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

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strong personal feeling, whatever its precise ingredients may have been, towards the Pelopid house, must have operated largely in the matter. And it is in this spirit that we should construe the various declarations of Homer respecting those who came to the war, as courting the Atreidæ, and as acting for their honour; namely these,

      χάριν Ἀτρείδῃσι φέροντες. Od. v. 307.

      Ἀγαμέμνονι ἦρα φέροντες. Il. xiv. 132.

      τιμὴν ἀρνύμενοι Μενελάῳ σοί τε, κυνῶπα. Il. i. 159.

      Before Troy, Agamemnon is always regarded by others as responsible for the expedition, and it is plain that he so regards himself. The use of his sceptre by Ulysses in the great effort to stem the torrent of the retiring multitude, is highly significant of the influence belonging to his station; and when Ulysses argues with the leaders, he rests his case on the importance of knowing the whole mind of Agamemnon, while he strongly dwells on his royal authority, and on the higher authority of heaven as its foundation.

      His position, however, did not place him above the influence of jealousy and fear: for he was gratified when he saw Achilles and Ulysses, the first of his chieftains, at variance137. And his weight and authority depended for their efficacy on reason, and on the free will of the Greeks. Agamemnon takes Briseis from Achilles by an act of force; but he nowhere seeks to move the army, or the individuals composing it, upon that principle; nor does the prolongation of the service appear to have been placed beyond the judgment of the particular chiefs and of the troops. Achilles not only declares that he will go, but says he will advise others to go with him138, and asks Phœnix to remain in his tent for the purpose. The deference paid to the Head is a deference according to measure; and the measure is that of his greater responsibility, his heavier stake in the war139. His functions in regard to the host are, to think for and advise it in council, and to stimulate it by exhortation and example in the field. If we may rely on Homer, it was essentially, so far as regarded the relation between the general in chief and the rest of the body, a free military organization.

      Personal Character of Agamemnon.

      The Agamemnon of Homer does not appear to be intended by the Poet for a man of genius. But on this very account, the dominance of political ideas in his mind is more remarkable. On political grounds he is ready to give up Chryseis140. On political grounds he quells his own avarice, and slays Trojans instead of taking ransom for them141. He deeply feels the responsibilities of his station, and care banishes his sleep. The amiable trait in his character is his affection for Menelaus, and in this, as in many other respects, he recalls the Jupiter of Homer, whose selfishness is nowhere relieved, except by paternal affection.

      Further, Agamemnon, though without genius, is a practitioner in finesse. In his love of this art, I fear, he resembles the tribe of later politicians. He resembles them, too, in outwitting himself by means of it: he is ‘hoist upon his own petard.’ This seems to be, in part at least, the explanation of his unhappy device in the Second Iliad, to prepare the people for an attack on Troy, by counselling them to go home forthwith. The breakdown of his scheme is, as it were, the first-fruits of retribution for his ἄτη in the First Book. —

      As, upon the whole, there is no idea of selfishness involved in the prerogatives of the Homeric king, so is it clear that, except as against mere criminals, there is no general idea of coercion. The Homeric king reigns with the free assent of his subjects – an assent indeterminate, but real, and in both points alike resembling his kingly power. The relation between ruler and ruled is founded in the laws and condition of our nature. Born in a state of dependence, man, when he attains to freedom and capacity for action, finds himself the debtor both of his parents and of society at large; and is justly liable to discharge his debt by rendering service in return. Of this we have various indications in Homer, with respect to parents in particular. Those who die young, like Simoeisius by the hand of Ajax142, die before they have repaid to their parents the cost, that is the care, of their education (θρεπτρά). In a most remarkable and characteristic passage. Phœnix describes how, when he was young, some deity restrained his wrath against his father, and shows the infamy that would attend the taking away of that life, in a country where voluntary homicide, in general, was regarded more as a misfortune than a crime143:

      ὅς ῥ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷ

      δήμου θῆκε φάτιν, καὶ ὀνείδεα πόλλ’ ἀνθρώπων,

      ὡς μὴ πατροφόνος μετ’ Ἀχαιοῖσιν καλεοίμην.

      The reciprocal obligations of father and son are beautifully shown by Andromache in her lament over Hector, when she speaks of her child144:

      οὔτε σὺ τούτῳ

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

      The relation of sovereign and subject free.

      As to the relation between the subject and the sovereign authority, it seems everywhere to be taken for granted. In the Twenty-fourth Odyssey, the object of those who march against Ulysses is not to put down authority, but to avenge the deaths of their sons and brothers. But there appears nowhere in Homer the idea that in this relation could be involved a difference of interest, or even of opinion, between class and class, between governors and governed. The king or chief was uplifted to set a high example, to lead the common counsels to common ends, to conduct the public and common intercourse with heaven, to decide the strifes of individuals, to defend the borders of the territory from invasion. That the community at home, or any regularly subsisting class of it, could require repression or restraint from the government, was an idea happily unknown to the Homeric times.

      Those classes, indeed, were few and simple. There was, first of all, the king; and round him his family and his κήρυκες, the serjeants or heralds, who were his immediate, and apparently his only immediate, agents. They conveyed his orders; they assisted him in the Assembly, in sacrifice, and in banquets. They appear to be the only executive officers that are found in Homer. With these was the Bard, apparently also an indispensable member of royal households. Both were recognised among the established professions.

      Next to the kings and other sovereigns, we must place the chief proprietors of the country. In the Odyssey, we find the members of the aristocracy having their own estates and functions, and sustaining the part of γέροντες, or leaders in the Assembly. The judicial office, as we have seen from the Shield and otherwise, was in their hands, probably by delegation. But it would appear, that the distinction between them and the sovereign family was rather a broad one; since, in almost every case, we seem to find the prince contracting a marriage beyond his own borders. Laertes brings Anticlea145 from the neighbourhood of Parnassus; Theseus marries Ariadne from Crete; Agamemnon and Menelaus, belonging to Mycenæ, are united to the daughters of the king of Sparta; of the two daughters of Icarius, Ulysses in Ithaca married Penelope, and Eumelus in Pheræ married Iphthime (Od. iv. 797); one of the two, at least, and perhaps both, must have married from a considerable distance; Menelaus sends his beautiful daughter Hermione to be the wife of Neoptolemus in Thessaly: and the only instance, even apparently in the opposite sense, seems to be that of his son Megapenthes, who married a Spartan damsel, the daughter of Alector. But then Megapenthes was not legitimate; he was born of a

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