In the opinion of Mure, the metaphor which represents human affairs
as resting in the lap of the gods (θεῶν ἐν γούνασι), gives conclusive
evidence that the custom of making statues of the deities prevailed
among the Greeks. I do not however see why this particular figure
should bear upon the question, more than any of the other very numerous
representations which treat them as endowed with various members of the
body. If this evidence be receivable at all, it is overwhelming. But
it is open to some doubt, whether, because gods are mentally conceived
according to the laws of anthropomorphism, we may therefore assume that
they were also materially represented under the human form.
We have, I believe, no more than one single piece of direct evidence on
the subject, and it is this; that, when the Trojan matrons carry their
supplication to the temple of Minerva, together with the offering of a
robe, they deposit it on her knees (Il. vi. 303), Ἀθηναίης ἐπὶ γούνασιν
ἠϋκόμοιο. This appears to be quite conclusive as to the existence of a
statue of Minerva at Troy: but it leaves the question entirely open,
whether it was an Hellenic, as well as a Pelasgian, practice thus to
represent the gods.
It is quite plain, I think, that the practice was not one congenial
or familiar to the mind of Homer. Had it been so, he surely must have
made large poetic use of it. Whereas on the contrary it is by inference
alone, though certainly by unavoidable inference, from language which
he uses without that intention, that we become assured even of their
existence in his time. He speaks, indeed, more than once of placing
ἀγάλματα in temples, or of suspending them in honour of the gods[360]:
but our title to construe this of statues appears to be wholly
conjectural.
[360] Od. iii. 438. xii. 347.
It would seem inexplicable that a poet, who enlarges with so much
power, not only on the Shield of Agamemnon and the Arms of Achilles,
but on the ideal Ægis of Minerva, the chariot of Juno, the bow
of Apollo, and the metallic handmaids of Vulcan, should entirely
avoid description of the statues of the Olympian gods, if they were
habitually before his eyes.
I have argued elsewhere that we see in Homer the Hellenic, not the
Pelasgian, mind. And if it be so, then I think we are justified
in associating with his Hellenism, as one among many signs, this
remarkable silence. The ritual and external development of Pelasgian
religion would delight in statues as visible signs: the Hellenic
idealism would not improbably eschew them. Hence we may treat this
practice of the period as belonging to Pelasgian peculiarities.
If this be so, then I think we may pass on to the conclusion, that the
original tendency to produce visible forms of the Divinity was not
owing to, and formed no part of, the efforts of the human imagination,
so largely developed in Homer, to idealize religion, and to beautify
the world by its imagery. But, on the contrary, so far as we can judge
from Homer, it first prevailed among a race inclined to material and
earthy conceptions in theology, and from them it spread to others of
higher intelligence. It was a crutch for the lameness of man, and not
a wing for his upward aspirations.
And indeed, as it appears to me, this proposition is sustained even
by the past experience and present state of Christendom. When faith
was strongest, images were unknown to the faithful. Nor is it art,
which produces them: it is merely a kind of corporal and mechanical
imitation. No considerable work of art is at this moment, I believe, in
any Christian country, an object of religious worship. The sentiment
which craves for material representations of such objects in order
to worship them, appears also commonly to exact that they should be
somewhat materialized. The higher office of art, in connection with
devout affection, seems to be that it should point our veneration
onwards, not arrest it. It holds out the finger which we are to follow,
not the hand which we are to kiss.
~_As to Seers or Diviners._~
The order of Seers or Diviners was common to Greeks, Trojans, and
probably we may add, from its being known among the Cyclopes, to all
contemporary races. It is singular that we should find here, and not
among the priesthood, the traces of caste, or the hereditary descent
of the gift. In all other points, this function stands apart from
hierarchical developments. For the μάντις, except as to his gift,
is like other men. Melampus engages to carry off oxen. Polypheides
migrates upon a quarrel with his father. Cleitus is the lover of
Aurora. Theoclymenus has committed homicide[361]. Teiresias is called
ἄναξ, a lord or prince[362]. We do not know that Calchas fought as
well as prophesied, but it may have been so, since Helenus, the son
of Priam, and Eunomus, the Mysian leader, were seers or augurs not
less than warriors. But the most instructive specimen of this order
among the Greeks is the Suitor Leiodes[363], who was also θυοσκόος,
or inspector of sacrifices, to the body of Suitors. Now Ulysses had,
in consideration of a ransom, spared Maron the priest of Apollo at
Ismarus[364]. But, far from recognising in the professional character
of Leiodes a title to immunity, he answers the plea with characteristic
and deadly repartee. And this, notwithstanding that Leiodes was, as
we learn, distinguished from the rest of the Suitors by the general
decency of his conduct.
[361] Od. xv. 224 _et seqq._
[362] Od. xi. 150.
[363] Od. xxii. 310-29. xxi. 144.
[364] Od. ix. 197-201.
The θυοσκόος apparently inspected sacrifices, but did not offer them;
for this character is clearly distinguished in the Iliad[365] from
that of the priest. Indeed, the word θύειν in Homer appears properly
to apply to those minor offices of sacrifice, which did not involve
the putting to death of victims; as in Il. ix. 219, where, it may be
observed, the function is not performed by the principal person, but
is deputed by Achilles to Patroclus. The inspection of slain animals
would probably stand in the same category, among divine offices, as the
interpretation of other signs and portents.
[365] Il. xxiv. 221.
The members of this class are, upon the whole, as broadly distinguished
from the priests in Homer, as are the prophets of the Old Testament
from the Levitical priesthood.
They were called by the general name of μάντις, or by other names,
some of them more limited: such as θεόπροπος, ὑποφήτης, οἰωνόπολος,
ὀνειρόπολος. They sometimes interpreted from signs and omens;
sometimes, as in Il. vi. 86, and vii. 44, without them.
The diffusion of the gift among the royal house of Troy, where
Polydamas had it as well as Helenus, and possibly also Hector, is less
marked than the great case of the family of Melampus. The augur was
in all respects a citizen, while possessed of a peculiar endowment:
and the ὑποφῆται[366] mentioned in the invocation of Achilles, whether
they were the royal house, or persons dispersed through the community,
evidently formed a more conspicuous object among the Helli than we find
in any Pelasgian race. Again; in Greece we find the oracles of Delphi
and Delos, as well as of Dodona; but there is no similar organ for the
delivery of the divine will reported to us in Troy.
[366] Il. xvi. 235.
~_As to the Priesthood._~
We come now to the last and most important point connected with the
outward development of the religious system, that of the priesthood:
and here I shall endeavour to describe distinctly the evidence with
regard to both nations. First, let us consider the case of priesthood
as it respects the Greeks.
We have at least one instance before us in the Iliad, where a combined
religious action of Greeks and Trojans is presented to us. In the
Third Book, Priam comes from Troy to an open space between the armies,
and meets Agamemnon and Ulysses. The honour of actually offering
the sacrifice is allotted to the Greeks. No priest appears; and the
function is performed by the King, Agamemnon. It is therefore natural
to suppose that the Greeks have with them in Troas no sacrificing
priest. On every occasion, the Greek Sovereign offers sacrifice for
himself and for the army. So also do the soldiery[367] at large for
themselves;
[367] Il. ii. 400.
ἄλλος δ’ ἄλλῳ ἔρεζε θεῶν αἰειγενετάων.
There was an altar[368] for the very purpose in the part of the
camp appropriated for Assemblies; a fact which, though it does not
demonstrate, accords with the union of the regal and sacerdotal
functions. Nor can we account for the absence of priests from the
camp, on the same principle as for that of bards; since poems
were a luxury, but sacrifices a necessity. And we find Calchas
representing the class of religious functionaries that the Greek nation
did acknowledge; namely, the Seers, who interpreted the divine will,
without any fixed ministry belonging to any particular place, although
the gift was generally derived from Apollo, as one among his peculiar
attributes.
[368] Il. xi. 807, 8.
In the remarkable passage, which enumerates for us the principal
trades and professions of Greece in the heroic age[369], we find
mentioned the prophet, the physician, the artificer, the divinely
prompted bard; but not the priest. Yet, had such an order existed, it
could not well, on account of its importance, have been omitted. For in
truth this enumeration is, as we have before seen, nearly exhaustive,
as applied to an age when there was no professional soldier, when the
husbandman, fisherman, or herd, could not be called a δημιοεργὸς,
for he had no relation to the public, and when commerce was confined
to foreigners like the Phœnicians, or pirates like the Taphians, and
formed no part of the business of the settled communities of Greece.
[369] Od. xvii. 384-6.
On the other hand, in the Legend of Phœnix concerning Meleager, we
have a notice of priests as having existed at that time in Ætolia. The
embassy, which was sent to conciliate Meleager, consisted of elders and
of the best, or most distinguished, among the priests;
τὸν δὲ λίσσοντο γέροντες
Αἰτωλῶν, πέμπον δὲ θεῶν ἱερῆας ἀρίστους. Il. ix. 574.
Now, the word Αἰτωλὸς, I apprehend, indicates an Hellenic race, for
Tydeus is Αἰτώλιος; and it is worth notice, that in this passage the
elders are called Ætolian, but not the priests.
Again, this event took place during the reign of Œneus, two generations
before the Trojan war[370]. At that time the Hellenic influence was
quite recent in Middle and in Southern Greece. The family of Sisyphus
had indeed arrived there at least two generations before, but it
disappeared, and it had never risen to great power. It was the date
of Augeias, of Neleus, and of Pelops; all of them, apparently, the
first of their respective families in Peloponnesus. So again the name
Portheus, assigned to the father of Œneus, probably marks him as the
first Hellenic occupant of the country.
[370] Il. ix. 535.
Plato observes, that new settlers might naturally remain for a time
without religious institutions[371] of their own.
[371] Legg. vi. 7.
The Hellenes, then, had recently come into Ætolia at the time, and
even on this ground were less likely to have had priests of their own
institution. But it is not to be supposed that, finding a hierarchy
among the Pelasgian tribes, devoted to the worship of such deities
(Minerva and Apollo for example) as they themselves acknowledged, they
would extirpate such a body. The most probable supposition is, that
it would continue in all cases for a time. The person of Chryses,
the priest of Apollo, was respected, at least for the moment, even
by Agamemnon[372] in his displeasure. Fearless of his threats, the
injured priest immediately appealed to his god for aid. We cannot doubt
that interests thus defended would be generally left intact. Still,
as priests were, in the language of political economy, unproductive
labourers, and as they seem to have held their offices not by descent
but by election, we can easily perceive a road, other than that of
violence, to the extinction of the order among a people that set no
store by its services.
[372] Il. i. 28.
There is yet another place, in which the name is mentioned among the
Greeks. It is in the Assembly of the First Iliad, held while the plague
is raging. Achilles says, ‘Let us inquire of some prophet, or priest,
or interpreter of dreams (for dreams too are from Jupiter), who will
tell us, why Apollo is so much exasperated[373].’ But the allusion here
seems plainly to be to Chryses, who had himself visited the camp, and
had appeared with the insignia of his priestly office in a previous
Assembly of the Greeks[374]. Being now in possession of the whole open
country, they of course had it in their power to consult either him or
any other Trojan priest not within the walls. We cannot, therefore,
argue from this passage, that priesthood was a recognised Hellenic
institution at the period.
[373] Il. i. 62.
[374] Il. i. 15.
In the Odyssey, we find Menelaus engaged in the solemn rites of a great
nuptial feast; and Nestor in like manner offering sacrifice to Neptune,
his titular ancestor, in the presence of thousands of the people. In
neither of these cases is there any reference to a priest: and on the
following day Nestor with his sons offers a new sacrifice, of which the
fullest details are given.
Again, had there been priests among the Homeric Greeks, it is hardly
possible but that we must have had some glimpse of them in Ithaca,
where the order of the community and the whole course of Greek life are
so clearly laid open.
An important piece of negative evidence to the same effect is afforded
by the great invocation of Achilles in the Sixteenth Iliad. It will be
remembered, that we there find the rude highland tribe of the Helli in
possession of the country where Dodona was seated, together with the
worship of the Pelasgian Jupiter; and themselves apparently exercising
the ministry of the god. Now that ministry was not priesthood, but
interpretation; for they are ὑποφῆται, not ἱερῆες[375].
[375] Il. xvi. 235.
It therefore appears clear, that the Hellenic tribes of Homer’s day did
not acknowledge a professional priesthood of their own; that there was
no priest in the Greek armament before Troy; that the priest was not
a constituent part of ordinary Greek communities: and that, if he was
any where to be found in the Homeric times, it was as a relic, and in
connection with the old Pelasgian establishments of the country.
At a later period, when wealth and splendour had increased, and when
the increased demand for them extended also to religious rites, the
priesthood became a regular institution of Greece. It is reckoned by
Aristotle, in the Politics, among the necessary elements of a State;
while he seems also to regard it as the natural employment of those,
who are disqualified by age from the performance of more active duties
to the public, either in war or in council. The priest was, even in
Homer’s time, a distinctly privileged person. Like other people, he
married and had children: but his burdens were not of the heaviest. He
would live well on sacrifices, and the proceeds of glebe-land: and it
is curious, that Maron the priest had the very best wine of which we
hear in the poems[376]. The priest formed no part of the teaching power
of the community, either in this or in later ages. Döllinger makes the
observation[377], that Plutarch points out as the sources of religious
instruction three classes of men, among whom the priests are not even
included. They are (1) the poets, (2) the lawgivers, and (3) the
philosophers: to whom Dio Chrysostom adds the painters and sculptors.
So that Isocrates may well observe, that the priesthood is anybody’s
affair. Plato[378] in the Νόμοι requires his priests, and their parents
too, to be free from blemish and from crime: but carefully appoints
a separate class of ἐξηγηταὶ, to superintend and interpret the laws
of religion; as well as stewards, who are to have charge of the
consecrated property.
[376] Od. ix. 205.
[377] Döllinger, Heid. u. Jud. iv. 1.
[378] Plat. Legg. vi. 7. (ii. 759.)
The priest of the heroic age would however appear to have slightly
shared in the office of the μάντις, although the μάντις had no special
concern with the offering of sacrifice. The inspection of victims would
fall to priests, almost of course, in a greater or a less degree; and
there is some evidence before us, that they were entitled to interpret
the divine will. It is furnished by the speech of Achilles[379], which
appears to imply some professional capacity of this kind: and, for
Troy at least, by the declaration[380] of Priam, who mentions priests
among the persons, that might have been employed to report to him a
communication from heaven.
[379] Il. i. 62.
[380] Il. xxiv. 22.
We have now seen the case of priesthood among the Greeks. With the
Trojans it is quite otherwise. We are introduced, at the very beginning
of the Iliad, to Chryses[381] the priest (ἱερεὺς) of Apollo. In the
fifth Iliad we have a Trojan[382], Dares, who is priest of Vulcan; and
we have also Dolopion, who, as ἀρητὴρ[383] of the Scamander, filled
an office apparently equivalent. Chryses the priest is also called an
ἀρητήρ[384]; and though, on the other hand, it was the duty of Leiodes
in the Odyssey to offer[385] prayer on behalf of the Suitors, yet
he is never termed ἀρητήρ. In the Sixth Iliad appears Theano, wife
of Antenor, and priestess of Minerva[386]. And in the Sixteenth, we
have Onetor[387], priest of Idæan Jupiter. Again, while Eumæus in the
Odyssey does not recognise the priest among the Greek professions, but
substitutes the prophet, Priam, on the contrary, in the Twenty-fourth
Iliad, says he would not have obeyed the injunction to go to the
Greek camp if conveyed to him by any mortal, of such as are in these
professions[388],
[381] Il. i. 23.
[382] Il. v. 9.
[383] Ibid. 76.
[384] Il. i. 11.
[385] Od. xxii. 322.
[386] Il. vi. 298.
[387] Il. xvi. 604.
[388] Il. xxiv. 221.
ἢ οἳ μάντιές εἰσι, θυοσκόοι, ἢ ἱερῆες,
where it might be questioned, whether μάντις and θυοσκόος are different
persons, or whether he speaks of the μάντις θυοσκόος; but in either
case it is equally clear that he names the priest, ἱερεὺς, apart from
either. The speech of Mentes, in Od. i. 202, probably suffices to draw
the line between the μάντις and the θυοσκόος.
It further appears that among the allies of Troy, as well as in the
country, the priest was known; for in the Ninth Odyssey we find
Maron, son of Euanthes the priest of Apollo at Ismarus[389], among
the Cicones. The city they inhabited was sacked by Ulysses on his way
from Troy, and on this account we must infer that, as they were allies
of Troy (Il. ii. 846), so likewise they belonged to the family of
Pelasgian tribes.
[389] Od. ix. 196-9.
To these priests, personally engaged in the service of the deities, a
personal veneration, and an exemption from military service, appear to
have attached, which were not enjoyed by the μάντιες. This is plainly
developed in the case of Chryses. The offence is not that of carrying
off a captive, for there could be no guilt in the act, as such matters
were then considered, but rather honour: it is the insult offered to
Apollo in the person of his servant, by subjecting his daughter to the
common lot of women of all ranks, including the highest, that draws
down a frightful vengeance on the army. So, again, the priest never
fought; Dolopion, Dares, and Onetor, all become known to us through
their having sons in the army, whose parentage is mentioned. And as
to the priest Maron, Ulysses says he was spared from a feeling of awe
towards the god, in whose wooded grove, or portion, he resided[390]:
[390] Ibid. 199-201.
οὕνεκά μιν σὺν παιδὶ περισχόμεθ’ ἠδὲ γυναικὶ
ἁζόμενοι· ᾤκει γὰρ ἐν ἄλσεϊ δενδρήεντι
Φοίβου Ἀπόλλωνος.
But it does not appear that the μάντις, though he was endowed with a
particular gift, bore, in respect of it, such a character, as would
suffice to separate him from ordinary civil duties, and to make him,
like the priest, a clearly privileged person.
Upon the other hand, we should not omit to notice that we are told
in the case of Theano, though she was of high birth and the wife of
Antenor, that she was made priestess by the Trojan people. The same
fact is probably indicated in the case of Dolopion, who, we are told,
had been made or appointed ἀρητὴρ to Scamander (ἀρητὴρ ἐτέτυκτο Il. v.
77). And the appearance of the sons of priests in the field appears to
show, that there was nothing like hereditary succession in the order;
which was replenished, we may probably conclude, by selections having
the authority or the assent of the public voice. Thus the body was
popularly constituted, and was in thorough harmony with the national
character. It does not, on that account, constitute a less important
element in the community, but rather the reverse.
Now, whatever might be the other moral and social consequences of
having in the community an order of men set apart to maintain the
solemn worship of the gods, it must evidently have exercised a very
powerful influence in the maintenance of abundance and punctuality in
ritual observances. There can be no doubt, that the priest lived by
the altar which he served, and lived the better in proportion as it
was better supplied. Besides animals, cakes of flour too, and wine,
were necessary for the due performance of his office[391]; and in the
case of Maron this wine was so good, that the priest kept it secret
from his servants, and that it has drawn forth the Poet’s most genial
praise[392]:
[391] Il. i. 458, 462.
[392] Od. ix. 205.
ἡδὺν, ἀκηράσιον, θεῖον ποτόν·
He was rich too; for he had men and women servants in his house. So
was Dares, the priest of Vulcan[393]. So probably was Dolopion, priest
of Scamander; at any rate his station was a high one; as we see from
the kind of respect paid to him (θεὸς δ’ ὡς τίετο δήμῳ); and we have
another sign in both these cases of the station of the parents, from
the position of the sons in the army, which is not among the common
soldiery (πληθὺς), but among the notables. The sons of Dares fight in
a chariot; and the name of Hypsenor, son of Dolopion, by its etymology
indicates high birth.
[393] Il. v. 9, 78.
~_Comparative observance of Sacrifice._~
In point of fact the Homeric poems exhibit to us, together with the
existence and influence of a priestly order, a very marked distinction
in respect to sacrifice between the Trojans and the Greeks: a state of
things in entire conformity with what we might thus expect.
In no single instance do we hear of a Trojan chief, who had been
niggardly in his banquets to the gods. Hector[394] is expressly
praised for his liberality in this respect by Jupiter, and Æneas
by Neptune[395]. The commendation, however, extends to the whole
community. In the Olympian Assembly of the Fourth Book, Jupiter says
that, of all the cities inhabited by men, Troy is to him the dearest;
for there his altar never lacked the sacrifice, the libation and the
savoury reek, which are the portion of the gods[396]:
[394] Il. xxii. 170. xxiv. 168.
[395] Il. xx. 298.
[396] Il. iv. 48.
οὐ γάρ μοί ποτε βωμὸς ἐδεύετο δαιτὸς ἐΐσης,
λοιβῆς τε κνίσης τε· τὸ γὰρ λάχομεν γέρας ἡμεῖς.
But the Greeks, thus destitute of priests, often fail, as we might
expect, in the regularity of their religious rites. Ulysses[397],
indeed, is in this, as in all the points of excellence, unimpeachable.
But his was not the rule of all. Œneus, two generations before the
_Troica_, while sacrificing to the other deities, either forgot or did
not think fit (ἢ λάθετ’ ἢ οὐκ ἐνόησεν) to sacrifice to Diana[398];
hence the devastations of the Calydonian boar. Nor is his the only case
in point.
[397] Od. i. 61.
[398] Il. ix. 523.
The account given by Nestor to Telemachus in the Third Odyssey is
somewhat obscure in this particular. He says that, after the Greeks
embarked, the deity dispersed them; and that then Jupiter ordained the
misfortunes of their return, since they were not all intelligent and
righteous[399]. It appears to be here intimated, that the Greeks in
the first flush of victory forgot the influence of heaven; and that an
omission of the proper sacrifices was the cause of the first dispersion.
[399] Od. iii. 131.
After they collect again in Troas, the Atreid brothers differ, as
Menelaus proposes to start again, and Agamemnon to remain, and offer
sacrifices in order to appease Minerva; but, as Nestor adds, the
deities are not so soon appeased. Agamemnon, therefore, seems to have
been too late with his celebration; and Menelaus, again, to have
omitted it altogether.
The party who side with Menelaus offer sacrifices on their arrival at
Tenedos, seemingly to repair the former error: but Jupiter is incensed,
and causes them to fall out anew among themselves. A portion of them
return once more to Agamemnon[400].
[400] Ibid. 164.
Menelaus finds his way to Lesbos, and then sails as far as Malea. Here
he encounters a storm, and with part of his ships he gets to Egypt:
where he is again detained by the deities, because he did not offer up
the proper hecatombs[401]. Such remissness is the more remarkable,
because Menelaus certainly appears to be one of the most virtuous
characters in the Greek host.
[401] Ibid. 135.
The course, however, of the siege itself affords a very marked
instance, in which the whole body of the Greeks was guilty of omitting
the regular sacrifices proper to be used in the inauguration of a great
undertaking. In the hasty construction of the trench and rampart, they
apparently forgot the hecatombs[402]. Neptune immediately points out
the error in the Olympian Court; and uses it in aid of his displeasure
at a work, which he thinks will eclipse the wall of Troy, executed
for Laomedon by himself in conjunction with Apollo. Jupiter forthwith
agrees[403], that after the siege he shall destroy it. And the Poet,
returning to the subject at the commencement of the Twelfth Book,
observes that the work could not last, because it was constructed
without enlisting in its favour the good will of the Immortals[404].
This omission of the Greeks is the more characteristic and remarkable,
because the moment when they erected the rampart was a moment of
apprehension, almost of distress.
[402] Il. vii. 450.
[403] Ibid. 459.
[404] Il. xii. 3, 9.
Thus, then, it appears that, as a nation, the Trojans were much
more given to religious observances of a positive kind, than the
Greeks. They were, like the Athenians[405] at a later epoch,
δεισιδαιμονέστεροι. And, again, as between one Greek and another,
there is no doubt that the good are generally, though not invariably,
scrupulous in this respect, and the bad commonly careless. Thus much
is implied particularly in Od. iii. 131, as well as conclusively shown
in the general order of the Odyssey. But, as between the two nations,
we cannot conceive that the Poet had any corresponding intention.
Although a more scrupulous formality in religion marks the Trojans
than the Greeks, and although in itself, and _cæteris paribus_, this
may be the appropriate sign of piety, yet it is a sign only; as a sign
it may be made a substitute, and, as a substitute, it becomes the
characteristic of Ægisthus and Autolycus, no less than it is of Eumæus
and Ulysses. As between the two nations, the difference is evidently
associated with other differences in national character and morality.
We must look therefore for broader grounds, upon which to form an
estimate of the comparative virtue of the two nations, than either the
populousness of Olympus on the one side, or the array of priests and
temples on the other.
[405] Acts xvii. 22.
Nowhere do the signs of historic aim in Homer seem to me more evident,
than in his very distinct delineations of national character on
the Greek and the Trojan part respectively. But this is a general
proposition; and it must be understood with a certain reservation as to
details.
~_Two modes of handling for Greece and Troy._~
It does not appear to me that Homer has studied the more minute points
of consistency in motive and action among the Trojans of the poem, in
the same degree as among the Greeks. He has (so to speak) manœuvred
them as subsidiary figures, with a view to enhancing and setting
off those in whom he has intended and caused the principal interest
to centre; not so as to destroy or diminish effects of individual
character, but so as to give to the collective or joint action on the
Trojan side a subordinate and ministerial function in the machinery
of the poem. As Homer sung to Greeks, and Greeks were his judges and
patrons as well as his theme, nay rather as his heart and soul were
Greek, so on the Greek side the chain of events is closely knit; if
its direction changes, there is an adequate cause, as in the vehemence
of Achilles, or the vacillation of Agamemnon. But he did not sing to
Trojans; and so, among the Trojans of the Iliad, there are as it were
stitches dropped in the web, and the connection is much less carefully
elaborated. Thus they acquiesce in the breach of covenant after the
single combat of the Third Book, although the evident wish among
them, independent of obligation, was for its fulfilment[406]. Then
in the Fourth Book, after the treachery of Pandarus, the Trojans not
only do not resent it, but they recommence the fight while the Greek
chiefs are tending the wounded Menelaus[407]; which conduct exhibits,
if the phrase may be permitted, an extravagance of disregard to the
obligations of truth and honour. Hector, in the Sixth Book, quits the
battle field upon an errand, to which it is hardly possible to assign
a poetical sufficiency of cause, unless we refer it to the readiness
which he not unfrequently shows to keep himself out of the fight.
Again, there is something awkward and out of keeping in his manner of
dealing with the Fabian recommendations of Polydamas when the crisis
approaches. Some of these he accepts, and some he rejects, without
adequate reason for the difference, except that he is preparing himself
as an illustrious victim for Achilles, and that he must act foolishly
in order that the superior hero, and with him the poem itself, may not
be baulked of their purpose.
[406] Il. iii. 451-4.
[407] Il. iv. 220.
Thus, again, Homer has given us a pretty clear idea even of the
respective ages of the Greek chiefs. It can hardly be doubted that
Nestor stands first, Idomeneus second, Ulysses third: while Diomed
and Antilochus are the youngest; Ajax and Achilles probably the next.
But as to Paris, Helenus, Æneas, Sarpedon, Polydamas, we find no
conclusion as to their respective ages derivable from the poem.
Yet though Homer may use a greater degree of liberty in one case,
and a lesser in another, as to the mode of setting his jewels, he
always adheres to the general laws of truth and nature as they address
themselves to his poetical purpose. Thus there may be reason to doubt,
whether he observed the same rigid topographical accuracy in dealing
with the plain of Troy, as he has evinced in the Greek Catalogue: but
he has used materials, all of which the region supplied; and he has
arranged them clearly, as a poetic whole, before the mental eye of
those with whom he had to do. Even so we may be prepared to find that
he deals with the moral as with the material Troas, allowing himself
somewhat more of license, burdening himself with somewhat less of
care. And then we need not be surprised at secondary or inferential
inconsistencies in the action, as respects the Trojan people, because
it has not been worth his while to work the delineation of them, in
its details, up to his highest standard; yet we may rely upon his
general representations, and we are probably on secure ground in
contemplating all the main features of Trojan life and character as
not less deliberately drawn, than those of the Greeks. For, in truth,
it was requisite, in order to give full effect among his countrymen to
the Greek portrait, that they should be able, at least up to a certain
point, to compare it with the Trojan.
~_Moral superiority of his Greeks._~
Regarding the subject from this point of view, I should say that Homer
has, upon the whole, assigned to the Greeks a moral superiority over
the Trojans, not less real, though less broad and more chequered, than
that which he has given them in the spheres of intellectual and of
military excellence. But, in all cases alike, he has pursued the same
method of casting the balance. He eschews the vulgar and commonplace
expedient of a formal award: he decides this and every other question
through the medium of action. The first thing, therefore, to be done
is, to inquire into the morality of his contemporaries, as it is
exhibited through the main action of the poems.
It is admitted on all hands that, in the ethical picture of the
Odyssey, the distinctions of right and wrong are broad, clear, and
conspicuous. But the case of the Iliad is not so simple. The conduct
of Paris, which leads to the war, is so flagrant and vile, and the
conduct of the Greeks in demanding the restoration of Helen before they
resort to force, so just and reasonable, that it is not unnaturally
made matter of surprise that any war could ever have arisen upon such a
subject, except the war of a wronged and justly incensed people against
mere ruffians, traitors, and pirates. The Trojans appear at first sight
simply as assertors of a wrong the most gross and aggravated, even in
its original form; their iniquity is further darkened by obstinacy, and
their cause is the cause of enmity to every law, human and divine. Yet
the Greeks do not assume to themselves, in connection with the cause of
the war, to stand upon a different level of morality: and the amiable
affections, with the sense of humanity, if not the principles of honour
and justice, are exhibited in the detail of the Iliad as prevailing
among the Trojans, little less than among the Greeks.
Now, let us first endeavour to clear away some misapprehensions that
simply darken the case: and after this let us inquire what exhibition
Homer has really given us of the moral sense of the Greeks and the
Trojans respectively, in connection with the crime of Paris.
In the first place, something is due to the falsification by later
poets of the Homeric tradition: and to the reflex affiliation upon
Homer of those traits which, through the influence first of the Cyclic
poets, probably exaggerating the case in order to conceal their
relative want of strength, and then of the tragedians and Virgil,
have come to be taken for granted as genuine parts of the original
portraiture.
According to the Argument of the Κύπρια Ἔπη, as it has been handed down
to us, Paris, having been received in hospitality by Menelaus, was left
by him under the friendly care of his wife, on his setting out for
Crete. He then corrupted Helen; and induced her, after being corrupted,
to elope with him, and with the greater part of the moveable goods of
Menelaus.
Upon this tale our ideas have been formed, and, this being so, we
marvel why Homer does not make the Greeks feel more indignation at a
proceeding which simply combined treachery, robbery, and adultery. As
he prizes so highly the rights of guests, and pitches their gratitude
accordingly, we cannot understand how he should be so insensible to the
grossest imaginable breach of their obligations.
~_Homer’s account of the abduction._~
Homer is here made responsible for that which, in part, he does not
tell us, and which is positively, as well as inferentially, at variance
with what he does tell us. He tells us absolutely, that Helen was not
inveigled into leaving Sparta, but carried off by force: and that the
crime of adultery was committed after, and not before, her abduction.
This difference alters the character of the deed of Paris, in a
manner by no means so insignificant according to the heroic standard
of morality, as according to ours. As it seems plain from Homer’s
expression, ἁρπάξας[408], that Paris carried off Helen in the first
instance by an act of violence, so also it is probable that, when
the first adultery was committed in the island of Cranae, he was her
ravisher much more than her corrupter. Her offence appears to have
consisted mainly in the mere acceptance, at what precise date we know
not, of the relation thus brought into existence between them, and in
compliances that with the lapse of time naturally followed, such as
the visit to the Trojan horse. It would have been, however, under all
the circumstances, an act of superhuman rather than of human virtue,
if she had refused, through the long years of her residence abroad, to
recognise Paris as a husband: and accordingly the light, in which she
is presented to us by the Poet, is that of a sufferer infinitely more
than of an offender[409].
[408] Il. iii. 444.
[409] See inf. Aoidos, sect. vi.
When we regard Helen from this point of view, we perceive that Homer’s
narrative is at least in perfect keeping with itself. The Greeks have
made war to avenge the wrongs of Helen not less than those of Menelaus:
nay, Menelaus himself, the keenest of them all, is keen on her behalf
even more than on his own[410]. He regards her as a person stolen from
him: and the Greeks regard Paris only as the robber.
[410] Il. ii. 589.
We have no reason to suppose the Cyprian Epic to be a trustworthy
supplement to the narrative of Homer. We have seen some important
points of discrepancy from the Iliad. And there are others. For
instance, this poem makes Pollux immortal and Castor only mortal, while
Homer acquaints us in the Iliad with the interment of both, and in the
Odyssey with their restoration on equal terms to an alternate life. It
gives Agamemnon four daughters, the Iliad but three. It brings Briseis
from Pedasus, the Iliad brings her from Lyrnessus. And there is other
matter in the plot, that does not appear to correspond at all with the
modes of Homeric conception[411]. Had Homer told us the same story as
the Cyprian Epic, he would perhaps have made his countrymen express all
the indignation we could desire.
[411] Düntzer, pp. 9-16. Fragm. iv. xi. xv.
And now let us consider what is the view taken of the abduction in the
Iliad by the various persons whose sentiments are made known to us:
and how far that view can be accounted for by the general tone of the
age, or by what was peculiar to the character and institutions of each
people respectively.
Helen herself nowhere utters a word of attachment or of respect to
Paris. Even of his passions she appears to have been the reluctant,
rather than the willing instrument. She thinks alike meanly of his
understanding[412] and of his courage[413]: and he shares[414] in the
rebukes which she everywhere heaps upon herself; though, with the
delicacy and high refinement of her irresolute but gentle character,
she never reproaches him in the presence of his parents, by whom he
continued to be loved.
[412] Il. vi. 352.
[413] Il. iii. 428-36, and vi. 351.
[414] Il. vi. 356.
To the Trojan people he was unequivocally hateful[415]. They would have
pointed him out to Agamemnon, if they could: for they detested him like
black Death. It was by a mixture of bribery and the daring assertion
of authority, that he checked those movements in the Assembly, which
had it for their object to enforce the restoration of Helen to
Menelaus[416]. Of all his countrymen, Hector appears to have been most
alive to his guilt, and is alone in reproaching him with it[417]. It is
under the influence of a sharp rebuke from Hector, that he proposes to
undertake a single combat with Menelaus[418].
[415] Il. iii. 453.
[416] Il. vii. 354-64, and xi. 123.
[417] Il. iii. 46-53.
[418] Ibid. 68-75.
~_The Greek estimate of Paris._~
The only persons on the Greek side, who utter any strong sentiment
in respect to Paris, are Diomed and Menelaus. This is singular; for
when we consider what was the cause of war, we might have expected,
perhaps, that recurrence to it would be popular and constant among the
Greeks. Nor is this all that may excite surprise. Diomed is unmeasured
in vituperating Paris, but it is for his cowardice and effeminacy.
The only word, which comes at all near the subject of his crime, is
παρθενοπῖπα: and by mocking him as a dangler after virgins, the brave
son of Tydeus shows how small a place the original treachery of Paris
occupied in his mind.
Menelaus, indeed, has a keen sense of the specific nature and malignity
of the outrage. He beseeches Jupiter to strengthen his hand against the
man who has done such deadly wrong, not to him only, but to all the
laws which unite mankind:
ὄφρα τις ἐρρίγῃσι καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἀνθρώπων
ξεινοδόκον κακὰ ῥέξαι, ὅ κεν φιλότητα παράσχῃ[419].
[419] Ibid. 351-4.
But then Homer has already, in the Catalogue, introduced Menelaus to
us as distinguished from the rest of his countrymen, by his greater
keenness to revenge the wrongs and groans of Helen[420]. Accordingly,
the injured husband returns on other occasions to the topic: calls the
Trojans κακαὶ κύνες, and invokes upon them the anger of Ζεὺς ξείνιος,
the Jupiter of hospitality[421];
[420] Il. ii. 588-90.
[421] Il. xiii. 620-7.
οἵ μευ κουριδίην ἄλοχον καὶ κτῄματα πολλὰ
μὰψ οἴχεσθ’ ἀνάγοντες, ἐπεὶ φιλέεσθε παρ’ αὐτῇ.
Thus it is plain, that Menelaus resents not only a privation and an
act of piracy, but a base and black breach of faith. It is quite
plain, on the other hand, that in this respect he stands alone among
his countrymen. They, regarding the matter more crudely, and from a
distance, appear to see in it little beyond a violent abduction, which
it is perfectly right, for those who can, to resent and retrieve, but
which implies no extraordinary and damning guilt in the perpetrator.
Hence probably that singular appearance of apathy on the part of the
Greeks, which might at first sight seem to entail on them a moral
reproach, in some degree allied to that which justly attaches itself
to the Trojan community. It is not possible, indeed, to take a full
measure of their state of mind in regard to the crime of Paris,
without condemning the views and propensities to which it was due.
But the causes were various: and the blame they may deserve is both
very different from that which must fall upon the Trojans, and is
also different in a mode, which may help to illustrate some main
distinctions in the two national characters.
I speak here, as everywhere, of the adjustment of acts and motives
in the poem as poetical facts, that is to say, as placed relatively
to one another with care and accuracy in order to certain effects;
and as liable to be tried under the law of effect, just as, in a
simple history, all particulars alleged are liable to be tried under
the law of fact. The assumption of truth or fable in the poem does
not materially widen or narrow the field of poetical discussion. The
critic looks for consistency as between motive and action, causes and
effects, in the voyage to Lilliput or Laputa, as well as in Thucydides
or Clarendon. The difference is that, in the one case, our discussion
terminates with the genius of the inventor; in the other we are
verifying the life and condition of mankind.
If then we admit the abduction, and inquire for what probable cause it
is that the wrong, being so obvious and gross, was not more prominent
in the mind of the people who had endured it, a part at least of the
answer is this. We do not require to go back three thousand years in
the history of the world in order to learn how often it happens that,
when a conflict has arisen between nations, the original causes of
quarrel tend irresistibly to become absorbed and lost in its incidents.
As long as honour and security are held to depend more on strength than
on right, relative strength must often prevail over relative right
in the decision of questions, where the arbitrement of battle has
been invoked. Both the willingness of the Trojans to restore, and the
willingness of the Greeks to accept the atonement, may be expedients of
the Poet to give a certain moral harmony to his work; of which it is
a marked feature that it artfully divides our sympathies throughout,
so far at least as is needed for the interest of the poem. On the one
side, the ambition and rapacity of Agamemnon may have induced him not
only not to seek, but even to decline or discourage accommodation;
which, we may observe, he never promotes in the Iliad. Having got a
fair cause of war, he may have been bent on making the most of it,
and confident, as Thucydides believes he was, in his power to turn it
to account. While, on the other hand, Troy was not so far from or so
strange to Greece, as to be exempt from the fear of appearing afraid;
and, until it had become too late, she may have thought her safety
would be compromised by the surrender of Helen.
Here may be reasons why restitution was neither given on the one side,
nor steadily kept in view on the other: especially as it was of course
included in the idea of the capture of the city. But it is not clear
that this was enough to account for the apathy of the Greeks in general
with respect to the crime of Paris, which we might have expected to
find a favourite and familiar topic with his enemies at large, instead
of being confined, as it is, to the immediate sufferer by the wrong.
~_Its relation to prevailing views of marriage._~
Now, the answer to this question must after all be sought partly in
the prevalent ideas of the heroic age; and partly in those which were
peculiar more or less to the Greek people.
According to Christian morality, the abduction and appropriation of a
married woman is not simply a crime when committed, but it is a crime
that is aggravated by every day, during which her relation with her
seducer or ravisher is continued. This was not so in the heroic age.
We have examples in the poems of what Homer considers to be a continued
course of crime. Such is the conduct of the Suitors in the Odyssey,
who for years together waste the substance of Ulysses, woo his wife,
oppress his son, and cohabit with the servants. This was habitual
crime, crime voluntarily and deliberately persevered in, when it might
at any time have been renounced.
This vicious course of the Suitors is never called by Homer an ἄτη; it
is described by the names of ἀτασθαλίαι and ὑπερβασίη[422]. So likewise
the series of enormities committed by Ægisthus, the corruption of
Clytemnestra, the murder of her husband, the expulsion of Orestes and
prolonged usurpation of the throne; these are never called by the name
of ἄτη; but ἄτη, and not one of the severer names quoted above, is the
appellation always given by Homer to the crime of Paris.
[422] Od. xxi. 146. xxiii. 67. xiii. 193. xxii. 64. See Olympus, sect.
ii. p. 162.
The ἄτη of a man is a crime so far partaking of the nature of error,
that it is done under the influence of passion or weakness; perhaps
excluding premeditation, perhaps such that its consequences follow
spontaneously in its train, without a new act of will to draw them,
so that the act, when once committed, is practically irretrievable.
Something, according to Homer, was evidently wanting in the crime of
Paris, to sink it to the lower depths of blackness. Perhaps we may find
it partly in the nature of marriage, as it was viewed by his age.
Having taken Helen to Troy, he made her his wife, and his wife she
continued until the end of the siege. We should of course say he did
not make her his wife, for she was the wife of another man. But the
distinction between marriage _de facto_ and marriage _de jure_, clear
to us in the light of Divine Revelation, was less clear to the age of
Homer. Helen was to Paris the mistress of his household; the possessor
of his affections, such as they were; the sole sharer, apparently,
of his dignities and of his bed. To the mind of that period there
was nothing dishonourable in the connection itself, apart from its
origin; while, to our mind, every day of its continuance was a fresh
accumulation of its guilt. The higher wrong of wounded and defrauded
affections was personal to Menelaus. In the aspect it presented to the
general understanding, the act of Paris, once committed, and sealed by
the establishment of the _de facto_ conjugal relation, remained an act
of plunder and nothing else.
~_And to Greek views of homicide._~
To comprehend these notions, so widely differing from our own, we may
seek their further illustration by a reference to the established view
of homicide. He, who had taken the life of a fellow creature, was
bound to make atonement by the payment of a fine. If he offered that
atonement, it was not only the custom, but the duty, of the relations
of the slain man to accept it. So much so, that the blunt mind of
Ajax takes this ground as the simplest and surest for argument with
Achilles, whom he urges not to refuse reparation offered by Agamemnon,
in consideration that reparation (ποίνη) covers the slaughter of a
brother or a son. Beforehand, the Greek would have scorned to accept a
price for life. But, the deed being done, it came into the category of
exchangeable values. Even so the abstraction of Helen, once committed,
assumed for the common mind the character of an act of plunder,
differing from the case of homicide, inasmuch as the thing taken could
be given back, but not differing from it as to the essence of its moral
nature, however aggravated might have been the circumstances with which
it was originally attended.
Now, wherever the moral judgment against plunder has been greatly
relaxed, that of fraud in connection with it is sure to undergo a
similar process; because, in the same degree in which acts of plunder
are acquitted as lawful acquisition, fraud is sure to come into
credit by assuming the character of stratagem. We may, I think, find
an example of this rule in the Thirteenth Odyssey; where, with an
entire freedom from any consciousness of wrong, Ulysses feigns to have
slaughtered Orsilochus at night by ambush, in consequence of a quarrel
that had previously occurred about booty[423].
[423] Od. xiii. 258 et seqq.
Here then we reach the point, at which we must take into view the
peculiar ideas and tendencies of the Greek mind in the heroic age,
as they bear necessarily upon its appreciation of an act like that
of Paris. The Greeks, of whom we may fairly take Diomed as the type,
detest and despise him for affectation, irresolution, and poltroonery:
these are the ideas uppermost in their mind: we are not to doubt that,
besides seeking reparation for Menelaus, they condemned morally the
act which made it needful; what we have to account for is, that they
did not condemn it in such a manner as to make this moral judgment the
ruling idea in their minds with regard to him.
We have seen that, according to Homer, instead of Helen’s having been
originally the willing partner of the guilt of Paris, he was, under her
husband’s roof, her kidnapper and not her corrupter. Her offence seems
to have consisted in this, that she gave a half-willing assent to the
consequences of the abduction. Though never escaping from the sense of
shame, always retaining along with a wounded conscience her original
refinement of character, and apparently fluctuating from time to time
in an alternate strength and weakness of homeward longings[424], the
specific form of her offence, according to the ideas of the age, was
rather the preterite one of unresisting acquiescence, than the fact
of continuing to recognise Paris as a husband during the lifetime of
Menelaus. It was the having changed her husband, not the living with a
man who was not her husband; and hence we find that she was most kindly
treated in Troy by that member of the royal house, namely Hector, who
was himself of the highest moral tone.
[424] See Il. iii. 139. Od. iv. 259-61.
The offence of Paris, though also (except as to the mere restitution
of plundered goods) a preterite offence, was more complex. He violated
the laws of hospitality, as we find distinctly charged upon him by
Menelaus[425]. He assumed the power of a husband over another man’s
wife. This he gained by violence. Now, paradoxical as it may appear,
yet perhaps this very ingredient of violence, which we look upon as
even aggravating the case, and which in the view of the Greeks was the
proper cause of the war, (for their anxiety was to avenge the forced
journey and the groans of Helen,) may nevertheless have been also the
very ingredient, which morally redeemed the character of the proceeding
in the eyes of Greece. This it might do by lifting it out of the
region of mere shame and baseness, into that class of manful wrongs,
which they habitually regarded as matters to be redressed indeed by
the strong hand, but never as merely infamous. Hence, when we find the
Greeks full of disgust and of contempt towards Paris, it is only for
the effeminacy and poltroonery of character which he showed in the war.
His original crime was probably palliated to them by its seeming to
involve something of manhood and of the spirit of adventure. So that we
may thus have to seek the key to the inadequate sense among the Greeks
of the guilt of Paris in that which, as we have seen, was the capital
weakness of their morality; namely, its light estimation of crimes of
violence, and its tendency to recognise their enterprise and daring as
an actual set-off against whatever moral wrong they might involve.
[425] Il. iii. 354.
The chance legend of Hercules and Iphitus, in the Odyssey, affords the
most valuable and pointed illustration of the great moral question[426]
between Paris and Menelaus, which lies at the very foundation of the
great structure of the Iliad. For in that case also, we seem to find
an instance of abominable crime, which notwithstanding did not destroy
the character of its perpetrator, nor prevent his attaining to Olympus;
apparently for no other reason, than that it was a crime such as had
probably required for its commission the exercise of masculine strength
and daring.
[426] Vid. Od. xxi. 22-30.
There remained, however, even according to contemporary ideas, quite
enough of guilt on the part of Paris. The abduction and corruption of
a prince’s wife, combined with his personal cowardice, his constant
levity and vacillation, and his reckless indifference to his country’s
danger and affliction, amply suffice to warrant and account for Homer’s
having represented him as a personage hated, hateful, and contemptible.
But while the foregoing considerations may explain the feelings and
language of the Greeks, otherwise inexplicable, there still remains
enough of what at first sight is puzzling in the conduct, if not in the
sentiments, of the Trojans.
~_The Trojan estimate of Paris._~
We ask ourselves, how could the Trojans endure, or how could Homer
rationally represent them as enduring, to see the glorious wealth and
state of Priam, with their own lives, families, and fortunes, put upon
the die, rather than surrender Helen, or support Paris in withholding
her? The people hate him: the wise Antenor opens in public assembly the
proposal to restore Helen to the Greeks: Hector, the prince of greatest
influence, almost the actual governor of Troy, knew his brother’s
guilt, and reproached him with it[427]. How is it that, of all these
elements and materials, none ever become effective?
[427] Il. iii. 46-57.
We must, I think, seek the answer to the questions partly in the
difference of the moral tone, and the moral code, among Greeks and
Trojans; partly in the difference of their political institutions.
We shall find it probable that, although the ostensible privileges
of the people were not less, yet the same spirit of freedom did not
pervade Trojan institutions; that their kings were followed with a more
servile reverence by the people; that authority was of more avail,
apart from rational persuasion; that amidst equally strong sentiments
of connection in the family and the tribe, there was much less of moral
firmness and decision than among the Greeks, and perhaps also a far
less close adherence to the great laws of conjugal union, which had
been violated by the act of Paris. Indeed it would appear from the
allusion of Hector to a tunic of stone[428], that Paris was probably by
law subject to stoning for the crime of adultery: a curious remnant, if
the interpretation be a correct one, of the stern traits of pristine
justice and severity, still remembered amidst a prevalent dissolution
of the stricter moral ties.
[428] Il. iii. 57.
Although it results from our previous inquiries that the plebeian
_substratum_, so to speak, of society, was perhaps nearly the same in
both countries, yet the opinions of the masses would not then have the
same substantiveness of character, nor so much independence of origin,
as in times of Christianity, and of a more elaborate development of
freedom and its main conditions. Then, much more than now, the first
propelling power in the formation of public opinion would be from the
high places of society: and in the higher sphere of the community, if
not in the lower, Greece and Troy were, while ethnically allied, yet
materially different as to moral tone. It is remarkable, that there is
no Τὶς in Troy.
~_The Trojans more sensual and false._~
If we may trust the general effect of Homer’s representations, we
shall conclude that the Trojans were more given to the vices of
sensuality and falsehood, the Greeks, on the other hand, more inclined
to crimes of violence: in fact, the latter bear the characteristics of
a more masculine, and the former of a feebler, people. In the words
of Mure, the contrast shadows forth ‘certain fundamental features of
distinction, which have always been more or less observable, between
the European and Asiatic races[429].’
[429] Greek Lit. vol. i. p. 339.
On looking back to the previous history of Troy, we find that Laomedon
defrauded Neptune and Apollo of their stipulated hire: and Anchises
surreptitiously obtained a breed of horses from the sires belonging to
Laomedon, who was his relative[430]. The conditions of the bargain,
under which Paris fought with Menelaus, are shamelessly and grossly
violated. Pandarus, in the interval of truce, treacherously aims at
and wounds Menelaus with an arrow; but no Trojan disapproves the deed.
Euphorbus comes behind the disarmed Patroclus, and wounds him in the
back; and even princely Hector, seeing him in this condition, then only
comes up and dispatches him. That these were not isolated acts, we may
judge from the circumstance that Menelaus, ever mild and fair in his
sentiments, when he accepts the challenge of Paris, requires that Priam
shall be sent for to conclude the arrangement, because his sons--and
he makes no exceptions--are saucy and faithless, ὑπερφίαλοι καὶ
ἄπιστοι[431]. This must, I think, be taken as characteristic of Troy;
though he mildly proceeds to take off the edge of his reproach by a
γνώμη about youth and age. But the most scandalous of all the Trojan
proceedings seems to have been the effort made, though unsuccessfully,
to have Menelaus put to death, when he came on a peaceful mission to
demand the restoration of his wife[432].
[430] Il. v. 269.
[431] Il. iii. 105.
[432] Il. xi. 139.
Nothing of this admiration for fraud apart from force appears either in
the conduct of the Greeks during the war, or in their prior history:
and the passage respecting Autolycus, which, more than any other,
appears to give countenance to knavery, takes his case out of the
category of ordinary human action by placing it in immediate relation
to a deity; so that it illustrates, not the national character as it
was, but rather the form to which the growing corruptions of religion
tended to bring it. Yet, while Homer gives to the Trojans alone the
character of faithlessness, he everywhere, as we must see, vindicates
the intellectual superiority of the Greeks in the stratagems of the
war. And if, as I think is the case, I have succeeded in proving above
that the doctrine of a future state was less lively and operative among
the Trojans than among the Greeks, it is certainly instructive to view
that deficiency in connection with the national want of all regard
for truth. This difference teaches us, that the imprecations against
perjurers, and the prospects of future punishment, were probably no
contemptible auxiliaries in overcoming the temptations to present
falseness, with which human life is everywhere beset.
As respects sensuality, the chief points of distinction are, that we
find a particular relation to this subject running down the royal line
of Troy; and that, whereas in Greece we are told occasionally of some
beautiful woman who is seduced or ravished by a deity, in Troas we
find the princes of the line are those to whose names the legends are
attached. The inference is, that in the former case a veil was thrown
over such subjects, but that in the latter no sense of shame required
them to be kept secret. The cases that come before us are those of
Tithonus, who is said to become the husband of Aurora; of Anchises, for
whom Venus conceives a passion; and of Paris, on whom the same deity
confers the evil gift of desire[433], and to whom she promises the most
beautiful of women, the wife of Menelaus. All these are stories, which
seem to have tended to the fame of the parties concerned on earth, and
by no means to their discredit with the Immortals. And again, if, as
some may take to be the case, we are to interpret the three νύμφαι[434]
of Troas as local deities, how remarkable is the fact that Homer should
thus describe them as tainted with passions, which nowhere appear among
the corresponding order within the Greek circle! There, male deities
alone are licentious. Juno, Minerva, Diana, and Persephone, whom alone
we can call properly Greek goddesses of the period, have no such impure
connection with mortals, as the goddesses both of the Trojan and of the
Phœnician traditions.
[433] Il. xxiv. 30.
[434] Sup. p. 162.
We hear indeed of Orion[435], who was also the choice of Aurora: but we
cannot tell whether he belonged more to the Trojan than to the Greek
branch of the common stem. To the Greek race he cannot have been alien,
as he is among Greek company in the Eleventh Odyssey: but then he is
not there as an object of honour; he appears in a state of modified
suffering, engaged in an endless chase[436]. We also find Iasion,
probably in Crete, who is reported to have been loved by Ceres[437]:
but he was immediately consumed for it by the thunderbolt of Jupiter.
And so the detention of Ulysses by the beautiful and immortal Calypso
is not in Homer a glory, but a calamity; and it allays none of the
passionate longings of that hero for his wife and home.
[435] Od. v. 121.
[436] Od. xi. 572.
[437] Od. v. 128.
The marked contrast, which these groups of incidents present, is
perhaps somewhat heightened by the enthusiastic observation of the
Trojan Elders on the Wall in the Third Iliad[438]. Though susceptible
of a good sense, yet, when the old age of the persons is taken into
view, the passage seems to be in harmony with the Trojan character at
large, rather than the Greek: and perhaps it may bear some analogy
to the licentious glances of the Suitors[439]. If so, it is very
significant that Homer should assign to the most venerable elders
of Troy, what in Greece he does not think of imputing except to
libertines, who are about to fall within the sweep of the divine
vengeance.
[438] Il. iii. 154-60.
[439] Od. xviii. 160-212.
The difference between the races in this respect seems to have been
deeply rooted, for there is evidently some corresponding difference
between their views and usages in respect to marriage.
~_Trojan ideas and usages of marriage._~
The character of Priam, which has been so happily conceived by
Mure[440], undoubtedly bears on its very surface the fault of over
indulgence, along with the virtues of gentleness and great warmth
and keenness of the affections. But it may be doubted, whether the
poems warrant our treating him as individually dissolute. His life
was a domestic life: but the family was one constructed according to
Oriental manners. According to those manners, polygamy and wholesale
concubinage were in some sense the privilege, in another view almost
the duty, of his station; confined, as these abuses must necessarily be
from their nature (and as they even now are in Turkey), to the highest
ranks wherever they prevail. The household of Priam, notwithstanding
his diversified relations to women, is as regularly organized as that
of Ulysses: and when he speaks of his vast family, constituted as it
was, he makes it known to Achilles, in a moment of agonizing sorrow,
and evidently by way of lodging a claim for sympathy[441], though
the effect upon modern ears may be somewhat ludicrous. ‘I had,’ he
says, ‘fifty sons: nineteen from a single womb: the rest from various
mothers in my palace.’ He might have added that he had also twelve
daughters[442], whom he probably does not need to mention on the
occasion, as in this department he was not a bereaved parent.
[440] Lit. Greece, vol. i. p. 341 and _seqq._
[441] Il. xxiv. 493-7.
[442] Il. vi. 248.
Hecuba, the mother of the nineteen, was evidently possessed of rights
and a position peculiar to herself. The very passage last quoted
distinguishes her from the γυναῖκες, and throughout the poem she moves
alone[443].
[443] See particularly vi. 87 and seqq. 364 and seqq.
~_The family of Priam._~
Of the children of Priam we meet with a great number in various places
of the poem.
There are, I think, five expressly mentioned as children of Hecuba.
Hector, Il. vi. 87.
Helenus, ibid.
Laodice, vi. 252.
Deiphobus, Il. xxii. 333.
Paris, (because Hecuba was ἑκυρὴ to Helen,) Il. xxiv.
Next, we have two children of Laothoe, daughter of Altes, lord of the
Lelegians of Pedasus.
Lycaon, Il. xxi. 84.
Polydorus, ibid. 91.
Next Gorgythion, son of Kastianeira, who came from Aisume, (Il. viii.
302).
Then we have, without mention of the mother,
Agathon }
Pammon } Il. xxiv.
Antiphonos } 249-51.
Hippothoos }
Dios }
Cassandra, xxiv. 699.
Mestor, xxiv. 257.
Troilos, Il. xxiv. 257.
Echemmon[444], v. 159.
Chromios[444], ibid.
Antiphos, iv. 490. xi. 101.
Cebriones, viii. 318.
Polites, ii. 791.
[444] Possibly one of these is νόθος, illegitimate: for they are
together in the same chariot, as Antiphus and Isus were. One of the
two would be the charioteer; who was commonly, though not always, an
inferior.
And, lastly, illegitimate (νόθοι),
Isos, Il. xi. 101.
Doryclos, xi. 489.
Democoon, iv. 499.
Medesicaste, xiii. 173.
The most important conclusion derivable from the comparison of the
names thus collected is, that the children of Priam, and consequently
their mothers, fell into three ranks: