Chapter 15

Political institutions of Troy.

We may now proceed to consider the political institutions of the kingdom of Priam, which has thus loosely been defined.

TheΒασιλεὺςof the Trojans is less clearly marked, than he is among the Greeks: for (as we shall find) they had noΒουλὴ, 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 SecondBook, 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 theδημογέροντες, 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.

Theβασιλήϊς τιμὴof 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 toask 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 militaryἀγορὴof 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 argumenta fortiorito 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 Trojanδῆμος, 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 ofδημογέρων, 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 aβουλὴ, 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.

The greater weight of Age in Troy.

1. The old men who appear on the wall with Priam, in the Third Book, are really old, and not merely titular or officialγέροντες; 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 theΤρώων ἡγήτορες, as well as theἀγορηταὶ 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 nameγέροντες, 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, thoughnot 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.

The absence of aΒουλὴin Troy.

First then, I think it plain that the Trojans had noβουλὴ, 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 aβουλὴ, or Council, in connection with them.

2. In the Second Book, Homer describes the Trojanἀγορὴthus (Il. ii. 788, 9):

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

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; whoseγέροντεςwere recognised as members of theβουλὴ, even when in the Assemblies.

Of the separate place of the Greekγέροντεςin theAssemblies, we have conclusive proof from the Shield of Achilles (xviii. 497, 503):

λαοὶ δ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ ἔσαν ἄθροοι·

and afterwards,

οἱ δὲ γέροντεςεἵατ’ ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι λίθοις, ἱερῷ ἐνὶ κύκλῳ.

οἱ δὲ γέροντες

εἵατ’ ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι λίθοις, ἱερῷ ἐνὶ κύκλῳ.

And again, where the Ithacanγέροντεςmake way for Telemachus, as he passes to the chair of his father.

But in Troy theγέροντες(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, theγέροντεςhad an exclusive function in theβουλὴ, at which they met separately from the young.

3. It would appear that theἀγορὴwas 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 namesβουλευτὴςandἀγορητὴςappear to havebeen merely descriptive, and not titular. Both are applied to the Trojan elders.

And soβουλαὶ,βουλεύειν,βουληφόροι, are constantly used without any, so to speak, official meaning. In Il. x. 147, the expressionβουλὰς βουλεύεινcan hardly mean ‘to attend theβουλὴ,’ for the singular number would be the proper term for theβουλὴspecially 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.

Ἕκτωρ μὲν μετὰ τοῖσιν, ὅσοι βουληφόροι εἰσὶν,

βουλὰς βουλεύει θείου παρὰ σήματι Ἴλου,

νόσφιν ἀπὸ φλοίσβου.

Now the wordβουληφόροςis applied, Il. xii. 414, to Sarpedon, as well as in xiii. 463 and elsewhere to Æneas. Neither were among theγέροντες βουλευταί. But further, it is applied, Od. ix. 112, to theἀγορὴitself:

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 aβουλὴ, as opposed to anἀγορὴor Assembly.

The phraseβουλὰς 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 anἀγορὴ, or assembly of the army, both Trojans and allies; it was not a meeting of aβουλὴof Troy, because it was held in the field, far from the city, and without any of the Elders, who were the greatἀγορηταὶandβουλευταὶof 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 noβουλὴbefore 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.

The greater weight of oratory in Greece.

It is next to be inquired, whether the Trojans, like 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 theἀναποδεικταὶ φάσεις, the simple declarations, of persons of weight.

The report of the re-assembledἀγορὴof the Greeks in the Second Book begins with the 211th line, and ends with the 398th: occupying 188 lines. But the Trojanἀγορὴof 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 thisἀγορὴis described asδεινὴ, 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, Antenorurged 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 theobelos(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.

Oratory of greater weight in Greece.

Nowhere, in short, among the Trojans have we 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 Trojanδημογέροντεςin their respectiveἀγοραί. To Nestor (Il. i. 248, 9) he seems to assign a soft continuous flow indefinitely prolonged. Theirs he describes as resembling theὄπα λειριόεσσανof 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 theἀγορὴof 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.

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 employsἔπεαandνόος, 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, ofνόοςandβουλὴ, 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 wordδημογέρωνindicates an elder acting in and among theδῆμος, 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 theβουλὴshows 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.

Trojans less gifted with self-command.

Again, on the Trojan side we do not find the 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 forthwhat 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.

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 φαίηςτόσσον λαὸν ἕπεσθαι ἔχοντ’ ἐν στήθεσιν αὐδὴν,σιγῇ δειδιότες σημάντορας·

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 asδεινὴ 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 isἐπίαχον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν, or what we call loudor vehement cheering: but when the Trojans, it isἐπὶ 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 thisaccordingly 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.

Difference in pursuits of high-born youth.

Although, on the whole, we seem to have the 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 inPercote[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 wordαἰδώς, 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.

Summary of differences.

Whatever may be thought of the degree of detail 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, andγάμος. 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 noφῦλαand noφρῆτραι, 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 thepeople 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 urbesDardanus, et versis lugeret Græcia fatis.

ultro Inachias venisset ad urbes

Dardanus, et versis lugeret Græcia fatis.

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