Chapter VII: Part 7

This subject may be considered with reference to the several subjects of

1. Temples.
2. Endowments (τεμένεα).
3. Groves.
4. Statues.
5. Seers or Prophets.
6. The Priesthood.

~_Troy and Greece as to Temples._~

It has been debated, whether the Greeks of the Homeric age had yet begun to erect temples to the gods.

The only case of a temple, distinctly and expressly mentioned as existing in Greece, is in the passage of the Catalogue respecting the Athenians, on which there hangs a slight shade of doubt. But another passage, though it does not contain the word, seems to be conclusive as to the thing. It is that where Achilles mentions treasures, which lie within the stony threshold of Apollo at Pytho[353]:

[353] Il. ix. 404. Ld. Aberdeen’s Essay, p. 86.

οὐδ’ ὅσα λάϊνος οὐδὸς ἀφήτορος ἐντὸς ἐέργει,
Φοίβου Ἀπόλλωνος, Πυθοῖ ἔνι πετρήεσσῃ.

Though there may have been treasuries which were not temples, they could hardly have been treasuries of the gods: for in what sense could treasures be placed under their special protection, unless by being deposited in places which were peculiarly theirs?

In the Odyssey, Eurylochus promises to build a temple to the Sun, on getting safe to Ithaca[354]; and Nausithous[355], the father of Alcinous, built temples of the gods in Scheria. Now Scheria was not Greece; yet it was more akin to Greece than to Troy.

[354] Od. xii. 345.

[355] Od. vi. 10; vii. 56.

It is, on the other hand, observable that, though under these circumstances we can hardly deny that temples existed among the Greeks, yet we have no case in Homer of a temple actually erected to a purely Hellic deity.

Our clear instances are, in fact, confined to the temples of Minerva at Troy and Athens, and the temples of Apollo at Troy, Chryse[356], and Pytho: and when we see old Nestor performing solemn sacrifice in the open air at Pylos, himself, too, a reputed grandchild of Neptune, we cannot suppose that it was usual with the Hellenes to worship Hellenic gods in temples. It is possible, though I would not presume to say more, that Apollo and Minerva may have been the only deities to whom it was usual in that age to erect temples, whether in Greece or Troy.

[356] Il. i. 39.

I must not, however, presume to dismiss this subject without noticing the line, Od. vi. 266;

ἔνθα δέ τέ σφ’ ἀγορὴ, καλὸν Ποσιδήϊον ἄμφις.

This verse is often interpreted as ‘the place of assembly round about the beautiful temple of Neptune.’ So Eustathius[357]: so one of the scholiasts: the other interprets it to mean a τέμενος only. Nitzsch, Terpstra[358] and Crusius take it for a temple. The word Ποσιδήϊον without a substantive is a form found nowhere else in Homer: so that we have only the aid of reason to interpret it. Now, this ἀγορὴ was the place of the public assemblies for business. It is surely improbable, that there could have been a roofed temple in the midst of it, which would interrupt both sight and hearing. On the other hand, we know that before Troy the altars were in the ἀγορὴ of the camp[359]: and this would cause no inconvenience. It would seem then, that Ποσιδήϊον means not a covered temple, but a consecrated spot, in all likelihood inclosed, on which an altar stood.

[357] In loc.

[358] Terpstra, c. iii. 4.

[359] Il. xi. 807, 8.

I would not, however, argue absolutely upon the word νηὸν, in cases where it is found without a word signifying to construct, or other signs marking it as a building. For its resemblance to νήϊον raises the question, whether it may not originally have meant the consecrated land which passed under the name of τέμενος. If so, it may have had this sense in a passage like that of the Catalogue; where the epithet joined to it (ἑῷ ἐνὶ πίονι νηῷ) is one more suitable to the idea of a piece of ground, than of a temple; though applicable by Homeric usage to the latter too, and though sufficiently supported by μάλα πίονος ἐξ ἀδύτοιο. (Il. v. 512.)

2. The derivation of τέμενος is supposed, by some philologists, to be the same with that of _templum_. And if so, there is a marked analogy between this association and that of νηόν with νήϊον. Each would seem to indicate the customs of a race, which had both dedicated lands and a priesthood, before it began to raise sacred edifices.

~_As to endowments in land._~

As respects the endowment in land, which was sometimes consecrated to the gods, and was called τέμενος, I presume we must conclude that, wherever such an endowment was found, there must have been a priesthood supported by it. For it is difficult to conceive what other purpose could have been contemplated, at such a time, by such an appropriation of land. And again we may assume that, where the τέμενος or glebe existed, there would be if not a temple yet at least an altar, something which localized the worship in the particular spot.

It is indeed much more easy to suppose a temple without a priesthood, than a glebe. And here it is again remarkable, that we meet with no example in Homer of a glebe set apart for an exclusively Hellic god.

The cases of glebes, with which he supplies us, are these:

1. Of Ceres, a Pelasgian deity, in Thessaly, Il. ii. 696;

2. Of Jupiter, on Mount Gargarus in Troas, together with an altar, Il. viii. 48;

3. Of Venus, a Pelasgian deity, at Paphos in Cyprus, with an altar, Od. viii. 362;

4. Of Spercheius in Thessaly, with an altar, Il. xxiii. 148. As respects this case, we have indeed found, that the imaginative deification of Nature appears to have been Hellenic, and not Pelasgian. Still, with the case of Scamander before us, and considering that we find the τέμενος attached to Spercheius in an eminently Pelasgian district, while there is no example of such an inheritance for the deities among the Hellic tribes, it seems most rational to consider the appropriation of it as belonging to the Pelasgian period, and as having simply lived over into the Hellenic age.

3. The ἄλσος of Homer appears to be quite different from the τέμενος: and to mean rather what we should call a site for religious worship, as distinguished from an endowment which, as such, would produce the means of subsistence. Such places were required by the spirit of Hellenic religion, as much as by the Pelasgian worship, and we find them accordingly disseminated as follows: we have

1. In Scheria, the ἄλσος of Minerva, Od. vi. 291, 321.

2. At Ismarus, the ἄλσος of Apollo, in which dwelt Maron the priest, Od. ix. 200.

3. In Ithaca, the ἄλσος of the Nymphs, with an altar, beside the fountain, where all passers-by offered sacrifice, Od. xvii. 205-11.

4. In Ithaca again, the ἄλσος of Apollo, where public sacrifice was performed in the city on his feast-day, Od. xx. 277, 8.

5. In Bœotia, Onchestus is called the ἄγλαον ἄλσος of Neptune, Il. ii. 506.

6. The ἄλσεα of Persephone are on the beach beyond Oceanus, and are composed of poplars and willows, Od. x. 509.

7. In the great Assembly of gods before the Theomachy, all the Nymphs are summoned, who inhabit ἄλσεα as well as fountains and meadows, Il. xx. 8. But here the meaning includes any grove, dedicated or not. And again,

8. The attendants of Circe are such as inhabit ἄλσεα, groves, or fountains, or rivers, Od. x. 350.

Thus the ἄλσος, when used in the religious sense, means a grove or clump of trees, sometimes with turf, or with a fountain; set apart as a place for worship, and inhabited by a deity or his ministers, yet quite distinct from a property capable of supporting them. These clumps appear to be so appropriated more commonly by Hellenic, than by Pelasgian practice.

~_As to statues of the gods._~

4. We will take next the case of statues of the gods.

In the opinion of Mure, the metaphor which represents human affairs as resting in the lap of the gods (θεῶν ἐν γούνασι), gives conclusive evidence that the custom of making statues of the deities prevailed among the Greeks. I do not however see why this particular figure should bear upon the question, more than any of the other very numerous representations which treat them as endowed with various members of the body. If this evidence be receivable at all, it is overwhelming. But it is open to some doubt, whether, because gods are mentally conceived according to the laws of anthropomorphism, we may therefore assume that they were also materially represented under the human form.

We have, I believe, no more than one single piece of direct evidence on the subject, and it is this; that, when the Trojan matrons carry their supplication to the temple of Minerva, together with the offering of a robe, they deposit it on her knees (Il. vi. 303), Ἀθηναίης ἐπὶ γούνασιν ἠϋκόμοιο. This appears to be quite conclusive as to the existence of a statue of Minerva at Troy: but it leaves the question entirely open, whether it was an Hellenic, as well as a Pelasgian, practice thus to represent the gods.

It is quite plain, I think, that the practice was not one congenial or familiar to the mind of Homer. Had it been so, he surely must have made large poetic use of it. Whereas on the contrary it is by inference alone, though certainly by unavoidable inference, from language which he uses without that intention, that we become assured even of their existence in his time. He speaks, indeed, more than once of placing ἀγάλματα in temples, or of suspending them in honour of the gods[360]: but our title to construe this of statues appears to be wholly conjectural.

[360] Od. iii. 438. xii. 347.

It would seem inexplicable that a poet, who enlarges with so much power, not only on the Shield of Agamemnon and the Arms of Achilles, but on the ideal Ægis of Minerva, the chariot of Juno, the bow of Apollo, and the metallic handmaids of Vulcan, should entirely avoid description of the statues of the Olympian gods, if they were habitually before his eyes.

I have argued elsewhere that we see in Homer the Hellenic, not the Pelasgian, mind. And if it be so, then I think we are justified in associating with his Hellenism, as one among many signs, this remarkable silence. The ritual and external development of Pelasgian religion would delight in statues as visible signs: the Hellenic idealism would not improbably eschew them. Hence we may treat this practice of the period as belonging to Pelasgian peculiarities.

If this be so, then I think we may pass on to the conclusion, that the original tendency to produce visible forms of the Divinity was not owing to, and formed no part of, the efforts of the human imagination, so largely developed in Homer, to idealize religion, and to beautify the world by its imagery. But, on the contrary, so far as we can judge from Homer, it first prevailed among a race inclined to material and earthy conceptions in theology, and from them it spread to others of higher intelligence. It was a crutch for the lameness of man, and not a wing for his upward aspirations.

And indeed, as it appears to me, this proposition is sustained even by the past experience and present state of Christendom. When faith was strongest, images were unknown to the faithful. Nor is it art, which produces them: it is merely a kind of corporal and mechanical imitation. No considerable work of art is at this moment, I believe, in any Christian country, an object of religious worship. The sentiment which craves for material representations of such objects in order to worship them, appears also commonly to exact that they should be somewhat materialized. The higher office of art, in connection with devout affection, seems to be that it should point our veneration onwards, not arrest it. It holds out the finger which we are to follow, not the hand which we are to kiss.

~_As to Seers or Diviners._~

The order of Seers or Diviners was common to Greeks, Trojans, and probably we may add, from its being known among the Cyclopes, to all contemporary races. It is singular that we should find here, and not among the priesthood, the traces of caste, or the hereditary descent of the gift. In all other points, this function stands apart from hierarchical developments. For the μάντις, except as to his gift, is like other men. Melampus engages to carry off oxen. Polypheides migrates upon a quarrel with his father. Cleitus is the lover of Aurora. Theoclymenus has committed homicide[361]. Teiresias is called ἄναξ, a lord or prince[362]. We do not know that Calchas fought as well as prophesied, but it may have been so, since Helenus, the son of Priam, and Eunomus, the Mysian leader, were seers or augurs not less than warriors. But the most instructive specimen of this order among the Greeks is the Suitor Leiodes[363], who was also θυοσκόος, or inspector of sacrifices, to the body of Suitors. Now Ulysses had, in consideration of a ransom, spared Maron the priest of Apollo at Ismarus[364]. But, far from recognising in the professional character of Leiodes a title to immunity, he answers the plea with characteristic and deadly repartee. And this, notwithstanding that Leiodes was, as we learn, distinguished from the rest of the Suitors by the general decency of his conduct.

[361] Od. xv. 224 _et seqq._

[362] Od. xi. 150.

[363] Od. xxii. 310-29. xxi. 144.

[364] Od. ix. 197-201.

The θυοσκόος apparently inspected sacrifices, but did not offer them; for this character is clearly distinguished in the Iliad[365] from that of the priest. Indeed, the word θύειν in Homer appears properly to apply to those minor offices of sacrifice, which did not involve the putting to death of victims; as in Il. ix. 219, where, it may be observed, the function is not performed by the principal person, but is deputed by Achilles to Patroclus. The inspection of slain animals would probably stand in the same category, among divine offices, as the interpretation of other signs and portents.

[365] Il. xxiv. 221.

The members of this class are, upon the whole, as broadly distinguished from the priests in Homer, as are the prophets of the Old Testament from the Levitical priesthood.

They were called by the general name of μάντις, or by other names, some of them more limited: such as θεόπροπος, ὑποφήτης, οἰωνόπολος, ὀνειρόπολος. They sometimes interpreted from signs and omens; sometimes, as in Il. vi. 86, and vii. 44, without them.

The diffusion of the gift among the royal house of Troy, where Polydamas had it as well as Helenus, and possibly also Hector, is less marked than the great case of the family of Melampus. The augur was in all respects a citizen, while possessed of a peculiar endowment: and the ὑποφῆται[366] mentioned in the invocation of Achilles, whether they were the royal house, or persons dispersed through the community, evidently formed a more conspicuous object among the Helli than we find in any Pelasgian race. Again; in Greece we find the oracles of Delphi and Delos, as well as of Dodona; but there is no similar organ for the delivery of the divine will reported to us in Troy.

[366] Il. xvi. 235.

~_As to the Priesthood._~

We come now to the last and most important point connected with the outward development of the religious system, that of the priesthood: and here I shall endeavour to describe distinctly the evidence with regard to both nations. First, let us consider the case of priesthood as it respects the Greeks.

We have at least one instance before us in the Iliad, where a combined religious action of Greeks and Trojans is presented to us. In the Third Book, Priam comes from Troy to an open space between the armies, and meets Agamemnon and Ulysses. The honour of actually offering the sacrifice is allotted to the Greeks. No priest appears; and the function is performed by the King, Agamemnon. It is therefore natural to suppose that the Greeks have with them in Troas no sacrificing priest. On every occasion, the Greek Sovereign offers sacrifice for himself and for the army. So also do the soldiery[367] at large for themselves;

[367] Il. ii. 400.

ἄλλος δ’ ἄλλῳ ἔρεζε θεῶν αἰειγενετάων.

There was an altar[368] for the very purpose in the part of the camp appropriated for Assemblies; a fact which, though it does not demonstrate, accords with the union of the regal and sacerdotal functions. Nor can we account for the absence of priests from the camp, on the same principle as for that of bards; since poems were a luxury, but sacrifices a necessity. And we find Calchas representing the class of religious functionaries that the Greek nation did acknowledge; namely, the Seers, who interpreted the divine will, without any fixed ministry belonging to any particular place, although the gift was generally derived from Apollo, as one among his peculiar attributes.

[368] Il. xi. 807, 8.

In the remarkable passage, which enumerates for us the principal trades and professions of Greece in the heroic age[369], we find mentioned the prophet, the physician, the artificer, the divinely prompted bard; but not the priest. Yet, had such an order existed, it could not well, on account of its importance, have been omitted. For in truth this enumeration is, as we have before seen, nearly exhaustive, as applied to an age when there was no professional soldier, when the husbandman, fisherman, or herd, could not be called a δημιοεργὸς, for he had no relation to the public, and when commerce was confined to foreigners like the Phœnicians, or pirates like the Taphians, and formed no part of the business of the settled communities of Greece.

[369] Od. xvii. 384-6.

On the other hand, in the Legend of Phœnix concerning Meleager, we have a notice of priests as having existed at that time in Ætolia. The embassy, which was sent to conciliate Meleager, consisted of elders and of the best, or most distinguished, among the priests;

τὸν δὲ λίσσοντο γέροντες
Αἰτωλῶν, πέμπον δὲ θεῶν ἱερῆας ἀρίστους. Il. ix. 574.

Now, the word Αἰτωλὸς, I apprehend, indicates an Hellenic race, for Tydeus is Αἰτώλιος; and it is worth notice, that in this passage the elders are called Ætolian, but not the priests.

Again, this event took place during the reign of Œneus, two generations before the Trojan war[370]. At that time the Hellenic influence was quite recent in Middle and in Southern Greece. The family of Sisyphus had indeed arrived there at least two generations before, but it disappeared, and it had never risen to great power. It was the date of Augeias, of Neleus, and of Pelops; all of them, apparently, the first of their respective families in Peloponnesus. So again the name Portheus, assigned to the father of Œneus, probably marks him as the first Hellenic occupant of the country.

[370] Il. ix. 535.

Plato observes, that new settlers might naturally remain for a time without religious institutions[371] of their own.

[371] Legg. vi. 7.

The Hellenes, then, had recently come into Ætolia at the time, and even on this ground were less likely to have had priests of their own institution. But it is not to be supposed that, finding a hierarchy among the Pelasgian tribes, devoted to the worship of such deities (Minerva and Apollo for example) as they themselves acknowledged, they would extirpate such a body. The most probable supposition is, that it would continue in all cases for a time. The person of Chryses, the priest of Apollo, was respected, at least for the moment, even by Agamemnon[372] in his displeasure. Fearless of his threats, the injured priest immediately appealed to his god for aid. We cannot doubt that interests thus defended would be generally left intact. Still, as priests were, in the language of political economy, unproductive labourers, and as they seem to have held their offices not by descent but by election, we can easily perceive a road, other than that of violence, to the extinction of the order among a people that set no store by its services.

[372] Il. i. 28.

There is yet another place, in which the name is mentioned among the Greeks. It is in the Assembly of the First Iliad, held while the plague is raging. Achilles says, ‘Let us inquire of some prophet, or priest, or interpreter of dreams (for dreams too are from Jupiter), who will tell us, why Apollo is so much exasperated[373].’ But the allusion here seems plainly to be to Chryses, who had himself visited the camp, and had appeared with the insignia of his priestly office in a previous Assembly of the Greeks[374]. Being now in possession of the whole open country, they of course had it in their power to consult either him or any other Trojan priest not within the walls. We cannot, therefore, argue from this passage, that priesthood was a recognised Hellenic institution at the period.

[373] Il. i. 62.

[374] Il. i. 15.

In the Odyssey, we find Menelaus engaged in the solemn rites of a great nuptial feast; and Nestor in like manner offering sacrifice to Neptune, his titular ancestor, in the presence of thousands of the people. In neither of these cases is there any reference to a priest: and on the following day Nestor with his sons offers a new sacrifice, of which the fullest details are given.

Again, had there been priests among the Homeric Greeks, it is hardly possible but that we must have had some glimpse of them in Ithaca, where the order of the community and the whole course of Greek life are so clearly laid open.

An important piece of negative evidence to the same effect is afforded by the great invocation of Achilles in the Sixteenth Iliad. It will be remembered, that we there find the rude highland tribe of the Helli in possession of the country where Dodona was seated, together with the worship of the Pelasgian Jupiter; and themselves apparently exercising the ministry of the god. Now that ministry was not priesthood, but interpretation; for they are ὑποφῆται, not ἱερῆες[375].

[375] Il. xvi. 235.

It therefore appears clear, that the Hellenic tribes of Homer’s day did not acknowledge a professional priesthood of their own; that there was no priest in the Greek armament before Troy; that the priest was not a constituent part of ordinary Greek communities: and that, if he was any where to be found in the Homeric times, it was as a relic, and in connection with the old Pelasgian establishments of the country.

At a later period, when wealth and splendour had increased, and when the increased demand for them extended also to religious rites, the priesthood became a regular institution of Greece. It is reckoned by Aristotle, in the Politics, among the necessary elements of a State; while he seems also to regard it as the natural employment of those, who are disqualified by age from the performance of more active duties to the public, either in war or in council. The priest was, even in Homer’s time, a distinctly privileged person. Like other people, he married and had children: but his burdens were not of the heaviest. He would live well on sacrifices, and the proceeds of glebe-land: and it is curious, that Maron the priest had the very best wine of which we hear in the poems[376]. The priest formed no part of the teaching power of the community, either in this or in later ages. Döllinger makes the observation[377], that Plutarch points out as the sources of religious instruction three classes of men, among whom the priests are not even included. They are (1) the poets, (2) the lawgivers, and (3) the philosophers: to whom Dio Chrysostom adds the painters and sculptors. So that Isocrates may well observe, that the priesthood is anybody’s affair. Plato[378] in the Νόμοι requires his priests, and their parents too, to be free from blemish and from crime: but carefully appoints a separate class of ἐξηγηταὶ, to superintend and interpret the laws of religion; as well as stewards, who are to have charge of the consecrated property.

[376] Od. ix. 205.

[377] Döllinger, Heid. u. Jud. iv. 1.

[378] Plat. Legg. vi. 7. (ii. 759.)

The priest of the heroic age would however appear to have slightly shared in the office of the μάντις, although the μάντις had no special concern with the offering of sacrifice. The inspection of victims would fall to priests, almost of course, in a greater or a less degree; and there is some evidence before us, that they were entitled to interpret the divine will. It is furnished by the speech of Achilles[379], which appears to imply some professional capacity of this kind: and, for Troy at least, by the declaration[380] of Priam, who mentions priests among the persons, that might have been employed to report to him a communication from heaven.

[379] Il. i. 62.

[380] Il. xxiv. 22.

We have now seen the case of priesthood among the Greeks. With the Trojans it is quite otherwise. We are introduced, at the very beginning of the Iliad, to Chryses[381] the priest (ἱερεὺς) of Apollo. In the fifth Iliad we have a Trojan[382], Dares, who is priest of Vulcan; and we have also Dolopion, who, as ἀρητὴρ[383] of the Scamander, filled an office apparently equivalent. Chryses the priest is also called an ἀρητήρ[384]; and though, on the other hand, it was the duty of Leiodes in the Odyssey to offer[385] prayer on behalf of the Suitors, yet he is never termed ἀρητήρ. In the Sixth Iliad appears Theano, wife of Antenor, and priestess of Minerva[386]. And in the Sixteenth, we have Onetor[387], priest of Idæan Jupiter. Again, while Eumæus in the Odyssey does not recognise the priest among the Greek professions, but substitutes the prophet, Priam, on the contrary, in the Twenty-fourth Iliad, says he would not have obeyed the injunction to go to the Greek camp if conveyed to him by any mortal, of such as are in these professions[388],

[381] Il. i. 23.

[382] Il. v. 9.

[383] Ibid. 76.

[384] Il. i. 11.

[385] Od. xxii. 322.

[386] Il. vi. 298.

[387] Il. xvi. 604.

[388] Il. xxiv. 221.

ἢ οἳ μάντιές εἰσι, θυοσκόοι, ἢ ἱερῆες,

where it might be questioned, whether μάντις and θυοσκόος are different persons, or whether he speaks of the μάντις θυοσκόος; but in either case it is equally clear that he names the priest, ἱερεὺς, apart from either. The speech of Mentes, in Od. i. 202, probably suffices to draw the line between the μάντις and the θυοσκόος.

It further appears that among the allies of Troy, as well as in the country, the priest was known; for in the Ninth Odyssey we find Maron, son of Euanthes the priest of Apollo at Ismarus[389], among the Cicones. The city they inhabited was sacked by Ulysses on his way from Troy, and on this account we must infer that, as they were allies of Troy (Il. ii. 846), so likewise they belonged to the family of Pelasgian tribes.

[389] Od. ix. 196-9.

To these priests, personally engaged in the service of the deities, a personal veneration, and an exemption from military service, appear to have attached, which were not enjoyed by the μάντιες. This is plainly developed in the case of Chryses. The offence is not that of carrying off a captive, for there could be no guilt in the act, as such matters were then considered, but rather honour: it is the insult offered to Apollo in the person of his servant, by subjecting his daughter to the common lot of women of all ranks, including the highest, that draws down a frightful vengeance on the army. So, again, the priest never fought; Dolopion, Dares, and Onetor, all become known to us through their having sons in the army, whose parentage is mentioned. And as to the priest Maron, Ulysses says he was spared from a feeling of awe towards the god, in whose wooded grove, or portion, he resided[390]:

[390] Ibid. 199-201.

οὕνεκά μιν σὺν παιδὶ περισχόμεθ’ ἠδὲ γυναικὶ
ἁζόμενοι· ᾤκει γὰρ ἐν ἄλσεϊ δενδρήεντι
Φοίβου Ἀπόλλωνος.

But it does not appear that the μάντις, though he was endowed with a particular gift, bore, in respect of it, such a character, as would suffice to separate him from ordinary civil duties, and to make him, like the priest, a clearly privileged person.

Upon the other hand, we should not omit to notice that we are told in the case of Theano, though she was of high birth and the wife of Antenor, that she was made priestess by the Trojan people. The same fact is probably indicated in the case of Dolopion, who, we are told, had been made or appointed ἀρητὴρ to Scamander (ἀρητὴρ ἐτέτυκτο Il. v. 77). And the appearance of the sons of priests in the field appears to show, that there was nothing like hereditary succession in the order; which was replenished, we may probably conclude, by selections having the authority or the assent of the public voice. Thus the body was popularly constituted, and was in thorough harmony with the national character. It does not, on that account, constitute a less important element in the community, but rather the reverse.

Now, whatever might be the other moral and social consequences of having in the community an order of men set apart to maintain the solemn worship of the gods, it must evidently have exercised a very powerful influence in the maintenance of abundance and punctuality in ritual observances. There can be no doubt, that the priest lived by the altar which he served, and lived the better in proportion as it was better supplied. Besides animals, cakes of flour too, and wine, were necessary for the due performance of his office[391]; and in the case of Maron this wine was so good, that the priest kept it secret from his servants, and that it has drawn forth the Poet’s most genial praise[392]:

[391] Il. i. 458, 462.

[392] Od. ix. 205.

ἡδὺν, ἀκηράσιον, θεῖον ποτόν·

He was rich too; for he had men and women servants in his house. So was Dares, the priest of Vulcan[393]. So probably was Dolopion, priest of Scamander; at any rate his station was a high one; as we see from the kind of respect paid to him (θεὸς δ’ ὡς τίετο δήμῳ); and we have another sign in both these cases of the station of the parents, from the position of the sons in the army, which is not among the common soldiery (πληθὺς), but among the notables. The sons of Dares fight in a chariot; and the name of Hypsenor, son of Dolopion, by its etymology indicates high birth.

[393] Il. v. 9, 78.

~_Comparative observance of Sacrifice._~

In point of fact the Homeric poems exhibit to us, together with the existence and influence of a priestly order, a very marked distinction in respect to sacrifice between the Trojans and the Greeks: a state of things in entire conformity with what we might thus expect.

In no single instance do we hear of a Trojan chief, who had been niggardly in his banquets to the gods. Hector[394] is expressly praised for his liberality in this respect by Jupiter, and Æneas by Neptune[395]. The commendation, however, extends to the whole community. In the Olympian Assembly of the Fourth Book, Jupiter says that, of all the cities inhabited by men, Troy is to him the dearest; for there his altar never lacked the sacrifice, the libation and the savoury reek, which are the portion of the gods[396]:

[394] Il. xxii. 170. xxiv. 168.

[395] Il. xx. 298.

[396] Il. iv. 48.

οὐ γάρ μοί ποτε βωμὸς ἐδεύετο δαιτὸς ἐΐσης,
λοιβῆς τε κνίσης τε· τὸ γὰρ λάχομεν γέρας ἡμεῖς.

But the Greeks, thus destitute of priests, often fail, as we might expect, in the regularity of their religious rites. Ulysses[397], indeed, is in this, as in all the points of excellence, unimpeachable. But his was not the rule of all. Œneus, two generations before the _Troica_, while sacrificing to the other deities, either forgot or did not think fit (ἢ λάθετ’ ἢ οὐκ ἐνόησεν) to sacrifice to Diana[398]; hence the devastations of the Calydonian boar. Nor is his the only case in point.

[397] Od. i. 61.

[398] Il. ix. 523.

The account given by Nestor to Telemachus in the Third Odyssey is somewhat obscure in this particular. He says that, after the Greeks embarked, the deity dispersed them; and that then Jupiter ordained the misfortunes of their return, since they were not all intelligent and righteous[399]. It appears to be here intimated, that the Greeks in the first flush of victory forgot the influence of heaven; and that an omission of the proper sacrifices was the cause of the first dispersion.

[399] Od. iii. 131.

After they collect again in Troas, the Atreid brothers differ, as Menelaus proposes to start again, and Agamemnon to remain, and offer sacrifices in order to appease Minerva; but, as Nestor adds, the deities are not so soon appeased. Agamemnon, therefore, seems to have been too late with his celebration; and Menelaus, again, to have omitted it altogether.

The party who side with Menelaus offer sacrifices on their arrival at Tenedos, seemingly to repair the former error: but Jupiter is incensed, and causes them to fall out anew among themselves. A portion of them return once more to Agamemnon[400].

[400] Ibid. 164.

Menelaus finds his way to Lesbos, and then sails as far as Malea. Here he encounters a storm, and with part of his ships he gets to Egypt: where he is again detained by the deities, because he did not offer up the proper hecatombs[401]. Such remissness is the more remarkable, because Menelaus certainly appears to be one of the most virtuous characters in the Greek host.

[401] Ibid. 135.

The course, however, of the siege itself affords a very marked instance, in which the whole body of the Greeks was guilty of omitting the regular sacrifices proper to be used in the inauguration of a great undertaking. In the hasty construction of the trench and rampart, they apparently forgot the hecatombs[402]. Neptune immediately points out the error in the Olympian Court; and uses it in aid of his displeasure at a work, which he thinks will eclipse the wall of Troy, executed for Laomedon by himself in conjunction with Apollo. Jupiter forthwith agrees[403], that after the siege he shall destroy it. And the Poet, returning to the subject at the commencement of the Twelfth Book, observes that the work could not last, because it was constructed without enlisting in its favour the good will of the Immortals[404]. This omission of the Greeks is the more characteristic and remarkable, because the moment when they erected the rampart was a moment of apprehension, almost of distress.

[402] Il. vii. 450.

[403] Ibid. 459.

[404] Il. xii. 3, 9.

Thus, then, it appears that, as a nation, the Trojans were much more given to religious observances of a positive kind, than the Greeks. They were, like the Athenians[405] at a later epoch, δεισιδαιμονέστεροι. And, again, as between one Greek and another, there is no doubt that the good are generally, though not invariably, scrupulous in this respect, and the bad commonly careless. Thus much is implied particularly in Od. iii. 131, as well as conclusively shown in the general order of the Odyssey. But, as between the two nations, we cannot conceive that the Poet had any corresponding intention. Although a more scrupulous formality in religion marks the Trojans than the Greeks, and although in itself, and _cæteris paribus_, this may be the appropriate sign of piety, yet it is a sign only; as a sign it may be made a substitute, and, as a substitute, it becomes the characteristic of Ægisthus and Autolycus, no less than it is of Eumæus and Ulysses. As between the two nations, the difference is evidently associated with other differences in national character and morality. We must look therefore for broader grounds, upon which to form an estimate of the comparative virtue of the two nations, than either the populousness of Olympus on the one side, or the array of priests and temples on the other.

[405] Acts xvii. 22.

Nowhere do the signs of historic aim in Homer seem to me more evident, than in his very distinct delineations of national character on the Greek and the Trojan part respectively. But this is a general proposition; and it must be understood with a certain reservation as to details.

~_Two modes of handling for Greece and Troy._~

It does not appear to me that Homer has studied the more minute points of consistency in motive and action among the Trojans of the poem, in the same degree as among the Greeks. He has (so to speak) manœuvred them as subsidiary figures, with a view to enhancing and setting off those in whom he has intended and caused the principal interest to centre; not so as to destroy or diminish effects of individual character, but so as to give to the collective or joint action on the Trojan side a subordinate and ministerial function in the machinery of the poem. As Homer sung to Greeks, and Greeks were his judges and patrons as well as his theme, nay rather as his heart and soul were Greek, so on the Greek side the chain of events is closely knit; if its direction changes, there is an adequate cause, as in the vehemence of Achilles, or the vacillation of Agamemnon. But he did not sing to Trojans; and so, among the Trojans of the Iliad, there are as it were stitches dropped in the web, and the connection is much less carefully elaborated. Thus they acquiesce in the breach of covenant after the single combat of the Third Book, although the evident wish among them, independent of obligation, was for its fulfilment[406]. Then in the Fourth Book, after the treachery of Pandarus, the Trojans not only do not resent it, but they recommence the fight while the Greek chiefs are tending the wounded Menelaus[407]; which conduct exhibits, if the phrase may be permitted, an extravagance of disregard to the obligations of truth and honour. Hector, in the Sixth Book, quits the battle field upon an errand, to which it is hardly possible to assign a poetical sufficiency of cause, unless we refer it to the readiness which he not unfrequently shows to keep himself out of the fight. Again, there is something awkward and out of keeping in his manner of dealing with the Fabian recommendations of Polydamas when the crisis approaches. Some of these he accepts, and some he rejects, without adequate reason for the difference, except that he is preparing himself as an illustrious victim for Achilles, and that he must act foolishly in order that the superior hero, and with him the poem itself, may not be baulked of their purpose.

[406] Il. iii. 451-4.

[407] Il. iv. 220.

Thus, again, Homer has given us a pretty clear idea even of the respective ages of the Greek chiefs. It can hardly be doubted that Nestor stands first, Idomeneus second, Ulysses third: while Diomed and Antilochus are the youngest; Ajax and Achilles probably the next. But as to Paris, Helenus, Æneas, Sarpedon, Polydamas, we find no conclusion as to their respective ages derivable from the poem.

Yet though Homer may use a greater degree of liberty in one case, and a lesser in another, as to the mode of setting his jewels, he always adheres to the general laws of truth and nature as they address themselves to his poetical purpose. Thus there may be reason to doubt, whether he observed the same rigid topographical accuracy in dealing with the plain of Troy, as he has evinced in the Greek Catalogue: but he has used materials, all of which the region supplied; and he has arranged them clearly, as a poetic whole, before the mental eye of those with whom he had to do. Even so we may be prepared to find that he deals with the moral as with the material Troas, allowing himself somewhat more of license, burdening himself with somewhat less of care. And then we need not be surprised at secondary or inferential inconsistencies in the action, as respects the Trojan people, because it has not been worth his while to work the delineation of them, in its details, up to his highest standard; yet we may rely upon his general representations, and we are probably on secure ground in contemplating all the main features of Trojan life and character as not less deliberately drawn, than those of the Greeks. For, in truth, it was requisite, in order to give full effect among his countrymen to the Greek portrait, that they should be able, at least up to a certain point, to compare it with the Trojan.

~_Moral superiority of his Greeks._~

Regarding the subject from this point of view, I should say that Homer has, upon the whole, assigned to the Greeks a moral superiority over the Trojans, not less real, though less broad and more chequered, than that which he has given them in the spheres of intellectual and of military excellence. But, in all cases alike, he has pursued the same method of casting the balance. He eschews the vulgar and commonplace expedient of a formal award: he decides this and every other question through the medium of action. The first thing, therefore, to be done is, to inquire into the morality of his contemporaries, as it is exhibited through the main action of the poems.

It is admitted on all hands that, in the ethical picture of the Odyssey, the distinctions of right and wrong are broad, clear, and conspicuous. But the case of the Iliad is not so simple. The conduct of Paris, which leads to the war, is so flagrant and vile, and the conduct of the Greeks in demanding the restoration of Helen before they resort to force, so just and reasonable, that it is not unnaturally made matter of surprise that any war could ever have arisen upon such a subject, except the war of a wronged and justly incensed people against mere ruffians, traitors, and pirates. The Trojans appear at first sight simply as assertors of a wrong the most gross and aggravated, even in its original form; their iniquity is further darkened by obstinacy, and their cause is the cause of enmity to every law, human and divine. Yet the Greeks do not assume to themselves, in connection with the cause of the war, to stand upon a different level of morality: and the amiable affections, with the sense of humanity, if not the principles of honour and justice, are exhibited in the detail of the Iliad as prevailing among the Trojans, little less than among the Greeks.

Now, let us first endeavour to clear away some misapprehensions that simply darken the case: and after this let us inquire what exhibition Homer has really given us of the moral sense of the Greeks and the Trojans respectively, in connection with the crime of Paris.

In the first place, something is due to the falsification by later poets of the Homeric tradition: and to the reflex affiliation upon Homer of those traits which, through the influence first of the Cyclic poets, probably exaggerating the case in order to conceal their relative want of strength, and then of the tragedians and Virgil, have come to be taken for granted as genuine parts of the original portraiture.

According to the Argument of the Κύπρια Ἔπη, as it has been handed down to us, Paris, having been received in hospitality by Menelaus, was left by him under the friendly care of his wife, on his setting out for Crete. He then corrupted Helen; and induced her, after being corrupted, to elope with him, and with the greater part of the moveable goods of Menelaus.

Upon this tale our ideas have been formed, and, this being so, we marvel why Homer does not make the Greeks feel more indignation at a proceeding which simply combined treachery, robbery, and adultery. As he prizes so highly the rights of guests, and pitches their gratitude accordingly, we cannot understand how he should be so insensible to the grossest imaginable breach of their obligations.

~_Homer’s account of the abduction._~

Homer is here made responsible for that which, in part, he does not tell us, and which is positively, as well as inferentially, at variance with what he does tell us. He tells us absolutely, that Helen was not inveigled into leaving Sparta, but carried off by force: and that the crime of adultery was committed after, and not before, her abduction.

This difference alters the character of the deed of Paris, in a manner by no means so insignificant according to the heroic standard of morality, as according to ours. As it seems plain from Homer’s expression, ἁρπάξας[408], that Paris carried off Helen in the first instance by an act of violence, so also it is probable that, when the first adultery was committed in the island of Cranae, he was her ravisher much more than her corrupter. Her offence appears to have consisted mainly in the mere acceptance, at what precise date we know not, of the relation thus brought into existence between them, and in compliances that with the lapse of time naturally followed, such as the visit to the Trojan horse. It would have been, however, under all the circumstances, an act of superhuman rather than of human virtue, if she had refused, through the long years of her residence abroad, to recognise Paris as a husband: and accordingly the light, in which she is presented to us by the Poet, is that of a sufferer infinitely more than of an offender[409].

[408] Il. iii. 444.

[409] See inf. Aoidos, sect. vi.

When we regard Helen from this point of view, we perceive that Homer’s narrative is at least in perfect keeping with itself. The Greeks have made war to avenge the wrongs of Helen not less than those of Menelaus: nay, Menelaus himself, the keenest of them all, is keen on her behalf even more than on his own[410]. He regards her as a person stolen from him: and the Greeks regard Paris only as the robber.

[410] Il. ii. 589.

We have no reason to suppose the Cyprian Epic to be a trustworthy supplement to the narrative of Homer. We have seen some important points of discrepancy from the Iliad. And there are others. For instance, this poem makes Pollux immortal and Castor only mortal, while Homer acquaints us in the Iliad with the interment of both, and in the Odyssey with their restoration on equal terms to an alternate life. It gives Agamemnon four daughters, the Iliad but three. It brings Briseis from Pedasus, the Iliad brings her from Lyrnessus. And there is other matter in the plot, that does not appear to correspond at all with the modes of Homeric conception[411]. Had Homer told us the same story as the Cyprian Epic, he would perhaps have made his countrymen express all the indignation we could desire.

[411] Düntzer, pp. 9-16. Fragm. iv. xi. xv.

And now let us consider what is the view taken of the abduction in the Iliad by the various persons whose sentiments are made known to us: and how far that view can be accounted for by the general tone of the age, or by what was peculiar to the character and institutions of each people respectively.

Helen herself nowhere utters a word of attachment or of respect to Paris. Even of his passions she appears to have been the reluctant, rather than the willing instrument. She thinks alike meanly of his understanding[412] and of his courage[413]: and he shares[414] in the rebukes which she everywhere heaps upon herself; though, with the delicacy and high refinement of her irresolute but gentle character, she never reproaches him in the presence of his parents, by whom he continued to be loved.

[412] Il. vi. 352.

[413] Il. iii. 428-36, and vi. 351.

[414] Il. vi. 356.

To the Trojan people he was unequivocally hateful[415]. They would have pointed him out to Agamemnon, if they could: for they detested him like black Death. It was by a mixture of bribery and the daring assertion of authority, that he checked those movements in the Assembly, which had it for their object to enforce the restoration of Helen to Menelaus[416]. Of all his countrymen, Hector appears to have been most alive to his guilt, and is alone in reproaching him with it[417]. It is under the influence of a sharp rebuke from Hector, that he proposes to undertake a single combat with Menelaus[418].

[415] Il. iii. 453.

[416] Il. vii. 354-64, and xi. 123.

[417] Il. iii. 46-53.

[418] Ibid. 68-75.

~_The Greek estimate of Paris._~

The only persons on the Greek side, who utter any strong sentiment in respect to Paris, are Diomed and Menelaus. This is singular; for when we consider what was the cause of war, we might have expected, perhaps, that recurrence to it would be popular and constant among the Greeks. Nor is this all that may excite surprise. Diomed is unmeasured in vituperating Paris, but it is for his cowardice and effeminacy. The only word, which comes at all near the subject of his crime, is παρθενοπῖπα: and by mocking him as a dangler after virgins, the brave son of Tydeus shows how small a place the original treachery of Paris occupied in his mind.

Menelaus, indeed, has a keen sense of the specific nature and malignity of the outrage. He beseeches Jupiter to strengthen his hand against the man who has done such deadly wrong, not to him only, but to all the laws which unite mankind:

ὄφρα τις ἐρρίγῃσι καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἀνθρώπων
ξεινοδόκον κακὰ ῥέξαι, ὅ κεν φιλότητα παράσχῃ[419].

[419] Ibid. 351-4.

But then Homer has already, in the Catalogue, introduced Menelaus to us as distinguished from the rest of his countrymen, by his greater keenness to revenge the wrongs and groans of Helen[420]. Accordingly, the injured husband returns on other occasions to the topic: calls the Trojans κακαὶ κύνες, and invokes upon them the anger of Ζεὺς ξείνιος, the Jupiter of hospitality[421];

[420] Il. ii. 588-90.

[421] Il. xiii. 620-7.

οἵ μευ κουριδίην ἄλοχον καὶ κτῄματα πολλὰ
μὰψ οἴχεσθ’ ἀνάγοντες, ἐπεὶ φιλέεσθε παρ’ αὐτῇ.

Thus it is plain, that Menelaus resents not only a privation and an act of piracy, but a base and black breach of faith. It is quite plain, on the other hand, that in this respect he stands alone among his countrymen. They, regarding the matter more crudely, and from a distance, appear to see in it little beyond a violent abduction, which it is perfectly right, for those who can, to resent and retrieve, but which implies no extraordinary and damning guilt in the perpetrator.

Hence probably that singular appearance of apathy on the part of the Greeks, which might at first sight seem to entail on them a moral reproach, in some degree allied to that which justly attaches itself to the Trojan community. It is not possible, indeed, to take a full measure of their state of mind in regard to the crime of Paris, without condemning the views and propensities to which it was due. But the causes were various: and the blame they may deserve is both very different from that which must fall upon the Trojans, and is also different in a mode, which may help to illustrate some main distinctions in the two national characters.

I speak here, as everywhere, of the adjustment of acts and motives in the poem as poetical facts, that is to say, as placed relatively to one another with care and accuracy in order to certain effects; and as liable to be tried under the law of effect, just as, in a simple history, all particulars alleged are liable to be tried under the law of fact. The assumption of truth or fable in the poem does not materially widen or narrow the field of poetical discussion. The critic looks for consistency as between motive and action, causes and effects, in the voyage to Lilliput or Laputa, as well as in Thucydides or Clarendon. The difference is that, in the one case, our discussion terminates with the genius of the inventor; in the other we are verifying the life and condition of mankind.