immediately to sovereigns as such, at least in the Iliad. But this is
represented by the words Διοτρεφὴς and Διογενὴς, as they bear witness
by their etymology, and not by ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. Indeed we seem to find the
word Διοτρεφὴς used for heaven-born, without reference to political
power, in that line of the Odyssey (v. 378), where Neptune applies it
to the Phæacians:
εἰσόκεν ἀνθρώποισι Διοτρεφέεσσι μιγείης.
But of those Homeric titles which are specifically Greek, by far the
most remarkable is the title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν.
_Particulars of its use._
It is used by the Poet fifty-two times: fifty times in the Iliad, twice
only in the Odyssey.
It is applied forty-six times to Agamemnon, and six times to five other
persons, once for each in four cases, and twice in one. The persons are,
Eumelus, a living Greek.
Augeias, }
} dead Greeks.
Euphetes, }
Anchises, }
} living Trojans.
Æneas, }
It appears and perishes with Homer, not being found in the writings of
any other Greek author.
It is never used in any of the cases, except the nominative: never
separated from the proper name of the person to whom it is applied,
except once (Il. i. 7), and then only by the particle τε: it always
precedes the name except in that single passage: it always ends with
the first half of the fifth foot of the verse, except in that same
passage: and again, the word ἄναξ is never separated from the word
ἀνδρῶν, except once in the Odyssey by the word δέ.
It is applied to no person whose name does not begin with a vowel,
and to no person whose name is not of the metrical value necessary
to enable it to form the last foot and a half of the hexameter: as,
Agamemnon, of two short syllables and two long ones; Euphetes, three
long ones; Eumelus, two long and one short. Circumstances, these last,
which, if they stood alone, would raise a presumption that the use of
it was determined by metrical considerations only.
That metrical considerations had some degree of influence on the use of
phrases in Homer, we may sufficiently judge, by observing that while
Homer uses the name of Achæans four times for that of Argeians once, he
uses the forms Ἀχαίοισι and Ἀχαίοισιν but twelve times, whereas he uses
Ἀργείοισι and Ἀργείοισιν more than sixty times.
But we may observe that no metrical considerations could have prevented
Homer from applying the phrase to Diomedes, Polypœtes, or others, whose
names differ from that of Agamemnon only in having a consonant at the
beginning of them: and yet he has not done this: the names of all his
six ἄνακτες ἀνδρῶν begin with a vowel. Thus as he restrains himself
beyond what metre requires, he may have had some reason other than
metre to govern his use of the title.
The question is, whether there are, evidently or probably, other
conditions of substance, which, besides these of sound, meet in the
persons designated by the title, and which enable us to trace and fix
its purport?
With reference to Mure’s explanation I observe, that it does not
appear to take account of the difference between descriptive words in
general, and titles, as applicable to Homer; but rather to assume that
the Homeric phrases are simply of the former class.
It is plain that the word κρείων is a term of that class only: which,
_pro tanto_, is indicated by its relationship to the established and
ordinary epithet of comparison κρείσσων. It clearly describes the class
of those, who bore single-handed rule, in the address to Jupiter, ὕπατε
κρειόντων[778]; and it answers to the epithet princely in Il. xxiv. 538.
ὅττι οἱ οὔτι
Παίδων ἐν μεγάροισι γονὴ γένετο κρειόντων.
‘For he had not as yet a princely offspring in his home.’
Lower than Βασιλεὺς, which corresponds to the rank implied by our term
‘majesty,’ and less wide in sense than ἄναξ, which corresponds very
nearly with ‘lord,’ it is generally the equivalent as to rank of prince
or princely, according to the English sense of the terms; but it is in
Homer always a descriptive word only, and never a title. Accordingly it
is found in the later Greek writers, when both ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, and even
ποιμὴν λαῶν have disappeared.
_The ποιμὴν λαῶν of Homer._
The phrase ποιμὴν λαῶν is more largely used than κρείων, and with
more appearance of approximation to that substantive character, and
susceptibility of individual application, which belongs to a title.
Thus in
Οἱ δ’ ἐπανέστησαν, πείθοντό τε ποιμένι λαῶν,
σκηπτοῦχοι βασιλῆες[779],
the βασιλῆες are the members of the Greek βουλὴ, and ποιμὴν λαῶν means
Agamemnon. Like κρείων, it was applicable to those who held secondary
sovereignties, the feudatories, so to speak, of the principal chiefs:
as for instance, we find among the secondary commanders of the Pylian
division,
Αἵμονά τε κρείοντα, Βίαντά τε, ποιμένα λαῶν[780].
It reaches down to persons, of whom we know and can infer nothing,
but that they may probably have held small fiefs (so to call them)
with derivative sovereignty of some kind, such as were, among the
Trojans[781], Bienor, Hypeiron, Apisaon, Hypsenor: and it is also
applied to the sons of the greater chiefs, for example, Thrasymedes and
Agenor[782], as well as to the chiefs themselves, including Agamemnon.
It is likewise given to Ægisthus, when he was, _de facto_, in
possession of the throne of Agamemnon[783]. It is therefore applicable
to the idea of political rule in the very widest sense, differing
however from ἄναξ in so far that, while it is assigned to personages of
smaller note politically, it is confined to the expression of that kind
of superiority, and has nothing whatever to do with property.
I find it, on the whole, impossible to detect in this phrase any thing
of a definite character, except that it expresses political rule at
large, and expresses it under the form of a figure adapted to the early
and patriarchal state of society. I hesitate then to call it with
confidence a title, because the class to which it applies is somewhat
indeterminate, and therefore it is wanting in specific meaning: yet it
may partake somewhat of that character. We must, however, distinguish
broadly between the element of subordination to Agamemnon, such as we
see it in Nestor and Diomed, and that of the class to which the lower
ποιμένες λαῶν belonged. These were as widely separated as the great
feudatories of mediæval France, from the petty lords who so much
abounded in this island.
In its form, the phrase bears an external, rather than a real
resemblance to ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. For ποίμην figuratively used expresses
no more than the office of a ruler in his political relation to his
subjects; while ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν is much more peculiar in character, since
ἄναξ exhibits the idea of master as well as ruler, and he is not
merely ἄναξ of a people, but ἄναξ of individual men, in respect to
something appertaining to man as such, of which he is the possessor or
usufructuary. The ποιμὴν λαῶν expresses a relation, which implies that
political society is already formed, for λαὸς means a body united in
that form.
Again, we are scarcely entitled to presume that ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν denotes
the office of ‘any king or chieftain,’ when, though it is used in some
fifty passages, it is only applied to six persons: nor is it less
hazardous to say that it means especially the office of a supreme ruler
or commander, when out of these six persons only one at all answers to
that description, and when at least three are persons of insignificant
power, as well as individually obscure.
Once more, it is the manner of Homer, where he applies an epithet or
phrase characteristically to one of his greater personages, to give
them the exclusive use of it, such as the ποδωκὴς δῖος for Achilles,
κορυθαίολος for Hector, πολύμητις and πολυτλὰς δῖος for Ulysses. For
example, κορυθαίολος is used thirty-eight times for Hector, never for
any other hero: though it is used once for Mars, in Il. xx. 38. It
would be strange if he departed from this usage in the case before
us. But if ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν be a mere phrase of description, as Mure
supposes, he does depart from it in the strangest manner; for while
he applies it forty-six times to Agamemnon, he likewise gives it to
the very insignificant Eumelus. If it be a phrase simply serving the
purpose, as an epithet would, of denoting the great political position
of Agamemnon, how can its force be more utterly shattered than by
bestowing it not only upon Eumelus, who does nothing except drive a
chariot, but upon Euphetes, who is mentioned but once in the poems of
Homer, without any epithet or circumstance whatever except this to
distinguish him, and who is named nowhere else at all? If it describes
a ruler as supreme among rulers, why is it thus debasingly, as well as
loosely, applied? But if it describes a ruler generally, then why is
it employed so restrictedly? The actual mode and conditions of its use
require us to examine whether it does not in fact cover some specific
idea, derived from a form of society which, even in the days of Homer,
had become, or, at the least, was becoming obsolete; perhaps already
in some part a monument of the past, and cutting across, rather than
fitting into, the arrangements and usages of his time.
_Ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν has a specific meaning._
The peculiar formula ‘lord of men’ appears well adapted to mark the
period of transition from the patriarchal to the political construction
of society; in the family, sovereignty and the possession of property
are united, and the βασιλεὺς naturally follows after and grows out of
the ἄναξ. Authority is here clothed in a form more extended than that
of a mere family connection, yet the idea of it remains indeterminate:
there is no distinct formation of _class_; superiors are not yet viewed
under the formal political notion of kings, nor (as in λαὸς) have _men_
yet come to conceive of themselves as subjects. There are human beings
with a superior: but there is no society with a head. In that state of
things, power, if less secure and rooted, was more absolute: witness
the projected sacrifice by Abraham of his son Isaac.
To sum up, however, what we have said upon the other phrases, it
appears that we have in Homer four words commonly used to express the
ruling office, from the highest form of that office downwards: they are,
1. βασιλεὺς, the most limited: confined in the Iliad to those who
both were practically supreme, and ruled over considerable territory,
or else were of primary importance from personal prowess or other
qualities.
2. κρείων, the next; embracing the very highest, but descending to
secondary princes, though commonly confined to the more considerable.
3. ποιμὴν λαῶν, which, also capable of application to the highest,
yet, as expressing political dominion in the widest form, embraces the
subordinate, derivative, and petty principalities even of persons who
do not appear to have been in any sense independent sovereigns.
4. More varied in its application than any of these, perhaps older, and
related to the time when the only known form of sovereignty implied
indeterminate, and so far absolute powers of disposal, the word ἄναξ
involves the double idea of political authority and of ownership; it
accompanies them both, like our word _lord_, when they separate, and it
adheres to each of them in all its forms.
I admit that the construction which it is now proposed to put upon
ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν has not, so far as I am aware, been heretofore propounded;
and that this is, _pro tanto_, a presumption against it. But in lieu
of _pro tanto_, I would in this case crave to write _pro tantillo_;
for it seems to be the fact, that, as only of late has Ethnology been
systematically studied, so only of late have the text and diction of
Homer been subjected to minute investigation; and it is reasonable to
expect, that the further application of critical attention to it may
yet disclose to our view much, which has heretofore been unsuspected.
It is the more allowable to proceed upon this view in the case of ἄναξ
ἀνδρῶν, because so few readers of Homer appear even to have observed
that it is ever applied to any person besides Agamemnon, and therefore
the common opinion rests upon an inaccurate impression as to the
elementary facts. My purpose, accordingly, may more justly be described
as an attempt to open a new question, than as an attack upon a critical
verdict regularly delivered.
Let us now proceed to examine what the facts really are respecting the
use of the phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν in Homer.
_Persons to whom it is applied._
It is applied to Agamemnon in the following passages:
Il. i. 7, 172, 442, 506.
ii. 402, 434, 441, 612.
iii. 81, 267, 455.
iv. 148, 255, 336.
v. 38.
vi. 33.
vii. 162, 314.
viii. 278.
ix. 96, 114, 163, 672, 677, 697.
x. 64, 86, 103, 119, 233.
xi. 99, 254.
xiv. 64, 103, 134.
xviii. 111.
xix. 51, 76, 146, 172, 184, 199.
xxiii. 161, 895.
Od. viii. 77.
xi. 396.
It is also applied to
Anchises, Il. v. 268.
Æneas, Il. v. 311.
Augeias, Il. xi. 701, 739.
Euphetes, Il. xv. 532.
Eumelus, Il. xxiii. 288.
Now although, as we have seen, the term is in fact employed only with
names nearly akin to one another in point of metrical value, yet the
Poet has given us the most distinct evidence that the employment of
it was not a mere metrical expedient to assist him in the use of names
otherwise unmanageable. This we learn in the two following forms:
1. The name Eumelus is one of those to which he applies the phrase:
but the metrical conjunction of it with this name is by no means
particularly convenient, for out of five places in which Homer mentions
Eumelus in the nominative case, he only once gives him his title of
ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. Again, it is evident that he has no preference for the
end of the verse as a place for the name of Eumelus; for he places it
elsewhere, at the beginning, and in τὴν Εὔμηλος ὄπυιε (Il. ii. 714. Od.
iv. 798), on the only two occasions when he uses the nominative without
a title annexed. He only puts it at the end of the verse in order to
couple it with ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, and with κρείων (Il. xxiii. 288, 354). So
far then from being a metrical convenience, this phrase rather forces
him out of his way in order to introduce it. So it is with Æneas. Homer
uses his name very many times, but never once places it at the end of a
verse, except in the single case in which he attaches it to the title
ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. Again, then, the phrase compels him to adopt a position
which he is uniformly careful to avoid elsewhere for Æneas, and this in
little short of forty instances.
_Persons to whom it might have been applied._
2. Besides the names to which Homer applies the phrase, he employs
a great number of names, of persons having high or the very highest
rank, which possess exactly the same metrical value as one or another
of the six names above quoted; but yet to none of these does he at any
time give the title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. Of such names I have observed the
following: and I exclude from the list the merely local characters of
the Odyssey, and all persons in inferior station.
(1) Of the same metrical value with Eumelus:
Patroclus.
Pheidippus.
Euneus.
Eudorus.
Euphemus.
Ægisthus.
Admetus.
Amphius.
Euphorbus.
And of the dead,
Isandros.
Adrestus.
(2) Of the same metrical value with Augeias, Euphetes, Æneas,
Anchises:
Antenor.
Sarpedon.
Pyræchmes.
Hercules (Heracles).
Eurystheus.
(3) Of the same metrical value with Agamemnon:
Diomedes.
Polypœtes.
Megapenthes.
Thrasymedes.
Eteoneus.
Agapenor.
Euphenor.
Prothoenor.
Hyperenor.
(4) Of the same metrical value with Agamemnon, except having the last
syllable short:
Menelaus.
Echepolus.
Melanippus.
Polydorus.
And of the dead,
Rhadamanthus.
Meleagros.
Here are thirty-five names as susceptible of conjunction with the
phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν as the six to which he attaches it. How comes it to
be attached, significant as it is _primâ facie_, to the six, and never
to the thirty-five? Did it come and go by accident, or had Homer a
meaning in it?
Moreover, I would by no means be understood to admit, that metrical
obstacles would have sufficed to prevent Homer from applying almost any
title to almost any name: such were the resources of his genius and his
ear, and such the freedom that the youthful elasticity of the language
secured to him.
It must be remembered too that he has given us an instance (in Il.
i. 7) of a second site, so to speak, for ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν in the Greek
hexameter, which would have enabled him at once to combine it with all
such proper names as come within the compass of a dactyl and trochee,
or a spondee and trochee. Such as Πουλυδάμας γὰρ ... Καὶ Πρίαμος μὲν
... Καὶ γὰρ Τευκρὸς ... Θησεὺς αὐτὸς ... Δάρδανος αὐτὸς .... And even
without altering its usual position in the verse, by a break of it, or
a _cæsura_, which is not unfrequent with him, he might have given us
(for example) ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν γὰρ Ἐρεχθεύς. Or he might by _tmesis_, more
liberally used, have further widened the field for its employment.
Or again, he would have been free, by the rules of his own usage, to
have said in the vocative, ἀνδρῶν ἄνα.
_Homer’s reverence for this title._
His abstinence from inflexion absolutely, and from _tmesis_ almost
entirely, in the use of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, I think deserves remark. We might
be struck, even in another author, by finding a word fifty-six times
in the nominative singular, and never in any other form: but in Homer
these slight circumstances have a value and significance, which in
ordinary cases it would be more dangerous to assign to them. It seems
to me possible, that this restraint in the use of the name, which
always assigns to it the most commanding place in the sentence, was
not unconnected with a sense of reverence towards it. I think that if
we were to examine the correspondence, for example, between British
Ministers and their Sovereign, we might find that the phrase ‘Your
Majesty’ was placed, under a sort of natural and unconscious bias,
by the writers, in the nominative case, in a proportional number of
instances far exceeding that which the pronoun ‘you’ would supply in an
ordinary letter.
It is difficult to define this delicate and subtle sentiment: but it
may perhaps be illustrated by the feeling on which is founded the
prevailing usage of addressing among ourselves the very highest ranks,
and in some languages all persons of consideration, in the third
rather than the second person. And again, it is the same description
of sentiment, which, when carried into the sphere of religion, has led
Dante invariably to forbear, when he introduces the name ‘Cristo’ at
the close of a verse, from placing any other word in rhyme with it, so
that he makes it its own echo (so to speak), and repeats it thrice, in
no less than four passages, to meet the full demand of his metre[784].
Or again, as Homer appears to have possessed a fineness of ear which
is not only wonderful, but by us in some part inappreciable, it may be
that he attached an importance, which we cannot measure, to preserving
a perfect uniformity in this dignified and sonorous title, as a means
of producing popular impression, not less than of satisfying his own
taste.
Other instances might be given from Homer, bearing upon the case.
Ἐνοσίχθων is used forty times, and only once out of the nominative,
though metrical reasons could not hamper the poet with respect to any
of the cases of this noun. Διογενὴς is used in the nominative and
vocative only. Κύδιστος is used sixteen times, and in the vocative
alone. The feminine form however is found in the nominative, but only
in two passages (one of them with a rival reading) applied to Minerva.
Εὐρυκρείων is found twelve times, and only in the nominative.
Perhaps again the rarity and slightness of his use of _tmesis_ may be
accounted for, not by euphony alone, but by the circumstance that these
two words had grown by titular use almost into one.
The fact that the phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν should have disappeared with
Homer himself, while his heroes were incessantly sung by later poets,
of itself raises a presumption that it belonged to a state of things
which, when after a wide interval the race of his successors began, had
wholly ceased to exist.
That stage of society, in the closing stages of which Homer lived,
and which we know through him alone of classical authors, was the
patriarchal stage in its last phasis. By the patriarchal stage of
society, I mean the stage in which rights on the one hand, and powers
and duties on the other, were still indeterminate, and were gradually
passing from the state of _nebula_ into that of body. Now, if the
phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν belonged to it, without doubt it must at the outset
have exhibited its unvarying characteristic, the union of sovereign
political power not only with hereditary descent, but with a reference
to some original stock as an object of deep veneration, if not to a
relationship of blood more or less remote between the royal family and
their subjects, or to the dominant race among them.
_Its relation to Patriarchal Chieftaincy._
The chieftaincies of the Celtic tribes in our own island, such as
they existed until within only one century back, afford us a partial
analogy. The primary idea is that of the headship of an extended
family, sometimes approximating to the character of a nation;
sometimes more limited, so that many of such families or tribes may be
regarded as belonging to the same nation. One marked characteristic
of these chieftaincies is that the preeminence and power, which
they attached to birth, is separable from, though capable of union
with, sovereignty strictly so called, that is, an absolute political
supremacy, and subsists in its main particulars even after the
division; neither does it become ambiguous or indefinite, where the
field for its exercise is a narrow one. The splendour of the name
increases with the range of dominion, but its integrity subsists even
in the most contracted sphere, so long as the organization on which it
is dependent remains.
It is at least conceivable, that the Greek and the Celtic chieftaincies
thus far agree. They differ in this, that the Hellenes, whenever we
hear of them, appear more or less clearly as the subjugators of some
race in prior occupancy of the soil, and as the masters of slaves: so
that, while the relation of the Highland Chief to his clan was elevated
and softened by union in blood, a Greek chieftaincy rather affected the
relation between the head of the tribe and, not the whole, but only a
privileged part, of the community.
The fundamental idea of this chieftainship would lie in the
possession of the powers of government, patriarchally organized, by
lineal descent, and traced up to the point which was the recognised
fountain-head of the traditions of the race.
Where the idea of succession by primogeniture was well defined, there
probably would be but one line in existence at a time that could hold
the title for any one race. But there might be cases where the rule of
primogeniture was unknown, or not consistently applied, or where the
fact of elder descent was contested, or where common descent from some
one acknowledged race and period might confer the title on a variety of
families, situated at remote points from one another, in each of which
it might afterwards be confined to the lineal heir. In such cases there
would be a plurality of lines, all running up into the stem of a common
ancestor, and all bearing in their own separate successions the title
of chieftainships.
Again, among these chieftains one might be politically supreme over the
rest within a given country. Such were the Macdonalds, Lords of the
Isles, in Scotland, who claimed to be kings as well as chieftains: and
such in Ireland were the Kevanaghs, O’Ruarcs, and O’Briens.
If therefore I am right in interpreting the phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν to
mean properly (together with something more) _Chieftain_, in a sense
including the main elements of Celtic chieftaincy, or _Patriarch_, (but
the latter phrase is less applicable from its conventional connection
with advanced age), then it need excite no surprise if we find an ἄναξ
ἀνδρῶν on each side, and not in the supreme command. At the same time,
though there are vast differences in power between one Homeric ἄναξ
ἀνδρῶν and another, they are all, so far as we see, strictly in the
position of princes ordinarily independent within their dominions,
though owning, it might be, the prerogatives of a qualified political
supremacy lodged in other hands.
_Case of Agamemnon._
_Mode of its use for Agamemnon._