Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3

ὦ γέρον, αἰεί τοι μῦθοι φίλοι ἄκριτοί εἰσιν,ὥς ποτ’ ἐπ’ εἰρήνης.

Upon the whole, I think it must have been Homer’s intention, while representing both Trojans and Greeks as carrying on public affairs in their public Assemblies, to draw a very marked distinction between them in regard to the use of that powerful engine of oratory, which played so conspicuous a part in the former, as well as in the later stages of the Greek history.

And it is important, that nowhere does a sentiment escape the lips of a Trojan chieftain, which indicates a consciousness of the political value of oratory. Ulysses, in a state of peace, describes before the Phæacians beauty and eloquence as the noblest gifts of the gods to man509: and employs ἔπεα and νόος, eloquence and intelligence, as convertible terms. Polydamas, when rebuking Hector in the Thirteenth Iliad, delivers a passage in many respects strikingly analogous. He speaks, however, of νόος and βουλὴ, mind and counsel510; he does not drop a word relating to public speech or to eloquence as instruments of government, though he describes the mental quality and the habit which he names as of priceless value for the benefit of States.

The phrases applied to the Trojan elders appear to indicate, that they derived their political character from taking a prominent part in the Assembly, and from that alone. For the word δημογέρων indicates an elder acting in and among the δῆμος, or people. And this name the Poet uses but twice: once in Il. iii. 149, where he enumerates the eight persons, who bore that character in Troy; and once with reference to Ilus (Il. ii. 372). Homer nowhere employs this term for any of the Greeks.

The want of the βουλὴ shows us, that there was no balance of forces in the Trojan polity, less security against precipitate action, more liability to high-handed insolence and oppression of the people, and, on the other hand, unless the danger had been neutralized by mildness or lethargy of character, likewise in all likelihood to revolutionary change.

Trojans less gifted with self-command.

Again, on the Trojan side we do not find the silence and self-possession of the Greeks. After the enumeration in the Third Book, at its opening, we find that the Trojans marched with din and buzz:

Τρῶες μὲν κλαγγῇ τ’ ἐνοπῇ τ’ ἴσαν, ὄρνιθες ὥς·

but as to the Greeks, we are told that they marched in profound silence: and the Poet skilfully heightens the contrast by mentioning that they breathed forth what they did not articulate, and that they were steeled with firm resolution to stand by one another511:

οἱ δ’ ἄρ’ ἴσαν σιγῇ μένεα πνείοντες Ἀχαιοὶ,ἐν θυμῷ μεμαῶτες ἀλεξέμεν ἀλλήλοισιν.

We are finally told that each leader indeed gave the word to his men, while all beside were mute512:

οἱ δ’ ἄλλοι ἀκὴν ἴσαν, οὐδέ κε φαίηςτόσσον λαὸν ἕπεσθαι ἔχοντ’ ἐν στήθεσιν αὐδὴν,σιγῇ δειδιότες σημάντορας·

but from the Trojans there arose a sound, like that of sheep bleating for their lambs513:

ὣς Τρώων ἀλαλητὸς ἀνὰ στρατὸν εὐρὺν ὀρώρει.

And, again, we find the relation of the burning of the dead given with the usual consistency of the Poet. The men of the two armies met: and on both sides they shed tears as they lifted their lifeless comrades on the wagons: but, he adds, there was silence among the Trojans, and it was because the king had felt that there would be indecency in a noisy show of sorrow: while the Greeks needed not the injunction (Il. vii. 426-32), from their spontaneous self-command.

οὐδ’ εἴα κλαίειν Πρίαμος μέγας·

When the Poet speaks of the Trojan Assembly in the Seventh Book as δεινὴ τετρηχυῖα, he evidently means to describe an excitement tending to disorder: and one contrasted in a remarkable manner with the discipline of the Greeks, who were summoned to meet silently in the night, that they might not, in gathering, arouse the enemy outside the ramparts. Even in their respective modes of expressing approbation, Homer makes a shade of difference. When the Greeks applaud, it is ἐπίαχον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν, or what we call loud or vehement cheering: but when the Trojans, it is ἐπὶ δὲ Τρῶες κελάδησαν, which signifies a more miscellaneous and tumultuous noise.

In short, it would appear to be the intention of Homer to represent the Greeks as possessed of a higher intelligence throughout. In the Odyssey, we find that Ulysses made his way into Troy disguised as a beggar, communicated with Helen, duly informed himself (κατὰ δὲ φρόνιν ἤγαγε πολλήν514), and contrived to despatch certain of the Trojans before he departed. In the Iliad we are supplied with abundant instances of the superior management of the Greeks, and likewise of their auxiliary gods, in comparison with those of the Trojans. Juno outwits Venus in obtaining from her the cestus, and then proceeds to outwit Jupiter in the use of it. Minerva, on observing that the Greeks are losing, (Il. vii. 17) betakes herself to Troy, where Apollo proposes just what she wants, namely, a cessation of the general engagement, with a view to a personal encounter between Hector and some chosen chieftain: she immediately adopts the plan; and he causes it to be executed through Helenus. It both stops the general havoc among the Greeks, and redounds greatly to the honour of their champion Ajax. At the end of the day, however, Nestor suggests to the Greek chiefs, on account of their heavy losses (Il. vii. 328), that they should, on the occasion of raising a mound over their dead, likewise dig and fortify a trench, which might serve to defend the ships and camp. In the mean time the Trojans are made to meet; and they send to propose the very measure, namely, an armistice for funeral rites, which the Greeks desire, in order, under cover of it, to fortify themselves (Il. vii. 368-97). And this accordingly Agamemnon is enabled to grant as a sort of favour to the Trojans (Il. vii. 408):

ἀμφὶ δὲ νεκροῖσιν κατακαιέμεν οὔτι μεγαίρω.

This superior intelligence is probably meant to be figured by the exchange of arms between Glaucus and Diomed. And, again, when Hector attempts anything in the nature of a stratagem, as the mission of Dolon by night, it is only that he may fall into the hands of Diomed and Ulysses. But there does not appear to be in any of these cases a violation of oath, compact, or any absolute rule of equity by the Greeks.

Of all these traits, however, it may be said, that they are of no value as evidence, if taken by themselves. They are means which would obviously occur to the Poet, zealous for his own nation. It is their accordance with other indications, apparently undesigned, which warrants our relying upon them as real testimonies, available for an historic purpose.

Difference in pursuits of high-born youth.

Although, on the whole, we seem to have the signs of greater wealth among the Trojans than the Greeks, yet in certain points also their usages were more primitive and simple. Thus we find the youths of the house of Nestor immediately about his person; and Patroclus, as well as Achilles, was apparently brought up at the court of Peleus. Again, the youthful Nestor travels into Thessaly for a campaign: Ulysses goes to hunt at the Court of his grandfather Autolycus. The Ithacan Suitors employ themselves in manly games. But we frequently come upon passages where we are incidentally informed, that the princes of the house of Dardanus were occupied in rustic employments. Thus Melanippus, son of Hiketaon, and cousin of Hector, who was residing in Priam’s palace, and treated as one of his children, had before the war tended oxen in Percote515. Æneas, the only son and heir of Anchises, had been similarly occupied among or near the hills, at the time when he had a narrow escape from capture by Achilles516. Lycaon, son of Priam, was cutting the branches of the wild fig for the fellies of chariot-wheels when Achilles took him for the second time: on the first occasion, he had been at work in a vineyard517. Antiphos and Isos, sons of Priam, had been captured by Achilles whilst they were acting as shepherds518. Anchises was acting as a herdsman, when he formed his connection with Venus519. The name of Boucolion, an illegitimate son of Laomedon, seems to indicate that he was bred for the like occupation520.

From the force, variety, and extreme delicacy of his uses of the word, it is evident that Homer set very great store by the sentiment which is generally expressed through the word αἰδώς, and which ranges through all the varieties of shame, honour, modesty, and reverence. Though a minute, it is a remarkable circumstance, that he confines the application of this term to the Greeks; except, I think, in one passage, where he bestows it upon his particular favourites the Lycians521, and a single other one, where Æneas522 employs it under the immediate inspiration of Apollo, with another sense, in an appeal to Hector and his brother chiefs, not to the soldiery at large.

With the Greeks it supplies the staple of military exhortation523 from the chiefs to the army; Αἰδὼς, Ἀργεῖοι.

But quite a different form of speech is uniformly addressed to the Trojans proper: it is which is below the other, and appeals to a less peculiar and refined frame of intelligence and of sentiment.

ἀνέρες ἔστε, φίλοι, μνήσασθε δὲ θουρίδος ἀλκῆς,

Summary of differences.

Whatever may be thought of the degree of detail into which (guided as I think by the text) I have ventured to carry this discussion, and of the particularity of some of the inferences that have been drawn, I venture to hope few will quit the subject without the conviction that Homer has worked with the purpose and precision which are his wont, in the diversities which mark the general outline of his Greeks and his Trojans, and of the institutions of each respectively; and that he has not altogether withheld from his national portraits the care, which he is admitted to have applied to his individual characters on both sides with such extraordinary success. If we look to the institutions of the two countries, although the comparison is diversified, we must upon the whole concede to the Greeks, that they had laid more firmly than their adversaries those great corner stones of human society, which are named in their language, θέμις, ὅρκος, and γάμος. In the polity of Troy we find more scope for impulse, less for deliberation and persuasion; more weight given to those elements of authority which do not depend on our free will and intelligence, less to those which do; less of organization and of diversity, less firmness and tenacity of tissue, in the structure of the community. We are told of no φῦλα and no φρῆτραι, no intermediate ranks of officers in the army; no order of nobles or proprietors, such as that which furnished the Suitors of Ithaca. There are, in short, fewer secondary eminences; it is a state of things, more resembling the dead level of the present Oriental communities subject to a despotic throne, though such was not the throne of Priam. Among the people themselves, there is more of religious observance and apparatus, but not more of morality: less tendency indeed to crimes of violence and turbulence, but also less of truth, of honour, above all of personal self-mastery and self-command. The Greeks never would have produced the Paris of the Iliad; for on behalf of no such dastard would they have been induced to bleed. But if they had engendered such a creature, they would not have paid the penalty: for man in the Trojan type would not have had the energy to recover it from the warrior-statesmen of the Achæan race, and under no circumstances could the really extravagant sentiment put by Virgil into the mouth of Diomed524 have been fulfilled:

ultro Inachias venisset ad urbesDardanus, et versis lugeret Græcia fatis.

III. THALASSA.

THE OUTER GEOGRAPHY OF THE ODYSSEY

The legendary Geography of the Odyssey may in one sense be compared with that of Ariosto, and that of Bojardo. I should be the first, indeed, to admit that a disquisition, having for its object to establish the delimitation of the Geography of either of those poets, and to fix its relation to the actual surface of the earth, was but labour thrown away. For two thousand years, however, perhaps for more, the Geography of the Odyssey has been a subject of interest and of controversy. In entering upon that field I ask myself, why the case of Homer is in this respect so different from that of the great Italian romancers? It is not only that, great as they were, we are dealing with one before whom their greatness dwindles into comparative littleness. Nor is it only, though it seems to be in part, because the adventures of Ulysses are, or appear to be, much more strictly bound up with place, than those of Orlando, Rinaldo, or Ruggiero. The difference, I think, mainly lies in this, that an intense earnestness accompanies Homer every where, even through his wild and noble romance. Cooped up as he was within a narrow and local circle – for such it was, though it was for so many centuries the centre of the whole greatness of the world – here is his effort to pass the horizon ‘by strength of thought;’ to pierce the mist; to shape the dim, confused, and conflicting reports he could pick up, according to the best of his knowledge and belief, into land and sea; to people its habitable spots with the scanty material he could command, every where enlarged, made good, and adorned out of the wealth of his vigorous imagination; and to form, by effort of the brain, for the first time as far as we know in the history of our race, an idea of a certain configuration for the surface of the Earth.

Hence, perhaps, may have flowed the potency of the charm, which has attended the subject of Homer’s Outer Geography. The subject has, however, in my belief, its utility too. It is rarely otherwise than well worth while to trace even the erroneous thoughts of powerful minds. But, moreover, in the present instance, I apprehend we can learn, through the Outer Geography of Homer, important and interesting matter of history, which is not to be learned from any other source. For the Poet has embedded into his imaginative scheme a multitude of real geographical and physical traditions; and by means of these, upon comparing them with their proper originals, we can judge with tolerable accuracy what were the limits of human enterprise on the face of earth in the heroic age.

The question before us is, what map of the earth did Homer shape in his own mind, that he might adjust to it the voyages and tours of his heroes Menelaus and Ulysses, particularly the latter? And in order to a legitimate inquiry the first step to be taken is negative. Do not let us engage in the vain attempt to construct the Geography of the Odyssey upon the basis of the actual distribution of the earth’s surface. Such a process can lead to no satisfactory result. Whatever materials Homer may have obtained to assist him, we must consider as so many atoms; I speak of course, as to all that lay beyond the narrow sphere of his Greek knowledge and experience. He had no adequate means of placing the different parts of the accounts which reached him in their true geographical relations to one another. The outer world was for him broken up into fragments, and these fragments were rearranged at his pleasure, with the aid of such lights only, as his limited physical knowledge could afford him.

Principal heads of the inquiry.

Assuming for the present that the Phœnicianism of the Outer Geography has been on the whole sufficiently proved, I proceed to a more exact examination of the subject itself; and I propose to inquire into the following questions.

1. Has Homer two modes of dealing with the subject of locality, considered at large? if so, can it be shown that he applies them to two distinct geographical regions; one the circumscribed central tract of land and sea within which he lived, the other a wider and larger zone, which lay beyond it in all directions; and can a line be drawn with reasonable confidence and precision between these geographical regions accordingly?

2. If it be established that Homer has a system of Outer Geography, severed by a sufficiently-defined barrier from his Inner Geography, then are there any, and if so what, keys, or leading ideas of local arrangement for the former scheme, which, themselves derived from the evidence of his text, should be used for the adjustment of its details?

3. Under the system thus ascertained, what was the route of Menelaus, and more especially of Ulysses, as these presented themselves to the mind of Homer?

I set out from the proposition, which, as I conceive, rests upon universal consent, that within a certain sphere the poems may be considered as a record of experimental geography; and one sometimes carried down into detail with so much of accuracy, that it embraces even the miniature of that branch of knowledge, to which we usually give the name of topography.

By way of example for the former, I should say that when Homer describes the Bœotian towns, when he measures the distance over the Ægean, nay, when he makes Ulysses represent that he floated in ten days from some point near Crete to the Thesprotian coast, he is a geographer. Again, in his variously estimated account of the interior of Ithaca, he is a topographer. He is the same on the whole, though probably with greater license, when he is dealing with the Plain of Troy.

The two spheres of Geography.

In speaking of the experimental geography of Homer, of course I do not intend to imply that he had, even within his narrow sphere, the means that later science has afforded of establishing situations and distances with absolute precision. He could only proceed by the far ruder testimony of the senses, trained in the school of experience. Neither do I mean that the experience was in every case his own, though to a great extent his geographical information was probably original, and acquired by him principally in the exercise of his profession as an itinerating Bard. But by the experimental and real geography of Homer, I mean these two things; first, that the Poet believed himself to be describing pro tanto points upon the earth’s surface as they actually were; secondly, that his means of information were for practical purposes adequate. The evidence of the passage containing the simile of the Thought (Il. xv. 580) would suffice, were there none other, to show that he was himself a traveller; he also lived among a people already accustomed to travel, and familiar with the navigation of a certain portion of the earth’s surface. In a former part of this work I have given several instances to illustrate the disposition of the early Greeks with respect to travel525. A people of habits like theirs was well qualified to supply a practical system of geography for the whole sphere with which it was habitually conversant.

But the boldness and maturity of navigation may be measured pretty nearly by the length of its voyages. The geographical particulars of the Wanderings, however dislocated and distorted, show us that the people who had supplied them had acquired a considerable acquaintance with all the waters within, and probably also, nay, I should be disposed to say certainly, some that were without, the Straits of Gibraltar. But in all the poems of Homer we find the traces of Greek knowledge and resort become fainter and fainter, as we pass beyond certain points. On the Greek Peninsula, to the south of the Ambracian gulf on the west and of Mount Olympus on the east, we have the signs of a constant intercourse to and fro. The same tokens extend to the islands immediately surrounding it, and reaching at least as far as Crete. Indeed, apart from particular signs, we may say that, without familiar and frequent intercourse among the members that composed it, the empire of Agamemnon could not have subsisted.

But, at certain distances, the mode of geographical handling becomes faint, mistrustful, and indistinct. Distances are misstated, or cease to be stated at all. The names of countries are massed together in such a way as to show that the Poet had no idea of a particular mode of juxtaposition for them. Topographical or local features, of a character such as to identify a description with some particular place or region as its prototype in nature, are erroneously transposed to some situation which, from general indications, we can see must be upon a different and perhaps distant part of the surface of the globe. Again, by ceasing to define distances and directions, he shows from time to time that he has lost confidence in his own collocation, that he is not willing to challenge a comparison with actual nature, and that, from want of accurate knowledge, he feels he must seek some degree of shelter in generalities.

It is obvious that, under the circumstances as they have thus far been delineated, the geography of the poems, with a centre fixed for it somewhere in Greece, say at Olympus or Mycenæ, might be first of all divided into three zones, ranging around that centre. The first and innermost would be that of the familiar knowledge and experience of his countrymen. The second would be that of their rare and occasional resort. The third would be a region wholly unknown to them, and with respect to which they were wholly dependent on foreign, that is on Phœnician, report; much as a Roman, five hundred years ago, would practically depend upon the reports of Venetians and Genoese mariners for all or nearly all his ultra-marine knowledge.

Now, though we may not be able to mark positively at every point of the compass the particular spot at which we step from the first zone to the second, and from the second to the third, yet there is enough of the second zone discernible to make it serve for an effectual delimitation between the first and the third; between the region of experience and that of marvel; of foreign, arbitrary, unchecked, and semifabulous report. Just as we are unable to fix the moment at which night passes into dawn, and dawn into day; but yet the dawn of morning, and the twilight of evening are themselves the lines which broadly separate between the day and the night, lying respectively at the extremities of each. So with the poems of Homer, it may be a question whether a given place, say Phœnicia, is in the first or the second zone; or whether some other, such as Scheria, or as the Bosphorus, is in the second or the third; but it will never be difficult to affirm of any important place named in the poems either that it is not in the zone of common experience, or else that it is not in the zone of foreign fable.

Limits of the Inner Geography.

Let me now endeavour to draw the lines, which thus far have been laid down only in principle.

1. And first it seems plain, that the experimental knowledge of Homer extended over the whole of the continental territory embraced within the Greek Catalogue, including, along with the continent, those islands which he has classed with his mainland, and not in his separate insular group526.

2. It may be slightly doubtful whether he had a similar knowledge of the islands forming the base of the Ægean. There is a peculiarity in the Cretan description (Il. ii. 645-52), namely, that after enumerating certain cities he closes with general words (649),

ἄλλοι θ’, οἳ Κρήτην ἑκατόμπολιν ἀμφενέμοντο.

Still he uses characteristic epithets: and in another place (Od. xiv. 257), he defines (of course by time) the distance from Crete to Egypt. So again in Rhodes (656), Camirus has the characteristic epithet of ἀργινόεις. On the whole we may place this division within the first zone of Homeric geography.

3. Homer would appear to have had an accurate knowledge of the positions of the islands of Lemnos, Samothrace, Imbros, Lesbos, Samos, and Chios527. These we may consider, without further detail, as answering practically for the whole Ægean sea.

4. Homer knew the positions of Emathia and Pieria, relatively to one another and to Greece; and the general course of the southern ranges of the Thracian mountains528. The Trojan Catalogue appears to show that he also knew the coast-line westward from the Dardanelles, as far as to the river Axius. There we may consider that his Pieria begins, with Greece upon its southern and western border.

5. It would appear that Homer had a pretty full knowledge of the southern coast-line of the Propontis. He seems to place the Thracians of the Trojan Catalogue on the northern side of that sea, but his language is quite general with respect to this part of it. On the south side, however, and in the whole north-western corner of Asia Minor, we appear to find him at home529. Thus much we may safely conclude from the detail of the Trojan Catalogue; from the particular account of the Idæan rivers in the Twelfth Iliad530; from the latter part of the journey of Juno in the Fourteenth531; and from the speech of Achilles in the Twenty-fourth532, which fixes the position of Phrygia relatively to Troy.