allowed criterion of liberty, is one which really worsens the condition of
human nature beyond what the truth of experience requires.
And finally, what shall we say to the direct
Decisions in Assemblies of Il.
vii. and ix. evidence of Agamemnon himself? Idæus[252], the

Trojan herald, arrives with the offer to restore the stolen property, but not
Helen. He is received in dead silence. After a pause, Diomed gives
utterance to the general feeling. ‘Neither will we have the goods without
Helen, nor yet Helen with the goods. Troy is doomed.’ The Assembly
shouts its approbation. Agamemnon immediately addresses himself to the
messenger; ‘Idæus, you hear the sense of the Achæans, how they answer
you; and I think with them.’ At the least this is a declaration as express as
words can make it, and proceeding out of the mouth of the rival authority,
to the effect that the acclamation of the Assembly was, for all practical
purposes, its vote, and that it required only concurrence from the king, to
invest it with the fullest authority. In the Ninth Iliad, as we have seen, the
vote held good even without that concurrence[253].
We may now, I hope, proceed upon the ground that we are not to take the ill
success of a foulmouthed scoundrel, detested by the whole army, as a
sample of what would have happened to the people, or even a part of them,
when differing in judgment from their king. But what shall we say to the
argument, that no case is found where a person of humble condition takes
part in the debates of the Assemblies? No doubt the conduct of debates was
virtually in the hands of those whose birth, wealth, station, and habits of life
gave them capacity for public affairs. Even in the nineteenth century, it very
rarely happens that a working man takes part in the proceedings of a county
meeting: but no one would on that account suppose that such an assembly
can be used as the mere tool of the class who conduct the debate, far less of
any individual prominent in that class. If we cannot conceive freedom
without perpetual discord, the faithful performance of the duty of
information and advice without coercion and oppression, it is a sign either
of our narrow-mindedness, or of our political degeneracy; but a feeble eye
does not impair the reality of the object on which it may happen to be fixed.
Still we may admit that among the numerous assemblies of the Iliad, there
is no instance where assent is given by one part of the Assembly, and
withheld by the other. There is, as we have seen, a clear and strong case
where the opinion of the commander-in-chief is rejected, and that of an
inferior commander adopted in its stead. This in my opinion goes far to
prove all that is necessary. We have from the Odyssey, however, the means
of going further still.

Only, before leaving the Iliad, let us observe the terms in which the Greek
Assemblies are addressed by the kings: they are denominated friends and
heroes; names which at least appear to imply their title to judge, or freely to
concur, at least as much as such a title was recognised in the ancient
councils and assemblies of the Anglo-saxons. Was this appearance a
mockery? I do not say we should compare it with the organized, secure and
regular privileges of a few nations in modern days. But it would be a far
greater mistake to treat it as an idle form, or as otherwise than a weighty
reality.
From what is related in that poem to have
Division in the Drunken
Assembly.
occurred after the capture of Troy, it becomes
abundantly clear that the function of the Greek
Assembly was not confined to listening. The army met in what, for the sake
of distinction, we may call the Drunken Assembly[254]. Now, the influence
of wine upon its proceedings is amply sufficient to show that its acts were
the acts of the people: for Homer never allows his chiefs to be moved from
their self-possession by the power of liquor.
There was a marked difference of opinion on that occasion: the people took
their sides; δίχα δέ σφισιν ἥνδανε βουλή (Od. iii. 150). One half embarked;
the residue staid behind with Agamemnon (155-7). The moiety, which had
sailed away, split again (162); and a portion of them went back to
Agamemnon. We see, indeed, throughout the Odyssey, how freely the crews
of Ulysses spoke or acted, when they thought fit, in opposition to his views.
If it be said, we must not argue from the unruly speeches of men in great
straits at sea, the answer is, first, that their necessities might rather tend to
induce their acquiescence in a stricter discipline; and secondly, that their
liberty, and even license, are not out of keeping with the general tone of the
relations between freemen of different classes, as exhibited to us elsewhere
in the Homeric poems.
It may, indeed, be said, that the divisions of the Greeks in the final
proceedings at Troy were divisions, not of the men, but of the chiefs. This,
however, upon the face of the text, is very doubtful. We see from the tale of
the Pseudo-Ulysses, in the Thirteenth Odyssey (265, 6), that there were
parties and separate action in the Greek contingents: and it is probably to
these that Nestor may allude, when he recommends the Review in order that
the responsibility of the officers may be brought home to them individually.

Now, in the case before us, the first division is thus described. Menelaus
exhorted all the Greeks (πάντας Ἀχαιοὺς) to go home: Agamemnon
disagreed (141, 3): while they were contesting the point, the Assembly rose
in two parties (vv. 149, 50);

οἱ δ’ ἀνόρουσαν ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοὶ
ἠχῇ θεσπεσίῃ· δίχα δέ σφισιν ἥνδανε βουλή.

There is no intimation here that the people in dividing simply followed their
chiefs. Nay, the tone of the description is such as obliges us to understand
that the movement was a popular one, and took its rise from the debate: so
that, even if the chiefs and their men kept together respectively, as they may
have done, still the chiefs may probably have followed quite as much as
they led. Again, when the second separation takes place, it is thus described,
‘One portion returned, under Ulysses, to Agamemnon. Prognosticating evil,
I made sail homewards with the whole body of my ships, which followed
me. Diomed did the same, and (ὦρσε δ’ ἑταίρους) invited his men (to do it).
And after us at last came Menelaus.’ (vv. 162-8). Now here instruction is
given us on three points:
1. Diomed urged his men; therefore it was not a mere matter of course that
they should go.
2. Nestor mentions especially that his division all kept together (σὺν νηυσὶν
ἀολλέσιν); therefore this did not always happen.
3. It is very unlikely that the part, which is first named as having returned
with Ulysses, should have been confined to his own petty contingent.
Thus it is left in great doubt, whether the chiefs and men did uniformly keep
together: and the tenour of the narrative favours the supposition, that the
men at least contributed materially to any joint conclusions.
As, in the first Assembly of the Iliad, Achilles acts
Ithacan Assembly of Od. ii.
his personal quarrel in the public eye, and lodges
a sort of tacit appeal against Agamemnon, so, in
that of the Odyssey, Telemachus does the like with reference to the Suitors.
It is there that he protests against their continued consumption of his
substance; that he rejects their counter-proposal for the dismissal of his
mother on their behalf, and that he himself finally propounds the voyage to

the mainland[255]. There too we find a most distinct recognition by Mentor,
his guardian, of the powers and rights of the people; for he loudly
complains of their sitting silent, numerous as they are[256], instead of
interposing to rebuke the handful of Suitors that were the wrongdoers. But
if, according to the genius and usages of the heroic age, the people had
nothing to do but to listen and obey their betters, the expectation that they
should have risen to defend a minor against the associated aristocracy of the
country would have been absurd, and could not have been expressed, as we
find it expressed, by Mentor.
It is true indeed, as has been observed by Tittmann[257], that this Assembly
makes no effective response to the appeal of Telemachus; and that the
Suitor Antinous is allowed to declare in it his own intention, and that of his
companions, to continue their lawless proceedings. But what we see in the
Odyssey is not the normal state of the heroic polities: it is one of those
polities disorganized by the absence of its head, with a people, as the issue
proves, deeply tainted by disloyalty. Yet let us see what, even in this state of
things, was still the weight of the Agorè. First, when Telemachus desires to
make an initial protest against the acts of the Suitors, he calls it to his aid.
Secondly, though at the outset of the discussion no concession is made to
him, yet he gains ground as it proceeds. The speech of Antinous, the first
Suitor who addresses the Assembly (Od. ii. 85-128), is in a tone of sheer
defiance, and treats his attempt as a jest and as an insult (v. 86). The next is
that of Eurymachus; who, while deriding the omens, yet makes an advance
by appealing to Telemachus to take the matter into his own hands, and
induce his mother to marry one among them (178-207). The third, that of
Leiocritus, contains a further slight approximation; for it conveys an assent
to his proposed voyage, and recommends that Mentor and Alitherses shall
assist him in making provision for it (242-56). Thus even here we see that
progression, which may always be noticed in the Homeric debates; and the
influence under which it was effected must surely have been an
apprehension of the Assembly, to which both Telemachus, and still more
directly Mentor, had appealed.
Thirdly, however, we perceive in this very account the signs of the
disordered and distracted state of the public mind. For, beyond a sentiment
of pity for Telemachus when he bursts into tears (v. 81), they make no sign

of approval or disapproval. We miss in Ithaca the well-known cheers of the
Iliad, the

οἱ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἐπίαχον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν.

They are dismissed without having made a sign; just as it is in the Assembly
of the First Iliad (an exception in that poem); where the mind of the masses,
puzzled and bewildered, is not in a condition to enable them to interfere by
the distinct expression of their sympathies[258].
There are, however, two other instances of Assemblies in the Odyssey.
The first of these is the Assembly of the
Phæacian Assembly of Od.
viii.
Phæacians in the Eighth Book; which we may
safely assume to be modelled generally according
to the prevailing manners.
The petition[259] of Ulysses to Alcinous is, that he may be sent onwards to
his home. The king replies, that he will make arrangements about it on the
following day[260]. Accordingly, the Assembly of the Phæacian people is
called: Minerva herself, under the form of the herald, takes the pains to
summon the principal persons[261]. Alcinous then proposes that a ship shall
be got ready, with a crew of fifty-two picked men[262]. For his part he will
give to this crew, together with the kings, an entertainment at the palace
before they set out[263]. This is all done without debate. Then comes the
banquet, and the first song of Demodocus. The company next return to the
place of assembly, for the games. It is here that Ulysses is taunted by
Euryalus[264]. In his reply he appeals to his character as a suppliant; but he
is the suppliant of the king and all the people, not of the king, nor even of
the king and his brother kings, alone[265];

ἧμαι, λισσόμενος βασιλῆά τε, πάντα τε δῆμον.

We must therefore assume that Alcinous, in his proposal, felt that he was
acting according both to precedent and the general opinion. He does not
order any measure to be taken, but simply gives his opinion in the
Assembly about providing a passage, which is silently accepted (ver. 46).
Yet I cannot but take it for a sign of the strong popular infusion in the

political ideas of the age, when we find that even so slight a measure, as the
dispatch of Ulysses, was thought fit to be proposed and settled there.
But we have weightier matter disposed of in the Twenty-fourth Odyssey,
which affords us an eighth and last example of the Greek Assembly, its
powers, and usages.
The havock made of the Suitors by Ulysses is at last discovered after the
bodies have been disposed of; and upon the discovery, the chiefs and people
repair in a mass to the open space where Assemblies were held, and which
bears the same name with them[266]. Here the people are addressed on the
one side by Eupeithes, father of the leading Suitor Antinous, on the other,
by Medon the herald, and Alitherses, son of Mastor the Seer. And here we
are supplied with further proofs, that the Assemblies were not wholly
unaccustomed to act according to their feelings and opinions. There is no
sign of perplexity or confusion; but there is difference of sentiment, and
each party acts upon its own. More than half the meeting loudly applaud
Alitherses, and break up, determined not to meddle in the affair[267]. The
other party keep their places, holding with Eupeithes; they then go to arm,
and undertake the expedition against Ulysses. Having lost their leader by a
spear’s throw of Laertes, for which Minerva had supplied him with
strength, they fall like sheep before the weapons of their great chief and his
son. Yet, though routed, they are not treated as criminals for their resistance;
but the poem closes by informing us that Minerva, in the form of
Mentor[268], negotiated a peace between the parties[269].
Since the Assemblies of Olympus grow out of the
Councils or Assemblies of
Olympus.
polytheistic form of the Greek religion, we must
treat them as part of its human element, and as a
reflection of the heroic life. There will therefore be an analogy perceptible
between the relation of Jupiter to the other Immortals in the Olympian
Assembly, and that of the Greek Sovereign to all or some of those around
him. But as the deities meet in the capacity of rulers, we should seek this
analogy rather in the relation between Agamemnon and the kings, or
between the local sovereign and his elders (γέροντες), than between either
of the two respective heads, and the mass of those whom he ruled. This
analogy is in substance sustained by the poems. The sovereignty of Jupiter
undoubtedly stands more elevated, among the divinities of Olympus, than

that of Agamemnon, or any other of his kings, on earth. It includes more of
the element of force, and it approximates more nearly to a positive
supremacy. Accordingly, whatever indicates freedom in Olympus will tend
a fortiori to show, that the idea of freedom in debate was, at least as among
the chiefs, familiar here below. Yet even in Olympus the other chief deities
could murmur, argue, and object. The power of Jupiter is exhibited at its
zenith in the Assembly of the Eighth Iliad, when he violently threatens all
that disobey, and challenges the whole pack to try their strength with him.
The vehemence with which he spoke produced the same intimidatory effect
upon the gods, as did the great speech of Achilles upon the envoys: and the
result upon the minds of the hearers in the two cases respectively, is
described in lines which, with the exception of a single word, precisely
correspond[270]. Still, immediately after Jupiter has given the peremptory
order not to assist either party, Minerva answers, Well, we will not fight—
which she never had done—but we will advise; and this Jupiter at once and
cheerfully permits[271]. But there is more than this. Be the cause what it
may, the personal will of Jupiter, fulfilled as to Achilles[272], is not fulfilled
as to Troy. The Assembly of the Fourth Book is opened with a proposal
from him, that Troy shall stand[273]. From this he recedes, and it is decided
that the city shall be destroyed; while the only reservation he makes is not
at all on behalf of the Trojans, but simply on behalf of his own freedom to
destroy any other city he may mislike, however dear it may chance to be to
Juno.
The position of Agamemnon, of which Jupiter is in a great degree a
reflection, bears a near resemblance to that of a political leader under free
European, and, perhaps it may be said, especially under British, institutions.
Its essential elements are, that it is worked in part by accommodation, and
in part by influence.
Besides its grand political function, the ἀγορὴ is, as we have seen, in part a
judicial body. But the great safeguard of publicity attends the conduct of
trials, as well as the discussion of political affairs. The partialities of people
who manifest their feelings by visible signs is thus prevented, on the one
hand, by the cultivation of habitual self-respect, from passing into fury, and
on the other hand, from degenerating into baseness.

It is perhaps worthy of notice, as assisting to indicate the substantive and
active nature of the popular interest in public affairs, that where parties
were formed in the Assemblies, those who thought together sat together.
Such appears to be the intimation of the line in the Eighteenth Iliad (502),

λαοὶ δ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπήπυον, ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοί.

As the ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοὶ expresses their sentiments, ἀμφοτέρωθεν can hardly
signify any thing other than that they sat separately on each side of the
Assembly. A similar arrangement seems to be conveyed in the Twenty-
fourth Odyssey, where we find that the party of the Suitors remained in a
mass (τοὶ δ’ ἀθρόοι αὐτόθι μίμνον, v. 464.) I think this circumstance by no
means an unimportant one, as illustrative of the capacity, in which the
people attended at the Assemblies for either political or judicial purposes.
The place of Assemblies is also the place of
Judicial functions of the
Assembly.
judicature. But the supremacy of the political
function is indicated by this, that the word ἀγορὴ,
which means the Assembly for debate, thus gives its own designation to the
place where both functions were conducted. At the same time, we have in
the word Themis a clear indication that the original province of government
was judicial. For that word in Homer signifies the principles of law, though
they were not yet reduced to the fixed forms of after-times; but on the other
hand Themis was also a goddess, and she had in that capacity the office of
summoning and of dissolving Assemblies[274]. Thus the older function, as
often happens, came in time to be the weaker, and had to yield the
precedence to its more vigorous competitor.
But in Homer’s time, though they were distinguished, they were not yet
divided. On the Shield of Achilles, the work of Themis[275] is done in full
Assembly: and this probably signifies the custom of the time. But in the
Eleventh Iliad, Patroclus passes by the ships of Ulysses[276],

ἵνα σφ’ ἀγορή τε θέμις τε
ἤην.

And, in the description of the Cyclopes, the line is yet more clearly drawn;
for it is said[277],

τοῖσιν δ’ οὔτ’ ἀγοραὶ βουληφόροι, οὔτε θέμιστες.

In that same place, too, the public solemnities of religion were performed:
and though in the Greek camp it was doubtless placed at the centre of the
line with a view to security, its position most aptly symbolized also its
moral centrality, as the very heart of the national life. At the spot where the
Assemblies were held were gathered into a focus the religious, as well as
the patriotic sentiments of the country.
The fact is, that everywhere in Homer we find the signs of an intense
corporate or public life, subsisting and working side by side with that of the
individual. And of this corporate life the ἀγορὴ is the proper organ. If a man
is to be described as great, he is always great in debate and on the field; if
as insignificant and good for nothing, then he is of no account either in
battle or in council. The two grand forms of common and public action are
taken for the criteria of the individual.
When Homer wished to describe the Cyclopes as living in a state of
barbarism, he says, not that they have no kings, or no towns, or no armies,
or no country, but that they have no Assemblies, and no administration of
justice, which, as we have seen, was the primary function of the
Assemblies. And yet all, or nearly all the States had Kings. The lesson to be
learned is, that in heroic Greece the King, venerable as was his title, was not
the fountainhead of the common life, but only its exponent. The source lay
in the community, and the community met in the Agorè. So deeply
imbedded is this sentiment in the mind of the Poet, that it seems as if he
could not conceive an assemblage of persons having any kind of common
function, without their having, so to speak, a common soul too in respect of
it.
Of this common soul the organ in Homer is the
The common Soul or Τὶς in
Homer.
Τὶς or ‘Somebody;’ by no means one of the least
remarkable, though he has been one of the least
regarded, personages of the poems. The Τὶς of Homer is, I apprehend, what
in England we now call public opinion. We constantly find occasions, when
the Poet wants to tell us what was the prevailing sentiment among the
Greeks of the army. He might have done this didactically, and described at
length the importance of popular opinion, and its bearings in each case. He

has adopted a method more poetical and less obtrusive. He proceeds
dramatically, through the medium of a person, and of a formula:

ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν, ἰδὼν ἐς πλήσιον ἄλλον.

It may, however, not seem worthy of remark, considering the amount of
common interest among the Greeks, that he should find an organ for it in
his Τίς. But when he brings the Greeks and Trojans together in the Pact,
though it is only for the purpose of a momentary action, still he makes an
integer pro hâc vice of the two nations, and provides them with a common
Τὶς (Il. iii. 319):

ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν Ἀχαιῶν τε Τρώων τε.

We find another remarkable exemplification in the case of the Suitors in the
Odyssey. Dissolute and selfish youths as they are, and competitors with one
another for a prize which one only can enjoy, they are nevertheless for the
moment banded together in a common interest. They too, therefore, have a
collective sentiment, and a ready organ for it in a Τὶς of the Odyssey (Od. ii.
324), who speaks for the body of Suitors:

ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκε νέων ὑπερηνορεόντων.

All these are, in my view, most striking proofs of the tenacious hold, which
the principle of a public or corporate life for all aggregations of men had
taken upon the mind of Homer, and upon Greece in the heroic age. Nor can
I help forming the opinion, that in all probability we may discern in the
Homeric Τὶς the primary ancestor of the famous Greek Chorus. It is the
function of the Chorus to give utterance to the public sentiment, but in a
sense apt, virtuous, and pious. Now this is what the Homeric Τὶς usually
does; but of course he does on behalf of the community, what the Chorus
does as belonging to the body of actors.
It is then surely a great error, after all we have seen, to conclude that,
because the political ideas and practices of those times did not wear the
costumes now in fashion, they were without their own real vitality, and
powerful moral influence upon the minds and characters of men.

But, on the other hand, in repelling these unsound
Imperfect organization of the
and injurious notions, we must beware of
Heroic Polities.
assuming too much of external resemblance
between the heroic age and the centuries either of modern Christendom or
even of historic Greece and Rome. All the determinate forms of public right
are the growth of long time, of dearbought experience, and of proved
necessity. Right and force are supplements to one another; but the
proportions, in which they are to be mingled, are subject to no fixed rule. If
the existence of rights, both popular and regal, in the heroic age is certain,
their indeterminateness is glaring and conspicuous. But the shape they bore,
notwithstanding the looseness of its outline, was quite adequate to the needs
of the time. We must not, in connection with the heroic age, think of public
life as a profession, of a standing mass of public affairs, of legislation
eternally in arrear, of a complex machinery of government. There were no
regular regencies in Greece during the Trojan war. There was no Assembly
in Ithaca during the long absence of Ulysses[278], before the one called by
Telemachus, and reported in the Second Book of the Odyssey. We have
seen, however, in what way this lack of machinery told upon the state of
Greece by encouraging faction, and engendering revolution. The strain of
the Trojan expedition was too great for a system so artless and inorganic.
The state of Ithaca in the Odyssey is politically a state almost of anarchy;
though the symptoms of that disease were milder by far then, than they
could now be. The condition of the island shows us what its polity had
been, rather than what it was. But for all ordinary occasions it had sufficed.
For Assemblies met only when they had something to do; and rarely indeed
would such junctures arrive. Infractions of social order and social rights,
which now more commonly take place by fraud, were then due almost
wholly to violence. And violence, from its nature, could hardly be the
subject of appeal to the Assembly: as a general rule, it required to be repaid
on the instant, and in the same coin. Judicial questions would not often be
of such commanding interest, as to divide a people into two opinions; nor
the parties to them wealthy enough to pay two talents to the successful
judge. Great controversies, affecting allegiance and the succession, must of
necessity in all ages be rare; and of a disputed succession in Greece the
poems can hardly be said to offer us an instance. We find, however, in the
last Book of the Odyssey, that, according to the ideas of that period, when a
question as to the sovereignty did arise, the people needed no instructor as

to the first measure they were to take. They repaired, as if by a common and
instinctive impulse, to the Agorè; in which lay deposited their civil rights
and their old traditions, like the gems of the wealth of Greece in the shrine
of the Archer Apollo[279].

II. ILIOS.
THE TROJANS COMPARED AND
CONTRASTED WITH THE GREEKS.
We have perhaps been accustomed to contemplate the Trojans too
exclusively, either as enemies of the Greeks, or else as constituting, together
with them, one homogeneous chapter of antiquity, which we might be
content to examine as a whole, without taking notice of specific differences.
Let us now endeavour to inquire what were the relations, other than those of
mere antagonism in the war, between the two nations; what points they
embraced, and what affinities or discords they disclose. The direct signs of
kindred between Troy and Greece have already been considered; but the
examination into points of contrast and resemblance as respects religion,
polity, and character, will assist us in judging how far a key to those
affinities and discords is to be found in the different interfusion and
proportion, in the two cases, of ethnical elements which they possessed in
common.
We have seen in another place[280] that the Greeks, or Achæans, and the
Trojans, were akin by the Hellic element, which appears to establish a
connection chiefly as regarded the royal house, and other ruling houses, of
Troy. On the other hand it has seemed clear, from many sources, that the
main affinity between the bulk of the two nations was Pelasgian. As
respects the ethnological question, the supposition most consonant to the
evidence as a whole appears to me to be, that in Troas we find Hellic
families, possessed of dominion over a Pelasgian people: in Greece we find
Hellic tribes, placed in dominant juxtaposition with Pelasgic tribes, of prior
occupancy; constituting, as is probable, whole classes of the community,
and mingling with and powerfully modifying the aggregate composition so
as to produce a mixed result; while in Troy, though the ruling houses are
probably a different order, and there may be found here and there the tokens
of this influence, yet the general face of society, and the substance of

manners and institutions, are Pelasgian. It will be recollected, that even in
Greece we trace two forms of Hellic diffusion. Sometimes the descendants
of the Helli appear as single families, like the Æolids; sometimes as races,
like the Achæans. The state of facts here supposed as to Troy is in
accordance with the former class of indications within Greece itself.
Upon the footing supplied by these assumptions, I shall treat the
comparison of the two countries as to religion, policy, social usages, and
moral ideas and practice.
We have already been obliged, in considering the respective shares of the
Hellenic and Pelasgian factors in the compound Greek character, to
anticipate in some degree the conclusions with regard to the religion of the
Trojans in its general character, which I will now proceed more fully to
explain and illustrate.
We have found three conspicuous deities, of worship apparently supreme
and universal: Jupiter, Minerva, and Apollo. After these comes Neptune, of
a more doubtful position when we pass out of the Hellenic and Phœnician
circles; and Latona with Diana, who, doubtless from the vantage ground of
early tradition, take rank alike with an Hellenic and a Pelasgian people. We
have also supposed Ceres to be of immemorial standing as a deity of the
Pelasgians; and Venus to have made great way among them.
Passing on from the consideration of Pelasgian
Greek names of deities found
also in Troas.
religion at large, it will now be requisite to show,
with particular reference to Troy, how far we find
the names of the Greek divinities recognised there; nor must we omit to
consider, in what degree identity of name implies identity of person and
function.
1. Jupiter had a τέμενος, or portion of consecrated land, on Mount
Gargarus; and there Onetor was his priest[281]. He is, with the Trojans as
with the Greeks, the first and greatest of the gods[282]. He himself attests
their abundant liberality in sacrifices offered to himself[283]. The Greek
Jupiter is Olympian; the Trojan Jupiter is Jupiter of Ida. Except as to abode,
there is no difference to be discerned between the features of the two.
2. We have no direct indication, in the Iliad, of the worship of Neptune by
the Trojans. But the legend of his employment under Laomedon must be

taken to imply that his divinity was acknowledged in that country:
confirmed as it is by his sharing with Jupiter and Apollo the destruction of
the Greek rampart after the conclusion of the war[284].
3. In the case of Juno, I have elsewhere noticed[285] the three passages,
which alone appear to establish a faint connection between her and the
Trojans.
4. Minerva had a temple on Pergamus; and was served there by a priestess,
Theano; who, as the wife of Antenor, was of the very next rank to Priam
and his house. The goddess is addressed, on the occasion of the procession
of the Sixth Book, in a strain which seems to acknowledge her possession
of supreme power[286]: the defender of cities, excellent among goddesses,
she is entreated to have pity on Troy, to break the lance of Diomed, and to
grant that he himself may fall.
5. Apollo would appear to be the favourite among the great deities of the
country. He, like Minerva, has a temple in the citadel[287]. Chryses is his
priest at Chryse, and there too he has a temple. He is the special protector of
Cilla and of Tenedos[288]. With Minerva, he is indicated as the recipient of
supreme honour[289]. The Lycian name, so prevalent in Troas, establishes a
special connection with him. In the Iliad, he seems to be the ordinary and
immediate Providence to the Trojan chiefs, as Minerva is to the Greek ones.
At the same time, he carries no sign of exclusive nationalism; he bears no
hatred to the Greeks; but, after the restitution and propitiation, he at once
accepts the prayer, and stays the pestilence[290].
6. Latona must have been known among the Trojans; because Homer has
represented her as contending on the Trojan side in the war of the gods, and
as engaged in tending the wounded Æneas within the temple of Apollo on
Pergamus.
7. The same reasons apply also to Diana: and we moreover find, that she
instructed the Trojan Scamandrius in the huntsman’s art[291].
8. Venus is eminently Trojan. Her relation to this people is marked by her
favour towards Paris: her passion for Anchises: her sending a personal
ornament as a marriage gift to Andromache; her ministerial charge over the
body of Hector (Il. xxiii. 184-7); her being chosen as the model to which

Trojan beauties are compared, while Diana is the favourite standard for the
Greek woman. It is also marked by her zealous, though feeble, partizanship
in favour of Troy among the Immortals: and by the biting taunts of Pallas,
of Helen, and of Diomed[292].
9. Vulcan is not only known, but has a cult in Troy: for Dares is his priest,
and is a person of great wealth and consideration; one of whose sons he
delivers from death in battle, to comfort the old man in his decline[293].
10. Mars. Of this deity it would seem, that he has been given by Homer to
the Pelasgians, mainly because of his so strongly marked Thracian
character, and his want of recognition among the Hellenes, who had a
higher deity of war in Minerva. I have touched elsewhere upon his
equivocal position as between the two parties to the war. It corresponds
with that of the Thracians, who appear to form a point of intersection, so to
speak, for the Hellic and Pelasgian races. Those of the plain of Adrianople
are, like the Pelasgi, horse-breeders, dwelling in a fertile country: the ruder
portion are among the mountains to the north and west.
11. Mercury. One sign only of the ordinary agency of this deity in Troas is
exhibited; he gives abundant increase to the flocks of Phorbas[294].
12. Earth (Γαῖα) would appear to have been recognised as an object of
distinct worship in Troas: for when Menelaus proposes the Pact, he invites
the Trojans to sacrifice a black lamb to her, and a white one to the Sun;
while the Greeks will on their part offer up a lamb to Jupiter. The proposal
is at once accepted; and the heralds are sent by Hector to the city for the
lambs[295], which seems to be conclusive as to the acknowledgment of these
two deities in Troy.
13. The Sun. Besides that the passage last quoted for Earth is also
conclusive for the Sun, we have another token of his relation to Troy, in the
unwillingness with which he closes the day, when with his setting is to end
the glory of Hector and of his country[296].
We have thus gone through the list of the greater Greek deities, and have
found them all acknowledged in Troas, with the following exceptions: 1. of
Ceres, whom we may however suspect, from her Pelasgian character, to
have been worshipped there under some name or form; 2. of Aidoneus; and
3. of Persephone. These exceptions will be further noticed.

Again, among the thirteen who have been identified as objects of Trojan
worship, we find one, namely, Γαῖα, of whom we can hardly say that she
was worshipped in Greece; though she was invoked, as by Agamemnon in
the Nineteenth Book, and by Althea in the Ninth, to add a more solemn
sanction to oaths.
14. Together with her, we may take notice of a fourteenth deity, apparently
of great consideration in Troy, namely, the River Scamander. He bears a
marked sign of ancient worship, in having a divine appellation, Xanthus, as
well as his terrestrial one, Scamander. He had an ἀρήτηρ, by name
Dolopion. To him, according to the speech of Achilles, the Trojans
sacrificed live horses. He enters into the division of parties among the gods
about the war, and fights vigorously against Achilles, until he is at length
put down by Hephæstus, or Vulcan. As a purely local deity, however, he has
of course no place in the Greek mythology.
15. Though we have no direct mention of the translation of Tithonus by
Ἠὼς, or Aurora, yet, as Homer gives Tithonus a place both in the genealogy
of the Dardanidæ, and likewise by the side of Aurora, we may consider that,
by thus recognising the translation, he also points out Aurora as an
acknowledged member of the supernatural order in Troas.
Several among these names call for more particular notice: especially those
of Vulcan, Earth, and Scamander.
The case of Vulcan, and his place in Troy, may
Worship of Vulcan in Troas.
serve to remind us of a proposition somewhat
general in its application; this namely, that, in
classifying the Trojan divinities, Homer need not have intended to imply
that the same name must in all cases carry exactly the same attributes. We
must here bear in mind, that probably all, certainly almost all, of the
properly Olympian gods, were Greek copies modified from Oriental or
from traditive originals. But as these conceptions were propagated in
different quarters, each country would probably add or take away, or
otherwise alter, in conformity with its own ruling tendencies. Hence when
we find a Vulcan in Greece, and a Vulcan in Troas, it by no means follows,
that each of them presented the same features and attributes. If Homer
believed them to be derived from a common original in Egypt or elsewhere,
that would be a good and valid reason for his describing them by the same

name, though the Trojan Vulcan might not present all the Hellenic traits, nor
vice versâ. In some cases, such as those of Jupiter, Apollo, Minerva, Diana,
and Venus, there is such a correspondence of attributes entering into the
portraiture of the respective deities in the two countries, that their identity,
at least so far as the evidence goes, seems quite unimpaired and
unequivocal. But we have no means of showing from the poems, that the
Trojan Hephæstus corresponded with the Greek one. Indeed when we find
no mention of his being actually worshipped in Greece, and at the same
time learn that he had a priest in Troas, the presumption arises, that different
conceptions of him prevailed in the two countries. Again, there is nowhere
assigned to him as a Greek deity any such exercise of power, as that by
which he saves Idæus, a son of his priest Dares, from imminent death on the
field of battle.
These general considerations, which tend to show that the identity of name
in a Trojan and a Greek deity may be compatible with much of dissimilarity
in the popular development of the functions, will relieve us from
difficulties, which we should otherwise have had to meet, in accounting for
the place of some of the Olympian divinities in Trojan worship. We have
found reason to suppose, that Vulcan may have come into Greece through
Phœnicia. But the Trojans appear to have had very little connection with
Phœnicia. The precious κειμήλιον of Priam, the cup that he carried to
Achilles, was not Phœnician but Thracian[297]. The only token of
intercourse mentioned is, that Paris brought textile fabrics from Sidon[298].
Again, Vulcan was especially worshipped in Lemnos, and had his terrestrial
abode there. But this goes more naturally to account for the works of metal
in Thrace, than for the position of Vulcan in Troas; higher as it was,
apparently, than in Greece. Again, it is worth notice, that the Vulcan of the
Romans was, like their Mars, one of the old gods of Etruria, a country
stamped with many Pelasgian characteristics. It may be, that we ought to
look back to Egypt for the origin of all these Vulcans. In the time of
Herodotus[299], the Egyptian priests claimed him as their own: and Phtah,
the principal deity of Memphis, was held by the later Greeks to correspond
with their Ἥφαιστος. Even the two names carry tokens of relationship.
From that fountain-head might be propagated diverging copies of the deity:
and, as far as we can judge, the Vulcan worshipped in Troy was much more

like the common ancestor, than the highly idealized artificer of Olympus,
upon whom the Poet has worked out all his will[300].
There is another of its points of contact with the
Worship of Juno and Gaia in
Troas.
Olympian system, in which this list of Trojan
deities is remarkable. While investigating the
Greek mythology, we have found reason to suppose that Juno, Ceres, and
Gaia are but three different forms of the same original tradition of a divine
feminine: of whom Ceres is the Pelasgian copy, Juno the vivid and powerful
Hellenic development, and Gaia the original skeleton, retaining nothing of
the old character, but having acquired the function of gaol-keeper for
perjurors when sent to the other world[301]. In the retention however of all
three within the circle of religion, we see both the receptiveness and the
universalism of the Greek mythology. Now, in Troy, where there was less of
imaginative power, the case stands very differently. Of Ceres, who
represents the Pelasgian impression of the old earth-worshipping tradition,
we hear nothing in Troas. Probably she was not there, because Gaia, her
original, was still a real divinity for the Trojans. But how are we to explain
the fact that Gaia and Juno are both there? I venture to suggest, that it is
because these are different names, the foreign and the domestic one, for the
same thing. When Hector swears to Dolon, it is by Jupiter, ‘the loud-
thundering husband of Here:’ which almost appears as if Juno held, in the
Trojan oath, a place more or less resembling the place occupied in the
Greek oaths (where Juno does not appear at all) by Gaia.
Again, it is obvious that, if this relation exists between Gaia and Juno, it
explains the fact that we do not find both, so to speak, thriving together. In
Troas Gaia is worshipped, but Juno scarcely appears. In Greece Juno is
highly exalted, but Gaia has lost all body, and has dwindled to a spectral
phantasm. It is the want of imagination in the Trojan mythology, which
makes it a more faithful keeper of traditions, stereotyped in the forms in
which they were had from their inventors.
Next, as to Mercury. I have already adverted to
Worship of Mercury in Troas.
the fact that Priam[302], notwithstanding his
obligations to Mercury in the Twenty-fourth Iliad, takes no notice of his
divinity. I think that a close examination of the narrative tends to show, that
the Greek Mercury was not worshipped in Troy; and leaves us to conclude

that Homer uses a merely poetical mode of speech in saying that this god
gave increase to the flocks of Phorbas[303]: even as when he makes Priam
call Iris an Olympian messenger[304].
He appears before Priam and his companion Idæus, when they are on their
way to the Greek camp, in the semblance of a young and noble Myrmidon.
There were, we know[305], certain visible signs, by which deities could in
general be recognised or, at least, guessed as such. Both Idæus, however,
and Priam himself, saw nothing of this character in Mercury, and simply
took him for a Greek enemy[306]. Mercury, after some genial conversation,
conducts his chariot to the quarters of Achilles, and then, before quitting
him, announces himself. Not, however, like Apollo to Hector (Il. xv. 256),
and Minerva to Ulysses (Od. xiii. 299), simply by giving his name: but he
also declares himself to be an Immortal, θεὸς ἄμβροτος (460). This unusual
circumstance raises a presumption, that he was not already known as a
divinity to Priam; and the presumption seems to become irrefragable, when
we find that Priam, though given to the observances of religion, uses no act
or expression of reverence or even recognition to his benefactor, either on
his first declaration and departure (460, 7), or upon his second nocturnal
appearance (682), followed by a second and final flight to Olympus (694).
The case of Scamander will require particular notice: because it is
immediately connected with the question, whether the Trojans partook of
that tendency to a large imaginative development of religion, which so
eminently distinguishes the Grecian supernaturalism.
We will therefore consider carefully the facts relating to this deity, and such
other kindred facts as Homer suggests.
He speaks of Dolopion as follows[307];

ὑπερθύμου Δολοπίονος, ὅς ῥα Σκαμάνδρου
ἀρητὴρ ἐτέτυκτο, θεὸς δ’ ὣς τίετο δήμῳ.

This is entirely in keeping, as to particulars, with the Pelasgian and Trojan
institutions. The ἀρητὴρ of Homer is apparently always the priest. Dolopion
was a man in very high station and honour, like the priests of Rome, and of
early Ætolia[308]; but not like those of later Greece. And he had been ‘made’
or ‘appointed’ priest; as Theano was chosen to be priestess by the people.

The priesthood of the Homeric age never appears as a caste in these
latitudes. The only approximation to caste is in the gift of the μάντις, which,
as we find from the Odyssey, was hereditary in the family of
Melampus[309]. Thus far, then, the evidence respecting Scamander certainly
would appear to belong to the category of Homer’s historical statements.
Beyond this, everything assumes a figurative stamp. Scamander fights as a
deity with Achilles, and his waters are so powerful that they can only be
subdued by the immediate action of the god of fire. The hero, too, is aided
by the powerful blasts of Zephyr and of Notus, whom Juno rouses up to
scorch the Trojans[310]. As we can hardly doubt, that the plague in the First
Book represents some form of marsh-fever, so here it appears likely that the
Poet takes very skilful advantage of a flood, caused by summer rains, which
had annoyed the Greeks, and which had been followed by the subsidence of
the waters upon the return of hot weather.
Scamander is very great in the Iliad, but with a purely local greatness. As a
person, he speaks both to men and to gods. He addresses Simois as his
beloved brother; but it is entirely on the affair of the deluge and the heat.
Though he takes part in the war, the distinction is not awarded to him of
being a member of the smaller and select Olympian community: he merely
stands included by presumption in the general category of Rivers[311].
We have a description from the mouth of Achilles
Worship of Scamander.
of certain sacrifices, as belonging to the worship
of Scamander[312]:

οὐδ’ ὑμῖν ποταμός περ ἐΰῤῥοος ἀργυροδίνης
ἀρκέσει, ᾧ δὴ δηθὰ πολέας ἱερεύετε ταύρους,
ζωοὺς δ’ ἐν δίνῃσι καθίετε μώνυχας ἵππους.

This offering of live horses is peculiar, and unlike anything else represented
to us in the Homeric poems. Not only the youths, but even the dogs, whom
Achilles offers to the Shade of Patroclus, are slain before they are cast into
the fire. The same thing is not mentioned with respect to the four horses,
who are also among the victims; but it is probably, even from the physical
necessities of the case, to be presumed.

It may, perhaps, be argued, that this speech of Achilles partakes of the
nature of a sarcasm. The fine Trojan horses were reared and pastured on the
river banks; taunts often pass between the warriors of the two sides: the δὴ
δηθὰ may have had the force of forsooth. Some doubt may attach to the
evidence, which the passage gives, on this ground; and also from the
singularity of the practice that is imputed. It is, on the whole, however,
safest to assume that it is trustworthy.
The case will then stand thus; that we have apparently one single case in
Troy of a pure local impersonation of a power belonging to external nature.
Now this might happen under peculiar circumstances, and yet a very broad
distinction might subsist between the religion of the two nations as to
imaginative development.
Scamander was indeed a great power for the Trojans; it was the great river
of the country, the μέγας ποταμὸς βαθυδίνης. The child of the great Hector
was named by him Scamandrius, while Simoeisius[313] was the son of a
very insignificant person. Another Scamandrius was a distinguished
huntsman, taught by Diana, in a country where the accomplishment was
rare[314]. His floods, however useful in time of war, would in time of peace
do fearful damage. It is possibly the true explanation of the last among the
lines quoted from the speech of Achilles, that he carried away, in sudden
spates, many of the horses that were pastured on his banks. The Trojans,
then, may have had strong motives for deifying Scamander, and particularly
for providing him with a priest, who might beseech him to keep down his
waters. And it will be remembered, from the case of Gaia, that the Trojan
religion was, without doubt, favourable to the idea of purely elemental
deities: what lacked was the vivid force of fancy, that revelled in profuse
multiplication.
For we cannot fail to perceive, that the idea of a
Different view of Rivers in
Troas.
river-god did not enter into the Trojan as it did
into the Greek life. Ulysses, when in difficulty, at
once invokes the aid of the Scherian river[315], at whose mouth he lands.
Now the Trojans are driven in masses into the Scamander by the terrible
pursuit of Achilles, and they hide and sculk, or come forth and fight, about
its banks and waters. Yet no one of them invokes the River, although that
River was a deity contending on their side. So entirely was he without place

in their consciousness as a power able to help, even though he may have
been publicly worshipped in deprecation of a calamity, which he was
known to be able to inflict.
With this remarkable silence we may compare, besides the prayer and
thanksgiving of Ulysses, the invocation of Achilles to Spercheius[316]. On
his leaving home, his father Peleus had dedicated his hair as an offering to
be made to the River on his return, and to be accompanied by a hecatomb.
This would have been a thank-offering; and as such, in accordance with the
prayer of Ulysses, it implies the power of the River deity to confer benefits.
Nor is that power rendered doubtful by the fact, that in the particular case
the prayer is not fulfilled, and that the hair is therefore devoted to the
remains of Patroclus. We may remark, again, the sacrifice offered,
apparently almost as matter of course, by the Pylian army to Alpheus, on
their merely reaching his banks[317]. And, as a whole, the multitudinous
impersonations of natural objects in the Greek mythology are, both with
Homer and in the later writers, of a benign and genial character. This bright
and sunny aspect is in contrast with the formidable character of Scamander,
and of the worship offered to him.
There is, perhaps, enough of resemblance between the Scamander of the
Trojan mythology, and the Spercheus or Alpheus of the Greek, to suggest
the question, whether the deification of this river may possibly have been
due to the Hellic influences, which resided in the royal houses of the
country. There are not wanting signs, that the family of Priam was closely
connected with the river and its banks. The name given to Hector’s child is
one such token; and we know that the mares of Erichthonius were fed upon
the marshes near Scamander[318]. It is also worth observation that the Priest
of Scamander was called Dolopion, while Dolops was the name of a son of
Lampus, a Trojan of the highest rank, brother to Priam, and one of the
δημογέροντες of Troy[319].
But though there may be a special relation between the worship of
Scamander, and the influence of the royal family, I think the explanation is
chiefly to be sought in the specific differences which separate it from River-
worship, as generally conceived in the Olympian system.
There is another aspect of River-worship in Greece, with which it seems to
have more affinity. There is the terrible adjuration of Styx, which implies its

vindictive agency[320]. This river is represented on earth by a branch from
itself, called Titaresius, near the Perrhæbian Dodona[321]. The Rivers are
expressly invoked, in this character, by Agamemnon in the adjuration of the
Pact: and are associated with the deities that punish perjury after death.
Moreover, it is curious that, when Agamemnon makes an adjuration before
Greeks alone, he omits the appeal to the Rivers, whom he had named when
he was acting for the two peoples jointly[322]. This seems to show that the
invocation of Rivers, or of some class of Rivers, in a retributive capacity,
was familiar, and may have been peculiar, to the Trojans.
In effect, then, the grand distinction seems to be
True aspect of Trojan River-
worship.
this. The worship of Scamander in Troas belonged
to the elemental system and earth-worship, which
the Greeks, for the purposes of their Olympus, had refined away into a
poetical vivifying Power, replete with more bland influences: retaining it,
more or less, for the purpose of adjuration, in the darker and sterner sense.
Accordingly, while Scamander, who is also called Xanthus, has, as a god, a
mark of antiquity in the double name[323], he shows none of the Greek
anthropophuistic ingredients. Even for speech and action, he does not take
the human form; but he is, simply and strictly, the element alive.
The species of deification, implied in earth-worship, scarcely lifted the
objects of it in any degree out of the sphere of purely material conceptions.
Thus, while Scamander, from his superior power, is no more than Nature
put in action, all the other Rivers of Troas exhibit to us Nature purely
passive, a blind instrument in the hand of deity. The total silence and
inaction of Simois[324], after the appeal of Scamander, makes his
impersonality more conspicuous, than if he had not been addressed. Again,
when the Greeks have quitted the country, Apollo takes up the streams of
the eight rivers that descend from Ida, including great Scamander, like so
many firemen’s hose, and turns them upon the rampart to destroy it. We
have no example in Homer of this mechanical mode of handling Greek
rivers.
The distinction of treatment seems to be due to a difference in the
mythology of the two countries as its probable source. And I find an
analogous method of proceeding with reference to the Winds. In the Iliad
they are deities, addressed in prayer, and capable of receiving offerings. In

the Odyssey they are mere senseless instruments of nature, under the
control of Æolus. But then in the Iliad Homer deals with them for a Greek
purpose (for I do not except the impersonation of Boreas, Il. xx. 203, where
the Dardanid family is concerned): it is Achilles who prays to them: it is the
Greek war-horse that they beget. In the Odyssey he introduces them amidst
a system of foreign, that is to say, of Phœnician traditions.
Turning now to other objects, let us next see whether further inquiry will
confirm the suggestions, which I have founded on the cases of Gaia and of
Scamander.
At the head of Scamander are two fountains, and hard by them are the
cisterns, which the women of the city frequent for washing clothes. Thus
the spot is one of great notoriety; yet there is not a word of any deity
connected with these fountains. This is in remarkable contrast with what we
meet in Homer’s Greek topography. Ulysses[325], immediately on being
aware that he has been disembarked in Ithaca, prays to the Nymphs of the
grotto, which was dedicated to them. There they had their bowls and vases,
and their distaffs of stone, with which they spun yarn of sea-purple[326].
And the harbour, in which he was landed, was the harbour of Phorcys, the
old man of the sea[327]. So again at the fountain, where the people of the
town drew water, there was an altar of the Nymphs that presided over it,
upon which all the passers-by habitually made offerings[328]. Nor could this
be wonderful, as all groves, all fountains, all meadows, and probably all
mountains, had their proper indwelling Nymphs according to the Greek
mythology; while the Rivers were impersonated as deities, and the sea too
teemed at every point with preternatural life.
Homer has named many, besides Scamander, of
Trojan impersonations from
Nature rare.
the rivers of Mount Ida; but to none, not even to
Simois, nor again to Ida or Gargarus themselves,
does he assign any of these local inhabitants.
There are, however, three curious cases of Nymphs assigned by him to
Troas. The νύμφη νηῒς, called Abarbaree, bears two sons to Bucolion[329], a
spurious child of Laomedon; and another nymph of the same class bears
Satnius to Enops[330]. A third similar case is recorded in the Twentieth
Book[331]. These would appear to be simple cases of spurious births, and to

have no proper connection with mythology. For the mother of Satnius is
called ἀμύμων; a name never applied by Homer to the Immortals. If,
however, the Nymphs be deities, they mark another difference between
Greece and Troy: for Homer never attributes lusts to the Nymphs of the
Greek Olympus.
Amidst the whole detail of the Iliad, in one instance only have we Trojan
Nymphs conceived after the Greek fashion: it is when those of the
mountains, according to the speech of Andromache, planted elms round
about the fresh-made tomb of her father Eetion.
As a general rule, no Trojan refers in speech either to any legend, or to any
intermediate order, of supernatural beings. Destiny, named by Hecuba, is, as
we have seen, a metaphysical idea, rather than a person[332].
The very name of Olympus itself is a symbol of nationality; and around it
are grouped the forms, which either the popular belief, or the imagination of
the Poet, incorporated into the company of objects for worship. They form a
body wonderfully brilliant and diversified. They pervade the Greek mind in
such a way, as to appear alike in its didactic, and its most deeply pathetic
moods. The speech of Phœnix gives us the Parable of Ἄτη and the Λιταί:
then the episode of Meleager, which is founded on the wrath of Diana: but
into this legend itself, inserted into the speech, is again interpolated the
separate legend of Apollo and Alcyone[333]. The speech of Agamemnon, in
the Nineteenth Book, affords us another example[334]. The case is the same
in the most pathetic strains. Achilles, in the interview with Priam, exhorts
him to take food by the example of Niobe, and appends her tale[335]:
Penelope, praying to Diana in the extremity of her grief, recites the tale of
the daughters of Pandareus[336]. Even the Suitor Antinous points his address
to Ulysses with the semi-divine legend of the Centaurs and Lapithæ[337].
Everywhere, and from all the receptacles of thought, mythology overflows.
But in Troy the case is quite different. There the human mind never seems
to resort to it, either for food or in sport. We find deities, priests, prophets,
ceremonial, all apparently in abundance: in all of these, except the first, the
Greeks are much poorer; but each of them, in and for himself, is in contact
with an entire supernatural world, the creation of luxuriant and energetic
fancy, which ranges alike over the spheres of sense and of metaphysics.
Andromache, virtuous and sincere as Penelope, has no such mental wealth;

her thoughts, and those of Hecuba and Priam, both ordinarily and also on
the death of Hector, are limited to topics the most obvious and primitive,
with which society, however undeveloped, is familiar. From this limitation,
and from the nature of those legends respecting deities, of which the scene
is laid in Troas, it seems reasonable to believe that the mythological dress is
of purely Hellenic origin.
The dedication to Jupiter of the lofty and beautiful chestnut-tree[338] near
Troy, is in correspondence with the oak of Dodona, and indicates quite a
different train of thought from those which conceived the Greek Olympus.
It is probably both a fragment of nature-worship in its Oriental form, and
likewise a portion of the external and ritual development, in which the
religion of Troy was evidently prolific enough. And in this case the negative
evidence of Homer is especially strong; because the great number of the
particular spots on the plain of Troy, which he has had occasion to
commemorate, constitute a much more minute topography there, than he
has given us on any other scene, not even excepting Ithaca: so that he could
hardly have avoided showing us, had it been the fact, that the religion of
Troy entered largely into what Mr. Grote has so well called ‘the religious
and personal interpretation of nature.’
Next as to those divine persons of the second order, who are so abundantly
presented to us by Homer in relations with the Greeks. Iris visits the Trojans
thrice. First, she repairs to their Assembly in the form of Polites. Secondly,
she appears to Helen, as her sister-in-law Laodice. She delivers her message
to Priam in the Twenty-fourth Book without disguise; perhaps because it
was necessary[339] that he should have the assistance of a deity seen and
heard, in order to embolden him for a seemingly desperate enterprise. But
there is nothing in his account of the interview, which requires us to
suppose that the person Iris was known to Priam. The expression he uses
is[340]

αὐτὸς γὰρ ἄκουσα θεοῦ καὶ ἐσέδρακον ἄντην.

And again, he calls her an Olympian messenger[341] from Jupiter. Another
passage carries the argument a point further, by showing us that the
appearance of this benignant deity was alarming, doubtless because it was

strange, to him. When she arrives, she addresses him very softly τυτθὸν
φθεγξαμένη (170): but he is seized with dread;

τὸν δὲ τρόμος ἔλλαβε γυῖα·

an emotion, which I do not remember to have found recorded on any
apparition of a divinity to a Greek hero.
Thus far then it would appear probable, that in the
Poverty of Trojan Mythology.
Trojan mythology the list of major deities was
more contracted than in Greece, and that the
minor deities were almost unknown. But perhaps the most marked
difference between the two systems is in the copious development on the
Greek side of the doctrine of a future state, compared with the jejune and
shadowy character of that belief among the Trojans.
In the narrative of the sack of Hypoplacian
Jejune doctrine of a Future
State.
Thebes, and again in her first lament over Hector,
Andromache does indeed speak of her husband,
father, and brothers, respectively, as having entered the dwellings of
Aides[342]. But these references are slight, and it may almost be said
perfunctory. Not another word is said either in the Twenty-second Book, or
in the whole of the Twenty-fourth, about the shade of Hector.
When Pope closed his Iliad with the line

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector’s shade,

it probably did not occur to him, that he was not merely altering the poetry
of Homer, but falsifying also his picture of the Trojan religion; which had
indeed its funeral rites, but so described as to leave us no means of
concluding, that they were in any degree directed to procuring the comfort
and tranquillity of the dead. The silence observed about the spirit of Hector
is remarkable from the contrast with the case of Patroclus. Both are
mourned for passionately, by those who love them best: but the shade of
Patroclus is the great figure in the mourning of Achilles, while Hector’s
existence after death is but once owned, faintly and in the abstract. Nor, as
we see from the Odyssey, was this homage to the shade of Patroclus a thing
occasional or accidental. We there meet the souls of all the great departed of

the War, in the under-world. That region, opened to Ulysses, had formerly
been opened to Hercules. Even the dissolute Suitors cannot be dismissed
from life, without our being called to accompany their spirits past the
Leucadian rock to the place of their destination. The warriors slain in battle
with the Cicones are thrice invoked by the survivors[343]. Nay Elpenor
himself, most insignificant of men, is duly brought before us in his last
home[344].
We are, however, enabled to open another chapter of evidence, that bears
upon this interesting subject. It is obtained through the medium of the oaths
of the two nations respectively.
Displacing the elemental powers from their ordinary religion, the Greeks
made them gaolers, as it were, of the under-world, and gave them this for
their proper business. Hence they are paraded freely in the Greek oaths[345].
Agamemnon before the Pact invokes, with Jupiter, the Sun, the Rivers, the
Earth, the infernal gods. In the Nineteenth book, the same; omitting
however the Rivers, and naming, instead of simply describing, the
Erinües[346]. In the Fourteenth Iliad, Juno apparently swears by Styx, Earth,
Sea, and the infernal gods[347]. In the Fifteenth, by Earth, Heaven, Styx, the
head of Jupiter, and their marriage bed[348]. Calypso swears, for the
satisfaction of Ulysses, and according to his fashion as the imponens, by
Earth, Heaven, and Styx[349]. Thus the Greeks made an effective use of
these earthy and material divinities, in connection with their large
development of the Future State, by installing them as the official punishers
of perjury. Now the Trojans appear, from what we have seen, to have
worshipped this class of deities; but as super-terranean, not as sub-terranean
gods. Had they not been thus worshipped at the least, Agamemnon could
not have included them in the Invocation of the Pact, where he had to act
and speak for both nations[350]. And while we see they sacrificed lambs to
Earth and Sun, still we have a curious proof that these deities were not
worshipped in Troy as avengers of perjury. For when in the Tenth Book
Hector swears to Dolon, he invokes no divinity, except Jupiter the loud-
thundering husband of Juno. There may, as we have seen here, be a faint
reference to the earthy character of the Trojan Juno; but there is no well-
developed system, which uses a particular order of powers for the
punishment of perjurors in a future state. We can hardly doubt that this was

primarily because the doctrine of the Future State was wanting in deep and
practical roots, so far as we can see, among the Trojans. A materializing
religion seems essentially hostile to the full development of such a doctrine.
And it is not a little curious to find that in this same country, where the oath
was less solemn than in Greece, and the life after death less a subject of
practical and energetic belief, perjury and breach of faith should have been,
as we shall find they were, so much more lightly regarded.
For the sake of realizing to ourselves the contrast between the religious
system of Troy, as we thus at least by glimpses seem to perceive it, and the
wonderful imaginative richness of the preternatural system of the Greeks as
exhibited in Homer, it may be well to point briefly to a few cases, which are
the more illustrative, because they are the accessories, and not the main
pillars of the system. Take, then, the personifications of all the forms of
Terror in the train of Mars: the transport, by Sleep and Death, of the body of
Sarpedon to his home; the tears of blood wept by Jupiter; the agitation of
the sea in sympathy with Neptune’s warlike parade; the dread of Aidoneus
lest the crust of earth should give way under the tramp of the gods in battle;
the mourning garb of Thetis for the friend of her son’s youth; the long train
of Nymphs, rising from the depths of the sea to accompany her, when she
mounts to visit the sorrowing Achilles; the redundant imagery of the nether
world; the inimitable tact with which he preserves the identity of his great
chieftains when visited below, but presents each under a deep tint of
sadness. All this makes us feel not only that war, policy, and poetry, are
indissolubly blended in the great mind of Homer, and of his race, but that
the harmonious association of all these with the Olympian religion was the
work of a vivifying imagination, which was a peculiar and splendid part of
their inheritance.
There is a more marked trace in the Trojan
Worship from the hills.
worship, than is to be found among the Greeks, of
the practice of the Persian; who paid homage to
the Deity,

To loftiest heights ascending, from their tops,
With myrtle-wreathed tiara on his brow[351].

For Hector offered to Jupiter sometimes (which may be referred to a
different cause) on the highest ground of the city, sometimes on the tops of
Ida[352]:

Ἴδης ἐν κορυφῇσι πολυπτύχου, ἀλλότε δ’ αὖτε
ἐν πόλει ἀκροτάτῃ.

At all events we may say, that the only sign remaining in Greece of this
principle of worship, was one common to it with Troy, and seen in the
epithet ὑψίζυγος applied to Jupiter, as well as in the association between the
seats of the gods, and the highest mountains.
On the other hand, the religion of the Trojans appears to have abounded
more in positive observance and hierarchical development, than that of the
Greeks.
This subject may be considered with reference to the several subjects of
1. Temples.
2. Endowments (τεμένεα).
3. Groves.
4. Statues.
5. Seers or Prophets.
6. The Priesthood.
It has been debated, whether the Greeks of the
Troy and Greece as to
Temples.
Homeric age had yet begun to erect temples to the
gods.
The only case of a temple, distinctly and expressly mentioned as existing in
Greece, is in the passage of the Catalogue respecting the Athenians, on
which there hangs a slight shade of doubt. But another passage, though it
does not contain the word, seems to be conclusive as to the thing. It is that
where Achilles mentions treasures, which lie within the stony threshold of
Apollo at Pytho[353]:

οὐδ’ ὅσα λάϊνος οὐδὸς ἀφήτορος ἐντὸς ἐέργει,
Φοίβου Ἀπόλλωνος, Πυθοῖ ἔνι πετρήεσσῃ.

Though there may have been treasuries which were not temples, they could
hardly have been treasuries of the gods: for in what sense could treasures be
placed under their special protection, unless by being deposited in places
which were peculiarly theirs?
In the Odyssey, Eurylochus promises to build a temple to the Sun, on
getting safe to Ithaca[354]; and Nausithous[355], the father of Alcinous, built
temples of the gods in Scheria. Now Scheria was not Greece; yet it was
more akin to Greece than to Troy.
It is, on the other hand, observable that, though under these circumstances
we can hardly deny that temples existed among the Greeks, yet we have no
case in Homer of a temple actually erected to a purely Hellic deity.
Our clear instances are, in fact, confined to the temples of Minerva at Troy
and Athens, and the temples of Apollo at Troy, Chryse[356], and Pytho: and
when we see old Nestor performing solemn sacrifice in the open air at
Pylos, himself, too, a reputed grandchild of Neptune, we cannot suppose
that it was usual with the Hellenes to worship Hellenic gods in temples. It is
possible, though I would not presume to say more, that Apollo and Minerva
may have been the only deities to whom it was usual in that age to erect
temples, whether in Greece or Troy.
I must not, however, presume to dismiss this subject without noticing the
line, Od. vi. 266;

ἔνθα δέ τέ σφ’ ἀγορὴ, καλὸν Ποσιδήϊον ἄμφις.

This verse is often interpreted as ‘the place of assembly round about the
beautiful temple of Neptune.’ So Eustathius[357]: so one of the scholiasts:
the other interprets it to mean a τέμενος only. Nitzsch, Terpstra[358] and
Crusius take it for a temple. The word Ποσιδήϊον without a substantive is a
form found nowhere else in Homer: so that we have only the aid of reason
to interpret it. Now, this ἀγορὴ was the place of the public assemblies for
business. It is surely improbable, that there could have been a roofed temple
in the midst of it, which would interrupt both sight and hearing. On the
other hand, we know that before Troy the altars were in the ἀγορὴ of the
camp[359]: and this would cause no inconvenience. It would seem then, that

Ποσιδήϊον means not a covered temple, but a consecrated spot, in all
likelihood inclosed, on which an altar stood.
I would not, however, argue absolutely upon the word νηὸν, in cases where
it is found without a word signifying to construct, or other signs marking it
as a building. For its resemblance to νήϊον raises the question, whether it
may not originally have meant the consecrated land which passed under the
name of τέμενος. If so, it may have had this sense in a passage like that of
the Catalogue; where the epithet joined to it (ἑῷ ἐνὶ πίονι νηῷ) is one more
suitable to the idea of a piece of ground, than of a temple; though applicable
by Homeric usage to the latter too, and though sufficiently supported by
μάλα πίονος ἐξ ἀδύτοιο. (Il. v. 512.)
2. The derivation of τέμενος is supposed, by some philologists, to be the
same with that of templum. And if so, there is a marked analogy between
this association and that of νηόν with νήϊον. Each would seem to indicate
the customs of a race, which had both dedicated lands and a priesthood,
before it began to raise sacred edifices.
As respects the endowment in land, which was
As to endowments in land.
sometimes consecrated to the gods, and was
called τέμενος, I presume we must conclude that,
wherever such an endowment was found, there must have been a priesthood
supported by it. For it is difficult to conceive what other purpose could have
been contemplated, at such a time, by such an appropriation of land. And
again we may assume that, where the τέμενος or glebe existed, there would
be if not a temple yet at least an altar, something which localized the
worship in the particular spot.
It is indeed much more easy to suppose a temple without a priesthood, than
a glebe. And here it is again remarkable, that we meet with no example in
Homer of a glebe set apart for an exclusively Hellic god.
The cases of glebes, with which he supplies us, are these:
1. Of Ceres, a Pelasgian deity, in Thessaly, Il. ii. 696;
2. Of Jupiter, on Mount Gargarus in Troas, together with an altar, Il. viii. 48;
3. Of Venus, a Pelasgian deity, at Paphos in Cyprus, with an altar, Od. viii.
362;

4. Of Spercheius in Thessaly, with an altar, Il. xxiii. 148. As respects this
case, we have indeed found, that the imaginative deification of Nature
appears to have been Hellenic, and not Pelasgian. Still, with the case of
Scamander before us, and considering that we find the τέμενος attached to
Spercheius in an eminently Pelasgian district, while there is no example of
such an inheritance for the deities among the Hellic tribes, it seems most
rational to consider the appropriation of it as belonging to the Pelasgian
period, and as having simply lived over into the Hellenic age.
3. The ἄλσος of Homer appears to be quite different from the τέμενος: and
to mean rather what we should call a site for religious worship, as
distinguished from an endowment which, as such, would produce the means
of subsistence. Such places were required by the spirit of Hellenic religion,
as much as by the Pelasgian worship, and we find them accordingly
disseminated as follows: we have
1. In Scheria, the ἄλσος of Minerva, Od. vi. 291, 321.
2. At Ismarus, the ἄλσος of Apollo, in which dwelt Maron the priest, Od. ix.
200.
3. In Ithaca, the ἄλσος of the Nymphs, with an altar, beside the fountain,
where all passers-by offered sacrifice, Od. xvii. 205-11.
4. In Ithaca again, the ἄλσος of Apollo, where public sacrifice was
performed in the city on his feast-day, Od. xx. 277, 8.
5. In Bœotia, Onchestus is called the ἄγλαον ἄλσος of Neptune, Il. ii. 506.
6. The ἄλσεα of Persephone are on the beach beyond Oceanus, and are
composed of poplars and willows, Od. x. 509.
7. In the great Assembly of gods before the Theomachy, all the Nymphs are
summoned, who inhabit ἄλσεα as well as fountains and meadows, Il. xx. 8.
But here the meaning includes any grove, dedicated or not. And again,
8. The attendants of Circe are such as inhabit ἄλσεα, groves, or fountains,
or rivers, Od. x. 350.
Thus the ἄλσος, when used in the religious sense, means a grove or clump
of trees, sometimes with turf, or with a fountain; set apart as a place for
worship, and inhabited by a deity or his ministers, yet quite distinct from a

property capable of supporting them. These clumps appear to be so
appropriated more commonly by Hellenic, than by Pelasgian practice.
4. We will take next the case of statues of the
As to statues of the gods.
gods.
In the opinion of Mure, the metaphor which represents human affairs as
resting in the lap of the gods (θεῶν ἐν γούνασι), gives conclusive evidence
that the custom of making statues of the deities prevailed among the
Greeks. I do not however see why this particular figure should bear upon
the question, more than any of the other very numerous representations
which treat them as endowed with various members of the body. If this
evidence be receivable at all, it is overwhelming. But it is open to some
doubt, whether, because gods are mentally conceived according to the laws
of anthropomorphism, we may therefore assume that they were also
materially represented under the human form.
We have, I believe, no more than one single piece of direct evidence on the
subject, and it is this; that, when the Trojan matrons carry their supplication
to the temple of Minerva, together with the offering of a robe, they deposit
it on her knees (Il. vi. 303), Ἀθηναίης ἐπὶ γούνασιν ἠϋκόμοιο. This appears
to be quite conclusive as to the existence of a statue of Minerva at Troy: but
it leaves the question entirely open, whether it was an Hellenic, as well as a
Pelasgian, practice thus to represent the gods.
It is quite plain, I think, that the practice was not one congenial or familiar
to the mind of Homer. Had it been so, he surely must have made large
poetic use of it. Whereas on the contrary it is by inference alone, though
certainly by unavoidable inference, from language which he uses without
that intention, that we become assured even of their existence in his time.
He speaks, indeed, more than once of placing ἀγάλματα in temples, or of
suspending them in honour of the gods[360]: but our title to construe this of
statues appears to be wholly conjectural.
It would seem inexplicable that a poet, who enlarges with so much power,
not only on the Shield of Agamemnon and the Arms of Achilles, but on the
ideal Ægis of Minerva, the chariot of Juno, the bow of Apollo, and the
metallic handmaids of Vulcan, should entirely avoid description of the
statues of the Olympian gods, if they were habitually before his eyes.

I have argued elsewhere that we see in Homer the Hellenic, not the
Pelasgian, mind. And if it be so, then I think we are justified in associating
with his Hellenism, as one among many signs, this remarkable silence. The
ritual and external development of Pelasgian religion would delight in
statues as visible signs: the Hellenic idealism would not improbably eschew
them. Hence we may treat this practice of the period as belonging to
Pelasgian peculiarities.
If this be so, then I think we may pass on to the conclusion, that the original
tendency to produce visible forms of the Divinity was not owing to, and
formed no part of, the efforts of the human imagination, so largely
developed in Homer, to idealize religion, and to beautify the world by its
imagery. But, on the contrary, so far as we can judge from Homer, it first
prevailed among a race inclined to material and earthy conceptions in
theology, and from them it spread to others of higher intelligence. It was a
crutch for the lameness of man, and not a wing for his upward aspirations.
And indeed, as it appears to me, this proposition is sustained even by the
past experience and present state of Christendom. When faith was strongest,
images were unknown to the faithful. Nor is it art, which produces them: it
is merely a kind of corporal and mechanical imitation. No considerable
work of art is at this moment, I believe, in any Christian country, an object
of religious worship. The sentiment which craves for material
representations of such objects in order to worship them, appears also
commonly to exact that they should be somewhat materialized. The higher
office of art, in connection with devout affection, seems to be that it should
point our veneration onwards, not arrest it. It holds out the finger which we
are to follow, not the hand which we are to kiss.
The order of Seers or Diviners was common to
As to Seers or Diviners.
Greeks, Trojans, and probably we may add, from
its being known among the Cyclopes, to all
contemporary races. It is singular that we should find here, and not among
the priesthood, the traces of caste, or the hereditary descent of the gift. In all
other points, this function stands apart from hierarchical developments. For
the μάντις, except as to his gift, is like other men. Melampus engages to
carry off oxen. Polypheides migrates upon a quarrel with his father. Cleitus
is the lover of Aurora. Theoclymenus has committed homicide[361].
Teiresias is called ἄναξ, a lord or prince[362]. We do not know that Calchas

fought as well as prophesied, but it may have been so, since Helenus, the
son of Priam, and Eunomus, the Mysian leader, were seers or augurs not
less than warriors. But the most instructive specimen of this order among
the Greeks is the Suitor Leiodes[363], who was also θυοσκόος, or inspector
of sacrifices, to the body of Suitors. Now Ulysses had, in consideration of a
ransom, spared Maron the priest of Apollo at Ismarus[364]. But, far from
recognising in the professional character of Leiodes a title to immunity, he
answers the plea with characteristic and deadly repartee. And this,
notwithstanding that Leiodes was, as we learn, distinguished from the rest
of the Suitors by the general decency of his conduct.
The θυοσκόος apparently inspected sacrifices, but did not offer them; for
this character is clearly distinguished in the Iliad[365] from that of the priest.
Indeed, the word θύειν in Homer appears properly to apply to those minor
offices of sacrifice, which did not involve the putting to death of victims; as
in Il. ix. 219, where, it may be observed, the function is not performed by
the principal person, but is deputed by Achilles to Patroclus. The inspection
of slain animals would probably stand in the same category, among divine
offices, as the interpretation of other signs and portents.
The members of this class are, upon the whole, as broadly distinguished
from the priests in Homer, as are the prophets of the Old Testament from
the Levitical priesthood.
They were called by the general name of μάντις, or by other names, some of
them more limited: such as θεόπροπος, ὑποφήτης, οἰωνόπολος,
ὀνειρόπολος. They sometimes interpreted from signs and omens;
sometimes, as in Il. vi. 86, and vii. 44, without them.
The diffusion of the gift among the royal house of Troy, where Polydamas
had it as well as Helenus, and possibly also Hector, is less marked than the
great case of the family of Melampus. The augur was in all respects a
citizen, while possessed of a peculiar endowment: and the ὑποφῆται[366]
mentioned in the invocation of Achilles, whether they were the royal house,
or persons dispersed through the community, evidently formed a more
conspicuous object among the Helli than we find in any Pelasgian race.
Again; in Greece we find the oracles of Delphi and Delos, as well as of
Dodona; but there is no similar organ for the delivery of the divine will
reported to us in Troy.

We come now to the last and most important point
As to the Priesthood. connected with the outward development of the
religious system, that of the priesthood: and here I
shall endeavour to describe distinctly the evidence with regard to both
nations. First, let us consider the case of priesthood as it respects the
Greeks.
We have at least one instance before us in the Iliad, where a combined
religious action of Greeks and Trojans is presented to us. In the Third Book,
Priam comes from Troy to an open space between the armies, and meets
Agamemnon and Ulysses. The honour of actually offering the sacrifice is
allotted to the Greeks. No priest appears; and the function is performed by
the King, Agamemnon. It is therefore natural to suppose that the Greeks
have with them in Troas no sacrificing priest. On every occasion, the Greek
Sovereign offers sacrifice for himself and for the army. So also do the
soldiery[367] at large for themselves;

ἄλλος δ’ ἄλλῳ ἔρεζε θεῶν αἰειγενετάων.

There was an altar[368] for the very purpose in the part of the camp
appropriated for Assemblies; a fact which, though it does not demonstrate,
accords with the union of the regal and sacerdotal functions. Nor can we
account for the absence of priests from the camp, on the same principle as
for that of bards; since poems were a luxury, but sacrifices a necessity. And
we find Calchas representing the class of religious functionaries that the
Greek nation did acknowledge; namely, the Seers, who interpreted the
divine will, without any fixed ministry belonging to any particular place,
although the gift was generally derived from Apollo, as one among his
peculiar attributes.
In the remarkable passage, which enumerates for us the principal trades and
professions of Greece in the heroic age[369], we find mentioned the prophet,
the physician, the artificer, the divinely prompted bard; but not the priest.
Yet, had such an order existed, it could not well, on account of its
importance, have been omitted. For in truth this enumeration is, as we have
before seen, nearly exhaustive, as applied to an age when there was no
professional soldier, when the husbandman, fisherman, or herd, could not
be called a δημιοεργὸς, for he had no relation to the public, and when

commerce was confined to foreigners like the Phœnicians, or pirates like
the Taphians, and formed no part of the business of the settled communities
of Greece.
On the other hand, in the Legend of Phœnix concerning Meleager, we have
a notice of priests as having existed at that time in Ætolia. The embassy,
which was sent to conciliate Meleager, consisted of elders and of the best,
or most distinguished, among the priests;

τὸν δὲ λίσσοντο γέροντες
Αἰτωλῶν, πέμπον δὲ θεῶν ἱερῆας ἀρίστους. Il. ix. 574.

Now, the word Αἰτωλὸς, I apprehend, indicates an Hellenic race, for Tydeus
is Αἰτώλιος; and it is worth notice, that in this passage the elders are called
Ætolian, but not the priests.
Again, this event took place during the reign of Œneus, two generations
before the Trojan war[370]. At that time the Hellenic influence was quite
recent in Middle and in Southern Greece. The family of Sisyphus had
indeed arrived there at least two generations before, but it disappeared, and
it had never risen to great power. It was the date of Augeias, of Neleus, and
of Pelops; all of them, apparently, the first of their respective families in
Peloponnesus. So again the name Portheus, assigned to the father of Œneus,
probably marks him as the first Hellenic occupant of the country.
Plato observes, that new settlers might naturally remain for a time without
religious institutions[371] of their own.
The Hellenes, then, had recently come into Ætolia at the time, and even on
this ground were less likely to have had priests of their own institution. But
it is not to be supposed that, finding a hierarchy among the Pelasgian tribes,
devoted to the worship of such deities (Minerva and Apollo for example) as
they themselves acknowledged, they would extirpate such a body. The most
probable supposition is, that it would continue in all cases for a time. The
person of Chryses, the priest of Apollo, was respected, at least for the
moment, even by Agamemnon[372] in his displeasure. Fearless of his
threats, the injured priest immediately appealed to his god for aid. We
cannot doubt that interests thus defended would be generally left intact.
Still, as priests were, in the language of political economy, unproductive

labourers, and as they seem to have held their offices not by descent but by
election, we can easily perceive a road, other than that of violence, to the
extinction of the order among a people that set no store by its services.
There is yet another place, in which the name is mentioned among the
Greeks. It is in the Assembly of the First Iliad, held while the plague is
raging. Achilles says, ‘Let us inquire of some prophet, or priest, or
interpreter of dreams (for dreams too are from Jupiter), who will tell us,
why Apollo is so much exasperated[373].’ But the allusion here seems
plainly to be to Chryses, who had himself visited the camp, and had
appeared with the insignia of his priestly office in a previous Assembly of
the Greeks[374]. Being now in possession of the whole open country, they of
course had it in their power to consult either him or any other Trojan priest
not within the walls. We cannot, therefore, argue from this passage, that
priesthood was a recognised Hellenic institution at the period.
In the Odyssey, we find Menelaus engaged in the solemn rites of a great
nuptial feast; and Nestor in like manner offering sacrifice to Neptune, his
titular ancestor, in the presence of thousands of the people. In neither of
these cases is there any reference to a priest: and on the following day
Nestor with his sons offers a new sacrifice, of which the fullest details are
given.
Again, had there been priests among the Homeric Greeks, it is hardly
possible but that we must have had some glimpse of them in Ithaca, where
the order of the community and the whole course of Greek life are so
clearly laid open.
An important piece of negative evidence to the same effect is afforded by
the great invocation of Achilles in the Sixteenth Iliad. It will be
remembered, that we there find the rude highland tribe of the Helli in
possession of the country where Dodona was seated, together with the
worship of the Pelasgian Jupiter; and themselves apparently exercising the
ministry of the god. Now that ministry was not priesthood, but
interpretation; for they are ὑποφῆται, not ἱερῆες[375].
It therefore appears clear, that the Hellenic tribes of Homer’s day did not
acknowledge a professional priesthood of their own; that there was no priest
in the Greek armament before Troy; that the priest was not a constituent
part of ordinary Greek communities: and that, if he was any where to be

found in the Homeric times, it was as a relic, and in connection with the old
Pelasgian establishments of the country.
At a later period, when wealth and splendour had increased, and when the
increased demand for them extended also to religious rites, the priesthood
became a regular institution of Greece. It is reckoned by Aristotle, in the
Politics, among the necessary elements of a State; while he seems also to
regard it as the natural employment of those, who are disqualified by age
from the performance of more active duties to the public, either in war or in
council. The priest was, even in Homer’s time, a distinctly privileged
person. Like other people, he married and had children: but his burdens
were not of the heaviest. He would live well on sacrifices, and the proceeds
of glebe-land: and it is curious, that Maron the priest had the very best wine
of which we hear in the poems[376]. The priest formed no part of the
teaching power of the community, either in this or in later ages. Döllinger
makes the observation[377], that Plutarch points out as the sources of
religious instruction three classes of men, among whom the priests are not
even included. They are (1) the poets, (2) the lawgivers, and (3) the
philosophers: to whom Dio Chrysostom adds the painters and sculptors. So
that Isocrates may well observe, that the priesthood is anybody’s affair.
Plato[378] in the Νόμοι requires his priests, and their parents too, to be free
from blemish and from crime: but carefully appoints a separate class of
ἐξηγηταὶ, to superintend and interpret the laws of religion; as well as
stewards, who are to have charge of the consecrated property.
The priest of the heroic age would however appear to have slightly shared
in the office of the μάντις, although the μάντις had no special concern with
the offering of sacrifice. The inspection of victims would fall to priests,
almost of course, in a greater or a less degree; and there is some evidence
before us, that they were entitled to interpret the divine will. It is furnished
by the speech of Achilles[379], which appears to imply some professional
capacity of this kind: and, for Troy at least, by the declaration[380] of Priam,
who mentions priests among the persons, that might have been employed to
report to him a communication from heaven.
We have now seen the case of priesthood among the Greeks. With the
Trojans it is quite otherwise. We are introduced, at the very beginning of the
Iliad, to Chryses[381] the priest (ἱερεὺς) of Apollo. In the fifth Iliad we have

a Trojan[382], Dares, who is priest of Vulcan; and we have also Dolopion,
who, as ἀρητὴρ[383] of the Scamander, filled an office apparently
equivalent. Chryses the priest is also called an ἀρητήρ[384]; and though, on
the other hand, it was the duty of Leiodes in the Odyssey to offer[385] prayer
on behalf of the Suitors, yet he is never termed ἀρητήρ. In the Sixth Iliad
appears Theano, wife of Antenor, and priestess of Minerva[386]. And in the
Sixteenth, we have Onetor[387], priest of Idæan Jupiter. Again, while
Eumæus in the Odyssey does not recognise the priest among the Greek
professions, but substitutes the prophet, Priam, on the contrary, in the
Twenty-fourth Iliad, says he would not have obeyed the injunction to go to
the Greek camp if conveyed to him by any mortal, of such as are in these
professions[388],

ἢ οἳ μάντιές εἰσι, θυοσκόοι, ἢ ἱερῆες,

where it might be questioned, whether μάντις and θυοσκόος are different
persons, or whether he speaks of the μάντις θυοσκόος; but in either case it
is equally clear that he names the priest, ἱερεὺς, apart from either. The
speech of Mentes, in Od. i. 202, probably suffices to draw the line between
the μάντις and the θυοσκόος.
It further appears that among the allies of Troy, as well as in the country, the
priest was known; for in the Ninth Odyssey we find Maron, son of Euanthes
the priest of Apollo at Ismarus[389], among the Cicones. The city they
inhabited was sacked by Ulysses on his way from Troy, and on this account
we must infer that, as they were allies of Troy (Il. ii. 846), so likewise they
belonged to the family of Pelasgian tribes.
To these priests, personally engaged in the service of the deities, a personal
veneration, and an exemption from military service, appear to have
attached, which were not enjoyed by the μάντιες. This is plainly developed
in the case of Chryses. The offence is not that of carrying off a captive, for
there could be no guilt in the act, as such matters were then considered, but
rather honour: it is the insult offered to Apollo in the person of his servant,
by subjecting his daughter to the common lot of women of all ranks,
including the highest, that draws down a frightful vengeance on the army.
So, again, the priest never fought; Dolopion, Dares, and Onetor, all become
known to us through their having sons in the army, whose parentage is

mentioned. And as to the priest Maron, Ulysses says he was spared from a
feeling of awe towards the god, in whose wooded grove, or portion, he
resided[390]:

οὕνεκά μιν σὺν παιδὶ περισχόμεθ’ ἠδὲ γυναικὶ
ἁζόμενοι· ᾤκει γὰρ ἐν ἄλσεϊ δενδρήεντι
Φοίβου Ἀπόλλωνος.

But it does not appear that the μάντις, though he was endowed with a
particular gift, bore, in respect of it, such a character, as would suffice to
separate him from ordinary civil duties, and to make him, like the priest, a
clearly privileged person.
Upon the other hand, we should not omit to notice that we are told in the
case of Theano, though she was of high birth and the wife of Antenor, that
she was made priestess by the Trojan people. The same fact is probably
indicated in the case of Dolopion, who, we are told, had been made or
appointed ἀρητὴρ to Scamander (ἀρητὴρ ἐτέτυκτο Il. v. 77). And the
appearance of the sons of priests in the field appears to show, that there was
nothing like hereditary succession in the order; which was replenished, we
may probably conclude, by selections having the authority or the assent of
the public voice. Thus the body was popularly constituted, and was in
thorough harmony with the national character. It does not, on that account,
constitute a less important element in the community, but rather the reverse.
Now, whatever might be the other moral and social consequences of having
in the community an order of men set apart to maintain the solemn worship
of the gods, it must evidently have exercised a very powerful influence in
the maintenance of abundance and punctuality in ritual observances. There
can be no doubt, that the priest lived by the altar which he served, and lived
the better in proportion as it was better supplied. Besides animals, cakes of
flour too, and wine, were necessary for the due performance of his
office[391]; and in the case of Maron this wine was so good, that the priest
kept it secret from his servants, and that it has drawn forth the Poet’s most
genial praise[392]:

ἡδὺν, ἀκηράσιον, θεῖον ποτόν·

He was rich too; for he had men and women servants in his house. So was
Dares, the priest of Vulcan[393]. So probably was Dolopion, priest of
Scamander; at any rate his station was a high one; as we see from the kind
of respect paid to him (θεὸς δ’ ὡς τίετο δήμῳ); and we have another sign in
both these cases of the station of the parents, from the position of the sons
in the army, which is not among the common soldiery (πληθὺς), but among
the notables. The sons of Dares fight in a chariot; and the name of
Hypsenor, son of Dolopion, by its etymology indicates high birth.
In point of fact the Homeric poems exhibit to us,
Comparative observance of
Sacrifice.
together with the existence and influence of a
priestly order, a very marked distinction in respect
to sacrifice between the Trojans and the Greeks: a state of things in entire
conformity with what we might thus expect.
In no single instance do we hear of a Trojan chief, who had been niggardly
in his banquets to the gods. Hector[394] is expressly praised for his liberality
in this respect by Jupiter, and Æneas by Neptune[395]. The commendation,
however, extends to the whole community. In the Olympian Assembly of
the Fourth Book, Jupiter says that, of all the cities inhabited by men, Troy is
to him the dearest; for there his altar never lacked the sacrifice, the libation
and the savoury reek, which are the portion of the gods[396]:

οὐ γάρ μοί ποτε βωμὸς ἐδεύετο δαιτὸς ἐΐσης,
λοιβῆς τε κνίσης τε· τὸ γὰρ λάχομεν γέρας ἡμεῖς.

But the Greeks, thus destitute of priests, often fail, as we might expect, in
the regularity of their religious rites. Ulysses[397], indeed, is in this, as in all
the points of excellence, unimpeachable. But his was not the rule of all.
Œneus, two generations before the Troica, while sacrificing to the other
deities, either forgot or did not think fit (ἢ λάθετ’ ἢ οὐκ ἐνόησεν) to
sacrifice to Diana[398]; hence the devastations of the Calydonian boar. Nor
is his the only case in point.
The account given by Nestor to Telemachus in the Third Odyssey is
somewhat obscure in this particular. He says that, after the Greeks
embarked, the deity dispersed them; and that then Jupiter ordained the
misfortunes of their return, since they were not all intelligent and

righteous[399]. It appears to be here intimated, that the Greeks in the first
flush of victory forgot the influence of heaven; and that an omission of the
proper sacrifices was the cause of the first dispersion.
After they collect again in Troas, the Atreid brothers differ, as Menelaus
proposes to start again, and Agamemnon to remain, and offer sacrifices in
order to appease Minerva; but, as Nestor adds, the deities are not so soon
appeased. Agamemnon, therefore, seems to have been too late with his
celebration; and Menelaus, again, to have omitted it altogether.
The party who side with Menelaus offer sacrifices on their arrival at
Tenedos, seemingly to repair the former error: but Jupiter is incensed, and
causes them to fall out anew among themselves. A portion of them return
once more to Agamemnon[400].
Menelaus finds his way to Lesbos, and then sails as far as Malea. Here he
encounters a storm, and with part of his ships he gets to Egypt: where he is
again detained by the deities, because he did not offer up the proper
hecatombs[401]. Such remissness is the more remarkable, because Menelaus
certainly appears to be one of the most virtuous characters in the Greek
host.
The course, however, of the siege itself affords a very marked instance, in
which the whole body of the Greeks was guilty of omitting the regular
sacrifices proper to be used in the inauguration of a great undertaking. In
the hasty construction of the trench and rampart, they apparently forgot the
hecatombs[402]. Neptune immediately points out the error in the Olympian
Court; and uses it in aid of his displeasure at a work, which he thinks will
eclipse the wall of Troy, executed for Laomedon by himself in conjunction
with Apollo. Jupiter forthwith agrees[403], that after the siege he shall
destroy it. And the Poet, returning to the subject at the commencement of
the Twelfth Book, observes that the work could not last, because it was
constructed without enlisting in its favour the good will of the
Immortals[404]. This omission of the Greeks is the more characteristic and
remarkable, because the moment when they erected the rampart was a
moment of apprehension, almost of distress.
Thus, then, it appears that, as a nation, the Trojans were much more given
to religious observances of a positive kind, than the Greeks. They were, like

the Athenians[405] at a later epoch, δεισιδαιμονέστεροι. And, again, as
between one Greek and another, there is no doubt that the good are
generally, though not invariably, scrupulous in this respect, and the bad
commonly careless. Thus much is implied particularly in Od. iii. 131, as
well as conclusively shown in the general order of the Odyssey. But, as
between the two nations, we cannot conceive that the Poet had any
corresponding intention. Although a more scrupulous formality in religion
marks the Trojans than the Greeks, and although in itself, and cæteris
paribus, this may be the appropriate sign of piety, yet it is a sign only; as a
sign it may be made a substitute, and, as a substitute, it becomes the
characteristic of Ægisthus and Autolycus, no less than it is of Eumæus and
Ulysses. As between the two nations, the difference is evidently associated
with other differences in national character and morality. We must look
therefore for broader grounds, upon which to form an estimate of the
comparative virtue of the two nations, than either the populousness of
Olympus on the one side, or the array of priests and temples on the other.
Nowhere do the signs of historic aim in Homer seem to me more evident,
than in his very distinct delineations of national character on the Greek and
the Trojan part respectively. But this is a general proposition; and it must be
understood with a certain reservation as to details.
It does not appear to me that Homer has studied
Two modes of handling for
Greece and Troy.
the more minute points of consistency in motive
and action among the Trojans of the poem, in the
same degree as among the Greeks. He has (so to speak) manœuvred them as
subsidiary figures, with a view to enhancing and setting off those in whom
he has intended and caused the principal interest to centre; not so as to
destroy or diminish effects of individual character, but so as to give to the
collective or joint action on the Trojan side a subordinate and ministerial
function in the machinery of the poem. As Homer sung to Greeks, and
Greeks were his judges and patrons as well as his theme, nay rather as his
heart and soul were Greek, so on the Greek side the chain of events is
closely knit; if its direction changes, there is an adequate cause, as in the
vehemence of Achilles, or the vacillation of Agamemnon. But he did not
sing to Trojans; and so, among the Trojans of the Iliad, there are as it were
stitches dropped in the web, and the connection is much less carefully
elaborated. Thus they acquiesce in the breach of covenant after the single

combat of the Third Book, although the evident wish among them,
independent of obligation, was for its fulfilment[406]. Then in the Fourth
Book, after the treachery of Pandarus, the Trojans not only do not resent it,
but they recommence the fight while the Greek chiefs are tending the
wounded Menelaus[407]; which conduct exhibits, if the phrase may be
permitted, an extravagance of disregard to the obligations of truth and
honour. Hector, in the Sixth Book, quits the battle field upon an errand, to
which it is hardly possible to assign a poetical sufficiency of cause, unless
we refer it to the readiness which he not unfrequently shows to keep himself
out of the fight. Again, there is something awkward and out of keeping in
his manner of dealing with the Fabian recommendations of Polydamas
when the crisis approaches. Some of these he accepts, and some he rejects,
without adequate reason for the difference, except that he is preparing
himself as an illustrious victim for Achilles, and that he must act foolishly
in order that the superior hero, and with him the poem itself, may not be
baulked of their purpose.
Thus, again, Homer has given us a pretty clear idea even of the respective
ages of the Greek chiefs. It can hardly be doubted that Nestor stands first,
Idomeneus second, Ulysses third: while Diomed and Antilochus are the
youngest; Ajax and Achilles probably the next. But as to Paris, Helenus,
Æneas, Sarpedon, Polydamas, we find no conclusion as to their respective
ages derivable from the poem.
Yet though Homer may use a greater degree of liberty in one case, and a
lesser in another, as to the mode of setting his jewels, he always adheres to
the general laws of truth and nature as they address themselves to his
poetical purpose. Thus there may be reason to doubt, whether he observed
the same rigid topographical accuracy in dealing with the plain of Troy, as
he has evinced in the Greek Catalogue: but he has used materials, all of
which the region supplied; and he has arranged them clearly, as a poetic
whole, before the mental eye of those with whom he had to do. Even so we
may be prepared to find that he deals with the moral as with the material
Troas, allowing himself somewhat more of license, burdening himself with
somewhat less of care. And then we need not be surprised at secondary or
inferential inconsistencies in the action, as respects the Trojan people,
because it has not been worth his while to work the delineation of them, in
its details, up to his highest standard; yet we may rely upon his general

representations, and we are probably on secure ground in contemplating all
the main features of Trojan life and character as not less deliberately drawn,
than those of the Greeks. For, in truth, it was requisite, in order to give full
effect among his countrymen to the Greek portrait, that they should be able,
at least up to a certain point, to compare it with the Trojan.
Regarding the subject from this point of view, I
Moral superiority of his
Greeks.
should say that Homer has, upon the whole,
assigned to the Greeks a moral superiority over
the Trojans, not less real, though less broad and more chequered, than that
which he has given them in the spheres of intellectual and of military
excellence. But, in all cases alike, he has pursued the same method of
casting the balance. He eschews the vulgar and commonplace expedient of
a formal award: he decides this and every other question through the
medium of action. The first thing, therefore, to be done is, to inquire into
the morality of his contemporaries, as it is exhibited through the main
action of the poems.
It is admitted on all hands that, in the ethical picture of the Odyssey, the
distinctions of right and wrong are broad, clear, and conspicuous. But the
case of the Iliad is not so simple. The conduct of Paris, which leads to the
war, is so flagrant and vile, and the conduct of the Greeks in demanding the
restoration of Helen before they resort to force, so just and reasonable, that
it is not unnaturally made matter of surprise that any war could ever have
arisen upon such a subject, except the war of a wronged and justly incensed
people against mere ruffians, traitors, and pirates. The Trojans appear at
first sight simply as assertors of a wrong the most gross and aggravated,
even in its original form; their iniquity is further darkened by obstinacy, and
their cause is the cause of enmity to every law, human and divine. Yet the
Greeks do not assume to themselves, in connection with the cause of the
war, to stand upon a different level of morality: and the amiable affections,
with the sense of humanity, if not the principles of honour and justice, are
exhibited in the detail of the Iliad as prevailing among the Trojans, little less
than among the Greeks.
Now, let us first endeavour to clear away some misapprehensions that
simply darken the case: and after this let us inquire what exhibition Homer
has really given us of the moral sense of the Greeks and the Trojans
respectively, in connection with the crime of Paris.

In the first place, something is due to the falsification by later poets of the
Homeric tradition: and to the reflex affiliation upon Homer of those traits
which, through the influence first of the Cyclic poets, probably
exaggerating the case in order to conceal their relative want of strength, and
then of the tragedians and Virgil, have come to be taken for granted as
genuine parts of the original portraiture.
According to the Argument of the Κύπρια Ἔπη, as it has been handed down
to us, Paris, having been received in hospitality by Menelaus, was left by
him under the friendly care of his wife, on his setting out for Crete. He then
corrupted Helen; and induced her, after being corrupted, to elope with him,
and with the greater part of the moveable goods of Menelaus.
Upon this tale our ideas have been formed, and, this being so, we marvel
why Homer does not make the Greeks feel more indignation at a
proceeding which simply combined treachery, robbery, and adultery. As he
prizes so highly the rights of guests, and pitches their gratitude accordingly,
we cannot understand how he should be so insensible to the grossest
imaginable breach of their obligations.
Homer is here made responsible for that which, in
Homer’s account of the
abduction.
part, he does not tell us, and which is positively,
as well as inferentially, at variance with what he
does tell us. He tells us absolutely, that Helen was not inveigled into leaving
Sparta, but carried off by force: and that the crime of adultery was
committed after, and not before, her abduction.
This difference alters the character of the deed of Paris, in a manner by no
means so insignificant according to the heroic standard of morality, as
according to ours. As it seems plain from Homer’s expression, ἁρπάξας[408],
that Paris carried off Helen in the first instance by an act of violence, so also
it is probable that, when the first adultery was committed in the island of
Cranae, he was her ravisher much more than her corrupter. Her offence
appears to have consisted mainly in the mere acceptance, at what precise
date we know not, of the relation thus brought into existence between them,
and in compliances that with the lapse of time naturally followed, such as
the visit to the Trojan horse. It would have been, however, under all the
circumstances, an act of superhuman rather than of human virtue, if she had
refused, through the long years of her residence abroad, to recognise Paris

as a husband: and accordingly the light, in which she is presented to us by
the Poet, is that of a sufferer infinitely more than of an offender[409].
When we regard Helen from this point of view, we perceive that Homer’s
narrative is at least in perfect keeping with itself. The Greeks have made
war to avenge the wrongs of Helen not less than those of Menelaus: nay,
Menelaus himself, the keenest of them all, is keen on her behalf even more
than on his own[410]. He regards her as a person stolen from him: and the
Greeks regard Paris only as the robber.
We have no reason to suppose the Cyprian Epic to be a trustworthy
supplement to the narrative of Homer. We have seen some important points
of discrepancy from the Iliad. And there are others. For instance, this poem
makes Pollux immortal and Castor only mortal, while Homer acquaints us
in the Iliad with the interment of both, and in the Odyssey with their
restoration on equal terms to an alternate life. It gives Agamemnon four
daughters, the Iliad but three. It brings Briseis from Pedasus, the Iliad
brings her from Lyrnessus. And there is other matter in the plot, that does
not appear to correspond at all with the modes of Homeric conception[411].
Had Homer told us the same story as the Cyprian Epic, he would perhaps
have made his countrymen express all the indignation we could desire.
And now let us consider what is the view taken of the abduction in the Iliad
by the various persons whose sentiments are made known to us: and how
far that view can be accounted for by the general tone of the age, or by what
was peculiar to the character and institutions of each people respectively.
Helen herself nowhere utters a word of attachment or of respect to Paris.
Even of his passions she appears to have been the reluctant, rather than the
willing instrument. She thinks alike meanly of his understanding[412] and of
his courage[413]: and he shares[414] in the rebukes which she everywhere
heaps upon herself; though, with the delicacy and high refinement of her
irresolute but gentle character, she never reproaches him in the presence of
his parents, by whom he continued to be loved.
To the Trojan people he was unequivocally hateful[415]. They would have
pointed him out to Agamemnon, if they could: for they detested him like
black Death. It was by a mixture of bribery and the daring assertion of
authority, that he checked those movements in the Assembly, which had it

for their object to enforce the restoration of Helen to Menelaus[416]. Of all
his countrymen, Hector appears to have been most alive to his guilt, and is
alone in reproaching him with it[417]. It is under the influence of a sharp
rebuke from Hector, that he proposes to undertake a single combat with
Menelaus[418].
The only persons on the Greek side, who utter any
The Greek estimate of Paris.
strong sentiment in respect to Paris, are Diomed
and Menelaus. This is singular; for when we
consider what was the cause of war, we might have expected, perhaps, that
recurrence to it would be popular and constant among the Greeks. Nor is
this all that may excite surprise. Diomed is unmeasured in vituperating
Paris, but it is for his cowardice and effeminacy. The only word, which
comes at all near the subject of his crime, is παρθενοπῖπα: and by mocking
him as a dangler after virgins, the brave son of Tydeus shows how small a
place the original treachery of Paris occupied in his mind.
Menelaus, indeed, has a keen sense of the specific nature and malignity of
the outrage. He beseeches Jupiter to strengthen his hand against the man
who has done such deadly wrong, not to him only, but to all the laws which
unite mankind:

ὄφρα τις ἐρρίγῃσι καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἀνθρώπων
ξεινοδόκον κακὰ ῥέξαι, ὅ κεν φιλότητα παράσχῃ[419].

But then Homer has already, in the Catalogue, introduced Menelaus to us as
distinguished from the rest of his countrymen, by his greater keenness to
revenge the wrongs and groans of Helen[420]. Accordingly, the injured
husband returns on other occasions to the topic: calls the Trojans κακαὶ
κύνες, and invokes upon them the anger of Ζεὺς ξείνιος, the Jupiter of
hospitality[421];

οἵ μευ κουριδίην ἄλοχον καὶ κτῄματα πολλὰ
μὰψ οἴχεσθ’ ἀνάγοντες, ἐπεὶ φιλέεσθε παρ’ αὐτῇ.

Thus it is plain, that Menelaus resents not only a privation and an act of
piracy, but a base and black breach of faith. It is quite plain, on the other
hand, that in this respect he stands alone among his countrymen. They,

regarding the matter more crudely, and from a distance, appear to see in it
little beyond a violent abduction, which it is perfectly right, for those who
can, to resent and retrieve, but which implies no extraordinary and damning
guilt in the perpetrator.
Hence probably that singular appearance of apathy on the part of the
Greeks, which might at first sight seem to entail on them a moral reproach,
in some degree allied to that which justly attaches itself to the Trojan
community. It is not possible, indeed, to take a full measure of their state of
mind in regard to the crime of Paris, without condemning the views and
propensities to which it was due. But the causes were various: and the
blame they may deserve is both very different from that which must fall
upon the Trojans, and is also different in a mode, which may help to
illustrate some main distinctions in the two national characters.
I speak here, as everywhere, of the adjustment of acts and motives in the
poem as poetical facts, that is to say, as placed relatively to one another
with care and accuracy in order to certain effects; and as liable to be tried
under the law of effect, just as, in a simple history, all particulars alleged are
liable to be tried under the law of fact. The assumption of truth or fable in
the poem does not materially widen or narrow the field of poetical
discussion. The critic looks for consistency as between motive and action,
causes and effects, in the voyage to Lilliput or Laputa, as well as in
Thucydides or Clarendon. The difference is that, in the one case, our
discussion terminates with the genius of the inventor; in the other we are
verifying the life and condition of mankind.
If then we admit the abduction, and inquire for what probable cause it is
that the wrong, being so obvious and gross, was not more prominent in the
mind of the people who had endured it, a part at least of the answer is this.
We do not require to go back three thousand years in the history of the
world in order to learn how often it happens that, when a conflict has arisen
between nations, the original causes of quarrel tend irresistibly to become
absorbed and lost in its incidents. As long as honour and security are held to
depend more on strength than on right, relative strength must often prevail
over relative right in the decision of questions, where the arbitrement of
battle has been invoked. Both the willingness of the Trojans to restore, and
the willingness of the Greeks to accept the atonement, may be expedients of
the Poet to give a certain moral harmony to his work; of which it is a

marked feature that it artfully divides our sympathies throughout, so far at
least as is needed for the interest of the poem. On the one side, the ambition
and rapacity of Agamemnon may have induced him not only not to seek,
but even to decline or discourage accommodation; which, we may observe,
he never promotes in the Iliad. Having got a fair cause of war, he may have
been bent on making the most of it, and confident, as Thucydides believes
he was, in his power to turn it to account. While, on the other hand, Troy
was not so far from or so strange to Greece, as to be exempt from the fear
of appearing afraid; and, until it had become too late, she may have thought
her safety would be compromised by the surrender of Helen.
Here may be reasons why restitution was neither given on the one side, nor
steadily kept in view on the other: especially as it was of course included in
the idea of the capture of the city. But it is not clear that this was enough to
account for the apathy of the Greeks in general with respect to the crime of
Paris, which we might have expected to find a favourite and familiar topic
with his enemies at large, instead of being confined, as it is, to the
immediate sufferer by the wrong.
Now, the answer to this question must after all be
Its relation to prevailing
views of marriage.
sought partly in the prevalent ideas of the heroic
age; and partly in those which were peculiar more
or less to the Greek people.
According to Christian morality, the abduction and appropriation of a
married woman is not simply a crime when committed, but it is a crime that
is aggravated by every day, during which her relation with her seducer or
ravisher is continued. This was not so in the heroic age.
We have examples in the poems of what Homer considers to be a continued
course of crime. Such is the conduct of the Suitors in the Odyssey, who for
years together waste the substance of Ulysses, woo his wife, oppress his
son, and cohabit with the servants. This was habitual crime, crime
voluntarily and deliberately persevered in, when it might at any time have
been renounced.
This vicious course of the Suitors is never called by Homer an ἄτη; it is
described by the names of ἀτασθαλίαι and ὑπερβασίη[422]. So likewise the
series of enormities committed by Ægisthus, the corruption of
Clytemnestra, the murder of her husband, the expulsion of Orestes and

prolonged usurpation of the throne; these are never called by the name of
ἄτη; but ἄτη, and not one of the severer names quoted above, is the
appellation always given by Homer to the crime of Paris.
The ἄτη of a man is a crime so far partaking of the nature of error, that it is
done under the influence of passion or weakness; perhaps excluding
premeditation, perhaps such that its consequences follow spontaneously in
its train, without a new act of will to draw them, so that the act, when once
committed, is practically irretrievable. Something, according to Homer, was
evidently wanting in the crime of Paris, to sink it to the lower depths of
blackness. Perhaps we may find it partly in the nature of marriage, as it was
viewed by his age.
Having taken Helen to Troy, he made her his wife, and his wife she
continued until the end of the siege. We should of course say he did not
make her his wife, for she was the wife of another man. But the distinction
between marriage de facto and marriage de jure, clear to us in the light of
Divine Revelation, was less clear to the age of Homer. Helen was to Paris
the mistress of his household; the possessor of his affections, such as they
were; the sole sharer, apparently, of his dignities and of his bed. To the mind
of that period there was nothing dishonourable in the connection itself,
apart from its origin; while, to our mind, every day of its continuance was a
fresh accumulation of its guilt. The higher wrong of wounded and
defrauded affections was personal to Menelaus. In the aspect it presented to
the general understanding, the act of Paris, once committed, and sealed by
the establishment of the de facto conjugal relation, remained an act of
plunder and nothing else.
To comprehend these notions, so widely differing
And to Greek views of
homicide.
from our own, we may seek their further
illustration by a reference to the established view
of homicide. He, who had taken the life of a fellow creature, was bound to
make atonement by the payment of a fine. If he offered that atonement, it
was not only the custom, but the duty, of the relations of the slain man to
accept it. So much so, that the blunt mind of Ajax takes this ground as the
simplest and surest for argument with Achilles, whom he urges not to refuse
reparation offered by Agamemnon, in consideration that reparation (ποίνη)
covers the slaughter of a brother or a son. Beforehand, the Greek would
have scorned to accept a price for life. But, the deed being done, it came

into the category of exchangeable values. Even so the abstraction of Helen,
once committed, assumed for the common mind the character of an act of
plunder, differing from the case of homicide, inasmuch as the thing taken
could be given back, but not differing from it as to the essence of its moral
nature, however aggravated might have been the circumstances with which
it was originally attended.
Now, wherever the moral judgment against plunder has been greatly
relaxed, that of fraud in connection with it is sure to undergo a similar
process; because, in the same degree in which acts of plunder are acquitted
as lawful acquisition, fraud is sure to come into credit by assuming the
character of stratagem. We may, I think, find an example of this rule in the
Thirteenth Odyssey; where, with an entire freedom from any consciousness
of wrong, Ulysses feigns to have slaughtered Orsilochus at night by
ambush, in consequence of a quarrel that had previously occurred about
booty[423].
Here then we reach the point, at which we must take into view the peculiar
ideas and tendencies of the Greek mind in the heroic age, as they bear
necessarily upon its appreciation of an act like that of Paris. The Greeks, of
whom we may fairly take Diomed as the type, detest and despise him for
affectation, irresolution, and poltroonery: these are the ideas uppermost in
their mind: we are not to doubt that, besides seeking reparation for
Menelaus, they condemned morally the act which made it needful; what we
have to account for is, that they did not condemn it in such a manner as to
make this moral judgment the ruling idea in their minds with regard to him.
We have seen that, according to Homer, instead of Helen’s having been
originally the willing partner of the guilt of Paris, he was, under her
husband’s roof, her kidnapper and not her corrupter. Her offence seems to
have consisted in this, that she gave a half-willing assent to the
consequences of the abduction. Though never escaping from the sense of
shame, always retaining along with a wounded conscience her original
refinement of character, and apparently fluctuating from time to time in an
alternate strength and weakness of homeward longings[424], the specific
form of her offence, according to the ideas of the age, was rather the
preterite one of unresisting acquiescence, than the fact of continuing to
recognise Paris as a husband during the lifetime of Menelaus. It was the
having changed her husband, not the living with a man who was not her

husband; and hence we find that she was most kindly treated in Troy by that
member of the royal house, namely Hector, who was himself of the highest
moral tone.
The offence of Paris, though also (except as to the mere restitution of
plundered goods) a preterite offence, was more complex. He violated the
laws of hospitality, as we find distinctly charged upon him by
Menelaus[425]. He assumed the power of a husband over another man’s
wife. This he gained by violence. Now, paradoxical as it may appear, yet
perhaps this very ingredient of violence, which we look upon as even
aggravating the case, and which in the view of the Greeks was the proper
cause of the war, (for their anxiety was to avenge the forced journey and the
groans of Helen,) may nevertheless have been also the very ingredient,
which morally redeemed the character of the proceeding in the eyes of
Greece. This it might do by lifting it out of the region of mere shame and
baseness, into that class of manful wrongs, which they habitually regarded
as matters to be redressed indeed by the strong hand, but never as merely
infamous. Hence, when we find the Greeks full of disgust and of contempt
towards Paris, it is only for the effeminacy and poltroonery of character
which he showed in the war. His original crime was probably palliated to
them by its seeming to involve something of manhood and of the spirit of
adventure. So that we may thus have to seek the key to the inadequate sense
among the Greeks of the guilt of Paris in that which, as we have seen, was
the capital weakness of their morality; namely, its light estimation of crimes
of violence, and its tendency to recognise their enterprise and daring as an
actual set-off against whatever moral wrong they might involve.
The chance legend of Hercules and Iphitus, in the Odyssey, affords the most
valuable and pointed illustration of the great moral question[426] between
Paris and Menelaus, which lies at the very foundation of the great structure
of the Iliad. For in that case also, we seem to find an instance of abominable
crime, which notwithstanding did not destroy the character of its
perpetrator, nor prevent his attaining to Olympus; apparently for no other
reason, than that it was a crime such as had probably required for its
commission the exercise of masculine strength and daring.
There remained, however, even according to contemporary ideas, quite
enough of guilt on the part of Paris. The abduction and corruption of a
prince’s wife, combined with his personal cowardice, his constant levity

and vacillation, and his reckless indifference to his country’s danger and
affliction, amply suffice to warrant and account for Homer’s having
represented him as a personage hated, hateful, and contemptible. But while
the foregoing considerations may explain the feelings and language of the
Greeks, otherwise inexplicable, there still remains enough of what at first
sight is puzzling in the conduct, if not in the sentiments, of the Trojans.

We ask ourselves, how could the Trojans endure,
The Trojan estimate of Paris.or how could Homer rationally represent them as
enduring, to see the glorious wealth and state of
Priam, with their own lives, families, and fortunes, put upon the die, rather
than surrender Helen, or support Paris in withholding her? The people hate
him: the wise Antenor opens in public assembly the proposal to restore
Helen to the Greeks: Hector, the prince of greatest influence, almost the
actual governor of Troy, knew his brother’s guilt, and reproached him with
it[427]. How is it that, of all these elements and materials, none ever become
effective?
We must, I think, seek the answer to the questions partly in the difference of
the moral tone, and the moral code, among Greeks and Trojans; partly in the
difference of their political institutions.
We shall find it probable that, although the ostensible privileges of the
people were not less, yet the same spirit of freedom did not pervade Trojan
institutions; that their kings were followed with a more servile reverence by
the people; that authority was of more avail, apart from rational persuasion;
that amidst equally strong sentiments of connection in the family and the
tribe, there was much less of moral firmness and decision than among the
Greeks, and perhaps also a far less close adherence to the great laws of
conjugal union, which had been violated by the act of Paris. Indeed it would
appear from the allusion of Hector to a tunic of stone[428], that Paris was
probably by law subject to stoning for the crime of adultery: a curious
remnant, if the interpretation be a correct one, of the stern traits of pristine
justice and severity, still remembered amidst a prevalent dissolution of the
stricter moral ties.
Although it results from our previous inquiries that the plebeian substratum,
so to speak, of society, was perhaps nearly the same in both countries, yet
the opinions of the masses would not then have the same substantiveness of
character, nor so much independence of origin, as in times of Christianity,
and of a more elaborate development of freedom and its main conditions.
Then, much more than now, the first propelling power in the formation of
public opinion would be from the high places of society: and in the higher
sphere of the community, if not in the lower, Greece and Troy were, while

ethnically allied, yet materially different as to moral tone. It is remarkable,
that there is no Τὶς in Troy.
If we may trust the general effect of Homer’s
The Trojans more sensual
and false.
representations, we shall conclude that the Trojans
were more given to the vices of sensuality and
falsehood, the Greeks, on the other hand, more inclined to crimes of
violence: in fact, the latter bear the characteristics of a more masculine, and
the former of a feebler, people. In the words of Mure, the contrast shadows
forth ‘certain fundamental features of distinction, which have always been
more or less observable, between the European and Asiatic races[429].’
On looking back to the previous history of Troy, we find that Laomedon
defrauded Neptune and Apollo of their stipulated hire: and Anchises
surreptitiously obtained a breed of horses from the sires belonging to
Laomedon, who was his relative[430]. The conditions of the bargain, under
which Paris fought with Menelaus, are shamelessly and grossly violated.
Pandarus, in the interval of truce, treacherously aims at and wounds
Menelaus with an arrow; but no Trojan disapproves the deed. Euphorbus
comes behind the disarmed Patroclus, and wounds him in the back; and
even princely Hector, seeing him in this condition, then only comes up and
dispatches him. That these were not isolated acts, we may judge from the
circumstance that Menelaus, ever mild and fair in his sentiments, when he
accepts the challenge of Paris, requires that Priam shall be sent for to
conclude the arrangement, because his sons—and he makes no exceptions
—are saucy and faithless, ὑπερφίαλοι καὶ ἄπιστοι[431]. This must, I think,
be taken as characteristic of Troy; though he mildly proceeds to take off the
edge of his reproach by a γνώμη about youth and age. But the most
scandalous of all the Trojan proceedings seems to have been the effort
made, though unsuccessfully, to have Menelaus put to death, when he came
on a peaceful mission to demand the restoration of his wife[432].
Nothing of this admiration for fraud apart from force appears either in the
conduct of the Greeks during the war, or in their prior history: and the
passage respecting Autolycus, which, more than any other, appears to give
countenance to knavery, takes his case out of the category of ordinary
human action by placing it in immediate relation to a deity; so that it
illustrates, not the national character as it was, but rather the form to which

the growing corruptions of religion tended to bring it. Yet, while Homer
gives to the Trojans alone the character of faithlessness, he everywhere, as
we must see, vindicates the intellectual superiority of the Greeks in the
stratagems of the war. And if, as I think is the case, I have succeeded in
proving above that the doctrine of a future state was less lively and
operative among the Trojans than among the Greeks, it is certainly
instructive to view that deficiency in connection with the national want of
all regard for truth. This difference teaches us, that the imprecations against
perjurers, and the prospects of future punishment, were probably no
contemptible auxiliaries in overcoming the temptations to present falseness,
with which human life is everywhere beset.
As respects sensuality, the chief points of distinction are, that we find a
particular relation to this subject running down the royal line of Troy; and
that, whereas in Greece we are told occasionally of some beautiful woman
who is seduced or ravished by a deity, in Troas we find the princes of the
line are those to whose names the legends are attached. The inference is,
that in the former case a veil was thrown over such subjects, but that in the
latter no sense of shame required them to be kept secret. The cases that
come before us are those of Tithonus, who is said to become the husband of
Aurora; of Anchises, for whom Venus conceives a passion; and of Paris, on
whom the same deity confers the evil gift of desire[433], and to whom she
promises the most beautiful of women, the wife of Menelaus. All these are
stories, which seem to have tended to the fame of the parties concerned on
earth, and by no means to their discredit with the Immortals. And again, if,
as some may take to be the case, we are to interpret the three νύμφαι[434] of
Troas as local deities, how remarkable is the fact that Homer should thus
describe them as tainted with passions, which nowhere appear among the
corresponding order within the Greek circle! There, male deities alone are
licentious. Juno, Minerva, Diana, and Persephone, whom alone we can call
properly Greek goddesses of the period, have no such impure connection
with mortals, as the goddesses both of the Trojan and of the Phœnician
traditions.
We hear indeed of Orion[435], who was also the choice of Aurora: but we
cannot tell whether he belonged more to the Trojan than to the Greek
branch of the common stem. To the Greek race he cannot have been alien,
as he is among Greek company in the Eleventh Odyssey: but then he is not

there as an object of honour; he appears in a state of modified suffering,
engaged in an endless chase[436]. We also find Iasion, probably in Crete,
who is reported to have been loved by Ceres[437]: but he was immediately
consumed for it by the thunderbolt of Jupiter. And so the detention of
Ulysses by the beautiful and immortal Calypso is not in Homer a glory, but
a calamity; and it allays none of the passionate longings of that hero for his
wife and home.
The marked contrast, which these groups of incidents present, is perhaps
somewhat heightened by the enthusiastic observation of the Trojan Elders
on the Wall in the Third Iliad[438]. Though susceptible of a good sense, yet,
when the old age of the persons is taken into view, the passage seems to be
in harmony with the Trojan character at large, rather than the Greek: and
perhaps it may bear some analogy to the licentious glances of the
Suitors[439]. If so, it is very significant that Homer should assign to the most
venerable elders of Troy, what in Greece he does not think of imputing
except to libertines, who are about to fall within the sweep of the divine
vengeance.
The difference between the races in this respect seems to have been deeply
rooted, for there is evidently some corresponding difference between their
views and usages in respect to marriage.
The character of Priam, which has been so
Trojan ideas and usages of
marriage. happily conceived by Mure[440], undoubtedly
bears on its very surface the fault of over
indulgence, along with the virtues of gentleness and great warmth and
keenness of the affections. But it may be doubted, whether the poems
warrant our treating him as individually dissolute. His life was a domestic
life: but the family was one constructed according to Oriental manners.
According to those manners, polygamy and wholesale concubinage were in
some sense the privilege, in another view almost the duty, of his station;
confined, as these abuses must necessarily be from their nature (and as they
even now are in Turkey), to the highest ranks wherever they prevail. The
household of Priam, notwithstanding his diversified relations to women, is
as regularly organized as that of Ulysses: and when he speaks of his vast
family, constituted as it was, he makes it known to Achilles, in a moment of
agonizing sorrow, and evidently by way of lodging a claim for

sympathy[441], though the effect upon modern ears may be somewhat
ludicrous. ‘I had,’ he says, ‘fifty sons: nineteen from a single womb: the rest
from various mothers in my palace.’ He might have added that he had also
twelve daughters[442], whom he probably does not need to mention on the
occasion, as in this department he was not a bereaved parent.
Hecuba, the mother of the nineteen, was evidently possessed of rights and a
position peculiar to herself. The very passage last quoted distinguishes her
from the γυναῖκες, and throughout the poem she moves alone[443].
Of the children of Priam we meet with a great
The family of Priam.
number in various places of the poem.
There are, I think, five expressly mentioned as children of Hecuba.
Hector, Il. vi. 87.
Helenus, ibid.
Laodice, vi. 252.
Deiphobus, Il. xxii. 333.
Paris, (because Hecuba was ἑκυρὴ to Helen,) Il. xxiv.
Next, we have two children of Laothoe, daughter of Altes, lord of the
Lelegians of Pedasus.
Lycaon, Il. xxi. 84.
Polydorus, ibid. 91.
Next Gorgythion, son of Kastianeira, who came from Aisume, (Il. viii. 302).
Then we have, without mention of the mother,
Agathon
Pammon
Antiphonos Il. xxiv. 249-51.
Hippothoos
Dios
Cassandra, xxiv. 699.
Mestor, xxiv. 257.
Troilos, Il. xxiv. 257.
Echemmon[444], v. 159.

Chromios[444], ibid.
Antiphos, iv. 490. xi. 101.
Cebriones, viii. 318.
Polites, ii. 791.
And, lastly, illegitimate (νόθοι),
Isos, Il. xi. 101.
Doryclos, xi. 489.
Democoon, iv. 499.
Medesicaste, xiii. 173.
The most important conclusion derivable from the comparison of the names
thus collected is, that the children of Priam, and consequently their mothers,
fell into three ranks:
1. The children of Hecuba.
2. The children of his other wives.
3. The children of concubines, or of chance attachments, who were, νόθοι,
bastards.
The name νόθος with Homer, at least among the Greeks, ordinarily marks
inferiority of condition. The mothers of the four νόθοι are never named.
This may, however, be due to accident. At any rate Lycaon appears to have
the full rank of a prince: he was once ransomed with the value of a hundred
oxen, and, when again taken, he promises thrice as much; again, in
describing himself as the half-brother of Hector, he avows nothing like
spurious birth. The reference to him by Priam explains his position more
clearly, and places it beyond doubt that Laothoe was recognised as a wife,
for she brought Priam a large dowry[445]; and if her sons be dead, says the
aged king, ‘it will be an affliction to me and to their mother.’ The language
used in another passage about Polydorus is also conclusive[446]. He is
described as the youngest and dearest of the sons of Priam, which evidently
implies his being in the fullest sense a member of the family. Again, in the
palace of Priam there were separate apartments, not for the nineteen only,
but for the fifty. Thus they seem to have included all the three classes. So
that it is probable enough that the state of illegitimacy did not draw the
same clear line as to rank in Troy, which it drew in Greece.

Laothoe, mother of Lycaon and Polydorus, was a woman of princely rank:
and when Lycaon says that Priam had many more besides her[447],

τοῦ δ’ ἔχε θυγατέρα Πρίαμος, πολλὰς δὲ καὶ ἄλλας,

he probably means many more of the same condition, wives and other well-
born women, who formed part of his family.
So that Homer, in all likelihood, means to describe to us the threefold order,
1. Hecuba, as the principal queen.
2. Other wives, inferior but distinctly acknowledged.
3. Either concubines recognised as in a position wholly subordinate, or
women who were in no permanent relation of any kind with Priam.
Beyond the case of Priam, we have slender means of ascertaining the
usages and ideas of marriage among the Trojans. We have Andromache,
wife of Hector; Helen, a sort of wife to Paris; Theano, wife to Antenor, and
priestess of Minerva; who also took charge of and brought up his
illegitimate son Pedæus[448]. The manner in which this is mentioned, as a
favour to her husband, certainly shows that the mark of bastardy was not
wholly overlooked, even in Troy. But, besides this Pedæus, we meet in
different places of the Iliad no less than ten other sons of Antenor, all, I
think, within the fighting age. This is not demonstrative, but it raises a
presumption that some of them were probably the sons of other wives than
Theano; who is twice described as Theano of the blooming cheeks, and can
hardly therefore be supposed to have reached a very advanced period of
life[449].
But it is clear from the important case of Priam, even if it stands alone, that
among the Trojans no shame attaches to the plurality of wives, or to having
many illegitimate children, the birth of various mothers. It is possible that
the manners of Troy, with regard to polygamy, were at this time the same
(unless as to the reason given,) with those which Tacitus ascribes to the
Germans of his own day: Singulis uxoribus contenti sunt; exceptis
admodum paucis, qui, non libidine, sed ob nobilitatem, plurimis nuptiis
ambiuntur[450]. We must add to this, that Paris, in detaining as his wife the
spouse of another man still living, does an act of which we have no

example, to which we find no approximation, in the Greek manners of the
time. Its significance is increased, when we find that after his death she is
given to Deiphobus: for this further union alters the individual trait into one
which is national. Her Greek longings, as well as her remorse for the
surrender of her honour to Paris, afford the strongest presumption that the
arrangement could hardly have been adopted to meet her own inclination;
and that it must have been made for her without her choice, as a matter of
supposed family or political convenience.
We seem therefore to be justified in concluding that, as singleness did not
enter essentially into the Trojan idea of marriage, so neither did the bond
with them either possess or even approximate to the character of
indissolubility. The difference is very remarkable between the horror which
attaches to the first crime of Ægisthus in Greece, the corruption of
Clytemnestra, though it was analogous to the act of Paris, and the
indifference of the Trojans to the offence committed by their own prince.
We have no means indeed of knowing directly how Ægisthus was regarded
by the Greeks around him, during the period which preceded the return and
murder of Agamemnon. But we find that Jupiter, in the Olympian Court,
distinctly describes his adultery as a substantive part of his sin[451];

ὡς καὶ νῦν Αἴγισθος ὑπέρμορον Ἀτρείδαο
γῆμ’ ἄλοχον μνηστὴν, τὸν δ’ ἔκτανε νοστήσαντα.

And I think we may rest assured, that Jupiter never would give utterance on
Olympus to any rule of matrimonial morality, higher than that which was
observed among the Greeks on earth.
So again, it was a specific part of the offence of the Suitors in the Odyssey,
that they sought to wed Penelope while her husband was alive[452]; that is to
say, before his death was ascertained, though it was really not extravagant
to presume that it had occurred.
From both these instances, and more especially
Stricter ideas among the
Greeks.
from the last, we must, I think, reasonably
conclude that the moral code of Greece was far
more adverse to the act of Paris, considered as an offence against
matrimonial laws, than the corresponding rule in Troy.

In connection with this topic, we may notice, how Homer has overspread
the Dardanid family, at the epoch of the war as well as in former times, with
redundance of personal beauty. Of Paris we are prepared to hear it as a
matter of course; but Hector has also the εἶδος ἀγητόν[453]; and, even in his
old age, the ὄψις ἀγαθὴ of Priam was admired by Achilles[454]. Deiphobus
again is called θεοείκελος and θεοειδὴς[455], and on two of Priam’s
daughters severally does Homer bestow the praise of being each the most
beautiful[456] among them all. With this was apparently connected, in many
of them, effeminacy, as well as insolence and falseness of character; for we
must suppose a groundwork of truth in the wrathful invective of their father,
who describes his remaining sons as (Il. xxiv. 261.)

ψευσταί τ’ ὀρχησταί τε, χοροιτυπίῃσιν ἄριστοι,
ἀρνῶν ἠδ’ ἐρίφων ἐπιδήμιοι ἁρπακτῆρες.

An invective, which completely corresponds with the Greek belief
concerning their general character in the Third Book[457]. The great Greek
heroes are also beautiful; but their mere beauty, particularly in the Iliad, is
for the most part kept carefully in the shade.
We will turn now to the political institutions of
Trojan polity less highly
Troy. Less advanced towards organization, and of
organized.
a less firm tone than in Greece, they will help to
explain how it could happen that a people should bear prolonged calamity
and constant defeat, and could pass on to final ruin, for the wicked and
wanton wrong of an individual prince.
It has been noticed, that the idea of hereditary succession was definite, as
well as familiar, in Greece. In Troy it appears to have been less so. And this
is certainly what we might expect from the recognition in any form,
however qualified, of polygamy. It tends to confound the position of any
one wife, although supposed supreme, with that of others; and in
confounding the order of succession, as among the issue of different wives,
it altogether breaks up the simplicity of the rule of primogeniture.
And again, if, as we shall presently see, the Trojan race had a less
developed capacity for political organization, they would be less likely to

establish a clear rule and practice of succession, which is a primary element
of political order in well-governed countries.
The evidence as to the Asiatic rule of inheritance is, I admit, indirect and
scanty: nor do I attempt to place what I have now to offer in a rank higher
than that of probable conjecture.
1. Sarpedon was clearly leader of the Lycians, with some kind of
precedence over Glaucus.
The general tenour of the poem clearly gives this impression. He speaks and
acts as the person principally responsible[458]. But by birth he was inferior
to Glaucus; for he was the grandson of Bellerophon only in the female line
through Laodamia, while Glaucus stood alone in the male line through
Hippolochus. I do not venture to rely much on the mere order of the names;
and therefore I do not press the fact, which indeed is not needed for the
argument, that it makes Laodamia junior to Hippolochus. It will be said that
Sarpedon was in chief command, because he was of superior merit. But
among the Greeks we have no instance in which superior merit gives
preeminence as against birth. And the reputation of divine origin clearly
could not put aside the prior right of succession.
Again, both Sarpedon and Glaucus are both expressly called βασιλῆες[459],
kings. Now, they were first cousins, and they belonged to the same
kingdom. Hippolochus was perhaps still alive[460]; for he gave Glaucus a
parting charge, and his death is not mentioned. In Greece we find the heir
apparent called king, namely, Achilles: but the title is never given to more
than one person standing in the line of succession. A possible explanation, I
think, is, that the Lycian kingdom had been divided[461]: but if this be not
so, then the use of the term seems to prove that in Asia all the children of
the common ancestor stood, or might stand, upon the same footing by birth:
and as if it was left to other causes, instead of to a definite and single rule,
to determine who should succeed to the throne.
2. In a former part of this work[462], I have stated reasons for supposing that
Æneas represented the elder branch of the house of Dardanus. But, whether
he did so or not, it is sufficiently clear from the Iliad that he was not without
pretensions to the succession. The dignity of his father Anchises is marked
by his remaining at Dardania, and not appearing in the court of Priam.

Æneas habitually abstains from attending the meetings or assemblies for
consultation, in which Priam, where they are civil, and Hector, where they
are military, takes the lead. Achilles taunts him expressly with looking
forward to the succession after the death of Priam, and with the anticipation
of public lands which he was to get from the Trojans forthwith, if he could
but slay the great Greek warrior. The particular succession, to which the
taunt refers, is marked out; it is the dominion, not over the mere
Dardanians, but over the Τρῶες ἱππόδαμοι[463]. In following down the
genealogy, Æneas does not adhere to either of the two lines (from Ilus and
Assaracus respectively) throughout, as senior, and therefore supreme; but,
after putting the line of Ilus first in the earlier part of the chain, he places his
own birth from Anchises before that of Hector from Priam.
Apart from the question which was the older line, the effect of all these
particulars, taken together, is to show an indeterminateness in the rule of
succession, of which we have no indication among the Greeks. Even the
incidental notice of the right of Priam to give it to Æneas, if he pleased, is
as much without example in anything Homer tells us of the Greek manners,
as the corresponding power conferred by the Parliament on the Crown in
the Tudor period was at variance with the general analogies of English
history and institutions.
3. The third case before us is one in the family of
Succession to the Throne of
Priam.
Priam itself. It appears extremely doubtful
whether we can, upon the authority of the poems,
confidently mark out one of his sons as having been the eldest, or as
standing on that account in the line of succession to the throne of Priam.
The evidence, so far as it goes, seems rather to point to Paris; while the
question lies between him and Hector.
Theocritus[464] indeed calls Hector the eldest of the twenty children of
Hecuba. But this is an opinion, not an authority; and the number named
shows it to be unlikely that he was thinking of historic accuracy, for Homer
says, Hecuba had nineteen sons, while she had also several daughters[465].
There can be no doubt whatever, that Hector was the most conspicuous
person, the most considerable champion of the city. He was charged
exclusively with the direction of the war, and with the regulation of the
supplies necessary to feed the force of Trojans and of allies. Polydamas,

who so often takes a different view of affairs, and Sarpedon, when having a
complaint to make, alike apply to him. Æneas is the only person who
appears upon the field in the same rank with him, and he stands in a
position wholly distinct from the family of Priam. As among the members
of that family, there can be no doubt of the preeminence of Hector. He was,
indeed, in actual exercise of the heaviest part of the duties of sovereignty.
Æneas, in the genealogy, finishes the line of Assaracus with himself; and, to
all appearance, as not less a matter of course, the line of Ilus with
Hector[466]. Again, the name Astuanax, conferred by the people on his son,
appears to show that the crown was to come to him. But all this in no
degree answers the question, whether Hector held his position as probable
king-designate by birth, or whether it was rather due to his personal
qualities, and his great and unshared responsibilities and exertions. There
are several circumstances, which may lead us to incline towards the latter
alternative.
(1.) When his parents and widow bewail his loss, it is the loss of their great
defender and chief glory[467], not of one who by death had vacated the place
of known successor to the sovereignty.
(2.) Had Hector been by birth assured of the seat of Priam, his right would
have been sufficient cause for giving to his son at once the name of
Astuanax. But this we are told the people did for the express reason, that
Hector was the only real bulwark of Troy. It seems unlikely that in such a
case his character as heir by birth would have been wholly passed by. The
name, therefore, appears to suggest, that it was by proving himself the
bulwark of the throne that Hector had become as it were the presumptive
heir to it[468].
When Hector takes his child in his arms, he prays, on the infant’s behalf,
that he may become, like himself[469],

ἀριπρεπέα Τρώεσσιν,
ὧδε βίην τ’ ἀγαθὸν, καὶ Ἰλίου ἶφι ἀνάσσειν·

that is, that he may become distinguished and valiant, and may mightily
rule over the Trojans. This seems to point to succession by virtue of
personal qualities rather than of birth.

There are also signs that Paris, and not Hector,
Paris most probably the may have been the eldest son of Priam, and may
eldest-born.
have had that feebler inchoate title to succession,
which, in the day of necessity, his brother’s superior courage and character
was to set aside.
This supposition accords better with the fact of his having had influence
sufficient to cause the refusal of the original demand for the restitution of
Helen, peacefully made by the Greek embassy; and the endurance of so
much evil by his country on his behalf.
It explains the fact of his having had a palace to himself on Pergamus; a
distinction which he shared with Hector only[470], for the married sons as
well as daughters of Priam in general slept in apartments within the palace
of their father[471]. And also it accords with his original expedition, which
was evidently an affair of great pains and cost; and with his being plainly
next in military rank to Hector among the sons of Priam.
Further, it would explain the fact, otherwise very difficult to deal with, that
alone among the children of Priam, Paris or Alexander is honoured with the
significant title of βασιλεύς. Helenus is called ἄναξ, and Hector ποίμην
λαῶν, but neither expression is of the same rank, or has a similar effect.
This exclusive application of the term βασιλεὺς is a very strong piece of
evidence, if, as I believe to be the case, it is nowhere else applied in the
Iliad to a person thus selected, without indicating either the possession, or
the hereditary expectancy of a throne.
And indeed, even if we could show that Homer had applied the name
βασιλεὺς to two brothers in one family, the result would be the same, as far
as the main argument is concerned, for there is no such pronounced mark of
equality found among brothers in any of the royal families of Greece.
Again; in considering the law of succession among the Greeks, we have
found four cases in the Catalogue, where contingents were placed under the
command of two leaders seemingly co-ordinate; they are in every instance
brothers, and the four dual commands occur in a total of twenty-nine. Or let
us state the case in another form, so as to include the cases of Bœotia and
Elis. Among sixteen Trojan contingents, there are but six where the chief
authority is plainly in a single hand; out of twenty-nine Greek contingents,
there are twenty-three, and, of the remaining six, four are the cases of

brothers. This fact is material, as tending to show a looser and less effective
military organization in the ranks of the Trojans and their allies, than in
those of the Greeks; a circumstance which does not prove, but which
harmonizes with, the hypothesis that they were wanting also in a defined
order of succession to the seat of political power.
There are other reasons, immediately connected with Hector, for supposing
that Homer intended to represent Paris as older than his brother[472]. Paris
had been in manhood for at least twenty years, according to the letter of the
poem, which must at least represent a long period of time. But Hector has
one child only, a babe in arms, which is in itself a presumption of his being
less advanced in life. Again, we must suppose his age probably to be not
very different from that of Andromache. But it is quite plain that she was a
young mother; since after the slaughter of Eetion, her father, Achilles
shortly took a ransom for her mother, who thereupon went back to the
house of her own father, Andromache’s maternal grandfather, and
subsequently died there[473]. If then the grandfather of Andromache was
alive when Thebe was taken, and Hector’s age was in due proportion to her
own, he must in all likelihood have been younger than Paris. Again, it may
be noticed that the term ἥβη is nowhere ascribed to Paris, but it is assigned
to Hector at his death[474]. Notwithstanding its complimentary use for
Ulysses in Od. viii. 135, that word has a certain leaning to early life. But we
have a stronger, and indeed I think a conclusive argument in the speech of
Andromache after his death[475];

ἆνερ, ἀπ’ αἰῶνος νέος ὤλεο.

Thus he is distinctly called young. And we may consider it almost certain,
under these circumstances, that Paris was the first-born son of Priam[476],
but that his right of succession oozed away like water from a man’s hand.
The relations of race between the Trojans and the Greeks have already been
examined, in connection with the great Homeric title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν[477];
under some difficulties, which resolve themselves into this, that Homer, on
almost every subject so luminous a guide, is in all likelihood here, as it
were, retained on the side of silence; and that we have no information,
except such as he accidentally lets fall. But he was under no such
preoccupation with regard to the institutions of Troy; so that, while he had

no occasion for the same amount of detail as he has given us with reference
to the Greeks, or the same minute accuracy as he has there observed,
enough appears to supply a tolerably clear and consistent outline.
We have been accustomed too negligently to treat the Homeric term Troy,
as if it designated only or properly a single city. But in Homer it much more
commonly means a country, with the city sometimes called Troy for its
capital, and containing many other cities beside it. The proper name,
however, of the city in the poems is Ἴλιος, not Τροίη. Ilios is used above an
hundred and twenty times in the Iliad and Odyssey, and always strictly
means the city. The word Τροίη is used nearly ninety times, and in the great
majority of cases it means the country. Often it has the epithets εὐρεῖα,
ἐρίβωλος, ἐριβώλαξ, which speak for themselves. But more commonly it is
without an epithet; and then too it very generally means the country. When
the Greeks speak, for example, of the voyage Τροίηνδε, this is the natural
sense, rather than to suppose it means a city not on the sea shore, and into
which, till the end of the siege, they did not find their way at all[478].
According to the genealogical tree in the
Priam and his dynasty in
Troas.
Twentieth Iliad, Dardanus built Dardania among
the mountains: his son Erichthonius became
wealthy by possessions in the plain; and Tros, the son of Erichthonius, was
the real founder of the Trojan state and name[479].

Τρῶα δ’ Ἐριχθόνιος τέκετο Τρώεσσιν ἄνακτα.

Thus the name of Troes at that time covered the whole race. But the town of
Ilios must, from its name, have been built not earlier than the time of Ilus,
the son of Tros. And now the dynasty separates into two lines, as Assaracus,
the brother of Ilus, continues to reign in Dardania. Thus the local existence
of the Dardanian name is prolonged; for it is plain that the Dardanian throne
was associated, at least in dignity, with a rival, and not a subordinate,
sovereignty. Still it does not extend beyond the hills. It was over these that
Æneas fled from Achilles[480]. But even the Dardanians did not wholly
cease to be known by the appellation of Trojans; for not only does Homer
frequently use the dominant name Troes for the entire force opposed to the
Greeks, which is naming the whole from the principal part, but he also uses
the word Troes to signify all that part of the force, which was under the

house of Dardanus in either branch; and he distinguishes this portion from
the rest of the force described under the name ἐπίκουροι, at the opening of
the Trojan Catalogue:

ἔνθα τότε Τρῶές τε διέκριθεν, ἠδ’ ἐπίκουροι[481].

This line is followed by an account of the whole force opposed to the
Greeks, in sixteen divisions. Of these the eleven last bear each their own
national name, beginning with the Pelasgians of Larissa, and ending with
the Lycians; and they are under leaders, whom the whole course of the
poem marks as not being Trojan, but independent. These eleven evidently
were the ἐπίκουροι of ver. 815.
The five first contingents are introduced and commanded as follows:
1. Troes under Hector[482]:

Τρωσὶ μὲν ἡγεμόνευε μέγας κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ.

2. Dardanians, under Æneas, with two of the (ten) sons of Antenor,
Archelochus and Acamas, for his colleagues[483]:

Δαρδανίων αὖτ’ ἦρχεν ἐῢς παῖς Ἀγχίσαο.

3. Trojans of Zelea, at the extreme spur of Ida, under Pandarus[484]:

οἳ δὲ Ζέλειαν ἔναιον ὑπαὶ πόδα νείατον Ἴδης
Τρῶες.

4. People of Adresteia and other towns, under Adrestus and Amphius, sons
of Merops of Percote[485]:

οἳ δ’ Ἀδρήστειάν τ’ εἶχον, κ. τ. λ.

5. People of Percote and other towns, under Asius:

οἳ δ’ ἄρα Περκώτην, κ. τ. λ.

And then begins the enumeration of the Allies, each under their respective
national names.
It seems evident, that these five first-named contingents comprise the whole
of the subjects of the race of Dardanus. First come the Trojans of the capital
and its district, under Hector. Then, taking precedence on account of
dignity, the Dardanian division of Æneas. In the third contingent the Poet
returns to the name Troes, which, I think, plainly enough overrides the
fourth and fifth, just as in the Greek Catalogue the name Pelasgic Argos[486]
introduces and comprehends a number of contingents that follow, besides
that of Achilles.
There are several reasons, which tend plainly to this conclusion. The sense
of διέκριθεν (815) and the reference to the diversity of tongues spoken
(804) almost require the division of the force between Troes and allies; it is
also the most natural division. The fourth and fifth contingents are not
indeed expressly called Troes, but this name, already given to the third, may
include them. We must, I think, conclude that it does so, when we find clear
proof that they were not independent national divisions: for the troops of
Percote were in the fifth, but the sons of Percosian Merops command the
fourth, a fact inexplicable if these were the forces of independent States, but
natural enough if they were all under the supremacy of Priam and his house.
In the great battle of the Twelfth Iliad, the Trojans are πένταχα κοσμηθέντες
(xii. 87). Sarpedon commands the allies with Glaucus and Asteropæus (v.
101), thus accounting for eleven of the sixteen divisions in the Catalogue.
Æneas, with two sons of Antenor, commands the Dardanians, thus
disposing of a twelfth. Again, Hector, with Polydamas and Cebriones,
commands the πλεῖστοι καὶ ἄριστοι, evidently the division standing first in
the Catalogue. This makes the number thirteen. The three remaining
contingents of the Catalogue are
1. Zelean Troes, under Pandarus, (since slain,) Il. ii. 824-7.
2. Adresteans &c. under Adrestus and Amphius, (828-34,) both
slain, Il. v. 612. vi. 63.
3. Percotians &c. under Asius (835-9).
These three remaining divisions of the Catalogue evidently reappear in the
second and third of the five Divisions of the Twelfth Book. The Second is

under Paris, with Alcathous, son-in-law of Antenor, and Agenor, one of his
sons. In the command of the Third, Helenus and Deiphobus, two sons of
Priam, are associated with, and even placed before, Asius. The position
given in these divisions to the family of Priam appears to prove, that the
troops forming them were among his proper subjects.
Again, the territorial juxtaposition of these districts, between Phrygia,
which lay behind the mountains of Ida, on the one side, and the sea of
Marmora with the Ægæan on the other, perfectly agrees with the description
in the Twenty-fourth Iliad[487] of the range of country within which Priam
had the preeminence in wealth, and in the vigour and influence of his sons.
Strabo quotes this passage as direct evidence that Priam reigned over the
country it describes, which is rather more than it actually states; and he says
that Troas certainly reached to Adresteia and to Cyzicus.
Again, we have various signs in different passages of a political connection
between the towns we have named and the race of Priam. Melanippus, his
nephew, was employed before the war at Percote[488]. Democoon[489], his
illegitimate son, tended horses at Abydus; doubtless, says Strabo[490], the
horses of his father.
The partial inclusion of the Dardanians within the name of Troes is further
shown by the verse[491],

Αἰνεία, Τρώων βουληφόρε·

and by the appeal of Helenus to Æneas and Hector jointly, as the persons
chiefly responsible for the safety of the Troes and Lycians: the name
Lycians being taken here, as in some other places[492], to denote most
probably a race akin to and locally interspersed with the Trojans.
But the Dardanians have more commonly their proper designation
separately given them. It never includes the Troes. And we never find the
two appellations, Troes and Dardans, covering the entire force. Whenever
the Dardans are named with the Troes, there is also another word, either
ἐπίκουροι, or Λύκιοι.
The word Troes, it is right to add, is sometimes confined strictly to the
inhabitants of the city: but the occasions are rare, and perhaps always with
contextual indications that such is the sense.

Another sign that Priam exercised a direct sovereignty over the territory
which yielded the five contingents may perhaps be found in the fact, that
we do not find any of his nephews in command of them. They were led by
their local officers, while the brothers of Priam constituted a part of the
community of Troy, and chiefly influenced the Assembly: and their sons,
though apparently more considerable persons than most of those local
officers in general, simply appear as acting under Hector without special
command. The brothers of Priam are Lampus, Clytius, and Hiketaon. His
nephews and other relatives are Dolops the son of Lampus; Melanippus the
son of Hiketaon; Polydamas, Hyperenor, and Euphorbus, the sons of
Panthous and his wife Phrontis.
Had the senior members of the family held local sovereignties, we should
have found their sons in local commands. But we find only two sons of
Antenor in command, as either colleagues or lieutenants of Æneas, over the
Dardans, whom we have no reason to suppose they had any share in ruling.
Strabo, indeed, contends, that there are nine separate δυναστεῖαι
immediately connected with Troy[493], besides the ἐπίκουροι. Of these states
one he thinks was Lelegian, and was ruled over by Altes, father of Laothoe,
one of Priam’s wives. Another by Munes, husband of Briseis. Another,
Thebe, by Eetion, father of Andromache. Others he considers to be
represented by Anchises and Pandarus: but this does not well agree with the
structure of the Catalogue. He refers also to Lyrnessus and Pedasus; which
are nowhere mentioned by Homer as furnishing contingents, but they had
apparently been destroyed, as well as taken, by Achilles. He places several
of the dynasties in cities thus destroyed: and they all, according to him, lay
beyond the limits marked out in the Twenty-fourth Iliad.
This assemblage of facts appears to point to a very great diversity of
relations subsisting between Priam, with his capital, and the states, cities,
and races, of which we hear as arrayed on his side in the war. There are first
the cities of Troas, or Troja proper, furnishing the five, or if we except
Dardania four out of the five, first contingents of the Catalogue. Over these
Priam was sovereign.
There are next the cities, so far as they can be traced, under the δυναστεῖαι
mentioned by Strabo, such as Thebe, and the cities of Altes and Munes.

These were probably in the same sort of relation to the sceptre of Priam, as
the Greek states in general to that of Agamemnon.
Thirdly, there are the independent nations. Of these eleven named in the
Catalogue; others are added as newly arrived in the Tenth Book[494], and
further additions were subsequently made, such as the force under
Memnon, and the Keteians under Eurypylus[495]. Nothing perhaps tends so
much, as the powerful assistance lent to Priam by numerous and distant
allies, to show how justly in substance Horace has described the Trojan war
as the conflict between the Eastern and the Western world. The two
confederacies, which then came into collision, between them absorbed the
whole known world of Homer; and foreshadowed the great conflicts of later
epochs.
We may now proceed to consider the political
Political institutions of Troy.
institutions of the kingdom of Priam, which has
thus loosely been defined.
The Βασιλεὺς of the Trojans is less clearly marked, than he is among the
Greeks: for (as we shall find) they had no Βουλὴ, and therefore we have not
the same opportunities of seeing the members of the highest class collected
for separate action in the conduct of the war. Still, however, the name is
distinctly given to the following persons on the Trojan side, and to no
others.
1. Priam, Il. v. 464, xxiv. 630.
2. Paris, iv. 96.
3. Rhesus, x. 435.
4. Sarpedon, xii. 319. xvi. 660.
5. Glaucus, xii. 319.
Among the Trojans, as among the Greeks, it was the custom for the kings,
as they descended into the vale of years, to devolve the more active duties
of kingship on their children, and to retain, perhaps only for a time, those of
a sedentary character. Hence Hector at least shares with Priam the
management of Assemblies, as it is he[496] who dissolves that of the Second
Book, and calls the military one of the Eighth. Hence, too, he speaks of
himself as the person responsible for the burdens entailed by the war upon
the Trojans. ‘I did not,’ he says to the allies, ‘bring you from your cities to
multiply our numbers, but that you might defend for me the wives and

children of Trojans; with this object in view, I exhaust the people for your
pay and provisions[497].’ Hence we have Æneas leading the Dardanians,
while his father Anchises nowhere appears, and, as it must be presumed,
remains in his capital. Hence, while ten or twelve sons of Antenor bear arms
for Troy, and two of them are the colleagues of Æneas in the command of
the Dardanian contingent, their father appears among the δημογέροντες,
who were chief speakers in the Assembly within the city. We do not know
that Antenor was a king; more probably he held a lordship subordinate to
Priam, in a relation somewhat more strict than that between Agamemnon
and the Greek chieftains, and rather resembling that between Peleus and
Menœtius; but the same custom of partial retirement seems to have
prevailed in the case of subaltern rulers, as indeed it would be dictated by
the same reasons of prudence and necessity.
The βασιλήϊς τιμὴ of Troy was not, any more than those of Greece, an
absolute despotism. In Troy, as in Greece, the public affairs were discussed
and settled in the Assemblies, though with differences, which will be
noticed, from the Greek manner of procedure. It was in the Assembly that
Iris, disguised as Polites, addressed Priam and Hector to advise a review of
the army[498]. And it was again in an Assembly that Antenor proposed, and
that Paris refused, to give up Helen: whereupon Priam proposed the mission
of Idæus to ask for a truce with a view to the burial of the dead, and the
people assented to the proposal[499];

οἱ δ’ ἄρα τοῦ μάλα μὲν κλύον ἠδ’ ἐπίθοντο.

It was in the Assembly, too, that those earlier proposals had been made, of
which the same personage procured the defeat by corruption.
Lastly, in the Eighth Book, Hector[500], as we have seen, holds a military
ἀγορὴ of the army by the banks of the Scamander. At this he invites them to
bivouac outside the Greek rampart, and they accept his proposal by
acclamation. This Assembly on the field of battle is an argument a fortiori
to show, that ordinary affairs were referred among the Trojans to such
meetings. We have, indeed, no detail of any Trojan Assembly except these
three. But we have references to them, which give a similar view of their
nature and functions. Idæus, on his return, announces to the Assembly that
the truce is granted[501]. It is plain that the restoration of Helen was debated

before, as well as during the war, in the Assembly of the people; because
Agamemnon slays the two sons of Antimachus on the special ground that
the father had there proposed that Menelaus, if not Ulysses, should be
murdered[502], when they came as Envoys to Troy, for the purpose of
demanding her restoration. This Antimachus was bribed by Paris, as the
Poet tells us, to oppose the measure[503]. Again, Polydamas, in one of his
speeches, charges Hector with having used him roughly, when he had
ventured to differ from him in the Assemblies, upon the ground that he
ought not, as a stranger to the Trojan δῆμος, to promote dissension among
them[504].
Trojan institutions do not, then, present to our view a greater elevation of
the royal office. On the contrary, it is remarkable, that the title of
δημογέρων, which Homer applies to the chief speakers of the Trojan
Assembly, not being kings, is also used by him to describe Ilus the founder
of the city[505]. It is, however, possible, perhaps even likely, that this title
may be applied to Ilus as a younger son, if his brother Assaracus was the
eldest and the heir[506].
But although it thus appears that monarchy was limited in Troy, as it was in
Greece, and that public affairs were conducted in the assemblies of the
people, the method and organization of these Assemblies was different in
the two cases.
1. The guiding element in the Trojan government seems to have been age
combined with rank; while among the Greeks, wisdom and valour were
qualifications, not less available than age and rank.
2. The Greeks had the institution of a βουλὴ, which preceded and prepared
matter for their Assemblies. The Trojans had not.
3. The Greeks, as we have seen, employed oratory as a main instrument of
government; the Trojans did not.
4. The aged members of the Trojan royal family rendered their aid to the
state, not as counsellors of Priam in private meetings, but only in the
Assembly of the people.
A few words on each of these heads.

1. The old men who appear on the wall with
The greater weight of Age in Priam, in the Third Book, are really old, and not
Troy.
merely titular or official γέροντες; they are[507],

γήραϊ δὴ πολέμοιο πεπαυμένοι.

There are no less than seven of them, besides Priam. Three are his brothers,
Lampus, Clytius, Hiketaon; the others probably relatives, we know not in
what precise degree: Panthous, Thymœtes, Ucalegon, Antenor. They are
called collectively the Τρώων ἡγήτορες, as well as the ἀγορηταὶ ἐσθλοί;
and they were manifestly habitual speakers in the Assembly.
There is nothing in the Greek life of the Homeric poems that comes near
this aggregation of aged men. Now we have no evidence, that their being
thus collected was in any degree owing to the war. Theano, wife of Antenor,
was priestess of Minerva in Troy; which makes it most probable that he
resided there habitually, and not only on account of the war.
The only group at all approaching this is, where we see Menœtius and
Phœnix at the Court of Peleus; but we cannot say whether this was a
permanent arrangement. Phœnix, as we know, was lord of the Dolopians,
and if so, could not have been a standing assistant at the court of Peleus; we
do not know that the Trojan elders held any such local position apart from
Troy, even in any single case; and on the other hand, we have no knowledge
whether Phœnix and Menœtius, even when at the court of Peleus, took any
share in the government of his immediate dominions. The name γέροντες,
as usually employed among the Greeks to describe a class, had no necessary
relation to age whatever.
Of the respect paid to age in Greece, we have abundant evidence; but we
find nothing like this gathering together of a body of old men to be the
ordinary guides of popular deliberation in the Assemblies.
It is true that we hear by implication of both Hector and Polydamas, who
were not old, as taking part in affairs: but all the indications in the Iliad go
to show that Hector’s share in the government of Troy, though not limited to
the mere conduct of the forces in the field, yet arose out of his military
office, and probably touched only such matters as were connected with the

management of the war. Polydamas evidently was treated as more or less an
interloper.
But even if it were otherwise, and if the middle-aged men of high station
and ability took a prominent part in affairs, the existence of this grey-
headed company, with apparently the principal statesmanship of Troy in
their hands, forms a marked difference from Greek manners. For in Greece
at peace we have nothing akin to it; while in Greece at war upon the plain
of Troy, we see the young Diomed as well as the old Nestor, and the rather
young Achilles and Ajax, as well as the elderly Idomeneus, associated with
the middle-aged men in the government of the army and its operations.
First then, I think it plain that the Trojans had no
The absence of a Βουλὴ in
Troy.
βουλὴ, for the following reasons:
1. That although we often hear of deliberations
and decisions taken on the part of the Trojans, and we have instances
enough of their holding assemblies of the people, yet we never find mention
of a βουλὴ, or Council, in connection with them.
2. In the Second Book, Homer describes the Trojan ἀγορὴ thus (Il. ii. 788,
9):

οἱ δ’ ἀγορὰς ἀγόρευον ἐπὶ Πριάμοιο θύρῃσιν
πάντες ὁμηγερέες, ἠμὲν νέοι ἠδὲ γέροντες.

This latter line is only to be accounted for by the supposition, that Homer
meant to describe a difference between the usages of the Trojans, and those
of the Greeks; whose γέροντες were recognised as members of the βουλὴ,
even when in the Assemblies.
Of the separate place of the Greek γέροντες in the Assemblies, we have
conclusive proof from the Shield of Achilles (xviii. 497, 503):

λαοὶ δ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ ἔσαν ἄθροοι·

and afterwards,

οἱ δὲ γέροντες
εἵατ’ ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι λίθοις, ἱερῷ ἐνὶ κύκλῳ.

And again, where the Ithacan γέροντες make way for Telemachus, as he
passes to the chair of his father.
But in Troy the γέροντες (such is probably the meaning of Il. ii. 789.) have
no separate function: the young and the old meet together: while in Greece,
besides distinct places in the Assembly, the γέροντες had an exclusive
function in the βουλὴ, at which they met separately from the young.
3. It would appear that the ἀγορὴ was with the Trojans not occasional, as
with the Greeks, for great questions, but habitual. And this agrees with the
description in Il. ii. 788. For when Jupiter sends Iris to Troy, she finds the
people in Assembly, but apparently for no special purpose, as she
immediately, in the likeness of Polites, begins to address Priam, and we do
not hear of any other business. So, when Idæus came back from the Greeks,
he found the Trojan Assembly still sitting. All this looks as if the entire
business of administering the government rested with that body only.
I draw a similar inference from the remarkable expression in Il. ii. 788,
ἀγορὰς ἀγόρευον. This seems to express that there was a standing, probably
a daily, assembly of the Trojans, not formally summoned, and open to all
comers, which acted as the governing body for the state. The line would
then mean, not simply ‘the Trojans were holding an assembly,’ but ‘the
Trojans were holding their assembly as usual.’
The names βουλευτὴς and ἀγορητὴς appear to have been merely
descriptive, and not titular. Both are applied to the Trojan elders.
And so βουλαὶ, βουλεύειν, βουληφόροι, are constantly used without any, so
to speak, official meaning. In Il. x. 147, the expression βουλὰς βουλεύειν
can hardly mean ‘to attend the βουλὴ,’ for the singular number would be the
proper term for the βουλὴ specially convoked: and I interpret it as meaning,
to attend at or to hold the usual council. This is among the Greeks. Among
the Trojans, in Il. x. 415-17, Dolon says,

Ἕκτωρ μὲν μετὰ τοῖσιν, ὅσοι βουληφόροι εἰσὶν,
βουλὰς βουλεύει θείου παρὰ σήματι Ἴλου,
νόσφιν ἀπὸ φλοίσβου.

Now the word βουληφόρος is applied, Il. xii. 414, to Sarpedon, as well as in
xiii. 463 and elsewhere to Æneas. Neither were among the γέροντες

βουλευταί. But further, it is applied, Od. ix. 112, to the ἀγορὴ itself:

τοῖσιν δ’ οὔτ’ ἀγοραὶ βουληφόροι, οὔτε θέμιστες

And therefore the word, though it means councillor in a general sense, does
not mean officially member of a βουλὴ, as opposed to an ἀγορὴ or
Assembly.
The phrase βουλὰς βουλεύει, in the passage Il. x. 415-17, does not oppose,
but supports what has now been said. It is quite plain that this of Hector’s
was a small military meeting, or council of war, just as in viii. 489 he held
an ἀγορὴ, or assembly of the army, both Trojans and allies; it was not a
meeting of a βουλὴ of Troy, because it was held in the field, far from the
city, and without any of the Elders, who were the great ἀγορηταὶ and
βουλευταὶ of Troy; for Hector had already arranged (Il. viii. 517-19) that
the old men should remain in the city, to defend the walls from any night
attack: most of all however because, as we hear of no βουλὴ before the
military Assembly in the Eighth Book, so we hear of no Assembly
following the meeting for deliberation in the Tenth. Generals in modern
times hold councils of war: but no parallel can be drawn between them, and
Councils for dispatching the affairs of a State.
As we never have occasion to become acquainted with Trojan politics in
peace, we can only argue the case as to the nonexistence of a council from
the state of war. But in Greece, it will be remembered, both war and peace
present their cases of the use of this institution, as one regularly established,
and apparently invested with both a deliberative and an executive character.
It is next to be inquired, whether the Trojans, like
The greater weight of oratory
in Greece.
the Greeks, employed eloquence, detailed
argument as furnishing, and the other parts of
oratory, a main instrument of government.
I think it is plain, that the decisions of their Assemblies were governed
rather by simple authority; by the ἀναποδεικταὶ φάσεις, the simple
declarations, of persons of weight.
The report of the re-assembled ἀγορὴ of the Greeks in the Second Book
begins with the 211th line, and ends with the 398th: occupying 188 lines.

But the Trojan ἀγορὴ of the same Book is despatched in twenty-one lines
(788-808).
A more remarkable example is afforded by the second Trojan Assembly (Il.
vii. 345-379). For this ἀγορὴ is described as δεινὴ, τετρηχυῖα; and well it
might be, in circumstances so arduous. The Elders in the Third Book were
of opinion that, beautiful as Helen was, it was better to restore her, than to
continue the sufferings and dangers of the war. Accordingly, Antenor urged
in this Assembly that she should be restored, together with the plundered
property. He referred also to the recent breach of a sworn covenant on the
Trojan side, and said no good could come of it. This he effects in a speech
of six lines; the first of which is the mere vocative address to the Assembly,
and the last is marked as surplusage with the obelos (348-53).
Paris, the person mainly concerned, replies. He does not address himself to
the Assembly at all, but to Antenor: and he disposes of the subject of debate
in eight lines (357-64). Four of them are given to the announcement of his
intentions, and four to abuse of Antenor.
It was impossible to conceive a subject more likely to cause debate; and
excitement we see there was, but after the speech of Paris, nothing more
was said about Helen, either for or against the restoration. Priam then arose,
and in a speech of eleven lines (368-78) laid down another plan of
proceeding, namely, by a message to the Greeks for a truce with a view to
funeral obsequies, which was at once accepted.
Nowhere, in short, among the Trojans have we
Oratory of greater weight in
Greece.
any example, I do not say of multiplied or
lengthened speeches, but of real reasoning and
deliberation in the conduct of business: though Glaucus tells his story at
great length to Diomed on the field of battle (Il. vi. 145-211), and Æneas to
Achilles (Il. xx. 199-258) nearly equals him. Indeed, it may almost be said,
the Trojans are long speakers when in battle, and short when in debate: the
Greeks copious in debate, but very succinct in battle.
Again, we may observe the different descriptions which the Poet has given
of the elocution of Nestor, and of that of the Trojan δημογέροντες in their
respective ἀγοραί. To Nestor (Il. i. 248, 9) he seems to assign a soft
continuous flow indefinitely prolonged. Theirs he describes as resembling
the ὄπα λειριόεσσαν of grasshoppers (Il. iii. 151, 2), a clear trill or thread of

voice, not only without any particular idea of length attached to it, but
apparently meant to recall a sharp intermittent chirp. Yet there is an odd
proof that to Priam at least, as one of these old men, there was attached, by
the younger ones, the imputation of favouring either too many or else too
long orations. For, in the ἀγορὴ of the Second Book, Iris in the character of
Polites, though there is no account of what had preceded her arrival,
objurgates Priam as both then encouraging what may be called
indiscriminate speaking, and as having formally, before the war, been
addicted to the same practice[508];

ὦ γέρον, αἰεί τοι μῦθοι φίλοι ἄκριτοί εἰσιν,
ὥς ποτ’ ἐπ’ εἰρήνης.

Upon the whole, I think it must have been Homer’s intention, while
representing both Trojans and Greeks as carrying on public affairs in their
public Assemblies, to draw a very marked distinction between them in
regard to the use of that powerful engine of oratory, which played so
conspicuous a part in the former, as well as in the later stages of the Greek
history.
And it is important, that nowhere does a sentiment escape the lips of a
Trojan chieftain, which indicates a consciousness of the political value of
oratory. Ulysses, in a state of peace, describes before the Phæacians beauty
and eloquence as the noblest gifts of the gods to man[509]: and employs ἔπεα
and νόος, eloquence and intelligence, as convertible terms. Polydamas,
when rebuking Hector in the Thirteenth Iliad, delivers a passage in many
respects strikingly analogous. He speaks, however, of νόος and βουλὴ,
mind and counsel[510]; he does not drop a word relating to public speech or
to eloquence as instruments of government, though he describes the mental
quality and the habit which he names as of priceless value for the benefit of
States.
The phrases applied to the Trojan elders appear to indicate, that they
derived their political character from taking a prominent part in the
Assembly, and from that alone. For the word δημογέρων indicates an elder
acting in and among the δῆμος, or people. And this name the Poet uses but
twice: once in Il. iii. 149, where he enumerates the eight persons, who bore

that character in Troy; and once with reference to Ilus (Il. ii. 372). Homer
nowhere employs this term for any of the Greeks.
The want of the βουλὴ shows us, that there was no balance of forces in the
Trojan polity, less security against precipitate action, more liability to high-
handed insolence and oppression of the people, and, on the other hand,
unless the danger had been neutralized by mildness or lethargy of character,
likewise in all likelihood to revolutionary change.
Again, on the Trojan side we do not find the
Trojans less gifted with self-
command.
silence and self-possession of the Greeks. After
the enumeration in the Third Book, at its opening,
we find that the Trojans marched with din and buzz:

Τρῶες μὲν κλαγγῇ τ’ ἐνοπῇ τ’ ἴσαν, ὄρνιθες ὥς·

but as to the Greeks, we are told that they marched in profound silence: and
the Poet skilfully heightens the contrast by mentioning that they breathed
forth what they did not articulate, and that they were steeled with firm
resolution to stand by one another[511]:

οἱ δ’ ἄρ’ ἴσαν σιγῇ μένεα πνείοντες Ἀχαιοὶ,
ἐν θυμῷ μεμαῶτες ἀλεξέμεν ἀλλήλοισιν.

We are finally told that each leader indeed gave the word to his men, while
all beside were mute[512]:

οἱ δ’ ἄλλοι ἀκὴν ἴσαν, οὐδέ κε φαίης
τόσσον λαὸν ἕπεσθαι ἔχοντ’ ἐν στήθεσιν αὐδὴν,
σιγῇ δειδιότες σημάντορας·

but from the Trojans there arose a sound, like that of sheep bleating for their
lambs[513]:

ὣς Τρώων ἀλαλητὸς ἀνὰ στρατὸν εὐρὺν ὀρώρει.

And, again, we find the relation of the burning of the dead given with the
usual consistency of the Poet. The men of the two armies met: and on both

sides they shed tears as they lifted their lifeless comrades on the wagons:
but, he adds, there was silence among the Trojans,

οὐδ’ εἴα κλαίειν Πρίαμος μέγας·

and it was because the king had felt that there would be indecency in a
noisy show of sorrow: while the Greeks needed not the injunction (Il. vii.
426-32), from their spontaneous self-command.
When the Poet speaks of the Trojan Assembly in the Seventh Book as δεινὴ
τετρηχυῖα, he evidently means to describe an excitement tending to
disorder: and one contrasted in a remarkable manner with the discipline of
the Greeks, who were summoned to meet silently in the night, that they
might not, in gathering, arouse the enemy outside the ramparts. Even in
their respective modes of expressing approbation, Homer makes a shade of
difference. When the Greeks applaud, it is ἐπίαχον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν, or what we
call loud or vehement cheering: but when the Trojans, it is ἐπὶ δὲ Τρῶες
κελάδησαν, which signifies a more miscellaneous and tumultuous noise.
In short, it would appear to be the intention of Homer to represent the
Greeks as possessed of a higher intelligence throughout. In the Odyssey, we
find that Ulysses made his way into Troy disguised as a beggar,
communicated with Helen, duly informed himself (κατὰ δὲ φρόνιν ἤγαγε
πολλήν[514]), and contrived to despatch certain of the Trojans before he
departed. In the Iliad we are supplied with abundant instances of the
superior management of the Greeks, and likewise of their auxiliary gods, in
comparison with those of the Trojans. Juno outwits Venus in obtaining from
her the cestus, and then proceeds to outwit Jupiter in the use of it. Minerva,
on observing that the Greeks are losing, (Il. vii. 17) betakes herself to Troy,
where Apollo proposes just what she wants, namely, a cessation of the
general engagement, with a view to a personal encounter between Hector
and some chosen chieftain: she immediately adopts the plan; and he causes
it to be executed through Helenus. It both stops the general havoc among
the Greeks, and redounds greatly to the honour of their champion Ajax. At
the end of the day, however, Nestor suggests to the Greek chiefs, on account
of their heavy losses (Il. vii. 328), that they should, on the occasion of
raising a mound over their dead, likewise dig and fortify a trench, which
might serve to defend the ships and camp. In the mean time the Trojans are

made to meet; and they send to propose the very measure, namely, an
armistice for funeral rites, which the Greeks desire, in order, under cover of
it, to fortify themselves (Il. vii. 368-97). And this accordingly Agamemnon
is enabled to grant as a sort of favour to the Trojans (Il. vii. 408):

ἀμφὶ δὲ νεκροῖσιν κατακαιέμεν οὔτι μεγαίρω.

This superior intelligence is probably meant to be figured by the exchange
of arms between Glaucus and Diomed. And, again, when Hector attempts
anything in the nature of a stratagem, as the mission of Dolon by night, it is
only that he may fall into the hands of Diomed and Ulysses. But there does
not appear to be in any of these cases a violation of oath, compact, or any
absolute rule of equity by the Greeks.
Of all these traits, however, it may be said, that they are of no value as
evidence, if taken by themselves. They are means which would obviously
occur to the Poet, zealous for his own nation. It is their accordance with
other indications, apparently undesigned, which warrants our relying upon
them as real testimonies, available for an historic purpose.
Although, on the whole, we seem to have the
Difference in pursuits of
high-born youth.
signs of greater wealth among the Trojans than the
Greeks, yet in certain points also their usages
were more primitive and simple. Thus we find the youths of the house of
Nestor immediately about his person; and Patroclus, as well as Achilles,
was apparently brought up at the court of Peleus. Again, the youthful Nestor
travels into Thessaly for a campaign: Ulysses goes to hunt at the Court of
his grandfather Autolycus. The Ithacan Suitors employ themselves in manly
games. But we frequently come upon passages where we are incidentally
informed, that the princes of the house of Dardanus were occupied in rustic
employments. Thus Melanippus, son of Hiketaon, and cousin of Hector,
who was residing in Priam’s palace, and treated as one of his children, had
before the war tended oxen in Percote[515]. Æneas, the only son and heir of
Anchises, had been similarly occupied among or near the hills, at the time
when he had a narrow escape from capture by Achilles[516]. Lycaon, son of
Priam, was cutting the branches of the wild fig for the fellies of chariot-
wheels when Achilles took him for the second time: on the first occasion,
he had been at work in a vineyard[517]. Antiphos and Isos, sons of Priam,

had been captured by Achilles whilst they were acting as shepherds[518].
Anchises was acting as a herdsman, when he formed his connection with
Venus[519]. The name of Boucolion, an illegitimate son of Laomedon, seems
to indicate that he was bred for the like occupation[520].
From the force, variety, and extreme delicacy of his uses of the word, it is
evident that Homer set very great store by the sentiment which is generally
expressed through the word αἰδώς, and which ranges through all the
varieties of shame, honour, modesty, and reverence. Though a minute, it is a
remarkable circumstance, that he confines the application of this term to the
Greeks; except, I think, in one passage, where he bestows it upon his
particular favourites the Lycians[521], and a single other one, where
Æneas[522] employs it under the immediate inspiration of Apollo, with
another sense, in an appeal to Hector and his brother chiefs, not to the
soldiery at large.
With the Greeks it supplies the staple of military exhortation[523] from the
chiefs to the army; Αἰδὼς, Ἀργεῖοι.
But quite a different form of speech is uniformly addressed to the Trojans
proper: it is

ἀνέρες ἔστε, φίλοι, μνήσασθε δὲ θουρίδος ἀλκῆς,

which is below the other, and appeals to a less peculiar and refined frame of
intelligence and of sentiment.
Whatever may be thought of the degree of detail
Summary of differences.
into which (guided as I think by the text) I have
ventured to carry this discussion, and of the
particularity of some of the inferences that have been drawn, I venture to
hope few will quit the subject without the conviction that Homer has
worked with the purpose and precision which are his wont, in the diversities
which mark the general outline of his Greeks and his Trojans, and of the
institutions of each respectively; and that he has not altogether withheld
from his national portraits the care, which he is admitted to have applied to
his individual characters on both sides with such extraordinary success. If
we look to the institutions of the two countries, although the comparison is
diversified, we must upon the whole concede to the Greeks, that they had

laid more firmly than their adversaries those great corner stones of human
society, which are named in their language, θέμις, ὅρκος, and γάμος. In the
polity of Troy we find more scope for impulse, less for deliberation and
persuasion; more weight given to those elements of authority which do not
depend on our free will and intelligence, less to those which do; less of
organization and of diversity, less firmness and tenacity of tissue, in the
structure of the community. We are told of no φῦλα and no φρῆτραι, no
intermediate ranks of officers in the army; no order of nobles or proprietors,
such as that which furnished the Suitors of Ithaca. There are, in short, fewer
secondary eminences; it is a state of things, more resembling the dead level
of the present Oriental communities subject to a despotic throne, though
such was not the throne of Priam. Among the people themselves, there is
more of religious observance and apparatus, but not more of morality: less
tendency indeed to crimes of violence and turbulence, but also less of truth,
of honour, above all of personal self-mastery and self-command. The
Greeks never would have produced the Paris of the Iliad; for on behalf of
no such dastard would they have been induced to bleed. But if they had
engendered such a creature, they would not have paid the penalty: for man
in the Trojan type would not have had the energy to recover it from the
warrior-statesmen of the Achæan race, and under no circumstances could
the really extravagant sentiment put by Virgil into the mouth of Diomed[524]
have been fulfilled:

ultro Inachias venisset ad urbes
Dardanus, et versis lugeret Græcia fatis.

III. THALASSA.
THE OUTER GEOGRAPHY OF THE
ODYSSEY.
The legendary Geography of the Odyssey may in one sense be compared
with that of Ariosto, and that of Bojardo. I should be the first, indeed, to
admit that a disquisition, having for its object to establish the delimitation
of the Geography of either of those poets, and to fix its relation to the actual
surface of the earth, was but labour thrown away. For two thousand years,
however, perhaps for more, the Geography of the Odyssey has been a
subject of interest and of controversy. In entering upon that field I ask
myself, why the case of Homer is in this respect so different from that of the
great Italian romancers? It is not only that, great as they were, we are
dealing with one before whom their greatness dwindles into comparative
littleness. Nor is it only, though it seems to be in part, because the
adventures of Ulysses are, or appear to be, much more strictly bound up
with place, than those of Orlando, Rinaldo, or Ruggiero. The difference, I
think, mainly lies in this, that an intense earnestness accompanies Homer
every where, even through his wild and noble romance. Cooped up as he
was within a narrow and local circle—for such it was, though it was for so
many centuries the centre of the whole greatness of the world—here is his
effort to pass the horizon ‘by strength of thought;’ to pierce the mist; to
shape the dim, confused, and conflicting reports he could pick up,
according to the best of his knowledge and belief, into land and sea; to
people its habitable spots with the scanty material he could command, every
where enlarged, made good, and adorned out of the wealth of his vigorous
imagination; and to form, by effort of the brain, for the first time as far as
we know in the history of our race, an idea of a certain configuration for the
surface of the Earth.
Hence, perhaps, may have flowed the potency of the charm, which has
attended the subject of Homer’s Outer Geography. The subject has,

however, in my belief, its utility too. It is rarely otherwise than well worth
while to trace even the erroneous thoughts of powerful minds. But,
moreover, in the present instance, I apprehend we can learn, through the
Outer Geography of Homer, important and interesting matter of history,
which is not to be learned from any other source. For the Poet has
embedded into his imaginative scheme a multitude of real geographical and
physical traditions; and by means of these, upon comparing them with their
proper originals, we can judge with tolerable accuracy what were the limits
of human enterprise on the face of earth in the heroic age.
The question before us is, what map of the earth did Homer shape in his
own mind, that he might adjust to it the voyages and tours of his heroes
Menelaus and Ulysses, particularly the latter? And in order to a legitimate
inquiry the first step to be taken is negative. Do not let us engage in the vain
attempt to construct the Geography of the Odyssey upon the basis of the
actual distribution of the earth’s surface. Such a process can lead to no
satisfactory result. Whatever materials Homer may have obtained to assist
him, we must consider as so many atoms; I speak of course, as to all that
lay beyond the narrow sphere of his Greek knowledge and experience. He
had no adequate means of placing the different parts of the accounts which
reached him in their true geographical relations to one another. The outer
world was for him broken up into fragments, and these fragments were
rearranged at his pleasure, with the aid of such lights only, as his limited
physical knowledge could afford him.
Assuming for the present that the Phœnicianism
Principal heads of the
inquiry.
of the Outer Geography has been on the whole
sufficiently proved, I proceed to a more exact
examination of the subject itself; and I propose to inquire into the following
questions.
1. Has Homer two modes of dealing with the subject of locality, considered
at large? if so, can it be shown that he applies them to two distinct
geographical regions; one the circumscribed central tract of land and sea
within which he lived, the other a wider and larger zone, which lay beyond
it in all directions; and can a line be drawn with reasonable confidence and
precision between these geographical regions accordingly?

2. If it be established that Homer has a system of Outer Geography, severed
by a sufficiently-defined barrier from his Inner Geography, then are there
any, and if so what, keys, or leading ideas of local arrangement for the
former scheme, which, themselves derived from the evidence of his text,
should be used for the adjustment of its details?
3. Under the system thus ascertained, what was the route of Menelaus, and
more especially of Ulysses, as these presented themselves to the mind of
Homer?
I set out from the proposition, which, as I conceive, rests upon universal
consent, that within a certain sphere the poems may be considered as a
record of experimental geography; and one sometimes carried down into
detail with so much of accuracy, that it embraces even the miniature of that
branch of knowledge, to which we usually give the name of topography.
By way of example for the former, I should say that when Homer describes
the Bœotian towns, when he measures the distance over the Ægean, nay,
when he makes Ulysses represent that he floated in ten days from some
point near Crete to the Thesprotian coast, he is a geographer. Again, in his
variously estimated account of the interior of Ithaca, he is a topographer. He
is the same on the whole, though probably with greater license, when he is
dealing with the Plain of Troy.
In speaking of the experimental geography of
The two spheres of
Geography.
Homer, of course I do not intend to imply that he
had, even within his narrow sphere, the means
that later science has afforded of establishing situations and distances with
absolute precision. He could only proceed by the far ruder testimony of the
senses, trained in the school of experience. Neither do I mean that the
experience was in every case his own, though to a great extent his
geographical information was probably original, and acquired by him
principally in the exercise of his profession as an itinerating Bard. But by
the experimental and real geography of Homer, I mean these two things;
first, that the Poet believed himself to be describing pro tanto points upon
the earth’s surface as they actually were; secondly, that his means of
information were for practical purposes adequate. The evidence of the
passage containing the simile of the Thought (Il. xv. 580) would suffice,
were there none other, to show that he was himself a traveller; he also lived

among a people already accustomed to travel, and familiar with the
navigation of a certain portion of the earth’s surface. In a former part of this
work I have given several instances to illustrate the disposition of the early
Greeks with respect to travel[525]. A people of habits like theirs was well
qualified to supply a practical system of geography for the whole sphere
with which it was habitually conversant.
But the boldness and maturity of navigation may be measured pretty nearly
by the length of its voyages. The geographical particulars of the
Wanderings, however dislocated and distorted, show us that the people who
had supplied them had acquired a considerable acquaintance with all the
waters within, and probably also, nay, I should be disposed to say certainly,
some that were without, the Straits of Gibraltar. But in all the poems of
Homer we find the traces of Greek knowledge and resort become fainter
and fainter, as we pass beyond certain points. On the Greek Peninsula, to
the south of the Ambracian gulf on the west and of Mount Olympus on the
east, we have the signs of a constant intercourse to and fro. The same tokens
extend to the islands immediately surrounding it, and reaching at least as far
as Crete. Indeed, apart from particular signs, we may say that, without
familiar and frequent intercourse among the members that composed it, the
empire of Agamemnon could not have subsisted.
But, at certain distances, the mode of geographical handling becomes faint,
mistrustful, and indistinct. Distances are misstated, or cease to be stated at
all. The names of countries are massed together in such a way as to show
that the Poet had no idea of a particular mode of juxtaposition for them.
Topographical or local features, of a character such as to identify a
description with some particular place or region as its prototype in nature,
are erroneously transposed to some situation which, from general
indications, we can see must be upon a different and perhaps distant part of
the surface of the globe. Again, by ceasing to define distances and
directions, he shows from time to time that he has lost confidence in his
own collocation, that he is not willing to challenge a comparison with actual
nature, and that, from want of accurate knowledge, he feels he must seek
some degree of shelter in generalities.
It is obvious that, under the circumstances as they have thus far been
delineated, the geography of the poems, with a centre fixed for it
somewhere in Greece, say at Olympus or Mycenæ, might be first of all

divided into three zones, ranging around that centre. The first and innermost
would be that of the familiar knowledge and experience of his countrymen.
The second would be that of their rare and occasional resort. The third
would be a region wholly unknown to them, and with respect to which they
were wholly dependent on foreign, that is on Phœnician, report; much as a
Roman, five hundred years ago, would practically depend upon the reports
of Venetians and Genoese mariners for all or nearly all his ultra-marine
knowledge.
Now, though we may not be able to mark positively at every point of the
compass the particular spot at which we step from the first zone to the
second, and from the second to the third, yet there is enough of the second
zone discernible to make it serve for an effectual delimitation between the
first and the third; between the region of experience and that of marvel; of
foreign, arbitrary, unchecked, and semifabulous report. Just as we are
unable to fix the moment at which night passes into dawn, and dawn into
day; but yet the dawn of morning, and the twilight of evening are
themselves the lines which broadly separate between the day and the night,
lying respectively at the extremities of each. So with the poems of Homer, it
may be a question whether a given place, say Phœnicia, is in the first or the
second zone; or whether some other, such as Scheria, or as the Bosphorus,
is in the second or the third; but it will never be difficult to affirm of any
important place named in the poems either that it is not in the zone of
common experience, or else that it is not in the zone of foreign fable.
Let me now endeavour to draw the lines, which
Limits of the Inner
Geography.
thus far have been laid down only in principle.
1. And first it seems plain, that the experimental
knowledge of Homer extended over the whole of the continental territory
embraced within the Greek Catalogue, including, along with the continent,
those islands which he has classed with his mainland, and not in his
separate insular group[526].
2. It may be slightly doubtful whether he had a similar knowledge of the
islands forming the base of the Ægean. There is a peculiarity in the Cretan
description (Il. ii. 645-52), namely, that after enumerating certain cities he
closes with general words (649),

ἄλλοι θ’, οἳ Κρήτην ἑκατόμπολιν ἀμφενέμοντο.

Still he uses characteristic epithets: and in another place (Od. xiv. 257), he
defines (of course by time) the distance from Crete to Egypt. So again in
Rhodes (656), Camirus has the characteristic epithet of ἀργινόεις. On the
whole we may place this division within the first zone of Homeric
geography.
3. Homer would appear to have had an accurate knowledge of the positions
of the islands of Lemnos, Samothrace, Imbros, Lesbos, Samos, and
Chios[527]. These we may consider, without further detail, as answering
practically for the whole Ægean sea.
4. Homer knew the positions of Emathia and Pieria, relatively to one
another and to Greece; and the general course of the southern ranges of the
Thracian mountains[528]. The Trojan Catalogue appears to show that he also
knew the coast-line westward from the Dardanelles, as far as to the river
Axius. There we may consider that his Pieria begins, with Greece upon its
southern and western border.
5. It would appear that Homer had a pretty full knowledge of the southern
coast-line of the Propontis. He seems to place the Thracians of the Trojan
Catalogue on the northern side of that sea, but his language is quite general
with respect to this part of it. On the south side, however, and in the whole
north-western corner of Asia Minor, we appear to find him at home[529].
Thus much we may safely conclude from the detail of the Trojan Catalogue;
from the particular account of the Idæan rivers in the Twelfth Iliad[530];
from the latter part of the journey of Juno in the Fourteenth[531]; and from
the speech of Achilles in the Twenty-fourth[532], which fixes the position of
Phrygia relatively to Troy.
6. From the point of Lectum to the southward, Homer shows a knowledge
of the coast-line as far as Lycia in the south-western quarter of Asia Minor.
But here we must close his inner sphere. The Solyman mountains supply
the only local notice in the poems which can be said to belong to the
interior country, and of these his conceptions are evidently as far as possible
from geographical. In the Sixth Iliad[533] he appears to conceive of the
Solyman people as bordering upon Lycia. Although the name has suggested

to some a connection with Jerusalem, we ought to consider it as
representing that for which it stands in geography, a part of the grand inland
mass of Asiatic mountains. But from the proximity of the Solymi to Lycia,
Homer would appear to have moved them greatly westward. Again, when
Neptune in the Fifth Odyssey sees Ulysses from the Solyman mountains on
his way from Ogygia, we must suppose that Homer conceived them to
command some point of a neighbouring and continuous line of sea, which
would allow of such a prospect. He would hardly have made Neptune see
Ulysses from Lycia, or from a point across the mountains of Thrace, or
from one on the other side of the actual Mount Taurus.
We have now, I think, made the circuit of the whole zone, and it is a small
one, of the real or experimental geography of Homer.
Let us take next the intermediate zone, which
The intermediate or doubtful
Zone.
marks the extreme and infrequent points of Greek
resort.
Beginning in the west and north-west, we have found Sicania (now Upper
Calabria), Epirus, and the country of the Thesprotians[534], marking the
points of this intermediate region. To the northward, we may fix it at
Emathia. In the north-east, it seems to be bounded by the northern shore of
the Sea of Marmora. The Thracians of Homer inhabit a country which he
calls ἐριβώλαξ, Il. xx. 485, and which the Hellespont enclosed (ἐέργει), that
is to say, washes on two sides at least. The Hellespont, as in this place it is
termed ἀγάῤῥοος, signifies to the Eastern part of its waters in particular;
and the name probably includes the Propontis (which he might well suppose
to have a strong current throughout, like the Straits of Gallipoli), together
with the northern Ægean between Chalcidice and the Thracian Chersonese.
He has described these Thracians in very vague terms[535], and without any
local circumstance, in the Catalogue: but the form of the coast-line
apparently implied in the word ἐέργει, and the epithet of fertility, appear to
indicate the plain of Adrianople and the Maritz. But this inclosure on two
sides terminates when the northern shore begins to trend directly to the
eastward: and the Πλαγκταὶ, or Bosphorus, which no man but Jason ever
succeeded in passing, are to be considered as in the zone of a semifabulous
or exterior chorography.

When we pass into the south-east, we find that Cyprus, Phœnicia, and
Egypt may perhaps most properly be placed in the doubtful zone. We have
seen that Cyprus was known as a stage on the passage to the East, and as
within the possible military reach of Agamemnon. But its lord did not join
in the war: and Homer has no details about the island, beyond the
specification of Paphos as the seat of the residence, and of the principal
worship, of Venus.
We have no instance of any visit paid by Greeks to Phœnicia under ordinary
circumstances. The tour of Menelaus is, like that of Ulysses, outside the
sphere of ordinary life. He describes himself in it to Telemachus as πολλὰ
παθὼν καὶ πόλλ’ ἐπαληθεὶς[536], which may be compared with Od. i. 4.
respecting Ulysses. We hear of the Taphians there; for it was at Sidon that
they kidnapped the nurse of Eumæus. Piracy in those times probably
reached somewhat further than trade. These same Taphians appear to be of
doubtful Hellenism. On the one hand, Mentes their leader was a ξεῖνος to
Ulysses[537]. But (1) we thus find them in Phœnicia[538], which is not a
place of usual Greek resort. (2) They sail to Temese in foreign parts, ἐπ’
ἀλλοθρόους ἀνθρώπους (Od. i. 183), which we do not find elsewhere said
of Greeks. The case of the pseudo-Ulysses cannot stand as a precedent for
the rest of Greece, nor even for the rest of Crete[539]. (3) The father of
Mentes had given Ulysses poison for his arrows, which Ilus, the Hellene,
had from motives of religion refused him. This at once supplies a particular
reason for the xenial bond between them, and suggests that this Taphian
prince may have been, though a ξεῖνος, yet of a different religion and race.
(4) The absence of the Taphians from the war, especially as a tribe so much
given to navigation, further strengthens the presumption that they were not
properly Greeks.
Phœnicia, then, hangs doubtfully on the outer verge of the Greek world, and
belongs to the intermediate zone. Yet more decidedly is this the case with
Egypt. For Ulysses means something unusual, when he describes the
voyage as one lasting for five days across the open sea, even with the very
best wind all the way, from Crete; and it is elsewhere described as at a
distance formidably great. Such is the idea apparently intended by the
statement, that the very birds do but make the journey once a year over so
vast a sea[540]. No ordinary Greek ever goes to Egypt: and when the pseudo-

Ulysses planned his voyage thither, it was under a sinister impulse from
Jupiter, who meant him ill[541]:

αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ δειλῷ κακὰ μήδετο μητίετα Ζεύς.

Again, the Poet appears to have entirely misconceived the distance of
Pharos from the coast. He places it at a day’s sail from Αἴγυπτος, meaning
probably by that name the Nile. Vain attempts have been made to get rid by
explanation of this geographical error. Nitzsch[542] says truly, that for the
geography of this passage Homer was dependent on the gossip of sailors,
and compares it with that of Ogygia, Scheria, and the rest. When Menelaus
went to Egypt, it was involuntarily, as we are assured by Nestor[543];

ἀτὰρ τὰς πέντε νέας κυανοπρῳρείους
Αἰγύπτῳ ἐπέλασσε φέρων ἄνεμός τε καὶ ὕδωρ.

Beyond the circumscriptions which have thus been drawn, lie the countries
of the Outer Geography. Outwards their limit in the mind of Homer was
either the great River Ocean, or else the land immediately bordering upon
it. Their inner line, that is, the line nearest to the known Greek or Homeric
world, may be defined by a number of points specified in the poems. We
have, for example, the Lotophagi and Libya in the south; the land of the
Cyclops on the west; (I pass by Sicily, because it can, I think, be shown,
that Homer transplanted it into another quarter;) Scheria to the north-west,
the Abii, Glactophagi, and Hippemolgi, to the north. Then come the Strait
of the Πλαγκταὶ, or Bosphorus, pretty accurately conceived as to its site;
next towards the east, the Amazons and the Solymi with their mountains; in
the south-east the Ἐρεμβοὶ, and then the widely spread Αἰθίοπες. All the
places and people visited by Ulysses after the Lotophagi, that have not been
named, must be conceived to lie yet further outwards.
I have now explained the grounds on which I assume the existence of two
great zones, the one of a real, the other of an imaginative, fluctuating, and
semi-fabulous Geography in Homer; and of a third zone, drawn as a
somewhat indeterminate border-ground between them.
I come now to consider what are the keys or
Sphere of the Outer
Geography.
leading ideas of local arrangement which we can

first obtain from the particulars of the Outer Geography of Homer, and
which we may then apply to the solution of such questions of detail as it
presents.
It is plain that we have real need of some such keys. To ascertain the
general direction of the movements of the Wanderings of Ulysses, and the
general idea entertained by the Poet of the distribution of land and sea, is an
essential preliminary to the solution of such questions as, Where were the
Sirens? or, Where were the Læstrygones? According to the statement I have
recently given, many of the points, that Ulysses in the Wanderings visited
by sea, would appear to have been so fixed by Homer, as to imply his belief
that the chieftain sailed over what we know to be the European continent.
The two propositions, which I have already ventured to state as being the
keys to the Outer Geography of the Odyssey, are in the following terms[544]:
1. That Homer placed to the northward of Thrace, Epirus, and the Italian
peninsula, an expanse, not of land, but of sea, communicating with the
Euxine; or, to express myself in other words, that he greatly extended the
Euxine westwards, perhaps also shortening it towards the East; and that he
made it communicate, by the gulfs of Genoa and Venice, with the southern
Mediterranean.
2. That he compounded into one two sets of Phœnician traditions respecting
the Ocean-mouth, and fixed the site of it in the North-East.
In the first place, I assume that it would be a waste of time to enter upon an
elaborate confutation of the traditional identifications, which the pardonable
ambition of after-times has devised for the various points of the wanderings.
According to those expository figments, we must believe that the land of
the Cyclops is an island, that it is the same island which reappears at a later
date as Thrinacie, that Æolia is Stromboli in sight of that island of the
Cyclops, (though it took Ulysses nine days of fair wind to sail from it to
within sight of Ithaca,) and that Ulysses could sail straight across the sea
from Æolia to Ithaca. We must look for the Læstrygones and their perpetual
day in the latitudes of the Mediterranean. We must either place the ocean
northward, (but wholly without any prototype in nature,) and the under-
world on the west coast of Italy, where there is no stream whatever, and
seek, too, for fogs and darkness in the choicest atmospheres of the world; or
else we must remove the Ocean-mouth to a distance about four times as far

from the island of Circe, as that island is from Greece, whereas the poem
evidently presumes their comparative proximity. But in truth, it is useless to
go on accumulating single objections, for it is not upon these that the
confutation principally depends. The confutation of these pardonable but
idle traditions rests on broader grounds. The grounds are such as really
these, that in no one particular do these Italian fables—for such I must call
them, notwithstanding the partial countenance they receive from the chaotic
and seemingly adulterated parts of the Theogony of Hesiod[545]—satisfy the
letter of the text of Homer; that in the attempt to give it a geographical
character, they misconceive its spirit; and that they oblige us to override and
nullify not only the facts of actual geography, for that we might do without
violating any law of reason and likelihood under the conditions of the case,
but also the positive indications which Homer has given us from
phenomena that lay within his knowledge and experience. In fact, they
would oblige us to condemn Homer as geographically unworthy of trust,
within the sphere of the every day life and resort of the Greeks, as well as in
regions, which he and his countrymen never visited.
And the result of all the violence thus done to Homer would be, that we
should have sacrificed at once his language and his imagination, in the
attempt to struggle with contradictions to the actual geography which defy
every attempt at reconciliation.
At the outset, according to my view, both admissions must be made, and
principles must be laid down, as cardinal and essential to the conduct of the
inquiry we have now in hand.
It must, I think, be admitted,
Dislocation of actual nature.
1. That Homer has dislocated or transplanted the
traditions he had received. For example, he has either carried the Bosphorus
westwards[546], or else the Straits of Messina eastwards.
2. That therefore as we are on this occasion inquiring not into the
geographical information Homer can give us, but into the errors he had
embraced, we must not be surprised if we fail to arrive at any conclusions,
either wholly self-consistent or demonstratively clear. We must exact from
his text, with something less than geographical rigour, even the conditions
of inward harmony.

It may then reasonably be asked, if this be so, how are we to find any clue
to his meaning.
My answer is, by laying down rules which will enable us to discriminate
between his primary and his secondary statements; between the results of
his knowledge, and the fruits of his fancy.
By his knowledge I mean, what he had seen, what he had travelled over,
what was familiarly and habitually known to his countrymen, so as to give
him ample opportunities of refreshing recollection, of enlarging knowledge,
and of correcting error.
By the fruits of his fancy I mean, the forms he has thought fit to give to
statements of geography lying outside the world of his own experience, and
that of the Greeks in general. These statements, gathered here and there as
time and opportunity might serve, he could hardly have moulded into a
correct and consistent scheme. Emancipating himself wholly from
obligations which it was impossible for him to fulfil, he has treated them
simply as the creatures of his poetic purpose, and has analysed, shifted, and
recombined them into a world of his own, in the creation and adjustment of
which, the principal factor has of necessity been his own will.
I therefore lay down the following postulates:
Postulates for the inquiry.
1. That, Homer having an Inner or known and an
Outer or imagined world, between which a line may be drawn with
tolerable certainty, the voyage of Ulysses, from the Lotophagi to Scheria
inclusive, lies in the Outer world.
2. That we may not only implicitly accept the geographical statements of
Homer, when they lie within his own horizon or the Inner world, but may
fearlessly argue from them.
3. That arguments so drawn are available and paramount, as far as they go,
for governing the construction of passages relating to the geography of the
Outer world.
4. That we have no title to argue, when we find a point in the Outer world
described in such a manner as to correspond with some spot now known,
that Homer gave to that tract or region in his own mind, the site which we
may now know it to occupy, but that he is quite as likely to have placed it
elsewhere.

5. That arguments grounded on the physical knowledge of the Poet are to be
trusted. I would name by way of example, (subject only to a certain latitude
for inexactness,) such arguments as are drawn from the directions of winds,
and from other patent and cardinal facts of common experience, for
example, the distances which may be traversed within given times.
6. So likewise are the indications, which harmonize with known or
reasonably presumed historical and ethnological views, to be trusted as
good evidence on questions relating to his geographical meaning.
In order, however, to be in a condition to make use of indications supplied
by the Winds, we must consider what the Winds of Homer are.
The Winds of Homer are only four in number, and
The Winds of Homer.
the manner of their physical arrangement is rude.
It by no means corresponds with our own, but
varies from it greatly, just as his points of the compass varied from ours.
And though he names only four winds, yet I apprehend we must consider
that upon the whole he uses them with such latitude, as to express under the
name of some one of them every gale that blew.
As to some of these winds, Homer has provided us with an abundance of
trustworthy data for their point of origin: and through them the evidence as
to the rest may be enlarged.
Homer’s governing points, from which to measure arcs of the horizon were,
as is evident, the sunrise and the sunset. This is clearly shown by his
expressions, such as πρὸς ἠῶ τ’ ἠέλιόν τε, for the east, and then in
opposition to this, ποτὶ ζόφον ἠερόεντα[547] for the west. Again, when
Ulysses urges upon his companions that he has lost all means of forming a
judgment of their position, his mode of expression is this, that he does not
know where is dusk or where is dawn; where the joy-giving sun rises, or
where he sinks[548]. We must therefore dismiss from our minds the four
cardinal points to which we are accustomed. They were not cardinal points
for Homer. We must also remember not only (1) that Homer had only
two[549], but also (2) that his two did not correspond with any of our four,
and (3) that from the variation of sunrise and sunset with the seasons of the
year a certain amount of vagueness was of necessity introduced into his
conceptions of the point of origin for each of the different winds.

We should not, however, exaggerate this vagueness. It had its cause in the
variations of the ecliptic, and, like its cause, it was limited. I suppose,
however, that the eye guesses rudely at the deviations of the ecliptic, and
that we must take N.W. and S.E. for the two cardinal points of Homer.
Homer’s west then ranged to the north of west, and Homer’s east to the
south of east. But although this must be borne in mind when we translate
his winds into our language, yet of course the winds themselves were
arranged, not technically so as each to cover a certain arc on the horizon,
but with reference to the directions in which they were found by experience
commonly to blow. And in associating each wind with a particular point of
the horizon, we must bear in mind that such a point is to be regarded as its
centre, and that the same name would be given to a wind within a number
of points on either side of it.
As to the respective prevalence of the different winds, the criterion is
certainly a rude one, still it is a criterion, which is provided for us by the
comparative frequency of the occasions on which they are mentioned.
Eurus is mentioned in the poems seven times, Notus fifteen; Boreas twenty-
seven, subject to a small deduction for cases where he is simply a person;
and Zephyr twenty-six. The latter pair are the leading Winds of the poem:
not necessarily that they indicated the prevailing currents of air, but that
they represented such currents of air as usually prevailed with force
sufficient to make them good poetical agents.
We may also learn, from the epithets given to the winds, the impressions
which they respectively made upon the mind of Homer.
Eurus never has a character attached to it. Notus seldom has any epithet; but
still it is mentioned, by the comrade of Ulysses in Od. xii. 289, as one of the
most formidable winds. This may probably have been on account of its
direction relatively to the place of the speaker; because from that point it
blew right upon Scylla[550]. Again, as Zephyr and Notus are nowhere else
associated by the Poet, the presumption arises on that ground also that here
Notus is put in for a special and local reason. It is called ἀργέστης, and is so
essentially allied with the idea of moisture, that νότιος stands simply for
wet (νότιος ἱδρὼς, Il. xi. 810).
The characteristic epithets of Boreas are μέγας, ὀπώρινος, and αἰθρηγένης.
The first of these indicates that he blew hard: and we know the same thing