The high place assigned throughout the poems to public opinion as a
moral check is visible at every turn. And this check applies variously
to various classes. With the most abandoned, like the Suitors, it is
feeble; and is only invoked on special occasions, as when Telemachus
combines it, in the passage lately cited, with the other moral
sanctions. Even Paris is represented as quite beyond the reach of it:
and Helen meekly wishes, that if the gods had determined she should
live, she could have been the husband of a man more open to the
influence of the public sentiment[812]:
[812] Il. vi. 349-51.
ὃς ῥ’ ᾔδη νέμεσίν τε καὶ αἴσχεα πόλλ’ ἀνθρώπων.
But upon characters less frivolous and less corrupt, this power acts
with great efficacy: so much so, that Phœnix says he was restrained,
when in his passion, from killing his father by some benevolent deity,
whose mode of proceeding was, we shall perceive, very remarkable: for
the suggestion he made to Phœnix with such good effect was, not that he
would be punished by the gods for the offence, but that he would become
an offence and scandal among men[813]:
[813] Il. ix. 459-61.
ἀλλά τις ἀθανάτων παῦσεν χόλον, ὅς ῥ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷ
δήμου θῆκε φάτιν, καὶ ὀνείδεα πόλλ’ ἀνθρώπων,
ὡς μὴ πατροφόνος μετ’ Ἀχαιοῖσιν καλεοίμην.
The δήμου φάτις, or public opinion, weighs even with the matron
Penelope among the motives to her virtuous and heroic conduct; and the
maid Nausicaa, no less circumspect than artless, finds in the φῆμις
ἀδευκὴς, the bitter gossip, of Scheria, an apology for desiring Ulysses
not to enter the city in her company[814].
[814] Od. vi. 273-7.
But the sentiment of regard to general opinion comes out in other and
yet finer forms as a practical regulator of conduct in the heroic age.
Perhaps we might venture to rely upon the uses of the single word
αἰδὼς, with the cognate verb and adjective, in Homer, for proof
that the condition of the Greeks of his age was a condition of high
civilization, in that which constitutes its most essential part,
namely, that which relates to the affections and passions of man; the
expansion by moral forces of the one, and the compression of the other.
Shame, in all its many forms, has more than one pervading
characteristic to mark it as an agent alike powerful and delicate in
its influence upon human conduct.
First, it essentially involves this idea: that while it refers to an
external standard, independent of ourselves though able to act upon
us, still the power thus invoked is one altogether distinct from the
idea of force. So sensitive indeed is the feeling of shame, that at
the first moment when force comes into view, it alters its nature,
and passes into fear. That which it apprehends is something, which
dwells only in the ethereal region of opinion; and yet this, by the
fineness of its appreciation, it converts into an agent effective both
to excite and to restrain. Thus it exhibits to us the human spirit
guided by silken reins, and in this way bears emphatic witness to the
high training, by which alone it can become susceptible of so gentle a
guidance.
Secondly, it embraces not only the character of acts as they are
in themselves or appear to us, but also the aspect which they will
naturally present to others. It therefore essentially involves the
recognition of a high form of relative duty: it obliges us, in
regulating the whole tenour of our conduct, to make the feelings of
others an element in our own decisions. This principle of a mutual
regard, not confined to certain positive acts of relative duty, but
pervading the whole course of moral action, lies at the root of all
genuine and high civilization.
Shame must have reference to some standard exterior to ourselves, and
it therefore tends towards uprooting the law of selfishness. In one
of its highest forms, the one perhaps most familiar to us in Homer,
it is termed self-respect. But self-respect does not mean a regard to
self: it means a virtuous regard to a standard established by adequate
consent and authority, and owned, not set up, by the individual
conscience; together with a determination that ‘self’ shall be made to
conform to it.
The φθορὰ of this sentiment is what we term false shame: which does
evil, or refrains from good, in submission to a depraved standard of
opinion external to us, and in defiance of our own knowledge of right.
This kind of shame is treated with no respect in Homer: for examples
of it we must look to Amphimachus and Leiodes, two better-minded but
complying Suitors, who end by perishing with the rest.
~_The force and forms of αἰδώς._~
The numerous forms of the sentiment of αἰδὼς in the heroic age are
a proof of the large and varied development to which it had already
attained.
How fine a feeling is that according to which, as with Homer, the bold
men are also the shamefaced ones! as in his line,
αἰδομένων δ’ ἀνδρῶν πλέονες σόοι ἠὲ πέφανται.
This line, as it is repeated, seems to have the character of a γνώμη in
the poems[815].
[815] Il. v. 531. xv. 563.
The most marked and frequent use of αἰδὼς is in the sense of
self-respect as applied to military honour and bravery. The words
αἰδὼς, Ἀργεῖοι, which are employed as an exhortation to fight,
constitute one of the Homeric formulæ. Homer does not permit this use
of the word to the Trojans: but once it is employed for his gallant
favourites, the Lycians. (Il. xvi. 422. xvii. 336.)
Once, indeed, the term is applied to Trojans, but this is in the
converse of the usual sense. It would be αἰδὼς, a disgrace, says Æneas,
were we to let Troy be taken through our want of manhood. This is a
lower signification. And again, as we shall see, the established
formula of military incitement for the Trojans is different and less
refined[816].
[816] Il. vi. 112 et alibi.
Sometimes αἰδὼς is an excess of deference, or what we might call
scrupulosity; the feeling which carries the fastidious observance of
some right sentiment towards others up to the point where it threatens
to interfere with a public or other clear duty. So Telemachus begs of
Nestor, ‘tell me the truth,’
μηδέ τί μ’ αἰδόμενος μειλίσσεο, μηδ’ ἐλεαίρων[817].
[817] Od. iii. 96.
In the Doloneia, Agamemnon, fearful that Diomed will choose Menelaus as
a companion out of deference, says, ‘Do not let αἰδὼς influence you:
choose the best man.’ Sometimes it is compassion, or ruth; as when
Achilles, before the ransom, is said to show no αἰδὼς towards the body
of Hector. But here αἰδὼς includes the idea of shame and self-respect.
Sometimes it is reverence towards a superior, as in Od. xiv. 505, and
in αἰδοῖος applied by Helen to Priam in Il. iii. 172. In this manner it
becomes applicable to the sentiments a man should entertain towards the
gods,
ἀλλ’ αἰδεῖο θεοὺς, Ἀχιλεῦ[818].
[818] Il. xxiv. 503.
And this is a very remarkable use of the term, because Priam certainly
does not mean to urge upon Achilles a dread of the gods, but something
quite distinct. Sometimes it is applied by a superior to an inferior;
and means ‘his or her dues,’ as among the Immortals, where Jupiter says
to Thetis, that he reserves the honour of the ransom for Achilles,
αἰδῶ καὶ φιλότητα τεὴν μετόπισθε φυλάσσων[819].
[819] Ibid. 111.
It may also be felt towards an inferior among men: Agamemnon is
exhorted to feel it towards Chryses[820], for it is not a personal
sentiment, but implies an object, outside the mere person who is the
immediate occasion of it. So Achilles is intreated to revere (αἴδεσθαι)
Lycaon, a vanquished and suppliant enemy[821].
[820] Il. i. 23. 377.
[821] Il. xxi. 74.
Sometimes it signifies the constitution of a special relation, over and
above the general bond between man and man. A person’s αἰδοῖοι are his
relations, friends, guests, and the like. Even so a wanderer is αἰδοῖος
to the gods (Od. v. 447). Sometimes it means purely mental modesty, as
in Od. viii. 171, ὁ δ’ ἀσφαλέως ἀγορεύει αἰδοῖ μειλιχίῃ; he speaks with
that engaging bashfulness and careful indication of respect for his
audience, which forms a principal grace of the orator. Sometimes the
physical, as well as mental, quality of modesty; as when αἰδὼς kept the
goddesses at home (Od. viii. 324). Sometimes, again, simply shyness; as
when Telemachus is exhorted by Minerva to put away αἰδὼς in Od. iii.
14; or as in the phrase κακὸς δ’ αἰδοῖος ἀλήτης; ‘it will never do for
a beggar to be shy.’
No finer shading of sentiment, I think, can be found in the language of
the most civilized nations, nor any case so remarkable of a high and
tender, and at the same time largely developed state of feeling at a
time when material progress was so partial, rude, and slight. And of
the vital importance of this element of the Greek moral code, we find a
proof in the representation of Hesiod, who gives it as a characteristic
of his iron, or post-Homeric, age, that αἰδὼς along with νέμεσις had
fled from the earth.
~_Other cognate terms._~
There are other words, the use of which in Homer approximates
occasionally to the sense of αἰδώς. The nearest of them is σέβας (as
in Il. xviii. 178), with its verb σέβομαι; which, as we have seen, is
sometimes applied simply to an internal standard recognised by the
conscience. But in Il. iv. 242, οὔ νυ σέβεσθε; seems to be equivalent
to οὐκ αἰδεῖσθε; or ‘for shame.’
The word νέμεσις, too, is sometimes used in a sense akin to that of
αἰδώς: as when Neptune exhorts the Greeks, ἐν φρεσὶ θέσθε ἕκαστος αἰδῶ
καὶ νέμεσιν (Il. xiii. 121): compare vi. 351. Again, in Od. i. 263, ii.
136, xxii. 40. But this sentiment is usually half way between αἰδὼς
and fear, because what it apprehends, though it is not force, yet
neither is it simple disapproval; rather it is disapproval with heat,
disapproval into which passion enters. It contributes, however, to
complete a very remarkable picture of the human mind.
The comparison between Greeks and Trojans, or Europeans and Asiatics,
will prove, we shall find, greatly in favour of the former as to most
parts of their morality. We have now to touch upon a feature in Greek
manners which is unfavourable.
~_Homicide in the heroic age._~
With regard to the practice of homicide, the ordinary Greek morality
was extremely loose; while we have no evidence of a similar readiness
for bloodshedding among the Trojans: and enough is told us of Trojan
life and manners to have probably brought out this characteristic, had
it existed.
Among the Greeks, to have killed a man was considered in the light
of a misfortune, or at most a prudential error, an ἄτη πυκινὴ[822],
when the perpetrator of the act had come among strangers as a fugitive
for protection and hospitality. On the spot, therefore, where the
crime occurred, it could stand only as in the nature of a private
and civil wrong, and the fine payable was regarded, not (which it
might have been) as a mode, however defective, of marking any guilt
in the culprit, but as, on the whole, an equitable satisfaction to
the wounded feelings of the relatives and friends, or as an actual
compensation for the lost services of the dead man. The religion of the
age takes no notice of the act whatever[823].
[822] Il. xxiv. 480.
[823] Friedreich, Realien, sect. 139.
The ordinary practice, we learn from the blunt speech of Ajax to
Achilles[824], was to accept the established fine upon the loss even
of a brother or a son, if offered, and then to let the slayer remain
unharmed. If he would not pay, or if the relations would not accept
the payment, the alternative was flight: but it does not appear that
this entailed any loss of character, perhaps rather otherwise. It
was, however, the most common issue of such an affair, and, as such,
it furnishes Homer with a simile. Priam, appearing before Achilles by
surprise, is compared to a man who, having had the misfortune to kill
somebody, appears unexpectedly in a strange place[825].
[824] Il. ix. 632-6.
[825] Il. xxiv. 480-2.
~_Eight instances in the poems._~
We will proceed to examine the cases of homicide recorded in the poems,
which are alike numerous and remarkable.
I. Medon[826], the illegitimate brother of Oilean Ajax, migrates from
Locris to Phylace, having, in the usual phrase, killed a man, ἄνδρα
κατακτάς. This man was a kinsman, not improbably a brother, (for
γνωτὸς may mean brother, as in Il. iii. 174, and xxii. 234), of his
‘stepmother,’ as she is called; that is, of Eriopis, the lawful wife of
his father. And yet he retains or improves his position in Phylace, and
appears, in the Thirteenth Iliad, as the commander of all the Phthians
except the Myrmidons.
[826] Il. xiii. 659-7. xv. 333-6.
II. Theoclymenus[827], of the prophetic family of Melampus, suddenly
makes his appearance before Telemachus, when he is about to embark
from the Peloponnesus for Ithaca. He inquires of Telemachus who he
is[828]; and, on finding that the youth is not in his own country, but
a stranger, he says, ‘So am I: I have killed a man, and am flying from
the vengeance of his family: they are powerful, and I am in fear lest
they should take my life.’ Telemachus immediately promises to take
him on board, and entertain him hospitably. He does not seem at all
shocked at the intimation he has received. He does not think it worth
while to ask the fugitive, whether he killed the man wantonly, or under
provocation. But he forthwith assigns to him the place of honour[829]:
πὰρ δὲ οἷ αὐτῷ
εἷσε Θεοκλύμενον.
[827] Od. xv. 220 _et seqq._
[828] Od. xv. 260.
[829] Ibid. 285.
III. The next is an instance not less remarkable than the one last
named. Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules and Astyoche, kills Licymnius
the maternal uncle of his father, and his own grand-uncle. The sufferer
is, moreover, in his old age, or he could hardly be the grand-uncle
of an adult person; and no plea or palliation is mentioned for the
act. The children and grandchildren of Hercules prepare to levy war
upon him: but so far is he from having suffered in character for what
hardly can have been other than a barbarous and brutal action, that he
is enabled to raise a large body of emigrants, who accompany him to
Rhodes. When distributed there in three settlements, they are blessed
by the peculiar favour of Jupiter; and Tlepolemus appears before Troy
as the commander of the Rhodian contingent[830].
[830] Il. ii. 658-70.
IV. Again, the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus had its origin
in the circumstance that Menœtius delivered over his son into the
protection of Peleus, because, being a youth, he had quarrelled with
another youth, the son of Amphidamas, over a game of dice, and had
slain him, νήπιος, οὐκ ἐθέλων, as the Poet says; that is, of course,
without malice prepense[831]. This is the more worthy of notice,
because it is evident that the character of Patroclus, partly perhaps
for the sake of contrast with that of Achilles, and therefore of relief
to it, is meant to be represented as one of peculiar gentleness[832]; a
quality in which no one of the great Greek chieftains, except Menelaus,
can compete with him.
[831] Il. xxiii. 86.
[832] Il. xix. 282-300.
V. In the Fifteenth Iliad, Hector slays Lycophron, son of Mastor, when
he is aiming at Ajax. This was an inhabitant of Cythera who had quitted
his country for homicide, ‘but whom,’ says Ajax to Teucer, ‘we honoured
as if he had been a beloved parent[833].’
[833] Il. xv. 429-40.
VI. Again, the case of Epeigeus is remarkable; for he had been lord of
Budeum:
ὅς ῥ’ ἐν Βουδείῳ εὐναιομένῳ ἤνασσεν
τὸ πρίν·
But having slain a cousin, apparently also of the higher order, he had
to fly to Peleus and Thetis for protection[834].
[834] Il. xvi. 571.
VII. In the Thirteenth Odyssey, Ulysses, after being deposited in
Ithaca, gives a fabulous account of himself to the disguised Minerva,
in which we may be sure that he includes nothing which was deemed
essentially dishonourable. In this account he represents himself as
a fugitive from Crete on account of homicide. Orsilochus, the son of
Idomeneus, had endeavoured, as he says, to deprive him of his share
of the Trojan booty: for this cause he waylaid him by night, took
away his life without being perceived by any one as he was returning
from the country, and then embarked, to avoid the consequences, in a
Phœnician ship[835].
[835] Od. xiii. 256-75.
VIII. An anonymous Ætolian, having slain a man, fled to Ithaca, visited
Eumæus, and as a matter of course was entertained, nay petted, by him;
ἐγὼ δέ μιν ἀμφαγάπαζον (Od. xiv. 379-81).
Even this great number of instances do not so fully illustrate the
familiarity of the practice, and its thorough disconnection from the
idea of moral turpitude, as the mode in which it furnishes the material
of general illustration or remark. When Homer desires to represent
on the shield of Achilles the ordinary form of public business in an
assembly, he chooses a trial for homicide[836]. And so Ulysses, when
explaining to Telemachus the formidable difficulties with which, after
the slaughter of the Suitors, he has to contend, observes that those
whom he has slain were the very flower of the community; whereas, in
ordinary cases, a man flies his country after having put but a single
person to death, and this even though he be one who has few to take up
his quarrel[837].
[836] Il. xviii. 479.
[837] Od. xxiii. 118-22.
Now if we knew these facts concerning the Greeks of the heroic age,
and knew nothing else, we should at once conclude that they were an
inhuman and savage people, who did not appreciate the value of human
life. But this is not so. They are not a cruel people. There is no
wanton infliction of pain throughout the whole operations of the Iliad,
no delight in the sufferings of others. The only needless wounds are
wounds given to the dead[838]; a mode of action which imputed nothing
brutal or degrading, in times when mankind had not yet learned from the
Christian Revelation the honour due to the human body.
[838] Il. xxii, 371.
It is not then mere savageness, and the low estimate put upon life,
which determines the view of the heroic age with respect to homicide.
And if not, then it can only be an unbalanced appreciation of some
other quality, such as courage, which was commonly implied and
exhibited in such cases.
~_Why viewed with little disfavour._~
It seems as though the display of force and spirit of daring, which
accompany crimes of violence in a rude age, had such a value in the
estimation of the early Greeks, as to excuse proceedings which would
otherwise have been visited with the severest censure. We shall find
reason to believe that Paris may have had a certain credit in their
eyes for carrying off Helen by the strong hand, which went to redeem
or mitigate his adultery, and breach of hospitable rights. This idea,
which is undoubtedly startling, is supported by the strange narrative
of Hercules and Iphitus. Iphitus was the possessor of certain fine
mares. Hercules, determined to possess them, visited him, received his
hospitality, slew him, and carried off the animals. Now it may indeed
be the mixed character of Hercules, which places his εἴδωλον in the
Shades, while he is himself among the Immortals; but still the scale
is cast on the whole in his favour. Yet surely the story of Iphitus
exhibits a crime of the blackest dye; and the only palliation of it
that is conceivable seems to lie in this, that he probably did not use
stratagem, but proceeded by main force. The crime of Ægisthus, the
blackest in the poems, appears to derive its highest intensity from the
fact, that he slew Agamemnon like an ox at the stall, in the friendly
feast itself, without notice or the opportunity of defence, and by a
plot deliberately laid. Such is the effect of all the three passages in
which this outrage is described[839]. The most favourable supposition
which the case of Hercules admits is, that he came for plunder, and put
the possessor of the horses to death, without premeditation, upon his
refusal to yield them up; and that such an act, though a proper object
of divine resentment, was yet not black enough to destroy his title to
honour and a celestial abode[840].
[839] Od. i. 35-7. iv. 524-35. xi. 409-20.
[840] Od. xxi. 22-38. xi. 601-4.
We will now pass on to a kindred subject.
~_Piracy in the heroic age._~
Thucydides has stated that in the earlier ages of Greece the practice
of piracy was alike widespread and honourable: οὐκ ἔχοντός πω αἰσχύνην
τούτου τοῦ ἔργου, φέροντος δέ τι καὶ δόξης μᾶλλον[841]. In support
of this opinion he refers to the questions then usually addressed to
strangers on their arrival in a country; such as that by Nestor to the
pseudo-Mentor and Telemachus, in order to learn what their business
was, or whether they were pirates[842];
[841] Thuc. i. 5.
[842] Od. iii. 72.
ἢ μαψιδίως ἀλάλησθε,
οἷά τε ληϊστῆρες, ὑπεὶρ ἅλα, τοίτ’ ἀλόωνται
ψυχὰς παρθέμενοι, κακὸν ἀλλοδαποῖσι φέροντες;
Now I think that the last line seems to explain the favourable view
which was taken by the Greeks of the practice of piracy. For it
combined with the hazards of navigation, then so much more serious than
at present, the chance of desperate encounters. It appealed, in the
very highest degree, to the spirit of adventure; a spirit congenial
especially to the earliest youth of a people full of unsatisfied and,
so to speak, hungry energies. The mischief inflicted was inflicted
on ἀλλόδαποι, on those with whom there was no close tie, either as
compatriots or as ξεῖνοι. Now we must bear in mind that the law which,
even in the time of Thucydides, governed the relations of the Greek
tribes among themselves, during the period of their high civilization,
was a permanent or ordinary state of hostility suspended from time
to time by conventions for so many or so many years[843]. The same
principle, applied to a period when political organization was less
mature, and when men lived rather in knots and companies than in
states, involves the Homeric view of piracy. And that view, entertained
in such times, should occasion far less surprise, than our finding
Thucydides inform us that the same system continued throughout whole
divisions of Greece in his day; καὶ μέχρι τοῦδε πολλὰ τῆς Ἑλλάδος
τῷ παλαιῷ τρόπῳ νέμεται, περί τε Λοκροὺς τοὺς Ὀζόλας, καὶ Αἰτώλους,
καὶ Ἀκαρνᾶνας, καὶ τὴν ταύτῃ ἤπειρον[844]. The gains of the pirate’s
life were in some sense fairly balanced by its dangers. The piracy
of that age was not like piracy in ours, the strong and well-armed
waiting for the feeble and defenceless; it was a game of more even
chances, and the real resemblance for it is to be found, not among the
Algerine corsairs, not even in the Highland clans sweeping down from
the mountains upon the Lowland Scots, but most properly in the more
even-handed forays of the border warfare between England and Scotland.
[843] It seems, however, possible that the sense of the ἑκατονταετεῖς
σπονδαὶ might be the same as that which we attach to a lease for nine
hundred and ninety-nine years.
[844] Thuc. i. 5.
There is indeed yet a higher authority for this kind of piracy, than
that to which Thucydides has referred. Ulysses, when he has destroyed
the Suitors, considers, in conversation with his wife, not only how he
is to preserve his remaining property in live stock, but how he is to
replace what his enemies have destroyed. Part he thinks his subjects
will make up to him by presents, but great part he will himself obtain
by freebooting[845];
[845] Od. xxiii. 357.
πολλὰ μὲν αὐτὸς ἐγὼ ληΐσσομαι.