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damage. It is possibly the true explanation of the last among the
lines quoted from the speech of Achilles, that he carried away, in
sudden spates, many of the horses that were pastured on his banks.
The Trojans, then, may have had strong motives for deifying
Scamander, and particularly for providing him with a priest, who
might beseech him to keep down his waters. And it will be
remembered, from the case of Gaia, that the Trojan religion was,
without doubt, favourable to the idea of purely elemental deities:
what lacked was the vivid force of fancy, that revelled in profuse
multiplication.
For we cannot fail to perceive, that the idea
Different view of Rivers in
Troas.
of a river-god did not enter into the Trojan as
it did into the Greek life. Ulysses, when in
difficulty, at once invokes the aid of the Scherian river[315], at whose
mouth he lands. Now the Trojans are driven in masses into the
Scamander by the terrible pursuit of Achilles, and they hide and
sculk, or come forth and fight, about its banks and waters. Yet no
one of them invokes the River, although that River was a deity
contending on their side. So entirely was he without place in their
consciousness as a power able to help, even though he may have
been publicly worshipped in deprecation of a calamity, which he was
known to be able to inflict.
With this remarkable silence we may compare, besides the prayer
and thanksgiving of Ulysses, the invocation of Achilles to
Spercheius[316]. On his leaving home, his father Peleus had
dedicated his hair as an offering to be made to the River on his
return, and to be accompanied by a hecatomb. This would have
been a thank-offering; and as such, in accordance with the prayer of
Ulysses, it implies the power of the River deity to confer benefits.
Nor is that power rendered doubtful by the fact, that in the
particular case the prayer is not fulfilled, and that the hair is
therefore devoted to the remains of Patroclus. We may remark,
again, the sacrifice offered, apparently almost as matter of course,
by the Pylian army to Alpheus, on their merely reaching his
banks[317]. And, as a whole, the multitudinous impersonations of
natural objects in the Greek mythology are, both with Homer and in
the later writers, of a benign and genial character. This bright and
sunny aspect is in contrast with the formidable character of
Scamander, and of the worship offered to him.
There is, perhaps, enough of resemblance between the Scamander
of the Trojan mythology, and the Spercheus or Alpheus of the Greek,
to suggest the question, whether the deification of this river may
possibly have been due to the Hellic influences, which resided in the
royal houses of the country. There are not wanting signs, that the
family of Priam was closely connected with the river and its banks.
The name given to Hector’s child is one such token; and we know
that the mares of Erichthonius were fed upon the marshes near
Scamander[318]. It is also worth observation that the Priest of
Scamander was called Dolopion, while Dolops was the name of a son
of Lampus, a Trojan of the highest rank, brother to Priam, and one
of the δημογέροντες of Troy[319].
But though there may be a special relation between the worship of
Scamander, and the influence of the royal family, I think the
explanation is chiefly to be sought in the specific differences which
separate it from River-worship, as generally conceived in the
Olympian system.
There is another aspect of River-worship in Greece, with which it
seems to have more affinity. There is the terrible adjuration of Styx,
which implies its vindictive agency[320]. This river is represented on
earth by a branch from itself, called Titaresius, near the Perrhæbian
Dodona[321]. The Rivers are expressly invoked, in this character, by
Agamemnon in the adjuration of the Pact: and are associated with
the deities that punish perjury after death. Moreover, it is curious
that, when Agamemnon makes an adjuration before Greeks alone,
he omits the appeal to the Rivers, whom he had named when he
was acting for the two peoples jointly[322]. This seems to show that
the invocation of Rivers, or of some class of Rivers, in a retributive
capacity, was familiar, and may have been peculiar, to the Trojans.
In effect, then, the grand distinction seems
True aspect of Trojan
River-worship.
to be this. The worship of Scamander in
Troas belonged to the elemental system and
earth-worship, which the Greeks, for the purposes of their Olympus,
had refined away into a poetical vivifying Power, replete with more
bland influences: retaining it, more or less, for the purpose of
adjuration, in the darker and sterner sense. Accordingly, while
Scamander, who is also called Xanthus, has, as a god, a mark of
antiquity in the double name[323], he shows none of the Greek
anthropophuistic ingredients. Even for speech and action, he does
not take the human form; but he is, simply and strictly, the element
alive.
The species of deification, implied in earth-worship, scarcely lifted
the objects of it in any degree out of the sphere of purely material
conceptions. Thus, while Scamander, from his superior power, is no
more than Nature put in action, all the other Rivers of Troas exhibit
to us Nature purely passive, a blind instrument in the hand of deity.
The total silence and inaction of Simois[324], after the appeal of
Scamander, makes his impersonality more conspicuous, than if he
had not been addressed. Again, when the Greeks have quitted the
country, Apollo takes up the streams of the eight rivers that descend
from Ida, including great Scamander, like so many firemen’s hose,
and turns them upon the rampart to destroy it. We have no example
in Homer of this mechanical mode of handling Greek rivers.
The distinction of treatment seems to be due to a difference in the
mythology of the two countries as its probable source. And I find an
analogous method of proceeding with reference to the Winds. In the
Iliad they are deities, addressed in prayer, and capable of receiving
offerings. In the Odyssey they are mere senseless instruments of
nature, under the control of Æolus. But then in the Iliad Homer
deals with them for a Greek purpose (for I do not except the
impersonation of Boreas, Il. xx. 203, where the Dardanid family is
concerned): it is Achilles who prays to them: it is the Greek war-
horse that they beget. In the Odyssey he introduces them amidst a
system of foreign, that is to say, of Phœnician traditions.
Turning now to other objects, let us next see whether further inquiry
will confirm the suggestions, which I have founded on the cases of
Gaia and of Scamander.
At the head of Scamander are two fountains, and hard by them are
the cisterns, which the women of the city frequent for washing
clothes. Thus the spot is one of great notoriety; yet there is not a
word of any deity connected with these fountains. This is in
remarkable contrast with what we meet in Homer’s Greek
topography. Ulysses[325], immediately on being aware that he has
been disembarked in Ithaca, prays to the Nymphs of the grotto,
which was dedicated to them. There they had their bowls and vases,
and their distaffs of stone, with which they spun yarn of sea-
purple[326]. And the harbour, in which he was landed, was the
harbour of Phorcys, the old man of the sea[327]. So again at the
fountain, where the people of the town drew water, there was an
altar of the Nymphs that presided over it, upon which all the
passers-by habitually made offerings[328]. Nor could this be
wonderful, as all groves, all fountains, all meadows, and probably all
mountains, had their proper indwelling Nymphs according to the
Greek mythology; while the Rivers were impersonated as deities,
and the sea too teemed at every point with preternatural life.
Homer has named many, besides Scamander,
Trojan impersonations
from Nature rare.
of the rivers of Mount Ida; but to none, not
even to Simois, nor again to Ida or Gargarus
themselves, does he assign any of these local inhabitants.
There are, however, three curious cases of Nymphs assigned by him
to Troas. The νύμφη νηῒς, called Abarbaree, bears two sons to
Bucolion[329], a spurious child of Laomedon; and another nymph of
the same class bears Satnius to Enops[330]. A third similar case is
recorded in the Twentieth Book[331]. These would appear to be
simple cases of spurious births, and to have no proper connection
with mythology. For the mother of Satnius is called ἀμύμων; a name
never applied by Homer to the Immortals. If, however, the Nymphs
be deities, they mark another difference between Greece and Troy:
for Homer never attributes lusts to the Nymphs of the Greek
Olympus.
Amidst the whole detail of the Iliad, in one instance only have we
Trojan Nymphs conceived after the Greek fashion: it is when those
of the mountains, according to the speech of Andromache, planted
elms round about the fresh-made tomb of her father Eetion.
As a general rule, no Trojan refers in speech either to any legend, or
to any intermediate order, of supernatural beings. Destiny, named by
Hecuba, is, as we have seen, a metaphysical idea, rather than a
person[332].
The very name of Olympus itself is a symbol of nationality; and
around it are grouped the forms, which either the popular belief, or
the imagination of the Poet, incorporated into the company of
objects for worship. They form a body wonderfully brilliant and
diversified. They pervade the Greek mind in such a way, as to
appear alike in its didactic, and its most deeply pathetic moods. The
speech of Phœnix gives us the Parable of Ἄτη and the Λιταί: then
the episode of Meleager, which is founded on the wrath of Diana:
but into this legend itself, inserted into the speech, is again
interpolated the separate legend of Apollo and Alcyone[333]. The
speech of Agamemnon, in the Nineteenth Book, affords us another
example[334]. The case is the same in the most pathetic strains.
Achilles, in the interview with Priam, exhorts him to take food by the
example of Niobe, and appends her tale[335]: Penelope, praying to
Diana in the extremity of her grief, recites the tale of the daughters
of Pandareus[336]. Even the Suitor Antinous points his address to
Ulysses with the semi-divine legend of the Centaurs and
Lapithæ[337]. Everywhere, and from all the receptacles of thought,
mythology overflows. But in Troy the case is quite different. There
the human mind never seems to resort to it, either for food or in
sport. We find deities, priests, prophets, ceremonial, all apparently in
abundance: in all of these, except the first, the Greeks are much
poorer; but each of them, in and for himself, is in contact with an
entire supernatural world, the creation of luxuriant and energetic
fancy, which ranges alike over the spheres of sense and of
metaphysics. Andromache, virtuous and sincere as Penelope, has no
such mental wealth; her thoughts, and those of Hecuba and Priam,
both ordinarily and also on the death of Hector, are limited to topics
the most obvious and primitive, with which society, however
undeveloped, is familiar. From this limitation, and from the nature of
those legends respecting deities, of which the scene is laid in Troas,
it seems reasonable to believe that the mythological dress is of
purely Hellenic origin.
The dedication to Jupiter of the lofty and beautiful chestnut-tree[338]
near Troy, is in correspondence with the oak of Dodona, and
indicates quite a different train of thought from those which
conceived the Greek Olympus. It is probably both a fragment of
nature-worship in its Oriental form, and likewise a portion of the
external and ritual development, in which the religion of Troy was
evidently prolific enough. And in this case the negative evidence of
Homer is especially strong; because the great number of the
particular spots on the plain of Troy, which he has had occasion to
commemorate, constitute a much more minute topography there,
than he has given us on any other scene, not even excepting Ithaca:
so that he could hardly have avoided showing us, had it been the
fact, that the religion of Troy entered largely into what Mr. Grote has
so well called ‘the religious and personal interpretation of nature.’
Next as to those divine persons of the second order, who are so
abundantly presented to us by Homer in relations with the Greeks.
Iris visits the Trojans thrice. First, she repairs to their Assembly in
the form of Polites. Secondly, she appears to Helen, as her sister-in-
law Laodice. She delivers her message to Priam in the Twenty-fourth
Book without disguise; perhaps because it was necessary[339] that
he should have the assistance of a deity seen and heard, in order to
embolden him for a seemingly desperate enterprise. But there is
nothing in his account of the interview, which requires us to suppose
that the person Iris was known to Priam. The expression he uses
is[340]

αὐτὸς γὰρ ἄκουσα θεοῦ καὶ ἐσέδρακον ἄντην.

And again, he calls her an Olympian messenger[341] from Jupiter.

Another passage carries the argument a point further, by showing us
that the appearance of this benignant deity was alarming, doubtless
because it was strange, to him. When she arrives, she addresses
him very softly τυτθὸν φθεγξαμένη (170): but he is seized with
dread;

τὸν δὲ τρόμος ἔλλαβε γυῖα·

an emotion, which I do not remember to have found recorded on

any apparition of a divinity to a Greek hero.
Thus far then it would appear probable, that
Poverty of Trojan
Mythology.
in the Trojan mythology the list of major
deities was more contracted than in Greece,
and that the minor deities were almost unknown. But perhaps the
most marked difference between the two systems is in the copious
development on the Greek side of the doctrine of a future state,
compared with the jejune and shadowy character of that belief
among the Trojans.
In the narrative of the sack of Hypoplacian
Jejune doctrine of a Future
State.
Thebes, and again in her first lament over
Hector, Andromache does indeed speak of
her husband, father, and brothers, respectively, as having entered
the dwellings of Aides[342]. But these references are slight, and it
may almost be said perfunctory. Not another word is said either in
the Twenty-second Book, or in the whole of the Twenty-fourth,
about the shade of Hector.
When Pope closed his Iliad with the line

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector’s shade,

it probably did not occur to him, that he was not merely altering the
poetry of Homer, but falsifying also his picture of the Trojan religion;
which had indeed its funeral rites, but so described as to leave us no
means of concluding, that they were in any degree directed to
procuring the comfort and tranquillity of the dead. The silence
observed about the spirit of Hector is remarkable from the contrast
with the case of Patroclus. Both are mourned for passionately, by
those who love them best: but the shade of Patroclus is the great
figure in the mourning of Achilles, while Hector’s existence after
death is but once owned, faintly and in the abstract. Nor, as we see
from the Odyssey, was this homage to the shade of Patroclus a thing
occasional or accidental. We there meet the souls of all the great
departed of the War, in the under-world. That region, opened to
Ulysses, had formerly been opened to Hercules. Even the dissolute
Suitors cannot be dismissed from life, without our being called to
accompany their spirits past the Leucadian rock to the place of their
destination. The warriors slain in battle with the Cicones are thrice
invoked by the survivors[343]. Nay Elpenor himself, most insignificant
of men, is duly brought before us in his last home[344].
We are, however, enabled to open another chapter of evidence, that
bears upon this interesting subject. It is obtained through the
medium of the oaths of the two nations respectively.
Displacing the elemental powers from their ordinary religion, the
Greeks made them gaolers, as it were, of the under-world, and gave
them this for their proper business. Hence they are paraded freely in
the Greek oaths[345]. Agamemnon before the Pact invokes, with
Jupiter, the Sun, the Rivers, the Earth, the infernal gods. In the
Nineteenth book, the same; omitting however the Rivers, and
naming, instead of simply describing, the Erinües[346]. In the
Fourteenth Iliad, Juno apparently swears by Styx, Earth, Sea, and
the infernal gods[347]. In the Fifteenth, by Earth, Heaven, Styx, the
head of Jupiter, and their marriage bed[348]. Calypso swears, for the
satisfaction of Ulysses, and according to his fashion as the
imponens, by Earth, Heaven, and Styx[349]. Thus the Greeks made
an effective use of these earthy and material divinities, in connection
with their large development of the Future State, by installing them
as the official punishers of perjury. Now the Trojans appear, from
what we have seen, to have worshipped this class of deities; but as
super-terranean, not as sub-terranean gods. Had they not been thus
worshipped at the least, Agamemnon could not have included them
in the Invocation of the Pact, where he had to act and speak for
both nations[350]. And while we see they sacrificed lambs to Earth
and Sun, still we have a curious proof that these deities were not
worshipped in Troy as avengers of perjury. For when in the Tenth
Book Hector swears to Dolon, he invokes no divinity, except Jupiter
the loud-thundering husband of Juno. There may, as we have seen
here, be a faint reference to the earthy character of the Trojan Juno;
but there is no well-developed system, which uses a particular order
of powers for the punishment of perjurors in a future state. We can
hardly doubt that this was primarily because the doctrine of the
Future State was wanting in deep and practical roots, so far as we
can see, among the Trojans. A materializing religion seems
essentially hostile to the full development of such a doctrine. And it
is not a little curious to find that in this same country, where the
oath was less solemn than in Greece, and the life after death less a
subject of practical and energetic belief, perjury and breach of faith
should have been, as we shall find they were, so much more lightly
regarded.
For the sake of realizing to ourselves the contrast between the
religious system of Troy, as we thus at least by glimpses seem to
perceive it, and the wonderful imaginative richness of the
preternatural system of the Greeks as exhibited in Homer, it may be
well to point briefly to a few cases, which are the more illustrative,
because they are the accessories, and not the main pillars of the
system. Take, then, the personifications of all the forms of Terror in
the train of Mars: the transport, by Sleep and Death, of the body of
Sarpedon to his home; the tears of blood wept by Jupiter; the
agitation of the sea in sympathy with Neptune’s warlike parade; the
dread of Aidoneus lest the crust of earth should give way under the
tramp of the gods in battle; the mourning garb of Thetis for the
friend of her son’s youth; the long train of Nymphs, rising from the
depths of the sea to accompany her, when she mounts to visit the
sorrowing Achilles; the redundant imagery of the nether world; the
inimitable tact with which he preserves the identity of his great
chieftains when visited below, but presents each under a deep tint of
sadness. All this makes us feel not only that war, policy, and poetry,
are indissolubly blended in the great mind of Homer, and of his race,
but that the harmonious association of all these with the Olympian
religion was the work of a vivifying imagination, which was a
peculiar and splendid part of their inheritance.
There is a more marked trace in the Trojan
Worship from the hills.
worship, than is to be found among the
Greeks, of the practice of the Persian; who
paid homage to the Deity,

To loftiest heights ascending, from their tops,

With myrtle-wreathed tiara on his brow[351].

For Hector offered to Jupiter sometimes (which may be referred to a

different cause) on the highest ground of the city, sometimes on the
tops of Ida[352]:

Ἴδης ἐν κορυφῇσι πολυπτύχου, ἀλλότε δ’ αὖτε

ἐν πόλει ἀκροτάτῃ.

At all events we may say, that the only sign remaining in Greece of
this principle of worship, was one common to it with Troy, and seen
in the epithet ὑψίζυγος applied to Jupiter, as well as in the
association between the seats of the gods, and the highest
mountains.
On the other hand, the religion of the Trojans appears to have
abounded more in positive observance and hierarchical
development, than that of the Greeks.
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.
It has been debated, whether the Greeks of
Troy and Greece as to
Temples.
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]:

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.
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.
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.
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 respects the endowment in land, which
As to endowments in land.
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.
4. We will take next the case of statues of
As to statues of the gods.
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.
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.
The order of Seers or Diviners was common
As to Seers or Diviners.
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.
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.
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.
We come now to the last and most important
As to the Priesthood.
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;

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

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.
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]:

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]:

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.
 In point of fact the Homeric poems exhibit to
Comparative observance of
Sacrifice.
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]:

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.
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.
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].
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.
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.
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.
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.
It does not appear to me that Homer has
Two modes of handling for
Greece and Troy.
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.
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.
Regarding the subject from this point of view,
Moral superiority of his
Greeks.
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 is here made responsible for that
Homer’s account of the
abduction.
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].
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.
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.
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.
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].
The only persons on the Greek side, who
The Greek estimate of
Paris.
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].

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];
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