Chapter II: Part 2

_a._ Nausicaa, Od. vi. 115.
_b._ Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, Od. xi. 258; but only in the phrase
βασίλεια γυναικῶν, which seems to resemble δῖα γυναικῶν.
_c._ Arete, queen of the Phæacians, Od. xiii. 59.
_d._ Penelope, Od. xvi. 332, 7: and elsewhere.

Now it cannot be said that the use of the word is forborne in the Iliad from the want of fit persons to bear it; for Hecuba, as the wife of Priam, and Helen, as the wife of Paris, possibly also Andromache, (though this is much more doubtful[34],) were all of a rank to have received it: nor can we account for its absence by their appearing only as Trojans; for the title of βασιλεὺς is frequently applied to Priam, and it is likewise assigned to Paris, though to no other member of the Trojan royal family.

[34] See inf. ‘Ilios.’

We have also two other cases in the Iliad of women who were queens of some kind. One is that of Hypsipyle, who apparently exercised supreme power[35] in Lemnos, but we are left to inference as to its character: the other is the mother of Andromache[36],

[35] Il. vii. 469.

[36] Il. vi. 395-7. 425.

ἣ βασίλευεν ὑπὸ Πλάκῳ ὑληέσσῃ.

She was what we term a Queen consort, for her husband Eetion was alive at the time. In the Odyssey we are told that Chloris, whom Neleus married, reigned at Pylos; ἡ δὲ Πύλου βασίλευε, Od. xi. 285. In this place the word βασιλεύειν may perhaps imply the exercise of sovereign power. Be this as it may, the introduction of the novel title of Queen betokens political movement.

There are other signs of advancing change in the character of kingship discernible from the Odyssey, which will be more conveniently considered hereafter. In the meantime, the two which are already before us are, it will be observed, exactly in the direction we might expect from the nature of the Trojan war, and from the tradition of Strabo. We have before us an effort of the country amounting to a violent, and also an unnaturally continued strain; a prolonged absence of its best heads, its strongest arms, its most venerated authorities: wives and young children, infants of necessity in many cases, remain at home. It was usual no doubt for a ruler, on leaving his country, to appoint some guardian to remain behind him, as we see from the case of Agamemnon, (Od. iii. 267,) and from the language of Telemachus, (Od. xv. 89); but no regent, deputy, or adviser, could be of much use in that stage of society. Again, in every class of every community, there are boys rapidly passing into manhood; they form unawares a new generation, and the heat of their young blood, in the absence of vigorous and established controul, stirs, pushes forward, and innovates. Once more, as extreme youth, so old age likewise was ordinarily a disqualification for war. And as we find Laertes and Peleus, and Menœtius, with Admetus, besides probably other sovereigns whom Homer has not named to us, left behind on this account, so there must have been many elderly men of the class of nobles (ἀριστῆες, ἔξοχοι ἄνδρες) who obtained exemption from actual service in the war. There is too every appearance that, in some if not all the states of Greece, there had been those who escaped from service on other grounds; perhaps either from belonging to the elder race, which was more peculiarly akin to Troy, or from local jealousies, or from the love of ease. For in Ithaca we find old men, contemporaries and seniors of Ulysses, who had taken no part in the expedition; and there are various towns mentioned in different parts of the poems, which do not appear from the Catalogue to have made any contribution to the force. Such were possibly the various places bearing the name of Ephyre, and with higher likelihood the towns offered by Agamemnon to be made over to Achilles[37].

[37] There is a _nexus_ of ideas attached to these towns that excites suspicion. It would have been in keeping with the character of Agamemnon to offer them to Achilles, on account of his having already found he could not control them himself. No one of them appears in the Catalogue. Nor do we hear of them in the Nineteenth Book, when the gifts are accepted. It seems, however, just possible that the promise by Menelaus of the hand of his daughter Hermione to Neoptolemus may have been an acquittance of a residue of debt standing over from the original offer of Agamemnon, out of which the seven towns appear to have dropped by consent of all parties.

~_Disorganization caused by the War._~

Again, as Cinyres[38] the ruler of Cyprus, and Echepolus[39] the son of Anchises, obtained exemption by means of gifts to Agamemnon, so may others, both rulers and private individuals, have done. But the two main causes, which would probably operate to create perturbation in connection with the absence of the army, were, without much doubt, first, the arrival of a new race of youths at a crude and intemperate manhood; and secondly, the unadjusted relations in some places of the old Pelasgian and the new Hellenic settlers. Their differences, when the pressure of the highest established authority had been removed, would naturally in many places spring up afresh. In conformity with the first of these causes, the Suitors as a body are called very commonly νεοὶ ὑπερηνορέοντες[40], ‘the domineering youths.’ And the circumstances under which Ulysses finds himself, when he has returned to Ithaca, appear to connect themselves also with the latter of the above-named causes. But, whatever the reasons, it is plain that his position had become extremely precarious. Notwithstanding his wealth, ability, and fame, he did not venture to appeal to the people till he had utterly destroyed his dangerous enemies; and even then it was only by his promptitude, strength of hand, and indomitable courage, that he succeeded in quelling a most formidable sedition.

[38] Il. xi. 20.

[39] Il. xxiii. 296.

[40] Od. ii. 324, 331, _et alibi_. The epithet is, I think, exactly rendered by another word very difficult to translate into English, the Italian _prepotenti_.

Nothing, then, could be more natural, than that, in the absence of the sovereigns, often combined with the infancy of their children, the mother should become the depositary of an authority, from which, as we see by other instances, her sex does not appear to have excluded her: and that if, as is probable, the instances were many and simultaneous, this systematic character given to female rule should have its formal result on language in the creation of the word Queen, and its twin phrase δέσποινα, or Mistress. The extension of the word ἄνασσα from divinities to mortals might result from a subaltern operation of the same causes.

In the very same manner, the diminished force of authority at its centre would increase the relative prominence of such among the nobles as remained at home. On reaching to manhood, they would in some cases, as in Ithaca, find themselves practically independent. The natural result would be, that having, though on a small scale, that is to say, so far probably as their own properties and neighbourhoods respectively were concerned, much of the substance of sovereignty actually in their hands, they should proceed to arrogate its name. Hence come the βασιλῆες of Ithaca and the islands near it; some of them young men, who had become adult since the departure of Ulysses, others of them old, who, remaining behind him, had found their position effectively changed, if not by the fact of his departure, yet by the prolongation of his absence.

The relaxed use, then, of the term βασιλεὺς in the Odyssey, and the appearance of the term βασίλεια and of others in a similar category, need not qualify the proposition above laid down with respect to the βασιλεὺς of the Iliad. He, as we shall see from the facts of the poem, stands in a different position, and presents to us a living picture of the true heroic age[41].

[41] I need hardly express my dissent from the account given of the βασιλεὺς and ἄναξ in the note on Grote’s History of Greece, vol. II. p. 84. There is no race in Troas called βασιλεύτατον. Every βασιλεὺς was an ἄναξ; but many an ἄναξ was not a βασιλεύς. It is true that an ἄναξ might be ἄναξ either of freemen or of slaves; but so he might of houses (Od. i. 397), of fishes (Il. xiii. 28), or of dogs (Od. xvii. 318).

~_Altered idea of the Kingly office._~

This change in the meaning of the word King was accompanied by a corresponding change in the idea of the great office which it betokened. It had descended from a more noble to a less noble type. I do not mean by this that it had now first submitted to limitations. The βασιλεὺς of the Greeks was always and essentially limited: and hence probably it was, that the usurper of sole and indefinite power in the state was so essentially and deeply odious to the Greeks, because it was felt that he had plundered the people of a treasure, namely, free government, which they and their early forefathers had possessed from time immemorial.

It is in the Odyssey that we are first startled by meeting not only a wider diffusion and more lax use of the name of king, but together with this change another one; namely, a lower conception of the kingly office. The splendour of it in the Iliad is always associated with duty. In the simile where Homer speaks of corrupt governors, that draw down the vengeance of heaven on a land by crooked judgments, it is worthy of remark, that he avoids the use of the word βασιλεύς[42]:

[42] Il. xvi. 386.

ὅτε δή ῥ’ ἄνδρεσσι κοτεσσάμενος χαλεπήνῃ,
οἳ βίῃ εἰν ἀγορῇ σκολίας κρίνωσι θέμιστας.

The worst thing that is even hinted at as within the limits of possibility, is slackness in the discharge of the office: it never degenerates into an instrument of oppression to mankind. But in the Odyssey, which evidently represents with fidelity the political condition of Greece after the great shock of the Trojan war, we find that kingship has come to be viewed by some mainly with reference to the enjoyment of great possessions, which it implied or brought, and as an object on that account of mere ambition. Not of what we should call absolutely vicious ambition: it is not an absolute perversion, but it is a clear declension in the idea, that I here seek to note

ἦ φῂς τοῦτο κάκιστον ἐν ἀνθρώποισι τετύχθαι;
οὐ μὲν γάρ τι κακὸν βασιλευέμεν· αἶψά τέ οἱ δῶ
ἀφνειὸν πέλεται, καὶ τιμηέστερος αὐτός.[43]

[43] Od. i. 391-3.

This general view of the office as one to be held for the personal enjoyment of the incumbent, is broadly distinguished from such a case as that in the Iliad, where Agamemnon, offering seven cities to Achilles[44], strives to tempt him individually by a particular inducement, drawn from his own undoubtedly rather sordid mind;

[44] Il. ix. 155.

οἵ κέ ἑ δωτίνῃσι θεὸν ὣς τιμήσουσιν.

The moral causes of this change are in a great degree traceable to the circumstances of the war, and we seem to see how the conception above expressed was engendered in the mind of Mentor, when he observes[45], that it is now useless for a king to be wise and benevolent like Ulysses, who was gentle like a father to his people, in order that, like Ulysses, he may be forgotten: so that he may just as well be lawless in character, and oppressive in action. The same ideas are expressed by Minerva[46] in the very same words, at the second Olympian meeting in the Odyssey. It would therefore thus appear, that this particular step downwards in the character of the governments of the heroic age was owing to the cessation, through prolonged absence, of the influence of the legitimate sovereigns, and to consequent encroachment upon their moderate powers.

[45] Od. ii. 230-4.

[46] Od. v. 8-12.

~_Instance of a bad King._~

And it is surely well worthy of remark that we find in this very same poem the first exemplification of the character of a bad and tyrannical monarch, in the person of a certain king Echetus; of whom all we know is, that he lived somewhere upon the coast of Epirus, and that he was the pest of all mortals that he had to do with. With great propriety, it is the lawless Suitors who are shown to be in some kind of relation with him; for in the Eighteenth Odyssey they threaten[47] to send Irus, who had annoyed them in his capacity of a beggar, to king Echetus, that he might have his nose and ears cut off, and be otherwise mutilated. The same threat is repeated in the Twenty-first Book against Ulysses himself, and the line that conveys it reappears as one of the Homeric _formulæ_[48];

[47] Od. xviii. 83-6 and 114.

[48] Od. xxi. 308.

εἰς Ἔχετον βασιλῆα, βροτῶν δηλήμονα πάντων.

Probably this Echetus was a purchaser of slaves. It is little likely that the Suitors would have taken the trouble of sending Irus away, rather than dispose of him at home, except with the hope of a price; as they suggest to Telemachus to ship off Theoclymenus and Ulysses (still disguised) to the Sicels, among whom they will sell well[49].

[49] Od. xx. 382, 3.

~_Kingship in the age of Hesiod._~

The kingship, of which the features were so boldly and fairly defined in the Homeric age, soon passed away; and was hardly to be found represented by any thing but its φθορὰ, the τυραννὶς or despotism, which neither recognised limit nor rested upon reverence or upon usage, but had force for its foundation, was essentially absolute, and could not, according to the conditions of our nature, do otherwise than rapidly and ordinarily degenerate into the positive vices, which have made the name of tyrant ‘a curse and a hissing’ over the earth. In Hesiod we find what Homer nowhere furnishes; an odious epithet attached to the whole class of kings. The θεῖοι βασιλῆες of the heroic age have disappeared: they are now sometimes the αἰδοῖοι still, but sometimes the δωρόφαγοι, the gift-greedy, instead. They desire that litigation should increase, for the sake of the profits that it brings them[50];

[50] Hesiod Ἔργ. i. 39. 258. cf. 262.

μέγα κυδαίνων βασιλῆας
δωροφάγους, οἳ τήνδε δίκην ἐθέλουσι δικάσσαι.

The people has now to expiate the wickedness of these corrupted kings;

ὀφρ’ ἀποτίσῃ
δῆμος ἀτασθαλίας βασιλέων·

A Shield of Achilles, manufactured after the fashion of the Hesiodic age, would not have given us, for the pattern of a king, one who stood smiling in his fields behind his reapers as they felled the corn[51]. Yet while Hesiod makes it plain that he had seen kingship degraded by abuse, he has also shown us, that his age retained the ideas both that justice was its duty, and that persuasion was the grand basis of its power. For, as he says in one of his few fine passages[52], at the birth of a king, the Muses pour dew upon his tongue, that he may have the gift of gentle speech, and may administer strict justice to the people. He then, or the ancient writer who has interpolated him, goes on to describe the work of royal oratory, in thoughts chiefly borrowed from the poems of Homer. But the increase of wealth, and the multiplication of its kinds through commerce, mocked the simple state of the early kings, and tempted them into a rapacity, before which the barriers of ancient custom gave way: and so, says Thucydides[53], τὰ πολλὰ τυραννίδες ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι καθίσταντο, τῶν προσόδων μειζόνων γιγνομένων. The germ of this evil is just discernible in the Agamemnon of the Iliad: and it is marked by the epithet of Achilles, who, when angry, still knows how to strike at the weakest point of his character, by calling him δημόβορος βασιλεὺς[54], a king who eat up, or impoverished, those under his command. Whether the charge was in any great degree deserved or not, we can hardly say. Helen certainly gives to the Achæan king a better character[55]. But however that may be, the reproach was altogether personal to the man. The reverence due and paid to the office must have been immense, when Ulysses, alone, and armed only with the sceptre of Agamemnon, could stem the torrent of the flying soldiery, and turn them back upon the place of meeting.

[51] Il. xviii. 556.

[52] Hes. Theog. 80-97.

[53] Thuc. i. 13.

[54] Il. i. 231.

[55] Il. iii. 179.

~_Veneration long adhering to the name._~

Even in the Iliad, indeed, we scarcely find the strictly patriarchal king. The constitution of the state has ceased to be modelled in any degree on the pattern of the family. The different classes are united together by relations which, though undefined and only nascent, are yet purely political. Ulysses, in his character of king, had been gentle _as_ a father[56]; but the idea which makes the king even metaphorically the father of his people is nowhere, I think, to be found in Homer: it was obsolete. Ethnical, local, and dynastic changes, often brought about by war, had effaced the peculiar traits of patriarchal kingship, with the exception of the old title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν; and had substituted those heroic monarchies which retained, in a larger development, so much of what was best in the still older system. As even these monarchies had begun, before the Trojan war, to be shaken here and there, and as the Odyssey exhibits to us the state of things when apparently their final knell had sounded, so, in the age of Hesiod, that iron age, when Commerce had fairly settled in Greece, and had brought forth its eldest-born child Competition[57], they had become a thing of the past. Yet they were still remembered, and still understood. And it might well be that, long after society had outgrown the forms of patriarchal life, men might nevertheless cling to its associations; and so long as those associations were represented by old hereditary sovereignties, holding either in full continuity, or by ties and traditions not absolutely broken, much of the spirit of the ancient system might continue to subsist; political freedom respecting the tree, under the shadow of which it had itself grown up.

[56] Od. ii. 47.

[57] Hesiod. Ἔργ. 17-24.

It should be easier for the English, than for the nations of most other countries, to make this picture real to their own minds; for it is the very picture before our own eyes in our own time and country, where visible traces of the patriarchal mould still coexist in the national institutions with political liberties of more recent fashion, because they retain their hold upon the general affections.

And, indeed, there is a sign, long posterior to the account given by Hesiod of the heroic age, and distinct also from the apparently favourable notice by Thucydides of the πατρικαὶ βασιλεῖαι, which might lead to the supposition that the old name of king left a good character behind it. It is the reverence which continued to attend that name, notwithstanding the evil association, which events could not fail to establish between it and the usurpations (τυραννίδες). For when the office of the βασιλεὺς had either wholly disappeared, as in Athens, or had undergone essential changes, as in Sparta, so that βασιλεία no longer appears with the philosophical analysts as one of the regular kinds of government, but μοναρχία is substituted, still the name remained[58], and bore for long long ages the traces of its pristine dignity, like many another venerable symbol, with which we are loath to part, even after we have ceased either to respect the thing it signifies, or perhaps even to understand its significance.

[58] The title is stated to have been applied in Attica even to the decennial archons. Tittmann, Griechische Staatsverfassungen, b. ii. p. 70.

Such is a rude outline of the history of the office. Let us now endeavour to trace the portrait of it which has been drawn in the Iliad of Homer.

~_Notes of Kingship in the Iliad._~

1. The class of βασιλῆες has the epithet θεῖοι, which is never used by Homer except to place the subject of it in some special relation with deity; as for (_a_) kings, (_b_) bards, (_c_) the two protagonists, Achilles and Ulysses, (_d_) several of the heroes who predeceased the war, (_e_) the herald in Il. iv. 192; who, like an ambassador in modern times, personally represents the sovereign, and is therefore Διὸς ἄγγελος ἠδὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν, Il. i. 334.

2. This class is marked by the exclusive application to it of the titular epithet Διοτρεφής; which, by the relations with Jupiter which it expresses, denotes the divine origin of sovereign power. The word Διογενὴς has a bearing similar to that of Διοτρεφὴς, but apparently rather less exclusive. Although at first sight this may seem singular, and we should perhaps expect the order of the two words to be reversed, it is really in keeping; for the gods had many reputed sons of whom they took no heed, and to be brought up under the care of Jupiter was therefore a far higher ascription, than merely to be born or descended from him.

3. To the βασιλεὺς, and to no one else, is it said that Jupiter has intrusted the sceptre, the symbol of authority, together with the prerogatives of justice[59]. The sceptre or staff was the emblem of regal power as a whole. Hence the account of the origin and successive deliveries of the sceptre of Agamemnon[60]. Hence Ulysses obtained the use of it in order to check the Greeks and bring them back to the assembly, ii. 186. Hence we constantly hear of the sceptre as carried by kings: hence the epithet σκηπτοῦχοι is applied to them exclusively in Homer, and the sceptre is carried by no other persons, except by judges, and by herald-serjeants, as their deputies.

[59] Il. ii. 205.

[60] Il. ii. 101.

4. The βασιλῆες are in many places spoken of as a class or order by themselves; and in this capacity they form the βουλὴ or council of the army. Thus when Achilles describes the distribution of prizes by Agamemnon to the principal persons of the army, he says[61],

[61] Il. ix. 334.

ἄλλα δ’ ἀριστήεσσι δίδου γέρα, καὶ βασιλεῦσιν.

In this place the Poet seems manifestly to distinguish between the class of kings and that of chiefs.

When he has occasion to speak of the higher order of chiefs who usually met in council, he calls them the γέροντες[62], or the βασιλῆες[63]: but when he speaks of the leaders more at large, he calls them by other names, as at the commencement of the Catalogue, they are ἀρχοὶ, ἡγεμόνες, or κοίρανοι: and, again, ἀριστῆες[64]. In two places, indeed, he applies the phrase last-named to the members of that select class of chiefs who were also kings: but there the expression is ἀριστῆες Παναχαιῶν[65], a phrase of which the effect is probably much the same as βασιλῆες Ἀχαιῶν: the meaning seems to be those who were chief over all orders of the Greeks, that is to say, chiefs even among chiefs. Thus Agamemnon would have been properly the only βασιλεὺς Παναχαιῶν.

[62] Il. ii. 53 _et alibi_.

[63] Il. xix. 309. ii. 86.

[64] Il. ii. 487, 493. xx. 303.

[65] Il. ii. 404, and vii. 327. On the force of Παναχαιοὶ, see Achæis, or Ethnology, p. 420.

The same distinction is marked in the proceedings of Ulysses, when he rallies the dispersed Assembly: for he addressed coaxingly,

ὅντινα μὲν βασιλῆα καὶ ἔξοχον ἄνδρα κιχείη,

whatever king _or_ leading man he chanced to overtake[66].

[66] Il. ii. 188.

5. The rank of the Greek βασιλεῖς is marked in the Catalogue by this trait; that no other person seems ever to be associated with them on an equal footing in the command of the force, even where it was such as to require subaltern commanders. Agamemnon, Menelaus, Nestor, Ulysses, the two Ajaxes, Achilles, are each named alone. Idomeneus is named alone as leader in opening the account of the Cretans, ii. 645, though, when he is named again, Meriones also appears (650, 1), which arrangement seems to point to him as only at most a quasi-colleague, and ὀπάων. Sthenelus and Euryalus are named after Diomed (563-6), but it is expressly added,

συμπάντων δ’ ἡγεῖτο βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Διομήδης.

Thus his higher rank is not obscured. Again, we know that, in the case of Achilles, there were five persons, each commanding ten of his fifty ships (Il. xvi. 171), of whom no notice is taken in the Catalogue (681-94), though it begins with a promise to enumerate all those who were in command of the fleet (493),

ἀρχοὺς αὖ νηῶν ἐρέω νῆάς τε προπάσας;

and in the case of the Elians he names four leaders who had exactly the same command, each over ten ships (618). It thus appears natural to refer his silence about the five to the rank held by Achilles as a king.

So much for the notes of this class in the Iliad.

Though we are not bound to suppose, that Homer had so rigid a definition of the class of kings before his mind as exists in the case of the more modern forms of title, it is clear in very nearly every individual case of a Greek chieftain of the Iliad, whether he was a βασιλεὺς or not.

~_The Nine Greek Kings of the Iliad._~

The class clearly comprehends:

1. Agamemnon, Il. i. 9, and in many places.

2. Menelaus } from Il. xix. 310, 311, where they remain
3. Nestor } with Achilles, while the other
4. Ulysses } βασιλῆες, ver. 309, are sent away.
5. Idomeneus } Also for Ulysses, see xiv. 379; and
} various places in the Odyssey.

6. Achilles, Il. i. 331. xvi. 211.

7. Diomed, Il. xiv. 27, compared with 29 and 379.

8. Ajax Telamonius, Il. vii. 321 connected with 344.

9. Ajax, son of Oileus.

Among the indications, by which the last-named chief is shown to have been a βασιλεὺς, are those which follow. He is summoned by Agamemnon (Il. ii. 404-6) among the γέροντες ἀριστῆες Παναχαιῶν: where all the abovenamed persons appear (except Achilles), and no others. Now the γέροντες or elders are summoned before in ver. 53 of the same book, and are called in ver. 86 the σκηπτοῦχοι βασιλῆες. Another proof of the rank of Oilean Ajax is the familiar manner in which his name is associated on terms of equality, throughout the poem, with that of Ajax Telamonius.

But the part of the poem, which supplies the most pointed testimony as a whole with respect to the composition of the class of kings, is the Tenth Book.

Here we begin with the meeting of Agamemnon and Menelaus (ver. 34). Next, Menelaus goes to call the greater Ajax and Idomeneus (53), and Agamemnon to call Nestor (54, 74). Nestor awakens Ulysses (137); and then Diomed (157), whom he sends to call Oilean Ajax, together with Meges (175). They then conjointly visit the φύλακες or watch, commanded by Thrasymedes, Meriones, and others (ix. 80. x. 57-9). Nestor gives the watch an exhortation to be on the alert, and then reenters within the trench, followed by the Argeian kings (194, 5);

τοὶ δ’ ἅμ’ ἕποντο
Ἀργείων βασιλῆες, ὅσοι κεκλήατο βουλήν.

The force of the term βασιλῆες, as marking off a certain class, is enhanced by the lines which follow, and which tell us that with them, the kings τοῖς δ’ ἅμα, went Meriones and Thrasymedes by special invitation (196, 7);

αὐτοὶ γὰρ κάλεον συμμητιάασθαι.

Now in this narrative it is not stated that each of the persons, who had been called, joined the company which visited the watch: but all who did join it are evidently βασιλῆες. But we are certain that Oilean Ajax was among them, because he is mentioned in ver. 228 as one of those in the Council, who were anxious to accompany Diomed on his enterprise.

Ajax Oileus therefore makes the ninth King on the Greek side in the Iliad.

These nine King-Chiefs, of course with the exception of Achilles, appear in every Council, and appear either absolutely or almost alone.

The line between them, and all the other chiefs, is on the whole preserved with great precision. There are, however, a very few persons, with regard to whom the question may possibly be raised whether they passed it.

~_Certain doubtful cases._~

1. Meges, son of Phyleus, and commander of the Dulichian Epeans, was not in the first rank of warriors; for he was not one of the ten who, including Menelaus, were ready to accept Hector’s challenge[67]. Neither was he a member of the ordinary Council; but on one occasion, that of the Night-council, he is summoned. Those who attended on this occasion are also, as we have seen, called kings[68]. And we have seen that the term has no appearance of having been loosely used: since, after saying that the kings followed Nestor to the council, it adds, that with them went Meriones and Antilochus[69].

[67] Il. vii. 167-70.

[68] Il. x. 175, connected with 195.

[69] Il. x. 196, 7.

But when Diomed proceeds to ask for a companion on his expedition, six persons are mentioned (227-32) as having been desirous to attend him. They are the two Ajaxes, Meriones, Thrasymedes, Menelaus, and Ulysses. Idomeneus and Nestor are of course excepted on account of age. It seems plain, however, that Homer’s intention was to include the whole company, with those exceptions only. He could not mean that one and one only of the able-bodied warriors present hung back. Yet Meges is not mentioned; the only one of the persons summoned, who is not accounted for. I therefore infer that Homer did not mean to represent him as having attended; and consequently he is in all likelihood not included among the βασιλῆες by v. 195.

2. Phœnix, the tutor and friend of Achilles, is caressingly called by him Διοτρεφὴς[70] in the Ninth Book; but the petting and familiar character of the speech, and of the whole relation between them, would make it hazardous to build any thing upon this evidence.

[70] Il. ix. 607.

In the Ninth Book it may appear probable that he was among the elders who took counsel with Agamemnon about the mission to Achilles, but it is not positively stated; and, even if it were, his relation to that great chieftain would account for his having appeared there on this occasion only (Il. ix. 168). It is remarkable that, at this single juncture, Homer tells us that Agamemnon collected not simply the γέροντες, but the γέροντες ἀολλέες, as if there were persons present, who did not belong to the ordinary Council (Il. ix. 89).

Again, in the Nineteenth Book, we are told (v. 303) that the γέροντες Ἀχαιῶν assembled in the encampment of Achilles, that they might urge him to eat. He refused; and he sent away the ‘other kings;’ but there remained behind the two Atreidæ, Ulysses, Nestor, and Idomeneus, ‘and the old chariot-driving Phœnix.’ The others are mentioned without epithet, probably because they had just been described as kings; and Phœnix is in all likelihood described by these epithets, for the reason that the term βασιλῆες would not include him (xix. 303-12).

On the whole then, and taking into our view that Phœnix was as a lord, or ἄναξ, subordinate to Peleus, and that he was a sub-commander in the contingent of Achilles, we may be pretty sure that he was not a βασιλεύς; if that word had, as has I think been sufficiently shown, a determinate meaning.

3. Though Patroclus was in the first rank of warriors he is nowhere called βασιλεὺς or Διοτρεφής; but only Διογενὴς, which is a word apparently used with rather more latitude. The subordinate position of Menœtius, the father of Patroclus, makes it improbable that he should stand as a king in the Iliad. He appears to have been lieutenant to Achilles over the whole body of Myrmidons.

4. Eurypylus son of Euæmon[71], commander of a contingent of forty ships, and one of the ten acceptors of the challenge, is in one place addressed as Διοτρεφής. It is doubtful whether he was meant to be exhibited as a βασιλεὺς, or whether this is a lax use of the epithet; if it is so, it forms the only exception (apart from ix. 607) to the rule established by above thirty passages of the Iliad.

[71] Il. ii. 736, 7. vii. 167. xi. 819.

Upon the whole, then the evidence of the Iliad clearly tends to show that the title βασιλεὺς was a definite one in the Greek army, and that it was confined to nine persons; perhaps with some slight indistinctness on the question, whether there was or was not a claim to that rank on the part of one or two persons more.

~_Conditions of Kingship in the Iliad._~

Upon viewing the composition of the class of kings, whether we include in it or not such cases as those of Meges or Eurypylus, it seems to rest upon the combined basis of

1. Real political sovereignty, as distinguished from subaltern
chiefship;

2. Marked personal vigour; and

3. _Either_, _a._ Considerable territorial possessions, as in the case
of Idomeneus and Oilean Ajax;

_b._ Extraordinary abilities though with small dominions,
as in the case of Ulysses; or, at the least,

_c._ Preeminent personal strength and valour, accepted in
like manner as a compensation for defective political
weight, as in the case of Telamonian Ajax.

Although the condition of commanding considerable forces is, as we see, by no means absolute, yet, on the other hand, every commander of as large a force as fifty ships is a βασιλεὺς, except Menestheus only, an exception which probably has a meaning. Agapenor indeed has sixty ships; but then he is immediately dependent on Agamemnon. The Bœotians too have fifty; but they are divided among five leaders.

Among the bodily qualities of Homeric princes, we may first note beauty. This attribute is not, I think, pointedly ascribed in the poems to any person, except those of princely rank. It is needless to collect all the instances in which it is thus assigned. Of some of them, where the description is marked, and the persons insignificant, like Euphorbus and Nireus[72], we may be the more persuaded, that Homer was following an extant tradition. Of the Trojan royal family it is the eminent and peculiar characteristic; and it remains to an observable degree even in the case of the aged Priam[73]. Homer is careful[74] to assert it of his prime heroes; Achilles surpasses even Nireus; Ulysses possesses it abundantly, though in a less marked degree; it is expressly asserted of Agamemnon; and of Ajax, who, in the Odyssey, is almost brought into competition with Nireus for the second honours; the terms of description are, however, distinguishable one from the other.

[72] Il. xvii. 51. ii. 673.

[73] Il. xxiv. 631.

[74] Il. ii. 674. Od. xvi. 175. Il. iii. 224, 169, 226, and Od. xi. 469.

Again, with respect to personal vigour as a condition of sovereignty, it is observed by Grote[75] that ‘an old chief, such as Peleus and Laertes, cannot retain his position.’ There appears to have been some diversity of practice. Nestor, in very advanced age, and when unable to fight, still occupies his throne. The passage quoted by Grote to uphold his assertion with respect to Peleus falls short of the mark: for it is simply an inquiry by the spirit of Achilles, whether his father is still on the throne, or has been set aside on account of age, and the question itself shows that, during the whole time of the life of Achilles, Peleus, though old, had not been known to have resigned the administration of the government. Indeed his retention of it appears to be presumed in the beautiful speech of Priam to Achilles (Il. xxiv. 486-92).

[75] Hist. vol. ii. p. 87.

~_Custom of resignation in old age._~

At the same time, there is sufficient evidence supplied by Homer to show, that it was the more usual custom for the sovereign, as he grew old, either to associate his son with him in his cares, or to retire. The practice of Troy, where we see Hector mainly exercising the active duties of the government--for he feeds the troops[76], as well as commands them--appears to have corresponded with that of Greece. Achilles, in the Ninth Iliad, plainly implies that he himself was not, as a general, the mere delegate of his father; since he invites Phœnix to come and share his kingdom with him.

[76] Il. xvii. 225.

But the duties of counsel continued after those of action had been devolved: for Priam presides in the Trojan ἀγορὴ, and appears upon the walls, surrounded by the δημογέροντες, who were, apparently, still its principal speakers and its guides. And Achilles[77], when in command before Troy, still looked to Peleus to provide him with a wife.

[77] Il. ix. 394.

I find a clear proof of the general custom of retirement, probably a gradual one, in the application to sovereigns of the term αἴζηοι. This word is commonly construed in Homer as meaning youths: but the real meaning of it is that which in humble life we convey by the term able-bodied; that is to say, those who are neither in boyhood nor old age, but in the entire vigour of manhood. The mistake as to the sense of the term has created difficulties about its origin, and has led Döderlein to derive it from αἴθω, with reference, I suppose, to the heat of youth, instead of the more obvious derivation form α and ζάω, expressing the height of vital power. A single passage will, I think, suffice to show that the word αἴζηος has this meaning: which is also represented in two places by the paraphrastic expression αἰζήιος ἀνήρ[78]. In the Sixteenth Iliad, Apollo appears to Hector under the form of Asius (716):

[78] Il. xvii. 520. Od. xii. 83.

ἀνέρι εἰσάμενος αἰζηῷ τε κρατερῷ τε.

Now the Asius in question was full brother to Hecuba, the mother of Hector and eighteen other children; and he cannot, therefore, be supposed to have been a youth. The meaning of the Poet appears clearly to be to prevent the supposition, which would otherwise have been a natural one in regard to Hector’s uncle, that this Asius, in whose likeness Apollo the unshorn appeared, was past the age of vigour and manly beauty, which is designated by the word αἴζηος.

~_Force of the term αἴζηος._~

There is not a single passage, where this word is used with any indication of meaning youths as contra-distinguished from mature men. But there is a particular passage which precisely illustrates the meaning that has now been given to αἴζηος. In the Catalogue we are told that Hercules carried off Astyoche[79]:

[79] Il. ii. 660.

πέρσας ἄστεα πολλὰ Διοτρεφέων αἰζηῶν.

Pope renders this in words which, whatever be their intrinsic merit, are, as a translation, at once diffuse and defective:

‘Where mighty towns in ruins spread the plain,
And saw their blooming warriors early slain.’

Cowper wholly omits the last half of the line, and says,

‘After full many a city laid in dust’....

Chapman, right as to the epithet, gives the erroneous meaning to the substantive:

‘Where many towns of princely youths he levelled with the ground.’

Voss, accurate as usual, appears to carry the full meaning:

‘Viele Städt’ austilgend der gottbeseligten Männer.’

This line, in truth, affords an admirable touchstone for the meaning of two important Homeric words. The vulgar meaning takes Διοτρεφέων αἰζήων as simply illustrious youths. What could Homer mean by cities of illustrious youths? Is it their sovereigns or their fighting population? Were their sovereigns all youths? Were their fighting population all illustrious? In no other place throughout the Iliad, except one, where the rival reading ἀρηιθόων is evidently to be adopted, does the Poet apply Διοτρεφὴς to a mass of men[80]. If, then, the sovereigns be meant, it is plain that they could not all be youths, and therefore αἴζηος does not mean a youth. But now let us take Διοτρεφὴς in its strict sense as a royal title only; then let us remember that thrones were only assumed on coming to manhood, as is plain from the case of Telemachus, who, though his father, as it was feared, was dead, was not in possession of the sovereign power. ‘May Jupiter,’ says Antinous to him, ‘never make you the βασιλεὺς in Ithaca: which is your right,’ or ‘which would fall to you by birth[81]:’

[80] Nor is it applied in the Odyssey to any bodies more numerous than the thirteen ‘kings’ of Scheria, Od. v. 378; and to them in the character of kings.

[81] Od. i. 386.

ὅ τοι γενεῇ πατρώϊόν ἐστιν.

When Telemachus answers, by proposing that one of the nobles should assume the sovereignty. Lastly, upon declining into old age, it was, for the most part, either as to the more active cares, or else entirely, relinquished. Then the sense of Il. ii. 660 will come out with Homer’s usual accuracy and completeness. It will be that Hercules sacked many cities of prince-warriors, or vigorous and warlike princes.

Thus, then, it was requisite that the Homeric βασιλεὺς should be a king, a _könig_, a man of whom we could say that actually, and not conventionally alone, he _can_, both in mind and person. Such was the theory and such the practice of the Homeric age. There is not a single Greek sovereign, with the honourable exception of Nestor, who does not lead his subjects into battle; not one who does not excel them all in strength of hand, scarcely any who does not also give proofs of superior intellect, where scope is allowed for it by the action of the poem. Over and above the work of battle, the prince is likewise peerless in the Games. Of the eight contests of the Twenty-third Book, seven are conducted only by the princes of the armament. The single exception is remarkable: it is the boxing match, which Homer calls πυγμαχίη ἀλεγεινὴ[82], an epithet that he applies to no other of the matches except the wrestling.

[82] Il. xxiii. 653.

But his low estimation of the boxing comes out in another form, the value of the prizes. The first prize is an unbroken mule: the second, a double-bowled cup, to which no epithet signifying value is attached. But for the wrestlers (a contest less dangerous, and not therefore requiring, on this score, greater inducement to be provided,) the first prize was a tripod, worth twelve oxen; and the second, a woman slave, worth four. What, then, was the relative value of an ox and a mule not yet broken? Mules, like oxen, were employed simply for traction. They were better, because more speedy in drawing the plough[83]; but, then, oxen were also available for food, and we have no indication that the former were of greater value. Without therefore resting too strictly on the number twelve, we may say that the prize of wrestling was several times more valuable than that of boxing. Again, the second prize of the foot-race was a large and fat ox, equal, probably, to the first prize of the boxing-match[84]. Epeus, who wins the boxing-match against the prince Euryalus, third leader of the Argives, was evidently a person of traditional fame, from the victory he obtains over an adversary of high rank. But Homer has taken care to balance this by introducing a confession from the mouth of Epeus himself, that he was good for nothing in battle[85];

[83] Il. x. 352.

[84] Il. xxiii. 750.

[85] Il. xxiii. 670.

ἦ οὐχ ἅλις, ὅττι μάχης ἐπιδεύομαι;

an expression which, I think, the Poet has used, in all likelihood, for the very purpose of shielding the superiority of his princes, by showing that this gift of Epeus was a single, and as it were brutal, accomplishment.

~_Accomplishments of the Kings._~

As with the games, so with the more refined accomplishments. There are but four cases in which we hear of the use of music and song from Homer, except the instances of the professional bards. One of these is the boy, who upon the Shield of Achilles plays and sings, in conducting the youths and maidens as they pass from the vineyard with the grapes. It is the bard, who plays to the dancers; but his dignity, and the composure always assigned to him, probably would not allow of his appearing in motion with such a body, and on this account the παὶς may be substituted; of whose rank we know nothing. In the other cases, the three persons mentioned are all princes: Paris is the first, who had the lighter and external parts of the character of a gentleman, and who was of the highest rank, yet to whom it may be observed only the instrument is assigned, and not the song. The second is the sublime Achilles, whose powerful nature, ranging like that of his Poet through every chord of the human mind and heart, prompts him to beguile an uneasy solitude by the Muse; and who is found in the Ninth Iliad[86] by the Envoys, soothing his moody spirit with the lyre, and singing, to strains of his own, the achievements of bygone heroes. Again, thirdly, this lyre itself, like the iron globe of the Twenty-third Book, had been among the spoils of King Eetion.

[86] Il. ix. 186.

But the royal and heroic character must with Homer, at least when exhibited at its climax, be all comprehensive. As it soars to every thing above, so, without stooping, must it be master of every thing beneath it. Accordingly, the Poet has given it the last touch in the accomplishments of Ulysses. As he proves himself a wood-cutter and ship-builder in the island of Calypso, so he is no stranger to the plough and the scythe; and he fairly challenges[87] Eurymachus the Suitor to try which of them would soonest clear the meadow of its grass, which drive the straightest furrow down a four-acre field.

[87] Od. xviii. 366-75.

So much for the corporeal accomplishments of the Greek kings and princes; of their intellectual powers we shall have to treat in considering the character of the governments of the heroic age.

~_The Kings as Gentlemen._~

But these accomplishments, mental and bodily, are not vulgarly heaped upon his characters by Homer, as if they were detailed in a boarding-school catalogue. The Homeric king should have that which incorporates and harmonizes them all: he should be emphatically a gentleman, and that in a sense not far from the one familiar to the Christian civilization of Europe. Nestor, Diomed, Menelaus, are in a marked manner gentlemen. Agamemnon is less so; but here Homer shows his usual discrimination, for in Agamemnon there is a sordid vein, which most of all mars this peculiar tone of character. It is, however, in the two superlative heroes of the poems, that we see the strongest development of those habits of feeling and action, which belong to the gentleman. It will be admitted that one of these traits is the love of that which is straightforward, truthful, and above-board. According to the vulgar conception of the character of Ulysses, he has no credit for this quality. But whatever the Ulysses of Virgil or of Euripides may be, the Ulysses of Homer, though full of circumspection, reserve, and even stratagem in dealing with enemies and strangers, has nothing about him of what is selfish, tricky, or faithless. And, accordingly, it is into his mouth that Homer has put the few and simple words, which rebuke the character of the informer and the tale-bearer, with a severity greater perhaps even than, under the circumstances, was necessary. When he is recognised by Euryclea, he strictly enjoins upon her the silence, on which all their lives at the moment depended. Hurt by the supposition that she could (in our homely phrase) be likely to blab, she replies that she will hold herself in, hard as stone or as iron. She adds, that she will point out to him which of the women in the palace are faithful, and which are guilty. No, he replies; I will observe them for myself; that is not your business[88]:

[88] Od. xix. 500-2.

μαῖα, τίη δὲ σὺ τὰς μυθήσεαι; οὐδέ τί σε χρή·
εὖ νυ καὶ αὐτὸς ἐγὼ φράσομαι καὶ εἴσομ’ ἑκάστην·
ἀλλ’ ἔχε σιγῇ μῦθον, ἐπίτρεψον δὲ θεοῖσιν.

~_Achilles as a Gentleman._~

As Homer has thus sharply exhibited Ulysses in the character of a gentleman with respect to truth[89], so he has made the same exhibition for Achilles with respect to courtesy: protesting, as it were, in this manner by anticipation against the degenerate conceptions of those characters, which were to reproduce and render current through the world Achilles as a brute, and Ulysses as a thorough knave. But let us see the residue of the proof.

[89] In Od. xxii. 417, he applies to Euryclea for the information, which he had before declined. This is after the trial of the Bow: the other was before it was proposed, and when the Chief probably reckoned on having himself more time for observation than proved to be the case.

In the first Iliad, when the wrath is in the first flush of its heat, the heralds Talthybius and Eurybates are sent to his encampment, with the appalling commission to bring away Briseis. On entering, they remain awe-struck and silent. Though, in much later times, we know that

The messenger of evil tidings
Hath but a losing office,

he at once relieves them from their embarrassment, and bids them personally welcome;

χαίρετε, κήρυκες, Διὸς ἄγγελοι, ἠδὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν·
ἆσσον ἴτ’[90]·

[90] Il. i. 334.

And he desires Patroclus to bring forth the object of their quest. More extraordinary self-command and considerateness than this, never has been ascribed by any author to any character.

Again, when in the Ninth Book he is surprised in his seclusion by the envoys Phœnix, Ulysses, and Ajax, though he is prepared to reject every offer, he hails them all personally, without waiting to be addressed and with the utmost kindness[91], as of all the Greeks the dearest to him even in his wrath; he of course proceeds to order an entertainment for them. But the most refined of all his attentions is that shown to Agamemnon in the Twenty-third Book. Inferior to Ajax, Diomed, and Ulysses, Agamemnon could not enter into the principal games, to be beaten by any abler competitor, without disparagement to his office: while there would also have been a serious disparagement of another kind in his contending with a secondary person. Accordingly, Achilles at the close makes a nominal match for the use of the sling--of which we never hear elsewhere in the poems--and, interposing after the candidates are announced, but before the actual contest, he presents the chief prize to Agamemnon, with this compliment; that there need be no trial, as every one is aware already how much he excels all others in the exercise.

[91] Il. ix. 197.

Yet these great chiefs, so strong and brave and wise, so proud and stern, so equipped in arts, manners, and accomplishments, can upon occasion weep like a woman or a child. Ulysses, in the island of Calypso daily pours forth his ‘waterfloods’ as he strains his vision over the sea; and he covers up his head in the halls of Alcinous, while Demodocus is singing, that his tears may flow unobserved. And so Achilles, fresh from his fierce vengeance on the corpse of Hector, yet, when the Trojan king[92] has called up before his mind the image of his father Peleus, at the thought now of his aged parent, and now of his slaughtered friend, sheds tears as tender as those of Priam for his son, and lets his griefs overflow in a deep compassion for the aged suppliant before him. Nor is it only in sorrow that we may remark a high susceptibility. The Greek chieftains in general are acutely sensible of praise and of blame. Telemachus[93] is delighted when Ægyptius commends him as a likely looking youth: and even Ulysses, first among them all in self-command, is deeply stung by the remark of the saucy Phæacian on his appearance, and replies upon the offender with excellent sense, but with an extraordinary pungency[94]. A similar temper is shown in all the answers of the chieftains to Agamemnon when he goes the round of the army[95].

[92] Il. xxiv. 486.

[93] Od. ii. 33, 5.

[94] Od. viii. 159. and seqq.

[95] Il. iv. 231 and seqq.

~_Rights of Hereditary Succession._~

The hereditary character of the royal office is stamped upon almost every page of the poems; as nearly all the chiefs, whose lineage we are able to trace, have apparently succeeded their fathers in power. The only exception in the order, of which we are informed, is one where, probably on account of the infancy of the heir, the brother of the deceased sovereign assumes his sceptre. In this way Thyestes, uncle to Agamemnon, succeeded his father Atreus, and then, evidently without any breach of regularity, transmitted it to Agamemnon.