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

While depriving the wretch of all qualities that could attract towards him the slightest share of sympathy, Homer has taken care to leave Thersites in full possession of every thing that was necessary for his trade; an ample flow of speech (213), and no small power of vulgar invective (215).

Again, the quality of mere scurrility assigned to Thersites, and well exemplified in his speech, stands alike distinguished in Homer from the vein of fun, which he can open in the grave Ulysses of the Odyssey, even while he is under terror of the Cyclops; and from that tremendous and perhaps still unrivalled power of sarcasm, of which we have found the climax in Achilles.

In the short speech of Thersites, Homer has contrived to exhibit striking examples of malice (vv. 226, 234), coarseness (232), vanity (vv. 228, 231, 238), cowardice (236); while it is a tissue of consummate impudence throughout. Of this we find the finest stroke at the end of it, where he says240,

ἀλλὰ μάλ’ οὐκ Ἀχιλῆϊ χόλος φρεσὶν, ἀλλὰ μεθήμων·ἦ γὰρ ἂν, Ἀτρείδη, νῦν ὕστατα λωβήσαιο241.

For here the wretch apes Achilles, whom (for the sake of damaging Agamemnon) he affects to patronize, and, over and above the pretension to speak of his feelings as if he had been taken into his confidence on the occasion, he actually closes with the very line which Achilles, at the moment of high passion, had used in the Assembly of the First Book (i. 232).

If we consider the selection of topics each by themselves, with reference to effect, the speech is not without a certain εὐστοχία: he hits the avarice of Agamemnon hard (226); and his responsibility as a ruler (234): while pretending to incite the courage of the Greeks (235), he flatters their home-sickness and faint-heartedness by counselling the return (236); and, in supporting Achilles, he plausibly reckons on being found to have taken the popular side. But if we regard it, as every speech should be regarded, with reference to some paramount purpose, it is really senseless and inconsequent. Dwelling as he does upon the wrong done to Achilles, and asserting the placability of that chieftain, he ought to have ended with recommending an attempt to compensate and appease him; instead of which he recommends the Return, which had been just abandoned. But the real extravagance of the speech comes out only in connection with his self-love; when, like many better men, he wholly loses whatever sense of the ridiculous he might possess. It is not only ‘the women whom we give you’ (227); ‘the service which we render you’ (238), but it is also ‘the gold242 that some Trojan may bring to ransom his son, whom I, or else some other Greek, may have led captive.’ I, Thersites, or some other Greek! The only Greek, of whom we hear in the Iliad as having made and sold on ransom captives during the war, is Achilles243; and it is with him that Thersites thus couples himself. Upon this, Ulysses, perceiving that he stands in opposition to the prevailing sentiment of the Assembly, silences him by a judicious application of the sceptre to his back and shoulders: yet not even Thersites does he silence by force, until he has first rebuked him by reasoning244.

Such are the facts of the case of Thersites. Are we to infer from it, with Grote, that Homer has made him ugly and execrable because he was a presumptuous critic, though his virulent reproaches were substantially well founded, and that his fate, and the whole circumstances of this Assembly, show ‘the degradation of the mass of the people before the chiefs245?’

In rallying the Greeks, says the distinguished historian246, Ulysses flatters and soothes the chiefs, but drives the people with harsh reprimand and blows. Now surely, as to the mere matter of fact, this is not quite so. It is not the people, but those whom he caught carrying the matter by shouts, instead of returning to hear reason in the Assembly, that he struck with the sceptre247:

ὃν δ’ αὖ δήμου τ’ ἄνδρα ἴδοι, βοόωντά τ’ ἐφεύροι·

and it may be observed, that he addresses all classes alike by the word δαιμόνιε248; which, though a term of expostulation, is not one of disrespect.

If Thersites represented the principle of reasoning in the public Assembly, we might well see in the treatment of him the degradation of the people. But it is railing, and not reasoning, that he represents; and Homer has separated widely between this individual and the mass of the army, by informing us that in the general opinion Ulysses had rendered a service, even greater than any of his former ones, by putting down Thersites. ‘Ulysses has done a thousand good things in council and in war: but this is the best of all, that he has stopped the scoundrel in his ribaldry249.’

Thersites spoke not against Agamemnon only, but against the sense of the whole army (212); and the ground of the proceeding of Ulysses is not laid in the fact of his having resisted Agamemnon, or Agamemnon with the whole body of the kings; but in the manner of his speech, and in his having acted alone and against the general sentiment. Above all, we must recollect the circumstances, under which Ulysses ventured to chastise even this rancorous and foul-mouthed railer. It was at a moment of crisis, nay, of agony. The rush from the Assembly to the ships did not follow upon an orderly assent to a proposal, such as was generally given; but it resulted from a tumultuous impulse, like that of blasts tossing the sea, or sweeping down upon the cornfield (Il. ii. 144-54). If therefore Ulysses employs the sceptre of Agamemnon to smite those who were shouting in aid of this ruinous tumult (ii. 198), we need not take this for a sample of what would be done in ordinary circumstances, more than the fate of Wat Tyler for a type of British freedom under the Plantagenets. Odious too as was Thersites, yet the army, amidst a preponderating sentiment of approval, still appear to have felt some regret at his mishap250;

οἱ δὲ, καὶ ἀχνύμενοί περ, ἐπ’ αὐτῷ ἡδὺ γέλασσαν·

for the first words would suggest, that they knew how to value the liberty of thought, which had been abused, disgraced, and consequently restrained, in his person. Surely it would be most precipitate to conclude, from a case like this, that the debates of the Assemblies were formal, and that they had nothing to do but to listen to a sham discussion, and to register or follow decrees which were substantially those of Agamemnon only.

I believe that the mistake involved in the judgment we have been canvassing is a double one: a mistake of the relation of Agamemnon to the other kings and chiefs; and a mistake of the relation of the sovereigns generally to their subjects. Agamemnon was strong in influence and authority, but he had, as we have already seen, nothing like a despotic control over the other kings. The kings were strong in personal ability, in high descent, in the sanction of Jupiter, in possession, and in tradition: but all their strength, great as it was, lay as a general rule in the direction of influence, and not in that of violence.

I do not think, however, that we ought to be contented with the merely negative mode of treatment for the case of Thersites. I cannot but conceive that, upon an impartial review, it may teach more, than is drawn from it by merely saying that it does not prove the Assembly to have been an illusion. We must assume that Homer’s picture, if not historical, at least conformed to the laws of probability. Now, what is the picture? That the buffoon of the army, wholly without influence, capable of attracting no respect, when the mass of the people had overcome their homeward impulse, had returned to the Assembly, and were awaiting the proposition of the kings, first continues to rail (ἐκολῴα) while every one else is silent, and then takes upon himself the initiative in recommending the resumption of the project, which they had that moment abandoned. If such conduct could be ascribed by the Poet to a creature sharp-witted enough, and as careful as others of his own back, does not the very fact presuppose that freedom of debate was a thing in principle at least known and familiar?

Agorè on the Shield in Il. xviii.

In the scene depicted on the Shield of Achilles, new evidence is afforded us that the people took a real part in the conduct of public affairs. The people are in Assembly. A suit is in progress. The matter is one of homicide; and the guilty person declares that he has paid the proper fine, while his antagonist avers that he has not received it. Each presses for a judicial decision. The people sympathizing, some with one, and some with the other, cheer them on.

Λαοὶ δ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπήπυον, ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοί·κήρυκες δ’ ἄρα λαὸν ἐρήτυον251.

I understand the latter words as declaring, not that the heralds forbade and put a stop to the cheering of the people, but either that they kept it within bounds, or rather that, when the proper time came for the judges to speak, these, the heralds, procured silence. According to the meaning of ἐρητύω in Il. ii. 211,

ἄλλοι μέν ῥ’ ἕζοντο, ἐρήτυθεν δὲ καθ’ ἕδρας.

Now of the cheering of the people I venture to say, not that it raises a presumption of, but that it actually constitutes, their interference. The rule of every tolerably regulated assembly, charged with the conduct of important matters, is to permit no expressions of approval or otherwise during the proceedings, except from the parties immediately belonging to the body. The total exclusion of applause in judicial cases belongs to a state of mind and manners different from that of the heroic age. But the exclusion of all applause by mere strangers to the business rests upon a truth common to every age; namely, that such applause constitutes a share in the business, and contributes to the decision. It will be remembered how the cries of the Galleries became one of the grievous scandals of the first revolution in France, and how largely they affected the determinations of the National Assembly. The irregular use of such a power is a formidable invasion of legislative or judicial freedom: the allowed possession of the privilege amounts to participation in the office of the statesman or the judge, and demonstrates the substantive position of the λαὸς, or people, in the Assemblies of the heroic age.

But apparently their function was not completed by merely encouraging the litigant, with whom each man might chance to sympathize. For we are told not only that the Judges, that is to say, the γέροντες, delivered their opinions consecutively, but likewise that there lay in the sight of all two golden talents, to be given to him who should pronounce the fairest judgment (xviii. 508);

τῷ δόμεν, ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴποι.

Thus it is plain that the judge who might do best was to get the two talents: but who was to give them? Not the γέροντες or elders themselves, surely; for among them the competition lay. There could be but one way in which the disposal of this fee could be settled: namely, by the general acclamation of the people, to be expressed, after hearing the respective parties, in favour of him whose sentiments they most approved. And those, to whom it may seem strange to speak of vote by acclamation, should remember, that down to this day, in all deliberative assemblies, an overpowering proportion of the votes are votes by acclamation, or by the still less definite test of silence. The small minority of instances, when a difference of opinion is seriously pressed, are now settled by arithmetic; they would then have been adjusted by some prudent appeal to the general will, proceeding from a person of ability and weight. Indeed even now, in cases when the numbers approximate to those of the Greek army, there can be no bonâ fide decision by arithmetic. The demand, however, that dissension shall be the only allowed criterion of liberty, is one which really worsens the condition of human nature beyond what the truth of experience requires.

Decisions in Assemblies of Il. vii. and ix.

And finally, what shall we say to the direct evidence of Agamemnon himself? Idæus252, the Trojan herald, arrives with the offer to restore the stolen property, but not Helen. He is received in dead silence. After a pause, Diomed gives utterance to the general feeling. ‘Neither will we have the goods without Helen, nor yet Helen with the goods. Troy is doomed.’ The Assembly shouts its approbation. Agamemnon immediately addresses himself to the messenger; ‘Idæus, you hear the sense of the Achæans, how they answer you; and I think with them.’ At the least this is a declaration as express as words can make it, and proceeding out of the mouth of the rival authority, to the effect that the acclamation of the Assembly was, for all practical purposes, its vote, and that it required only concurrence from the king, to invest it with the fullest authority. In the Ninth Iliad, as we have seen, the vote held good even without that concurrence253.

We may now, I hope, proceed upon the ground that we are not to take the ill success of a foulmouthed scoundrel, detested by the whole army, as a sample of what would have happened to the people, or even a part of them, when differing in judgment from their king. But what shall we say to the argument, that no case is found where a person of humble condition takes part in the debates of the Assemblies? No doubt the conduct of debates was virtually in the hands of those whose birth, wealth, station, and habits of life gave them capacity for public affairs. Even in the nineteenth century, it very rarely happens that a working man takes part in the proceedings of a county meeting: but no one would on that account suppose that such an assembly can be used as the mere tool of the class who conduct the debate, far less of any individual prominent in that class. If we cannot conceive freedom without perpetual discord, the faithful performance of the duty of information and advice without coercion and oppression, it is a sign either of our narrow-mindedness, or of our political degeneracy; but a feeble eye does not impair the reality of the object on which it may happen to be fixed.

Still we may admit that among the numerous assemblies of the Iliad, there is no instance where assent is given by one part of the Assembly, and withheld by the other. There is, as we have seen, a clear and strong case where the opinion of the commander-in-chief is rejected, and that of an inferior commander adopted in its stead. This in my opinion goes far to prove all that is necessary. We have from the Odyssey, however, the means of going further still.

Only, before leaving the Iliad, let us observe the terms in which the Greek Assemblies are addressed by the kings: they are denominated friends and heroes; names which at least appear to imply their title to judge, or freely to concur, at least as much as such a title was recognised in the ancient councils and assemblies of the Anglo-saxons. Was this appearance a mockery? I do not say we should compare it with the organized, secure and regular privileges of a few nations in modern days. But it would be a far greater mistake to treat it as an idle form, or as otherwise than a weighty reality.

Division in the Drunken Assembly.

From what is related in that poem to have occurred after the capture of Troy, it becomes abundantly clear that the function of the Greek Assembly was not confined to listening. The army met in what, for the sake of distinction, we may call the Drunken Assembly254. Now, the influence of wine upon its proceedings is amply sufficient to show that its acts were the acts of the people: for Homer never allows his chiefs to be moved from their self-possession by the power of liquor.

There was a marked difference of opinion on that occasion: the people took their sides; δίχα δέ σφισιν ἥνδανε βουλή (Od. iii. 150). One half embarked; the residue staid behind with Agamemnon (155-7). The moiety, which had sailed away, split again (162); and a portion of them went back to Agamemnon. We see, indeed, throughout the Odyssey, how freely the crews of Ulysses spoke or acted, when they thought fit, in opposition to his views. If it be said, we must not argue from the unruly speeches of men in great straits at sea, the answer is, first, that their necessities might rather tend to induce their acquiescence in a stricter discipline; and secondly, that their liberty, and even license, are not out of keeping with the general tone of the relations between freemen of different classes, as exhibited to us elsewhere in the Homeric poems.

It may, indeed, be said, that the divisions of the Greeks in the final proceedings at Troy were divisions, not of the men, but of the chiefs. This, however, upon the face of the text, is very doubtful. We see from the tale of the Pseudo-Ulysses, in the Thirteenth Odyssey (265, 6), that there were parties and separate action in the Greek contingents: and it is probably to these that Nestor may allude, when he recommends the Review in order that the responsibility of the officers may be brought home to them individually. Now, in the case before us, the first division is thus described. Menelaus exhorted all the Greeks (πάντας Ἀχαιοὺς) to go home: Agamemnon disagreed (141, 3): while they were contesting the point, the Assembly rose in two parties (vv. 149, 50);

οἱ δ’ ἀνόρουσαν ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοὶἠχῇ θεσπεσίῃ· δίχα δέ σφισιν ἥνδανε βουλή.

There is no intimation here that the people in dividing simply followed their chiefs. Nay, the tone of the description is such as obliges us to understand that the movement was a popular one, and took its rise from the debate: so that, even if the chiefs and their men kept together respectively, as they may have done, still the chiefs may probably have followed quite as much as they led. Again, when the second separation takes place, it is thus described, ‘One portion returned, under Ulysses, to Agamemnon. Prognosticating evil, I made sail homewards with the whole body of my ships, which followed me. Diomed did the same, and (ὦρσε δ’ ἑταίρους) invited his men (to do it). And after us at last came Menelaus.’ (vv. 162-8). Now here instruction is given us on three points:

1. Diomed urged his men; therefore it was not a mere matter of course that they should go.

2. Nestor mentions especially that his division all kept together (σὺν νηυσὶν ἀολλέσιν); therefore this did not always happen.

3. It is very unlikely that the part, which is first named as having returned with Ulysses, should have been confined to his own petty contingent.

Thus it is left in great doubt, whether the chiefs and men did uniformly keep together: and the tenour of the narrative favours the supposition, that the men at least contributed materially to any joint conclusions.

Ithacan Assembly of Od. ii.

As, in the first Assembly of the Iliad, Achilles acts his personal quarrel in the public eye, and lodges a sort of tacit appeal against Agamemnon, so, in that of the Odyssey, Telemachus does the like with reference to the Suitors. It is there that he protests against their continued consumption of his substance; that he rejects their counter-proposal for the dismissal of his mother on their behalf, and that he himself finally propounds the voyage to the mainland255. There too we find a most distinct recognition by Mentor, his guardian, of the powers and rights of the people; for he loudly complains of their sitting silent, numerous as they are256, instead of interposing to rebuke the handful of Suitors that were the wrongdoers. But if, according to the genius and usages of the heroic age, the people had nothing to do but to listen and obey their betters, the expectation that they should have risen to defend a minor against the associated aristocracy of the country would have been absurd, and could not have been expressed, as we find it expressed, by Mentor.

It is true indeed, as has been observed by Tittmann257, that this Assembly makes no effective response to the appeal of Telemachus; and that the Suitor Antinous is allowed to declare in it his own intention, and that of his companions, to continue their lawless proceedings. But what we see in the Odyssey is not the normal state of the heroic polities: it is one of those polities disorganized by the absence of its head, with a people, as the issue proves, deeply tainted by disloyalty. Yet let us see what, even in this state of things, was still the weight of the Agorè. First, when Telemachus desires to make an initial protest against the acts of the Suitors, he calls it to his aid. Secondly, though at the outset of the discussion no concession is made to him, yet he gains ground as it proceeds. The speech of Antinous, the first Suitor who addresses the Assembly (Od. ii. 85-128), is in a tone of sheer defiance, and treats his attempt as a jest and as an insult (v. 86). The next is that of Eurymachus; who, while deriding the omens, yet makes an advance by appealing to Telemachus to take the matter into his own hands, and induce his mother to marry one among them (178-207). The third, that of Leiocritus, contains a further slight approximation; for it conveys an assent to his proposed voyage, and recommends that Mentor and Alitherses shall assist him in making provision for it (242-56). Thus even here we see that progression, which may always be noticed in the Homeric debates; and the influence under which it was effected must surely have been an apprehension of the Assembly, to which both Telemachus, and still more directly Mentor, had appealed.

Thirdly, however, we perceive in this very account the signs of the disordered and distracted state of the public mind. For, beyond a sentiment of pity for Telemachus when he bursts into tears (v. 81), they make no sign of approval or disapproval. We miss in Ithaca the well-known cheers of the Iliad, the

οἱ δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἐπίαχον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν.

They are dismissed without having made a sign; just as it is in the Assembly of the First Iliad (an exception in that poem); where the mind of the masses, puzzled and bewildered, is not in a condition to enable them to interfere by the distinct expression of their sympathies258.

There are, however, two other instances of Assemblies in the Odyssey.

Phæacian Assembly of Od. viii.

The first of these is the Assembly of the Phæacians in the Eighth Book; which we may safely assume to be modelled generally according to the prevailing manners.

The petition259 of Ulysses to Alcinous is, that he may be sent onwards to his home. The king replies, that he will make arrangements about it on the following day260. Accordingly, the Assembly of the Phæacian people is called: Minerva herself, under the form of the herald, takes the pains to summon the principal persons261. Alcinous then proposes that a ship shall be got ready, with a crew of fifty-two picked men262. For his part he will give to this crew, together with the kings, an entertainment at the palace before they set out263. This is all done without debate. Then comes the banquet, and the first song of Demodocus. The company next return to the place of assembly, for the games. It is here that Ulysses is taunted by Euryalus264. In his reply he appeals to his character as a suppliant; but he is the suppliant of the king and all the people, not of the king, nor even of the king and his brother kings, alone265;

ἧμαι, λισσόμενος βασιλῆά τε, πάντα τε δῆμον.

We must therefore assume that Alcinous, in his proposal, felt that he was acting according both to precedent and the general opinion. He does not order any measure to be taken, but simply gives his opinion in the Assembly about providing a passage, which is silently accepted (ver. 46). Yet I cannot but take it for a sign of the strong popular infusion in the political ideas of the age, when we find that even so slight a measure, as the dispatch of Ulysses, was thought fit to be proposed and settled there.

But we have weightier matter disposed of in the Twenty-fourth Odyssey, which affords us an eighth and last example of the Greek Assembly, its powers, and usages.

The havock made of the Suitors by Ulysses is at last discovered after the bodies have been disposed of; and upon the discovery, the chiefs and people repair in a mass to the open space where Assemblies were held, and which bears the same name with them266. Here the people are addressed on the one side by Eupeithes, father of the leading Suitor Antinous, on the other, by Medon the herald, and Alitherses, son of Mastor the Seer. And here we are supplied with further proofs, that the Assemblies were not wholly unaccustomed to act according to their feelings and opinions. There is no sign of perplexity or confusion; but there is difference of sentiment, and each party acts upon its own. More than half the meeting loudly applaud Alitherses, and break up, determined not to meddle in the affair267. The other party keep their places, holding with Eupeithes; they then go to arm, and undertake the expedition against Ulysses. Having lost their leader by a spear’s throw of Laertes, for which Minerva had supplied him with strength, they fall like sheep before the weapons of their great chief and his son. Yet, though routed, they are not treated as criminals for their resistance; but the poem closes by informing us that Minerva, in the form of Mentor268, negotiated a peace between the parties269.