Chapter 14

Trojan ideas and usages of marriage.

The character of Priam, which has been so 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 theγυναῖκες, and throughout the poem she moves alone[443].

The family of Priam.

Of the children of Priam we meet with a great 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 wasἑκυρὴto 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,

AgathonIl. xxiv. 249-51.PammonAntiphonosHippothoosDios

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 nameνόθοςwith Homer, at least among the Greeks, ordinarily marks inferiority of condition. The mothers of the fourνόθοιare 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 referenceto 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 presumptionthat 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 Ἀτρείδαογῆμ’ ἄλοχον μνηστὴν, τὸν δ’ ἔκτανε νοστήσαντα.

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.

Stricter ideas among the Greeks.

From both these instances, and more especially from the last, we must, I think, reasonably conclude that the moral code of Greece was far more adverse to the actof 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 theεἶδος ἀγητόν[453]; and, even in his old age, theὄψις ἀγαθὴof Priam was admired by Achilles[454]. Deiphobus again is calledθεοείκελοςandθεοειδὴς[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.

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.

Trojan polity less highly organized.

We will turn now to the political institutions of Troy. Less advanced towards organization, and of 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 asagainst 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 calledβασιλῆες[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 theΤρῶες 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 questionwhichwas 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.

Succession to the Throne of Priam.

3. The third case before us is one in the family of 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 expressreason, 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·

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.

Paris most probably the eldest-born.

There are also signs that Paris, and not Hector, may have been the eldest son of Priam, and may 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 ofβασιλεύς. Helenus is calledἄναξ, and Hectorποίμην λαῶν, but neither expression is of the same rank, or has a similar effect. This exclusive application of the termβασιλεὺςis 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 nameβασιλεὺςto 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 termἥβηis 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 connectionwith the great Homeric title ofἄναξ 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 isἼλιος, notΤροίη. Ilios is used above an hundred and twenty times in the Iliad and Odyssey, and always strictly means the city. The wordΤροίηis used nearly ninety times, and in the great majority of cases it means the country. Often it has the epithetsεὐρεῖα,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 voyageΤροίηνδε, 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].

Priam and his dynasty in Troas.

According to the genealogical tree in the 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 nameἐπίκουροι, 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 theἐπίκουροιof 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 ἼδηςΤρῶες.

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 anumber of contingents that follow, besides that of Achilles.

There are several reasons, which tend plainly to this conclusion. The sense ofδιέκριθεν(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 areπένταχα 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 theπλεῖστοι 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).

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 safetyof 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, eitherἐπίκουροι, orΛύκιοι.

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 separateδυναστεῖαιimmediately connected with Troy[493], besides theἐπίκουροι. 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 theδυναστεῖαιmentioned 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 asnewly 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.

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