Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3. Gladstone William Ewart

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perhaps even than, under the circumstances, was necessary. When he is recognised by Euryclea, he strictly enjoins upon her the silence, on which all their lives at the moment depended. Hurt by the supposition that she could (in our homely phrase) be likely to blab, she replies that she will hold herself in, hard as stone or as iron. She adds, that she will point out to him which of the women in the palace are faithful, and which are guilty. No, he replies; I will observe them for myself; that is not your business88:

      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 truth89, so he has made the same exhibition for Achilles with respect to courtesy: protesting, as it were, in this manner by anticipation against the degenerate conceptions of those characters, which were to reproduce and render current through the world Achilles as a brute, and Ulysses as a thorough knave. But let us see the residue of the proof.

      In the first Iliad, when the wrath is in the first flush of its heat, the heralds Talthybius and Eurybates are sent to his encampment, with the appalling commission to bring away Briseis. On entering, they remain awe-struck and silent. Though, in much later times, we know that

      The messenger of evil tidings

      Hath but a losing office,

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

      χαίρετε, κήρυκες, Διὸς ἄγγελοι, ἠδὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν·

      ἆσσον ἴτ’90·

      And he desires Patroclus to bring forth the object of their quest. More extraordinary self-command and considerateness than this, never has been ascribed by any author to any character.

      Again, when in the Ninth Book he is surprised in his seclusion by the envoys Phœnix, Ulysses, and Ajax, though he is prepared to reject every offer, he hails them all personally, without waiting to be addressed and with the utmost kindness91, as of all the Greeks the dearest to him even in his wrath; he of course proceeds to order an entertainment for them. But the most refined of all his attentions is that shown to Agamemnon in the Twenty-third Book. Inferior to Ajax, Diomed, and Ulysses, Agamemnon could not enter into the principal games, to be beaten by any abler competitor, without disparagement to his office: while there would also have been a serious disparagement of another kind in his contending with a secondary person. Accordingly, Achilles at the close makes a nominal match for the use of the sling – of which we never hear elsewhere in the poems – and, interposing after the candidates are announced, but before the actual contest, he presents the chief prize to Agamemnon, with this compliment; that there need be no trial, as every one is aware already how much he excels all others in the exercise.

      Yet these great chiefs, so strong and brave and wise, so proud and stern, so equipped in arts, manners, and accomplishments, can upon occasion weep like a woman or a child. Ulysses, in the island of Calypso daily pours forth his ‘waterfloods’ as he strains his vision over the sea; and he covers up his head in the halls of Alcinous, while Demodocus is singing, that his tears may flow unobserved. And so Achilles, fresh from his fierce vengeance on the corpse of Hector, yet, when the Trojan king92 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. Telemachus93 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 pungency94. A similar temper is shown in all the answers of the chieftains to Agamemnon when he goes the round of the army95.

      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 child96, 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 him97, μέγα πάντων Ἀργείων ἤνασσε; and he came to the second meeting of γέροντες in the Second Book αὐτόματος, without the formality of a summons.

      In a case like that of Thyestes, if we may judge from what actually happened, the uncle would perhaps succeed instead of the minor, whose hereditary right would in such case be postponed until the next turn.

      The case of Telemachus in the Odyssey is interesting in many ways, as unfolding to us the relations of the family life of the period. Among other points which it illustrates, is that of the succession to sovereignty. It was admitted by the Suitors, that it descended to him from his father98. 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 occurred99; 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 prince100 (τῶν κέν τις τόδ’ ἔχῃσιν) seems to be at least in harmony with the idea that a practice, either approaching to election, or in some way involving a voluntary action on the part of the subjects or of a portion of them, had to be gone through. But the personal dignity of the son of Ulysses was unquestioned. Even the Suitors pay a certain regard to it in the midst of their insolence: and when the young prince goes into the place of assembly101, 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

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