Chapter XV: Part 15

The offence of the crew of Ulysses consisted simply in this; that[777], after exhausting every effort to maintain themselves, when they have at length no alternative before them except that of starving, they consumed some of the best among these oxen for food. They observed, as far as they could, all the proper religious rites, but they used leaves instead of barley, and water for wine, inasmuch as neither of the usual requisites were forthcoming. They promised a temple also to the Sun, to be built on their return, and to be enriched with abundant votive offerings. Lastly, I think, any one who reads the manly and just speech of Eurylochus, in which he proposes the sacrilege, will judge that the sympathies of the Poet are with him. In this speech, he states the necessity; he next proceeds to vow the erection of a temple, and dedication of its ornaments in the event of safe return. Then he concludes by declaring, that if vengeance is, notwithstanding, to be taken on them, he for his part would far rather die once for all like a man than famish in the solitary island. There is not in the tone of the speech the slightest indication of impiety[778].

[777] Od. xii. 352-65.

[778] Od. xii. 339-51.

The terrible punishment inflicted was prefigured by extraordinary portents. The empty hides of the animals crawled about[779], and the flesh lowed on the very spits. Here we see at its climax the fine Greek imagination, working upon the foundation supplied by the Egyptian superstition, and extracting from the coarsest earthy matter the means of true poetical sublimity.

[779] 394-6.

It is impossible to conceive a case, in which the offence committed is more exclusively of the kind termed positive, or more entirely severed from moral guilt, until we include the element to which the poems do not expressly refer, of the elevated sanctity attaching to the animal itself. The Homeric fiction is[780], that they were the playthings of the Sun in his leisure hours. But to forbid the use of any of these animals for food, even under the direst necessity, would have been simply to caricature the nature of positive commands, in the very same spirit as that which would have had, not the sabbath made for man, but man made for the sabbath. Still, when once we let in the assumption that these animals had essentially sacred lives, which might not be taken away, then the offence becomes a moral one of frightful profanation, and the vengeance so rigorously exacted is intelligible.

[780] 379-81.

I do not mean that Homer recognises that dogma which the Egyptians then affirmed, and which at this present epoch, after the lapse of three thousand years, has wrought myriads of Hindoos to madness. The religion of Greece included no such idea, and the religious practice of the Greeks wholly precluded it. But in this instance we see a part of the Egyptian religion _in transitu_, in the very process of transmutation that it was to undergo when passing into the Greek mythology, which utterly repudiated its substance, but strove to retain an image of it under poetic forms, betraying by their inconsistency their exotic origin.

The consummation of the whole tale lies in this: that the vengeance is not the mere personal act of the Sun, but is inflicted by Jupiter himself on behalf of the whole Olympian Court, to which the appeal had been already made[781].

[781] Od. xii. 377, 405, 415.

2. Another instance, confirmatory of the statement of Döllinger as to the _rationale_ of brute-worship, is to be found in the curious passage of the Iliad where Xanthus, the horse of Achilles, is endowed with speech. The gift is from Juno, but the limit of the gift is carefully defined[782]:

[782] Il. xix. 407.

αὐδήεντα δ’ ἔθηκε θεὰ λευκώλενος Ἥρη.

It was utterance that Juno gave, not intelligence. The matter to be spoken was not a gift. The horse proceeds, evidently by a native insight into the future, to intimate to Achilles his coming fate; at first more darkly (v. 409); but when he comes nearer the point and glances at a man as the ordained instrument of doom (416),

ἀλλὰ σοὶ αὐτῷ
μόρσιμόν ἐστι θεῷ τε καὶ ἀνέρι ἶφι δαμῆναι·

then, I suppose lest the animal should proceed to particularize, and, though prophetic yet unwise, should break the current of the hero’s thought and action at the critical moment by naming Paris--the Ἐρινύες are made to interfere; they restore the order of nature, and stay the exercise of Juno’s irregular and abnormal gift.

3. The immortality of these horses is probably conceived in the same spirit. We may the more easily understand it to be a poetical rendering of the Egyptian belief in the divinity of many animals, when we recollect that exemption from death is, with Homer, the one and perhaps only essential characteristic of deity, so that his gods are ordinarily defined by it as ἀθάνατοι.

4. We have another indication of relation to the same ideas, in the assumption by deities of the forms of various birds: namely, by Minerva, as Od. i. 320; iii. 372; Il. vii. 59; Od. xxii. 240; by Apollo, Il. vii. 59; by Sleep, Il. xiv. 290; and by Ino Leucothee, Od. v. 353. In this instance we again see the refining power of the Greek imagination. It is only the forms of birds which are assumed by Homeric deities: creatures more ethereal, though not more intellectual, than the other brute races; and whose figure, when assumed, at once bestows in visible form an attribute of high superiority to man, namely, the increased facility and speed of locomotion.

5. One or two other traces may be suggested, but they are slighter and more dubious. It is possible that Homer drew from this source the Olympian horses of Juno (Il. v. 720, 768-72) and the sea-horses of Neptune (Il. xiii. 23). A similar notion may be involved, when the Poet makes Apollo stoop to feed the horses of Admetus in Pieria, and the oxen of Laomedon on Ida (Il. ii. 766, and xxi. 448). The serpent (δρακὼν) appears in Homeric portents as a symbol, but without peculiar meaning.

The horse was not one of the sacred animals of Egypt; and when Homer placed it in such near relations with deity, as he has done in these places and elsewhere, he may not only have indulged a personal predilection, but he also may have been converting the crudity of Egyptian material to the form and uses of the Greek religion, in the normal exercise of his vocation.

One concluding word may be said in extenuation of the indignity which, according to our ideas, attaches to the worship of the inferior animals. In the worship of the elemental powers we see error, but in the worship of beasts we see shame, and even brutality. Perhaps this distinction may be due as much to pride as to pious susceptibility.

Over animals, man has thoroughly obtained the mastery; but Elemental powers are still in many cases masters over us, and we lie like babes in the lap of their strength and vastness. It does not appear clear why we should consider the worship of that which is more highly organized, and which comes half-way to intelligence, as essentially more shameful than the worship of inferior organizations without life or instinct of any kind. If it be said that, by its negations, inanimate Nature becomes a fitter shrine of deity than the brutes, the same argument applied to the brutes, compared with man, might equally avail to give claims to brute-worship as compared with anthropophuism, against which, notwithstanding, nature summarily revolts.

SECT. VIII.

_The Morals of the Homeric Age._

We have now considered at some length the state and tendencies of religion, both objective and subjective, among the Greeks of the heroic age: let us proceed to attempt a sketch of their morality; which rested in part upon acknowledged relations to the Olympian deities, but which, it is clear, had likewise other supports and sanctions.

In general outline it may be thus summed up. An high spirited, energetic, adventurous, and daring people, they show themselves prone to acts of hasty violence, and their splendid courage occasionally even degenerates, under the influence of strong passion, into ferocity, while their acuteness and sagacity sometimes, though more rarely, take a decided tinge of cunning. Yet they are neither selfish, cruel, nor implacable. At the same time, self-command is scarcely less conspicuous among them than strong, and deep, and quick emotion. They are in the main a people of warm affections and high honour, commonly tender, never morbid: they respect the weak and the helpless; they hold authority in reverence; domestic purity too is cherished and esteemed among them more than elsewhere, and they have not yet fallen into the depths of sensual excess.

The Greek thanks the gods in his prosperity; witness Laertes. In his adversity he appeals to them for aid; or, if he is discontented, he complains of them; for he harbours no concealed dissatisfaction. Ready enough to take from those who have, he is at least as ready to give to those who need. He represents to the life the sentiment which another great master of manners has given to his Duke of Argyle, in the ‘Heart of Midlothian;’ ‘It is our Highland privilege to take from all what _we_ want, and to give to all what _they_ want[783].’ Distinctions of class are recognised, but they are mild and genial: there is no arrogance on the one side, nor any servility on the other. Reverence is paid to those in authority; and yet the Greek thinks in the spirit, and moves in the sphere, of habitual freedom. Over and above his warmth and tenacity in domestic affections, he prizes highly those other special relations between man and man, which mitigate and restrain the law of force in societies as yet imperfectly organized. He thoroughly admires the intelligence displayed in stratagem; whether among the resources of self-defence, or by way of jest upon a friend, or for the hurt or ruin of an enemy; but life in a mask he cannot away with, and holds it a prime article of his creed, that the tongue should habitually represent the man[784].

[783] Scott’s Novels and Tales, 8vo Ed., x. 238.

[784] Il. ix. 312.

~_The moral sense in the heroic age._~

Before proceeding, however, to examine the morality of the Greek heroic age, as to its particular sanctions, or in any of its applications to the regulation of human conduct, we are met by a preliminary question: had the Greeks any idea of a fixed and substantive rule of morals at all? were they believers in goodness as apart from strength? did they recognise a law of right as between man and man, or were their notions of relative duty entirely founded on a more or less far-sighted self-love, and on a prudential calculation of the consequences which would follow to society, and to each individual, if the rights of others were to be held in universal or in general disregard?

When we consider how hard it is to keep the moral standard high, even after religion has placed before our view a Divine pattern for man to follow, and how among the Greeks religion, first corrupted itself, had already begun to pour out its own corruption upon morals, we shall not venture to pitch our expectations very high: optimism and pessimism are here alike out of place: we want the clear, dispassionate, and direct discernment of the facts. And when we observe how, down to this day, the epithets which ought to designate virtue only, and in particular the word _good_, tend irresistibly to attach themselves to other gifts, such as genius, rank, wealth, skill, and power, we must not hastily conclude, from finding a similar use in Homer, that there was no idea or standard of goodness except that belonging to preeminence in the particular kind, according to which a clever thief is a good thief; good, that is, by doing effectually what he professes to do, or good, like the unjust steward of the parable, in respect of the intelligence he displays, though evil in respect of the direction which he gives to it[785].

[785] Luke xvi. 1-9.

Homer, in speaking of different classes of society, uses the line[786],

[786] Od. xv. 323.

οἷά τε τοῖς ἀγαθοῖσι παραδρώωσι χέρηες.

But after all we can translate this, without much verbal change, or any departure from our own idiom, ‘such services as the lower orders render to good society,’ or ‘to the better classes.’

Mr. Grote[787] says, that ‘the primitive import’ of the words ἀγαθὸς, ἐσθλὸς, and κακὸς relates ‘to power and not to worth;’ and that the ethical meaning of them is a later growth, which ‘hardly appears until the discussions raised by Socrates, and prosecuted by his disciples.’ I ask permission to protest against whatever savours of the idea that any Socrates whatever was the patentee of that sentiment of right and wrong, which is the most precious part of the patrimony of mankind. The movement of Greek morality with the lapse of time was chiefly downward, and not upward. It is admitted, that what we may call the dynamical sense of the epithets has held its ground in later times along with their ethical signification: the important question to be determined is, whether the latter signification was an improvement introduced by civilization into the code of barbarism, or whether it indicates a principle of human nature on its better, which is also its weaker side, and one which we see, all along the course of history, struggling to assert itself against the tyrannous invasion of other propensities and powers.

[787] Grote’s Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 88 n.

The word ἐσθλὸς is found in combination with what is absolutely vicious, in the remarkable case of Autolycus:

μητρὸς ἑῆς πατέρ’ ἐσθλὸν, ὃς ἀνθρώπους ἐκέκαστο
κλεπτοσύνῃ θ’ ὅρκῳ τε[788].

[788] Od. xix. 395.

But the meaning of ἐσθλὸς appears to be, one who excels; the application of it to Autolycus is not at all unlike the commendation of the unjust steward; and the epithet did not in the later Greek acquire any essentially different force, or any exclusive appropriation to moral excellence. Its use in Homer may be compared with his application of δῖα to Clytemnestra. Yet it leans peculiarly to moral excellence. For the ἀμύμων is opposed to the ἀπηνὴς, who is certainly a moral delinquent; and the highest honour of the ἀμύμων is, that men proclaim him ἐσθλός (Od. xix. 329-34).

Again, with respect to χείρων and its opposite κρείσσων, with other words similar to both. In searching for the signs of a standard in its own nature absolute, we can expect little from a class of terms, which by their very structure bear witness that they are simply comparative. Especially the etymology of χείρων, directing us to the word χεὶρ as its root, exhibits force as its most commanding and essential idea. Yet, when the aristocracy of Ithaca are called (Od. xxi. 325) πολὺ χείρονες ἄνδρες, must we not admit that even in this word there inheres a strong moral element?

~_Use of the words ἀγαθὸς and κακός._~

But as to the words ἀγαθὸς and κακὸς, the case is far more clear: and here I ask, can it be shown that Homer ever applies the word ἀγαθὸς to that which is morally bad? or the word κακὸς to that which is morally good? If it can, _cadit quæstio_; if it cannot, then we have advanced a considerable way in proving the ethical signification. For it is on all hands admitted, that besides their proper sense, ἀγαθὸς and κακὸς, like our _good_ and _bad_, have a derivative meaning, in which they are employed to denote what is agreeable, or what is preeminent in its kind, and the reverse respectively; qualities which bear an analogy to goodness on the one hand, and to badness on the other, according to the universal testimony of human speech. Now, if the use of this derivative sense stops short, in the case of ἀγαθὸς, when it comes to border on what is positively bad, and in the case of κακὸς, when it comes to touch upon what is positively good, there must be a reason for the abrupt cessation, at that point, of the function of the words; and it can be none other than that nature herself revolts from a contradiction in terms; as we never say a good villain, or a bad saint. But the contradiction would not exist, unless the ethical sense were inherent in the words.

Now, I venture to state, with as much confidence as can well exist in the case of a negative embracing such a number of instances, that we do find this limitation throughout the poems of Homer, in the secondary use both of ἀγαθὸς and of κακός. In one passage there is at first sight some obscurity in the meaning of the latter term, κακὸς δ’ αἰδοῖος ἀλήτης[789]. Here however the context plainly shows it to be, ‘it will not do for a mendicant to be shy.’

[789] Od. xvii. 578.

But the positive sense of both words can be clearly and indisputably made out from a number of passages, of which I will quote a portion.

Although it is true, that in Homer the word ἀγαθὸς very often refers more to the ideas of particular excellences and of power, than to that of moral worth; yet in some passages we find a latent bias, as it were, towards the last named idea, and in others we have a clear and full expression of it.

As an example of the first, I quote the description of Agamemnon[790], ἀμφότερον, βασιλεύς τ’ ἀγαθὸς κρατερός τ’ αἰχμητής, ‘A good king, and a brave warrior.’ Now the word ἀγαθὸς here evidently has a special regard to the moral element. Homer surely intends to describe, by the epithets he applies to each of the two substantives, a special excellence suitable to each character respectively. The goodness, so to speak, of a warrior consisted in bravery: the goodness of a king, partly indeed in prudence, but chiefly in justice, in mildness, and in liberality. If ἀγαθὸς in this place meant merely ‘good in the virtue of its kind,’ then it might as well stand with αἰχμητής as with βασιλεὺς, and therefore the antithesis would be a bad and pointless one.

[790] Il. iii. 179.

In other cases the moral colouring of the term is full and indubitable. Bellerophon[791], when he resists the seduction of the wife of Prœtus, is ἀγαθὰ φρονέων. Jupiter, when incensed, is described by Minerva thus, φρεσὶ μαίνεται οὐκ ἀγαθῇσιν[792]. To follow good advice is ὁ δὲ πείσεται εἰς ἀγαθόν περ[793]. A man who is ἀγαθὸς καὶ ἐχέφρων, is also the one who must necessarily have regard and affection for his wife[794]. And Clytemnestra, before she was corrupted, had good dispositions; φρεσὶ γὰρ κέχρητ’ ἀγαθῇσιν[795].

[791] Il. vi. 162.

[792] Il. viii. 360.

[793] Il. xi. 788.

[794] Il. ix. 341.

[795] Od. iii. 266.

The word κακὸς again, in a majority of cases, refers to defect or calamity in things, or to poltroonery, or other baseness of that kind, in persons: but it directly indicates moral badness in such passages as the following. Leiodes pleads that he tried to keep the Suitors from doing wrong, κακῶν ἄπο χεῖρας ἔχεσθαι[796]. Telemachus warns the Suitors that the gods will turn upon them in wrath, ἀγασσάμενοι κακὰ ἔργα[797]. Jupiter views such deeds with indignation, νεμεσσᾷται κακὰ ἔργα[798]. And Juno reproaches Apollo for giving countenance to the Trojans, as κακῶν ἕταρ’ αἰὲν ἄπιστε, where our finding faithlessness in the immediate context, points to moral depravity as the signification of the word κακῶν[799].

[796] Od. xxii. 316.

[797] Od. ii. 67.

[798] Od. xiv. 284.

[799] Il. xxiv. 63.

~_Use of the word δίκαιος._~

In the word δίκαιος, however, we have an instance of an epithet never employed except in order to signify a moral or a religious idea. Like the word _righteous_ among ourselves, it is derived from a source which would make it immediately designate duty as between man and man, and also as it arises out of civil relations. But it is applied in Homer to both the great branches of duty. And surely there cannot be a stronger proof of the existence of definite moral ideas among a people, than the very fact that they employ a word founded on the observance of relative rights to describe also the religious character. It is when religion and morality are torn asunder, that the existence of moral ideas is endangered.

Minerva, in the form of Mentor, is pleased with Telemachus for handing the cup first to her at the festival in Pylos, because it is a tribute of reverence to superior age. For this he is called πεπνυμένος ἀνὴρ[800] δίκαιος, and the idea is that of relative duty. Again, when she advises him for a while to let the Suitors alone, it is ἐπεὶ οὔτι νοήμονες οὐδὲ δίκαιοι[801]; and they do not know the retribution that hangs over them. In this case the meaning must be either ‘just’ or ‘pious.’

[800] Od. iii. 52.

[801] Od. ii. 282.

In another case, where the very same phrase is employed, δίκαιος can only mean ‘pious.’ ‘Jupiter,’ says Nestor, ‘ordained calamities for the Greeks on their return, because they were not all either intelligent or righteous[802]:

[802] Od. iii. 132-6.

ἐπεὶ οὔτι νοήμονες οὐδὲ δίκαιοι
πάντες ἔσαν.

‘Wherefore many of them perished’ (he continues) ‘through the wrath of Minerva, who set the two Atridæ at variance.’ Now here it appears that the original offence of the Greeks could only have consisted in the omission of the usual sacrifices, while the passage has no reference whatever to relative duties: δίκαιος therefore must refer simply to duty towards the gods. And, however imperfect may be that notion of divine duty which made it consist in sacrifice wholly or mainly, yet plainly the neglect to sacrifice was for the Greeks of the heroic age a moral offence, although it consisted only in the breach of a law of the class termed positive. A passage yet more fatally adverse to the position of Mr. Grote is, I think, that where Homer describes the Ἄβιοι[803] as δικαιότατοι ἀνθρώπων. For there he appears to be speaking of persons clearly less advanced in civilization, more rude, less wealthy and intelligent, than the Greeks; and yet he applies to them an epithet which proclaims them to have been, in his opinion, either the most just, or the most pious of mankind.

[803] Il. xiii. 6.

~_Religion and morals not dissociated._~

Moreover, it does not appear that anywhere among the Greeks were religion and morals as yet effectually dissociated. It is true that the language of mere mythology treats the religious character of man as established by bounty in sacrifice. But this is one of the points, and a very vital one, in which the theistic system of the Greeks was worse than their ethical instinct, and became, therefore, a positive source of corruption. While the Scriptures of the Old Testament rigidly controlled the propensity of man to substitute perfunctory observances for the service of the heart, by saying, ‘to obey is better than sacrifice,’ the Jupiter of the Greeks tells them, that to sacrifice is better than to obey. And it is only in the mouth of a traditive deity that we find any more elevated sentiment. To a certain extent, indeed, yet not effectually, this representation may be qualified, if we recollect that in these passages the deities of Olympus, conceived according to the laws of anthropophuism, when they have occasion to speak of human piety, speak of it in that aspect under which it was peculiarly beneficial to themselves, but do not on that account intend wholly to set aside its other parts, while they undoubtedly disturb the scale of relative importance in the moral order.

But man, the handiwork of God, was less depraved than the idols which were the handiwork of man. Among the Greeks, the pious man is nowhere separated from the just or moral man. Not in words, for the question of a stranger always is, whether men are, on the one hand, insolent, fierce, _and_ unrighteous, or, on the other, hospitable _and_ pious to the gods[804];

[804] Od. vi. 120.

ἦ ῥ’ οἵγ’ ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι οὐδὲ δίκαιοι,
ἠὲ φιλόξεινοι, καί σφιν νόος ἐστὶ θεουδής;

Nor are they in any instance separated in deeds. We hear of no religious observances by the Suitors in Ithaca; but Nestor and Menelaus are both found engaged in them. The wicked Ægisthus, having corrupted Clytemnestra and gained the throne, then offered many sacrifices to the gods in the hope of keeping it, and suspended many decorations in their honour[805]; but he is not on this account spoken of with less horror, nor indeed did this extorted profession save him from divine vengeance, sent by the hand of Orestes. Nor does it appear that he had ever been liberal in sacrifice before. The persons who are extolled, obviously or expressly, on this ground in the Odyssey are, the illustrious Ulysses[806], and the trusty Eumæus in his humble cottage[807]. So that on the whole, as between Greek and Greek, regularity in divine worship by sacrifice was neither taken for the substance of morality, nor allowed as a substitute for it, but was a test of it, and was habitually found in union with it. The connection is clearly set out in the case of Eumæus[808]:

[805] Od. iii. 272-5.

[806] Od. i. 65-7.

[807] Od. xiv. 420.

[808] Ibid.

οὐδὲ συβώτης
λήθετ’ ἄρ’ ἀθανάτων· φρεσὶ γὰρ κέχρητ’ ἀγαθῇσιν.

~_Moral elements in Sacrifice._~

Nor must we forget that, had it been otherwise, a constant moral profanation, abhorred by the feeling of the time, would have been involved. For sacrifice, as ought to be the case with all ritual, had a moral character and adjuncts. It was either ordinary, as at the common meal, or solemn. In the former case the surrender by man of a portion of his food was a witness to God as the giver, and an expression of thankfulness intelligible to an unsophisticated age. In the latter case, and even in the former[809], prayer or thanksgiving were commonly combined with the rite. The spirit of man, when he approached the altar, was bowed down before the powers of heaven; and though it was a heavy sin in nations who had a clear knowledge of God to lapse into the practices of those who could but feebly grope (to use the language of saint Paul[810]) for Him, yet the use of religious observances, when it is ordinarily combined, as we find it combined in Greece, with the possession in other respects of virtuous character, is in effect one of the strongest testimonies to the existence of a substantive standard of morals, which it associates at once with the unseen world, and not with any mere reckoning of results, drawn from the life and experience of man.

[809] Od. xiv. 423.

[810] Acts xvii. 27.

If then the Greeks of the heroic age recognised a real type of good and evil in human action, the next question is, what were the motive powers by which they were drawn towards the practice of virtue?

These powers proceeded from three sources.

One was a regard to the gods; to their rewarding the good, and punishing the bad. Of this we have already treated in regard to some of the most important points. The general proof rests upon almost every page of the poems, especially as regards the punishment of the unkind, unjust, and cruel. The Homeric representations of a future state obscurely, but sensibly, add strength to the same class of sanctions.

The second was the voice of conscience, speaking for each man within his own breast[811].

[811] Nägelsbach Hom. Theol. vi. 15.

The third was a sentiment ranging between reverence and fear, which led to the performance of duty, and to the avoidance of crime, in consideration of the general authority and established opinion of mankind.

We may consider those examples from bygone days, which are so often adduced either for warning or for imitation, as belonging to this third division of moral powers.

The finer forms of this third class of sentiments pass by imperceptible shades into the second.

~_The principle of conscience._~

After his conquest of Hypoplacian Thebes, Achilles would not despoil the body of the slain Eetion, σεβάσσατο γὰρ τόγε θυμῷ: accordingly he burnt him, with his precious armour on. Now it would have been no crime to strip him of this valuable booty, and therefore would have drawn down no vengeance: but the high standard of his own chivalrous feelings would not suffer the act. We have no reason to suppose that in this instance he had any regard to the general opinion of the Greeks. For as when they gathered round the corpse of Hector, every one of them inflicted a wound upon it, and as it was the common custom of the war to strip the dead of their arms, nothing can be more unlikely than that the army would have resented a similar proceeding on the part of Achilles towards Eetion. It was therefore to his own mind that he deferred. Here there was a conscience not only taking notice of the broader and, so to speak, coarser, outlines of duty, but likewise exhibiting a refined and tender sense of it.

Again, Telemachus says, by way of appeal to the good feeling of the Suitors themselves (Od. ii. 138.),

ὑμέτερος δ’ εἰ μὲν θυμὸς νεμεσίζεται αὐτῶν,
ἔξιτέ μοι μεγάρων.

In this place he seems to refer to the sense of right within each man, and by no means to their regard for appearances as before each other; while that, from which he exhorts them to abstain, is a purely moral wrong. So Glaucus appears to aim at the individual conscience, when he impresses on Hector and the Trojans the duty of recovering the body of Sarpedon, lest the Myrmidons should deface his remains (Il. xvi. 544-6). Again, Menelaus addresses a similar exhortation to the Greeks, and here expressly exhorts each person to feel and act for himself (Il. xvii. 254),

ἀλλά τις αὐτὸς ἴτω, νεμεσιζέσθω δ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷ
Πάτροκλον Τρωῇσι κυσὶν μέλπηθρα γενέσθαι.

In one passage particularly, Telemachus distinguishes with great clearness the three kinds of motive by the terms proper to them respectively (Od. ii. 64-7);

(1) νεμεσσήθητε καὶ αὐτοὶ,
(2) ἄλλους τ’ αἰδεσθῆτε περικτίονας ἀνθρώπους,
οἳ περιναιετάουσι· (3) θεῶν δ’ ὑποδείσατε μῆνιν.

That is νέμεσις, for the self-judging conscience: αἰδὼς, for human opinion: and lastly, fear, in regard to the divine wrath.

The existence of the moral standard within a man is also, I think, very strongly implied in the word ἀτασθαλίη, which is applied to deep, deliberate, habitual, or audacious wickedness. For when it is intended to let in any allowance for mere weakness, or for solicitation from without, or for a foolish blindness, then the word ἄτη is used. And I doubt whether, in any one instance throughout the poems, these two designations are ever applied to one and the same misconduct. It is certainly contrary to the general and almost universal rule. The ἀτασθαλίη is something done with clear sight and knowledge, with the full and conscious action of the will: it is something regarded as wholly without excuse, as tending to an entire moral deadness, and as entailing final punishment alike without notice and without mercy. Nothing can account for the introduction into a moral code of a form of offence conceived with such intensity, and ranked so high, except the belief that the man committing it had deliberately set aside that inward witness to truth and righteousness, supplied by the law of our nature, in the repudiation of which the universal and consentient voice of mankind has always placed the most awful responsibility, the extremest degree of guilt that the human being can incur.

~_Regard for general opinion._~

The high place assigned throughout the poems to public opinion as a moral check is visible at every turn. And this check applies variously to various classes. With the most abandoned, like the Suitors, it is feeble; and is only invoked on special occasions, as when Telemachus combines it, in the passage lately cited, with the other moral sanctions. Even Paris is represented as quite beyond the reach of it: and Helen meekly wishes, that if the gods had determined she should live, she could have been the husband of a man more open to the influence of the public sentiment[812]:

[812] Il. vi. 349-51.

ὃς ῥ’ ᾔδη νέμεσίν τε καὶ αἴσχεα πόλλ’ ἀνθρώπων.

But upon characters less frivolous and less corrupt, this power acts with great efficacy: so much so, that Phœnix says he was restrained, when in his passion, from killing his father by some benevolent deity, whose mode of proceeding was, we shall perceive, very remarkable: for the suggestion he made to Phœnix with such good effect was, not that he would be punished by the gods for the offence, but that he would become an offence and scandal among men[813]:

[813] Il. ix. 459-61.

ἀλλά τις ἀθανάτων παῦσεν χόλον, ὅς ῥ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷ
δήμου θῆκε φάτιν, καὶ ὀνείδεα πόλλ’ ἀνθρώπων,
ὡς μὴ πατροφόνος μετ’ Ἀχαιοῖσιν καλεοίμην.

The δήμου φάτις, or public opinion, weighs even with the matron Penelope among the motives to her virtuous and heroic conduct; and the maid Nausicaa, no less circumspect than artless, finds in the φῆμις ἀδευκὴς, the bitter gossip, of Scheria, an apology for desiring Ulysses not to enter the city in her company[814].

[814] Od. vi. 273-7.

But the sentiment of regard to general opinion comes out in other and yet finer forms as a practical regulator of conduct in the heroic age.

Perhaps we might venture to rely upon the uses of the single word αἰδὼς, with the cognate verb and adjective, in Homer, for proof that the condition of the Greeks of his age was a condition of high civilization, in that which constitutes its most essential part, namely, that which relates to the affections and passions of man; the expansion by moral forces of the one, and the compression of the other.

Shame, in all its many forms, has more than one pervading characteristic to mark it as an agent alike powerful and delicate in its influence upon human conduct.

First, it essentially involves this idea: that while it refers to an external standard, independent of ourselves though able to act upon us, still the power thus invoked is one altogether distinct from the idea of force. So sensitive indeed is the feeling of shame, that at the first moment when force comes into view, it alters its nature, and passes into fear. That which it apprehends is something, which dwells only in the ethereal region of opinion; and yet this, by the fineness of its appreciation, it converts into an agent effective both to excite and to restrain. Thus it exhibits to us the human spirit guided by silken reins, and in this way bears emphatic witness to the high training, by which alone it can become susceptible of so gentle a guidance.

Secondly, it embraces not only the character of acts as they are in themselves or appear to us, but also the aspect which they will naturally present to others. It therefore essentially involves the recognition of a high form of relative duty: it obliges us, in regulating the whole tenour of our conduct, to make the feelings of others an element in our own decisions. This principle of a mutual regard, not confined to certain positive acts of relative duty, but pervading the whole course of moral action, lies at the root of all genuine and high civilization.

Shame must have reference to some standard exterior to ourselves, and it therefore tends towards uprooting the law of selfishness. In one of its highest forms, the one perhaps most familiar to us in Homer, it is termed self-respect. But self-respect does not mean a regard to self: it means a virtuous regard to a standard established by adequate consent and authority, and owned, not set up, by the individual conscience; together with a determination that ‘self’ shall be made to conform to it.

The φθορὰ of this sentiment is what we term false shame: which does evil, or refrains from good, in submission to a depraved standard of opinion external to us, and in defiance of our own knowledge of right. This kind of shame is treated with no respect in Homer: for examples of it we must look to Amphimachus and Leiodes, two better-minded but complying Suitors, who end by perishing with the rest.

~_The force and forms of αἰδώς._~

The numerous forms of the sentiment of αἰδὼς in the heroic age are a proof of the large and varied development to which it had already attained.

How fine a feeling is that according to which, as with Homer, the bold men are also the shamefaced ones! as in his line,

αἰδομένων δ’ ἀνδρῶν πλέονες σόοι ἠὲ πέφανται.

This line, as it is repeated, seems to have the character of a γνώμη in the poems[815].

[815] Il. v. 531. xv. 563.

The most marked and frequent use of αἰδὼς is in the sense of self-respect as applied to military honour and bravery. The words αἰδὼς, Ἀργεῖοι, which are employed as an exhortation to fight, constitute one of the Homeric formulæ. Homer does not permit this use of the word to the Trojans: but once it is employed for his gallant favourites, the Lycians. (Il. xvi. 422. xvii. 336.)

Once, indeed, the term is applied to Trojans, but this is in the converse of the usual sense. It would be αἰδὼς, a disgrace, says Æneas, were we to let Troy be taken through our want of manhood. This is a lower signification. And again, as we shall see, the established formula of military incitement for the Trojans is different and less refined[816].

[816] Il. vi. 112 et alibi.

Sometimes αἰδὼς is an excess of deference, or what we might call scrupulosity; the feeling which carries the fastidious observance of some right sentiment towards others up to the point where it threatens to interfere with a public or other clear duty. So Telemachus begs of Nestor, ‘tell me the truth,’

μηδέ τί μ’ αἰδόμενος μειλίσσεο, μηδ’ ἐλεαίρων[817].

[817] Od. iii. 96.

In the Doloneia, Agamemnon, fearful that Diomed will choose Menelaus as a companion out of deference, says, ‘Do not let αἰδὼς influence you: choose the best man.’ Sometimes it is compassion, or ruth; as when Achilles, before the ransom, is said to show no αἰδὼς towards the body of Hector. But here αἰδὼς includes the idea of shame and self-respect. Sometimes it is reverence towards a superior, as in Od. xiv. 505, and in αἰδοῖος applied by Helen to Priam in Il. iii. 172. In this manner it becomes applicable to the sentiments a man should entertain towards the gods,

ἀλλ’ αἰδεῖο θεοὺς, Ἀχιλεῦ[818].

[818] Il. xxiv. 503.

And this is a very remarkable use of the term, because Priam certainly does not mean to urge upon Achilles a dread of the gods, but something quite distinct. Sometimes it is applied by a superior to an inferior; and means ‘his or her dues,’ as among the Immortals, where Jupiter says to Thetis, that he reserves the honour of the ransom for Achilles,

αἰδῶ καὶ φιλότητα τεὴν μετόπισθε φυλάσσων[819].

[819] Ibid. 111.

It may also be felt towards an inferior among men: Agamemnon is exhorted to feel it towards Chryses[820], for it is not a personal sentiment, but implies an object, outside the mere person who is the immediate occasion of it. So Achilles is intreated to revere (αἴδεσθαι) Lycaon, a vanquished and suppliant enemy[821].

[820] Il. i. 23. 377.

[821] Il. xxi. 74.

Sometimes it signifies the constitution of a special relation, over and above the general bond between man and man. A person’s αἰδοῖοι are his relations, friends, guests, and the like. Even so a wanderer is αἰδοῖος to the gods (Od. v. 447). Sometimes it means purely mental modesty, as in Od. viii. 171, ὁ δ’ ἀσφαλέως ἀγορεύει αἰδοῖ μειλιχίῃ; he speaks with that engaging bashfulness and careful indication of respect for his audience, which forms a principal grace of the orator. Sometimes the physical, as well as mental, quality of modesty; as when αἰδὼς kept the goddesses at home (Od. viii. 324). Sometimes, again, simply shyness; as when Telemachus is exhorted by Minerva to put away αἰδὼς in Od. iii. 14; or as in the phrase κακὸς δ’ αἰδοῖος ἀλήτης; ‘it will never do for a beggar to be shy.’

No finer shading of sentiment, I think, can be found in the language of the most civilized nations, nor any case so remarkable of a high and tender, and at the same time largely developed state of feeling at a time when material progress was so partial, rude, and slight. And of the vital importance of this element of the Greek moral code, we find a proof in the representation of Hesiod, who gives it as a characteristic of his iron, or post-Homeric, age, that αἰδὼς along with νέμεσις had fled from the earth.

~_Other cognate terms._~

There are other words, the use of which in Homer approximates occasionally to the sense of αἰδώς. The nearest of them is σέβας (as in Il. xviii. 178), with its verb σέβομαι; which, as we have seen, is sometimes applied simply to an internal standard recognised by the conscience. But in Il. iv. 242, οὔ νυ σέβεσθε; seems to be equivalent to οὐκ αἰδεῖσθε; or ‘for shame.’

The word νέμεσις, too, is sometimes used in a sense akin to that of αἰδώς: as when Neptune exhorts the Greeks, ἐν φρεσὶ θέσθε ἕκαστος αἰδῶ καὶ νέμεσιν (Il. xiii. 121): compare vi. 351. Again, in Od. i. 263, ii. 136, xxii. 40. But this sentiment is usually half way between αἰδὼς and fear, because what it apprehends, though it is not force, yet neither is it simple disapproval; rather it is disapproval with heat, disapproval into which passion enters. It contributes, however, to complete a very remarkable picture of the human mind.

The comparison between Greeks and Trojans, or Europeans and Asiatics, will prove, we shall find, greatly in favour of the former as to most parts of their morality. We have now to touch upon a feature in Greek manners which is unfavourable.

~_Homicide in the heroic age._~

With regard to the practice of homicide, the ordinary Greek morality was extremely loose; while we have no evidence of a similar readiness for bloodshedding among the Trojans: and enough is told us of Trojan life and manners to have probably brought out this characteristic, had it existed.

Among the Greeks, to have killed a man was considered in the light of a misfortune, or at most a prudential error, an ἄτη πυκινὴ[822], when the perpetrator of the act had come among strangers as a fugitive for protection and hospitality. On the spot, therefore, where the crime occurred, it could stand only as in the nature of a private and civil wrong, and the fine payable was regarded, not (which it might have been) as a mode, however defective, of marking any guilt in the culprit, but as, on the whole, an equitable satisfaction to the wounded feelings of the relatives and friends, or as an actual compensation for the lost services of the dead man. The religion of the age takes no notice of the act whatever[823].

[822] Il. xxiv. 480.

[823] Friedreich, Realien, sect. 139.

The ordinary practice, we learn from the blunt speech of Ajax to Achilles[824], was to accept the established fine upon the loss even of a brother or a son, if offered, and then to let the slayer remain unharmed. If he would not pay, or if the relations would not accept the payment, the alternative was flight: but it does not appear that this entailed any loss of character, perhaps rather otherwise. It was, however, the most common issue of such an affair, and, as such, it furnishes Homer with a simile. Priam, appearing before Achilles by surprise, is compared to a man who, having had the misfortune to kill somebody, appears unexpectedly in a strange place[825].

[824] Il. ix. 632-6.

[825] Il. xxiv. 480-2.

~_Eight instances in the poems._~

We will proceed to examine the cases of homicide recorded in the poems, which are alike numerous and remarkable.

I. Medon[826], the illegitimate brother of Oilean Ajax, migrates from Locris to Phylace, having, in the usual phrase, killed a man, ἄνδρα κατακτάς. This man was a kinsman, not improbably a brother, (for γνωτὸς may mean brother, as in Il. iii. 174, and xxii. 234), of his ‘stepmother,’ as she is called; that is, of Eriopis, the lawful wife of his father. And yet he retains or improves his position in Phylace, and appears, in the Thirteenth Iliad, as the commander of all the Phthians except the Myrmidons.

[826] Il. xiii. 659-7. xv. 333-6.

II. Theoclymenus[827], of the prophetic family of Melampus, suddenly makes his appearance before Telemachus, when he is about to embark from the Peloponnesus for Ithaca. He inquires of Telemachus who he is[828]; and, on finding that the youth is not in his own country, but a stranger, he says, ‘So am I: I have killed a man, and am flying from the vengeance of his family: they are powerful, and I am in fear lest they should take my life.’ Telemachus immediately promises to take him on board, and entertain him hospitably. He does not seem at all shocked at the intimation he has received. He does not think it worth while to ask the fugitive, whether he killed the man wantonly, or under provocation. But he forthwith assigns to him the place of honour[829]:

πὰρ δὲ οἷ αὐτῷ
εἷσε Θεοκλύμενον.

[827] Od. xv. 220 _et seqq._

[828] Od. xv. 260.

[829] Ibid. 285.

III. The next is an instance not less remarkable than the one last named. Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules and Astyoche, kills Licymnius the maternal uncle of his father, and his own grand-uncle. The sufferer is, moreover, in his old age, or he could hardly be the grand-uncle of an adult person; and no plea or palliation is mentioned for the act. The children and grandchildren of Hercules prepare to levy war upon him: but so far is he from having suffered in character for what hardly can have been other than a barbarous and brutal action, that he is enabled to raise a large body of emigrants, who accompany him to Rhodes. When distributed there in three settlements, they are blessed by the peculiar favour of Jupiter; and Tlepolemus appears before Troy as the commander of the Rhodian contingent[830].

[830] Il. ii. 658-70.

IV. Again, the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus had its origin in the circumstance that Menœtius delivered over his son into the protection of Peleus, because, being a youth, he had quarrelled with another youth, the son of Amphidamas, over a game of dice, and had slain him, νήπιος, οὐκ ἐθέλων, as the Poet says; that is, of course, without malice prepense[831]. This is the more worthy of notice, because it is evident that the character of Patroclus, partly perhaps for the sake of contrast with that of Achilles, and therefore of relief to it, is meant to be represented as one of peculiar gentleness[832]; a quality in which no one of the great Greek chieftains, except Menelaus, can compete with him.

[831] Il. xxiii. 86.

[832] Il. xix. 282-300.

V. In the Fifteenth Iliad, Hector slays Lycophron, son of Mastor, when he is aiming at Ajax. This was an inhabitant of Cythera who had quitted his country for homicide, ‘but whom,’ says Ajax to Teucer, ‘we honoured as if he had been a beloved parent[833].’

[833] Il. xv. 429-40.

VI. Again, the case of Epeigeus is remarkable; for he had been lord of Budeum:

ὅς ῥ’ ἐν Βουδείῳ εὐναιομένῳ ἤνασσεν
τὸ πρίν·

But having slain a cousin, apparently also of the higher order, he had to fly to Peleus and Thetis for protection[834].

[834] Il. xvi. 571.

VII. In the Thirteenth Odyssey, Ulysses, after being deposited in Ithaca, gives a fabulous account of himself to the disguised Minerva, in which we may be sure that he includes nothing which was deemed essentially dishonourable. In this account he represents himself as a fugitive from Crete on account of homicide. Orsilochus, the son of Idomeneus, had endeavoured, as he says, to deprive him of his share of the Trojan booty: for this cause he waylaid him by night, took away his life without being perceived by any one as he was returning from the country, and then embarked, to avoid the consequences, in a Phœnician ship[835].

[835] Od. xiii. 256-75.

VIII. An anonymous Ætolian, having slain a man, fled to Ithaca, visited Eumæus, and as a matter of course was entertained, nay petted, by him; ἐγὼ δέ μιν ἀμφαγάπαζον (Od. xiv. 379-81).

Even this great number of instances do not so fully illustrate the familiarity of the practice, and its thorough disconnection from the idea of moral turpitude, as the mode in which it furnishes the material of general illustration or remark. When Homer desires to represent on the shield of Achilles the ordinary form of public business in an assembly, he chooses a trial for homicide[836]. And so Ulysses, when explaining to Telemachus the formidable difficulties with which, after the slaughter of the Suitors, he has to contend, observes that those whom he has slain were the very flower of the community; whereas, in ordinary cases, a man flies his country after having put but a single person to death, and this even though he be one who has few to take up his quarrel[837].

[836] Il. xviii. 479.

[837] Od. xxiii. 118-22.

Now if we knew these facts concerning the Greeks of the heroic age, and knew nothing else, we should at once conclude that they were an inhuman and savage people, who did not appreciate the value of human life. But this is not so. They are not a cruel people. There is no wanton infliction of pain throughout the whole operations of the Iliad, no delight in the sufferings of others. The only needless wounds are wounds given to the dead[838]; a mode of action which imputed nothing brutal or degrading, in times when mankind had not yet learned from the Christian Revelation the honour due to the human body.

[838] Il. xxii, 371.

It is not then mere savageness, and the low estimate put upon life, which determines the view of the heroic age with respect to homicide. And if not, then it can only be an unbalanced appreciation of some other quality, such as courage, which was commonly implied and exhibited in such cases.

~_Why viewed with little disfavour._~

It seems as though the display of force and spirit of daring, which accompany crimes of violence in a rude age, had such a value in the estimation of the early Greeks, as to excuse proceedings which would otherwise have been visited with the severest censure. We shall find reason to believe that Paris may have had a certain credit in their eyes for carrying off Helen by the strong hand, which went to redeem or mitigate his adultery, and breach of hospitable rights. This idea, which is undoubtedly startling, is supported by the strange narrative of Hercules and Iphitus. Iphitus was the possessor of certain fine mares. Hercules, determined to possess them, visited him, received his hospitality, slew him, and carried off the animals. Now it may indeed be the mixed character of Hercules, which places his εἴδωλον in the Shades, while he is himself among the Immortals; but still the scale is cast on the whole in his favour. Yet surely the story of Iphitus exhibits a crime of the blackest dye; and the only palliation of it that is conceivable seems to lie in this, that he probably did not use stratagem, but proceeded by main force. The crime of Ægisthus, the blackest in the poems, appears to derive its highest intensity from the fact, that he slew Agamemnon like an ox at the stall, in the friendly feast itself, without notice or the opportunity of defence, and by a plot deliberately laid. Such is the effect of all the three passages in which this outrage is described[839]. The most favourable supposition which the case of Hercules admits is, that he came for plunder, and put the possessor of the horses to death, without premeditation, upon his refusal to yield them up; and that such an act, though a proper object of divine resentment, was yet not black enough to destroy his title to honour and a celestial abode[840].

[839] Od. i. 35-7. iv. 524-35. xi. 409-20.

[840] Od. xxi. 22-38. xi. 601-4.

We will now pass on to a kindred subject.

~_Piracy in the heroic age._~

Thucydides has stated that in the earlier ages of Greece the practice of piracy was alike widespread and honourable: οὐκ ἔχοντός πω αἰσχύνην τούτου τοῦ ἔργου, φέροντος δέ τι καὶ δόξης μᾶλλον[841]. In support of this opinion he refers to the questions then usually addressed to strangers on their arrival in a country; such as that by Nestor to the pseudo-Mentor and Telemachus, in order to learn what their business was, or whether they were pirates[842];

[841] Thuc. i. 5.

[842] Od. iii. 72.