Version A appears to us to have been a version that no heroic audience

would endure. A low person like Thersites opens a debate in an assembly

called by the Over-Lord; this could not possibly pass unchallenged among

listeners living in the feudal age. When a prince called an assembly,

he himself opened the debate, as Achilles does in Book I. 54-67. That

a lewd fellow, the buffoon and grumbler of the host, of "the people,"

nameless and silent throughout the Epic, should rush in and open debate

in an assembly convoked by the Over-Lord, would have been regarded

by feudal hearers, or by any hearers with feudal traditions, as an

intolerable poetical license. Thersites would have been at once pulled

down and beaten; the host would not have rushed to the ships on _his_

motion. Any feudal audience would know better than to endure such

an impossibility; they would have asked, "How could Thersites

speak--without the sceptre?"

As the poem stands, and ought to stand, nobody less than the Over-Lord,

acting within his right, ([Greek: ae themis esti] II. 73), could suggest

the flight of the host, and be obeyed.

It is the absolute demoralisation of the host, in consequence of the

strange test of their Lord, Agamemnon, making a feigned proposal to fly,

and it is their confused, bewildered return to the assembly under the

persuasions of Odysseus, urged by Athene, that alone, in the poem, give

Thersites his unique opportunity to harangue. When the Over-Lord had

called an assembly the first word, of course, was for to speak, as

he does in the poem as it stands. That Thersifes should rise in the

arrogance bred by the recent disorderly and demoralised proceedings is

one thing; that he should open the debate when excitement was eager to

hear Agamemnon, and before demoralisation set in, is quite another. We

never hear again of Thersites, or of any one of the commonalty, daring

to open his mouth in an assembly. Thersites sees his one chance, the

chance of a life time, and takes it; because Agamemnon, by means of the

test--a proposal to flee homewards--which succeeded, it is said, in the

case of Cortes,--has reduced the host, already discontented, to a mob.

Before Agamemnon thus displayed his ineptitude, as he often does later,

Thersites had no chance. All this appears sufficiently obvious, if we

put ourselves at the point of view of the original listeners. Thersites

merely continues, in full assembly, the mutinous babble which he has

been pouring out to his neighbours during the confused rush to launch

the ships and during the return produced by the influence of Odysseus.

The poet says so himself (_Iliad_, II. 212). "The rest sat down ...

only Thersites still chattered on." No original poet could manage the

situation in any other way.

We have now examined Mr. Leaf's two supposed earliest versions of the

beginning of the _Iliad_. His presumed earlier version (A), with no

Thetis, no promise of Zeus, and no Dream, and with Thersites opening

debate, is jejune, unpoetical, and omits the gentler and most winning

aspect of the character of Achilles, while it could not possibly have

been accepted by a feudal audience for the reasons already given. His

presumed later version (B), with Thetis, Zeus, and the false Dream,

cannot be, or certainly has not been, brought by Mr. Leaf into congruous

connection with Book XI., and it results in the fighting of the

_unarmed_ Agamemnon, which no poet could have been so careless as to

invent. Agamemnon could not go into battle without helmet, shield, and

spears (the other armour we need not dwell upon here), and Thersites

could not have opened a debate when the Over-Lord had called the

Assembly, nor could he have moved the chiefs to prepare for flight,

unless, as in the actual _Iliad_, they had already been demoralised

by the result of the feigned proposal of flight by Agamemnon, and its

effect upon the host. Probably every reader who understands heroic

society, temper, and manners will, so far, agree with us.

Our own opinion is that the difficulties in the poem are caused partly

by the poet's conception of the violent, wavering, excitable,

and unstable character of Agamemnon; partly by some accident, now

indiscoverable, save by conjecture, which has happened to the text.

The story in the actual _Iliad_ is that Zeus, planning disaster for the

Achaeans, in accordance with his promise to Thetis, sends a false Dream,

to tell Agamemnon that he will take Troy instantly. He is bidden by the

Dream to summon the host to arms. Agamemnon, _still asleep_, "has in his

mind things not to be fulfilled: Him seemeth that he shall take Priam's

town that very day" (II. 36, 37). "Then he awoke" (II. 41), and,

obviously, was no longer so sanguine, once awake!

Being a man crushed by his responsibility, and, as commander-in-chief,

extremely timid, though personally brave, he disobeys the Dream, dresses

in civil costume, and summons the host to a _peaceful_ assembly, not

to war, as the Dream bade him do. Probably he thought that the host was

disaffected, and wanted to argue with them, in place of commanding.

Here it is that the difficulty comes in, and our perplexity is increased

by our ignorance of the regular procedure in Homeric times. Was the host

not in arms and fighting every day, when there was no truce? There seems

to have been no armistice after the mutiny of Achilles, for we are

told that, in the period between his mutiny and the day of the Dream of

Agamemnon, Achilles "was neither going to the Assembly, nor into battle,

but wasted his heart, abiding there, longing for war and the slogan"

(I. 489, 492). Thus it seems that war went on, and that assemblies were

being held, in the absence of Achilles. It appears, however, that the

fighting was mere skirmishing and raiding, no general onslaught was

attempted; and from Book II. _73_, 83 it seems to have been a matter

of doubt, with Agamemnon and Nestor, whether the army would venture a

pitched battle.

It also appears, from the passage cited (I. 489, 492) that assemblies

were being regularly held; we are told that Achilles did not attend

them. Yet, when we come to the assembly (II. 86-100) it seems to have

been a special and exciting affair, to judge by the brilliant picture

of the crowds, the confusion, and the cries. Nothing of the sort is

indicated in the meeting of the assembly in I. _54-5_ 8. Why is there

so much excitement at the assembly of Book II.? Partly because it was

summoned _at_ dawn, whereas the usual thing was for the host to meet

in arms before fighting on the plain or going on raids; assemblies were

held when the day's work was over. The host, therefore, when summoned

to an assembly _at dawn_, expects to hear of something out of the

common--as the mutiny of Achilles suggests--and is excited.

We must ask, then, why does Agamemnon, after the Dream has told him

merely to summon the host to arm--a thing of daily routine--call a

deliberative morning assembly, a thing clearly not of routine? If

Agamemnon is really full of confidence, inspired by the Dream, why does

he determine, not to do what is customary, call the men to arms, but

as Jeanne d'Arc said to the Dauphin, to "hold such long and weary

councils"? Mr. Jevons speaks of Agamemnon's "confidence in the delusive

dream" as at variance with his proceedings, and would excise II. 35-41,

"the only lines which represent Agamemnon as confidently believing in

the Dream." [Footnote: _Journal_ of _Hellenic_ Studies, vol. vii. pp.

306, 307.] But the poet never once says that Agamemnon, awake, did

believe confidently in the Dream! Agamemnon dwelt with hope _while_

asleep; when he wakened--he went and called a peaceful morning assembly,

though the Dream bade him call to arms. He did not dare to risk his

authority. This was exactly in keeping with his character. The poet

should have said, "When he woke, the Dream appeared to him rather poor

security for success" (saying so in poetic language, of course), and

then there would be no difficulty in the summoning of an assembly at

dawn. But either the poet expected us to understand the difference

between the hopes of Agamemnon sleeping, and the doubts of Agamemnon

waking to chill realities--an experience common to all of us who

dream--or some explanatory lines have been dropped out--one or two would

have cleared up the matter.

If I am right, the poet has not been understood. People have not

observed that Agamemnon hopes while asleep, and doubts, and acts on his

doubt, when awake. Thus Mr. Leaf writes: "Elated by the dream, as we are

led to suppose, Agamemnon summons the army--to lead them into battle?

Nothing of the sort; he calls them to assembly." [Footnote: _Iliad_,

vol. ii. p. 46.] But we ought not to have been led to suppose that

the waking Agamemnon was so elated as the sleeping Agamemnon. He was

"disillusioned" on waking; his conduct proves it; he did not know what

to think about the Dream; he did not know how the host would take the

Dream; he doubted whether they would fight at his command, so he called

an assembly.

Mr. Jevons very justly cites a parallel case. Grote has remarked that in

Book VII. of Herodotus, "The dream sent by the Gods to frighten Xerxes

when about to recede from his project," has "a marked parallel in the

_Iliad_." Thus Xerxes, after the defection of Artabanus, was despondent,

like Agamemnon after the mutiny of Achilles, and was about to recede

from his project. To both a delusive dream is sent urging them to

proceed. Xerxes calls an assembly, however, and says that he will

not proceed. Why? Because, says Herodotus, "when day came, he thought

nothing of his dream." Agamemnon, once awake, thought doubtfully of

_his_ dream; he called a Privy Council, told the princes about his

dream--of which Nestor had a very dubious opinion--and said that he

would try the temper of the army by proposing instant flight: the chiefs

should restrain the men if they were eager to run away.

Now the epic prose narrative of Herodotus is here clearly based on

_Iliad_, II., which Herodotus must have understood as I do. But in

Homer there is no line to say--and one line or two would have been

enough--that Agamemnon, when awake, doubted, like Xerxes, though

Agamemnon, when asleep, had been confident. The necessary line, for all

that we know, still existed in the text used by Herodotus. Homer

may lose a line as well as Dieuchidas of Megara, or rather Diogenes

Laertius. Juvenal lost a whole passage, re-discovered by Mr. Winstedt

in a Bodleian manuscript. If Homer expected modern critics to note the

delicate distinction between Agamemnon asleep and Agamemnon awake, or to

understand Agamemnon's character, he expected too much. [Footnote: Cf.

Jevons, _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, vol. vii. pp. 306, 307.] The poet

then treats the situation on these lines: Agamemnon, awake and free from

illusion, does not obey the dream, does _not_ call the army to war; he

takes a middle course.

In the whole passage the poet's main motive, as Mr. Monro remarks with

obvious truth, is "to let his audience become acquainted with the temper

and spirit of the army as it was affected by the long siege ... and by

the events of the First Book." [Footnote: Monro, _Iliad_, vol. i. p.

261.] The poet could not obtain his object if Agamemnon merely gave the

summons to battle; and he thinks Agamemnon precisely the kind of waverer

who will call, first the Privy Council of the Chiefs, and then an

assembly. Herein the homesick host will display its humours, as it does

with a vengeance. Agamemnon next tells his Dream to the chiefs (if he

had a dream of this kind he would most certainly tell it), and adds (as

has been already stated) that he will first test the spirit of the

army by a feigned proposal of return to Greece, while the chiefs are to

restrain them if they rush to launch the ships. Nestor hints that there

is not much good in attending to dreams; however, this is the dream of

the Over-Lord, who is the favoured of Zeus.

Agamemnon next, addressing the assembly, says that posterity will think

it a shameful thing that the Achaeans raised the siege of a town with a

population much smaller than their own army; but allies from many

cities help the Trojans, and are too strong for him, whether posterity

understands that or not. "Let us flee with our ships!"

On this the host break up, in a splendid passage of poetry, and rush

to launch the ships, the passion of _nostalgie_ carrying away even

the chiefs, it appears--a thing most natural in the circumstances.

But Athene finds Odysseus in grief: "neither laid he any hand upon his

ship," as the others did, and she encouraged him to stop the flight.

This he does, taking the sceptre of Agamemnon from his unnerved hand.

He goes about reminding the princes "have we not heard Agamemnon's real

intention in council?" (II. 188-197), and rating the common sort. The

assembly meets again in great confusion; Thersites seizes the chance to

be insolent, and is beaten by Odysseus. The host then arms for battle.

The poet has thus shown Agamemnon in the colours which he wears

consistently all through the _Iliad_. He has, as usual, contrasted with

him Odysseus, the type of a wise and resolute man. This contrast the

poet maintains without fail throughout. He has shown us the temper of

the weary, home-sick army, and he has persuaded us that he knows how

subtle, dangerous, and contagious a thing is military panic. Thus, at

least, I venture to read the passage, which, thus read, is perfectly

intelligible. Agamemnon is no personal coward, but the burden of the

safety of the host overcomes him later, and he keeps suggesting flight

in the ships, as we shall see. Suppose, then, we read on from II. 40

thus: "The Dream left him thinking of things not to be, even that on

this day he shall take the town of Priam.... But he awoke from sleep

with the divine voice ringing in his ears. (_Then it seemed him that

some dreams are true and_ some _false, for all do_ not _come through the

Gate of_ Horn.) So he arose and sat up and did on his soft tunic, and

his great cloak, and grasped his ancestral sceptre ... and bade the

clear-voiced heralds summon the Achaeans of the long locks to the

deliberative assembly." He then, as in II. 53-75 told his Dream to the

preliminary council, and proposed that he should try the temper of

the host by proposing flight--which, if it began, the chiefs were to

restrain--before giving orders to arm. The test of the temper of the

host acted as it might be expected to act; all rushed to launch the

ships, and the princes were swept away in the tide of flight, Agamemnon

himself merely looking on helpless. The panic was contagious; only

Odysseus escaped its influence, and redeemed the honour of the Achaeans,

as he did again on a later day.

The passage certainly has its difficulties. But Erhardt expresses the

proper state of the case, after giving his analysis. "The hearer's

imagination is so captured, first by the dream, then by the brawling

assembly, by the rush to the ships, by the intervention of Odysseus, by

the punishment of Thersites--all these living pictures follow each

other so fleetly before the eyes that we have scarcely time to make

objections." [Footnote: _Die Enstehung der Homerische Gedichte_, p.

29.]. The poet aimed at no more and no less effect than he has

produced, and no more should be required by any one, except by

that anachronism--"the analytical reader." _He_ has "time to make

objections": the poet's audience had none; and he must be criticised

from their point of view. Homer did not sing for analytical readers,

for the modern professor; he could not possibly conceive that Time would

bring such a being into existence.

To return to the character of Agamemnon. In moments of encouragement

Agamemnon is a valiant fighter, few better spearmen, yet "he attains not

to the first Three," Achilles, Aias, Diomede. But Agamemnon is unstable

as water; again and again, as in Book II., the lives and honour of the

Achaeans are saved in the Over-Lord's despite by one or other of the

peers. The whole _Iliad_, with consistent uniformity, pursues the scheme

of character and conduct laid down in the two first Books. It is guided

at once by feudal allegiance and feudal jealousy, like the _Chansons de

Geste_ and the early sagas or romances of Ireland. A measure of respect

for Agamemnon, even of sympathy, is preserved; he is not degraded as the

kings and princes are often degraded on the Attic stage, and even in the

Cyclic poems. Would wandering Ionian reciters at fairs have maintained

this uniformity? Would the tyrant Pisistratus have made his literary man

take this view?

CHAPTER V

AGAMEMNON IN THE LATER "ILIAD"

In the Third Book, Agamemnon receives the compliments due to his

supremacy, aspect, and valour from the lips of Helen and Priam. There

are other warriors taller by a head, and Odysseus was shorter than he by

a head, so Agamemnon was a man of middle stature. He is "beautiful and

royal" of aspect; "a good king and a mighty spearman," says Helen.

The interrupted duel between Menelaus and Paris follows, and then the

treacherous wounding of Menelaus by Pandarus. One of Agamemnon's most

sympathetic characteristics is his intense love of his brother, for

whose sake he has made the war. He shudders on seeing the arrow wound,

but consoles Menelaus by the certainty that Troy will fall, for the

Trojans have broken the solemn oath of truce. Zeus "doth fulfil at last,

and men make dear amends." But with characteristic inconsistency he

discourages Menelaus by a picture of many a proud Trojan leaping on

his tomb, while the host will return home-an idea constantly present to

Agamemnon's mind. He is always the first to propose flight, though he

will "return with shame" to Mycenae. Menelaus is of much better cheer:

"Be of good courage, [blank space] ALL THE HOST OF THE [misprint]"--a

thing which Agamemnon does habitually, though he is not a personal

poltroon. As Menelaus has only a slight flesh wound after all, and

as the Trojans are doomed men, Agamemnon is now "eager for glorious

battle." He encourages the princes, but, of all men, rebukes Odysseus as

"last at a fray and first at a feast": such is his insolence, for which

men detest him.

This is highly characteristic in Agamemnon, who has just been redeemed

from ruin by Odysseus. Rebuked by Odysseus, he "takes back his word" as

usual, and goes on to chide Diomede as better at making speeches than at

fighting! But Diomede made no answer, "having respect to the chiding

of the revered King." He even rebukes the son of Capaneus for answering

Agamemnon haughtily. Diomede, however, does not forget; he bides his

time. He now does the great deeds of his day of valour (Book V.).

Agamemnon meanwhile encourages the host.

During Books V., VI. Agamemnon's business is "to bid the rest keep

fighting." When Hector, in Book VII., challenges any Achaean, nobody

volunteers except Menelaus, who has a strong sense of honour. Agamemnon

restrains him, and lots are cast: the host pray that the lot may fall

on Aias, Diomede, or Agamemnon (VII. 179-180). Thus the Over-Lord is

acknowledged to be a man of his hands, especially good at hurling the

spear, as we see again in Book XXIII.

A truce is proposed for the burial of the dead, and Paris offers to give

up the wealth that he brought to Troy, and more, if the Achaeans will

go home, but Helen he will not give up. We expect Agamemnon to answer as

becomes him. But no! All are silent, till Diomede rises. They will not

return, he says, even if Helen be restored, for even a fool knows that

Troy is doomed, because of the broken oath. The rest shout acquiescence,

and Agamemnon refuses the compromise. Apparently he would not have

disdained it, but for Diomede's reply.

On the following day the Trojans have the better in the battle, and

Agamemnon "has no heart to stand," nor have some of his peers. But

Diomede has more courage, and finally Agamemnon begins to call to

the host to fight, but breaks down, weeps, and prays to Zeus "that

we ourselves at least flee and escape;" he is not an encouraging

commander-in-chief! Zeus, in pity, sends a favourable omen; Aias fights

well; night falls, and the Trojans camp on the open plain.

Agamemnon, in floods of tears, calls an assembly, and proposes to

"return to Argos with dishonour." "Let us flee with our ships to our

dear native land, for now shall we never take wide-wayed Troy," All are

silent, till Diomede rises and reminds Agamemnon that "thou saidst I was

no man of war, but a coward." (In Book V.; we are now in Book IX.) "Zeus

gave thee the honour of the sceptre above all men, but valour he gave

thee not.... Go thy way; thy way is before thee, and thy ships stand

beside the sea. But all the other flowing-haired Achaeans will tarry

here until we waste Troy."

Nestor advises Agamemnon to set an advanced guard, which that martialist

had never thought of doing, and to discuss matters over supper. A force

of 700 men, under Meriones and the son of Nestor, was posted between the

foss and the wall round the camp; the council met, and Nestor advised

Agamemnon to approach Achilles with gentle words and gifts of atonement.

Agamemnon, full of repentance, acknowledges his folly and offers

enormous atonement. Heralds and three ambassadors are sent; and how

Achilles received them, with perfect courtesy, but with absolute

distrust of Agamemnon and refusal of his gifts, sending the message that

he will fight only when fire comes to his own ships, we know.

Achilles is now entirely in the wrong, and the Over-Lord is once more

within his right. He has done all, or more than all, that customary

law demands. In Book IX. Phoenix states the case plainly. "If Agamemnon

brought thee not gifts, and promised thee more hereafter, ... then

were I not he that should bid thee cast aside thine anger, and save the

Argives...." (IX. 515-517). The case so stands that, if Achilles later

relents and fights, the gifts of atonement will no longer be due to him,

and he "will not be held in like honour" (IX. 604).

The poet knows intimately, and, like his audience, is keenly interested

in the details of the customary law. We cannot easily suppose this

frame of mind and this knowledge in a late poet addressing a late Ionian

audience.

The ambassadors return to Agamemnon; their evil tidings are received in

despairing silence. But Diomede bids Agamemnon take heart and fight next

day, with his host arrayed "before the ships" (IX. 708). This appears to

counsel defensive war; but, in fact, and for reasons, when it comes to

fighting they do battle in the open.

The next Book (X.) is almost universally thought a late interpolation;

an opinion elsewhere discussed (see [blank space]). Let us, then, say

with Mr. Leaf that the Book begins with "exaggerated despondency" and

ends with "hasty exultation," in consequence of a brilliant camisade,

wherein Odysseus and Diomede massacre a Thracian contingent. Our point

is that the poet carefully (see _The Doloneia_) continues the study of

Agamemnon in despondency, and later, by his "hasty exultation," preludes

to the valour which the Over-Lord displays in Book XI.

The poet knows that something in the way of personal valour is due to

Agamemnon's position; he fights brilliantly, receives a flesh wound,

retires, and is soon proposing a general flight in his accustomed way.

When the Trojans, in Book XIV., are attacking the ships, Agamemnon

remarks that he fears the disaffection of his whole army (XIV. 49, 51),

and, as for the coming defeat, that he "knew it," even when Zeus helped

the Greeks. They are all to perish far from Argos. Let them drag the

ships to the sea, moor them with stones, and fly, "For there is no shame

in fleeing from ruin, even in the night. Better doth he fare who flees

from trouble than he that is overtaken." It is now the turn of Odysseus

again to save the honour of the army. "Be silent, lest some other of the

Achaeans hear this word, that no man should so much as suffer to pass

through his mouth.... And now I wholly scorn thy thoughts, such a word

hast thou uttered." On this Agamemnon instantly repents. "Right sharply

hast thou touched my heart with thy stern reproof:" he has not even the

courage of his nervousness.

The combat is now in the hands of Aias and Patroclus, who is slain.

Agamemnon, who is wounded, does not reappear till Book XIX., when

Achilles, anxious to fight and avenge Patroclus at once, without

formalities of reconciliation, professes his desire to let bygones be

bygones. Agamemnon excuses his insolence to Achilles as an inspiration

of Ate: a predestined fault--"Not I am the cause, but Zeus and Destiny."

Odysseus, to clinch the reunion and fulfil customary law, advises

Agamemnon to bring out the gifts of atonement (the gifts prepared in

Book IX.), after which the right thing is for him to give a feast of

reconciliation, "that Achilles may have nothing lacking of his right."

[Footnote: Book XIX. 179, 180.] The case is one which has been provided

for by customary law in every detail. Mr. Leaf argues that all this part

must be late, because of the allusion to the gifts offered in Book IX.

But we reply, with Mr. Monro, that the Ninth Book is "almost necessary

to any Achilleis." The question is, would a late editor or poet know

all the details of customary law in such a case as a quarrel between

Over-Lord and peer? would a feudal audience have been satisfied with

a poem which did not wind the quarrel up in accordance with usage? and

would a late poet, in a society no longer feudal, know how to wind it

up? Would he find any demand on the part of his audience for a long

series of statements, which to a modern seem to interrupt the story?

To ourselves it appears that a feudal audience desired the customary

details; to such an audience they were most interesting.

This is a taste which, as has been said, we find in all early poetry

and in the sagas; hence the long "runs" of the Celtic sagas, minutely

repeated descriptions of customary things. The Icelandic saga-men never

weary, though modern readers do, of legal details. For these reasons we

reckon the passages in Book XIX. about the reconciliation as original,

and think they can be nothing else. It is quite natural that, in a

feudal society of men who were sticklers for custom, the hearers should

insist on having all things done duly and in order--the giving of the

gifts and the feast of reconciliation--though the passionate Achilles

himself desires to fight at once. Odysseus insists that what we may call

the regular routine shall be gone through. It is tedious to the modern

reader, but it is surely much more probable that a feudal poet thus

gratified his peculiar audience (he looked for no other) than that a

late poet, with a different kind of audience, thrust the Reconciliation

in as an "after-thought." [Footnote: Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. ii. p. 317.]

The right thing must be done, Odysseus assures Achilles, "for I was

born first, and know more things." It is not the right thing to fight

at once, unfed, and before the solemn sacrifice by the Over-Lord,

the prayer, the Oath of Agamemnon, and the reception of the gifts by

Achilles; only after these formalities, and after the army has fed, can

the host go forth. "I know more than you do; you are a younger man,"

says Odysseus, speaking in accordance with feudal character, at the risk

of wearying later unforeseen generations.

This is not criticism inspired by mere "literary feeling," for "literary

feeling" is on the side of Achilles, and wishes the story to hurry to

his revenge. But ours is [blank space] criticism; we must think of the

poet in relation to his audience and of their demands, which we can

estimate by similar demands, vouched for by the supply, in the early

national poetry of other peoples and in the Icelandic sagas.

We hear no more of Agamemnon till, in Book XXIII, 35-38, after the

slaying of Hector, Achilles "was brought to noble Agamemnon" (for that,

as Odysseus said, was the regular procedure) "by the Achaean chiefs,

hardly persuading him thereto, for his heart was wroth for his comrade."

Here they feast, Achilles still full of grief and resentment. He merely

goes through the set forms, much against his will. It does appear to us

that the later the poet the less he would have known or cared about

the forms. An early society is always much interested in forms and in

funerals and funeral games, so the poet indulges their taste with the

last rites of Patroclus. The last view of Agamemnon is given when,

at the end of the games, Achilles courteously presents him with the

flowered _lebes_, the prize for hurling the spear, without asking him to

compete, since his superior skill is notorious. This act of courtesy is

the real reconciliation; previously Achilles had but gone reluctantly

through the set forms in such cases provided. Even when Agamemnon

offered the gifts of atonement, Achilles said, "Give them, as is

customary, or keep them, as you please" (XIX. 146, 148). Achilles, young

and passionate, cares nothing for the feudal procedure.

This rapid survey seems to justify the conclusion that the poet presents

an uniform and historically correct picture of the Over-Lord and of

his relations with his peers, a picture which no late editor could

have pieced together out of the widely varying _repertoires_ of late

strolling reciters. Such reciters would gladly have forgotten, and such

an editor would gladly have "cut" the "business" of the reconciliation.

They would also, in a democratic spirit, have degraded the Over-Lord

into the tyrant, but throughout, however low Agamemnon may fall, the

poet is guided by the knowledge that his right to rule is _jure divino_,

that he has qualities, that his responsibilities are crushing, "I, whom

among all men Zeus hath planted for ever among labours, while my

breath abides within me, and my limbs move," says the Over-Lord (X.

Sg, go.[sic]). In short, the poet's conception of the Over-Lord is

throughout harmonious, is a contemporary conception entertained by a

singer who lives among peers that own, and are jealous of, and obey an

Over-Lord. The character and situation of Agamemnon are a poetic work of

one age, one moment of culture.

CHAPTER VI

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE "ILIAD". BURIAL AND CREMATION

In archaeological discoveries we find the most convincing proofs that

the _Iliad_, on the whole, is the production of a single age, not the

patchwork of several changeful centuries. This may seem an audacious

statement, as archaeology has been interpreted of late in such a manner

as to demand precisely the opposite verdict. But if we can show, as we

think we can, that many recent interpretations of the archaeological

evidence are not valid, because they are not consistent, our contention,

though unexpected, will be possible. It is that the combined testimony

of archaeology and of the Epic proves the _Iliad_ to represent, as

regards customs, weapons, and armour, a definite moment of evolution; a

period between the age recorded in the art of the Mycenaean shaft graves

and the age of early iron swords and the "Dipylon" period.

Before the discoveries of the material remains of the "Mycenzean"

times, the evidence of archaeology was seldom appropriately invoked

in discussions of the Homeric question. But in the thirty years since

Schliemann explored the buried relics of the Mycenzean Acropolis,

his "Grave of Agamemnon," a series of excavations has laid bare the

interments, the works of art, and the weapons and ornaments of years

long prior to the revolution commonly associated with the "Dorian

Invasion" of about 1100-1000 B.C. The objects of all sorts which have

been found in many sites of Greece and the isles, especially of Cyprus

and Crete, in some respects tally closely with Homeric descriptions,

in others vary from them widely. Nothing can be less surprising, if the

heroes whose legendary feats inspired the poet lived centuries before

his time, as Charlemagne and his Paladins lived some three centuries

before the composition of the earliest extant _Chansons de Geste_ on

their adventures. There was, in such a case, time for much change in the

details of life, art, weapons and implements. Taking the relics in the

graves of the Mycenaean Acropolis as a starting-point, some things would

endure into the age of the poet, some would be modified, some would

disappear.

We cannot tell how long previous to his own date the poet supposes the

Achaean heroes to have existed. He frequently ascribes to them feats of

strength which "no man of such as now are" could perform. This gives

no definite period for the interval; he might be speaking of the great

grandfathers of his own generation. But when he regards the heroes as

closely connected by descent of one or two generations with the gods,

and as in frequent and familiar intercourse with gods and goddesses, we

must suppose that he did not think their period recent. The singers

of the _Chansons de Geste_ knew that angels' visits were few and far

between at the period, say, of the Norman Conquest; but they allowed

angels to appear in epics dealing with the earlier time, almost as

freely as gods intervene in Homer. In short, the Homeric poet undeniably

treats the age of his heroes as having already, in the phrase of

Thucydides, "won its way to the mythical," and therefore as indefinitely

remote.

It is impossible here to discuss in detail the complex problems of

Mycenaean chronology. If we place the Mycenaean "bloom-time" from

"the seventeenth or sixteenth to the twelfth century B.C.," [Footnote:

Tsountas and Manatt, p. 322.] it is plain that there is space to spare,

between the poet's age and that of his heroes, for the rise of changes

in war, weapons, and costume. Indeed, there are traces enough of change

even in the objects and art discovered in the bloom-time, as represented

by the Mycenaean acropolis itself and by other "Mycenaean" sites. The

art of the fragment of a silver vase in a grave, on which a siege is

represented, is not the art, the costumes are not the costumes, of

the inlaid bronze dagger-blade. The men shown on the vase and the

lion-hunters on the dagger both have their hair close cropped, but on

the vase they are naked, on the dagger they wear short drawers. On the

Vaphio cups, found in a _tholos_ chamber-tomb near Amyclae, the men are

"long-haired Achaeans," with heavy, pendent locks, like the man on a

pyxis from Knossos, published by Mr. Evans; they are of another period

than the close-cropped men of the vase and dagger. [Footnote: _Journal

of Hellenic Studies_, vol. xvi. p. 102.] Two of the men on the silver

vase are covered either with shields of a shape and size elsewhere

unknown in Mycenaean art, or with cloaks of an unexampled form. The

masonry of the city wall, shown on the vase in the Mycenaean grave,

is not the ordinary masonry of Mycenae itself. On the vase the wall is

"isodomic," built of cut stones in regular layers. Most of the Mycenaean

walls, on the other hand, are of "Cyclopean" style, in large irregular

blocks.

Art, good and very bad, exists in many various stages in Mycenaean

relics. The drawing of a god, with a typical Mycenaean shield in the

form of a figure 8, on a painted sarcophagus from Milato in Crete,

is more crude and savage than many productions of the Australian

aboriginals, [Footnote: _Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xvi. _p._

174, fig. 50._ Grosse. _Les Debuts de l'Art,_ pp. 124-176.] the thing is

on the level of Red Indian work. Meanwhile at Vaphio, Enkomi, Knossos,

and elsewhere the art is often excellent.

In one essential point the poet describes a custom without parallel

among the discovered relics of the Mycenaean age--namely, the disposal

of the bodies of the dead. They are neither buried with their arms, in

stately _tholos_ tombs nor in shaft graves, as at Mycenae: whether

they be princes or simple oarsmen, they are cremated. A pyre of wood is

built; on this the warrior's body is laid, the pyre is lighted, the body

is reduced to ashes, the ashes are placed in a vessel or box of gold,

wrapped round with precious cloths (no arms are buried, as a general

rule), and a mound, howe, barrow, or tumulus is raised over all. Usually

a _stele_ or pillar crowns the edifice. This method is almost uniform,

and, as far as cremation and the cairn go, is universal in the _Iliad_

and _Odyssey_ whenever a burial is described. Now this mode of

interment must be the mode of a single age in Greek civilisation. It is

confessedly not the method of the Mycenaeans of the shaft grave, or of

the latter _tholos_ or stone beehive-shaped grave; again, the Mycenaeans

did not burn the dead; they buried. Once more, the Homeric method is not

that of the Dipylon period (say 900-750 B.C.) represented by the tombs

outside the Dipylon gate of Athens. The people of that age now buried,

now burned, their dead, and did not build cairns over them. Thus the

Homeric custom comes between the shaft graves and the latter _tholos_

graves, on the one hand, and the Dipylon custom of burning or burying,

with sunk or rock-hewn graves, on the other.

The Homeric poets describe the method of their own period. They

assuredly do not adhere to an older epic tradition of shaft graves or

_tholos_ graves, though these must have been described in lays of the

period when such methods of disposal of the dead were in vogue. The

altar above the shaft-graves in Mycenae proves the cult of ancestors in

Mycenae; of this cult in the _Iliad_ there is no trace, or only a

dim trace of survival in the slaughter of animals at the funeral. The

Homeric way of thinking about the state of the dead, weak, shadowy

things beyond the river Oceanus, did not permit them to be worshipped

as potent beings. Only in a passage, possibly interpolated, of the

_Odyssey_, do we hear that Castor and Polydeuces, brothers of Helen,

and sons of Tyndareus, through the favour of Zeus have immortality, and

receive divine honours. [Footnote: Odyssey, XI. 298-304.]

These facts are so familiar that we are apt to overlook the strangeness

of them in the history of religious evolution. The cult of ancestral

spirits begins in the lowest barbarism, just above the level of the

Australian tribes, who, among the Dieri, show some traces of the

practice, at least, of ghost feeding. [Footnote: Howitt, _Native

Tribes of South-Eastern Australia,_ p. 448. There are also traces of

propitiation in Western Australia (MS. of Mrs. Bates).] Sometimes, as in

many African tribes, ancestor worship is almost the whole of practical

cult. Usually it accompanies polytheism, existing beside it on a lower

plane. It was prevalent in the Mycenae of the shaft graves; in Attica

it was uninterrupted; it is conspicuous in Greece from the ninth century

onwards. But it is unknown to or ignored by the Homeric poets, though it

can hardly have died out of folk custom. Consequently, the poems are

of one age, an age of cremation and of burial in barrows, with no ghost

worship. Apparently some revolution as regards burial occurred between

the age of the graves of the Mycenaean acropolis and the age of Homer.

That age, coming with its form of burning and its absence of the cult

of the dead, between two epochs of inhumation, ancestor worship, and

absence of cairns, is as certainly and definitely an age apart, a

peculiar period, as any epoch can be.

Cremation, with cairn burial of the ashes, is, then, the only form of

burial mentioned by Homer, and, as far as the poet tells us, the period

was not one in which iron was used for swords and spears. At Assarlik

(Asia Minor) and in Thera early graves, prove the use of cremation,

but also, unlike Homer, of iron weapons. [Footnote: Paton, Journal _of

Hellenic Studies,_ viii. 64_ff_. For other references, cf. Poulsen, _Die

Dipylongraeben_, p. 2, Notes. Leipzig 1905.] In these graves the ashes

are inurned. There are examples of the same usage in Salamis, without

iron. In Crete, in graves of the period of geometrical ornament

("Dipylon"), burning is more common than inhumation. Cremation is

attested in a _tholos_ or beehive-shaped grave in Argos, where the vases

were late Mycenaean. Below this stratum was an older shaft grave, as is

usual in _tholos_ interments; it had been plundered? [Footnote: Poulsen,

p.2.]

The cause of the marked change from Mycenaean inhumation to Homeric

cremation is matter of conjecture. It has been suggested that burning

was introduced during the migrations after the Dorian invasion. Men

could carry the ashes of their friends to the place where they finally

settled. [Footnote: Helbig, _Homerische Epos,_ p.83] The question may,

perhaps, be elucidated by excavation, especially in Asia Minor, on

the sites of the earliest Greek colonies. At Colophon are many cairns

unexplored by science. Mr. Ridgeway, as is well known, attributes the

introduction of cremation to a conquering northern people, the Achaeans,

his "Celts." It is certain that cremation and urn burial of the ashes

prevailed in Britain during the Age of Bronze, and co-existed with

inhumation in the great cemetery of Hallstatt, surviving into the Age of

Iron. [Footnote: Cf. _Guide to Antiquities of Early Iron Age,_ British

Museum, 1905, by Mr. Reginald A. Smith, under direction of Mr. Charles

H. Read, for a brief account of Hallstatt culture.] Others suppose a

change in Achaean ideas about the soul; it was no longer believed to

haunt the grave and grave goods and be capable of haunting the living,

but to be wholly set free by burning, and to depart for ever to the

House of Hades, powerless and incapable of hauntings.

It is never easy to decide as to whether a given mode of burial is the

result of a definite opinion about the condition of the dead, or

whether the explanation offered by those who practise the method is an

afterthought. In Tasmania among the lowest savages, now extinct,

were found monuments over cremated human remains, accompanied with

"characters crudely marked, similar to those which the aborigines

tattooed on their forearms." In one such grave was a spear, "for the

dead man to fight with when he is asleep," as a native explained. Some

Tasmanian tribes burned the dead and carried the ashes about in amulets;

others buried in hollow trees; others simply inhumed. Some placed the

dead in a hollow tree, and cremated the body after lapse of time. Some

tied the dead up tightly (a common practice with inhumation), and

then burned him. Some buried the dead in an erect 'posture. The common

explanation of burning was that it prevented the dead from returning,

thus it has always been usual to burn the bodies of vampires. Did a race

so backward hit on an idea unknown to the Mycenaean Greeks?

[Footnote: Ling Roth., _The Tasmanians_, pp. 128-134. Reports of Early

Discoverers.] If the usual explanation be correct--burning prevents

the return of the dead--how did the Homeric Greeks come to substitute

burning for the worship and feeding of the dead, which had certainly

prevailed? How did the ancient method return, overlapping and blent with

the method of cremation, as in the early Dipylon interments? We can

only say that the Homeric custom is definite and isolated, and that but

slight variations occur in the methods of Homeric burial.

(1)In _Iliad_, VI, 4 I 6 _ff_, Andromache _SAYS_ that Achilles slew her

father, "yet he despoiled him not, for his soul had shame of that; but

he burnt him in his inlaid armour, and raised a barrow over him." We are

not told that the armour was interred with the ashes of Eetion. This is

a peculiar case. We always hear in the that the dead are burned, and

the ashes of princes are placed in a vessel of gold within an artificial

hillock; but we do not hear, except in this passage, that they are

burned in their armour, or that it is burned, or that it is buried with

the ashes of the dead. The invariable practice is for the victor, if he

can, to despoil the body of the fallen foe; but Achilles for some reason

spared that indignity in the case of Eetion. [Footnote: German examples

of burning the amis of the cremated dead and then burying them are given

by Mr. Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece,_ vol. i. pp. 498, 499.]

(2) _ILIAD,_ VII. 85. Hector, in his challenge to a single combat, makes

the conditions that the victor shall keep the arms and armour of the

vanquished, but shall restore his body to his friends. The Trojans

will burn him, if he falls; if the Achaean falls, the others will do

something expressed by the word [Greek: tarchuchosi] probably a word

surviving from an age of embalment. [Footnote: Helbig, _Homerische

Epos,_ pp. 55, 56.] It has come to mean, generally, to do the funeral

rites. The hero is to have a barrow or artificial howe or hillock built

over him, "beside wide Hellespont," a memorial of him, and of Hector's

valour.

On the River Helmsdale, near Kildonan, on the left bank, there is such

a hillock which has never, it is believed, been excavated. It preserves

the memory of its occupant, an early Celtic saint; whether he was

cremated or not it is impossible to say. But his memory is not lost,

and the howe, cairn, or hillock, in Homer is desired by the heroes as a

MEMORIAL.

On the terms proposed by Hector the arms of the dead could not be either

burned or buried with him.

(3) Iliad, IX. 546. Phoenix says that the Calydonian boar "brought many

to the mournful pyre." All were cremated.

(4) _Iliad_, XXII 50-55. Andromache in her dirge (the _regret_ of the

French mediaeval epics) says that Hector lies unburied by the ships and

naked, but she will burn raiment of his, "delicate and fair, the work of

women ... to thee no profit, since thou wilt never lie therein, yet this

shall be honour to thee from the men and women of Troy." Her meaning

is not very clear, but she seems to imply that if Hector's body were in

Troy it would be clad in garments before cremation.

Helbig appears to think that to clothe the dead in _garments_ was an

Ionian, not an ancient epic custom. But in Homer the dead always wear at

least one garment, the [Greek: pharos], a large mantle, either white or

purple, such as Agamemnon wears in peace (Iliad, II 43), except when,

like Eetion and Elpenor in the Odyssey, they are burned in their armour.

In _Iliad,_ XXIII. 69 _ff_., the shadow of the dead unburned Patroclus

appears to Achilles in his sleep asking for "his dues of fire." The

whole passage, with the account of the funeral of Patroclus, must be

read carefully, and compared with the funeral rites of Hector at the

end of Book XXIV. Helbig, in an essay of great erudition, though perhaps

rather fantastic in its generalisations, has contrasted the burials of

the two heroes. Patroclus is buried, he says, in a true portion of the

old Aeolic epic (Sir Richard Jebb thought the whole passage "Ionic"),

though even into this the late Ionian _bearbeiter_ (a spectral figure),

has introduced his Ionian notions. But the Twenty-fourth Book itself

is late and Ionian, Helbig says, not genuine early Aeolian epic poetry.

[Footnote: Helbig, _Zu den Homerischen Bestattungsgebrauechen_. Aus den

Sitzungsberichten der philos. philol. und histor. Classe der Kgl. bayer.

Academie der Wissenschaften. 1900. Heft. ii. pp. 199-299.] The burial of

Patroclus, then, save for Ionian late interpolations, easily detected by

Helbig, is, he assures us, genuine "kernel," [Footnote: 2 Op. _laud._,

p. 208.] while Hector's burial "is partly Ionian, and describes the

destiny of the dead heroes otherwise than as in the old Aeolic epos."

Here Helbig uses that one of his two alternate theories according to

which the late Ionian poets do not cling to old epic tradition, but

bring in details of the life of their own date. By Helbig's other

alternate theory, the late poets cling to the model set in old epic

tradition in their pictures of details of life.

Disintegrationists differ: far from thinking that the late Ionian poet

who buried Hector varied from the AEolic minstrel who buried Patroclus

(in Book XXIII.), Mr. Leaf says that Hector's burial is "almost an

abstract" of that of Patroclus. [Footnote: Leaf, Iliad, XXII Note to

791.] He adds that Helbig's attempts "to distinguish the older AEolic

from the newer and more sceptical 'Ionic' faith seem to me visionary."

[Footnote: Iliad, vol. ii. p. 619. Note 2] Visionary, indeed, they do

seem, but they are examples of the efforts made to prove that the Iliad

bears marks of composition continued through several centuries. We must

remember that, according to Helbig, the Ionians, colonists in a new

country, "had no use for ghosts." A fresh colony does not produce

ghosts. "There is hardly an English or Scottish castle without its spook

(_spuck_). On the other hand, you look in vain for such a thing in the

United States"--spiritualism apart. [Footnote: Op. _laud._, p. 204.]

This is a hasty generalisation! Helbig will, if he looks, find ghosts

enough in the literature of North America while still colonial, and in

Australia, a still more newly settled country, sixty years ago Fisher's

ghost gave evidence of Fisher's murder, evidence which, as in another

Australian case, served the ends of justice. [Footnote: See, in _The_

Valet's Tragedy (A. L.): "Fisher's Ghost."] More recent Australian

ghosts are familiar to psychical research.

This colonial theory is one of Helbig's too venturous generalisations.

He studies the ghost, or rather dream-apparition, of Patroclus after

examining the funeral of Hector; but we shall begin with Patroclus.

Achilles (XXIII. 4-16) first hails his friend "even in the House of

Hades" (so he believes that spirits are in Hades), and says that he

has brought Hector "raw for dogs to devour," and twelve Trojans of good

family "to slaughter before thy pyre." That night, when Achilles is

asleep (XXIII. 65) the spirit ([Greek: psyche]) of Patroclus appears to

him, says that he is forgotten, and begs to be burned at once, that he

may pass the gates of Hades, for the other spirits drive him off and

will not let him associate with them "beyond the River," and he wanders

vaguely along the wide-gated dwelling of Hades. "Give me thy hand, for

never more again shall I come back from Hades, when ye have given me my

due of fire." Patroclus, being newly discarnate, does not yet know

that a spirit cannot take a living man's hand, though, in fact, tactile

hallucinations are not uncommon in the presence of phantasms of the

dead. "Lay not my bones apart from thine ... let one coffer" ([Greek:

soros]) "hide our bones."

[Greek: Soros], like _larnax_, is a coffin (_Sarg_), or

what the Americans call a "casket," in the opinion of Helbig: [Footnote:

OP. _laud_., p.217.] it is an oblong receptacle of the bones and dust.

Hector was buried in a _larnax_; SO will Achilles and Patroclus be

when Achilles falls, but the dust of Patroclus is kept, meanwhile, in a

golden covered cup (phialae) in the quarters of Achilles; it is not laid

in howe after his cremation (XXIII. 243).

Achilles tries to embrace Patroclus, but fails, like Odysseus with the

shade of his mother in Hades, in the _ODYSSEY_. He exclaims that "there

remaineth then even in the House of Hades a spirit and phantom of the

dead, albeit the life" (or the wits) "be not anywise therein, for all

night hath the spirit of hapless Patroclus stood over me...."

In this speech Helbig detects the hand of the late Ionian poet. What

goes before is part of the genuine old Epic, the kernel, done at a time

when men believed that spooks could take part in the affairs of the

upper world. Achilles therefore (in his dream), thought that he

could embrace his friend. It was the sceptical Ionian, in a fresh and

spookless colony, who knew that he could not; he thinks the ghost a mere

dream, and introduces his scepticism in XXIII. 99-107. He brought

in "the ruling ideas of his own period." The ghost, says the Ionian

_bearbeiter_, is intangible, though in the genuine old epic the ghost

himself thought otherwise--he being new to the situation and without

experience. This is the first sample of the critical Ionian spirit,

later so remarkable in philosophy and natural science, says Helbig.

[Footnote: Op. laud., pp. 233,234.]

We need not discuss this acute critical theory. The natural

interpretation of the words of Achilles is obvious; as Mr. Leaf remarks,

the words are "the cry of sudden personal conviction in a matter which

has hitherto been lazily accepted as an orthodox dogma." [Footnote:

_Iliad_, vol. ii. p. 620.] Already, as we have seen, Achilles has made

promises to Patroclus in the House of Hades, now he exclaims "there

really is something in the doctrine of a feeble future life."

It is vain to try to discriminate between an old epic belief in

able-bodied ghosts and an Ionian belief in mere futile _shades_, in

the Homeric poems. Everywhere the dead are too feeble to be worth

worshipping after they are burned; but, as Mr. Leaf says with obvious

truth, and with modern instances, "men are never so inconsistent as in

their beliefs about the other world." We ourselves hold various beliefs

simultaneously. The natives of Australia and of Tasmania practise, or

did practise, every conceivable way of disposing of the dead--burying,

burning, exposure in trees, carrying about the bodies or parts of them,

eating the bodies, and so forth. If each such practice corresponded, as

archaeologists believe, to a different opinion about the soul, then

all beliefs were held together at once, and this, in fact, is the case.

There is not now one and now another hard and fast orthodoxy of belief

about the dead, though now we find ancestor worship prominent and now in

the shade.

After gifts of hair and the setting up of jars full of oil and honey,

Achilles has the body laid on the top of the pyre in the centre. Bodies

of sheep and oxen, two dogs and four horses, are strewed around: why, we

know not, for the dead is not supposed to need food: the rite may be

a survival, for there were sacrifices at the burials of the Mycenaean

shaft graves. Achilles slays also the twelve Trojans, "because of mine

anger at thy slaying," he says (XXIII. 23). This was his reason, as far

as he consciously had any reason, not that his friend might have twelve

thralls in Hades. After the pyre is alit Achilles drenches it all night

with wine, and, when the flame dies down, the dead hero's bones are

collected and placed in the covered cup of gold. The circle of the

barrow is then marked out, stones are set up round it (we see them round

Highland tumuli), and earth is heaped up; no more is done; the tomb is

empty; the covered cup holding the ashes is in the hut of Achilles.

We must note another trait. After the body of Patroclus was recovered,

it was washed, anointed, laid on a bier, and covered from head to foot

[Greek: heano liti], translated by Helbig, "with a linen sheet" (cf.

XXIII. 254). The golden cup with the ashes is next wrapped [Greek: heano

liti]; here Mr. Myers renders the words "with a linen veil." Scottish

cremation burials of the Bronze Age retain traces of linen wrappings

of the urn. [Footnote: _Proceedings of the Scottish society of

Antiquaries_, 1905, p. 552. For other cases, _cf._ Leaf, _Iliad_, XXIV.

796. Note.] Over all a white [Greek: pharos] (mantle) was spread. In

_Iliad_, XXIV. 231, twelve [Greek: pharea] with chitons, single cloaks,

and other articles of dress, are taken to Achilles by Priam as part of

the ransom of Hector's body. Such is the death-garb of Patroclus; but

Helbig, looking for Ionian innovations in Book XXIV., finds that the

death-garb of Hector is not the same as that of Patroclus in Book XXIII.

One difference is that when the squires of Achilles took the ransom of

Hector from the waggon of Priam, they left in it two [Greek: pharea] and

a well-spun chiton. The women washed and anointed Hector's body; they

clad him in the chiton, and threw one [Greek: pharos] over it; we are

not told what they did with the other. Perhaps, as Mr. Leaf says, it was

used as a cover for the bier, perhaps it was not, but was laid under the

body (Helbig). All we know is that Hector's body was restored to Priam

in a chiton and a [Greek: pharos], which do not seem to have been

removed before he was burned; while Patroclus had no chiton in death,

but a [Greek: pharos] and, apparently, a linen sheet.

To the ordinary reader this does not seem, in the circumstances, a

strong mark of different ages and different burial customs. Priam did

not bring any linen sheet--or whatever [Greek: heanos lis] may be--in

the waggon as part of Hector's ransom; and it neither became Achilles

to give nor Priam to receive any of Achilles's stuff as death-garb for

Hector. The squires, therefore, gave back to Priam, to clothe his dead

son, part of what he had brought; nothing can be more natural, and

there, we may say, is an end on't. They did what they could in the

circumstances. But Helbig has observed that, in a Cean inscription of

the fifth century B.C., there is a sumptuary law, forbidding a corpse to

wear more than three white garments, a sheet under him, a chiton, and a

mantle cast over him. [Footnote: op. _laud_., p. 209.] He supposes that

Hector wore the chiton, and had one [Greek: pharos] over him and the

other under him, though Homer does not say that. The Laws of Solon also

confined the dead man to three articles of dress. [Footnote: Plutarch,

Solon, 21.] In doing so Solon sanctioned an old custom, and that Ionian

custom, described by the author of Book XXIV., bewrays him, says Helbig,

for a late Ionian _bearbeiter_, deserting true epic usages and inserting

those of his own day. But in some Attic Dipylon vases, in the pictures

of funerals, we see no garments or sheets over the corpses.

Penelope also wove a [Greek: charos] against the burial of old Laertes,

but surely she ought to have woven for him; on Helbig's showing Hector

had _two_, Patroclus had only one; Patroclus is in the old epic, Hector

and Laertes are in the Ionian epics; therefore, Laertes should have had

two [Greek: charea] but we only hear of one. Penelope had to finish the

[Greek: charos] and show it; [Footnote: Odyssey, XXIV. 147.] now if she

wanted to delay her marriage, she should have begun the second [Greek:

charos] just as necessary as the first, if Hector, with a pair of

[Greek: charea] represents Ionian usage. But Penelope never thought of

what, had she read Helbig, she would have seen to be so obvious. She

thought of no funeral garments for the old man but one shroud [Greek:

speiron] (Odyssey, II. 102; XIX. 147); yet, being, by the theory, a

character of late Ionian, not of genuine old AEolic epic, she should

have known better. It is manifest that if even the acuteness and vast

erudition of Helbig can only find such invisible differences as

these between the manners of the genuine old epic and the late Ionian

innovations, there is really no difference, beyond such trifles as

diversify custom in any age.

Hector, when burned and when his ashes have been placed in the casket,

is laid in a [Greek: kapetos], a ditch or trench (_Iliad_, XV. 356;

XVIII. 564); but here (XXIV. 797) [Greek: kapetos] is a chamber covered

with great stones, within the howe, the casket being swathed with purple

robes, and this was the end. The ghost of Hector would not revisit the

sun, as ghosts do freely in the Cyclic poems, a proof that the Cyclics

are later than the Homeric poems. [Footnote: Helbig, op. _laud_., pp.

240, 241.]

If the burning of the weapons of Eetion and Elpenor are traces of

another than the _old_ AEolic epic faith, [Footnote: Ibid., p. 253.]

they are also traces of another than the late _Ionic_ epic faith, for no

weapons are burned with Hector. In the _Odyssey_ the weapons of Achilles

are not burned; in the _Iliad_ the armour of Patroclus is not burned.

No victims of any kind are burned with Hector: possibly the poet was not

anxious to repeat what he had just described (his last book is already

a very long book); possibly the Trojans did not slay victims at the

burning.

The howes or barrows built over the Homeric dead were hillocks high

enough to be good points of outlook for scouts, as in the case of the

barrow of AEsyetes (_Iliad_, II. 793) and "the steep mound," the howe of

lithe Myrine (II. 814). We do not know that women were usually buried

in howe, but Myrine was a warrior maiden of the Amazons. We know, then,

minutely what the Homeric mode of burial was, with such variations as

have been noted. We have burning and howe even in the case of an obscure

oarsman like Elpenor. It is not probable, however, that every peaceful

mechanic had a howe all to himself; he may have had a small family

cairn; he may not have had an expensive cremation.

The interesting fact is that no barrow burial precisely of the Homeric

kind has ever been discovered in Greek sites. The old Mycenaeans buried

either in shaft graves or in a stately _tholos_; and in rock chambers,

later, in the town cemetery: they did not burn the bodies. The people of

the Dipylon period sometimes cremated, sometimes inhumed, but they built

no barrow over the dead. [Footnote: _Annal. de l'Inst.,_ 1872, pp. 135,

147, 167. Plausen, _ut supra_.] The Dipylon was a period of early iron

swords, made on the lines of not the best type of bronze sword. Now, in

Mr. Leaf's opinion, our Homeric accounts of burial "are all late; the

oldest parts of the poems tell us nothing." [Footnote: _Iliad_, vol. ii.

p. 619. Note 2. While Mr. Leaf says that "the oldest parts of the poems

tell us nothing" of burial, he accepts XXII. 342, 343 as of the oldest

part. These lines describe cremation, and Mr. Leaf does not think them

borrowed from the "later" VII. 79, 80, but that VII. 79, 80 are "perhaps

borrowed" from XXII. 342, 343. It follows that "the oldest parts of the

poems" do tell us of cremation.] We shall show, however, that Mr. Leaf's

"kernel" alludes to cremation. What is "late"? In this case it is not

the Dipylon period, say 900-750 B.C. It is not any later period; one or

two late barrow burials do not answer to the Homeric descriptions. The

"late" parts of the poems, therefore, dealing with burials, in Books

VI., VII., XIX., XXIII., XXIV., and the Odyssey, are of an age not

in "the Mycenaean prime," not in the Dipylon period, not in any later

period, say the seventh or sixth centuries B.C., and, necessarily, not

of any subsequent period. Yet nobody dreams of saying that the poets

describe a purely fanciful form of interment. They speak of what they

know in daily life. If it be argued that the late poets preserve, by

sheer force of epic tradition, a form of burial unknown in their own

age, we ask, "Why did epic tradition not preserve the burial methods

of the Mycenaean prime, the shaft grave, or the _tholos_, without

cremation?"

Mr. Leaf's own conclusion is that the people of Mycenae were "spirit

worshippers, practising inhumation, and partial mummification;" the

second fact is dubious. "In the post-Mycenaean 'Dipylon' period, we

find cremation and sepulture practised side by side. In the interval,

therefore, two beliefs have come into conflict. [Footnote: All

conceivable beliefs, we have said, about the dead are apt to coexist.

For every conceivable and some rather inconceivable contemporary

Australian modes of dealing with the dead, see Howitt, _Native Tribes of

South-East Australia_; Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central

Australia_.] It seems that the Homeric poems mark this intermediate

point...." [Footnote: Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. ii. p. 622.] In that case

the Homeric poems are of one age, or, at least, all of them save "the

original kernel" are of one age, namely, a period subsequent to the

Mycenaean prime, but considerably prior to the Dipylon period, which

exhibits a mixture of custom; cremation and inhumation coexisting,

without barrows or howes.

We welcome this conclusion, and note that (whatever may be the case

with the oldest parts of the poems which say nothing about funerals) the

latest expansions must be of about 1100-1000 B.C. (?). The poem is so

early that it is prior to hero worship and ancestor worship; or it

might be more judicious to say that the poem is of an age that did not,

officially, practise ancestor worship, whatever may have occurred in

folk-custom. The Homeric age is one which had outgrown ancestor and hero

worship, and had not, like the age of the Cyclics, relapsed into it.

_Enfin_, unless we agree with Helbig as to essential variations of

custom, the poems are the work of one age, and that a brief age, and an

age of peculiar customs, cremation and barrow burial; and of a religion

that stood, without spirit worship, between the Mycenzean period and the

ninth century. That seems as certain as anything in prehistoric times

can be, unless we are to say, that after the age of shaft graves and

spirit worship came an age of cremation and of no spirit worship; and

that late poets consciously and conscientiously preserved the tradition

of _this_ period into their own ages of hero worship and inhumation,

though they did not preserve the tradition of the shaft-grave period.

We cannot accept this theory of adherence to stereotyped poetical

descriptions, nor can any one consistently adopt it in this case.

The reason is obvious. Mr. Leaf, with many other critics, distinguishes

several successive periods of "expansion." In the first stratum we have

the remains of "the original kernel." Among these remains is The Slaying

of Hector (XXII. 1-404), "with but slight additions." [Footnote: Leaf,

_Iliad_, vol. ii. p. xi.] In the Slaying of Hector that hero indicates

cremation as the mode of burial. "Give them my body back again, that

the Trojans and Trojans' wives grant me my due of fire after my death."

Perhaps this allusion to cremation, in the "original kernel" in the

Slaying of Hector, may be dismissed as a late borrowing from Book VII.

79, 80, where Hector makes conditions that the fallen hero shall be

restored to his friends when he challenges the Achaeans to a duel. But

whoever knows the curious economy by way of repetition that marks early

national epics has a right to regard the allusion to cremation (XXII,

342,343) as an example of this practice. Compare _La Chancun de

Williame_, lines 1041-1058 with lines 1140-1134. In both the dinner of

a knight who has been long deprived of food is described in passages

containing many identical lines. The poet, having found his formula,

uses it whenever occasion serves. There are several other examples in

the same epic. [Footnote: _Romania_, xxxiv. PP. 245, 246.] Repetitions

in Homer need not indicate late additions; the artifice is part of the

epic as it is of the ballad manner. If we are right, cremation is the

mode of burial even in "the original kernel." Hector, moreover, in the

kernel (XXII. 256-259) makes, before his final fight with Achilles,

the same proposal as he makes in his challenge to a duel (VII. 85 et

_seqq_.). The victor shall give back the body of the vanquished to his

friends, but how the friends are to bury it Hector does not say--in this

place. When dying, he does say (XXII. 342, 343).

In the kernel and all periods of expansion, funeral rites are described,

and in all the method is cremation, with a howe or a barrow. Thus the

method of cremation had come in as early as the "kernel," The Slaying

of Hector, and as early as the first expansions, and it lasted till the

period of the latest expansions, such as Books XXIII., XXIV.

But what is the approximate date of the various expansions of the

original poem? On that point Mr. Leaf gives his opinion. The Making of

the Arms of Achilles (Books XVIII., XIX. 1-39) is, with the Funeral of

Patroclus (XXIII. 1-256), in the second set of expansions, and is thus

two removes later than the original "kernel." [Footnote: Leaf, _Iliad_,

vol. ii. p. xii.] Now this is the period--the Making of the Shield for

Achilles is, at least, in touch with the period--of "the eminently free

and naturalistic treatment which we find in the best Mycenaean work,

in the dagger blades, in the siege fragment, and notably in the Vaphio

cups," (which show long-haired men, not men close-cropped, as in the

daggers and siege fragment). [Footnote: Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. ii. p, 606.]

The poet of the age of the second expansions, then,' is at least

in touch with the work of the shaft grave and ages. He need not be

contemporary with that epoch, but "may well have had in his mind the

work of artists older than himself." It is vaguely possible that he may

have seen an ancient shield of the Mycenaean prime, and may be inspired

by that. [Footnote: _Ibid_., vol. ii. pp. 606, 607.]

Moreover, and still more remarkable, the ordinary Homeric form of

cremation and howe-burial is even older than the period which, if not

contemporary with, is clearly reminiscent of, the art of the shaft

graves. For, in the period of the first expansions (VII. 1-3 I 2),

the form of burial is cremation, with a barrow or tumulus. [Footnote:

_Ibid_., vol. ii. p. xi. and pp. 606, 607.] Thus Mr. Leaf's opinion

might lead us to the conclusion that the usual Homeric form of burial

occurs in a period _PRIOR_ to an age in which the poet is apparently

reminiscent of the work of two early epochs--the epoch of shaft graves

and that of _THOLOS_ graves. If this be so, cremation and urn burial in

cairns may be nearly as old as the Mycenaean shaft graves, or as old

as the _THOLOS_ graves, and they endure into the age of the latest

expansions.

We must not press, however, opinions founded on the apparent technical

resemblance of the free style and coloured metal work on the shield of

Achilles, to the coloured metal work and free design on the daggers

of the Mycenaean shaft graves. It is enough for us to note that the

passages concerning burial, from the "kernel" itself, and also from the

earliest to the latest expansions, are all perfectly harmonious, and of

a single age--unless we are convinced by Helbig's objections. That age

must have been brief, indeed, for, before it arrives, the period of

_tholos_ graves, as at Vaphio, must expire, on one hand, while the

blending of cremation with inhumation, in the Dipylon age, must have

been evolved after the cremation age passed, on the other. That brief

intervening age, however, was the age of the _ILIAD_ and Odyssey. This

conclusion can only be avoided by alleging that late poets, however

recent and revolutionary, carefully copied the oldest epic model of

burial, while they innovated in almost every other point, so we are

told. We can go no further till we find an unrifled cairn burial

answering to Homeric descriptions. We have, indeed, in Thessaly, "a

large tumulus which contained a silver urn with burned remains." But

the accompanying pottery dated it in the second century B.C. [Footnote:

Ridgeway, _Early Age Of Greece_, vol. i. p. 491; _Journal of Hellenic

Studies, vol. xx_. pp. 20-25.] It is possible enough that all tumuli of

the Homeric period have been robbed by grave plunderers in the course

of the ages, as the Vikings are said to have robbed the cairns of

Sutherlandshire, in which they were not likely to find a rich reward

for their labours. A conspicuous howe invites robbery--the heroes of the

Saga, like Grettir, occasionally rob a howe--and the fact is unlucky for

the Homeric archaeologist.

We have now tried to show that, as regards (1) to the absence from

Homer of new religious and ritual ideas, or of very old ideas revived

in Ionia, (2) as concerns the clear conception of a loose form of

feudalism, with an Over-Lord, and (3) in the matter of burial, the

_Iliad_ and Odyssey are self-consistent, and bear the impress of a

single and peculiar moment of culture.

The fact, if accepted, is incompatible with the theory that the poets

both introduced the peculiar conditions of their own later ages and

also, on other occasions, consciously and consistently "archaised." Not

only is such archaising inconsistent with the art of an uncritical age,

but a careful archaiser, with all the resources of Alexandrian criticism

at his command, could not archaise successfully. We refer to Quintus

Smyrnaeus, author of the _Post Homerica_, in fourteen books. Quintus

does his best; but we never observe in him that _naif_ delight in

describing weapons and works of art, and details of law and custom which

are so conspicuous in Homer and in other early poets. He does give us

Penthesilea's great sword, with a hilt of ivory and silver; but of what

metal was the blade? We are not told, and the reader of Quintus will

observe that, though he knows [Greek: chalkos], bronze, as a synonym

for weapons, he scarcely ever, if ever, says that a sword or spear or

arrow-head was of bronze--a point on which Homer constantly insists.

When he names the military metal Quintus usually speaks of iron. He has

no interest in the constitutional and legal sides of heroic life, so

attractive to Homer.

Yet Quintus consciously archaises, in a critical age, with Homer as

his model. Any one who believes that in an uncritical age rhapsodists

archaised, with such success as the presumed late poets of the _ILIAD_

must have done, may try his hand in our critical age, at a ballad in the

style of the Border ballads. If he succeeds in producing nothing that

will at once mark his work as modern, he will be more successful than

any poet who has made the experiment, and more successful than the most

ingenious modern forgers of gems, jewels, and terra-cottas. They seldom

deceive experts, and, when they do, other experts detect the deceit.

CHAPTER VII

HOMERIC ARMOUR

Tested by their ideas, their picture of political society, and their

descriptions of burial rites, the presumed authors of the alleged

expansions of the _Iliad_ all lived in one and the same period of

culture. But, according to the prevalent critical theory, we read in

the _Iliad_ not only large "expansions" of many dates, but also briefer

interpolations inserted by the strolling reciters or rhapsodists. "Until

the final literary redaction had come," says Mr. Leaf--that is about 540

B.C.--"we cannot feel sure that any details, even of the oldest work,

were secure from the touch of the latest poet." [Footnote: Leaf,

_Iliad_, vol. ii. p. ix.]

Here we are far from Mr. Leaf's own opinion that "the whole scenery of

the poems, the details of armour, palaces, dress, decoration ... had

become stereotyped, and formed a foundation which the Epic poet dared

not intentionally sap...." [Footnote: _Ibid_., vol. i. p. xv.] We now

find [Footnote: _Ibid_., vol. ii. p. ix.] that "the latest poet" saps

as much as he pleases down to the middle of the sixth century B.C.

Moreover, in the middle of the sixth century B.C., the supposed

editor employed by Hsistratus made "constant additions of transitional

passages," and added many speeches by Nestor, an ancestor of

Pisistratus.

Did these very late interlopers, down to the sixth century, introduce

modern details into the picture of life? did they blur the _unus_ color?

We hope to prove that, if they did so at all, it was but slightly. That

the poems, however, with a Mycenaean or sub-Mycenaean basis of actual

custom and usage, contain numerous contaminations from the usage of

centuries as late as the seventh, is the view of Mr. Leaf, and Reichel

and his followers. [Footnote: Homerische Waffen. Von Wolfgang Reichel.

Wien, 1901.]

Reichel's hypothesis is that the heroes of the original poet had no

defensive armour except the great Mycenaean shields; that the ponderous

shield made the use of chariots imperatively necessary; that, after the

Mycenaean age, a small buckler and a corslet superseded the unwieldy

shield; that chariots were no longer used; that, by the seventh century

B.C., a warrior could not be thought of without a breastplate; and that

new poets thrust corslets and greaves into songs both new and old.

How the new poets could conceive of warriors as always in chariots,

whereas in practice they knew no war chariots, and yet could not

conceive of them without corslets which the original poet never saw, is

Reichel's secret. The new poets had in the old lays a plain example to

follow. They did follow it as to chariots and shields; as to corslets

and greaves they reversed it. Such is the Reichelian theory.

THE SHIELD

As regards armour, controversy is waged over the shield, corslet, and

bronze greaves. In Homer the shield is of leather, plated with bronze,

and of bronze is the corslet. No shields of bronze plating and no bronze

corslets have been found in Mycenaean excavations.

We have to ask, do the Homeric descriptions of shields tally with the

representations of shields in works of art, discovered in the graves

of Mycenae, Spata in Attica, Vaphio in Sparta, and elsewhere? If the

descriptions in Homer vary from these relics, to what extent do they

vary? and do the differences arise from the fact that the poet describes

consistently what he sees in his own age, or are the variations caused

by late rhapsodists in the Iron Age, who keep the great obsolete shields

and bronze weapons, yet introduce the other military gear of their day,

say 800-600 B.C.--gear unknown to the early singers?

It may be best to inquire, first, what does the poet, or what do

the poets, say about shields? and, next, to examine the evidence of

representations of shields in Mycenaean art; always remembering that the

poet does not pretend to live, and beyond all doubt does not live, in

the Mycenaean prime, and that the testimony of the tombs is liable to be

altered by fresh discoveries.

In _Iliad_, II. 388, the shield (_aspis_) is spoken of as "covering a

man about" ([Greek: _amphibrotae_]), while, in the heat of battle, the

baldric (_telamon_), or belt of the shield, "shall be wet with sweat."

The shield, then, is not an Ionian buckler worn on the left arm, but is

suspended by a belt, and covers a man, or most of him, just as Mycenaean

shields are suspended by belts shown in works of art, and cover the

body and legs. This (II. 388) is a general description applying to the

shields of all men who fight from chariots. Their great shield answers

to the great mediaeval shield of the knights of the twelfth century, the

"double targe," worn suspended from the neck by a belt. Such a shield

covers a mounted knight's body from mouth to stirrup in an ivory

chessman of the eleventh to twelfth century A.D., [Footnote: _Catalogue

of Scottish National Antiquities_, p. 375.] so also in the Bayeux

tapestry, [Footnote: Gautier, _Chanson de Roland_. Seventh edition, pp.

393, 394.] and on seals. Dismounted men have the same shield (p. 132).

The shield of Menelaus (III. 348) is "equal in all directions," which we

might conceive to mean, mathematically "circular," as the words do mean

that. A shield is said to have "circles," and a spear which grazes

a shield--a shield which was _[Greek: panton eesae]_, "every way

equal"--rends both circles, the outer circle of bronze, and the inner

circle of leather (_Iliad_, XX. 273-281). But the passage is not

unjustly believed to be late; and we cannot rely on it as proof

that Homer knew circular shields among others. The epithet _[Greek:

eukuklykos]_, "of good circle," is commonly given to the shields, but

does not mean that the shield was circular, we are told, but merely that

it was "made of circular plates." [Footnote: Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. i. p.

573.] As for the shield of Menelaus, and other shields described in the

same words, "every way equal," the epithet is not now allowed to mean

"circular." Mr. Leaf, annotating _Iliad_, I. 306, says that this sense

is "intolerably mathematical and prosaic," and translates _[Greek:

panton eesae]_ as "well balanced on every side." Helbig renders the

epithets in the natural sense, as "circular." [Footnote: Helbig,

_Homerische Epos_, p. 315; cf., on the other hand, p. 317, Note I.]

To the rendering "circular" it is objected that a circular shield of,

say, four feet and a half in diameter, would be intolerably heavy and

superfluously wide, while the shields represented in Mycenaean art are

not circles, but rather resemble a figure of eight, in some cases, or a

section of a cylinder, in others, or, again, a door (Fig. 5, p. 130).

What Homer really meant by such epithets as "equal every way," "very

circular," "of a good circle," cannot be ascertained, since Homeric

epithets of the shield, which were previously rendered "circular," "of

good circle," and so on, are now translated in quite other senses, in

order that Homeric descriptions may be made to tally with Mycenaean

representations of shields, which are never circular as represented in

works of art. In this position of affairs we are unable to determine the

shape, or shapes, of the shields known to Homer.

A scholar's rendering of Homer's epithets applied to the shield is

obliged to vary with the variations of his theory about the shield.

Thus, in 1883, Mr. Leaf wrote, "The poet often calls the shield by names

which seem to imply that it was round, and yet indicates that it was

large enough to cover the whole body of a man.... In descriptions the

round shape is always implied." The words which indicated that the

shield (or one shield) "really looked like a tower, and really reached

from neck to ankles" (in two or three cases), were "received by the poet

from the earlier Achaean lays." "But to Homer the warriors appeared as

using the later small round shield. His belief in the heroic strength of

the men of old time made it quite natural to speak of them as bearing

a shield which at once combined the later circular shape and the old

heroic expanse...." [Footnote: _Journal of Hellenic Studies, iv. pp._

283-285.]

Here the Homeric words which naturally mean "circular" or "round" are

accepted as meaning "round" or "circular." Homer, it is supposed, in

practice only knows the round shields of the later age, 700 B.C., so he

calls shields "round," but, obedient to tradition, he conceives of them

as very large.

But, after the appearance of Reichel's speculations, the Homeric words

for "round" and "circular" have been explained as meaning something

else, and Mr. Leaf, in place of maintaining that Homer knew no shields

but round shields, now writes (1900), "The small circular shield of

later times...is equally unknown to Homer, with a very few curious

exceptions," which Reichel discovered--erroneously, as we shall later

try to show. [Footnote: Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 575.]

Thus does science fluctuate! Now Homer knows in practice none but light

round bucklers, dating from about 700 B.C.; again, he does not know

them at all, though they were habitually used in the period at which

the later parts of his Epic were composed. We shall have to ask, how

did small round bucklers come to be unknown to late poets who saw them

constantly?

Some scholars, then, believe that the old original poet always described

Mycenaean shields, which are of various shapes, but never circular in

Mycenaean art. If there are any circular shields in the poems, these,

they say, must have been introduced by poets accustomed, in a much later

age, to seeing circular bucklers. Therefore Homeric words, hitherto

understood as meaning "circular," must now mean something else--even if

the reasoning seems circular.

Other scholars believe that the poet in real life saw various types of

shields in use, and that some of them were survivals of the Mycenaean

shields, semi-cylindrical, or shaped like figures of 8, or like a

door; others were circular; and these scholars presume that Homer meant

"circular" when he said "circular." Neither school will convert the

other, and we cannot decide between them. We do not pretend to be

certain as to whether the original poet saw shields of various types,

including the round shape, in use, though that is possible, or whether

he saw only the Mycenaean types.

As regards size, Homer certainly describes, in several cases, shields

very much larger than most which we know for certain to have been common

after, say, 700 B.C. He speaks of shields reaching from neck to ankles,

and "covering the body of a man about." Whether he was also familiar

with smaller shields of various types is uncertain; he does not

explicitly say that any small bucklers were used by the chiefs, nor

does he explicitly say that all shields were of the largest type. It is

possible that at the time when the Epic was composed various types of

shield were being tried, while the vast ancient shield was far from

obsolete.

To return to the _size_ of the shield. In a feigned tale of Odysseus

(Odyssey, XIV. 474-477), men in a wintry ambush place their shields over

their shoulders, as they lie on the ground, to be a protection against

snow. But any sort of shield, large or small, would protect the

shoulders of men in a recumbent position. Quite a large shield may seem

to be indicated in _Iliad_, XIII. 400-405, where Idomeneus curls up his

whole person behind his shield; he was "hidden" by it. Yet, as any

one can see by experiment, a man who crouched low would be protected

entirely by a Highland targe of less than thirty inches in diameter, so

nothing about the size of the shield is ascertained in this passage. On

a black-figured vase in the British Museum (B, 325) the entire body of

a crouching warrior is defended by a large Boeotian buckler, oval, and

with _echancrures_ in the sides. The same remark applies to _Z&ad_[sic],

XXII. 273-275. Hector watches the spear of Achilles as it flies; he

crouches, and the spear flies over him. Robert takes this as an "old

Mycenaean" dodge--to duck down to the bottom of the shield. [Footnote:

_Studien zur Ilias_, p. 21.] The avoidance by ducking can be managed

with no shield, or with a common Highland targe, which would cover a

man in a crouching posture, as when Glenbucket's targe was peppered by

bullets at Clifton (746), and Cluny shouted "What the devil is this?"

the assailants firing unexpectedly from a ditch. A few moments of

experiment, we repeat, prove that a round targe can protect a man in

Hector's attitude, and that the Homeric texts here throw no light on the

_size_ of the shield.

The shield of Hector was of black bull's-hide, and as large and long as

any represented in Mycenaean art, so that, as he walked, the rim knocked

against his neck and ankles. The shape is not mentioned. Despite its

size, he _walked_ under it from the plain and field of battle into Troy

(_Iliad_, VI. 116-118). This must be remembered, as Reichel [Footnote:

Reichel, 38, 39. Father Browne (_Handbook_, p. 230) writes, "In

_Odyssey_, XIV 475, Odysseus says he slept within the shield." He says

"under arms" (_Odyssey_, XIV. 474, but _cf_. XIV. 479).] maintains that

a man could not walk under shield, or only for a short way; wherefore

the war chariot was invented, he says, to carry the fighting man from

point to point (Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 573). Mr. Leaf elaborates

these points: "Why did not the Homeric heroes ride? Because no man could

carry such a shield on horseback." [Footnote: _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 573.]

We reply that men could and did carry such shields on horseback, as

we know on the evidence of works of art and poetry of the eleventh to

twelfth centuries A.D. Mr. Ridgeway has explained the introduction

of chariots as the result of horses too small to carry a heavy and

heavily-armed man as a cavalier.

The shield ([Greek: aspis]), we are told by followers of Reichel, was

only worn by princes who could afford to keep chariots, charioteers,

and squires of the body to arm and disarm them. But this can scarcely

be true, for all the comrades of Diomede had the shield ([Greek: aspis],

_Iliad_, X. 152), and the whole host of Pandarus of Troy, a noted

bowman, were shield-bearers ([Greek: aspistaon laon], _Iliad_, IV.

90), and some of them held their shields ([Greek: sakae]) in front of

Pandarus when he took a treacherous shot at Menelaus (IV. 113). The

whole host could not have chariots and squires, we may presume, so the

chariot was not indispensable to the _ecuyer_ or shield-bearing man.

The objections to this conjecture of Reichel are conspicuous, as we now

prove.

No Mycenaean work of art shows us a shielded man in a chariot; the men

with the monstrous shields are always depicted on foot. The only modern

peoples who, to our knowledge, used a leather shield of the Mycenaean

size and even of a Mycenaean shape had no horses and chariots, as

we shall show. The ancient Eastern peoples, such as the Khita and

Egyptians, who fought from chariots, carried _small_ shields of various

forms, as in the well-known picture of a battle between the Khita, armed

with spears, and the bowmen of Rameses II, who kill horse and man with

arrows from their chariots, and carry no spears; while the Khita, who

have no bows, merely spears, are shot down as they advance. [Footnote:

Maspero, _Hist. Ancienne_, ii. p. 225.]. Egyptians and Khita, who fight

from chariots, use _small_ bucklers, whence it follows that war chariots

were not invented, or, at least, were not retained in use, for the

purpose of giving mobility to men wearing gigantic shields, under which

they could not hurry from point to point. War chariots did not cease to

be used in Egypt, when men used small shields.

Moreover, Homeric warriors can make marches under shield, while there is

no mention of chariots to carry them to the point where they are to

lie in ambush (Odyssey, XIV. 470-510). If the shield was so heavy as

to render a chariot necessary, would Homer make Hector trudge a

considerable distance under shield, while Achilles, under shield,

sprints thrice round the whole circumference of Troy? Helbig notices

several other cases of long runs under shield. Either Reichel is wrong,

when he said that the huge shield made the use of the war chariot

necessary, or the poet is "late"; he is a man who never saw a large

shield like Hector's, and, though he speaks of such shields, he thinks

that men could walk and run under them. When men did walk or run under

shield, or ride, if they ever rode, they would hang it over the left

side, like the lion-hunters on the famous inlaid dagger of Mycenae,

[Footnote: For the chariots, _cf_. Reichel, _Homerische Waffen_,

120_ff_. Wien, 1901.] or the warrior on the chessman referred to above

(p. 111).

Aias, again, the big, brave, stupid Porthos of the _Iliad_, has the

largest shield of all, "like a tower" (this shield cannot have been

circular), and is recognised by his shield. But he never enters a

chariot, and, like Odysseus, has none of his own, because both men come

from rugged islands, unfit for chariot driving. Odysseus has plenty

of shields in his house in Ithaca, as we learn from the account of the

battle with the Wooers in the _Odyssey;_ yet, in Ithaca, as at Troy, he

kept no chariot. Here, then, we have nations who fight from chariots,

yet use small shields, and heroes who wear enormous shields, yet never

own a chariot. Clearly, the great shield cannot have been the cause of

the use of the war chariot, as in the theory of Reichel.

Aias and his shield we meet in _Iliad_, VII. 206-220. "He clothed

himself upon his flesh in _all_ his armour" ([Greek: teuchea]), to quote

Mr. Leaf's translation; but the poet only _describes_ his shield:

his "towerlike shield of bronze, with sevenfold ox-hide, that Tychius

wrought him cunningly; Tychius, the best of curriers, that had his home

in Hyle, who made for him his glancing shield of sevenfold hides of

stalwart bulls, and overlaid the seven with bronze."

The shield known to Homer then is, in this case, so tall as to resemble

a tower, and has bronze plating over bull's hide. By tradition from an

age of leather shields the Currier is still the shield-maker, though now

the shield has metal plating. It is fairly clear that Greek tradition

regarded the shield of Aias as of the kind which covered the body from

chin to ankles, and resembled a bellying sail, or an umbrella unfurled,

and drawn in at the sides in the middle, so as to offer the semblance

of two bellies, or of one, pinched in at or near the centre. This is

probable, because the coins of Salamis, where Aias was worshipped as a

local hero of great influence, display this shield as the badge of the

AEginetan dynasty, claiming descent from Aias. The shield is bossed,

or bellied out, with two half-moons cut in the centre, representing the

_waist_, or pinched--in part, of the ancient Mycenaean shield; the same

device occurs on a Mycenaean ring from AEgina in the British Museum.

[Footnote: Evans, _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, xiii. 213-216.]

In a duel with Aias the spear of Hector pierced the bronze and six

layers of hide on his shield, but stuck in the seventh. The spear of

Aias went through the circular (or "every way balanced") huge shield

of Hector, and through his corslet and _chiton_, but Hector had doubled

himself up laterally ([Greek: eklinthae], VII. 254), and was not

wounded. The next stroke of Aias pierced his shield, and wounded his

neck; Hector replied with a boulder that lighted on the centre of the

shield of Aias, "on the boss," whether that means a mere ornament or

knob, or whether it was the genuine boss--which is disputed. Aias broke

in the shield of Hector with another stone; and the gentle and joyous

passage of arms was stopped.

The shield of Agamemnon was of the kind that "cover all the body of

a man," and was "every way equal," or "circular." It was plated

with twelve circles of bronze, and had twenty [Greek: omphaloi], or

ornamental knobs of tin, and the centre was of black cyanus (XI.

31-34). There was also a head of the Gorgon, with Fear and Panic. The

description is not intelligible, and I do not discuss it.

A man could be stabbed in the middle of the belly, "under his shield"

(XI. 424-425), not an easy thing to do, if shields covered the whole

body to the feet; but, when a hero was leaping from his chariot (as in

this case), no doubt a spear could be pushed up under the shield.

The ancient Irish romances tell of a _gae bulg_, a spear held in the

warrior's toes, and jerked up under the shield of his enemy! Shields

could be held up on high, in an attack on a wall garrisoned by archers

(XII. 139), the great Norman shield, also, could be thus lifted.

The Locrians, light armed infantry, had no shields, nor bronze helmets,

nor spears, but slings and bows (XIII. 714). Mr. Leaf suspects that this

is a piece of "false archaism," but we do not think that early poets

in an uncritical age are ever archaeologists, good or bad. The poet is

aware that some men have larger, some smaller shields, just as some have

longer and some shorter spears (XIV. 370-377); but this does not prove

that the shields were of different types. A tall man might inherit the

shield of a short father, or _versa_.

A man in turning to fly might trip on the rim of his shield, which

proves how large it was: "it reached to his feet." This accident of

tripping occurred to Periphetes of Mycenae, but it might have happened

to Hector, whose shield reached from neck to ankles. [Footnote: _Iliad_,

XV. 645-646.]

Achilles must have been a large man, for he knew nobody whose armour

would fit him when he lost his own (though his armour fitted Patroclus),

he could, however, make shift with the tower-like shield of Aias, he

said.

[Illustration 1: "THE VASE OF ARISTONOTHOS"]

The evidence of the Iliad, then, is mainly to the effect that the heroes

carried huge shields, suspended by belts, covering the body and legs. If

Homer means, by the epithets already cited, "of good circle" and "every

way equal," that some shields of these vast dimensions were circular, we

have one example in early Greek art which corroborates his description.

This is "the vase of Aristonothos," signed by that painter, and supposed

to be of the seventh century (Fig. 1). On one side, the companions of

Odysseus are boring out the eye of the Cyclops; on the other, a galley

is being rowed to the attack of a ship. On the raised deck of the

galley stand three warriors, helmeted and bearing spears. The artist has

represented their shields as covering their right sides, probably for

the purpose of showing their devices or blazons. _Their_ shields are

small round bucklers. On the ship are three warriors whose shields,

though circular, _cover THE BODY from CHIN TO ANKLES_, as in Homer. One

shield bears a bull's head; the next has three crosses; the third blazon

is a crab. [Footnote: Mon. _dell_. Inst., is. pl. 4.]

Such personal armorial bearings are never mentioned by Homer. It is

not usually safe to argue, from his silence, that he is ignorant of

anything. He never mentions seals or signet rings, yet they cannot but

have been familiar to his time. Odysseus does not seal the chest with

the Phaeacian presents; he ties it up with a cunning knot; there are

no rings named among the things wrought by Hephaestus, nor among the

offerings of the Wooers of Penelope. [Footnote: Helbig citing Odyssey,

VIII. 445-448; _Iliad_, XVIII. 401; Odyssey, xviii. 292-301.]

But, if we are to admit that Homer knew not rings and seals, which

lasted to the latest Mycenaean times, through the Dipylon age, to the

very late AEginetan treasure (800 B.C.) in the British Museum, and

appear again in the earliest dawn of the classical age and in a Cyclic

poem, it is plain that all the expansionists lived in one, and that a

most peculiar _ringless_ age. This view suits our argument to a wish,

but it is not credible that rings and seals and engraved stones, so very

common in Mycenaean and later times, should have vanished wholly in the

Homeric time. The poet never mentions them, just as Shakespeare never

mentions a thing so familiar to him as tobacco. How often are finger

rings mentioned in the whole mass of Attic tragic poetry? We remember no

example, and instances are certainly rare: Liddell and Scott give none.

Yet the tragedians were, of course, familiar with rings and seals.

Manifestly, we cannot say that Homer knew no seals, because he mentions

none; but armorial blazons on shields could be ignored by no poet of

war, if they existed.

Meanwhile, the shields of the warriors on the vase, being circular and

covering body and legs, answer most closely to Homer's descriptions.

Helbig is reduced to suggest, first, that these shields are worn by men

aboard ship, as if warriors had one sort of shield when aboard ship and

another when fighting on land, and as if the men in the other vessel

were not equally engaged in a sea fight. No evidence in favour of such

difference of practice, by sea and land, is offered. Again, Helbig does

not trust the artist, in this case, though the artist is usually trusted

to draw what he sees; and why should he give the men in the other ship

or boat small bucklers, genuine, while bedecking the warriors in the

adverse vessel with large, purely imaginary shields? [Footnote:

Helbig, _Das Homerische Epos_, ii. pp. 313-314.] It is not in the least

"probable," as Helbig suggests, that the artist is shirking the trouble

of drawing the figure.

Reichel supposes that round bucklers were novelties when the vase was

painted (seventh century), and that the artist did not understand how

to depict them. [Footnote: _Homerische Waffen_, p. 47.] But he depicted

them very well as regards the men in the galley, save that, for obvious

aesthetic reasons, he chose to assume that the men in the galley were

left-handed and wore their shields on their right arms, his desire

being to display the blazons of both parties. [Footnote: See the same

arrangement in a Dipylon vase. Baumeister, _Denkmaler_, iii. p. 1945.]

We thus see, if the artist may be trusted, that shields, which both

"reached to the feet" and were circular, existed in his time (the

seventh century), so that possibly they may have existed in Homer's

time and survived into the age of small bucklers. Tyrtaeus (late seventh

century), as Helbig remarks, speaks of "a _wide_ shield, covering

thighs, shins, breast, and shoulders." [Footnote: _Tyrtaeus_, xi. 23;

Helbig, _Das Homerische Epos_, ii. p. 315, Note 2.]

Nothing can be more like the large shields of the vase of Aristonothos.

Thus the huge circular shield seems to have been a practicable shield

in actual use. If so, when Homer spoke of large circular shields he may

have meant large circular shields. On the Dodwell pyxis of 650 to 620

B.C., a man wears an oval shield, covering him from the base of the neck

to the ankles. He wears it on his left arm. [Footnote: Walters, _Ancient

Pottery_, p. 316.]

Of shields certainly small and light, worn by the chiefs, there is not

a notice in the _Iliad_, unless there be a hint to that effect in

the accounts of heroes running, walking considerable distances, and

"stepping lightly" under shields, supposed, by the critics, to be of

crushing weight. In such passages the poet may be carried away by his

own _verve_, or the heroes of ancient times may be deemed capable of

exertions beyond those of the poet's contemporaries, as he often tells

us that, in fact, the old heroes were. A poet is not a scientific

military writer; and in the epic poetry of all other early races very

gross exaggeration is permitted, as in the [blank space] the old Celtic

romances, and, of course, the huge epics of India. In Homer "the skill

of the poet makes things impossible convincing," Aristotle says; and it

is a critical error to insist on taking Homer absolutely and always _au

pied de la lettre_. He seems, undeniably, to have large body-covering

shields present to his mind as in common use.

Small shields of the Greek historic period are "unknown to Homer," Mr.

Leaf says, "with a very few curious exceptions," [Footnote: _Iliad_,

vol. i. p. 575.] detected by Reichel in Book X. 15 [Footnote: _Ibid,_

vol. i. p. 569, fig. 2.], where Diomede's men sleep with their heads

resting on their shields, whereas a big-bellied Mycenaean shield

rises, he says, too high for a pillow. But some Mycenzean shields were

perfectly flat; while, again, nothing could be more comfortable, as a

head-rest, than the hollow between the upper and lower bulges of

the Mycenzean huge shield. The Zulu wooden head-rest is of the same

character. Thus this passage in Book X. does not prove that small

circular shields were known to Homer, nor does X. 5 13. 526-530, an

obscure text in which it is uncertain whether Diomede and Odysseus ride

or drive the horses of Rhesus. They _could_ ride, as every one must

see, even though equipped with great body-covering shields. True, the

shielded hero could neither put his shield at his back nor in front of

him when he rode; but he could hang it sidewise, when it would cover his

left side, as in the early Middle Ages (1060-1160 A.D.).

The taking of the shield from a man's shoulders (XI. 374) does not prove

the shield to be small; the shield hung by the belt (_telamon_) from

the shoulder. [Footnote: On the other side, see Reichel, _Homerische

Waffen_, pp. 40-44. Wien, 1901. We have replied to his arguments above.]

So far we have the results that Homer seems most familiar with vast

body-covering shields; that such shields were suspended by a baldric,

not worn on the left arm; that they were made of layers of hide, plated

with bronze, and that such a shield as Aias wore must have been tall,

doubtless oblong, "like a tower," possibly it was semi-cylindrical.

Whether the epithets denoting roundness refer to circular shields or to

the double _targe_, g-shaped, of Mycenaean times is uncertain.

We thus come to a puzzle of unusual magnitude. If Homer does not know

small circular shields, but refers always to huge shields, whereas,

from the eighth century B.C. onwards, such shields were not in use

(disregarding Tyrtaeus, and the vase of Aristonothos on which they

appear conspicuously, and the Dodwell pyxis), where are we? Either

we have a harmonious picture of war from a very ancient date of large

shields, or late poets did not introduce the light round buckler of

their own period. Meanwhile they are accused of introducing the bronze

corslets and other defensive armour of their own period. Defensive

armour was unknown, we are told, in the Mycenaean prime, which, if true,

does not affect the question. Homer did not live in or describe the

Mycenaean prime, with its stone arrow-tips. Why did the late poets act

so inconsistently? Why were they ignorant of small circular shields,

which they saw every day? Or why, if they knew them, did they not

introduce them in the poems, which, we are told, they were filling with

non-Mycenaean greaves and corslets?

This is one of the dilemmas which constantly arise to confront the

advocates of the theory that the _Iliad_ is a patchwork of many

generations. "Late" poets, if really late, certainly in every-day

life knew small parrying bucklers worn on the left arm, and huge

body-covering shields perhaps they rarely saw in use. They also knew,

and the original poet, we are told, did not know bronze corslets and

greaves. The theory of critics is that late poets introduced the bronze

corslets and greaves with which they were familiar into the poems,

but scrupulously abstained from alluding to the equally familiar small

shields. Why are they so recklessly anachronistic and "up-to-date"

with the corslets and greaves, and so staunchly but inconsistently

conservative about keeping the huge shields?

Mr. Leaf explains thus: "The groundwork of the Epos is Mycenaean, in the

arrangement of the house, in the prevalence of copper" (as compared with

iron), "and, as Reichel has shown, in armour. Yet in many points the

poems are certainly later than the prime, at least, of the Mycenaean

age"--which we are the last to deny. "Is it that the poets are

deliberately trying to present the conditions of an age anterior to

their own? or are they depicting the circumstances by which they are

surrounded--circumstances which slowly change during the period of the

development of the Epos? Cauer decides for the latter alternative, _the

only one which is really conceivable_ [Footnote: Then how is the alleged

archaeology of the poet of Book X. conceivable?] in an age whose views

are in many ways so naive as the poems themselves prove them to have

been." [Footnote: _Classical Review, ix. pp. 463, 464._]

Here we entirely side with Mr. Leaf. No poet, no painter, no sculptor,

in a naif, uncritical age, ever represents in art anything but what he

sees daily in costume, customs, weapons, armour, and ways of life.

Mr. Leaf, however, on the other hand, occasionally chides pieces of

deliberate archaeological pedantry in the poets, in spite of his opinion

that they are always "depicting the circumstances by which they are

surrounded." But as huge man-covering shields are _not_ among the

circumstances by which the supposed late poets were surrounded, why

do they depict them? Here Mr. Leaf corrects himself, and his argument

departs from the statement that only one theory is "conceivable,"

namely, that the poets depict their own surroundings, and we are

introduced to a new proposition. "Or rather we must recognise everywhere

a compromise between two opposing principles: the singer, on the one

hand, has to be conservatively tenacious of the old material which

serves as the substance of his song; on the other hand, he has to be

vivid and actual in the contributions which he himself makes to the

common stock." [Footnote: _Ibid._, ix. pp. 463, 464.]

The conduct of such singers is so weirdly inconsistent as not to be

easily credible. But probably they went further, for "it is possible

that the allusions" to the corslet "may have been introduced in the

course of successive modernisation such as the oldest parts of the

_Iliad_ seem in many cases to have passed through. But, in fact,

_Iliad_, XI. 234 is the only mention of a corslet in any of the oldest

strata, so far as we can distinguish them, and here Reichel translates

_thorex_ 'shield.'" [Footnote: Leaf, _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 578.] Mr.

Leaf's statement we understand to mean that, when the singer or reciter

was delivering an ANCIENT lay he did not introduce any of the military

gear--light round bucklers, greaves, and corslets--with which his

audience were familiar. But when the singer delivers a new lay, which

he himself has added to "the kernel," then he is "vivid and actual," and

speaks of greaves and corslets, though he still cleaves in his new lay

to the obsolete chariot, the enormous shield, and, in an age of iron, to

weapons of bronze. He is a sadly inconsistent new poet!

Meanwhile, sixteen allusions to the corslet "can be cut out," as

probably "some or all these are additions to the text made at a time

when it seemed absurd to think of a man in full armour without a

corslet." [Footnote: _Ibid_, vol. i. p. 577.] Thus the reciters, after

all, did not spare "the old material" in the matter of corslets. The

late singers have thus been "conservatively tenacious" in clinging to

chariots, weapons of bronze, and obsolete enormous shields, while

they have also been "vivid and actual" and "up to date" in the way

of introducing everywhere bronze corslets, greaves, and other armour

unknown, by the theory, in "the old material which is the substance of

their song." By the way, they have not even spared the shield of the

old material, for it was of leather or wood (we have no trace of metal

plating on the old Mycenaean shields), and the singer, while retaining

the size of it, has added a plating of bronze, which we have every

reason to suppose that Mycenaean shields of the prime did not present to

the stone-headed arrow.

This theory of singers, who are at once "conservatively tenacious" of

the old and impudently radical in pushing in the new, appears to us

to be logically untenable. We have, in Chapter I, observed the same

inconsistency in Helbig, and shall have occasion to remark again on its

presence in the work of that great archaeologist. The inconsistency is

inseparable from theories of expansion through several centuries. "Many

a method," says Mr. Leaf, "has been proposed which, up to a certain

point, seemed irresistible, but there has always been a residuum which

returned to plague the inventor." [Footnote: _Iliad_, vol. ii. p. X.]

This is very true, and our explanation is that no method which starts

from the hypothesis that the poems are the product of several centuries

will work. The "residuum" is the element which cannot be fitted into any

such hypothesis. But try the hypothesis that the poems are the product

of a single age, and all is harmonious. There is no baffling "residuum."

The poet describes the details of a definite age, not that of the

Mycenaean bloom, not that of 900-600 A.D.