of debate was a thing in principle at least known and familiar?
Agorè on the Shield in Il. xviii.
In the scene depicted on the Shield of Achilles, new evidence is afforded us that the people took a real part in the conduct of public affairs. The people are in Assembly. A suit is in progress. The matter is one of homicide; and the guilty person declares that he has paid the proper fine, while his antagonist avers that he has not received it. Each presses for a judicial decision. The people sympathizing, some with one, and some with the other, cheer them on.
Λαοὶ δ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπήπυον, ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοί·
κήρυκες δ’ ἄρα λαὸν ἐρήτυον251.
I understand the latter words as declaring, not that the heralds forbade and put a stop to the cheering of the people, but either that they kept it within bounds, or rather that, when the proper time came for the judges to speak, these, the heralds, procured silence. According to the meaning of ἐρητύω in Il. ii. 211,
ἄλλοι μέν ῥ’ ἕζοντο, ἐρήτυθεν δὲ καθ’ ἕδρας.
Now of the cheering of the people I venture to say, not that it raises a presumption of, but that it actually constitutes, their interference. The rule of every tolerably regulated assembly, charged with the conduct of important matters, is to permit no expressions of approval or otherwise during the proceedings, except from the parties immediately belonging to the body. The total exclusion of applause in judicial cases belongs to a state of mind and manners different from that of the heroic age. But the exclusion of all applause by mere strangers to the business rests upon a truth common to every age; namely, that such applause constitutes a share in the business, and contributes to the decision. It will be remembered how the cries of the Galleries became one of the grievous scandals of the first revolution in France, and how largely they affected the determinations of the National Assembly. The irregular use of such a power is a formidable invasion of legislative or judicial freedom: the allowed possession of the privilege amounts to participation in the office of the statesman or the judge, and demonstrates the substantive position of the λαὸς, or people, in the Assemblies of the heroic age.
But apparently their function was not completed by merely encouraging the litigant, with whom each man might chance to sympathize. For we are told not only that the Judges, that is to say, the γέροντες, delivered their opinions consecutively, but likewise that there lay in the sight of all two golden talents, to be given to him who should pronounce the fairest judgment (xviii. 508);
τῷ δόμεν, ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴποι.
Thus it is plain that the judge who might do best was to get the two talents: but who was to give them? Not the γέροντες or elders themselves, surely; for among them the competition lay. There could be but one way in which the disposal of this fee could be settled: namely, by the general acclamation of the people, to be expressed, after hearing the respective parties, in favour of him whose sentiments they most approved. And those, to whom it may seem strange to speak of vote by acclamation, should remember, that down to this day, in all deliberative assemblies, an overpowering proportion of the votes are votes by acclamation, or by the still less definite test of silence. The small minority of instances, when a difference of opinion is seriously pressed, are now settled by arithmetic; they would then have been adjusted by some prudent appeal to the general will, proceeding from a person of ability and weight. Indeed even now, in cases when the numbers approximate to those of the Greek army, there can be no bonâ fide decision by arithmetic. The demand, however, that dissension shall be the only allowed criterion of liberty, is one which really worsens the condition of human nature beyond what the truth of experience requires.
Decisions in Assemblies of Il. vii. and ix.
And finally, what shall we say to the direct evidence of Agamemnon himself? Idæus252, the Trojan herald, arrives with the offer to restore the stolen property, but not Helen. He is received in dead silence. After a pause, Diomed gives utterance to the general feeling. ‘Neither will we have the goods without Helen, nor yet Helen with the goods. Troy is doomed.’ The Assembly shouts its approbation. Agamemnon immediately addresses himself to the messenger; ‘Idæus, you hear the sense of the Achæans, how they answer you; and I think with them.’ At the least this is a declaration as express as words can make it, and proceeding out of the mouth of the rival authority, to the effect that the acclamation of the Assembly was, for all practical purposes, its vote, and that it required only concurrence from the king, to invest it with the fullest authority. In the Ninth Iliad, as we have seen, the vote held good even without that concurrence253.
We may now, I hope, proceed upon the ground that we are not to take the ill success of a foulmouthed scoundrel, detested by the whole army, as a sample of what would have happened to the people, or even a part of them, when differing in judgment from their king. But what shall we say to the argument, that no case is found where a person of humble condition takes part in the debates of the Assemblies? No doubt the conduct of debates was virtually in the hands of those whose birth, wealth, station, and habits of life gave them capacity for public affairs. Even in the nineteenth century, it very rarely happens that a working man takes part in the proceedings of a county meeting: but no one would on that account suppose that such an assembly can be used as the mere tool of the class who conduct the debate, far less of any individual prominent in that class. If we cannot conceive freedom without perpetual discord, the faithful performance of the duty of information and advice without coercion and oppression, it is a sign either of our narrow-mindedness, or of our political degeneracy; but a feeble eye does not impair the reality of the object on which it may happen to be fixed.
Still we may admit that among the numerous assemblies of the Iliad, there is no instance where assent is given by one part of the Assembly, and withheld by the other. There is, as we have seen, a clear and strong case where the opinion of the commander-in-chief is rejected, and that of an inferior commander adopted in its stead. This in my opinion goes far to prove all that is necessary. We have from the Odyssey, however, the means of going further still.
Only, before leaving the Iliad, let us observe the terms in which the Greek Assemblies are addressed by the kings: they are denominated friends and heroes; names which at least appear to imply their title to judge, or freely to concur, at least as much as such a title was recognised in the ancient councils and assemblies of the Anglo-saxons. Was this appearance a mockery? I do not say we should compare it with the organized, secure and regular privileges of a few nations in modern days. But it would be a far greater mistake to treat it as an idle form, or as otherwise than a weighty reality.
Division in the Drunken Assembly.
From what is related in that poem to have occurred after the capture of Troy, it becomes abundantly clear that the function of the Greek Assembly was not confined to listening. The army met in what, for the sake of distinction, we may call the Drunken Assembly254. Now, the influence of wine upon its proceedings is amply sufficient to show that its acts were the acts of the people: for Homer never allows his chiefs to be moved from their self-possession by the power of liquor.
There was a marked difference of opinion on that occasion: the people took their sides; δίχα δέ σφισιν ἥνδανε βουλή (Od. iii. 150). One half embarked; the residue staid behind with Agamemnon (155-7). The moiety, which had sailed away, split again (162); and a portion of them went back to Agamemnon. We see, indeed, throughout the Odyssey,
Il. xviii. 502.
Il. vii. 381.
Sup. p. 100.
Od. iii. 139.
