These three remaining divisions of the Catalogue evidently reappear
in the second and third of the five Divisions of the Twelfth Book.
The Second is under Paris, with Alcathous, son-in-law of Antenor, and
Agenor, one of his sons. In the command of the Third, Helenus and
Deiphobus, two sons of Priam, are associated with, and even placed
before, Asius. The position given in these divisions to the family of
Priam appears to prove, that the troops forming them were among his
proper subjects.
Again, the territorial juxtaposition of these districts, between
Phrygia, which lay behind the mountains of Ida, on the one side, and
the sea of Marmora with the Ægæan on the other, perfectly agrees with
the description in the Twenty-fourth Iliad[487] of the range of country
within which Priam had the preeminence in wealth, and in the vigour and
influence of his sons. Strabo quotes this passage as direct evidence
that Priam reigned over the country it describes, which is rather more
than it actually states; and he says that Troas certainly reached to
Adresteia and to Cyzicus.
[487] Il. xxiv. 543-5.
Again, we have various signs in different passages of a political
connection between the towns we have named and the race of Priam.
Melanippus, his nephew, was employed before the war at Percote[488].
Democoon[489], his illegitimate son, tended horses at Abydus;
doubtless, says Strabo[490], the horses of his father.
[488] Il. xv. 548.
[489] Il. iv. 99.
[490] P. 585.
The partial inclusion of the Dardanians within the name of Troes is
further shown by the verse[491],
[491] Il. xiii. 463.
Αἰνεία, Τρώων βουληφόρε·
and by the appeal of Helenus to Æneas and Hector jointly, as the
persons chiefly responsible for the safety of the Troes and Lycians:
the name Lycians being taken here, as in some other places[492], to
denote most probably a race akin to and locally interspersed with the
Trojans.
[492] See Il. iv. 197, 207. xv. 485.
But the Dardanians have more commonly their proper designation
separately given them. It never includes the Troes. And we never find
the two appellations, Troes and Dardans, covering the entire force.
Whenever the Dardans are named with the Troes, there is also another
word, either ἐπίκουροι, or Λύκιοι.
The word Troes, it is right to add, is sometimes confined strictly to
the inhabitants of the city: but the occasions are rare, and perhaps
always with contextual indications that such is the sense.
Another sign that Priam exercised a direct sovereignty over the
territory which yielded the five contingents may perhaps be found in
the fact, that we do not find any of his nephews in command of them.
They were led by their local officers, while the brothers of Priam
constituted a part of the community of Troy, and chiefly influenced the
Assembly: and their sons, though apparently more considerable persons
than most of those local officers in general, simply appear as acting
under Hector without special command. The brothers of Priam are Lampus,
Clytius, and Hiketaon. His nephews and other relatives are Dolops the
son of Lampus; Melanippus the son of Hiketaon; Polydamas, Hyperenor,
and Euphorbus, the sons of Panthous and his wife Phrontis.
Had the senior members of the family held local sovereignties, we
should have found their sons in local commands. But we find only two
sons of Antenor in command, as either colleagues or lieutenants of
Æneas, over the Dardans, whom we have no reason to suppose they had
any share in ruling.
Strabo, indeed, contends, that there are nine separate δυναστεῖαι
immediately connected with Troy[493], besides the ἐπίκουροι. Of these
states one he thinks was Lelegian, and was ruled over by Altes,
father of Laothoe, one of Priam’s wives. Another by Munes, husband of
Briseis. Another, Thebe, by Eetion, father of Andromache. Others he
considers to be represented by Anchises and Pandarus: but this does
not well agree with the structure of the Catalogue. He refers also
to Lyrnessus and Pedasus; which are nowhere mentioned by Homer as
furnishing contingents, but they had apparently been destroyed, as well
as taken, by Achilles. He places several of the dynasties in cities
thus destroyed: and they all, according to him, lay beyond the limits
marked out in the Twenty-fourth Iliad.
[493] Strabo xiii. 7. p. 584.
This assemblage of facts appears to point to a very great diversity of
relations subsisting between Priam, with his capital, and the states,
cities, and races, of which we hear as arrayed on his side in the war.
There are first the cities of Troas, or Troja proper, furnishing the
five, or if we except Dardania four out of the five, first contingents
of the Catalogue. Over these Priam was sovereign.
There are next the cities, so far as they can be traced, under the
δυναστεῖαι mentioned by Strabo, such as Thebe, and the cities of Altes
and Munes. These were probably in the same sort of relation to the
sceptre of Priam, as the Greek states in general to that of Agamemnon.
Thirdly, there are the independent nations. Of these eleven named
in the Catalogue; others are added as newly arrived in the Tenth
Book[494], and further additions were subsequently made, such as the
force under Memnon, and the Keteians under Eurypylus[495]. Nothing
perhaps tends so much, as the powerful assistance lent to Priam by
numerous and distant allies, to show how justly in substance Horace has
described the Trojan war as the conflict between the Eastern and the
Western world. The two confederacies, which then came into collision,
between them absorbed the whole known world of Homer; and foreshadowed
the great conflicts of later epochs.
[494] Il. x. 428-30.
[495] Od. xi. 519-22.
~_Political institutions of Troy._~
We may now proceed to consider the political institutions of the
kingdom of Priam, which has thus loosely been defined.
The Βασιλεὺς of the Trojans is less clearly marked, than he is among
the Greeks: for (as we shall find) they had no Βουλὴ, and therefore we
have not the same opportunities of seeing the members of the highest
class collected for separate action in the conduct of the war. Still,
however, the name is distinctly given to the following persons on the
Trojan side, and to no others.
1. Priam, Il. v. 464, xxiv. 630.
2. Paris, iv. 96.
3. Rhesus, x. 435.
4. Sarpedon, xii. 319. xvi. 660.
5. Glaucus, xii. 319.
Among the Trojans, as among the Greeks, it was the custom for the
kings, as they descended into the vale of years, to devolve the more
active duties of kingship on their children, and to retain, perhaps
only for a time, those of a sedentary character. Hence Hector at least
shares with Priam the management of Assemblies, as it is he[496] who
dissolves that of the Second Book, and calls the military one of the
Eighth. Hence, too, he speaks of himself as the person responsible for
the burdens entailed by the war upon the Trojans. ‘I did not,’ he says
to the allies, ‘bring you from your cities to multiply our numbers,
but that you might defend for me the wives and children of Trojans;
with this object in view, I exhaust the people for your pay and
provisions[497].’ Hence we have Æneas leading the Dardanians, while his
father Anchises nowhere appears, and, as it must be presumed, remains
in his capital. Hence, while ten or twelve sons of Antenor bear arms
for Troy, and two of them are the colleagues of Æneas in the command of
the Dardanian contingent, their father appears among the δημογέροντες,
who were chief speakers in the Assembly within the city. We do not know
that Antenor was a king; more probably he held a lordship subordinate
to Priam, in a relation somewhat more strict than that between
Agamemnon and the Greek chieftains, and rather resembling that between
Peleus and Menœtius; but the same custom of partial retirement seems to
have prevailed in the case of subaltern rulers, as indeed it would be
dictated by the same reasons of prudence and necessity.
[496] Il. ii. 808. viii. 489.
[497] Il. xvii. 223-6.
The βασιλήϊς τιμὴ of Troy was not, any more than those of Greece, an
absolute despotism. In Troy, as in Greece, the public affairs were
discussed and settled in the Assemblies, though with differences, which
will be noticed, from the Greek manner of procedure. It was in the
Assembly that Iris, disguised as Polites, addressed Priam and Hector to
advise a review of the army[498]. And it was again in an Assembly that
Antenor proposed, and that Paris refused, to give up Helen: whereupon
Priam proposed the mission of Idæus to ask for a truce with a view to
the burial of the dead, and the people assented to the proposal[499];
[498] Il. ii. 795.
[499] Il. vii. 379.
οἱ δ’ ἄρα τοῦ μάλα μὲν κλύον ἠδ’ ἐπίθοντο.
It was in the Assembly, too, that those earlier proposals had been
made, of which the same personage procured the defeat by corruption.
Lastly, in the Eighth Book, Hector[500], as we have seen, holds a
military ἀγορὴ of the army by the banks of the Scamander. At this he
invites them to bivouac outside the Greek rampart, and they accept
his proposal by acclamation. This Assembly on the field of battle is
an argument _a fortiori_ to show, that ordinary affairs were referred
among the Trojans to such meetings. We have, indeed, no detail of any
Trojan Assembly except these three. But we have references to them,
which give a similar view of their nature and functions. Idæus, on his
return, announces to the Assembly that the truce is granted[501]. It
is plain that the restoration of Helen was debated before, as well as
during the war, in the Assembly of the people; because Agamemnon slays
the two sons of Antimachus on the special ground that the father had
there proposed that Menelaus, if not Ulysses, should be murdered[502],
when they came as Envoys to Troy, for the purpose of demanding her
restoration. This Antimachus was bribed by Paris, as the Poet tells us,
to oppose the measure[503]. Again, Polydamas, in one of his speeches,
charges Hector with having used him roughly, when he had ventured
to differ from him in the Assemblies, upon the ground that he ought
not, as a stranger to the Trojan δῆμος, to promote dissension among
them[504].
[500] Il. viii. 489, 542.
[501] Il. vii. 414-7.
[502] Il. xi. 138.
[503] Ibid. 123.
[504] Il. xii. 211-14.
Trojan institutions do not, then, present to our view a greater
elevation of the royal office. On the contrary, it is remarkable, that
the title of δημογέρων, which Homer applies to the chief speakers of
the Trojan Assembly, not being kings, is also used by him to describe
Ilus the founder of the city[505]. It is, however, possible, perhaps
even likely, that this title may be applied to Ilus as a younger son,
if his brother Assaracus was the eldest and the heir[506].
[505] Il. xi. 37.
[506] Il. xx. 232.
But although it thus appears that monarchy was limited in Troy, as it
was in Greece, and that public affairs were conducted in the assemblies
of the people, the method and organization of these Assemblies was
different in the two cases.
1. The guiding element in the Trojan government seems to have been age
combined with rank; while among the Greeks, wisdom and valour were
qualifications, not less available than age and rank.
2. The Greeks had the institution of a βουλὴ, which preceded and
prepared matter for their Assemblies. The Trojans had not.
3. The Greeks, as we have seen, employed oratory as a main instrument
of government; the Trojans did not.
4. The aged members of the Trojan royal family rendered their aid to
the state, not as counsellors of Priam in private meetings, but only in
the Assembly of the people.
A few words on each of these heads.
~_The greater weight of Age in Troy._~
1. The old men who appear on the wall with Priam, in the Third Book,
are really old, and not merely titular or official γέροντες; they
are[507],
[507] Il. iii. 150.
γήραϊ δὴ πολέμοιο πεπαυμένοι.
There are no less than seven of them, besides Priam. Three are his
brothers, Lampus, Clytius, Hiketaon; the others probably relatives,
we know not in what precise degree: Panthous, Thymœtes, Ucalegon,
Antenor. They are called collectively the Τρώων ἡγήτορες, as well as
the ἀγορηταὶ ἐσθλοί; and they were manifestly habitual speakers in the
Assembly.
There is nothing in the Greek life of the Homeric poems that comes near
this aggregation of aged men. Now we have no evidence, that their being
thus collected was in any degree owing to the war. Theano, wife of
Antenor, was priestess of Minerva in Troy; which makes it most probable
that he resided there habitually, and not only on account of the war.
The only group at all approaching this is, where we see Menœtius and
Phœnix at the Court of Peleus; but we cannot say whether this was a
permanent arrangement. Phœnix, as we know, was lord of the Dolopians,
and if so, could not have been a standing assistant at the court of
Peleus; we do not know that the Trojan elders held any such local
position apart from Troy, even in any single case; and on the other
hand, we have no knowledge whether Phœnix and Menœtius, even when at
the court of Peleus, took any share in the government of his immediate
dominions. The name γέροντες, as usually employed among the Greeks to
describe a class, had no necessary relation to age whatever.
Of the respect paid to age in Greece, we have abundant evidence; but we
find nothing like this gathering together of a body of old men to be
the ordinary guides of popular deliberation in the Assemblies.
It is true that we hear by implication of both Hector and Polydamas,
who were not old, as taking part in affairs: but all the indications
in the Iliad go to show that Hector’s share in the government of Troy,
though not limited to the mere conduct of the forces in the field,
yet arose out of his military office, and probably touched only such
matters as were connected with the management of the war. Polydamas
evidently was treated as more or less an interloper.
But even if it were otherwise, and if the middle-aged men of high
station and ability took a prominent part in affairs, the existence of
this grey-headed company, with apparently the principal statesmanship
of Troy in their hands, forms a marked difference from Greek manners.
For in Greece at peace we have nothing akin to it; while in Greece at
war upon the plain of Troy, we see the young Diomed as well as the old
Nestor, and the rather young Achilles and Ajax, as well as the elderly
Idomeneus, associated with the middle-aged men in the government of the
army and its operations.
~_The absence of a Βουλὴ in Troy._~
First then, I think it plain that the Trojans had no βουλὴ, for the
following reasons:
1. That although we often hear of deliberations and decisions taken on
the part of the Trojans, and we have instances enough of their holding
assemblies of the people, yet we never find mention of a βουλὴ, or
Council, in connection with them.
2. In the Second Book, Homer describes the Trojan ἀγορὴ thus (Il. ii.
788, 9):
οἱ δ’ ἀγορὰς ἀγόρευον ἐπὶ Πριάμοιο θύρῃσιν
πάντες ὁμηγερέες, ἠμὲν νέοι ἠδὲ γέροντες.
This latter line is only to be accounted for by the supposition, that
Homer meant to describe a difference between the usages of the Trojans,
and those of the Greeks; whose γέροντες were recognised as members of
the βουλὴ, even when in the Assemblies.
Of the separate place of the Greek γέροντες in the Assemblies, we have
conclusive proof from the Shield of Achilles (xviii. 497, 503):
λαοὶ δ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ ἔσαν ἄθροοι·
and afterwards,
οἱ δὲ γέροντες
εἵατ’ ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι λίθοις, ἱερῷ ἐνὶ κύκλῳ.
And again, where the Ithacan γέροντες make way for Telemachus, as he
passes to the chair of his father.
But in Troy the γέροντες (such is probably the meaning of Il. ii. 789.)
have no separate function: the young and the old meet together: while
in Greece, besides distinct places in the Assembly, the γέροντες had an
exclusive function in the βουλὴ, at which they met separately from the
young.
3. It would appear that the ἀγορὴ was with the Trojans not occasional,
as with the Greeks, for great questions, but habitual. And this agrees
with the description in Il. ii. 788. For when Jupiter sends Iris to
Troy, she finds the people in Assembly, but apparently for no special
purpose, as she immediately, in the likeness of Polites, begins to
address Priam, and we do not hear of any other business. So, when
Idæus came back from the Greeks, he found the Trojan Assembly still
sitting. All this looks as if the entire business of administering the
government rested with that body only.
I draw a similar inference from the remarkable expression in Il. ii.
788, ἀγορὰς ἀγόρευον. This seems to express that there was a standing,
probably a daily, assembly of the Trojans, not formally summoned, and
open to all comers, which acted as the governing body for the state.
The line would then mean, not simply ‘the Trojans were holding an
assembly,’ but ‘the Trojans were holding their assembly as usual.’
The names βουλευτὴς and ἀγορητὴς appear to have been merely
descriptive, and not titular. Both are applied to the Trojan elders.
And so βουλαὶ, βουλεύειν, βουληφόροι, are constantly used without any,
so to speak, official meaning. In Il. x. 147, the expression βουλὰς
βουλεύειν can hardly mean ‘to attend the βουλὴ,’ for the singular
number would be the proper term for the βουλὴ specially convoked: and
I interpret it as meaning, to attend at or to hold the usual council.
This is among the Greeks. Among the Trojans, in Il. x. 415-17, Dolon
says,
Ἕκτωρ μὲν μετὰ τοῖσιν, ὅσοι βουληφόροι εἰσὶν,
βουλὰς βουλεύει θείου παρὰ σήματι Ἴλου,
νόσφιν ἀπὸ φλοίσβου.
Now the word βουληφόρος is applied, Il. xii. 414, to Sarpedon, as well
as in xiii. 463 and elsewhere to Æneas. Neither were among the γέροντες
βουλευταί. But further, it is applied, Od. ix. 112, to the ἀγορὴ itself:
τοῖσιν δ’ οὔτ’ ἀγοραὶ βουληφόροι, οὔτε θέμιστες
And therefore the word, though it means councillor in a general sense,
does not mean officially member of a βουλὴ, as opposed to an ἀγορὴ or
Assembly.
The phrase βουλὰς βουλεύει, in the passage Il. x. 415-17, does not
oppose, but supports what has now been said. It is quite plain that
this of Hector’s was a small military meeting, or council of war,
just as in viii. 489 he held an ἀγορὴ, or assembly of the army, both
Trojans and allies; it was not a meeting of a βουλὴ of Troy, because
it was held in the field, far from the city, and without any of the
Elders, who were the great ἀγορηταὶ and βουλευταὶ of Troy; for Hector
had already arranged (Il. viii. 517-19) that the old men should remain
in the city, to defend the walls from any night attack: most of all
however because, as we hear of no βουλὴ before the military Assembly
in the Eighth Book, so we hear of no Assembly following the meeting
for deliberation in the Tenth. Generals in modern times hold councils
of war: but no parallel can be drawn between them, and Councils for
dispatching the affairs of a State.
As we never have occasion to become acquainted with Trojan politics in
peace, we can only argue the case as to the nonexistence of a council
from the state of war. But in Greece, it will be remembered, both war
and peace present their cases of the use of this institution, as one
regularly established, and apparently invested with both a deliberative
and an executive character.
~_The greater weight of oratory in Greece._~
It is next to be inquired, whether the Trojans, like the Greeks,
employed eloquence, detailed argument as furnishing, and the other
parts of oratory, a main instrument of government.
I think it is plain, that the decisions of their Assemblies were
governed rather by simple authority; by the ἀναποδεικταὶ φάσεις, the
simple declarations, of persons of weight.
The report of the re-assembled ἀγορὴ of the Greeks in the Second
Book begins with the 211th line, and ends with the 398th: occupying
188 lines. But the Trojan ἀγορὴ of the same Book is despatched in
twenty-one lines (788-808).
A more remarkable example is afforded by the second Trojan Assembly
(Il. vii. 345-379). For this ἀγορὴ is described as δεινὴ, τετρηχυῖα;
and well it might be, in circumstances so arduous. The Elders in the
Third Book were of opinion that, beautiful as Helen was, it was better
to restore her, than to continue the sufferings and dangers of the
war. Accordingly, Antenor urged in this Assembly that she should be
restored, together with the plundered property. He referred also to the
recent breach of a sworn covenant on the Trojan side, and said no good
could come of it. This he effects in a speech of six lines; the first
of which is the mere vocative address to the Assembly, and the last is
marked as surplusage with the _obelos_ (348-53).
Paris, the person mainly concerned, replies. He does not address
himself to the Assembly at all, but to Antenor: and he disposes of the
subject of debate in eight lines (357-64). Four of them are given to
the announcement of his intentions, and four to abuse of Antenor.
It was impossible to conceive a subject more likely to cause debate;
and excitement we see there was, but after the speech of Paris, nothing
more was said about Helen, either for or against the restoration. Priam
then arose, and in a speech of eleven lines (368-78) laid down another
plan of proceeding, namely, by a message to the Greeks for a truce with
a view to funeral obsequies, which was at once accepted.
~_Oratory of greater weight in Greece._~
Nowhere, in short, among the Trojans have we any example, I do not
say of multiplied or lengthened speeches, but of real reasoning and
deliberation in the conduct of business: though Glaucus tells his story
at great length to Diomed on the field of battle (Il. vi. 145-211),
and Æneas to Achilles (Il. xx. 199-258) nearly equals him. Indeed, it
may almost be said, the Trojans are long speakers when in battle, and
short when in debate: the Greeks copious in debate, but very succinct
in battle.
Again, we may observe the different descriptions which the Poet
has given of the elocution of Nestor, and of that of the Trojan
δημογέροντες in their respective ἀγοραί. To Nestor (Il. i. 248, 9)
he seems to assign a soft continuous flow indefinitely prolonged.
Theirs he describes as resembling the ὄπα λειριόεσσαν of grasshoppers
(Il. iii. 151, 2), a clear trill or thread of voice, not only without
any particular idea of length attached to it, but apparently meant
to recall a sharp intermittent chirp. Yet there is an odd proof that
to Priam at least, as one of these old men, there was attached, by
the younger ones, the imputation of favouring either too many or else
too long orations. For, in the ἀγορὴ of the Second Book, Iris in the
character of Polites, though there is no account of what had preceded
her arrival, objurgates Priam as both then encouraging what may be
called indiscriminate speaking, and as having formally, before the war,
been addicted to the same practice[508];
[508] Il. ii. 796.
ὦ γέρον, αἰεί τοι μῦθοι φίλοι ἄκριτοί εἰσιν,
ὥς ποτ’ ἐπ’ εἰρήνης.
Upon the whole, I think it must have been Homer’s intention, while
representing both Trojans and Greeks as carrying on public affairs in
their public Assemblies, to draw a very marked distinction between them
in regard to the use of that powerful engine of oratory, which played
so conspicuous a part in the former, as well as in the later stages of
the Greek history.
And it is important, that nowhere does a sentiment escape the lips of
a Trojan chieftain, which indicates a consciousness of the political
value of oratory. Ulysses, in a state of peace, describes before the
Phæacians beauty and eloquence as the noblest gifts of the gods to
man[509]: and employs ἔπεα and νόος, eloquence and intelligence, as
convertible terms. Polydamas, when rebuking Hector in the Thirteenth
Iliad, delivers a passage in many respects strikingly analogous. He
speaks, however, of νόος and βουλὴ, mind and counsel[510]; he does not
drop a word relating to public speech or to eloquence as instruments of
government, though he describes the mental quality and the habit which
he names as of priceless value for the benefit of States.
[509] Od. viii. 170, 5, 7.
[510] Il. xiii. 726-34.
The phrases applied to the Trojan elders appear to indicate, that they
derived their political character from taking a prominent part in the
Assembly, and from that alone. For the word δημογέρων indicates an
elder acting in and among the δῆμος, or people. And this name the Poet
uses but twice: once in Il. iii. 149, where he enumerates the eight
persons, who bore that character in Troy; and once with reference to
Ilus (Il. ii. 372). Homer nowhere employs this term for any of the
Greeks.
The want of the βουλὴ shows us, that there was no balance of forces
in the Trojan polity, less security against precipitate action, more
liability to high-handed insolence and oppression of the people, and,
on the other hand, unless the danger had been neutralized by mildness
or lethargy of character, likewise in all likelihood to revolutionary
change.
~_Trojans less gifted with self-command._~
Again, on the Trojan side we do not find the silence and
self-possession of the Greeks. After the enumeration in the Third Book,
at its opening, we find that the Trojans marched with din and buzz:
Τρῶες μὲν κλαγγῇ τ’ ἐνοπῇ τ’ ἴσαν, ὄρνιθες ὥς·
but as to the Greeks, we are told that they marched in profound
silence: and the Poet skilfully heightens the contrast by mentioning
that they breathed forth what they did not articulate, and that they
were steeled with firm resolution to stand by one another[511]:
[511] Il. iii. 2, 8.
οἱ δ’ ἄρ’ ἴσαν σιγῇ μένεα πνείοντες Ἀχαιοὶ,
ἐν θυμῷ μεμαῶτες ἀλεξέμεν ἀλλήλοισιν.
We are finally told that each leader indeed gave the word to his men,
while all beside were mute[512]:
[512] Il. iv. 429.
οἱ δ’ ἄλλοι ἀκὴν ἴσαν, οὐδέ κε φαίης
τόσσον λαὸν ἕπεσθαι ἔχοντ’ ἐν στήθεσιν αὐδὴν,
σιγῇ δειδιότες σημάντορας·
but from the Trojans there arose a sound, like that of sheep bleating
for their lambs[513]:
[513] Ibid. 436.
ὣς Τρώων ἀλαλητὸς ἀνὰ στρατὸν εὐρὺν ὀρώρει.
And, again, we find the relation of the burning of the dead given with
the usual consistency of the Poet. The men of the two armies met: and
on both sides they shed tears as they lifted their lifeless comrades on
the wagons: but, he adds, there was silence among the Trojans,
οὐδ’ εἴα κλαίειν Πρίαμος μέγας·
and it was because the king had felt that there would be indecency in a
noisy show of sorrow: while the Greeks needed not the injunction (Il.
vii. 426-32), from their spontaneous self-command.
When the Poet speaks of the Trojan Assembly in the Seventh Book as
δεινὴ τετρηχυῖα, he evidently means to describe an excitement tending
to disorder: and one contrasted in a remarkable manner with the
discipline of the Greeks, who were summoned to meet silently in the
night, that they might not, in gathering, arouse the enemy outside the
ramparts. Even in their respective modes of expressing approbation,
Homer makes a shade of difference. When the Greeks applaud, it is
ἐπίαχον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν, or what we call loud or vehement cheering: but
when the Trojans, it is ἐπὶ δὲ Τρῶες κελάδησαν, which signifies a more
miscellaneous and tumultuous noise.
In short, it would appear to be the intention of Homer to represent
the Greeks as possessed of a higher intelligence throughout. In the
Odyssey, we find that Ulysses made his way into Troy disguised as
a beggar, communicated with Helen, duly informed himself (κατὰ δὲ
φρόνιν ἤγαγε πολλήν[514]), and contrived to despatch certain of the
Trojans before he departed. In the Iliad we are supplied with abundant
instances of the superior management of the Greeks, and likewise of
their auxiliary gods, in comparison with those of the Trojans. Juno
outwits Venus in obtaining from her the cestus, and then proceeds
to outwit Jupiter in the use of it. Minerva, on observing that the
Greeks are losing, (Il. vii. 17) betakes herself to Troy, where Apollo
proposes just what she wants, namely, a cessation of the general
engagement, with a view to a personal encounter between Hector and some
chosen chieftain: she immediately adopts the plan; and he causes it to
be executed through Helenus. It both stops the general havoc among the
Greeks, and redounds greatly to the honour of their champion Ajax. At
the end of the day, however, Nestor suggests to the Greek chiefs, on
account of their heavy losses (Il. vii. 328), that they should, on the
occasion of raising a mound over their dead, likewise dig and fortify
a trench, which might serve to defend the ships and camp. In the mean
time the Trojans are made to meet; and they send to propose the very
measure, namely, an armistice for funeral rites, which the Greeks
desire, in order, under cover of it, to fortify themselves (Il. vii.
368-97). And this accordingly Agamemnon is enabled to grant as a sort
of favour to the Trojans (Il. vii. 408):
[514] Od. iv. 258.
ἀμφὶ δὲ νεκροῖσιν κατακαιέμεν οὔτι μεγαίρω.
This superior intelligence is probably meant to be figured by the
exchange of arms between Glaucus and Diomed. And, again, when Hector
attempts anything in the nature of a stratagem, as the mission of
Dolon by night, it is only that he may fall into the hands of Diomed
and Ulysses. But there does not appear to be in any of these cases
a violation of oath, compact, or any absolute rule of equity by the
Greeks.
Of all these traits, however, it may be said, that they are of no
value as evidence, if taken by themselves. They are means which would
obviously occur to the Poet, zealous for his own nation. It is their
accordance with other indications, apparently undesigned, which
warrants our relying upon them as real testimonies, available for an
historic purpose.
~_Difference in pursuits of high-born youth._~
Although, on the whole, we seem to have the signs of greater wealth
among the Trojans than the Greeks, yet in certain points also their
usages were more primitive and simple. Thus we find the youths of the
house of Nestor immediately about his person; and Patroclus, as well
as Achilles, was apparently brought up at the court of Peleus. Again,
the youthful Nestor travels into Thessaly for a campaign: Ulysses
goes to hunt at the Court of his grandfather Autolycus. The Ithacan
Suitors employ themselves in manly games. But we frequently come upon
passages where we are incidentally informed, that the princes of the
house of Dardanus were occupied in rustic employments. Thus Melanippus,
son of Hiketaon, and cousin of Hector, who was residing in Priam’s
palace, and treated as one of his children, had before the war tended
oxen in Percote[515]. Æneas, the only son and heir of Anchises, had
been similarly occupied among or near the hills, at the time when he
had a narrow escape from capture by Achilles[516]. Lycaon, son of
Priam, was cutting the branches of the wild fig for the fellies of
chariot-wheels when Achilles took him for the second time: on the first
occasion, he had been at work in a vineyard[517]. Antiphos and Isos,
sons of Priam, had been captured by Achilles whilst they were acting
as shepherds[518]. Anchises was acting as a herdsman, when he formed
his connection with Venus[519]. The name of Boucolion, an illegitimate
son of Laomedon, seems to indicate that he was bred for the like
occupation[520].
[515] Il. xv. 546-51.
[516] Il. xx. 188.
[517] Il. xxi. 37. 77.
[518] Il. xi. 105.
[519] Il. ii. 821. v. 313.
[520] Il. vi. 25.
From the force, variety, and extreme delicacy of his uses of the
word, it is evident that Homer set very great store by the sentiment
which is generally expressed through the word αἰδώς, and which ranges
through all the varieties of shame, honour, modesty, and reverence.
Though a minute, it is a remarkable circumstance, that he confines
the application of this term to the Greeks; except, I think, in one
passage, where he bestows it upon his particular favourites the
Lycians[521], and a single other one, where Æneas[522] employs it under
the immediate inspiration of Apollo, with another sense, in an appeal
to Hector and his brother chiefs, not to the soldiery at large.
[521] Il. xvi. 422.
[522] Il. xvii. 336.
With the Greeks it supplies the staple of military exhortation[523]
from the chiefs to the army; Αἰδὼς, Ἀργεῖοι.
[523] Il. v. 787. viii. 228. _et alibi_.
But quite a different form of speech is uniformly addressed to the
Trojans proper: it is
ἀνέρες ἔστε, φίλοι, μνήσασθε δὲ θουρίδος ἀλκῆς,
which is below the other, and appeals to a less peculiar and refined
frame of intelligence and of sentiment.
~_Summary of differences._~
Whatever may be thought of the degree of detail into which (guided as
I think by the text) I have ventured to carry this discussion, and of
the particularity of some of the inferences that have been drawn, I
venture to hope few will quit the subject without the conviction that
Homer has worked with the purpose and precision which are his wont, in
the diversities which mark the general outline of his Greeks and his
Trojans, and of the institutions of each respectively; and that he has
not altogether withheld from his national portraits the care, which he
is admitted to have applied to his individual characters on both sides
with such extraordinary success. If we look to the institutions of the
two countries, although the comparison is diversified, we must upon
the whole concede to the Greeks, that they had laid more firmly than
their adversaries those great corner stones of human society, which are
named in their language, θέμις, ὅρκος, and γάμος. In the polity of Troy
we find more scope for impulse, less for deliberation and persuasion;
more weight given to those elements of authority which do not depend
on our free will and intelligence, less to those which do; less of
organization and of diversity, less firmness and tenacity of tissue, in
the structure of the community. We are told of no φῦλα and no φρῆτραι,
no intermediate ranks of officers in the army; no order of nobles or
proprietors, such as that which furnished the Suitors of Ithaca. There
are, in short, fewer secondary eminences; it is a state of things, more
resembling the dead level of the present Oriental communities subject
to a despotic throne, though such was not the throne of Priam. Among
the people themselves, there is more of religious observance and
apparatus, but not more of morality: less tendency indeed to crimes
of violence and turbulence, but also less of truth, of honour, above
all of personal self-mastery and self-command. The Greeks never would
have produced the Paris of the Iliad; for on behalf of no such dastard
would they have been induced to bleed. But if they had engendered
such a creature, they would not have paid the penalty: for man in
the Trojan type would not have had the energy to recover it from the
warrior-statesmen of the Achæan race, and under no circumstances could
the really extravagant sentiment put by Virgil into the mouth of
Diomed[524] have been fulfilled:
[524] Æn. xi. 286.
ultro Inachias venisset ad urbes
Dardanus, et versis lugeret Græcia fatis.