of all. Eneus, two generations before the Troica, while sacrificing to the other deities, either forgot or did not think ft (ἢ λάθετ ̓ ἢ οὐκ ἐνόησεν) to sacrifice to Diana; 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. 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 Agamemnon2. 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. Such remissness is the more rey Od. iii. 131. z Ibid. 164. x Il. ix. 523. a Ibid. 135. Comparative observance of Sacrifice. 189 markable, 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". 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, 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. 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 at a later epoch, deiridaμovéσrepo. 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 d Il. xii. 3, 9. b Il. vii. 450. c Ibid. 459. 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 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) manoeuvred 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 Two modes of handling for Greece and Troy. 191 direction changes, there is an adequate cause, as in the vehemence of Achilles, or the vacillation of Agamem non. 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. 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 Menelausf; 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, Eneas, Sarpedon, Poly e Il. iii. 451-4. f Il. iv. 220. damas, 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, 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 |