eye-lids?”—“Paradise Lost,” v. 673.
4 This truly military sentiment has been echoed by the approving voice of many a general and statesman of antiquity. See Pliny’s Panegyric on Trajan. Silius neatly translates it,
“Turpe duci totam somno consumere noctem.”
5 The same in habit, &c.
“To whom once more the winged god appears;
His former youthful mien and shape he wears.”
Dryden’s Virgil, iv. 803.
6 ‘ “As bees in spring-time, when
The sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of this straw-built citadel,
New-nibb’d with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state affairs. So thick the very crowd
Swarm’d and were straiten’d.”—“Paradise Lost” i. 768.
7 It was the herald’s duty to make the people sit down. “A standing agora is a symptom of manifest terror (II. Xviii. 246) an evening agora, to which men came elevated by wine, is also the forerunner of mischief (‘Odyssey,’ iii. 138).”— Grote, ii. p. 91, note.
8 This sceptre, like that of Judah (Genesis xlix. 10), is a type of the supreme and far-spread dominion of the house of the Atrides. See Thucydides i. 9. “It is traced through the hands of Hermes, he being the wealth giving god, whose blessing is most efficacious in furthering the process of acquisition.”— Grote, i. p. 212. Compare Quintus Calaber (Dyce’s Selections, p. 43).
“Thus the monarch spoke,
Then pledged the chief in a capacious cup,
Golden, and framed by art divine (a gift
Which to Almighty Jove lame Vulcan brought
Upon his nuptial day, when he espoused
The Queen of Love), the sire of gods bestow’d
The cup on Dardanus, who gave it next
To Ericthonius Tros received it then,
And left it, with his wealth, to be possess’d
By Ilus he to great Laomedon
Gave it, and last to Priam’s lot it fell.”
9 Grote, i, p. 393, states the number of the Grecian forces at upwards of 100,000 men. Nichols makes a total of 135,000.
10
“As thick as when a field
Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends
His bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
Sways them.”— Paradise Lost,” iv. 980, sqq.
11 This sentiment used to be a popular one with some of the greatest tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it, and, in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in the Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren, “Ancient Greece,” ch. vi. p. 105.
12 It may be remarked, that the character of Thersites, revolting and contemptible as it is, serves admirably to develop the disposition of Ulysses in a new light, in which mere cunning is less prominent. Of the gradual and individual development of Homer’s heroes, Schlegel well observes, “In bas-relief the figures are usually in profile, and in the epos all are characterized in the simplest manner in relief; they are not grouped together, but follow one another; so Homer’s heroes advance, one by one, in succession before us. It has been remarked that the Iliad is not definitively closed, but that we are left to suppose something both to precede and to follow it. The bas-relief is equally without limit, and may be continued ad infinitum, either from before or behind, on which account the ancients preferred for it such subjects as admitted of an indefinite extension, sacrificial processions, dances, and lines of combatants, and hence they also exhibit bas-reliefs on curved surfaces, such as vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, where, by the curvature, the two ends are withdrawn from our sight, and where, while we advance, one object appears as another disappears. Reading Homer is very much like such a circuit; the present object alone arresting our attention, we lose sight of what precedes, and do not concern ourselves about what is to follow.”—“Dramatic Literature,” p. 75.
13 “There cannot be a clearer indication than this description — so graphic in the original poem — of the true character of the Homeric agora. The multitude who compose it are listening and acquiescent, not often hesitating, and never refractory to the chief. The fate which awaits a presumptuous critic, even where his virulent reproaches are substantially well-founded, is plainly set forth in the treatment of Thersites; while the unpopularity of such a character is attested even more by the excessive pains which Homer takes to heap upon him repulsive personal deformities, than by the chastisement of Odysseus he is lame, bald, crook-backed, of misshapen head, and squinting vision.”— Grote, vol. i. p. 97.
14 According to Pausanias, both the sprig and the remains of the tree were exhibited in his time. The tragedians, Lucretius and others, adopted a different fable to account for the stoppage at Aulis, and seem to have found the sacrifice of Iphigena better suited to form the subject of a tragedy. Compare Dryden’s “AEneid,” vol. iii. sqq.
15 Full of his god, i.e., Apollo, filled with the prophetic spirit. “The god” would be more simple and emphatic.
16 Those critics who have maintained that the “Catalogue of Ships” is an interpolation, should have paid more attention to these lines, which form a most natural introduction to their enumeration.
17 The following observation will be useful to Homeric readers: “Particular animals were, at a later time, consecrated to particular deities. To Jupiter, Ceres, Juno, Apollo, and Bacchus victims of advanced age might be offered. An ox of five years old was considered especially acceptable to Jupiter. A black bull, a ram, or a boar pig, were offerings for Neptune. A heifer, or a sheep, for Minerva. To Ceres a sow was sacrificed, as an enemy to corn. The goat to Bacchus, because he fed on vines. Diana was propitiated with a stag; and to Venus the dove was consecrated. The infernal and evil deities were to be appeased with black victims. The most acceptable of all sacrifices was the heifer of a year old, which had never borne the yoke. It was to be perfect in every limb, healthy, and without blemish.”—“Elgin Marbles,” vol. i. p. 78.
18 Idomeneus, son of Deucalion, was king of Crete. Having vowed, during a tempest, on his return from Troy, to sacrifice to Neptune the first creature that should present itself to his eye on the Cretan shore, his son fell a victim to his rash vow.
19 Tydeus’ son, i.e. Diomed.
20
