Chapter 6

‘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 takesΔιοτρεφέων αἰζήωνas 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 readingἀρηιθόωνis evidently to be adopted, does the Poet applyΔιοτρεφὴςto a mass of men[80]. If, then, the sovereigns be meant, it is plain that they could not all be youths, and thereforeαἴζηοςdoes not mean a youth. But now let us takeΔιοτρεφὴςin 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 theβασιλεὺςin 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 thenobles 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 Homericβασιλεὺςshould be a king, akönig, a man of whom we could say that actually, and not conventionally alone, hecan, 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 callsπυγμαχίη 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.

Accomplishments of the Kings.

As with the games, so with the more refined 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 notallow of his appearing in motion with such a body, and on this account theπαὶςmay 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.

The Kings as Gentlemen.

But these accomplishments, mental and bodily, 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 areguilty. 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.

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 truth[89], 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 tidingsHath but a losing office,

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]·

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 andconsiderateness 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 fiercevengeance 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].

Rights of Hereditary Succession.

The hereditary character of the royal office is 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 ofγέροντεςin the Second Bookαὐτόματος, 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 aportion 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.

Rights of primogeniture.

It may, however, be said with truth, that 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, therefractory deity at once succumbs[107]. And, reciprocally, Jupiter in the Thirteenth Odyssey recognises the claim of Neptune to respect as theoldestand 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 GreekΒασιλεύςof 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.

Function of the King as Priest.

The Homeric King appears before us in the 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 hisκήρυκες, 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 performedby 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 anἱερήϊον[109].

As Judge and as General.

The judicial office of the king is made known to 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 ἀγκυλομήτεωσκῆπτρόν τ’ ἠδὲ θέμιστας, ἵνα σφίσιν ἐμβασιλεύῃ.

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 Ἀχαιῶνἐν παλάμῃς φορέουσι δικασπόλοι, οἵτε θέμισταςπρὸς Διὸς εἰρύαται.

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 ἐγγυάλιξενσκῆπτρόν τ’, ἠδὲ θέμιστας, ἵνα σφίσι βουλεύῃσθα.

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 theγέροντες, 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 ofthe 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.

As proprietor; theτέμενος.

This estate is calledτέμενος; a name never 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.Theβασιλεὺςon 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 anἄρουρα, not aτέμενος; and the farm of Laertes is calledἀγρὸς, notτέμενος. And why? Because it was a private possession, acquired by him apparently out of savings (Od. xxiv. 206);

ὅν ῥά ποτ’ αὐτὸςΛαέρτης κτεάτισσεν, ἐπεὶ μάλα πόλλ’ ἐμόγησεν.

ὅν ῥά ποτ’ αὐτὸς

Λαέρτης κτεάτισσεν, ἐπεὶ μάλα πόλλ’ ἐμόγησεν.

The wordτέμενοςis probably fromτέμνω, 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.

Revenues and burdens on them.

Besides their great estates, the kings appear to 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 theirhistorical 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 deliverthe 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 theδώτιναι, or tributes, which, as Agamemnon promised, Achilleswas 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.

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 theδώτιναιmay 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 publicτέμενος, or demesne land.

Next, his own private acquisitions, such as theἀγρὸςof Laertes.

Thirdly, the fees on the administration of justice.

Fourthly, the presents paid for licenses to trade.

The position of Agamemnon.

The position of Agamemnon, the greatest king of 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 itsacmè. 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 neverseen, 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 wereπολὺ 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 titleἄναξ 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 carethe 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]:

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