4. τοξόται (Il. ii. 720. iii. 79).

Again, the men are distinguished by epithets according to merit; each

being ἔξοχος, μεσήεις, or χερειότερος (Il. xii. 269), or even κακός;

and with the last-named the precaution is taken to place them in the

midst of their comrades.

The policy of Nestor, which recommended the muster of the whole army,

with a view to stronger mutual support among those who had peculiar

ties, was entirely in harmony with what we meet elsewhere in the

poems. For instance, in the defence of the rampart in the Thirteenth

Book, we find Bœotians, Athenians, and Locrians[183], who were

neighbours, all mentioned as fighting side by side.

[183] Il. xiii. 685.

All ranks apparently went to the Assemblies as freemen, and were

treated there by their superiors with respect. It was not those of

the common sort in general, but only such as were clamorous for the

tumultuary breaking up of the Assembly, that Ulysses went so far as

to hit (ἐλάσασκε) with the staff he bore, the supreme sceptre of

Agamemnon. In addressing them he used the word δαιμόνιε, the same

word which he employed to their superiors, the kings and chiefs (Il.

ii. 190, 200). When they heard a speech that they approved of, they

habitually and immediately shouted in applause[184],

[184] Il. ii. 333.

Ἀργεῖοι δὲ μέγ’ ἴαχον ...

μῦθον ἐπαινήσαντες Ὀδυσσῆος θείοιο·

and they commented freely among themselves on what occurred (Il. ii.

271 and elsewhere).

The modes of warfare in the heroic age were very simple: the open

battle was a battle of main force, as regarded both the chieftains and

the men, relieved from time to time by a sprinkling of panics. But

besides the battle, there was another and a more distinguished mode of

fighting: that of the λόχος or ambuscade. And the different estimate of

the two, which reverses the popular view, is eminently illustrative of

the Greek character.

~_The λόχος or ambuscade._~

In that epitome of human life, which Homer has presented to us on the

Shield of Achilles, martial operations are of course included. The

collective life of man is represented by two cities, one for peace

and the other for war. Two armies appear beneath the walls of the

latter; and one of these takes its post in an ambush[185]. Whenever

persons were to be appointed out of an army for this duty, the noblest

and bravest were chosen. Hence Achilles launches the double reproach

against Agamemnon, that he has never had spirit enough to arm either

with the soldiery at large for battle, or with the chiefs and prime

warriors for ambuscade[186]. And the reason why the ambuscade stood

thus high as the duty and the privilege of the best, is explained in

an admirable speech of Idomeneus. It is simply because it involves a

higher trial, through the patience it requires, of moral as opposed to

animal courage.

[185] Il. xviii. 509, 13, 20.

[186] Il. i. 226.

The Cretan leader supposes the case to have occurred, when all the

flower of the army are picked for an ambush. ‘There,’ he says, ‘is the

true criterion of valour;

ἔνθα μάλιστ’ ἀρετὴ διαείδεται ἀνδρῶν·

and there it soon appears who is the hero, and who the coward; for

the flesh of the poltroon turns to one colour and another, nor can he

settle his mind so as to sit quiet, for his knees yield under him, and

he shifts from resting on one foot to resting on the other; his heart

is fluttering in his breast, and his teeth chatter, as he gives himself

up for lost: but the brave man, from the moment when he takes his place

in the ambush, neither changes colour, nor is over nervous; but only

prays that the time may soon come for him to mingle in the fearful

fight[187].’ Then he goes on to commend Meriones as one suited for such

a trial.

[187] Il. xiii. 276-86.

In exact conformity with what we should expect from these descriptions,

it appears that Ulysses was the warrior who was preeminent in the

λόχος, while Achilles towered so immeasurably above all others in the

field. When the Greeks were concealed in the cavity of the Horse,

and Helen came down from the city imitating the voices of their

wives, Menelaus and Diomed were on the point of either going forth,

or answering; but Ulysses restrained them. One Anticlos was still

unwilling to be silent; and Ulysses, resolutely gagging him with his

hand, ‘saved the lives of all the Achæans[188].’ In all this we again

see how the poems of Homer are, like the Shield, an epitome of life.

All the points of capital and paramount excellence, for which he could

find no place in the hero of the one poem, he has fully represented in

the hero of the other; and he has so exhausted, between the two, the

resources of our nature, and likewise its appliances as they were then

understood, that, had he produced yet a third Epic, not even he could

have furnished a third protagonist to form its centre, who should have

been worthy to count with Achilles and Ulysses among the undying ideals

of human greatness.

[188] Od. iv. 277-88.

We have now considered the Greek community of the heroic age, as it

was divided in time of peace into classes, and as in time of war it

resolved all its more potent and energetic elements into the form of a

military order.

We have also examined the position and functions of the king; who

was at once a person, a class, and a great political institution.

It remains to consider two other political institutions of heroic

Greece, which not only, with the king, made up the whole machinery both

of civil and military administration for that period, but likewise

supplied the essential germ, at least, of that form of constitution,

on which the best governments of the continent of Europe have, two of

them within the last quarter of a century, been modelled, with such

deviations as experience has recommended, or the change of times has

required. I mean the form of government by a threefold legislative

body, having for one of its members, and for its head, a single person,

in whose hands the executive power of the state is lodged. This

form has been eminently favoured in Christendom, in Europe, and in

England; and it has even survived the passage of the Atlantic, and the

transition, in the United States of America, to institutions which are

not only republican, but highly democratic.

~_The Greek Βουλὴ or Council._~

Of these two Greek institutions, we will examine first the βουλὴ, or

Council.

It was the usage of the Greeks to consider, in a small preliminary

meeting of principal persons, which was called the βουλὴ, of the

measures to be taken in managing the Assembly, or ἀγορή.

To the persons, who were summoned thither, the name of γέροντες appears

to have been officially applied. It had thus become dissociated from

the idea of age, its original signification: for Nestor was the only

old man among the Greek senators. Idomeneus, indeed, was near upon

old age: Ulysses was elderly (ὠμογέρων[189]), apparently not under

fifty. The majority would seem to have been rather under middle life;

so that γέρων was, when thus employed, a title, not a description. The

βουλὴ was composed of the men of greatest rank and weight; and no more

required an advanced age among the qualifications for it, than does the

presbyterate of the Christian Church, though it too signifies eldership.

[189] Il. xxiii. 791.

Before the great assembly of the Second Book, we are told, not

that Agamemnon thought it would be well, as it were for the nonce,

to consult the kings or seniors of the expedition; but, in language

which indicates a fixed practice, that the choice of the place for the

meeting was on this occasion by the ship of Nestor, whose great age

possibly either made nearness convenient, or entitled him to this mark

of honour:

βουλὴ δὲ πρῶτον μεγαθύμων ἷζε γερόντων

Νεστορέῃ παρὰ νηῒ Πυλαιγενέος βασιλῆος. Il. ii. 53.

These γέροντες were summoned[190] again by Agamemnon before the

sacrifice of the Second Book, which preceded the enumeration. On this

occasion they are not called a βουλή; probably because they were not

called for consultation.

[190] Il. ii. 408-9.

The Council meets again in the Ninth Book[191], by appointment of the

Assembly, and sends the mission to Achilles[192]. In the same night,

and perhaps under the same authority, the expedition of Ulysses and

Diomed is arranged.

[191] Il. ix. 10. 89.

[192] Il. x. 195.

There is no βουλὴ indeed in the First Book, and none in the great

Assembly of the Nineteenth: but then both of these were summoned

by Achilles, not by Agamemnon, and neither of them were called for

properly deliberative purposes[193].

[193] Il. i. 54. xix. 41.

Again, Ulysses, in urging the Greeks not to quit the assembly of the

Second Book prematurely, reminds them that they ought to know fully the

views of Agamemnon, and that they have not all had the advantage of

learning those views in the βουλή.

In the Seventh Book, the Council held under the roof of Agamemnon

forms the plan for a pause to bury the dead, and erect the rampart.

Accordingly, when just afterwards a herald arrives with a proposal

from Troy, he finds the Greeks in their Assembly, doubtless an Assembly

held to sanction the project of the kings. That this amounted to an

institution of the Greeks, we may further judge from the familiar

manner, in which Nestor mentions it in the Odyssey to Telemachus, on

seeing him for the first time, (Od. iii. 127). ‘Ulysses and I,’ he

says, ‘never differed:’ οὔτε ποτ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ δίχ’ ἐβάζομεν, οὔτ’ ἐνὶ

βουλῇ[194].

[194] Il. vii. 344, 382.

Among other causes, which might tend to promote the establishment of

the Greek βουλὴ or Council, we may perhaps reckon with propriety the

inability of the old to discharge the full duties of sovereignty in

the heroic age. Bodily force usually undergoes a certain amount of

decay, before the mind has passed out of its ripeness; and both kings

and subordinate lords, who had ceased to possess the strength that was

requisite for bearing the principal burdens of government, might still

make their experience available for the public good in the Council;

even as we find that in Troas the brothers of Priam, with others

advanced in life, were the principal advisers of the Assembly[195].

[195] Il. iii. 146-53.

~_The βουλὴ in time of peace._~

I admit that we have no example to give of the use of the βουλὴ by

the Greeks during peace, so precise as those which the Iliad supplies

for time of war. But even in war we do not find it except before

Assemblies, which had deliberative business to transact. Now the only

deliberative Greek ἀγορὴ which we meet with in time of peace is that of

the Twenty-fourth Odyssey. The absence of a sovereign and a government

in Ithaca at that time, and the utter discord of the principal persons,

made a Council quite impossible, and left no measure open except a

direct appeal to the people.

It appears however clear, that the action of the βουλὴ was not

confined to war. For we not only find the γέροντες on the Shield[196],

who sit in the ἀγορὴ, exercising exclusively the office of judges,

but they are also distinctly noticed as a class or order[197] in the

Ithacan Assembly, who had a place in it set apart for themselves.

Nor are we without a proof which, though conveyed in few words, is

complete, of the conjunction of the Council with the sovereign in acts

of government. For when Ulysses in his youth undertook the mission to

Messene, in the matter of the sheep that had been carried off from

Ithaca, he did it under the orders of Laertes, together with his

council[198]:

[196] Il. xviii. 506.

[197] Od. ii. 14.

[198] Od. xxi. 21.

πρὸ γὰρ ἧκε πατὴρ ἄλλοι τε γέροντες.

And Nausicaa meets her father Alcinous, on his way to the βουλὴ of the

Phæacians.

Upon the whole, the βουλὴ seems to have been a most important auxiliary

instrument of government; sometimes as preparing materials for the

more public deliberations of the Assembly, sometimes intrusted, as a

kind of executive committee, with its confidence; always as supplying

the Assemblies with an intellectual and authoritative element, in a

concentrated form, which might give steadiness to its tone, and advise

its course with a weight adequate to so important a function.

~_Opposition in the βουλή._~

The individuals who composed this Council were of such a station

that, when they acted separately, King Agamemnon himself might have

to encounter resistance and reproof from them in various instances.

Accordingly, upon the occasion when Agamemnon made a survey of the

army, and when he thought fit to rebuke Ulysses for slackness, that

chieftain remonstrated with him something more than freely (ὑποδρὰ

ἰδὼν) both in voice and manner. So far from trusting to his authority,

Agamemnon made a soothing and even an apologetic reply[199]. Again,

when on the same occasion he reproved Diomed[200], Sthenelus defended

his immediate Chief in vainglorious terms. These the more refined

nature of Diomed himself induced him at once to disclaim, but they

do not appear to have been considered as involving any thing in the

nature of an offence against the station of Agamemnon. Again, though

Diomed on this occasion restrained his lieutenant, yet, when he meets

Agamemnon in the Assembly of the Ninth Book, he frankly tells him that

Jupiter, who has given him the honours of the sceptre, has not endowed

him with the superior power that springs from determined courage[201];

and even the passionate invectives of Achilles in the First Book bear a

similar testimony, because they do not appear to have been treated as

constituting any infringement of his duty.

[199] Il. iv. 329-63.

[200] Ibid. 385-418.

[201] Il. ix. 37.

In the βουλὴ[202], Nestor takes the lead more than Agamemnon. As to

the Assembly, the whole plan in the Second Iliad is expressly founded

upon the supposition, that the army was accustomed to hear the chiefs

argue against, and even overthrow, the proposals of Agamemnon. His

advice that they should return home, which Grote[203] considers only an

unaccountable fancy and a childish freak, is however capable of being

regarded in this view, that, before renewing active operations without

Achilles, it was thought wise to test the feeling of the army, and

that it could not be more effectually tried than by a recommendation

from the commander-in-chief that they should re-embark for Greece.

The plan was over-refined; and it may even seem ridiculous, because it

failed, and simply kindled an ungovernable passion, which would not

listen to debate. But the proposal does not bear that character in the

Ninth Book, where the same suggestion is renewed, without the previous

knowledge of the chiefs, in the same words, and at a time when the

Greeks were in far worse condition.

[202] Cf. Od. xi. 512.

[203] Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. 95, 97.

When Agamemnon made it in order to be overruled it took effect: when

he made it in good earnest, it failed. If then the Greeks could be

retained contrary to his wish in the Ninth Book, it might be misjudged,

but could hardly be absurd, to expect a similar result in the Second,

when they had less cause for discouragement.

And why did it take effect? Simply because the Assembly, instead of

being the simple medium[204] through which the king acted, was the

arena on which either the will of the people might find a rude and

tumultuary vent, or, on the other hand, his royal companions in arms

could say, as Diomed says, ‘I will use my right and resist your foolish

project in debate; which you ought not to resent.’

[204] Grote ii. 104.

Ἀτρείδη, σοὶ πρῶτα μαχήσομαι ἀφραδέοντι,

ἣ θέμις ἐστὶν, ἄναξ, ἀγορῇ· σὺ δὲ μή τι χολωθῇς.

The proposal of Agamemnon had been heard in silence[205], the mode

by which the army indicated its disinclination or its doubt. But the

counter proposal of Diomed, to fight to the last, was hailed with

acclamation[206];

[205] Il. ix. 30.

[206] Ibid. 50.

οἱ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἐπίαχον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν,

μῦθον ἀγασσάμενοι Διομήδεος ἱπποδάμοιο·

so that the Assembly was then ripe for the plan of Nestor, which at

once received its approval[207]:

[207] Il. ix. 79.

ὣς ἔφαθ’· οἱ δ’ ἄρα τοῦ μάλα μὲν κλύον, ἠδ’ ἐπίθοντο.

Subsequently, in the βουλὴ of the same Book, Nestor tells Agamemnon

that it is his duty to listen as well as to speak, and to adopt the

plans of others when they are good (100-2). At the same time, the aged

chieftain appears to submit himself to the judgment of Agamemnon in the

Council[208]. His expressions are perhaps matter more of compliment

than of business; and at any rate we do not find any like terms used in

the Assembly.

[208] Ibid. 97.

It was a happy characteristic of heroic Greece, that while she abounded

in true shame, she had no false shame. It was not thought that a king,

who had done wrong, compromised his dignity by atonement; but, on the

contrary, that he recovered it. So says Ulysses, in the Assembly of the

Nineteenth Iliad[209];

[209] Il. xix. 182.

οὐ μὲν γάρ τι νεμεσσητὸν βασιλῆα

ἄνδρ’ ἀπαρέσσασθαι, ὅτε τις πρότερος χαλεπήνῃ.

This passage at once establishes in the most pointed manner both the

right to chide the head of the army, and the obligation incumbent on

him, as on others, where he had given offence to make amends.

Thus then a large liberty of speech and judgment on the part of the

kings or chiefs, when they differed from Agamemnon, would appear

to be established beyond dispute, a liberty which in certain cases

resulted in his being summarily overruled. I cannot therefore here

subscribe even to the measured statement of Mure, who, admits the

liberty of remonstrance, but asserts also the sovereignty of the will

of Agamemnon. Much less to the very broad assertions of Grote, that the

resolutions of Agamemnon appear uniformly to prevail in the Council,

and that the nullity of positive function is still more striking in the

Agorè[210].

[210] Grote’s Hist. vol. ii. pp. 90, 2.

To that institution it is now time for us to turn.

~_Influence of Speech._~

The trait which is truly most worthy of note in the polities of

Homeric Greece, is also that which is so peculiar to them; namely,

the substantive weight and influence which belonged to speech as an

instrument of government; and of this power by much the most remarkable

development is in its less confined and more popular application to the

Assembly.

This power of speech was essentially a power to be exercised over

numbers, and with the safeguards of publicity, by man among his

fellow-men. It was also essentially an instrument addressing itself to

reason and free will, and acknowledging their authority. No government

which sought its power in force, as opposed to reason, has at any

time used this form of deception. The world has seen absolutism deck

itself with the titles and mere forms of freedom, or seek shelter under

its naked abstractions: but from the exercise of free speech as an

instrument of state, it has always shrunk with an instinctive horror.

One mode of proving the power of speech in the heroic age is, by

showing what place it occupied in the thoughts of men, as they are to

be gathered from their language. Another mode is, by pointing to its

connection, in practical examples, with this or that course of action,

adopted or shunned. A third is, by giving evidence of the earnestness

with which the art was prosecuted, and the depth and comprehensiveness

of the conceptions from which it derived its form.

We shall presently trace the course of public affairs, as they were

managed by the Greeks of the heroic age in their public assemblies.

For the present, let us endeavour to collect the true sense of Homer

respecting oratory from his language concerning it, from the characters

with whom he has particularly connected it, and from the knowledge

which he may be found to have possessed of its resources.

Although it is common to regard the Iliad as a poem having battle for

its theme, yet it is in truth not less a monument of policy than of

war; and in this respect it is even more broadly distinguished, than in

most others, from later epics.

The adjectives in Homer are in very many cases the key to his inner

mind: and among them all there is none of which this is more true, than

the grand epithet κυδιάνειρα. He confines it strictly to two subjects,

battle and debate, the clash of swords and the wrestling of minds. Of

Achilles, he says in the First Book[211], (490)

[211] He uses the epithet for battle in Il. iv. 225, 6. 124, 7. 113, 8.

448, 12. 325, 13. 270, 14. 155, and 24. 391.

οὔτε ποτ’ εἰς ἀγορὴν πωλέσκετο κυδιάνειραν,

οὔτε ποτ’ ἐς πόλεμον.

In every other passage where he employs the word, it is attached to the

substantive μάχη. Thus with him it was in two fields, that man was to

seek for glory; partly in the fight, and partly in the Assembly.

The intellectual function was no less essential to the warrior-king of

Homer, than was the martial; and the culture of the art of persuasion

entered no less deeply into his early training. How, says Phœnix to

Achilles, shall I leave you, I, whom your father attached to you when

you were a mere child, without knowledge of the evenhanded battle, or

of the assemblies, in which men attain to fame,

οὔπω εἰδόθ’ ὁμοιΐου πολέμοιο

οὐτ’ ἀγορέων, ἵνα τ’ ἄνδρες ἀριπρέπεες τελέθουσιν.

So he sent me to teach you the arts both of speech and fight[212],

[212] Il. ix. 438-43.

μύθων τε ῥητῆρ’ ἔμεναι, πρηκτῆρά τε ἔργων.

Even so Ulysses, in the under-world, relates to Achilles the greatness

of Neoptolemus in speech, not less than in battle, (Od. xi. 510-16.)

Nay, the ἀγορὴ of little Ithaca, where there had been no Assembly for

twenty years, is with Homer the ἀγορὴ πολύφημος[213]. In a description,

if possible yet more striking than that of Phœnix, Homer places before

us the orator at his work. ‘His hearers behold him with delight;

he speaks with tempered modesty, yet with confidence in himself

(ἀσφαλέως); he stands preeminent among the assembled people, and while

he passes through the city, they gaze on him as on a god[214]. From a

passage like this we may form some idea, what a real power in human

society was the orator of the heroic age; and we may also learn how and

why it was, that the great Bard of that time has also placed himself in

the foremost rank of oratory for all time.

[213] Od. ii. 150.

[214] Od. viii. 170-3.

It is in the very same spirit that Ulysses, in the same most

remarkable speech given in the Odyssey[215], sets forth the different

accomplishments by which human nature is adorned. The three great

gifts of the gods to man are, first, corporeal beauty, strength and

bearing, all included in the word φύη; secondly, judgment or good sense

(φρένες), and thirdly, the power of discourse, or ἀγορητύς. To one man,

the great gift last named is the compensation for the want of corporeal

excellence. To another is given beauty like that of the Immortals;

but then his comeliness is not crowned by eloquence: ἀλλ’ οὔ οἱ χάρις

ἀμφιπεριστέφεται ἐπέεσσιν. For χάρις in Od. xi. 367 we have μορφὴ ἐπέων.

[215] Od. viii. 166-85.

~_Varied descriptions of Oratory._~

In full conformity with this strongly developed idea, the Poet

places before us the descriptions of a variety of speakers. There is

Thersites[216], copious and offensive, to whom we must return. There

is Telemachus, full of the gracious diffidence of youth[217], but

commended by Nestor for a power and a tact of expression beyond his

years. There is Menelaus, who speaks with a laconic ease[218]. There

are the Trojan elders, or δημογέροντες, who from their experience and

age chiefly guide the Assembly, and whose volubility and shrill small

thread of voice[219] Homer compares to the chirping of grasshoppers.

Then we have Nestor the soft and silvery, whose tones of happy and

benevolent egotism flowed sweeter than a stream of honey[220]. In

the hands of an inferior artist, Phœnix must have reproduced him;

but an absorbing affection for Achilles is the key-note to all he

says; even the account in his speech of his own early adventures is

evidently meant as a warning on the effects of rage: this intense

earnestness completely prevents any thing like sameness, and thus the

two garrulities stand perfectly distinct from one another, because

they have (so to speak) different centres of gravity. Lastly, we have

Ulysses, who, wont to rise with his energies concentrated within him,

gives no promise of display: but when his deep voice issues from

his chest, and his mighty words drive like the flakes of snow in

winter[221], then indeed he soars away far above all competitors.

[216] Il. ii. 212.

[217] Od. iii. 23, 124.

[218] Il. iii. 213.

[219] Il. iii. 150.

[220] Il. i. 248.

[221] Il. iii. 216, 23.

It is very unusual for Homer to indulge thus largely in careful and

detailed description. And even here he has left the one superlative,

as well as other considerable, orators, undescribed. The eloquence of

Achilles is left to describe itself; and to challenge comparison with

all the choicest patterns both of power and beauty in this kind, that

three thousand years since Homer, and all their ebbing and flowing

tides, have brought within the knowledge of man. Although he modestly

describes himself as beneath Ulysses in this accomplishment, yet in

truth no speeches come near to his. But Homer’s resources are not even

now exhausted. The decision of Diomed, the irresolution of Agamemnon,

the bluntness of Ajax, are all admirably marked in the series of

speeches allotted to each. Indeed Homer has put into the mouth of

Idomeneus, whom he nowhere describes as an orator at all, a speech

which is quite enough to establish his reputation in that capacity.

(Il. xiii. 275-94.)

In reviewing the arrangements Homer has made, we shall find one feature

alike unequivocal and decisive. The two persons, to whom he has given

supremacy in oratory, are his two, his only two godlike heroes (θεῖοι),

the Achilles and the Ulysses, each of whom bears up, like the Atlas of

tradition, the weight of the epic to which he principally belongs.

How could Homer have conceived thoughts like these, if government

in his eyes had rested upon either force or fraud? Moreover, when

he speaks of persuasion and of strength or valour, of the action of

the tongue and that of the hand, he clearly does not mean that these

elements are mixed in the ordinary conduct of a sovereign to his

subjects: he means the first for peace, the latter for war; the first

to be his sole instrument for governing his own people, the latter for

their enemies alone.

If, again, we endeavour to estimate the importance of Speech in the

heroic age by the degree in which the faculty was actually cultivated,

we must take the achievements of the Poet as the best indicators of

the capacities of the age. The speeches which Homer has put into the

mouths of his leading orators should be tolerably fair representatives

of the best performances of the time. Nor is it possible that in any

age there should be in a few a capacity for making such speeches,

without a capacity in many for receiving, feeling, and comprehending

them. Poets of modern times have composed great works, in ages that

stopped their ears against them. ‘Paradise Lost’ does not represent the

time of Charles the Second, nor the ‘Excursion’ the first decades of

the present century. The case of the orator is entirely different. His

work, from its very inception, is inextricably mixed up with practice.

It is cast in the mould offered to him by the mind of his hearers. It

is an influence principally received from his audience (so to speak)

in vapour, which he pours back upon them in a flood. The sympathy

and concurrence of his time is with his own mind joint parent of his

work. He cannot follow nor frame ideals; his choice is, to be what his

age will have him, what it requires in order to be moved by him, or

else not to be at all. And as when we find the speeches in Homer, we

know that there must have been men who could speak them, so, from the

existence of units who could speak them, we know that there must have

been crowds who could feel them.

~_The orations of the Poems._~

Now if we examine those orations, we shall, I think, find not only

that they contain specimens of transcendent eloquence which have never

been surpassed, but likewise that they evince the most comprehensive

knowledge, and the most varied and elastic use, of all the resources of

the art. If we seek a specimen of invective, let us take the speeches

of Achilles in the debate of the First Iliad. If it is the loftiest

tone of terrible declamation that we desire, I know not where (to

speak with moderation) we can find any thing that in grandeur can

surpass the passage (Il. xvi. 74-9) beginning,

οὐ γὰρ Τυδειδέω Διομήδεος ἐν παλάμῃσιν

μαίνεται ἐγχείη, κ. τ. λ.

But if it is solemnity that is sought, nothing can, I think, excel the

ναὶ μὰ τόδε σκῆπτρον. (Il. i. 233-44.)

What more admirable example of comprehensive statement, which exhausts

the case, and absolutely shuts up the mouth of the adversary, than in

the speech of Ulysses to Euryalus, who has reproached him with looking

like a sharper? That speech consists of twenty lines: and I think any

one who attempts to give a really accurate summary of it will be apt to

find that his epitome, if it be at all complete, has become unawares

a paraphrase. Nor is Homer less successful in showing us, how he has

sounded the depths of pathos. For though the speeches of Priam to

Achilles in the Twenty-fourth Iliad are spoken privately, and from man

to man only, and are therefore not in the nature of oratory properly so

called, they are conclusive, _a fortiori_, as to his knowledge of the

instruments by which the human affections might be moved so much more

easily, when the speaker would be assisted at once by the friendliness

and by the electric sympathies of a multitude.

~_Repartee and Sarcasm._~

All these are direct instruments of influence on the mind and actions

of man. But of assaults in flank Homer is quite as great a master. He

shows a peculiar genius for that which is properly called repartee; for

that form of speech, which flings back upon the opponent the stroke of

his own weapon, or on the supplicant the plea of his own prayer. There

was one Antimachus, a Trojan, who had grown wealthy, probably by the

bribes which he received from Paris in consideration of his always

opposing, in the Trojan Agorè, the restoration of Helen to the Greeks.

His sons are mastered by Agamemnon in the field. Aware that he had a

thirst for money, they cry, ‘Quarter, Agamemnon! we are the sons of

rich Antimachus: _he_ will pay well for our lives.’ ‘If,’ replies the

king, ‘you are the sons of that Antimachus, who, when Menelaus came

as envoy to Troy, advised to take and slay him, here and now shall ye

expiate your father’s infamy[222].’ Compare with this the yet sharper

turn of Ulysses on Leiodes in the Odyssey: ‘Spare me, Ulysses! I have

done no ill in your halls; I stopped what ill I could; I was but Augur

to the Suitors.’ Then follows the stern reply. ‘If thou dost avow that

thou art Augur to the Suitors, then often in prayer must thou have

augured my destruction, and desired my wife for thine own; wherefore

thou shalt not escape the painsome bed of death[223].’

[222] Il. xi. 122-42.

[223] Od. xxii. 310-25.

But the weapons of sarcasm, from the lightest to the weightiest, are

wielded by Homer with almost greater effect than any others. As a

sample of the former, I take the speech of Phœnix when he introduces,

by way of parable, the Legend of Meleager. ‘As long as Meleager fought,

all was well; but when rage took possession of him--which (I would just

observe) now and then bewilders other great minds also--then,’ and so

onward.

But for the great master of this art, Homer has chosen Achilles. As

with his invectives he grinds to powder, so with the razor edge of

the most refined irony he cuts his way in a moment to the quick. When

Greece, in the person of the envoy-kings, is at his feet, and he has

spurned them away, he says, ‘No: I will go home: you can come and see

me depart--if you think it worth your while.’

ὄψεαι, ἢν ἐθέλῃσθα, καὶ αἴ κέν τοι τὰ μεμήλῃ.

Of this passage, Il. ix. 356-64, the following translation may give a

very imperfect idea[224]:

[224] The version of Voss is very accurate, but, I think, lifeless. The

version of Cowper is at this point not satisfactory: he weakens, by

exaggerating, the delicate expression μεμήλῃ:

Look thou forth at early dawn,

And, if such spectacle _delight_ thee aught,

Thou shalt behold me cleaving with my prows, &c.

The version of Pope simply omits the line!

Tomorrow we the favouring gods implore:

Then shall you see our parting vessels crowned,

And hear with oars the Hellespont resound.

Of fight with Hector will I none;

Tomorrow, with the rising sun,

Each holy rite and office done,

I load and launch my Phthian fleet;

Come, if thou thinkest meet,

See, if thou carest for the sight,

My ships shall bound in the morning’s light,

My rowers row with eager might,

O’er Helle’s teeming main.

And, if Poseidon give his grace,

Then, with but three revolving days,

I see my home again;

My home of plenty, that I left

To fight with Troy; of sense bereft!

The plenty of his house (ἔστι δέ μοι μάλα πολλὰ) is the finishing

stroke of reply on Agamemnon, who had thought that his resentment,

unsatisfied in feeling, could be appeased with gifts.

In the same speech occurs the piercing sarcasm[225]:

[225] Il. ix. 340.

ἦ μοῦνοι φιλέουσ’ ἀλόχους μερόπων ἀνθρώπων

Ἀτρεῖδαι;

The Greeks had come to Troy to recover the wife of Menelaus: and while

they were there, Agamemnon took for a concubine the intended wife of

Achilles. Was it, he asks, the privilege of the sons of Atreus alone

among mankind to love their wives? Agamemnon, too, being the chief

of the two; who had laid hold on Briseis, as he had meant to keep

Chryseis, in disparagement of his own marriage bed. Nor can the reader

of this passage fail, I think, to be struck with the wonderful manner

in which it combines a stately dignity, and an unimpeachable solidity

of argument, with the fierceness of its personal onslaught.

~_The faculty of debate in Homer._~

~_The discussion of the Ninth Iliad._~

If the power of oratory is remarkable in Homer, so likewise is the

faculty of what in England is called debate. Here the orator is a

wrestler, holding his ground from moment to moment; adjusting his

poise, and delivering his force, in exact proportion to the varying

pressure of his antagonist. In Homer’s debates, every speech after

the first is commonly a reply. It belongs not only to the subject,

but to the speech that went before: it exhibits, given the question

and the aims of the speaker, the exact degree of ascent or descent,

of expansion or contraction, of relaxation or enhancement, which

the circumstances of the case, in the state up to which they were

brought by the preceding address, may require. In the Assembly of

the First Book, five, nay, six, successive speeches of Achilles and

Agamemnon[226] bring their great contention to its climax. But the

discussion with the Envoys deserves very particular notice. Ulysses

begins a skilled harangue to the offended hero with a most artful

and well-masked exaggeration of the martial fury of Hector. He takes

care only to present it as part of a general picture, which in other

parts is true enough; but he obviously relies upon it as a mode of

getting within the guard of Achilles. He next touches him upon the

point, to which Priam afterwards made a yet higher appeal; the tender

recollection of his father Peleus, who had warned him how much more

arduous was the acquisition of self-command, than that of daring.

He then recites the gifts of Agamemnon: and, encouraged perhaps by

the kind greeting that, with his companions, he had received, he

closes by urging that, however hateful Agamemnon may be, yet, in

pity for the other Greeks, both high and low, and in anticipation

of their gratitude, he ought to arm. I shall not attempt to analyse

the wonderful speech of Achilles which follows, and to which some

references have already been made. Suffice it to say, that it commences

with an intimation to Ulysses that it will, in the opinion of the

speaker, be best for all parties if he tells out his mind plainly: an

indirect and courteous reproof to Ulysses for having thought to act

upon him by tact and by the processes of a rhetorician. After this

follows such a combination of argument, declamation, invective, and

sarcasm as, within the same compass, I do not believe all the records

of the world can match. But the general result of the whole is the

announcement that he will return to Phthia the very next morning;

together with an absolute, unconditional rejection of all gifts and

proffers, until the outrage of Agamemnon is entirely wiped away[227]:

[226] Il. i. 106-244.

[227] Il. ix. 387.

πρίν γ’ ἀπὸ πᾶσαν ἐμοὶ δόμεναι θυμαλγέα λώβην.

When he has concluded, all his hearers, abashed by his masculine wrath,

are silent for a while. Then Phœnix, in the longest speech of the

poem, pours forth his unselfish and warm, but prolix and digressive

affection. This speech displays far less of rhetorical resource,

than that of Ulysses. Ulysses had conceded, as it were, the right of

Achilles to an unbounded resentment against Agamemnon (300): Phœnix, on

the contrary, by parable, menaces him with retribution from the Erinūs,

unless he shall subdue the mighty soul within him. But Achilles,

touched in his better nature, gives way a little to the more ethical

appeal, where he had been inflexible and invulnerable before the

intellectual and rhetorical address. He now bids Phœnix come himself,

and sleep in his encampment: there they can consider together, in the

morning, whether to go or to stay (618). Still he announces, that

nothing will induce him to quit the ships for the field (609). Next

comes blunt Ajax into the _palæstra_; deprecates the wasting of time;

is for taking back the answer, bad as it may be: Achilles has evidently

made up his mind; and cares not a rush for all or any of them. ‘What,’

says the simple man-mountain, ‘the homicide of a brother or child is

atoned for by a fine, and yet here is all this to-do about a girl. Aye,

and a single girl; when we offer seven of the very best, and ever so

much besides.’ Having thus reached the _acmè_ of his arts, he now aims

at the friendly feeling of Achilles, and in a single word bids him be

placable to men whom he has admitted beneath his roof, and whom he owns

for as loyal friends as the whole army could find him.

The leverage of this straightforward speech, which is only saved by

kindliness from falling into rudeness, again produces an initial

movement towards concession on the part of the great hero. He replies

in effect to Ajax, ‘You have spoken well: I like your way of going

to work: but my heart swells and boils with the shame inflicted on

me before the Greeks by Agamemnon. Tell them then’--there is now no

announcement of setting sail; nay, there is no longer any need for

debate in the morning whether to set sail or not--‘tell them that I

fight no more, till Hector, carrying slaughter and fire, shall reach

this camp, these ships. Keen as he may be, it will then be time enough

for ME to stay his onward path.’

Such is the remarkable course of this debate. But Ulysses, when they

return to Agamemnon--meaning probably to bring him and all the Greeks

fairly to bay--takes no notice of the partial relaxations of the iron

will of Achilles, but simply reports that he has threatened to set

sail. Then comes the turn of Diomed. ‘You were wrong to cringe to him.

Of himself, he is arrogant enough: you have made him worse. Let him

alone; he will come when he thinks proper, or when Providence wills it;

and no sooner. My advice is that we sleep and eat now, and fight at

dawn. I, at any rate, will be there, in the foremost of the battle.’

~_Function of the Assembly._~

We will now proceed to consider the nature and place of the ἀγορὴ or

Assembly, in the heroic age: and a view of the proceedings on several

occasions will further illustrate the great and diversified oratorical

resources of the Poet.

A people cannot live in its corporate capacity without intermission,

and the king is the standing representative of the community. But yet

the ἀγορὴ, or Assembly, is the true centre of its life and its vital

motion, as the monarch is of its functional or administrative activity;

and the greatest ultimate power, which the king possesses, is that

of influence upon his subjects collected there, through the combined

medium of their reverence for his person, and of his own powers of

persuasion. In the case of the army before Troy, to the strength

of these ordinary motives is added, along with a certain spirit of

resentment for injury received in the person of Helen, the hope of

a rich booty on the capture of the city, and the principle of pure

military honour; never perhaps more powerfully drawn than in the Iliad,

nor with greater freedom from extravagances, by which it is sometimes

made to ride over the heads of duty and justice, its only lawful

superiors.

First, it would appear to have belonged to the Assembly, not indeed to

distribute the spoil, but to consent to its distribution by the chief

commander, and his brother-leaders. To the former it is imputed in the

Ninth Book. But in the First Book Achilles says to him in the Assembly,

We the Greeks (Ἀχαιοὶ) will requite you three and four-fold, when Troy

is taken[228]. It is probable that he here means to speak of the chiefs

alone, (but only so far as the act of distribution is concerned,)

because Thersites uses the very same expression (ἅς τοι Ἀχαιοὶ πρωτίστῳ

δίδομεν[229]) in the Second Book. Therefore the division of booty was

probably made on the king’s proposal, with the aid of the chiefs, but

with the general knowledge and consent of the army, and in right of

that consent on their part.

[228] Il. i. 127.

[229] ii. 227.

It must be remembered all along, that the state of political society,

which Homer represents to us, is that in which the different elements

of power wear their original and natural forms; neither much altered

as yet by the elaborate contrivances of man, nor driven into their

several extremes by the consequences of long strife, greedy appetite,

and furious passions, excited by the temptations which the accumulation

of property presents.

In those simple times, when the functions of government were few, and

its acts, except perhaps the trial of private causes, far between,

there was no formal distribution of political rights, as if they could

be made the object of ambitious or contentious cupidity: but the grand

social power that moved the machine was in the determinations of the

ἀγορὴ, however informally declared.

Grote has observed, that in the Homeric ἀγορὴ no division of

affirmative and negative voices ever takes place. It would require

a volume to discuss all that this remark involves and indicates. I

will however observe that the principle surely cannot be made good

from history or in philosophy, that numbers prevail by an inherent

right. Decision by majorities is as much an expedient, as lighting by

gas. In adopting it as a rule, we are not realizing perfection, but

bowing to imperfection. We follow it as best for us, not as best in

itself. The only _right_ to command, as Burke has said, resides in

wisdom and virtue. In their application to human affairs, these great

powers have commonly been qualified, on the one hand by tradition and

prepossession, on the other hand by force. Decision by majorities has

the great merit of avoiding, and that by a test perfectly definite,

the last resort to violence; and of making force itself the servant

instead of the master of authority. But our country still rejoices in

the belief, that she does not decide all things by majorities. The

first Greeks neither knew the use of this numerical dogma, nor the

abuse of it. They did not employ it as an instrument, and in that they

lost: but they did not worship it as an idol, and in that they greatly

gained. Votes were not polled in the Olympus of Homer; yet a minority

of influential gods carry the day in favour of the Greeks against the

majority, and against their Head. There surely could not be a grosser

error than to deny every power to be a real one, unless we are able

both to measure its results in a table of statistics, and to trace at

every step, with our weak and partial vision, the precise mode by which

it works towards its end.

~_Great decisions all taken there._~

We have seen, in the first place, that all the great decisions of

the War were taken in the Assembly of the Greeks. And here the first

reflection that arises is, how deeply this method of political action

must have been engrained in their habits and ideas, when it could

survive the transition from peace to war, and, notwithstanding its

palpable inconveniences in a camp, form the practical rule of its

proceedings under the eye of the enemy.

The force of this consideration is raised to the utmost height by the

case of the Night Assembly in the Ninth Book. The Trojans, no longer

confined to their walls, are lying beside a thousand watch-fires, just

outside the rampart. Some important measure is absolutely demanded on

the instant by the downcast condition of the less than half-beaten,

but still thoroughly discouraged army. Yet not even under these

circumstances would Agamemnon act individually, or with the kings

alone. He sends his heralds round the camp (Il. ix. 11),

κλήδην εἰς ἀγορὴν κικλήσκειν ἄνδρα ἕκαστον,

μηδὲ βοᾶν·

to summon an Assembly noiselessly, and man by man. Can there be a more

conclusive proof of the vigour, with which the popular principle

entered into the idea of the Homeric polities? If it be said that

such an operation could hardly be effected at night without stir, I

reply that if it be so, the argument for the power and vitality of the

Assembly is but strengthened: for Homer was evidently far more careful

to speak in harmony with the political tone of his country than to

measure out time by the hour and minute, or place by the yard, foot,

and inch; as valuing not the latter methods less, but the former more.

The Greek army, in fact, is neither more nor less than, so to speak,

the State in uniform. As the soldier of those days was simply the

citizen armed, so the armament was the aggregate of armed citizens,

who, in all except their arms and the handling of them, continued to

be what they had been before. But when we find that in such great

emergencies political ideas did not give way to military expediency, we

cannot, I think, but conclude that those ideas rested on broad and deep

foundations.

It further tends to show the free nature of the relation between the

Assembly and the Commander-in-chief, that it might be summoned by

others, as well as by him. We are told explicitly in the First Book,

that Achilles called it together, as he did again in the Nineteenth

for the Reconciliation. On the second of these occasions, it may

have been his purpose that the reparation should be as public as had

been the insult: at any rate there was a determination to make the

reconciliation final, absolute, and thorough. But, at the former

time, the act partook of the nature of a moral appeal from Agamemnon

to the army. It illustrated, in the first place, the principle of

publicity so prevalent in the Greek polities. That which Calchas had

to declare, he must declare not in a ‘hole and corner,’ but on his

responsibility, liable to challenge, subject to the δήμου φάτις if he

told less than the truth, as well as to the resentment of the sovereign

if he should venture on divulging it entire. But secondly, it shows

that Achilles held the Greeks at large entitled and bound to be parties

to the transaction. He meant that the Greeks should see his wrong.

Perhaps he hoped that they would intercept its infliction. This at

any rate is clear: he commenced the debate with measured reproofs of

Agamemnon[230]; but afterwards he rose, with a wider scope, to a more

intense and a bitterer strain[231].

[230] Il. i. 121-9.

[231] Ibid. 149-71.

When he found that the monarch was determined, and when he had

repressed the access of rage which tempted him to summary revenge, he

began to use language not now of mere invective against Agamemnon, but

of such invective as tended to set him at odds with the people. Then

further on, perhaps because they did not echo back his sentiments,

and become active parties to the terrible fray, he both taunts and

threatens them. For he begins[232], ‘Coward that thou art! Never

hast thou dared to arm with the people for the fight, or with the

leaders for the ambush.’ And then[233]. ‘Devourer of the people! over

what nobodies thou rulest! or surely this would be the last of your

misdeeds.’ Again, in the peroration[234], ‘By this mighty oath, every

man among you shall lament the absence of Achilles.’

[232] Ibid. 225.

[233] Ibid. 231.

[234] Ibid. 239.

~_Opposition in the Agorè._~

It has often been asserted that the principle of popular opposition

in debate is only represented by Thersites. But let us proceed step

by step. It is at any rate clear enough that opposition by the

confederate kings is at once sufficiently represented in Achilles; and

that it is not represented by him alone, since in the Assembly of the

Ninth Book, Diomed both strongly reprehended Agamemnon, and proposes

a course diametrically the reverse of his; which course was forthwith

adopted by the acclamations of the army.

~_The case of Thersites._~

Let us now pass on to Thersites. There is no more singular picture

in the Iliad, than that which he presents to us. It well deserves

examination in detail.

Homer has evidently been at pains to concentrate upon this personage

all that could make him odious to the hearers of his song, while

nevertheless he puts into his mouth not only the cant of patriotism,

but also a case that would perhaps have been popular, had he not

averted the favour of the army by his insolent vulgarity.

Upon its merits, too, it was a tolerable case, but not a good one;

for he was wrong in supposing Achilles placable; and again wrong in

advising that the Greeks, now without Achilles, should give way before

the Trojans, to whom they were still superior in war.

He is in all things the reverse of the great human ideals of Homer. As,

in the pattern kings and heroes, moral, intellectual, and corporeal

excellences, each in the highest degree, must be combined, so Thersites

presents a corresponding complication of deformities to view. As to

the first, he is the most infamous person (αἴσχιστος) in the army;

and he relies for his influence, not on the sense and honour of the

soldiers, but on a vein of gross buffoonery; which he displays in the

only coarse allusion that is to be found in all the speeches of the

poems. As to the second head, his voluble speech is as void of order

as of decency[235]. As to the third, he is lame, bandy-legged[236],

hump-backed, round-shouldered, peak-headed, and lastly, (among the

καρηκομόωντες,) he is bald, or indeed worse, for on his head a hair is

planted here and there[237]. Lastly, hateful to all[238], he is most of

all hateful to, as well as spiteful against, the two paramount heroes

of the poems, Achilles and Ulysses: an observation inserted with equal

ingenuity and significance, because Homer, by inserting it, effectually

cuts off any favour which Thersites might otherwise have gained with

his hearers from seeming to take the side of the wronged Achilles. It

is also worthy of note, as indicating how Homer felt the strength of

that bond which unites together all great excellences of whatever kind.

Upon a slight and exterior view, the two great characters of Achilles

and Ulysses appear antagonistic, and we might expect to find their

likes and dislikes running in opposite directions. But as, in the Ninth

Book, Ulysses is declared by Achilles to be one of those whom he loves

best among the Greeks[239], so here they are united in carrying to the

highest degree a common antipathy to Thersites.

[235] Il. ii. 213.

[236] φολκός. See Buttmann, Liddell and Scott. Commonly rendered

‘squinting.’

[237] Il. ii. 214-19.

[238] Ibid. 275, 220.

[239] Il. ix. 198.

While depriving the wretch of all qualities that could attract towards

him the slightest share of sympathy, Homer has taken care to leave

Thersites in full possession of every thing that was necessary for his

trade; an ample flow of speech (213), and no small power of vulgar

invective (215).

Again, the quality of mere scurrility assigned to Thersites, and well

exemplified in his speech, stands alike distinguished in Homer from the

vein of fun, which he can open in the grave Ulysses of the Odyssey,

even while he is under terror of the Cyclops; and from that tremendous

and perhaps still unrivalled power of sarcasm, of which we have found

the climax in Achilles.

In the short speech of Thersites, Homer has contrived to exhibit

striking examples of malice (vv. 226, 234), coarseness (232), vanity

(vv. 228, 231, 238), cowardice (236); while it is a tissue of

consummate impudence throughout. Of this we find the finest stroke at

the end of it, where he says[240],

[240] In 237 he appears to follow what Achilles had said i. 170.

ἀλλὰ μάλ’ οὐκ Ἀχιλῆϊ χόλος φρεσὶν, ἀλλὰ μεθήμων·

ἦ γὰρ ἂν, Ἀτρείδη, νῦν ὕστατα λωβήσαιο[241].

[241] Il. ii. 241, 2.

For here the wretch apes Achilles, whom (for the sake of damaging

Agamemnon) he affects to patronize, and, over and above the pretension

to speak of his feelings as if he had been taken into his confidence on

the occasion, he actually closes with the very line which Achilles, at

the moment of high passion, had used in the Assembly of the First Book

(i. 232).

If we consider the selection of topics each by themselves, with

reference to effect, the speech is not without a certain εὐστοχία: he

hits the avarice of Agamemnon hard (226); and his responsibility as

a ruler (234): while pretending to incite the courage of the Greeks

(235), he flatters their home-sickness and faint-heartedness by

counselling the return (236); and, in supporting Achilles, he plausibly

reckons on being found to have taken the popular side. But if we

regard it, as every speech should be regarded, with reference to some

paramount purpose, it is really senseless and inconsequent. Dwelling as

he does upon the wrong done to Achilles, and asserting the placability

of that chieftain, he ought to have ended with recommending an attempt

to compensate and appease him; instead of which he recommends the

Return, which had been just abandoned. But the real extravagance of

the speech comes out only in connection with his self-love; when, like

many better men, he wholly loses whatever sense of the ridiculous he

might possess. It is not only ‘the women whom we give you’ (227); ‘the

service which we render you’ (238), but it is also ‘the gold[242] that

some Trojan may bring to ransom his son, whom I, or else some other

Greek, may have led captive.’ I, Thersites, or some other Greek! The

only Greek, of whom we hear in the Iliad as having made and sold on

ransom captives during the war, is Achilles[243]; and it is with him

that Thersites thus couples himself. Upon this, Ulysses, perceiving

that he stands in opposition to the prevailing sentiment of the

Assembly, silences him by a judicious application of the sceptre to his

back and shoulders: yet not even Thersites does he silence by force,

until he has first rebuked him by reasoning[244].

[242] Il. ii. 229-31.

[243] xxi. 40, 79. xxii. 44.

[244] 246-56.

Such are the facts of the case of Thersites. Are we to infer from it,

with Grote, that Homer has made him ugly and execrable because he was a

presumptuous critic, though his virulent reproaches were substantially

well founded, and that his fate, and the whole circumstances of this

Assembly, show ‘the degradation of the mass of the people before the

chiefs[245]?’

[245] Grote’s Hist. Greece, vol. ii. 95, 6.

In rallying the Greeks, says the distinguished historian[246], Ulysses

flatters and soothes the chiefs, but drives the people with harsh

reprimand and blows. Now surely, as to the mere matter of fact, this is

not quite so. It is not the people, but those whom he caught carrying

the matter by shouts, instead of returning to hear reason in the

Assembly, that he struck with the sceptre[247]:

[246] Ibid. pp. 96, 98.

[247] Il. ii. 198.

ὃν δ’ αὖ δήμου τ’ ἄνδρα ἴδοι, βοόωντά τ’ ἐφεύροι·

and it may be observed, that he addresses all classes alike by the word

δαιμόνιε[248]; which, though a term of expostulation, is not one of

disrespect.

[248] Ibid. 190, 200.

If Thersites represented the principle of reasoning in the public

Assembly, we might well see in the treatment of him the degradation of

the people. But it is railing, and not reasoning, that he represents;

and Homer has separated widely between this individual and the mass

of the army, by informing us that in the general opinion Ulysses had

rendered a service, even greater than any of his former ones, by

putting down Thersites. ‘Ulysses has done a thousand good things in

council and in war: but this is the best of all, that he has stopped

the scoundrel in his ribaldry[249].’

[249] vv. 271-8.

Thersites spoke not against Agamemnon only, but against the sense of

the whole army (212); and the ground of the proceeding of Ulysses is

not laid in the fact of his having resisted Agamemnon, or Agamemnon

with the whole body of the kings; but in the manner of his speech, and

in his having acted alone and against the general sentiment. Above

all, we must recollect the circumstances, under which Ulysses ventured

to chastise even this rancorous and foul-mouthed railer. It was at a

moment of crisis, nay, of agony. The rush from the Assembly to the

ships did not follow upon an orderly assent to a proposal, such as was

generally given; but it resulted from a tumultuous impulse, like that

of blasts tossing the sea, or sweeping down upon the cornfield (Il.

ii. 144-54). If therefore Ulysses employs the sceptre of Agamemnon to

smite those who were shouting in aid of this ruinous tumult (ii. 198),

we need not take this for a sample of what would be done in ordinary

circumstances, more than the fate of Wat Tyler for a type of British

freedom under the Plantagenets. Odious too as was Thersites, yet the

army, amidst a preponderating sentiment of approval, still appear to

have felt some regret at his mishap[250];

[250] Il. ii. 270.

οἱ δὲ, καὶ ἀχνύμενοί περ, ἐπ’ αὐτῷ ἡδὺ γέλασσαν·

for the first words would suggest, that they knew how to value the

liberty of thought, which had been abused, disgraced, and consequently

restrained, in his person. Surely it would be most precipitate to

conclude, from a case like this, that the debates of the Assemblies

were formal, and that they had nothing to do but to listen to a sham

discussion, and to register or follow decrees which were substantially

those of Agamemnon only.

I believe that the mistake involved in the judgment we have been

canvassing is a double one: a mistake of the relation of Agamemnon

to the other kings and chiefs; and a mistake of the relation of the

sovereigns generally to their subjects. Agamemnon was strong in

influence and authority, but he had, as we have already seen, nothing

like a despotic control over the other kings. The kings were strong

in personal ability, in high descent, in the sanction of Jupiter, in

possession, and in tradition: but all their strength, great as it was,

lay as a general rule in the direction of influence, and not in that of

violence.

I do not think, however, that we ought to be contented with the merely

negative mode of treatment for the case of Thersites. I cannot but

conceive that, upon an impartial review, it may teach more, than is

drawn from it by merely saying that it does not prove the Assembly to

have been an illusion. We must assume that Homer’s picture, if not

historical, at least conformed to the laws of probability. Now, what is

the picture? That the buffoon of the army, wholly without influence,

capable of attracting no respect, when the mass of the people had

overcome their homeward impulse, had returned to the Assembly, and

were awaiting the proposition of the kings, first continues to rail

(ἐκολῴα) while every one else is silent, and then takes upon himself

the initiative in recommending the resumption of the project, which

they had that moment abandoned. If such conduct could be ascribed by

the Poet to a creature sharp-witted enough, and as careful as others of

his own back, does not the very fact presuppose that freedom 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 ἐρήτυον[251].

[251] Il. xviii. 502.

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? Idæus[252], 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 concurrence[253].

[252] Il. vii. 381.

[253] Sup. p. 100.

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 Assembly[254]. 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.

[254] Od. iii. 139.

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,

how freely the crews of Ulysses spoke or acted, when they thought fit,

in opposition to his views. If it be said, we must not argue from the

unruly speeches of men in great straits at sea, the answer is, first,

that their necessities might rather tend to induce their acquiescence

in a stricter discipline; and secondly, that their liberty, and even

license, are not out of keeping with the general tone of the relations

between freemen of different classes, as exhibited to us elsewhere in

the Homeric poems.

It may, indeed, be said, that the divisions of the Greeks in the final

proceedings at Troy were divisions, not of the men, but of the chiefs.

This, however, upon the face of the text, is very doubtful. We see from

the tale of the Pseudo-Ulysses, in the Thirteenth Odyssey (265, 6),

that there were parties and separate action in the Greek contingents:

and it is probably to these that Nestor may allude, when he recommends

the Review in order that the responsibility of the officers may be

brought home to them individually. Now, in the case before us, the

first division is thus described. Menelaus exhorted all the Greeks

(πάντας Ἀχαιοὺς) to go home: Agamemnon disagreed (141, 3): while they

were contesting the point, the Assembly rose in two parties (vv. 149,

50);

οἱ δ’ ἀνόρουσαν ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοὶ

ἠχῇ θεσπεσίῃ· δίχα δέ σφισιν ἥνδανε βουλή.

There is no intimation here that the people in dividing simply

followed their chiefs. Nay, the tone of the description is such as

obliges us to understand that the movement was a popular one, and took

its rise from the debate: so that, even if the chiefs and their men

kept together respectively, as they may have done, still the chiefs

may probably have followed quite as much as they led. Again, when the

second separation takes place, it is thus described, ‘One portion

returned, under Ulysses, to Agamemnon. Prognosticating evil, I made

sail homewards with the whole body of my ships, which followed me.

Diomed did the same, and (ὦρσε δ’ ἑταίρους) invited his men (to do it).

And after us at last came Menelaus.’ (vv. 162-8). Now here instruction

is given us on three points:

1. Diomed urged his men; therefore it was not a mere matter of course

that they should go.

2. Nestor mentions especially that his division all kept together (σὺν

νηυσὶν ἀολλέσιν); therefore this did not always happen.

3. It is very unlikely that the part, which is first named as having

returned with Ulysses, should have been confined to his own petty

contingent.

Thus it is left in great doubt, whether the chiefs and men did

uniformly keep together: and the tenour of the narrative favours the

supposition, that the men at least contributed materially to any joint

conclusions.

~_Ithacan Assembly of Od._ ii.~

As, in the first Assembly of the Iliad, Achilles acts his personal

quarrel in the public eye, and lodges a sort of tacit appeal against

Agamemnon, so, in that of the Odyssey, Telemachus does the like

with reference to the Suitors. It is there that he protests against

their continued consumption of his substance; that he rejects their

counter-proposal for the dismissal of his mother on their behalf, and

that he himself finally propounds the voyage to the mainland[255].

There too we find a most distinct recognition by Mentor, his guardian,

of the powers and rights of the people; for he loudly complains of

their sitting silent, numerous as they are[256], instead of interposing

to rebuke the handful of Suitors that were the wrongdoers. But if,

according to the genius and usages of the heroic age, the people had

nothing to do but to listen and obey their betters, the expectation

that they should have risen to defend a minor against the associated

aristocracy of the country would have been absurd, and could not have

been expressed, as we find it expressed, by Mentor.

[255] Od. ii. 212.

[256] Od. ii. 239-41.

It is true indeed, as has been observed by Tittmann[257], that this

Assembly makes no effective response to the appeal of Telemachus; and

that the Suitor Antinous is allowed to declare in it his own intention,

and that of his companions, to continue their lawless proceedings.

But what we see in the Odyssey is not the normal state of the heroic

polities: it is one of those polities disorganized by the absence

of its head, with a people, as the issue proves, deeply tainted by

disloyalty. Yet let us see what, even in this state of things, was

still the weight of the Agorè. First, when Telemachus desires to make

an initial protest against the acts of the Suitors, he calls it to his

aid. Secondly, though at the outset of the discussion no concession

is made to him, yet he gains ground as it proceeds. The speech of

Antinous, the first Suitor who addresses the Assembly (Od. ii. 85-128),

is in a tone of sheer defiance, and treats his attempt as a jest and as

an insult (v. 86). The next is that of Eurymachus; who, while deriding

the omens, yet makes an advance by appealing to Telemachus to take the

matter into his own hands, and induce his mother to marry one among

them (178-207). The third, that of Leiocritus, contains a further

slight approximation; for it conveys an assent to his proposed voyage,

and recommends that Mentor and Alitherses shall assist him in making

provision for it (242-56). Thus even here we see that progression,

which may always be noticed in the Homeric debates; and the influence

under which it was effected must surely have been an apprehension of

the Assembly, to which both Telemachus, and still more directly Mentor,

had appealed.

[257] Griech. Staatsv. b. ii. p. 57.

Thirdly, however, we perceive in this very account the signs of the

disordered and distracted state of the public mind. For, beyond a

sentiment of pity for Telemachus when he bursts into tears (v. 81),

they make no sign of approval or disapproval. We miss in Ithaca the

well-known cheers of the Iliad, the

οἱ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἐπίαχον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν.

They are dismissed without having made a sign; just as it is in the

Assembly of the First Iliad (an exception in that poem); where the mind

of the masses, puzzled and bewildered, is not in a condition to enable

them to interfere by the distinct expression of their sympathies[258].

[258] Od. ii. 257. Il. i. 305.

There are, however, two other instances of Assemblies in the Odyssey.

~_Phæacian Assembly of Od._ viii.~

The first of these is the Assembly of the Phæacians in the Eighth Book;

which we may safely assume to be modelled generally according to the

prevailing manners.

The petition[259] of Ulysses to Alcinous is, that he may be sent

onwards to his home. The king replies, that he will make arrangements

about it on the following day[260]. Accordingly, the Assembly of the

Phæacian people is called: Minerva herself, under the form of the

herald, takes the pains to summon the principal persons[261]. Alcinous

then proposes that a ship shall be got ready, with a crew of fifty-two

picked men[262]. For his part he will give to this crew, together with

the kings, an entertainment at the palace before they set out[263].

This is all done without debate. Then comes the banquet, and the first

song of Demodocus. The company next return to the place of assembly,

for the games. It is here that Ulysses is taunted by Euryalus[264]. In

his reply he appeals to his character as a suppliant; but he is the

suppliant of the king and all the people, not of the king, nor even of

the king and his brother kings, alone[265];

[259] Od. vii. 151.

[260] Od. vii. 189-94, 317.

[261] Od. viii. 7-15.

[262] The number deserves remark. Fifty, as we know from the Catalogue,

was a regular ship’s crew of rowers. What were the two? Probably a

commander, and a steersman. The dual is used in both the places where

the numbers are mentioned (κρινάσθων, ver. 36, κρινθέντε, 48,

βήτην, 49). There are other passages where the dual extends beyond the

number two, to three and four. See Nitzsch, in loc. But the use of it

here with so large a number is remarkable, and may be best explained

by supposing that it refers to the δύω, who were the principal men of

the crew, and that the fifty are not regarded as forming part of the

subject of the verb. If this be so, the passage shows us in a very

simple form the rudimentary nautical order of the Greek ships.

[263] Od. viii. 38.

[264] Od. viii. 158-64.

[265] Od. viii. 157.

ἧμαι, λισσόμενος βασιλῆά τε, πάντα τε δῆμον.

We must therefore assume that Alcinous, in his proposal, felt that he

was acting according both to precedent and the general opinion. He does

not order any measure to be taken, but simply gives his opinion in the

Assembly about providing a passage, which is silently accepted (ver.

46). Yet I cannot but take it for a sign of the strong popular infusion

in the political ideas of the age, when we find that even so slight a

measure, as the dispatch of Ulysses, was thought fit to be proposed and

settled there.

But we have weightier matter disposed of in the Twenty-fourth Odyssey,

which affords us an eighth and last example of the Greek Assembly, its

powers, and usages.

The havock made of the Suitors by Ulysses is at last discovered after

the bodies have been disposed of; and upon the discovery, the chiefs

and people repair in a mass to the open space where Assemblies were

held, and which bears the same name with them[266]. Here the people are

addressed on the one side by Eupeithes, father of the leading Suitor

Antinous, on the other, by Medon the herald, and Alitherses, son of

Mastor the Seer. And here we are supplied with further proofs, that

the Assemblies were not wholly unaccustomed to act according to their

feelings and opinions. There is no sign of perplexity or confusion; but

there is difference of sentiment, and each party acts upon its own.

More than half the meeting loudly applaud Alitherses, and break up,

determined not to meddle in the affair[267]. The other party keep their

places, holding with Eupeithes; they then go to arm, and undertake the

expedition against Ulysses. Having lost their leader by a spear’s throw

of Laertes, for which Minerva had supplied him with strength, they fall

like sheep before the weapons of their great chief and his son. Yet,

though routed, they are not treated as criminals for their resistance;

but the poem closes by informing us that Minerva, in the form of

Mentor[268], negotiated a peace between the parties[269].

[266] Probably the strictly proper name of the Assembly, as

distinguished from the place of meeting, is ἄγυρις or πανήγυρις

(as Od. iii. 131), but the name common to the two prevails.

[267] Od. xxiv. 463.

[268] Od. xxiv. 546.

[269] Besides all the particulars which have been cited, we have

incidental notices scattered about the poems, which tend exactly in the

same direction. For example, when Chryses prays for the restitution of

his daughter, his petition is addressed principally to the two Atridæ,

but it is likewise addressed to the whole body of Ἀχαιοὶ (Il. i. 15),

that is, either to the entire army, or at any rate to all the kings;

or, to all the members of the Achæan race. This we may compare with the

application of the prayer of Ulysses in Scheria to the king and people.

~_Councils or Assemblies of Olympus._~

Since the Assemblies of Olympus grow out of the polytheistic form of

the Greek religion, we must treat them as part of its human element,

and as a reflection of the heroic life. There will therefore be an

analogy perceptible between the relation of Jupiter to the other

Immortals in the Olympian Assembly, and that of the Greek Sovereign

to all or some of those around him. But as the deities meet in the

capacity of rulers, we should seek this analogy rather in the relation

between Agamemnon and the kings, or between the local sovereign and his

elders (γέροντες), than between either of the two respective heads,

and the mass of those whom he ruled. This analogy is in substance

sustained by the poems. The sovereignty of Jupiter undoubtedly stands

more elevated, among the divinities of Olympus, than that of Agamemnon,

or any other of his kings, on earth. It includes more of the element

of force, and it approximates more nearly to a positive supremacy.

Accordingly, whatever indicates freedom in Olympus will tend _a

fortiori_ to show, that the idea of freedom in debate was, at least as

among the chiefs, familiar here below. Yet even in Olympus the other

chief deities could murmur, argue, and object. The power of Jupiter

is exhibited at its zenith in the Assembly of the Eighth Iliad, when

he violently threatens all that disobey, and challenges the whole pack

to try their strength with him. The vehemence with which he spoke

produced the same intimidatory effect upon the gods, as did the great

speech of Achilles upon the envoys: and the result upon the minds of

the hearers in the two cases respectively, is described in lines which,

with the exception of a single word, precisely correspond[270]. Still,

immediately after Jupiter has given the peremptory order not to assist

either party, Minerva answers, Well, we will not fight--which she never

had done--but we will advise; and this Jupiter at once and cheerfully

permits[271]. But there is more than this. Be the cause what it may,

the personal will of Jupiter, fulfilled as to Achilles[272], is not

fulfilled as to Troy. The Assembly of the Fourth Book is opened with a

proposal from him, that Troy shall stand[273]. From this he recedes,

and it is decided that the city shall be destroyed; while the only

reservation he makes is not at all on behalf of the Trojans, but simply

on behalf of his own freedom to destroy any other city he may mislike,

however dear it may chance to be to Juno.

[270] Il. viii. 28, 9. ix. 430, 1.

[271] Il. viii. 38-40.

[272] Il. i. 5.

[273] Il. iv. 17-19.

The position of Agamemnon, of which Jupiter is in a great degree a

reflection, bears a near resemblance to that of a political leader

under free European, and, perhaps it may be said, especially under

British, institutions. Its essential elements are, that it is worked in

part by accommodation, and in part by influence.

Besides its grand political function, the ἀγορὴ is, as we have seen,

in part a judicial body. But the great safeguard of publicity attends

the conduct of trials, as well as the discussion of political affairs.

The partialities of people who manifest their feelings by visible signs

is thus prevented, on the one hand, by the cultivation of habitual

self-respect, from passing into fury, and on the other hand, from

degenerating into baseness.

It is perhaps worthy of notice, as assisting to indicate the

substantive and active nature of the popular interest in public

affairs, that where parties were formed in the Assemblies, those who

thought together sat together. Such appears to be the intimation of the

line in the Eighteenth Iliad (502),

λαοὶ δ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπήπυον, ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοί.

As the ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοὶ expresses their sentiments, ἀμφοτέρωθεν can hardly

signify any thing other than that they sat separately on each side

of the Assembly. A similar arrangement seems to be conveyed in the

Twenty-fourth Odyssey, where we find that the party of the Suitors

remained in a mass (τοὶ δ’ ἀθρόοι αὐτόθι μίμνον, v. 464.) I think this

circumstance by no means an unimportant one, as illustrative of the

capacity, in which the people attended at the Assemblies for either

political or judicial purposes.

~_Judicial functions of the Assembly._~

The place of Assemblies is also the place of judicature. But the

supremacy of the political function is indicated by this, that the

word ἀγορὴ, which means the Assembly for debate, thus gives its own

designation to the place where both functions were conducted. At the

same time, we have in the word Themis a clear indication that the

original province of government was judicial. For that word in Homer

signifies the principles of law, though they were not yet reduced to

the fixed forms of after-times; but on the other hand Themis was also

a goddess, and she had in that capacity the office of summoning and of

dissolving Assemblies[274]. Thus the older function, as often happens,

came in time to be the weaker, and had to yield the precedence to its

more vigorous competitor.

[274] Od. ii. 68, 9.

But in Homer’s time, though they were distinguished, they were not yet

divided. On the Shield of Achilles, the work of Themis[275] is done in

full Assembly: and this probably signifies the custom of the time. But

in the Eleventh Iliad, Patroclus passes by the ships of Ulysses[276],

[275] Il. xviii. 497.

[276] Il. xi. 807.

ἵνα σφ’ ἀγορή τε θέμις τε

ἤην.

And, in the description of the Cyclopes, the line is yet more clearly

drawn; for it is said[277],

[277] Od. ix. 112-15.

τοῖσιν δ’ οὔτ’ ἀγοραὶ βουληφόροι, οὔτε θέμιστες.

In that same place, too, the public solemnities of religion were

performed: and though in the Greek camp it was doubtless placed at the

centre of the line with a view to security, its position most aptly

symbolized also its moral centrality, as the very heart of the national

life. At the spot where the Assemblies were held were gathered into a

focus the religious, as well as the patriotic sentiments of the country.

The fact is, that everywhere in Homer we find the signs of an intense

corporate or public life, subsisting and working side by side with

that of the individual. And of this corporate life the ἀγορὴ is the

proper organ. If a man is to be described as great, he is always great

in debate and on the field; if as insignificant and good for nothing,

then he is of no account either in battle or in council. The two grand

forms of common and public action are taken for the criteria of the

individual.

When Homer wished to describe the Cyclopes as living in a state of

barbarism, he says, not that they have no kings, or no towns, or

no armies, or no country, but that they have no Assemblies, and no

administration of justice, which, as we have seen, was the primary

function of the Assemblies. And yet all, or nearly all the States had

Kings. The lesson to be learned is, that in heroic Greece the King,

venerable as was his title, was not the fountainhead of the common

life, but only its exponent. The source lay in the community, and the

community met in the Agorè. So deeply imbedded is this sentiment in

the mind of the Poet, that it seems as if he could not conceive an

assemblage of persons having any kind of common function, without their

having, so to speak, a common soul too in respect of it.

~_The common Soul or Τὶς in Homer._~

Of this common soul the organ in Homer is the Τὶς or ‘Somebody;’

by no means one of the least remarkable, though he has been one of

the least regarded, personages of the poems. The Τὶς of Homer is, I

apprehend, what in England we now call public opinion. We constantly

find occasions, when the Poet wants to tell us what was the prevailing

sentiment among the Greeks of the army. He might have done this

didactically, and described at length the importance of popular

opinion, and its bearings in each case. He has adopted a method more

poetical and less obtrusive. He proceeds dramatically, through the

medium of a person, and of a formula:

ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν, ἰδὼν ἐς πλήσιον ἄλλον.

It may, however, not seem worthy of remark, considering the amount of

common interest among the Greeks, that he should find an organ for it

in his Τίς. But when he brings the Greeks and Trojans together in the

Pact, though it is only for the purpose of a momentary action, still he

makes an integer _pro hâc vice_ of the two nations, and provides them

with a common Τὶς (Il. iii. 319):

ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν Ἀχαιῶν τε Τρώων τε.

We find another remarkable exemplification in the case of the Suitors

in the Odyssey. Dissolute and selfish youths as they are, and

competitors with one another for a prize which one only can enjoy, they

are nevertheless for the moment banded together in a common interest.

They too, therefore, have a collective sentiment, and a ready organ for

it in a Τὶς of the Odyssey (Od. ii. 324), who speaks for the body of

Suitors:

ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκε νέων ὑπερηνορεόντων.

All these are, in my view, most striking proofs of the tenacious hold,

which the principle of a public or corporate life for all aggregations

of men had taken upon the mind of Homer, and upon Greece in the heroic

age. Nor can I help forming the opinion, that in all probability we may

discern in the Homeric Τὶς the primary ancestor of the famous Greek

Chorus. It is the function of the Chorus to give utterance to the

public sentiment, but in a sense apt, virtuous, and pious. Now this is

what the Homeric Τὶς usually does; but of course he does on behalf of

the community, what the Chorus does as belonging to the body of actors.

It is then surely a great error, after all we have seen, to conclude

that, because the political ideas and practices of those times did not

wear the costumes now in fashion, they were without their own real

vitality, and powerful moral influence upon the minds and characters of

men.

~_Imperfect organization of the Heroic Polities._~

But, on the other hand, in repelling these unsound and injurious

notions, we must beware of assuming too much of external resemblance

between the heroic age and the centuries either of modern Christendom

or even of historic Greece and Rome. All the determinate forms of

public right are the growth of long time, of dearbought experience, and

of proved necessity. Right and force are supplements to one another;

but the proportions, in which they are to be mingled, are subject to

no fixed rule. If the existence of rights, both popular and regal,

in the heroic age is certain, their indeterminateness is glaring and

conspicuous. But the shape they bore, notwithstanding the looseness

of its outline, was quite adequate to the needs of the time. We must

not, in connection with the heroic age, think of public life as a

profession, of a standing mass of public affairs, of legislation

eternally in arrear, of a complex machinery of government. There were

no regular regencies in Greece during the Trojan war. There was no

Assembly in Ithaca during the long absence of Ulysses[278], before

the one called by Telemachus, and reported in the Second Book of the

Odyssey. We have seen, however, in what way this lack of machinery

told upon the state of Greece by encouraging faction, and engendering

revolution. The strain of the Trojan expedition was too great for a

system so artless and inorganic. The state of Ithaca in the Odyssey

is politically a state almost of anarchy; though the symptoms of that

disease were milder by far then, than they could now be. The condition

of the island shows us what its polity had been, rather than what it

was. But for all ordinary occasions it had sufficed. For Assemblies

met only when they had something to do; and rarely indeed would such

junctures arrive. Infractions of social order and social rights, which

now more commonly take place by fraud, were then due almost wholly to

violence. And violence, from its nature, could hardly be the subject

of appeal to the Assembly: as a general rule, it required to be repaid

on the instant, and in the same coin. Judicial questions would not

often be of such commanding interest, as to divide a people into two

opinions; nor the parties to them wealthy enough to pay two talents

to the successful judge. Great controversies, affecting allegiance

and the succession, must of necessity in all ages be rare; and of a

disputed succession in Greece the poems can hardly be said to offer

us an instance. We find, however, in the last Book of the Odyssey,

that, according to the ideas of that period, when a question as to

the sovereignty did arise, the people needed no instructor as to the

first measure they were to take. They repaired, as if by a common and

instinctive impulse, to the Agorè; in which lay deposited their civil

rights and their old traditions, like the gems of the wealth of Greece

in the shrine of the Archer Apollo[279].

[278] Tittmann Griech. Staatsv. b. ii. p. 56.

[279] Il. ix. 404.