of the fighting men of the population, left an open field to the operation of disorganizing causes.

Strabo has a remarkable passage, though one in which he makes no particular reference to Homer, on the subject of the invasions and displacements of one race by another. These, he says, had indeed been known before the Trojan war: but it was immediately upon the close of the war, and then after that period, that they gained head: μάλιστα μὲν οὖν κατὰ τὰ Τρωικά, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα, τὰς ἐφόδους γένεσθαι καὶ τὰς μεταναστάσεις συνέβη, τῶν τε βαρβάρων ἅμα καὶ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ὁρμῇ τινὶ χρησαμένων πρὸς τὴν τῶν ἀλλοτρίων κατάκτησιν. Οf this the Odyssey affords some curious indications.

Among many alleged and some real shades of difference between the poems, we may note two of a considerable political significance: the word King in the Odyssey has acquired a more lax signification, and the word Queen, quite unknown to the Iliad, has come into free use.

It will be shown how strictly, in the Iliad, the term Barides, with its appropriate epithets, is limited to the very first persons of the Greek armament. Now in the Odyssey there are but two States, with the organization of which we have occasion to become in any degree acquainted one of them Scheria, the other Ithaca. Of the first we do not see a great deal, and the force of the example is diminished by the avowedly mythical or romantic character of the delineation: but the fact is worthy of note, that in Scheria we find there are twelve kings of the country, with Alcinous, the thirteenth, as their superior and head. It is far more important and historically significant that, in the limited

a B. xii. 8, 4. p. 572.

b Od. viii. 391. vi. 54.

Altered meaning of King'

19

and comparatively poor dominions of Ulysses, there are now many kings. For Telemachus says",

ἀλλ ̓ ἤτοι βασιλῆες ̓Αχαιῶν εἰσὶ καὶ ἄλλοι

πολλοὶ ἐν ἀμφιάλῳ Ἰθάκῃ, νέοι ἠδὲ παλαιοί.

His meaning must be to refer to the number of nobles who were now collected, from Cephallonia and the other dominions of Ulysses, into that island. The observation is made by him in reply to the Suitor Antinous, who had complained of his bold language, and hoped he never would be king in Ithaca:

μὴ σέ γ' ἐν ἀμφιάλῳ Ἰθάκῃ βασιλῆα Κρονίων

ποιήσειεν, ὅ τοι γενεῇ πατρώϊόν ἐστιν.

It is, I think, clear, that in this place Antinous does not mean merely, I hope you will not become one of us,' which might be said in reference merely to the contingency of his assuming the controul of his paternal estates, but that he refers to the sovereignty properly so called for Telemachus, after having said there are many Barnes in Ithaca, proceeds to say, 'Let one of them be chosen', or 'one of these may be chosen, to succeed Ulysses ;'

τῶν κέν τις τόδ ̓ ἔχῃσιν, ἐπεὶ θάνε διος Οδυσσεύς. 'but let me,' he continues, 'be master of my own house and property.' Thus we have Bariλe's bearing two senses in the very same passage. First, it means the noble, of whom there are many in the country, and it is here evidently used in an improper sense; secondly, it means the person who rules the whole of them, and it is here as evidently employed in its original and proper signification. It seems very doubtful, however, whether, even in the Odyssey, the relaxed sense ever appears as a simple title in the singular number. The only signs of it are these; Antinous is told that he is like a kingd in d Od. xvii. 416.

b Od. i. 394.

c Ibid. 386.

appearance; and he is also expressly called Baries in the strongly and generally suspected vexvia of the Twentyfourth Book. So again, the kingly epithet AcorρEDÈS is not used in the singular for any one below the rank of a Bariλes of the Iliad, except once, where, in addressing Agelaus the Suitor, it is employed by Melanthius, the goatherd, one of the subordinate adherents and parasites of that partyf.

This relaxation in the sense of Bariλeus, definite and limited as is its application in the Iliad, is no inconsiderable note of change.

Equally, or more remarkable, is the introduction in the Odyssey of the words δέσποινα and βασίλεια, and the altered use of ἄνασσα.

1. déoπowa is applied, Od. iii. 403, to the wife of Pisistratus, son of Nestor; to Arete, queen of the Phæacians, Od. vii. 53, 347; to Penelope, Od. xiv. 9, 127,451; XV. 374 7; xvii. 83; xxiii. 2.

2. avaσoa is applied in the Iliad, xiv. 326, to Ceres only; but in the Odyssey, besides Minerva, in Od. iii. 380, Ulysses applies it twice to Nausicaa, in Od. vi. 149, 175; apparently in some doubt whether she is a divinity or a mortal. I would not however dwell strongly on this distinction between the poems; for we seem to find substantially the human use of the word ἄνασσα in the name of Agamemnon's daughter, Ίφιάvaroa, which is used in Il. ix. 145.

3. Barthela is used many times in the Odyssey; and Βασιλεία is applied to

a. Nausicaa, Od. vi. 115.

b. Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, Od. xi. 258; but only in the phrase βασίλεια γυναικῶν, which seems to resemble δια γυναικῶν.

e Od. xxiv. 179.

Od. xxii. 136.

c. Arete, queen of the Phæacians, Od. xiii. 59. d. Penelope, Od. xvi. 332, 7: and elsewhere. Now it cannot be said that the use of the word is forborne in the Iliad from the want of fit persons to bear it; for Hecuba, as the wife of Priam, and Helen, as the wife of Paris, possibly also Andromache, (though this is much more doubtful,) were all of a rank to have received it: nor can we account for its absence by their appearing only as Trojans; for the title of Bariλeus is frequently applied to Priam, and it is likewise assigned to Paris, though to no other member of the Trojan royal family.

We have also two other cases in the Iliad of women who were queens of some kind. One is that of Hypsipyle, who apparently exercised supreme powerh in Lemnos, but we are left to inference as to its character: the other is the mother of Andromache1, ἡ βασίλευεν ὑπὸ Πλάκῳ ὑληέσσῃ.

She was what we term a Queen consort, for her husband Eetion was alive at the time. In the Odyssey we are told that Chloris, whom Neleus married, reigned at Pylos; de Пúλov Baσíλeve, Od. xi. 285. In this place the word Bariλeve may perhaps imply the exercise of sovereign power. Be this as it may, the introduction of the novel title of Queen betokens political movement.

There are other signs of advancing change in the character of kingship discernible from the Odyssey, which will be more conveniently considered hereafter. In the meantime, the two which are already before us are, it will be observed, exactly in the direction we might expect from the nature of the Trojan war, and from the tradition of Strabo. We have before us an h Il. vii. 469.

g See inf. Ilios.'

i Il. vi. 395-7. 425.

effort of the country amounting to a violent, and also an unnaturally continued strain; a prolonged absence of its best heads, its strongest arms, its most venerated authorities wives and young children, infants of necessity in many cases, remain at home. It was usual no doubt for a ruler, on leaving his country, to appoint some guardian to remain behind him, as we see from the case of Agamemnon, (Od. iii. 267,) and from the language of Telemachus, (Od. xv. 89); but no regent, deputy, or adviser, could be of much use in that stage of society. Again, in every class of every community, there are boys rapidly passing into manhood; they form unawares a new generation, and the heat of their young blood, in the absence of vigorous and established controul, stirs, pushes forward, and innovates. Once more, as extreme youth, so old age likewise was ordinarily a disqualification for war. And as we find Laertes and Peleus, and Menoetius, with Admetus, besides probably other sovereigns whom Homer has not named to us, left behind on this account, so there must have been many elderly men of the class of nobles (άριστῆες, ἔξοχοι ἄνδρες) who obtained exemption from actual service in the war. There is too every appearance that, in some if not all the states of Greece, there had been those who escaped from service on other grounds; perhaps either from belonging to the elder race, which was more peculiarly akin to Troy, or from local jealousies, or from the love of ease. For in Ithaca we find old men, contemporaries and seniors of Ulysses, who had taken no part in the expedition; and there are various towns mentioned in different parts of the poems, which do not appear from the Catalogue to have made any contribution to the force. Such were possibly the various places bearing the name of Ephyre, and with higher likelihood