GIFT OF 
 MICHAEL REESE 
 
t~ 
 
LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY 
 
 i 
 
LANDMARKS 
 
 OF 
 
 HOMERIC STUDY 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 AN ESSAY ON THE POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN 
 
 THE ASSYRIAN TABLETS AND THE 
 
 HOMERIC TEXT 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 London 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 I 890 
 
 A I! rights re serried 
 

 ^^<^y>^ 
 
M-0 2 7 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 SECTION PAGE 
 
 ^1. The Homeric Question i 
 
 II. Homer as Nation-Maker 30 
 
 III. Homer as Religion-Maker 56 
 
 IV. Rudiments of Ethics 89 
 
 V. Rudiments of Politics 97 
 
 \/ VI. Plot of the Iliad . 106 
 
 VII. The Geography of the Poems . . . .114 
 
 ON THE POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN THE 
 ASSYRIAN TABLETS AND THE HOMERIC 
 
 TEXT 127 
 
If THE ' 
 
 EB8ITY 
 
 SECTION I 
 
 THE HOMERIC QUESTION 
 
 By the use of the term Homerology, I desire 
 to mark the fact, that the study of the Homeric 
 text is not like the examination of an ordinary 
 literary record. That text covers the whole field 
 of human experience for what may be called an 
 organic period in the rise of a most important 
 race, and includes the delineation of an age. 
 This field of history is more limited, without 
 doubt, as to time, than Egyptology or Assyriology, 
 considered in each case as the study of the re- 
 spective monuments. But it is far more minute 
 and diversified in its presentation of human life, 
 experience, character, and thoughts. It is in 
 
2 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 effect, therefore, as I contend, to be treated as a 
 distinct branch of ancient science. 
 
 II 
 
 Apart from all literary uses and enjoyment of 
 the Poems, that separate and early age of human 
 history, to which they introduce us, is one of 
 which many precious and determining features 
 had in the classical times of Greece been either 
 greatly obscured, or even altogether lost. This re- 
 mark applies especially, though not exclusively, to 
 the religion of the nation. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The most serious of all the impediments to a 
 right comprehension of Homer in modern times 
 has been that the picture of life, manners, and 
 religion, which he draws, has been viewed through 
 the discolouring medium of the Latin literature 
 and mythology. Through the whole period of 
 Roman predominance, and during the long slumber 
 of the Greek language and of all Hellenism in the 
 West, these were in exclusive possession of the 
 field. Nor were they in the slightest degree 
 
THE HOMERIC QUESTION 
 
 displaced, so far as Homer was concerned, at the 
 Renascence. This Latin medium, instead of 
 merely transmitting the light, disintegrated it, 
 and gave a false effect. 
 
 IV 
 
 Of this overshadowing and darkening influence, 
 exercised through the Latin tongue, it may be 
 worth while to supply a few illustrations. 
 
 1. It supplanted not only the genuine Homeric 
 name of Achaians, but the classical appellations 
 of Hellas and Hellenes ; and imposed the desig- 
 nations of Graecia and Graeci, which had no early 
 link with the country or the language, except in 
 the single and perfectly insignificant word Graia^ 
 once mentioned in the text of the Iliad. 
 
 2. It bridged over the entire interval between 
 ancient and modern history, and disguised the 
 nature of the transition, necessary to be effected in 
 order to reach the prehistoric time of Homer. 
 
 3. Such was the influence of the Latin tongue 
 in the Middle Ages that, at the opening of the 
 fourteenth century, Dante was advised to write his 
 immortal Poem in Latin, as being still the language 
 of literature and thought. And, later in that 
 
4 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 century, Petrarch founded all his anticipations of 
 fame upon his Latin works, now in great measure 
 forgotten. 
 
 4. On the revival of printing, the Athenian 
 Thucydides, prince of historians, was not intro- 
 duced to the world until about 1480, and was 
 then presented in a Latin translation. The 
 princeps edition of his text only appeared in 1 502, 
 from the press of Aldus. 
 
 More pointedly, the mischief has been due in 
 a great degree to the paramount rank deservedly 
 held by Virgil among the Latin poets. This 
 result was aided by the vast influence of Dante, 
 who, in electing the great Court-poet for his guide 
 to the Underworld, thereby pushed forward his 
 design of presenting the modern Western Empire 
 as the heir to the Emperors of Rome. Now, 
 however splendid may be the merits of Virgil on 
 his own ground, it cannot, I conceive, be doubted 
 that he wholly reverses the relative positions held 
 by the two great peoples of the Iliad : and that 
 he very largely hides or vitiates the traditions of 
 Homer as to characters, manners, and religion. 
 
THE HOMERIC QUESTION 
 
 VI 
 
 Next to this grave cause of dislocation and 
 perversion, and perhaps almost as hurtful, has 
 been the belief, so widely accepted in modern 
 times without the trouble of examination, that 
 Homer was an Asiatic Greek,^ and therefore a 
 person born after the barbarising invasion of the 
 Dorians. He is thus cut off from the heroic 
 period, brought into connection with times and 
 manners long posterior to his own, and subjected 
 to the falsifying interpretations which alone those 
 times and manners provide. 
 
 VII 
 
 Further, the great Eastward migration of the 
 subdivided Hellenic races, that had been expelled 
 from the Greek Peninsula by the Dorian conquest, 
 opened new and varied channels, through which 
 there were imported among the Hellenes, and 
 uplifted into a commanding position, fresh supplies 
 of Asiatic traditions, from sources with which, 
 
 1 I notice with pleasure the work of Thiersch (Halberstadt, 1832), 
 Ueher das Zeitalter unci Vaterland des Homer, oder Beweis dass 
 Homer vor dem Einfall der Heracliden im Peloponnes geleht habe. 
 
6 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 apparently, the primitive immigrants into Greece 
 had not been placed in contact. These fresh 
 supplies enlarged, coloured, and distorted the 
 older and simpler traditions, of which Homer is 
 the recorder. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Whatever the cause or causes may be, it has 
 happened, as matter of fact, that speculation about 
 Homer for generations occupied the ground which 
 should rather have been covered by careful ex- 
 amination of his text, and by the results of such 
 examination. There never had been in modern 
 times, until the present century was well advanced, 
 any close, minute, and comprehensive study of 
 the matters contained in the Poems. Moreover, 
 this method of persistent speculation on the origin 
 of the Poems, which has, so to speak, buzzed in 
 the air around them, and given scope for so many 
 ingenious though discordant theories, greatly 
 dulled the edge of all searching perception of the 
 contents. 
 
 IX 
 
 It can hardly, however, be denied that a certain 
 share in the trial of the question as to the unity 
 
THE HOMERIC QUESTION 
 
 and authority of the Poems belongs to what may 
 be termed the higher criticism. By this I under- 
 stand that careful observation of the qualities, 
 and the methods, of the Maker or Poet himself, 
 which has been so largely applied to Shakespeare 
 in literature, and very generally to the most 
 distinguished artists in other branches. And yet 
 how small a space, in comparison with other 
 elements, does this vast and varied subject occupy 
 in the negative or sceptical Homeric literature. 
 
 X 
 
 By the facts, or contents, of the Poems, most 
 conveniently set forth in the German word Realien, 
 I understand all particulars drawn from the text, 
 in its parts or as a whole, which may be illustrative 
 either of the Poet himself or of what he saw and 
 sang : of the world and the lands and the time in 
 which, and of the men among whom he lived, of 
 the ideas of those men, and their actions, and the 
 whole equipment of their life. 
 
 XI 
 
 The student seriously set upon mastering the 
 
Y 
 
 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY 
 
 contents of the text will, in all likelihood, first be 
 struck by their enormous mass ; then by their 
 variety ; and perhaps last, but most of all, by their 
 consistency^ As respects the point last named, it 
 is noteworthy that, while many writers have shown 
 to their own satisfaction that the Poems must be 
 ascribed to a diversity of sources, the monogra- 
 phists, usually German, in their humbler but per- 
 haps more useful office, have found them as a rule 
 consistent, whereas, if they had sprung from a 
 number of sources, they must have been frequently 
 divergent ; have treated them as exhibiting a 
 unity of the designing mind, and of the picture 
 drawn ; and have themselves essentially contri- 
 buted, in their several departments, to establish 
 that unity. 
 
 XII 
 
 The extraction and arrangement of the contents 
 of Homer was begun by Everard Feith, whose 
 volume of moderate size was published in 1743, 
 under the title, Antiqiiitatum Hoinericarum Libri 
 IV. He was followed by Terpstra in 1831 with 
 his Antiquitas Homerica. A more serious but still 
 very inadequate effort was that of Friedreich, who 
 published in 1856, and who first adopted the com- 
 
THE HOMERIC QUESTION 
 
 prehensive title of Realien. As the commencement 
 had been German, so the honour of a complete 
 performance, of the task was reserved to Germany. 
 After years of Homeric study, Dr. Buchholz of 
 Berlin, whose death we have now to lament, 
 published the first portion of his extended and 
 systematic work, Die Homerische Realien^ in 1871, 
 and the last in August 1885. 
 
 Throughout this important production, the author 
 has combined in a single text the Realien them- 
 selves and his interpretation of them. It may be 
 a question whether the value of the work as an aid 
 to the student might not even be enhanced, if the 
 facts and the interpretation were to be separately 
 presented. Be this as it may, it is perhaps not 
 too much to say that the vast multitude and mass 
 of particulars now collected out of the Poems, and 
 thoroughly digested, each of necessity witnessing 
 in its degree for or against the rest, are likely to 
 supply a far more conclusive test of the unity of 
 the works, and of the nearness of the Poet to the 
 men and things he deals with, as well as of his 
 aims, than loose speculation, or even testimonies 
 which do not ascend to the source, or to an age 
 near it, in date or in associations. 
 
lo LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Without doubt, Homer sang for bread ; but the 
 particulars, both of the Iliad and of the Odyssey, 
 clearly show us that the men, to and for whom he 
 sang, pre-eminently valued the links which bound 
 them to preceding times. Witness the institution, 
 dignity, and influence of the Bards ; the prevalence 
 and familiarity of patronymics, which kept freshly 
 alive the idea of lineal descent ; the use of the more 
 vivid imagery of genealogies, such as we find in 
 Homer, to serve the purposes of chronology, in an 
 age anterior to the use of formal record and ex- 
 tended numeration ; the historic purpose assigned 
 to the monuments of departed heroes; the accounts 
 carefully given of the settlement of countries or 
 districts (such as Scherie, for example, in Od. VII.) ; 
 and the abundance of pre-Troic legends in the 
 Iliad, sometimes introduced in situations where the 
 actual recital would have been inconvenient or 
 incongruous. All this testifies to the strength and 
 activity of the historic aim of the Poet. 
 
THE HOMERIC QUESTION 
 
 XIV 
 
 The external testimonies^ concerning the 
 Homeric Poems are scanty, superficial, late, and in 
 some cases certainly erroneous. They are so late, 
 indeed, that the earliest of them is dated six cen- 
 turies after the reputed era of the Dorian Revolu- 
 tion. It is impossible to build upon them any solid, 
 or even any consistent, history of the Poems. They 
 are in themselves of doubtful interpretation ; and 
 they require largely to be pieced together by hypo- 
 theses, no one of which has obtained any semblance 
 of general acceptance. One or two of them how- 
 ever are supported by antecedent probability. 
 
 XV 
 
 It is a question of cardinal and governing im- 
 portance what is the true method of Homeric 
 study, as between the following alternatives of 
 treating the fundamental questions of unity and 
 authorship. One is to reason upon and from such 
 meagre testimonies as antiquity has left us respect- 
 ing their origin and formation. One is to break 
 
 ^ These testimonies have been summarily noticed by Mure in his 
 Literature of Ancient Greece, vol. ii. pp. 181-183 ; and likewise in my 
 own Homeric Studies (Oxford, 1858), vol. i. pp. 47-55. 
 
12 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 them up into several independent works, on the 
 ground of individual conjecture. And a third is, 
 steadily to mine deeper and deeper into the text 
 by observation and comparison, with the valuable 
 aids which have been supplied by the archaeological 
 researches of the last half century. This method 
 of handling the text involves a provisional, but 
 only a provisional, assumption of its unity. 
 
 I propose, as the most reasonable and the most 
 fruitful, the last-named of these three methods. 
 
 XVI 
 
 By the essential unity of the Poems I mean 
 not only that of each Poem in itself, but of the 
 two Poems. True, their forming conjointly one 
 authentic picture of a certain age and country does 
 not of itself absolutely imply the unity of their 
 authorship. The main implication, however, is that 
 which concerns the contents, and which combines 
 the innumerable particulars of human life and 
 history furnished by the Poems into one body of 
 evidence descriptive of a given race at a given 
 time. 
 
THE HOMERIC QUESTION 13 
 
 XVII 
 
 But though individuality, or singleness of 
 authorship, be not of necessity implied in the 
 term of unity thus understood, it will, nevertheless, 
 probably be found that any departure from the 
 hypothesis of singleness embarrasses much more 
 than relieves the inquirer. The extreme solution 
 of Bentley, the more moderate but thoroughly 
 unpoetical suggestion of Grote, the modest and 
 more ancient scheme of the Chorizontes^ or 
 separators of the authorship of the Iliad from 
 that of the Odyssey, only dismiss minor or 
 imaginary difficulties in order to bring into the 
 field others of a more formidable kind. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Again, it has happened that certain features of 
 one or both Poems, which have been put forward 
 as principal grounds for controverting the unity 
 of authorship, are converted into substantive 
 evidences in favour of that unity, when we have 
 widened our researches by taking into view the 
 fact that Homer was conversant, of course in 
 
14 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 different degrees, first with an inner sphere or 
 zone of geography, known to him by experience, 
 and secondly, and far less definitely, with an 
 outer sphere or zone, known to him only by 
 report. This outer sphere is not inhabited by 
 people of his own stock. And so it comes about 
 that the meaning of the supposed discrepancies, 
 in mythology or manners, between the Iliad and 
 the Odyssey^ probably is that they deal, except 
 within Greece and in Ithaca itself, with separate 
 races, and with non-Hellenic varieties of religion. 
 If the manner of handling be the same, much diver- 
 sity of matter is what we should naturally expect 
 a skilled and conscientious artist to present. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Since the study of Homer commenced its first 
 modern development in the eighteenth century, 
 most important additions have been made to our 
 knowledge by archeeological research in points 
 directly related to the Homeric text This has 
 occurred particularly in Egypt, in Assyria, in 
 Troas, and at Mycenae. Entirely new views have 
 now been opened of the opportunities which may 
 
I THE HOMERIC QUESTION 15 
 
 have been enjoyed by Homer for receiving and 
 for incorporating in his works both actual foreign 
 knowledge and traditions of the past imported 
 from abroad. 
 
 XX 
 
 Dividing the Homeric literature into two parts, 
 one of them that which reasons about the text, 
 whether from a priori argument or from testi- 
 mony a posteriori^ the other that which reasons 
 out of the text itself, and speaking first of the 
 latter of these methods, I cannot but observe that 
 there exist works of early date, such as Wood 
 On the Genius and Writings of Horner^ and such 
 as Miiller's Hoinerische Versc/mle, which deserve 
 respect in reference to their pioneering office, but 
 which, in other respects, have probably been 
 injurious. They do not indeed pass by the 
 contents of the Poems, but they are extremely 
 slight and insufficient in dealing with them, while 
 they have, through early possession of the field, 
 exercised a large influence on the current course 
 of thought and opinion. In respect of their 
 slightness, they stand in marked contrast with the 
 large number of German monographs on par- 
 
i6 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUD Y sec. 
 
 ticular subjects touched in the Poems, which are 
 usually distinguished by remarkable comprehen- 
 siveness and care. 
 
 XXI 
 
 This examination of the text has now pro- 
 ceeded to so forward a stage, partly through 
 monographs, and partly by means of comprehen- 
 sive synthesis of the Homeric world and life, that 
 the pervading community and consistency of the 
 contents remains but little open to question. It 
 has therefore become, to say the least, allowable 
 to regard them not only as a whole, but as a 
 historic whole. 
 
 XXII 
 
 Such acceptance, as is here recommended, of 
 the Poems as a historic whole, does not of itself 
 require us to believe either that the received text 
 is absolutely pure, or that the events purporting 
 to be historical actually happened, or that the 
 personages lived, as it is recited that they lived 
 and happened respectively. All that is absolutely 
 required by it is to admit that the Ih'ad and 
 Odyssey exhibit to us a true rendering of life and 
 
I THE HOMERIC QUESTION 17 
 
 manners, at a given time and within a given local 
 circumscription. The body of the Poems may 
 conceivably be to a large extent factitious, and yet 
 their soul may be in the highest sense historical, 
 the one being, as it were, a parable of the other. 
 
 And it follows a fortiori that the idea of rifacci- 
 mento^ or linguistic manipulation without corre- 
 sponding departure from manners, is a question 
 left open indeterminately to the judgments of 
 competent inquirers. It is one for which I do 
 not possess the necessary qualifications. 
 
 xsnT 
 
 Nevertheless I cannot but deem it probable 
 that the larger questions involved in the admissions 
 last made will have to be ultimately determined 
 by internal evidence : by the strength, namely, 
 of that web of cohesion and consistency which 
 supplies the nexus of the contents, and shows how 
 almost every line is related to some, if not every 
 other line. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Again it may happen, as in the case of the 
 negative speculations concerning unity and author- 
 
 C 
 
i8 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 ship, SO also in relation to the Troic events, that by 
 resolving them into pure invention, or into figures, 
 such as (for example) the solar theory, we only 
 exchange smaller for greater difficulties, and lose 
 much to gain little. For, if the recitals are of- 
 facts, they are of great facts, with a great meaning, 
 which projects itself into the general history of the 
 world. For it exhibits a principal stage in the 
 formation of a nationality which is, to speak with 
 moderation, one among the greatest in the whole 
 range of human history, and which has exercised 
 a vast shaping force upon the characters of other 
 nationalities, and upon the whole civilisation of 
 modern times. 
 
 XXV 
 
 On the other hand, there are important liberties, 
 which still remain intact for those who have found 
 themselves constrained by the evidence to believe 
 in the Poems not only as soul-history but as fact- 
 history. For example, they may exercise a free 
 discretion upon the two following classes of cases. 
 
 The first, that of incidents which lie outside the 
 range of ordinary human experience, like the 
 Theophanies, and in fact the entire Theurgy of 
 the Poems. 
 
I THE HOMERIC QUESTION 19 
 
 The second, that of matters where the Poet, 
 following the laws of his art, may have idealised 
 the facts and persons with whom he had to deal, 
 so as to bring them up to the standard of the best 
 and most effective representation, for the enhance- 
 ment of instruction and delight. For example, 
 the most finely elaborated characters, such as those 
 of Achilles, Odysseus, and Helen ; or the three 
 decades of years — the preliminary, the principal, 
 and the epilogistic or concluding, which together 
 make up the full cycle of the transactions associ- 
 ated with the fall of Troy. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Like the pre-Troic legends of human history in 
 the Iliad^ so the Archaic and foreign legends of 
 Olympos are introduced with a high art-purpose. 
 The latter throw light on the genius and structure 
 of the religion, the former performing the same 
 office for the nation. To some of these legends 
 no key has yet been found. But in other cases a 
 design is sufficiently discernible. For example, 
 the journey of Zeus and the Olympian Court in 
 the first Iliad to the banquet of the Aithiopes, 
 
20 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 indicates that the knowledge of Homer went 
 beyond the Achaian limits, and that his gods 
 had, in his view, essential points of community 
 with the gods of other races. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 If, in every case where legends of gods or men 
 are introduced in the speeches of the Poems, we 
 suppose Homer to have intended a representation 
 of fact as to persons, times, and places, the result is 
 absurd. For instance, when Achilles in the first 
 book is persuading his mother Thetis to prefer the 
 grand petition to Zeus for the satisfaction of the 
 Wrath, he details to her in full an Olympian legend, 
 which he says that he had often heard her recite 
 in his father's halls, and of which, therefore, it could 
 not be necessary for him to acquaint her with all 
 the particulars (//. I. 396-412). Again, when 
 Glaukos meets Diomed in arms on the battlefield, 
 instead of fighting they interchange speeches run- 
 ning through nearly a hundred lines (VI. 122- 
 211), of which the chief part is a history of the 
 life of Bellerophon, the great Lycian ancestor. 
 This is utterly incongruous as an incident in the 
 
I THE HOMERIC QUESTION 21 
 
 day's battle, but most instructive as explaining 
 the derivation of an Achaian race from Lycia, and 
 the high position held by the Lycians in the war. 
 The explanation of such legends is to be found in 
 recognising the historic intention of the Poet, who 
 by a strong use of licence wove into his text long 
 passages which break his narrative, but which have 
 their justification in the deep interest that they 
 possessed for his hearers. There can be no good 
 ground for doubting that this was done to forward 
 the wide historic aim of the Poem, which carried 
 him far back into the past. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Upon this idea, however, a question may justly 
 be. put. If Homer introduces these passages into 
 the Poem in order to feed the appetite of his] 
 hearers for their national traditions, why are they ' 
 found in the speeches and not in the narrative, 
 which at first sight would appear to be their 
 proper place ? Here we touch upon a striking 
 peculiarity of Homer as compared with other 
 Epic poets. His narrative is usually short and ] 
 simple : his speeches not only incessant, and often 
 
LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 long, but never merely ornamental or reflective, 
 and always so contrived as to advance the action. 
 This is the manner of the drama, to which Homer 
 approaches in a degree unknown elsewhere. The 
 spirit of both the Poems is intensely and vividly 
 dramatic. And these legends, though they might 
 theoretically have found a more appropriate place 
 in the narrative, would, if so placed, have laid a 
 much heavier weight on the elastic movement of 
 the works, especially of the Iliad^ to which these 
 remarks principally apply. They find a direct 
 illustration in the speech of Glaukos (//. VI.) 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Even more important than the speech of Glaukos 
 is the great legend put into the mouth of Thetis 
 by Achilles in the first Iliad. The immediate 
 purpose of the hero is to prove to his mother her 
 power, and thereby to leave her no room for 
 evading compliance with his request. This he 
 does by showing how Zeus was indebted to her, 
 and was bound to pay the debt on her demand. 
 So we have a description of the convulsion brought 
 about in the religious system of the country by 
 
I THE HOMERIC QUESTION 23 
 
 the conflict of the various elements, imported into 
 it by its various races, and not, as yet, thoroughly 
 compounded. And the method of the reconcilia- 
 tion is exhibited by representing Thetis, who 
 herself belonged mythologically to the order 
 of Nature Powers, as the agent whose activity 
 and resource brought the several influences into 
 harmony under the sovereignty of Zeus. 
 
 X XX 
 
 The question whether the Poems were written, 
 or recited without writing, may be taken, I conceive, 
 as settled in favour of the latter opinion. 
 
 The mode in which the Iliad mentions, in one 
 or two passages, the use of inscribed signs to 
 convey ideas of itself goes far to prove that the 
 Achaians knew no form of writing available for 
 the transmission of Poems exceeding respectively 
 15,000 and 12,000 lines. 
 
 Particular passages may supply strong arguments 
 against the contrary hypothesis. The Preface to 
 the Catalogue represents it as a great effort ; and 
 so it was for memory, because there is no such 
 nexus in reciting a list of places as in a series of 
 connected events or ideas. But if the Poems were 
 
24 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 written compositions, to frame the Catalogue would 
 require less and not more than the ordinary effort. 
 It seems probable that the unwise denial of 
 Wolfs introductory contention against the writing 
 of the Poems, by its explosion made a breach in the 
 wall, through which came in a flood of scepticism 
 unsustained by reason concerning the Poems. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 An opinion has been held, though it has not 
 prevailed to any wide extent, that the diction of 
 the two Poems respectively differs in date, as well 
 as that the diction of both, and especially of the 
 Odyssey^ savours of a late age. While leaving these 
 questions to students who have special qualifications, 
 I venture to interject a remark on what we term 
 style in the Poems. There is no author of any 
 date who has a more marked style than Homer : 
 there are very few who come near him in this par- 
 ticularity. It is impossible to take five or ten 
 consecutive lines from any part of the Poems 
 (though I admit a certain heaviness, and declension 
 of spirit, in Od. XXIV.) which could possibly be 
 ascribed to any one except Homer ; this observation 
 
I THE HOMERIC QUESTION 25 
 
 embraces both the Poems. I find it difficult to 
 
 conceive how this unity and particularity of style 
 
 could have been maintained in works largely 
 
 patched, and made up as to their form, by later 
 
 hands. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Notwithstanding that some few pleas may be 
 urged to a contrary effect, the Iliad and the Odyssey 
 bear conclusive marks of the same parentage. 
 Among them are these : but nothing more than 
 specimens of argument can be here given. 
 
 1 . The Homeric style of each severs them from 
 all other works. 
 
 2. The mythological variations fit in with true 
 ethnical conceptions as to the two geographical 
 zones respectively, and are therefore such as we 
 should have reason to expect from the author of 
 the Iliad. 
 
 3. That two such master poets should spring 
 from a race insignificant in numbers at the same or 
 nearly the same time, each of them isolated and each 
 consummate, is of the very highest improbability. 
 
 4. The supreme, and except by Shakespeare 
 unapproached, faculty of drawing character, is 
 common in the fullest sense to the two Poems. 
 
26 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 5. The particular characters, as they appear in 
 each, are in the finest correspondence with one 
 another. 
 
 6. The characters of particular gods, hardly less 
 remarkable as portraits than those of the men, 
 present in the two Poems the same radical harmony 
 as the human characters. 
 
 7. The coincidences of the class which we term 
 undesigned will be found almost countless, and 
 their collective strength might appear irresistible. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 It may be right to supply a few specimens of 
 these coincidences. They might be indefinitely 
 multiplied. 
 
 1. The strong family affections of Odysseus are 
 a leading feature of the Odyssey. In the Iliad 
 he is the only chieftain who mentions his absent 
 son : and he does it with tenderness and exultation 
 (//.IT. 260; IV. 3 54). 
 
 2. With the high prerogatives assigned to the 
 use of speech in the Iliad^ may be compared the 
 striking reply of Odysseus {Od. VIII. 169-174). 
 
 3. In the two spondaic lines of the Odyssey 
 
I THE HOMERIC QUESTION 27 
 
 there is the same evident relation of sound to sense 
 as in the three of the Iliad. 
 
 4. The later mythology gives horses to the sun : 
 but they are alike withheld in both the Poems. 
 
 5. The free use of proper names in considerable 
 numbers to describe by their etymology occupation v 
 and race, and so to assist in drawing main lines 
 
 of the plan, is common to both the Poems. See 
 //. XVIII. 39-49; and Od. IX. 111-117. 
 
 6. Compare the appeal of Thetis to Zeus (//. I. 
 503-5 16), and her plea of personal disparagement 
 
 in the event of refusal, with that of Poseidon {Od. \^ 
 XIII. 128-138). 
 
 7. Apollo in //. XXI. 468, declines fighting 
 with Poseidon, as being his uncle. Athene, in 
 Od. VI. 329, for the same reason will not act 
 openly in Scherie on behalf of Odysseus. 
 
 8. As to delicacy in the exposure of the person, / 
 compare Od. VI. 218-222, with //. XXII. 75, and 
 conversely with //. II. 262. 
 
 9. Thought is used as an emblem of rapid 
 motion in Od. VII. 36, and in //. XV. 80-82. That 
 is to say, once, and once only, in each Poem an 
 abstract idea is employed to illustrate corporeal 
 movement. 
 
/ 
 
 28 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 10. In //. IX. 70, it is signified that a ruler 
 ought to entertain his friends hospitably : and also 
 in Od. XL 184-186. 
 
 11. The epithet ^eto? is used in both Poems 
 with a reserve altogether singular. (See Mure, 
 Literature of Greece, vol. ii. p. 81.) 
 
 12. It is never applied in either Poem to any 
 living person or class, except a king, a herald, a 
 bard, or one of the two protagonists. 
 
 13. Poseidon travels freely in both Poems: 
 but when he appears specially in the character of 
 sea-god, both Poems give him Aigai as his dwell- 
 ing (//. XIII. 10-31 ; Od. V. 381). 
 
 J 4. A good repute in public opinion is highly 
 valued, and the want of it keenly felt. See //. IX. 
 460 (Phoinix), and Od. VI. 29, 273 (Nausicaa). 
 
 15. A peculiar designating force of the Greek 
 article without other specification is found in both 
 the Poems, e.g. II. I. 1 1 ; Od. III. 299. 
 
 16. While Themis has no substantial part or 
 clear impersonation in either Poem, she has peculiar 
 dignity in both. In the Iliad she presides at the 
 Olympian feast (XV. 95), and summons the greater 
 Assembly (XX. IV.) In the Odyssey she is, with 
 Zeus, the object of the prayer of Telemachos (II. 6?>). 
 
I THE HOMERIC QUESTION 29 
 
 17. Ares is the paramour of Aphrodite in Od, 
 VIII. ; and is placed in peculiar sympathy with her 
 in the Iliad^ when he lends his chariot (V. 347-363), 
 and when he is led off by her after his defeat 
 (XXI. 416). 
 
 18. A wife is promised to Hephaistos by Here 
 in the Iliad where the mythology is Hellenic : but 
 in the Odyssey^ where for the outer zone it is 
 eastern, Aphrodite is his wife. 
 
 19. The character of Aphrodite is disparaged 
 by Homer in a manner quite peculiar to himself: 
 and this is common to both the Poems. In the 
 case of the daughters of Pandarus, she is not even 
 goddess of Beauty. 
 
SECTION II 
 
 HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 
 
 All through the Poems of Homer, but especially 
 in the Iliad^ we trace an aim which was before all 
 things national. Everywhere he forms and fosters 
 the national idea, and equips it at all points. 
 
 He cuts off the Achaians from everything that 
 could bear the aspect of derivation from a foreign 
 land or race, and all the evidences we. can gather 
 on that subject are incidental and undesigned. 
 
 He had to launch into the world what we may 
 term the Greek idea. 
 
 He records with singular care and consistency, 
 through the medium of his genealogies, all that 
 can be linked to the Achaian families subsisting at 
 the Troic period, but he nowhere refers the nation 
 
SEC. II HOMER AS NATION- MAKER 31 
 
 to a foreign origin : nor is he careful to deal with 
 any foreign legend except it be one (such as that 
 of Bellerophon, and that of the Phaiakes) to which 
 he can give an Achaian purpose. 
 
 It is part of his design to isolate his race, and 
 this isolation in the historic times was conspicuous 
 through the familiar distinction between Gre^eks 
 and Barbarians. 
 
 II 
 
 Absorbed in this Greek idea, he gives himself 
 wholly to it, and seems as though he had no 
 superlative care either for heaven or earth, near 
 or far, old or new, except in relation to the 
 Achaian race, which it was his office alike to 
 commemorate and to mould. For other things 
 he cared only in relation to that race. Even his 
 Thearchy was so constructed as above all things 
 to reflect Achaian ideas, Achaian characters, 
 Achaian polity. Uplifting this race, and its ideal 
 out of the mass of things human, he furnishes it 
 with its grand point of departure in the history 
 of the world, on which it has never since ceased 
 to exercise a powerful influence. 
 
32 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 Ill 
 
 As with regard to remote times, so also is it 
 with regard to remote places. In no single case 
 does the Poet verbally relate or admit that the 
 beloved country, to which in its ductile stage of 
 existence he could hardly yet dare to give a 
 name, was in debt to any outside place or person 
 for its qualities, habits, or institutions. Only 
 when we have found certain persons and families 
 to have special relations to particular titles and 
 characteristics of art, manners, and religious tradi- 
 tions, and when we have noted as far as possible 
 the respective starting-points of each, do we 
 obtain indications of the manner in which, through 
 successive immigrations, the factors of the com- 
 posite Greek whole were supplied. 
 
 Though Homer does not speak of autochthons, 
 it is easy to see how, out of this exclusiveness of 
 his, the estimate of autochthonism, as it prevailed 
 in later times, might spring. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Greek nation has at all times been recog- 
 nised more or less definitely as composite. But 
 
II HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 33 
 
 the Poems represent it to us in a period of its 
 composition, nearer by many centuries to the 
 original commencement of the process, than any 
 other record in our possession. We see the course 
 of its genesis still going on ; and the several 
 qualities and attributes of the several constituent 
 factors have not yet been detached from their 
 primary associations, or made common property 
 by complete fusion into a single whole. 
 
 When the historic aim of the Poems has teen 
 taken thoroughly into view, we shall look for the 
 signs of that aim in all cases where it is reason- 
 ably to be inferred. We find them in the record 
 of two remarkable pre-Troic efforts : one that of 
 the two consecutive wars of Achaians against 
 Thebans, who are called Kadmeians, and thereby 
 specially marked with the note of foreign origin ; 
 the other the voyage of the ship Argo, directed 
 against what was traditionally reported as we 
 know from Herodotos to be an Egyptian colony, 
 and thus falling into line with the retaliatory 
 
 invasion of Egypt by revolted peoples, in which 
 
 D 
 
34 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 it has been held that the monuments show the 
 Achaians to have taken part. 
 
 VI 
 
 If the aim of the Poems be historic, their 
 ethnographical features come to be of high 
 interest, since they indicate the distinctions of 
 human manners, pursuits, and religion, as in Od. 
 
 1-3. 
 
 TToXXwz^ S' avOpaiTTCDV Ihev dcrrea koX vbov €'yvoi>* 
 These may be the key which will give us 
 a real access to the great Homeric problems of 
 the actual, and also of the Olympian world ; which, 
 as to ethnical considerations, follows the actual 
 in the manner of its articulation. It is needful 
 therefore to inquire whether there are any 
 primary lights on the face of the Poems, indica- 
 tive of racial origins. 
 
 VII 
 
 The proper names of persons in Homer are 
 very generally the vehicles of ideas. They thus 
 become a ready means for indicating pursuits and 
 qualities, not only of individuals, but, when taken 
 in combination, or formed into groups, for races 
 
II HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 35 
 
 also. They thus become the basis of ethnological 
 inductions. The most plainly demonstrative in- 
 stance is found in the assemblage of sixteen 
 personal names of Phaiakes in Scherie,^ who offer 
 themselves as competitors in the games. Every 
 one of these names is etymologically maritime, with 
 the single exception of Thoon. This, however, 
 is derived from the adjective thoos, which is with 
 Homer a favourite epithet for ships, and signifies 
 the motive power they carry, commonly called by 
 us way. By these names the Phaiakes are 
 pointed out to us as a maritime race ; and, when 
 other particulars are taken into view, ground is 
 laid for connecting them with the Phoinikes. 
 
 VIII 
 
 The great name of Hellas, which reigned 
 supreme in the historic times until the Romans 
 supplanted it for Europe at large by the less 
 appropriate designation of Greece, is found in 
 Homer in various forms — 
 
 a. He names the Helloi or Selloi, vTrocprjrat of 
 1 Od. VIII. Ill -116. 
 
36 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 Zeus, his organs or interpreters at Dodona 
 (//. XVI. 234). 
 
 b. We have the derivative ^ Hellenes (//. 11. 
 
 684) used as a local but not as a general 
 national name. 
 
 c. We have also a national name supplied in 
 
 the compound HaveWrj^^e^ {J^- II. 530) 
 coextensive with Achaioi. 
 
 d. The name Hellas itself appears in many 
 
 passages, but never for the entire country : 
 it may be said to have loosely signified 
 what was afterwards Thessaly. 
 
 e. The designation reappears in the name of 
 
 Kephallenes, meaning in the Iliad the 
 soldiers of Odysseus, in the Odyssey his 
 subjects. 
 
 IX 
 
 The ordinary or stock names of the nation 
 
 ^ The later tradition bore a rude witness to the earlier, in the 
 mythical story that Hellen was the father of three sons, Aiolos, 
 Doros, and Xouthos, and of two grandsons. Ion and Achaios, four 
 of whom became the eponymists of the chief branches of the race. 
 It was only after the great eastward migration that this mythical 
 story could have come into being. Colonel Mure pointed out that 
 the name Hellen was a derivative {Literature of Greece, vol, i. p. 
 39, «.), so the story condemns itself. 
 
II HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 37 
 
 which fought against Troy are three in number, 
 and they are so named by Thucydides in the 
 following order : — 
 
 1. Danaans. 
 
 2. Argeiaris. 
 
 3. Achaians. 
 
 Each appears to correspond with a distinct 
 phase in the settlement of the Greek Peninsula : 
 and each also to betoken one of the three great 
 factors of the Hellenic stock. 
 
 The Achaian name is used, in the masculine 
 gender, with a few cases of the feminine, nearly 
 800 times, to designate the people : the Argeian 
 188 times: the Danaan 147. 
 
 The first is represented in the territorial name 
 Achaiis, the second in Argos ; and both these 
 terms appear to have been familiar. The third is 
 according to all indications the senior of the three 
 appellatives, but is not represented in any terri- 
 torial name, as though it had had less to do, in 
 bulk, with peopling the country, and had thus a 
 slighter hold upon the national tradition. 
 
38 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUD V 
 
 XI 
 
 In following carefully the uses of these several 
 appellatives, it will be found that the Achaian 
 name has a decided leaning to the aristocratic and 
 historically most distinguished portion of the com- 
 munity. The Argeian name leans to the masses. 
 The Danaan is an archaic name, which perhaps 
 had never been in actual use for the whole people, 
 and in the Poems it has a specially military 
 colour. These uses are illustrated by the text of 
 the Odyssey^ where the Danaan name altogether 
 disappears, except in connection with a recital of 
 the war. In this Poem the use of the names is 
 less frequent, but the distinctions between them 
 are maintained. 
 
 XII 
 
 In one passage only of the Poems do we find 
 any two of the three names in combination as 
 adjective and substantive. The line {Od. VIII. 
 538) is as follows — 
 
 ^Kp^eiwv Aavacov ^8' TXtou olrov clkovcov 
 It occurs in a description of Odysseus listening 
 to a Trojan lay, which was sung in the palace of 
 
II HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 39 
 
 Alkinoos. Are we in this place to understand 
 the Argeian Danaans, or the Danaan Argeians ? 
 For I take it as certain that the two words refer 
 to the same subjects. The Danaan name is used 
 twelve times in the Odyssey^ the Argeian (apart 
 from Helen) seventeen. No light is supplied by 
 these facts. The Danaan name is associated with 
 Greece only in the North -Eastern Peloponnesos 
 and long before the war, at the time of contact 
 with and probable subjection to Egypt, and her 
 maritime agents the Phoenicians. Now if Danaan 
 were a Phoenician name, and the Phaiakes were, 
 as appears most probable, of Phoenician line and 
 association, then it seems most appropriate to 
 include in the description of the army before 
 Troy terms of a Phoenician colour ; while avoid- 
 ing confusion by the turn of the phrase, calling 
 them those Danaans who were connected with 
 the Argeian name and country, the Argeian 
 Danaans. 
 
 XIII 
 
 The name Argos in Homer is one of great 
 significance. It is used on special occasions, in 
 //. n. 559, and VI. 52, for the capital of a section 
 
40 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 of the country ; but it is also used to designate 
 the whole country which supplied the army before 
 Troy. Again it is employed in III. 75 and 258, 
 jointly with Achaiis, to designate the entire 
 country. We have some guidance towards the 
 distribution of the territory between the two 
 appellatives in the phrase Argos Achaiicho^z, II. IX. 
 141, 283. This phrase appears probably to mean 
 the Argos which was the centre of Achaian power, 
 namely the Peloponnese. Comparing with these 
 passages the line II. 681, we find Thessaly as 
 a whole to have been designated the Argos 
 Pelasgicon ; and the Zeus of Dodona was (XVI. 
 233) Pelasgic Zeus. Thus the word Argos in its 
 larger sense runs over the entire country, and it is 
 in conformity herewith that the name of Argeioi 
 is applied to the army at large ; while, on the other 
 hand, the characteristic epithet Argeie so often 
 applied to Helen meant Helen of Argos in the 
 narrower sense of the specially Agamemnonian 
 dominion. 
 
 XIV 
 
 While the names of Argeioi and Danaoi both 
 disappear from use in the Odyssey^ excepting in a 
 
II HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 41 
 
 retrospective manner, they differ in this respect 
 that Argeioi has, and Danaoi has not, a leaning 
 towards the mass of the people. Were we to 
 exchange the indeterminate for the determinate, 
 we might say that Danaoi means properly the 
 soldiers, Argeioi the people, Achaioi the chiefs. 
 
 XV 
 
 In support of the special signification which I 
 attach to the word Argeioi^ the following observa- 
 tions may be adduced : — 
 
 a. Its disappearance (except retrospectively) 
 
 from the Odyssey is in close accordance 
 with the fact that in that Poem the Pen- 
 insula and people are never dealt with as 
 a whole, but we have particular persons 
 or districts only brought before us. 
 
 b. It is a territorial rather than a race-name, 
 
 and it stands alone in its embracing the 
 entire territory. 
 
 c. It is never used when the chiefs are spoken of 
 
 distinctively or apart from the army. 
 
 <^. It may be conjectured to mean field-workers : 
 
42 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 as argon^ is an old form of ergon^ and 
 ergon without specialising epithet signifies 
 principally (in the plural) operations of 
 agriculture. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Achaiis is also used as a territorial name, both 
 adjectively with ^(^2(3; (//. I. 254; VII. 124) and 
 substantively (III. 75, 258 ; XI. 769). In two of 
 these passages it is used alone,' and evidently 
 covers the whole country. In XI. 770 it may 
 have the same signification, or may (less probably) 
 be limited to the country to which Achilles and 
 the Hellic people were specially related. In the 
 two passages from the Third Book we have the 
 words, " To horse-feeding Argos, and Achaiis, fair 
 women's land." It is not likely that the Poet 
 would give the epithet fair women's land (Kalli- 
 gunaika) to one portion of the country : and prob- 
 ably the word here means the whole, while Argos 
 is named as the royal and metropolitan province. 
 The Peloponnese is however the Achaic Argos as 
 distinguished from Thessaly the Pelasgian. All 
 Greece was Achaiis, and the inhabitants of its 
 
 ^ Juventus Mundi, p. 54. 
 
II HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 43 
 
 sections were either everywhere or to a large 
 extent called Achaioi, as we may see from //. 
 11. 562, 684, and Od. XXIV. 438. 
 
 XVII 
 
 The proof of my proposition that the Achaian 
 name in the Poems, though frequently applied 
 to the army or nation at large, has a leaning to 
 the chiefs and aristocracy, depends upon a large 
 number of passages. I will take one as, for the 
 Iliad^ instar omnium. In the Teichoscopy, when 
 the armies are gathered in the field, Priam, on the 
 walls, asks Helen for information respecting the 
 persons of different chiefs who are present with 
 their several contingents. First comes Aga- 
 memnon, and the question put is, "Who is this 
 Achaian warrior?" (III. 167). Then comes 
 Odysseus, with another identifying mark. Thirdly, 
 the King points to Aias (or Ajax),and again employs 
 the epithet Achaian as a distinctive word. But 
 he fixes it further by saying, "Who is this other 
 Achaian warrior who stands, taller by head and 
 shoulders, among the Argeians?" (III. 226), 
 evidently meaning the soldiery around him. 
 
44 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 This great name of Achaians overshadows every 
 other. In the course of the Iliad alone it is used I 
 think, in one or other of its grammatical forms, over 
 640 times, and more than twice as often as all the 
 other appellatives put together. It is in fact the 
 true contemporary national name of the people 
 that conquered Troy ; and the undeniable though 
 partial civilisation of that people, the first grand 
 manifestation of Hellenism is, and as I conceive 
 ought to be called, the Achaian civilisation. 
 They may from use be called Greeks, but it is only 
 in a secondary and improper sense. And that 
 secondary sense becomes a very misleading one, 
 if it be allowed to draw off our minds from the 
 fact that this Achaian civilisation is independent 
 and historical, and is somewhat broadly dis- 
 tinguished, sometimes to its great advantage, from 
 the later and more splendid civilisation of Greece. 
 
 XIX 
 
 We are therefore justified in looking, and indeed 
 required, as searchers, to look at the meanings of 
 
II HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 45 
 
 names, whether individual or national, so as not 
 to use them only for the purpose of designation, 
 whenever those meanings can be found, and are 
 illustrative of matters relevant to the purpose of 
 the Poems. This rule will be found to run very 
 far, and to open up some really important parts 
 of the sense which the Poet means to convey. 
 
 XX 
 
 Homer gives the name of Phoinikes to the 
 remarkable maritime people on whom the Greek 
 Peninsula was dependent for all that came to it 
 over sea ; not only in articles of trade, but in 
 knowledge of the arts of life. Their maritime 
 traffic embraced Egypt and Libya as well as the 
 Syrian coast, to say nothing now of the regions 
 westward, so that the name is related in Homer 
 to everything which arrived, and everything which 
 was learned, by ship from the south and south- 
 east. And, in order to embrace this great aggregate 
 in a collective appellation, I call by the name of 
 Phoenicianism everything within the Greek limits 
 that savours of derivation from those quarters. 
 
46 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 XXI 
 
 So far as the text of Homer carries us, we find 
 marked notes of Phoenicianism in the following 
 portions of the Peninsula. 
 
 1. Boeotia, from the (Egyptian) names of Thebai 
 and Hupothebai : the worship of Poseidon at 
 Ongchestos (//. II. 506), which was not a port: 
 the Achaian wars, which are described as against 
 not fellow -Achaians but Kadmeians : and the 
 traditions of Antiope {Od. XL 260-265) and 
 Epicaste {Ibid. 271-280). 
 
 2. The nook of Sikuon, from the legend of 
 Sisuphos in //. VI., and from indications in the 
 Odyssey. 
 
 3. The Western Peloponnese, from the legend 
 of Turo {Od. XI. 235-259), and the position of 
 Nestor with his descent, and his Poseidon-worship, 
 in Od III. 
 
 4. The North-Eastern Peloponnese, from the 
 pre-Troic legends of which it is the seat. 
 
 5. Ithaca, from a combination of very diversi- 
 fied features, requiring to be considered in their 
 aggregate. 
 
HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 47 
 
 XXII 
 
 The legend of Glaukos in //. VI., which with- 
 draws that noble chieftain from an impending 
 conflict with Diomed, in the first place illustrates 
 the uniform care of the Poet to do honour to the 
 Lycian name. Secondly, he gives to Glaukos a 
 Phoenician lineage. For there are no more absol- 
 ute marks of Phcenicianism than the use of the 
 names Ephure and Aiolid (//. VI. 152-154). 
 Thirdly, he places this ancestor of the Lycian 
 chieftain upon the Gulf of Corinth. And fourthly, 
 he declares that there was a hereditary xeinian 
 bond, or bond of hospitality, between Glaukos 
 and a prime Achaian prince and warrior. This 
 example may serve as an indication of the place 
 assigned to the Phoenician element, as one of the 
 grand factors, by settlement in the Peninsula, of 
 the Achaian nation. It also betrays to us the 
 reason of the marked and otherwise inexplicable 
 predilection which the Poet shows for the Lycians 
 among the Trojan epicouroi or allies, namely their 
 kinship with Greece. 
 
48 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 The prayer of //. XVI. (233-249), offered by 
 Achilles to Zeus, is the most remarkable of the 
 many prayers in the Poem. In the fate of Patro- 
 clos, it deals with the central hinge of the Trojan 
 war. In its theology it is purely monotheistic ; 
 and it treats Zeus as the sole arbiter. What we 
 have here specially to note is the importance of 
 this prayer in relation to the Achaian nationality. 
 First Achilles, who offers it, is not only the 
 protagonist of the Poem, constructed on a colossal 
 and almost preter-human scale, but is also, among 
 all the warriors, the one most properly Achaian 
 and Hellenic : and indeed both these names are 
 assigned, with an evident significance, to his 
 contingent alone (//. II. 684). He is the truly 
 national hero in a sense quite distinct from that 
 of the political headship, 'which Homer, possibly, 
 or probably in deference to actual history, has 
 allotted to Agamemnon. Likewise Zeus is the 
 truly national god. Accordingly, he is described 
 as Pelasgic, and as Dodonian ; and this last epithet 
 appears to be illustrated by the introduction of the 
 Helloi, his ministers and votaries, and the source of 
 
II HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 49 
 
 the Hellenic stock. Thus he is associated with 
 two great race-factors of the Achaian nation. For 
 the third or Phoenician factor, however import- 
 ant, was, except in Boeotia, not racial, but existed 
 only in dominant families. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 In this great cardinal prayer there are other 
 points not unworthy of notice. It consecrates, 
 as it were, by a solemn religious Proem, the new 
 departure in the conduct of Achilles, which, from 
 the moment of sending forth Patroclos, on an errand 
 perfectly justified by his computation of relative 
 martial superiority, is consecutive and unchanging 
 throughout. Again it is distinguished, among 
 the Homeric prayers, by its length, and particularity, 
 and by the formality of its Invocation, which, in 
 this case alone, includes a recital concerning the 
 worshippers of the Deity invoked. And further, 
 it is placed on a higher level than that of the 
 other Homeric prayers, by being more strictly 
 intercessory ; it is the prayer of an individual for 
 another individual. 
 
 It is in effect the foundation stone of the whole 
 
 subsequent action of the Poem. 
 
 E 
 
so LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUD V sec. 
 
 XXV 
 
 The connection of Achilles with Homeric 
 nationalism is further exhibited in the following 
 among other ways : — 
 
 1. On the Thearchic side of the Poem he is 
 associated, through his mother Thetis, silver-footed 
 daughter of Nereus, with the old Nature-cult of 
 the country ; while by his father he is descended, 
 in the Aiakid line, from Zeus, now set forth as in 
 the fullest sense the Achaian Zeus. 
 
 2. Although the numerical force of his con- 
 tingent was secondary (fifty ships, II. 685), yet 
 the usual order of the Catalogue is varied, so as 
 to introduce it with a Proem which marks off the 
 whole Pelasgic Argos, or Thessaly, as the region 
 which, if not subject throughout to the sovereignty 
 of his house, yet is assigned to him in this sense, 
 that it is not allowed to contribute any other 
 prominent or important figure to the action of the 
 Poem. Although in the aggregate this region 
 supplies no less than two hundred and eighty 
 ships, the whole stage is kept clear for the one 
 dominant character. 
 
 3. The phrase Pelasgic Argos (II. 681) appears 
 
HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 
 
 to show at least the numerical preponderance of 
 the senior race in this region. But the subjects of 
 Achilles are denominated specially in //. II. 684 
 as Achaians ; and the whole region seems in //. 
 III. 75, 258, to be denoted as the Achaiis of the 
 Poems : a phrase for which it seems difficult to 
 assign a reason except its having produced Achilles. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Except as to the Kadmeians, who have no 
 special significance in the war, the Phoinikes no- 
 where appear in Greece as a people, colony, or 
 race. They are only traceable in the thread- 
 lines of particular families. Their importance can 
 hardly be overrated : but they must be weighed, 
 not counted. It has been supposed by some that 
 the Homeric Greeks were Aiolians. The (mythical) 
 genealogy, which makes Hellen the parent of the 
 nation, gives him Aiolos for his eldest son. The 
 kernel of truth in this myth is that Aiolids (never 
 called in Homer Aiolians) may be traced, by their 
 longer genealogies, to an older standing in Greece 
 than Achaians, who were already famous at the 
 Troic period ; and they are older in fame than 
 Dorians or lonians, though these two are both found 
 
52 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUD V sec. 
 
 locally in the Poems. The two most palpable 
 notes of Phoenician lineage are (i) connection 
 with the name of Aiolos (//. VI. 154 ; Od. XI. 
 236) and (2) descent from Poseidon. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 The Phoinikes of Homer may be described 
 roughly in one word as merchant-pirates : traders, 
 kidnappers, and buccaneers. The immigrant Phoe- 
 nician element has a wider meaning. As between 
 the two, they were upon the whole a great intellectual 
 force ; a deteriorating moral element. With them 
 is associated almost every rudiment of art and 
 manners which we find mentioned in the Poems. 
 For example : the art of navigation ; of stone-build- 
 ing ; of work in metals, with a close approach to Fine 
 Art ; of embroidery ; of medicine, and a chemistry 
 however simple ; the institution of the Games ; the 
 importation of the horse, and the art, nay arts, of 
 horse-driving (//. XXIII. 402-447, 566-601). Pos- 
 sibly even the driving of the plough in a superior 
 manner. Not that these belonged to Phoenician 
 sailors ; but they belonged to the countries of 
 Phoenician traffic and to immigrants brought by 
 their ships. We also trace the foreigner, and 
 
II HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 53 
 
 this variously, in the manufacture of arms. But 
 
 the policy of the Phoinikes proper was to avoid 
 intervention in quarrels not their own. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 It seems probable that we are to consider the 
 gift of song as an exception. For this gift of 
 song has been markedly assigned to Achilles, 
 and to him alone (//. IX. 186-189). It is almost 
 the only gift which is not ascribed to the all- 
 accomplished Odysseus, who is even a consum- 
 mate ploughman and mower, as well as artificer 
 {Od. XVIII. 365-375). The two protagonists 
 are evidently the two greatest orators of the 
 Poems. In Homer the two elements materially 
 or numerically strongest are the Hellenic and the 
 Pelasgian. The two elements, between which the 
 higher gifts and properties are divided, are the 
 Hellenic and the Phoenician. The Phcenician 
 share was in progress made, in accomplishments 
 possessed. The Hellenic share lay in the region 
 higher still : in character, in purpose, in force of 
 will, in creative genius : in the many-sided capa- 
 bility of assimilating, and of reproducing, multiplied 
 
54 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold, the importations 
 from the East. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 What then, it may be asked, has the Poet 
 reserved for the third factor in the composition 
 of the nation, for his Pelasgian people ? Of the 
 loftier endowments little. It is observable {a) 
 that they are named among the populations of 
 Crete {Od. XIX. 177); {b) that they are never 
 mentioned by Homer, even as serving in the 
 Trojan army, without a favourable epithet ; (c) 
 that the etymology of the names among the 
 common soldiery points to them as engaged in 
 the pursuits of rural life, and sometimes as 
 accumulators of substance. We may credit them 
 with the gifts of soldiery, industry, and order. 
 In point of higher qualities they were undeveloped. 
 Perhaps they may be called a nation in the gristle. 
 
 XXX 
 
 It would be generally allowed that the first 
 commanding factor in the compound, that of 
 Hellenic or Achaian character, is represented in 
 the great and towering personality of Achilles. 
 
:^ 
 
 II HOMER AS NATION-MAKER 55 
 
 After long consideration and inquiry I have 
 arrived at an opinion that the second or Phoenician 
 element, of course in its amalgamation with the 
 paramount stock, is set before us in the character 
 and the position of Odysseus. His character, 
 besides universality of accomplishment, exhibits 
 to us, in their highest development, activity, 
 persistency, comprehensiveness, and design leaning 
 towards craft. As to his position, I have en- 
 deavoured to show in another connection^ how it 
 will be found on examination that the small Ithacan 
 kingdom abounds in signs of Phoenicianism. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 If the final judgment of Homerologists shall 
 affirm these general conclusions with regard to 
 the composition of the great Hellenic race, and 
 more specifically the propositions last stated, we 
 shall have in them a most interesting view of the 
 completeness and symmetry of the Poet's mind in 
 his dealing with the several factors of the com- 
 pound nationality, and in the provision made for 
 their personal presentation to his hearers in the 
 characters of his two protagonists. 
 
 * Nineteenth Centtiry for August 1889. 
 
SECTION III 
 
 HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 
 
 If Homer lived and sung as a great creative 
 genius, at a period when his nation was in course 
 of formation ; and if, with whatever degree of 
 consciousness, he exercised his art so as to pro- 
 mote that formation, it was in the nature of the 
 case hardly possible that he should not contribute 
 largely to the formation of a national unity in 
 religion, for without this there could in those 
 days be no national unity at all. The nation, as 
 we have seen, was composite. Apart from the 
 question of a Divine revelation, which is not here 
 supposed, the peoples of antiquity, each according 
 to its several genius, developed great differences 
 in their particular forms of religion. Their 
 
SEC. Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 57 
 
 systems stood on the same footing as to authority, 
 and when brought locally together, their diverg- 
 ence and the chance of possible conflict required 
 that they should be moulded into some kind 
 of concord. A composite nation, with a strong 
 national spirit, required to arrive at a composite 
 religion. 
 
 II 
 
 The necessity for a formula concordice^ or, in 
 modern phrase, a modus vivendt, was raised to the 
 highest point in a case like that of the Greek 
 Peninsula, where, before the dominant political 
 factors found their way into the country, a local 
 worship, which appears to have been a culttcs of the 
 Nature-Powers, was evidently in possession of the 
 ground. The Phoenician and Achaian elements 
 respectively were associated with power, as 
 invaders, or as immigrants of high station and 
 authority ; so that power stood on one side, 
 numbers and possession on the other. But 
 neither were these powerful influences in accord 
 with one another ; both the local sources and the 
 moral standard being materially diflerent 
 
58 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY 
 
 III 
 
 The diversity of the religious traditions con- 
 stituted the greatest obstacle to the attainment of 
 the high national aim ; because for each of the 
 branches these traditions demanded recognition 
 and manifestation in the common outward acts of 
 religion, elicited by the ever-returning occasions of 
 daily life. Thus was continually raised the question 
 which traditions should prevail, and whether their 
 relations to one another should be in harmony or 
 in conflict. And so, conversely, the reciprocal 
 relations of the religious acts raised also the 
 question what should be the reciprocal relations 
 of the persons performing them. 
 
 IV 
 
 It is then plain that, if the function of Homer 
 as nation - maker had for its main object to 
 combine in one harmonious polity the men of the 
 three great descents — Pelasgian, Phoenician, and 
 Achaian, — that function must also touch the 
 question of their several religions, and must be 
 helped by establishing an unity among them. The 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 59 
 
 nature and limits of that unity we shall have 
 hereafter to specify, that we may not exaggerate 
 the office of a poet so great and having such an 
 access to the minds of his countrymen through 
 the medium of their institutions. 
 
 We thus appear to obtain, from a consideration 
 of the natural course of facts, an insight into the 
 rationale of those peculiar local traditions in 
 Greece which tell of contests between different 
 deities for different points of the territory, and of 
 the issue of those contests ; they cannot do other- 
 wise than signify the original conflict or competi- 
 tion of religious traditions between the respective 
 sectaries of the older and newer populations, and 
 their settling down into an unity. It is thus, for 
 example, that we may discern in the Twenty-First 
 Odyssey the accommodation between the Sun-god 
 Apollo brought from the East, and perhaps there 
 supreme, and the far loftier conception of the 
 obedient son Apollo such as he stands in the 
 Olympian system. 
 
6o LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUD V 
 
 VI 
 
 Of these traditions, outside Homer, some 
 related to Corinth and its neighbourhood. Here 
 it is that Poseidon struggles for the supremacy of 
 the region against Helios, and obtains the coast- 
 ing district, where the descendant of Aiolos, an 
 Eastern personage, had settled. The upper tract 
 is afterwards made over by Helios to Aphrodite. 
 The first of these two may well be related to a 
 pre- Homeric state of the facts, when the Poseidon 
 worship, imported several generations before the 
 Trojan war, might come into competition with 
 an old Sun worship of the Pelasgian population 
 generally prevailing. The second is as clearly 
 post-Homeric ; for, at the period of the Poems, 
 the Aphrodite worship, though it has passed from 
 Cyprus to Cythera, has not yet obtained a footing 
 on the mainland of Greece. So that it would be 
 out of place, as would probably be a Poseidon 
 worship in Attica or Athens. 
 
 VII 
 
 We find many indications of the difficulties, 
 which beset the path of the Poet in the execution 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 6i 
 
 of his compounding office. One who dwells like 
 Plato in the region of abstract ideas may find 
 fault with him for admitting within his thearchy 
 elements of too low a standard. But he was 
 one who had to deal with the facts of his race 
 and his time ; and the careful investigator of the 
 Poems will find cause for wonder as well as 
 satisfaction at the persistency with which he has 
 excluded from his system the most degrading 
 ingredients in which the religions around him 
 abounded ; the pollution of our nature by the 
 lust-worship of the East, and the disparagement 
 done to it by the cultus of the lower animals, and 
 of material objects exhibited in the great Nature- 
 forces. He seems only to have tolerated persons 
 and ideas belonging to the foreign systems as 
 long and as far as he could work them into some 
 kind of consistency with the national genius, and 
 with his Olympian ideal. 
 
 vni 
 
 Not only is the Homeric Thearchy composite 
 as a whole, but each divinity is often composite 
 within itself, and comprehends elements derived 
 
62 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 from more than one of the three great sources of 
 the Poet's theology. Thus the Artemis, who is 
 whipped by Here in the Theomachy, is the gross 
 figure of Asiatic worship with a hundred breasts, 
 and not the pure and beautiful Artemis who 
 administers the law of painless death, and is 
 besought by Penelope to deliver her from her 
 troubles {Od. XVIII. 201). And the Apollo, 
 who appears as a jester in the foreign episode of 
 Ares and Aphrodite, is very different from the 
 Apollo who throughout the Iliad is the right arm of 
 Providence, and who in the Odyssey mysteriously 
 presides over the trial of the bow. 
 
 IX 
 
 The Olympian gods of the Iliad are divided 
 into an Achaian and a Trojan party. The censure 
 of Plato on Homer for dealing lightly with the 
 deities is really much more applicable to the 
 religion of his own time, as it is exhibited in Aris- 
 tophanes. No deity of the Hellenic party is ever 
 disparaged by Homer ; and upon what principle 
 was he bound to pay great respect to foreign 
 deities as such, when they were in conflict with 
 
in HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 63 
 
 Achaian nationality and with substantial justice? 
 Ares and the Asiatic Artemis are the deities 
 seriously disparaged in the Theomachy ; Aphrodite 
 everywhere and with great justice. 
 
 The religion of Troy, as exhibited in the Iliad^ 
 differs materially from that of the Achaians, in that 
 it is largely based on the worship of the Nature- 
 Powers. This is conclusively shown from //. III. 
 103, 104, where it is arranged that the Trojans are 
 to offer lambs to Earth and the Sun, while the 
 Achaians are to offer a lamb to Zeus. Hence / 
 again Helios, though as a Nature-Power he is not 
 admitted into 01ympos,nor allowed to take any part 
 in the Theomachy, yet is a partisan of Troy, and 
 puts an end with reluctance to the day which was to 
 witness the last of the Trojan successes (//. XVI 1 1.) 
 And hence again Scamandros, the only Nature- 
 Power in the Theomachy, contends on the Trojan 
 side, and is indeed its best supporter. It may be for 
 the same reason that the Nature-Powers generally 
 are summoned to the Great Assembly on Olympos, 
 which authorises the divinities of each party to 
 assist their friends. 
 
64 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUD V sec. 
 
 XI 
 
 Homer has carefully severed his Apollo from 
 the character of a Nature-Power, by investing the 
 Sun with a separate personality. He appears 
 indeed in the Theomachy on the Trojan side, and 
 his mother Leto is there also, probably as an 
 appendage to him. But this arrangement has 
 reference to the fact that he is always the organ 
 of the will of Zeus : and that the plot of the Poem, 
 which required the sin of Agamemnon to be re- 
 buked by the temporary success of his foes, allowed 
 the will and action of Zeus to take the Trojan 
 side until that purpose had been accomplished. 
 
 XII 
 
 The disposition to incorporate deity with 
 humanity, which I venture to term the thean- 
 thropic^ spirit, and which, though belonging pro- 
 perly to the Hellenic sphere, pervades the whole 
 of the Poems, finds its most marked exhibition in 
 
 ^ The phrase anthropomorphism, which has obtained much 
 currency, is open to the objection that it is not wide enough for the 
 case ; since the term niorph^ may be said to be exclusively applicable 
 to material form. 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 65 
 
 the characters of those higher gods who inhabit 
 Olympos. These, except as to dimension both 
 physical and mental, are cast in the human mould ; 
 subject however to these two conditions, of which 
 the one tends to exalt, and the other to lower them. 
 
 1. That when they are dealing collectively 
 with the business of governing the world, they 
 give signs of a certain gravity, sense of duty, and 
 consciousness of moral responsibility for the use 
 of their power over men. 
 
 2. That in many of them individually, as in 
 most men of all times, increased capacity prin- 
 cipally exhibits itself in increased indulgence. 
 
 It is also needful to bear in mind that these 
 deities fall into classes, differing widely one from 
 the other. 
 
 And that a portion of what has been let slip 
 from the full Divine idea has been as it were saved 
 and reproduced in the majestic conception of the 
 Eriniies, as well as in the dark and powerful, but 
 ethically less exalted, Moira or Fate. 
 
 . XIII 
 
 The differences between the divinities are not 
 exclusively those of rank, local origin, or ethno- 
 
66 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUD Y sec. 
 
 logical connection ; they also rest upon broad 
 grounds, both intellectual and moral. There is little 
 in common as to essence between the conception 
 of the debased Aphrodite, and the lofty imperson- 
 ation of Athene as absolute in intellect and in 
 power. And there is no more between the brutal 
 Ares and the Apollo who, in the whole action of the 
 Iliad^ both conforms and gives effect to the will of 
 Zeus. Still, I think it has to be allowed that the 
 moral element is less emphatically represented in 
 the individual action of the gods than it is among 
 men. There is no god of the Poems (unless it be 
 the purely abstracted theos^ who is constantly in 
 the background of the scene) that is so good as 
 the swineherd Eumaios. 
 
 XIV 
 
 The collective action of the Olympian gods, 
 who are the classe dirigeante of Homeric antiquity, 
 is higher not only than their individual, but than 
 their collective character. In the main, it befriends 
 righteousness and the righteous man, and is adverse 
 to the unrighteous and to wrong at large. There 
 is an habitual ascription of righteousness in the 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 67 
 
 Poems to theos and to the theoi^ which, if not 
 absolutely free from caprice or other imperfection, 
 yet as a general rule completely makes good for 
 them the standard of character and action which 
 has just been described. In this conception there 
 is no alliance with meanness, impurity, or weakness. 
 Nor are theos and theoi merely abstract ideas ; they 
 are true personalities, but cleansed by severance 
 from what is eccentric or depraved among the 
 actual gods of Olympos. 
 
 XV 
 
 It is possible to carry up to a certain point the 
 principle of discrimination among the prominent 
 or Olympian deities according to local origin, or 
 racial affinities and sympathies which are con- 
 nected with it. 
 
 a. We may rank as imported from the south 
 and south-east, and as specially associated 
 with the Phoenician name. 
 
 1. Poseidon. 3. Aphrodite. 
 
 2. Hermes. 4. Hephaistos. 
 
 5. Dionusos. 
 
 h. There are residuary Nature-Powers, no longer 
 
68 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 invested with actual function in the govern- 
 ment of the world so far as the Achaian 
 race are concerned. 
 
 1. Aidoneus. 3. Demeter. 
 
 2. Helios. 4. Gaia. 
 
 c. We have also deities in whose equipment 
 
 we find the marks of foreign or inferior 
 traditions, but whom Homer has effectually 
 transfigured for the purposes of his thean- 
 thropic religion. 
 
 1. Here. 
 
 2. Artemis. 
 
 d. And we have such as embody, if with varying 
 
 admixtures, much loftier conceptions with 
 reference to the supremacy of Deity, its 
 illuminating intelligence, and even its re- 
 deeming action, than can be accounted 
 for by mere reference to the before-named 
 sources. These are — 
 
 1. Zeus. 
 
 2. Athen^ 
 
 3. Apolla 
 
 4. Leto. 
 
HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 69 
 
 XVI 
 
 First in the active Olympian Thearchy, as given by 
 Homer, come the five greater gods, not so defined, 
 but so exhibited in action and character. These 
 
 are — 
 
 1. Zeus. 3. Here. 
 
 2. Poseidon. 4. Athene. 
 
 5. Apollo. 
 But of these Poseidon is wholly exotic, and 
 Here is, in all that is central to her, indigenous, 
 Achaian, national. 
 
 XVII 
 
 In each of these five greatest among the 
 Olympian gods, as they are exhibited in the 
 Poems, we find a dominant or characteristic idea. 
 
 In Zeus it is policy, a care not confined to 
 Greece. 
 
 In Here it is the Achaian nationality. 
 
 In Poseidon it is physical might, with a singular 
 absence of moral elements. 
 
 In Athene it is intellect, supreme in the uniform 
 attainment of its end. 
 
 In Apollo it is obedience to Zeus, not by effort, 
 but from pure conformity of will. 
 
70 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 There are other personages whom we find 
 present in Olympos, though without important 
 functions of government over men. Such are — 
 
 1. Themis, who has a high precedence, and a 
 supreme messengership. 
 
 2. Iris, the messenger in ordinary, a conception 
 of extraordinary beauty. 
 
 3. Hebe, the cup-bearer. 
 
 4. Paieon, the physician. 
 
 5 . Dione, mother of Aphrodite, without function. 
 Nor is it possible to omit Persephone, whose place 
 is in the Underworld. She is thus severed from 
 Olympos, but appears alone in the actual exercise 
 of power below. 
 
 In the eighteenth Iliad^ Hephaistos has fabri- 
 cated twenty seats which moved automatically for 
 the Olympian gods. This number may, as appears 
 probable, have been suggested by the Assyrian 
 tradition. It may have been conceived rather 
 vaguely by Homer. The number of deities enu- 
 merated above amounts in all to twenty-one. The 
 titles of Gaia and Persephone appear, on grounds 
 belonging to each, to be doubtful. 
 
HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 71 
 
 XIX 
 
 There is, besides the ordinary assembly or 
 council {Boide) of the gods, a greater Olympian 
 assembly, corresponding with the Agore or mass- 
 meeting of the Greek community. It includes 
 (//. XX. 4- 1 o) the Nature-Powers at large, with the 
 single and marked exception of Okeanos. He is 
 probably exempted on account of the dignity 
 attaching to him as the great Origin, which stands 
 in contrast with the rather negative place assigned 
 to the Nature-Powers on this occasion. Their 
 presence seems to give validity to the sentence 
 under which the Theomachy takes place ; but it is 
 a presence, and nothing more ; there is not, as in 
 the case of the human assembly, any decision or 
 assent actually recorded. 
 
 XX 
 
 The population of Homer's preter-human world 
 is multifarious, and not altogether easy to classify. 
 I present it, however, as follows — 
 
 1. Olympian gods, ordinary or proper. 
 
 2. Retired or deposed dynasties : Okeanos in 
 the first category, Kronos in the second. 
 
72 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 3. Nature -Powers, having no share in the 
 government of the Achaian world, such as the Sun 
 (HeHos) and the Earth (Gaia). 
 
 4. Purely figurative personages, such as Ossa^ 
 Phuza^ KudoimoSy and the like. 
 
 5. Impersonated ideas of moral or super-sensible 
 objects, such as the Eriniies, Moira, and Sleep with 
 his brother Death {Hupnos^ Tha7iatos), 
 
 6. The alien and condemned Powers, namely 
 the Titans and the Giants. 
 
 7. The minor and purely local Nature-Powers 
 — that is to say, personalities given to Rivers, 
 Fountains, Mountains, Trees. 
 
 8. Deified mortals, beginning to find their way 
 into some kind of beatification : Heracles in 
 Olympos, Ino in the sea or sky. 
 
 9. The spirits of the dead. 
 
 XXI 
 
 In Zeus we have a remarkable assemblage of 
 characters not always the most homogeneous. 
 
 1 . He is the head of the Olympian Court and 
 Polity. 
 
 2. In union with that court he is the chief 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 73 
 
 Executive Governor of human affairs within the 
 h'mits of the Achaian Peninsula, and of Troas as 
 associated with Achaian action. 
 
 3. He is the chief national god both of the old 
 Pelasgian and the new Achaian or Hellenic stock. 
 A struggle for the maintenance of his supremacy, 
 or for the amalgamation of the competing worships 
 is indicated in the curious legend of//. I. 396-406. 
 
 4. As towards men, he is the exclusive source 
 of the political authority of sovereigns. 
 
 5. He is what may be called the residuary 
 legatee of the old monotheism. In this character 
 his supremacy passes beyond the Hellenic circle 
 into the zone of the outer geography, where the 
 execution is in the hands of other divinities ; and 
 it is thus also that he directs his gaze in //. XHI. 
 3-6 over the nations northward of the Balkan 
 mountains. To him accrue the care of the poor 
 and the suppliant. He is exempt from all 
 particular enmities. In the government of man 
 he is moderate and passionless, and acts as 
 peacemaker in the Ithacan civil war {Od. XXIV. 
 539-548). 
 
 6. He is the person in whom, under the action 
 of the theanthropic idea, human qualities and 
 
74 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 passions are most broadly and universally de- 
 veloped, both for good and for evil : affection on 
 the one side, cynical selfishness and lust on the 
 other, with a great dislike to be disturbed or 
 bored. ♦ 
 
 XXII 
 
 The Olympian, like the Achaian, system is 
 governed mainly by opinion. Its head views the 
 fall of Troy with an evident reluctance. The 
 fatal sentence is really carried by the united 
 action of the three deities who after Zeus are the 
 most powerful, namely Poseidon, Here, and Athene; 
 Apollo being put out of the case, as he has no 
 decided volition apart from that of Zeus. Troy, 
 on the other hand, is only supported by Divinities 
 of a feebler mould. To secure the rescue of 
 Hector's body (//. XXIV. 65), and even to disarm 
 the single-handed hostility of Poseidon in the 
 Odyssey — that is to say, in its Outer zone — Zeus 
 has recourse to the authority of the Olympian 
 assembly {Od. I. 77-79). He is apt to look for 
 expedients of accommodation, as when Helios has 
 taken what, under the principles of the system, 
 is reasonable offence {Od. XII. 374-388). He 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 75 
 
 threatens largely the use of his reserved stock of 
 force (//. I, 566 et alibi\ but does not employ it 
 against the three above named, though he is ready 
 to do it against Poseidon singly (//. XV. 176- 
 183), or against Here with Athene (//. VIII. 
 399, 403). Both these however touch cases of 
 offence against a collective decision of the gods. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Theanthropy, as an intimate combination of the 
 divine and human natures, is the principle on 
 which Homer has elaborately constructed his 
 Olympian system, and the after history of his 
 country bears testimony to the care, solidity, and 
 comprehensiveness of his work, which was doubt- 
 less founded in a clear and keen appreciation of 
 the genius and the mental wants of his country- 
 men. This principle was in due time exhibited 
 as the basis of Greek life, in religion, in history, 
 and beyond all in Art. It is an idea eminently 
 original ; for what has been called anthropomorphism 
 in other schemes bears only the faintest and rudest 
 resemblance to the subtle and refined conception 
 wrought out by Homer, with a care only equalled 
 
76 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 by that which he has bestowed on the twin con- 
 ception of nationality. In all this we see the 
 vigour of his revulsion from the mere nature cult, 
 and the Egyptian and Eastern worships. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 The religion of Egypt in so far approached the 
 Olympian system, that it freely exhibited deity in 
 created forms. But it utterly violated the Greek 
 ideal by placing brute and human natures on a 
 level, and using the two combinedly for the repre- 
 sentation of the Divine. It even did this in the 
 most repulsive manner, by assigning the head, or 
 imperial part of the frame, to beast or bird, and 
 leaving the inferior function to humanity in the 
 trunk and members. So we have the human figure 
 with the cow head, and with the hawk head. 
 Symbolism of this kind, it now seems certain, may 
 have been before the eyes of the Poet and his 
 contemporaries. He perhaps could not afford 
 wholly to break with it in his impersonations. 
 Accordingly, he assigns to Her^ the eye proper to 
 kine, and consecrates the hawk to Apollo. 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 77 
 
 XXV 
 
 Much more largely, in all likelihood, must he 
 have had before him the institutions and emblems 
 of the nature cult. Of these it may be said that 
 sun, moon, and stars, visible and in definite form, 
 did not need the intervention of statuary to inter- 
 pret them ; and that such substitution could not, 
 as a rule, have prevailed in the Achaian age as an 
 indigenous practice, by reason of the backwardness 
 of art. And it may be doubted whether, if they 
 had been represented in visible images, it would have 
 been possible for him to throw these Nature-Powers 
 so completely into the background of his Poems ; 
 especially the moon, who had so high a place in 
 Assyria, who was worshipped in later times as one 
 of the forms of Diana, and who in Homer is not 
 only not a deity but not even a person. It is 
 probable that the Poet found it the more necessary 
 to disarm as it were certain deities, in cases where 
 they had a high place in foreign or in ancient 
 associations, as these were the most likely to 
 interfere with his great theanthropic design, which 
 united heaven and earth. It is the more remark- 
 able In the case of Selene from the fact that she 
 
yS LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 resumed her personality in the Pseudo-Homeric 
 Hymns, through the title anassa, and the epithets 
 leukolenos and euplokamos. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 That he did thus thrust them out of view 
 appears undeniable, and this not only with regard 
 to celestial bodies. From his high place as a 
 member of the Triad, Aidoneus must have been at 
 some time and place a great, perhaps a supreme 
 divinity ; but while he is relegated to the Under- 
 world, he is never named in prayers relating to it, 
 and there is but little sign of his performing any 
 function there. But this method of relegation was 
 practised by him in a manner which is even start- 
 ling. It even seems as though he meant to make 
 it the ordinary abode of the Nature-Powers. This 
 appears from the Address of Achilles, in //. XXIII. 
 144, to the Shade of Patroclos, in which he 
 intrusts his friend, now on his way to Hades, with 
 a message for the River-God Spercheios. 
 
 XXVII 
 Further indications of this remarkable anta- 
 gonism to nature worship are found, inter alia : — 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 79 
 
 1. In its marking off the religion of Troas from 
 that of Greece. 
 
 2. In the repression of Demeter who, though 
 she had been, like Leto, a consort of Zeus, is no 
 more than a lay figure in the Poems. 
 
 3. In his never confounding Zeus with atmo- 
 sphere, or Poseidon with water, and in the broad 
 severance of Nereus who dwells in the hollows of 
 the sea, and is only named indirectly. 
 
 4. In his similarly severing Hephaistos from 
 fire, except in one instance where the old or alien 
 usage as it were peeps into the Poems (//. II. 426)} 
 
 5. From his changing the symbols of animal 
 life, which the Egyptians had incorporated with 
 their Divinities into more remote and purely 
 poetical relations, as in the cases of Here and 
 Apollo. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 By these and other such like devices, Homer gets 
 rid of what, from proximity and wide extension, may 
 have been the most formidable competitors with 
 his Olympian figures. But the facts of purely local 
 worship were, without doubt, too palpable for him 
 
 ^ This seems to be the only clear case. In several instances we 
 have the expression_^^;p Hephaistoio. 
 
8o LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 to overcome, or overlook. The Olympian unity, 
 which he was an agent, perhaps a main agent, in 
 achieving, was the only unity that the case 
 admitted, but it was a literary and political unity, 
 probably most helpful in transmitting the religion, 
 but not governing or superseding local or pagan 
 usages, not without their counterpart in other 
 religions. Hence, as to divine personages of an 
 inferior order, like the Nymphs {Od. XIII. 356 
 et alibi), he does not interfere, but simply allows 
 the facts to stand. We have, however, in Ithaca 
 a sort of blurred picture, which seems at one 
 moment to be Apollo, and at another Helios. 
 Here he uses the artifice of avoiding nomenclature, 
 and referring to the holiday as sacred to the 
 ruling deity (ioio theoio, Od. XXI. 258). We 
 seem here to see the Olympian Apollo gradually 
 effacing the old Nature-Power. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 On this subject there is no point more obscure 
 than that which arises out of the twinship of 
 Apollo and Artemis. In the Poems they are 
 invested with resemblances sufficient for their 
 relationship as brother and sister. But Artemis, 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 8i 
 
 pure as well as beautiful, and thus in contrast 
 with Aphrodite, has not the lofty features which 
 lift Apollo above the merely Olympian level. 
 The anomaly offered by this twinship may have 
 for its explanation a joint worship of Sun and 
 Moon in the previously existing nature cult. 
 The light epithets which place Apollo in affinity 
 with a Sun - god have their analogue in the 
 Chrusenios and Chncselakate of Artemis. And it 
 seems as if the distaff was assigned to her as in 
 correspondence with the bow of her brother. All 
 this relates to the Achaian and Olympian sphere. 
 Into a foreign sphere the Poet is too good a work- 
 man to carry his Achaian particularities. The 
 Artemis of the Theomachy is a Trojan goddess 
 and may represent a tradition of the all-producing 
 Earth like the later Ephesian Artemis. In this 
 view she is appropriately matched with Here, in 
 whom we have the Hellenised form of the Earth 
 tradition, and who therefore chastises in her a 
 personal rival (//. XXII. 489). The reproach of 
 Artemis to Apollo {ibid, 472), is appropriate not 
 to her sisterhood, but to her foreign attributes as 
 Nature-Power. 
 
82 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUD Y sec. 
 
 XXX 
 
 The position of Demeter in the Poems illus- 
 trates effectively the same vital element of the 
 system. It is evident from the later Eleusinian 
 tradition, and from the worship-chart of Pausanias, 
 where she stands fourth in the number of her 
 temples, that she was a great divinity in the local 
 cult of the Greek Peninsula. She seems to be 
 marked as elemental by the epithets xanthe and 
 euplokamos taken from the corn ; as we have in 
 Propertius excutit et flavas aurea terra comas. 
 Yet she is mentioned but seven times in the 
 Poems, and has no part in the action of the story, 
 Her name, as a form of Earth- Mother, Ge Meter. 
 appears to tell its own tale. She does not appear 
 among the Trojan party in the Theomachy ; 
 being probably the Earth-deity of the Peninsula 
 and not of the foreign sphere. The Trojans 
 worshipped Gaia (//. III. 102-103). 
 
 XXXI 
 
 The high art of the Poet is nowhere more 
 notably exhibited than in his religious adjust- 
 ments. While endeavouring to subdue the exotic 
 traditions into his Olympian unity he avoids 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 83 
 
 such forms of proceeding as would have placed him 
 in sharp collision with them. It may be from 
 this cause, and in any case it appears to be the 
 fact, that where one of his deities has an exotic 
 background belonging to the old religion of the 
 country, he takes care not to place in the 
 Olympian court, which implies a governing office, 
 any other deity having similar attributes. Apollo 
 has a solar background, and accordingly Helios has 
 no place in the Achaian system. Here is founded 
 on the Earth tradition ; so in like manner Demeter 
 becomes a purely negative personage. But in the 
 Theomachy, which is not an Achaian picture, the 
 actual duels are between competing claimants for 
 the same prerogative. Here and Artemis as to the 
 Earth tradition ; Athene and Ares (not yet a 
 naturalised Achaian divinity) as gods of war. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 The idea of Theanthropy is worked out not 
 only in the characters of divinities individually, 
 but in their political society ; which is made to 
 correspond with the established form of Achaian 
 polity on earth in its triform organisation. Zeus, 
 as its head, holds a position markedly analogous 
 
84 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY 
 
 to that of Agamemnon. The Court or minor 
 assembly of Olympos is certainly called Agore by 
 the Poet, but it corresponds to the Boule or 
 Council of the higher Achaian chiefs. The 
 greater assembly of //. XX. corresponds with the 
 assembly of the army in Troas, of the people in 
 Ithaca. It has before it the greatest question, 
 that of the part the gods themselves are personally 
 to take in settling the final crisis of Troy : as the 
 army is summoned to consider the Return in //. 
 II. ; and as the Ithacan assembly in Od. XXIV. 
 treats of the situation created by the slaughter 
 of the Suitors. This close correspondence, when 
 compared with the confusion of the Assyrian and 
 Egyptian mythologies, seems to exhibit in a vivid 
 light the symmetry of the Greek mind. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 The researches of the last generation have 
 supplied materials for proving that Homer was 
 acquainted with Egyptian and Phoenician ideas, 
 and has largely dealt with them. Yet more 
 recently, we have had similar evidence produced 
 with respect to Babylonian and Assyrian records. 
 It has also become plain that the Hebrew 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 85 
 
 traditions of the earliest Scripture were drawn 
 
 from a source common to the ancestors of other 
 
 nations as well as the Hebrews. There is thus no 
 
 antecedent improbability that the ancestors of the 
 
 Achaians had access to these venerable traditions 
 
 before their separation from the common stock, and 
 
 had transmitted them down to the contemporaries 
 
 of the Poet ; although there is room on the other 
 
 hand, at least at first sight, for the contention that 
 
 these also were acquired through the medium of 
 
 Phoenicia. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 But the evidence of the Poems goes to show 
 that the Achaian Greeks had some direct acquaint- 
 ance with these primeval traditions. The Homeric 
 conception of a Trine Government of the world, 
 though moulded according to the exigencies of 
 the ' Olympian system, is not without features 
 of originality, tending to show that it may have 
 been more than a mere copy from contemporary 
 mythologies. Still less could he thus have found 
 materials for his Apollo, who holds a great saving 
 office, and whose will is identified with that of 
 Zeus ; or for his Athene, who represents the 
 Supreme Wisdom afterwards conceived of, possibly 
 
86 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 on a traditional basis, as the logos. Without 
 pursuing further the extraordinary attributes and 
 prerogatives of these divinities in the Poems, it 
 seems obvious that they correspond with the two 
 great phases of the Messianic idea. The Iris of 
 Homer is inexplicable except as an impersonation 
 of the rainbow, conceived as that phenomenon is 
 conceived in the Book of Genesis. His treatment 
 of the serpent and the tree is closely analogous 
 to the method in which he manipulates other 
 exotic ideas, so as to bring them into correspond- 
 ence with his theanthropic basis. Other particulars 
 not few in number might be specified in detail. 
 
 XXXV 
 It may be remarked generally that, if the 
 sources of many markedly Homeric presentations 
 are to be found in the Hebrew traditions, or at the 
 fountain-head from which those traditions may have 
 been drawn, the mode of presentation is absolutely 
 distinct, less ethical and spiritual, more imagina- 
 tive and poetical. But we seem to trace in him 
 at least remainders and tokens of many among 
 the great moral conceptions, of which the early 
 chapters of Genesis may be a parable as well as 
 a history. 
 
Ill HOMER AS RELIGION-MAKER 87 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 There is not found in the Homeric Poems any 
 reminiscence which points either to the creation or 
 the formation of the world or of the heavenly bodies, 
 or to the succession of animated life upon this globe. 
 There is no reference to the elements of which we 
 are made, except in the line (//. VII. 99), which 
 signifies, that our bodies are to be resolved after 
 death into earth and water. There are traces of a 
 war in heaven, a rebellion in high places. There 
 is a probable trace of the tradition of the Flood, so 
 widely spread elsewhere.^ The Poet gives no dis- 
 tinct record of anything like a golden age, but in two 
 particular forms we have indications akin to those 
 upon which it was founded. One is in some of the 
 repeated references to the superior physical force 
 possessed by the earlier generations of men. The 
 other is in the divine descent of royalty at large, 
 signified in his two remarkable epithets, Diotrephes 
 and Diogenes, which correspond with the popular 
 Egyptian tradition given by Herodotos. 
 
 XXXVII 
 Only in the Thearchy, not in human history or 
 
 ^ See itif. , the Essay at the close of the volume. 
 
88 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec hi 
 
 legend, have we a distinct recognition of prior 
 periods, sharply severed from the present. Here 
 we find — 
 
 1. The reference to Okeanos, as the source of 
 all life : still severed, though in abdication, and 
 having no tie of lineage with the present. 
 
 2. The reference to Kronos, parent or an- 
 cestor of Zeus, but deposed, and holding a position 
 related to that of the alien and subdued powers, 
 who pass by the name of Titans. 
 
 3. The recital of the convulsion in Olympos, 
 in which the throne and liberty of Zeus were 
 threatened, but through the resource and agency of 
 Thetis (who represents both the old Nature dynasty 
 and the new Hellenic ideas) an accommodation 
 was effected, and the Thearchy securely established 
 on the basis on which it appears in the Poems. 
 
 Also there are other minor indications. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 The two ideas in Homer that are really 
 cardinal, central, generative, are the nation, and 
 its reflection in the Thearchy, or Olympian society. 
 All remaining subjects will be treated much more 
 succinctly. 
 
SECTION IV 
 
 RUDIMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 With the progress of wealth and the multiplication 
 of natural wants and comforts there grows up, as 
 society becomes older, a new system of social ethics. 
 Or rather, the preceding and more primitive system 
 is both enlarged and braced in one of its provinces, 
 while it is relaxed and lowered in others. If we take 
 the three departments of good life as godly, righteous, 
 and sober, or in other words as piety towards God, 
 regard for relative rights, and the government of 
 ourselves, morality may be found advancing under 
 the second of these heads, at least in regard to 
 property, while under the first and third of them 
 it recedes. Such I conceive will be found to be 
 the case with the morality of Greece in its classical 
 
90 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 age, as compared with the morality of the Achaian 
 age represented in Homer. 
 
 II 
 
 The idea of sin, which is effaced from the 
 thought and conscience, and even from the speech 
 (so far as I know) of historic Greece, is powerfully 
 though not perfectly represented in the Poems by 
 the remarkable expression atasthali^.^''. <i\^(r%<KJ(\f 
 
 Atasthalie does not signify merely a debilitated 
 and disordered state of nature, or the victory of 
 violent or seductive passion over opposing forces 
 in man, but it means perverse, conscious, hardened, 
 offending against an external law of righteousness. 
 
 Most curious is the treatment of this subject by 
 Zeus in the divine assembly of the First Odyssey, 
 where he says, " How do men accuse the gods ? for 
 they say that from us proceed their woes ; but 
 they also themselves through their atasthaliai 
 have sorrows which come upon them despite of, 
 and as overruling, the law of destiny." For destiny 
 and its results he accepts the responsibility of a 
 governor, but not for the further mischiefs im- 
 ported into our lot by the element of a will of 
 ours, independent and perverse. 
 
RUDIMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 III 
 
 In an altogether lower order of offence stands 
 the act of yielding to Ate the temptress, who is 
 ever busy among men : ate^ he pantas aatai^ II. 
 XIX. 91, 129. It is indeed a fault to yield, and 
 men must take the consequences of their fault, 
 as Agamemnon in the case of his offence against 
 Achilles {ibid. 137) ; but the gods have their re- 
 sponsibility, for Ate is the elder daughter of Zeus 
 {ibid. 91), who is himself sometimes a sufferer by 
 her deceiving arts {ibid. 126-129), though she is 
 not mentioned as acting upon deity except from 
 without. Agamemnon, while accepting the con- 
 sequences, seems to refer the blame to Zeus and 
 the higher powers, who introduced Ate within his 
 soul {ibid. 86-89). 
 
 IV 
 
 The Atasthalie of Homer seems to hold to his 
 Ate a relation resembling that between the kakia 
 and the akrasia of Aristotle : the one indicating 
 innate mischief, the other only inadequate means 
 of defence against evil when it solicits from with- 
 out. But neither of these have any reference to a 
 
92 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 divine or objective la\y, whereas both the Homeric 
 conceptions have to do with the realities of religion ; 
 the greater one as a distinct and seemingly always 
 fatal and unpardoned offence, the other as a 
 liability occurring dimly, and not without the 
 concurrence or allowance of the gods. 
 
 If it be asked, in what relation do the Achaian 
 ethics stand to the Olympian gods ? the answer ) 
 will be complex and in the main unsatisfactory. 
 It is when the Poet refers to theos or theoi without 
 specification that the citation is usually made in the 
 interest of righteousness. Chastity and purity as 
 such are not under the guardianship of the gods 
 personally made known to us ; but the precinct of 
 the family is very sacred as we perceive from the 
 quasi -personification of Histi^, the hearth {Od, 
 XIV. I 59). And the poor, with the suppliant, are 
 placed everywhere under the protection of Zeus. 
 Collective morality, in the conduct of nations, is 
 more in the province of the gods than morality 
 merely personal. But Homer places all morality 
 in connection with the supernatural ordier by the 
 sublime conception of the Eriniies, which degen- 
 
IV RUDIMENTS OF ETHICS 93 
 
 crated, perhaps about the fifth century B.C., into 
 the baser one of the Furies. In the Hiketides of 
 iEschylus the transition is about taking place, and 
 these singular personages are presented in both 
 the competing characters — that is to say, as 
 priestesses, so to speak, of the moral order, and 
 as the avengers of crime. 
 
 VI 
 
 The ethical character of the Achaian civilisa- 
 tion is exhibited on its favourable side in the 
 Poems by the following characteristics : — 
 
 I. The very high position assigned to women, 
 and the purity and charm of the delineations of 
 them. 
 
 2-. The lofty conception of marriage, especially 
 on the side of the wife. 
 
 3. The great strength of the family affections. 
 
 4. The absence from Achaian life of all the 
 extreme forms of sin. 
 
 5. The stringency of the obligation to regard 
 the suppliant, the stranger, and the poor. 
 
 6. The association established between piety 
 towards the gods, and the sense of duty towards 
 man {Od. VI. 120, 121). 
 
94 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 7. The early development of a genuine courtesy 
 and refinement in manners. 
 
 8. The strong habit of self-government, which 
 implied regard and veneration for an internal 
 standard or law of nature. 
 
 9. A marked deference in the individual to the 
 moral judgments of the community (//. IX. 459, 
 460) ascribed to a divine infusion. 
 
 10. The noble sense of political duty on the 
 part of sovereigns, exhibited in the speech of 
 Sarpedon to Glaukos (//. XII. 310-322), and in 
 the kingly rule of Odysseus. 
 
 1 1. With a strong sense of social enjoyment 
 there was combined an aversion to excess. In 
 the case of drunkenness this amounted to a sort 
 of contempt towards it as involving degradation. 
 
 VII 
 
 In these capital respects there was, speaking 
 generally, a decline in the ethical standard of 
 classical Greece as compared with that of the 
 heroic age. The large exhibition of Hebrew 
 character in the Old Testament, which may with 
 some latitude be called a contemporary exhibition, 
 
IV RUDIMENTS OF ETHICS ' 95 
 
 affords a better ground for comparison between 
 Hebrews and Achaians, than pre-historic or remote 
 antiquity elsewhere supplies. So far as I am 
 able to discern, the average Hebrew of the earlier 
 historical Books of Scripture falls short of rather 
 than exceeds in moral stature the Achaian Greek. 
 
 VIII 
 
 On the other hand, among the weaker points 
 of Achaianism as compared with the classical 
 time were these — 
 
 1. A low value set upon human life, so that 
 the homicide, who has offended through passion, 
 though he has to fly from the spot in order to 
 escape from the vengeance of the relatives, yet 
 obtains a reception elsewhere without difficulty. 
 
 2. Freebooting, presumably among strangers, 
 is not held to be an offence. 
 
 3. Revenge for wrongs received is carried to a 
 great or even brutal length, as by Achilles against 
 the Trojans for the death of Patroclos, and by 
 Odysseus in putting to death all the unchaste 
 among the women-servants, who had had to attend 
 on the Suitors in his absence. 
 
96 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. iv 
 
 4. If all kinds of wanton cruelty are absent on 
 the one hand, neither do we find the quality of 
 mercy, properly so called, on the other. 
 
 5. A vein of fraud with a view to gain in 
 transactions is tacitly admitted even into high 
 characters like that of Diomed, to wit in the ex- 
 change with Glaukos (//. VI. 232-236). 
 
SECTION V 
 
 RUDIMENTS OF POLITICS 
 
 The politics of Homer contain ideas, hardly ex- 
 hibited elsewhere in a state of vitality and pro- 
 minence by the literature of the succeeding ages, 
 or of antiquity at large. These ideas seem like 
 a river which has sprung from its source in a 
 limestone country, and has again been buried in 
 the fissures of the rock ; but after a time it again 
 escapes from darkness into light, with its waters 
 clear as before. So the revived conceptions have 
 come to be incorporated in modern history. 
 
 II 
 
 First, the Poet sets a high value on the personal 
 freedom of the human being as such, and slavery 
 
 H 
 
98 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec 
 
 seems to wear in his eyes none of the sacredness 
 of an ancient established institution. In the view 
 of Homer, apart from all incidental abuses (and 
 of these it must be admitted that we have no 
 pointed notice), it cripples and dwarfs the person 
 enslaved. By the ordinance of God, says he, on 
 the day when a man becomes a slave he loses 
 half his manhood {Od. XVII. 322). And it is 
 remarkable that when Achilles, worn and wearied 
 with the Underworld, would rather be in the 
 service even of a poor employer on the face of the 
 earth, it is in his service for hire, and not as a 
 slave {Od. XL 489-491). It seems that in his 
 emphatic condemnation of slavery the Poet has in 
 view not corporal suffering but moral results. 
 
 Ill 
 
 We have no case, in all the Poems, of the slave's 
 misery or the master's abuse of his power. 
 
 There is not found in them a purer character, 
 in point of piety or of relative duties, than 
 Eumaios, the dios htiphorbos of the Odyssey^ who 
 was kidnapped in his youth, and was the slave of 
 Odysseus. 
 
 Odysseus himself, at the proper time, kisses, on 
 
V RUDIMENTS OF POLITICS 99 
 
 the wrist, Dolios, the slave-gardener of Penelope 
 {Od. XXIV. 398) ; the six sons of Dolios seized 
 his hands {ibid. 410) ; and the whole family- 
 aided him in fight (497-499). 
 
 There are masters and slaves, but there is no 
 community or class of masters as such, or slaves 
 as such ; while there is a class distinction between 
 the wealthy or well-to-do, agathoi^ and the poorer, 
 cJierees {Od. XV. 324). Slaves can possess pro- 
 perty, and may, as in the case of Eumaios, hold 
 other slaves. Familiarity between masters and 
 domestic slaves has been known in modern times, 
 and was carried to a high point in the Southern 
 States of America; but it has prevailed much less 
 as to predial slaves. There is no mention of slaves 
 in the army before Troy. 
 
 IV 
 
 Another characteristic and singularly striking 
 idea of the Poems is the power of the spoken 
 word. It is a wonderful fact that, in those times, 
 word and sword should stand together and in 
 equal honour. It is the spoken word which 
 agitates and sways and sometimes even converts 
 the crowded assembly. The great epithet kudi- 
 
lOO LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUD V sec 
 
 aneira, glory-giving, is used exclusively for the 
 agore and the battle. In the Odyssey (VI 1 1. 169- 
 173) this gift seems to be treated as superior to 
 beauty, even to godlike beauty. And, though we 
 are probably closing the third millennium from 
 Homer, the intervening time has produced no 
 nobler specimens of oratory than some of those 
 found in the Poems. 
 
 At that early stage in the social career of man, 
 we find the oratory in the Poems singularly 
 diversified. In the Trojan assemblies there is 
 hardly a trace of the art. Among the Achaians, 
 we have the bluntness of Aias, the chivalrous 
 ardour of Diomed, so effective by downrightness 
 and straightforwardness, the persuasive calmness 
 of Nestor, the comprehensiveness and art of 
 Odysseus, with perfect array of his resources, all 
 strictly addressed to the end in view ; the 
 grandeur of Achilles, impassioned and almost 
 Titanic, but ranging (to borrow a musical term) 
 over the entire register of human feeling, and 
 always checking emotion at the point where, 
 through extravagance, it would become false in art. 
 
RUDIMENTS OF POLITICS 
 
 VI 
 
 Scope is given for the action of collective 
 opinion first in the Boide or Council ; where Aga- 
 memnon has a primacy, but nothing more. The 
 speech of Nestor (//. 11. 29), advising concurrence 
 in the scheme of Agamemnon, has the tone of 
 an entirely free assent. In the critical meeting 
 of //. XIV. Odysseus sternly resists the device of 
 Agamemnon (82 seqq}), who accepts the rebuke 
 {ibid. 1 04) ; and Diomed will not hear of retreat. 
 
 VII 
 
 The speeches made in the Assemblies are such 
 as befit bodies which really deliberate. The speech 
 of Thersites indeed is followed by blows from 
 Odysseus, but the Poet is careful to record that 
 the punishment inflicted had the approval of Tis. 
 Now Tis is a character of great importance in the 
 Poems. He is the impersonal representative of a 
 dispassionate and free public opinion, collecting 
 and expressing the sum of the case. And the 
 existence of such a form of speech testifies to the 
 habitual formation and expression of such opinion, 
 
I02 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUD V sec. 
 
 and shows that, even in the atmosphere of the 
 camp, there was a breath and flavour of liberty. 
 The mode of assent in an Assembly is manly 
 and becoming. In Ithaca a large party dissents, 
 and these quit the meeting (Od. XXIV. 464). 
 In the Assembly of //. IX. 32, Diomed resists 
 outright the proposal of Agamemnon, declares 
 that, whatever others may do, he and Sthenelos 
 will remain, and carries the day against his chief 
 by the acclamation of the army (ibid. 5 o). 
 
 VIII 
 
 Mr. Grote has, by his notice,^ given dignity to 
 a half verse, ascribed to Homer, but nowhere, so 
 far as is known, admitted by the Ancients into the 
 text. It ascribes to Agamemnon the power of life 
 and death. The possession of such a power would 
 have been in opposition to the pervading spirit of 
 the Poems throughout their whole extent. Had 
 it been genuine, this scrap of four words {^par gar 
 emoi thanatos) would surely have found illustration 
 and support from some other portion of the text 
 But there is no such thing in Homer, among the 
 proper instruments of government, as arbitrary 
 
 ^ History of Greece^ vol. ii. p. 86, n. 
 
V RUDIMENTS OF POLITICS 103 
 
 power. Power works in conjunction with reason. 
 On the other hand, civil authority is always treated 
 as flowing directly from Zeus, a fact which invests 
 it with sanctity, but which is entirely compatible 
 with its limitation. 
 
 IX 
 
 It is a seeming exception to the statement in 
 the last paragraph, that on the tumultuary disper- 
 sal of the Assembly in the Second Iliad^ Odysseus, 
 in his bold struggle to rally and recall it, ex- 
 postulates with the chiefs, but strikes the common 
 soldier while upbraiding him (//. II. 200). This 
 however is a time of great and indeed desperate 
 straits, a time therefore of exception, when risks 
 have to be run ; and it is not the mere runaway 
 whom he treats thus roughly, but the runaway who 
 is also shouting to others in order to inflame the 
 panic. 
 
 X 
 
 The body politic, as we see it in the Poems, and 
 in the several princedoms or sovereignties, rather 
 than in the central primacy or supremacy, is a 
 regular organism, potentially complete ; but it is 
 so to speak in the gristle, not having hardened 
 
I04 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 into bone. Its rules of action are customary and 
 unwritten. There is no such thing as law in the 
 sense of something formulated and enacted ; and 
 the word for it (nomos) is not found in the Poems. 
 There are however fundamental though undefined 
 principles, which are personified in the goddess 
 Themis, and are habitually called Themistes in the 
 Poems. They are the adamantine links of social 
 order, and have in them a strong element of 
 morality. 
 
 XI 
 
 This God-given power of rulers, which takes 
 effect in action by means of counsel, has to do 
 with priestly functions, at least within the Hellenic 
 precinct. So Agamemnon presides at the sacrifice 
 of the Poet in the Third Iliad^ and Nestor at the 
 festival of Poseidon in Od. III. Nor have we any 
 mention of a priest at the Court of Alkinoos. 
 The administration of justice between man and 
 man was also a cardinal function of the sovereign. 
 The language in //. II. 201 and elsewhere seems 
 as if it were personally exercised ; but in //. XVIII. 
 (497-508), on the Shield, the suit is tried by a 
 body of elders as judges in the face of the people. 
 
V RUDIMENTS OF POLITICS 105 
 
 Thirdly, they had the duty of leadership in war ; 
 and finally, they possessed endowments in land, 
 which appertained to them as discharging these 
 duties (//. XII. 313). Kingship, even in Ithaca, 
 brings wealth ; and Telemachos, in the event of 
 surrendering it, looks to falling back upon the 
 estate and the serfs whom Odysseus had obtained 
 for him by predatory enterprise {Od. I. 392-398). 
 
 XII 
 
 . Between the Trojan and the Achaian assemblies 
 there are marked distinctions. First, as has been 
 remarked,^ as to oratory. Secondly, there is no- 
 where an indication of differences in popular senti- 
 ment, and the supremacy of Hector seems to be 
 unquestioned. Thirdly, the word commonly used 
 to signify the acceptance by the people of what 
 may have been proposed is keladesan, they rattled or 
 clattered their assent : a term never applied to the 
 decisions of the Achaian Assembly. Lastly, and 
 perhaps most important of all, there is no Tis, no 
 organ of a spontaneous, equitable, and pervading 
 sentiment, of what we term a public opinion. 
 
 ^ Supra, V. p. 100. 
 
SECTION VI 
 
 PLOT OF THE ILIAD 
 I 
 
 The work of Homer, as an Epic poet, is to incor- 
 porate Beauty and Grandeur, and whatever most 
 harmonises with them, in living action. In the 
 place he has chosen for this purpose, it appears that 
 nationality, or patriotism, supplies his governing aim. 
 And if this be allowed, then I further submit that 
 the plot of the Iliad is a product of the nicest and 
 most consummate constructive art. It may almost 
 be said that Achaianism breathes in every line of 
 it ; nay that, in some marked forms of licence, this 
 idea modifies, though without subverting, the higher 
 laws of poetry. The Poet seeks to fashion his 
 country, to glorify his country, to make known his 
 country's crown in the highest developments of 
 
SEC. VI PLOT OF THE ILIAD 107 
 
 character, to which human nature, by the means 
 which were in his view, could reach. 
 
 II 
 
 While thus working intensely for Achaian 
 nationality as a whole, the Poet does not forget 
 local interests and feelings. He has contrived to 
 incorporate in the movement of the Iliad a variety 
 of scenes, which set forth the aristeia or prime per- 
 formances of the several chieftains of principal rank. 
 Arrangements of this kind are made first for 
 Achilles not only in the closing books but in the 
 whole structure of the Poem. Odysseus receives, 
 even after allowing for his civil action in the 
 Second Book and for his direction of the Doloneia, 
 less than his share, but then he was to be amply 
 compensated by becoming the protagonist of the 
 sister Poem. Besides these, there are no less than 
 six marked military presentations of as many 
 different chieftains : Agamemnon, Diomed, Aias, 
 Menelaos, Patroclos, and Idomeneus. This 
 arrangement, setting aside the case of Patroclos, 
 who is as a moon to set off the sun of Achilles, is 
 admirably adapted to the territorial distribution 
 of Greece before the Dorian conquest, and awards 
 
io8 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY SEa 
 
 to each population its due share of honour and 
 of pleasure, as an itinerating minstrel, dependent 
 on his art for subsistence, might be expected to 
 award them. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In this arrangement, so viewed, it may be said 
 that I only indicate a personal and interested 
 purpose ; but there seems to be a very high 
 poetical purpose also. The colossal character of 
 Achilles requires the Poet to bridge over the 
 interval between him and common men. The 
 intermediate grandeur of these personages, who 
 are as satellites placed around him, not only 
 sets off and enhances his surpassing magnitude, 
 but also helps to keep it within the bounds of the 
 natural. Could we by laceration sever an Achilleis 
 from an Ilias, I believe the delineation of the great 
 hero would at once be more extravagant and less 
 effective ; would strain us more, and impress us 
 less. 
 
 IV 
 
 Considering Homer in his double relation, at 
 once to his subject and to his . auditory in the 
 Greek Peninsula, we perceive that the task he had 
 
VI PLOT OF THE ILIAD 109 
 
 to perform was one requiring the most profound 
 skill. He had to give to each and all of the 
 Achaian warriors, who stood in the first class, a 
 decisive predominance over such champions as 
 Troy could set against them. For, unless he had 
 rigidly observed this condition, he would have 
 imparted a painful shock to national feeling. And 
 yet he had to contrive that the Trojans as a body 
 should reduce the Achaians, manifestly their 
 superiors in war, to the last extremities, inasmuch 
 as this was the only method by which Achilles 
 could either be sufficiently glorified, or brought 
 anew into the field to re-establish the fortunes of 
 the enterprise. 
 
 It was also necessary that the Trojan warriors 
 individually, while in each case palpably inferior, 
 should, notwithstanding, not appear to be con- 
 temptible, but should be such that there would be 
 credit in beating them. Nay, he had to invest 
 Hector with such powers as would make him a 
 presentable match for Achilles. And yet Hector, 
 carefully observed through the vicissitudes of the 
 field, is in reality inferior to all the Greek chieftains 
 
no LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 whom he has to encounter : to Aias, to Diomed, 
 and (apart from the intervention of Apollo) to 
 Patroclos. There is not a single Trojan chieftain 
 who has the true Achaian fibre. We find it only 
 among the allies of Troy, in the persons of Sar- 
 pedon and Glaukos ; and it is evident that these, 
 as Lycians, have some racial affinity with Greece. 
 Nor is there a single case in which any Achaian 
 of the first, or even the second order, is slain 
 in fair fight by a Trojan. It is by the bow, 
 and from the safe distance it allows, that the 
 great Achaian chieftains are ingloriously disabled. 
 
 VI 
 
 To these difficult conditions the Poet has con- 
 formed, and I think with a perfect success, except 
 in the case of Patroclos. Here the jealousy of 
 Homer for Achaian honour has led him, as it 
 appears to me, to the use of a clumsy expedient, 
 which must be esteemed a poetical defect. Second- 
 ary aid from a divinity is one thing, as where 
 Athene, in XXH. 276, restores to Achilles the 
 spear which he had launched. Her principal 
 trick is to personate Deiphobos (XXH. 226), and 
 to persuade Hector to fight by the hope of being 
 
VI , nOT OF THE ILIAD ill 
 
 two to one. But against Patroclos Apollo actually 
 fights, so as to cripple and virtually almost destroy 
 him, after which he is wounded from behind by 
 Euphorbos, and nothing of substance remains for 
 Hector to do (//. XVI. 791, 806, 850). 
 
 VII 
 
 There is not a single book of the Iliad^ any 
 more than of the Odyssey^ which, when judged by 
 the proper standard, is not found to be contributory 
 to its end. For example, the Doloneia or night- 
 raid of Book X. is wanted to give to Odysseus 
 such a share in the action as his greatness, and 
 especially his manysidedness, require. The con- 
 trivance is a double one, by which the diversified 
 feats of the Achaian warriors are at once ; to 
 exhibit their martial superiority, and yet to fail in 
 their main purpose of sustaining the cause, so that 
 they may create an overwhelming necessity for the 
 protagonist to encounter and overcome. The 
 more brilliant their performances are in themselves, 
 the more overpowering is the pre-eminence of him 
 who does what they cannot do. There is a subtlety 
 of adaptation in this arrangement such, as it may 
 not be easy to indicate in any other Epic. 
 
LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY 
 
 VIII 
 
 Attention may be especially directed to the 
 s)<ill with which the case of Odysseus is treated 
 ifei the Iliad. For this end let us consider what 
 ifDnditions were required. It was needful that he 
 • should in all things be worthy to be coupled with 
 Achilles as a brother protagonist, and yet that he 
 should not in any way compete with him, as such 
 a rivalry would have marred the central purpose 
 of the Iliad. It was needful also to leave to such 
 warriors as Diomed and Aias a place second 
 to none but the colossal warrior. Accordingly 
 Odysseus is kept out of competition with them, 
 and his great powers as a soldier are indicated 
 rather than described. Yet he is the twin of a 
 
 rth nearly superhuman : he is the many-minded, 
 tHe all-accomplished, the never baffled. His sur- 
 
 assing political energy is exhibited in the Second 
 ^^ook ; in the Ninth, his oratory ; in the Tenth his 
 fresources in the craft of war ; in the Twenty-Third 
 his vast physical force. Even his peculiar strength 
 of domestic affection is significantly exhibited in 
 //. II. 260 by his reference to his son, which has 
 not any parallel in the Poem. 
 
VI PLOT OF THE ILIAD 113 
 
 IX 
 
 Homer differed from all, or almost all, epic 
 
 poets in this, that he sang of men so much moi t 
 
 than of things. This might probably be illustrated 
 
 by showing what proportion of the lines in Xki^IlL d 
 
 are thrown into speeches, and comparing it with t e 
 
 corresponding proportion in other Poems. But 
 
 the case admits of a larger view. In the " Tale 
 
 of Troy divine," Troy is wholly subservient For 
 
 Troy, and for the war of Troy, the Poem has no 
 
 beginning, and no ending. Not so for the glory 
 
 and character of the " man " whose " wrath " the 
 
 Poet sang. It is as if he had had a forethought 
 
 of the painter's and the sculptor's secret, that the 
 
 consummation and perfection of their work lie in 
 
 the human form. 
 
 X 
 
 The greatest among the structural peculiarities 
 
 of the Iliad is the twofold and parallel movemet^ . 
 
 of the Olympian and the human agencies, eaf/- 
 
 of them so fully developed in speech, individua. 
 
 character, and action, that either might almost be 
 
 conceived of as an Epic in itself without the other ; 
 
 so complete in each is the elaboration of the parts, 
 
 and the determination of their relation to the whole. 
 
 I 
 
SECTION VII 
 
 THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE POEMS 
 
 The Geography of the Poems, and of the Odyssey 
 in particular, is not a mere question of delimita- 
 tions upon the surface of the earth, but is a key- 
 to their ethnography, which in its turn is a key 
 to manners and religion, in a word to the most 
 central part of their contents. This geography 
 of the Odyssey has been thoroughly vitiated and 
 obscured by the action of spurious Latin tradition, 
 which forcibly accommodated Homer to the exi- 
 gencies of a Roman dynasty and a South Italian 
 Poem. In this manner the scheme of the Odyssey 
 has been reduced from a basis which, though inde- 
 terminate, is, when viewed with due reference to 
 the circumstances of the Poet and his means of 
 
SEC. VII THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE POEMS 115 
 
 information, entirely rational, to a tissue not only 
 of fable but of something near absurdity. 
 
 II 
 
 It may be well to select a case, in order to 
 illustrate the determined recklessness of the Latin 
 representations of Odyssean geography. It habit- 
 ually identifies the island of Aiolos {Od. X. i) 
 with Stromboli. Now in the way of such an 
 identification there stand the following facts : 
 
 1. From this island, a continuance of Zephuros, 
 say N.N.W. wind, carries the ship straight home- 
 wards until it has sighted Ithaca ; that is to 
 say, right across the Italian Peninsula. 
 
 2. The island of Aiolos is one, and apparently 
 solitary ; whereas the Lipari islands are many. 
 
 3. Stromboli is mentioned without either moun- 
 tain or volcano, a double objection for any one who 
 has passed by it at sea, since, to the eye of the 
 voyager, it is simply a volcanic mountain, with 
 nothing else projecting from the main. 
 
 4. The time given is nine days and nights from 
 the Cyclop-land. But, as the same tradition 
 places that land in Sicily, the time allowed is 
 incompatible with other adjustments between space 
 
Ii6 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 and time, such as the five days from Crete to 
 Egypt, nearly double the distance as the crow flies. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The geography of the Iliad may be said to have 
 generally the same limits as the personal ex- 
 perience of Homer, if we may include in that 
 phrase, together with what he had seen, what he 
 had the means of learning from adequate, easy, 
 and diversified sources of information. There will 
 still be exceptions ; as in the noteworthy survey by 
 Zeus of the country beyond the Balkans in //. XIII. 
 3-6 (which probably illustrates the far-reaching 
 action of the god), and the reference in II. 857 
 to the silver mines of Alube. The Poet may 
 personally have had a coast knowledge of Western 
 Asia Minor, and the text of the Trojan Catalogue 
 pretends to no more. He was probably acquainted 
 with the plain of Troy, but in a loose manner : 
 for the descriptions, while they are stamped with 
 local features, and highly picturesque, have not 
 been shown to be accurate. 
 
 IV 
 
 Schliemann has argued, with high probability, 
 
VII THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE POEMS 117 
 
 that the site of Troy was on the hill of Hissarlik.^ 
 This argument is favoured by one, or more, marked 
 indications of the text. But it is understood that 
 there are to be further excavations, under the 
 same generous auspices, with a view to more 
 ample means of judgment. Meantime the field of 
 choice has been narrowed. Eckenbrecher has 
 proved to a demonstration that the site was not, 
 according to the evidence of the Poems, on the 
 rock of Bounarbashi,^ as it had been somewhat 
 fashionable to assume. 
 
 It will be allowed on all hands that the geo- 
 graphy peculiar to the Odyssey in the voyages of 
 Odysseus has no relation whatever to the personal 
 experience of the Poet, unless it be within the 
 limit of the Odyssean dominions. It thus happens 
 to be very nearly the fact that each of the Poems 
 has a geography to itself. 
 
 For the sake of convenience I term the precinct 
 
 ^ Troy andits Remains, by Dr. Henry Schliemann, Murray, 1875; 
 Homeric Synchronism, by W. E. G., pp. 22-31. 
 
 2 Die Lage des Homerischejt Troja, Dlisseldorf, 1875 ; Ueber 
 die Lage des Hoinerischen Ilion, in the Rheinisches Museum, 1842 ; 
 Homeric Synchronism, p. 22. 
 
ii8 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 of the Iliadic geography the Inner Zone, and the 
 peculiar sphere of the Odyssey the Outer Zone. 
 
 VI 
 
 An important subdivision, belonging to the Inner 
 Zone, is presented by the dominions of Odysseus. 
 They are in four provinces or departments : Douli- 
 chion, Same, Zante, and Ithaca. The Doulichian 
 force is placed under Meges in //. 11. 625-630, 
 but the Doulichian Suitors, though only a selection, 
 constitute half the entire number of those gathered 
 in Ithaca. The Poems nowhere describe Douli- 
 chion and Same as separate islands. I construe 
 them to be portions of what is now Cephalonia, 
 divided physically and socially in the midst by 
 the bay of Same and a neck of mountain land. 
 Here the name Dulichi still subsists, and the 
 position agrees fairly well with the expression of 
 Homer " over against Elis." Zante requires no 
 comment. The remarkable harbour of Ithaca is 
 well described in Od. XIII. 96-101, as is the 
 general contour and character of the island in 
 other passages. 
 
VII THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE POEMS 119 
 
 VII 
 
 As the Phoenicians were the only navigators 
 known to Homer who frequented either the 
 Euxine, or the Mediterranean westwards of Greece, 
 with the Ocean lying beyond, we are led at once 
 to the inference that the mariners of this race must 
 have been the sources of his information as to the 
 geography of the Outer Zone, and that his informa- 
 tion could only have been oral. Oral information 
 on geographical sites and distances, unchecked by 
 visible delineations, or by general knowledge of 
 the distribution of land and sea, were of necessity 
 subject to much misapprehension ; while the nar- 
 rators, dealing with one who was at their mercy, 
 had the double temptation, on the one hand, of 
 indulging in the marvellous, and on the other, of 
 so dressing their relations as not to invite possible 
 competitors into the regions from whence they 
 drew exclusive gains. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Moreover, as practical rather than scientific 
 mariners, they could only speak in general terms ; 
 their narratives could hardly be consistent one with 
 
I20 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 another ; marked natural features would be easily 
 reported and remembered, yet without any adequate 
 means of fixing relative situation, and with a great 
 risk of amalgamating locally indications existing 
 at more than one place. We have also to bear 
 in mind that, in the state of knowledge then sub- 
 sisting, descriptions would sometimes mislead on 
 account of their very truthfulness in referring to 
 one and the same region contradictory phenomena, 
 which were indeed to be found there, but at different 
 times. Thus Homer had evidently been informed 
 that perpetual day, and also perpetual night, were 
 characteristics of the north. The only expedient 
 open to him was to interpose a great distance 
 between his Laistrugonians of the double day, and 
 his Kimmerians of the unending night. So again, 
 the accounts he would probably pick up of the 
 Bosporos, the Straits of Messina, and the Straits 
 of Gibraltar, would readily, and almost inevitably, 
 tend to fuse themselves in his mind into one de- 
 scription. A narrow sea-passage, a current through 
 it, and more or less of rocky shore, form the essence 
 in each case. And they were likely to run together 
 at the local point which, from any cause, had 
 most deeply impressed the mind of the Poet. 
 
VII THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE POEMS 121 
 
 IX 
 
 With these formidable difficulties the Poet 
 struggles as best he may, and exhibits an ingenuity 
 which is in thorough keeping with his higher gifts. 
 It is remarkable, considering the nature of the 
 task and the scantiness of the resources, that the 
 whole narrative he has woven together does not 
 contain any gross inconsistency as to its general 
 structure. Where he is at fault he simply, instead 
 of giving particulars, leaves us an hiatus. Thus at 
 several points of the great circuit we find ourselves 
 wholly without guidance. But this lapse into 
 silence bears witness to the importance of the 
 indications, in the cases where he has supplied 
 them. 
 
 X 
 
 And, in truth, he has contrived to furnish many 
 such tokens, which are for the most part utterly 
 disregarded in the Latin identifications. They 
 are contrived as follows — 
 
 1. As to direction, by naming the winds, by 
 the sun, and in one instance by the stars {Od. V. 
 270-277). 
 
 2. As to distance, by weather, and by the mode 
 
122 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 of locomotion, which is either sailing, or rowing, 
 or floating on a raft, or swimming, together with 
 the number of days occupied in the several opera- 
 tions. 
 
 3. As to latitude, or distance northward, this is 
 conveyed through a change of climate indicated 
 by the use of fires otherwise than for food. See 
 particularly the great fire of the cavern of Kalupso 
 {Od. V. 59), where there was no cooking. 
 
 4. As to the identification of spots, by specify- 
 ing marked local features, as in the form of the 
 island of Thrinakie, and in the harbour of the 
 
 Laistrugones. 
 
 XI 
 
 The chief winds of Homer are Boreas and 
 Zephuros. Euros and Notos fill a smaller space 
 in the action. But these four winds do not closely 
 correspond with the four chief points of the com- 
 pass, as North, South, East, and West. Zephuros is 
 from W. northwards, and Boreas from N. principally 
 eastwards. Zephuros is the best defined, Euros 
 and Notos very indeterminate, but all seem to 
 cover at least several points of the compass. The 
 indications from sunset and sunrise in like manner 
 may be understood to range over an arc of the 
 
VII THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE POEMS 123 
 
 horizon corresponding with the variations at 
 different seasons. 
 
 XII 
 
 The voyage of Odysseus in the Outer Zone 
 may be taken to commence with his passing the 
 Malean Cape, and to close either upon the border- 
 land of Scherie, or upon the voyage to Ithaca, 
 which is represented vaguely as covering a large 
 distance. The several stages are : — 
 
 1. Land of the Lotophagoi. 
 
 2. Land of the Kuklopes. 
 
 3. Island of Aiolos. 
 
 4. Laistrugonie. 
 
 5. Aiaie, the island of Kirke. 
 
 6. The Underworld. 
 
 7. Aiaie, on his return. 
 
 8. Island of Thrinakie. 
 
 9. Ogugie, the island of Kalupso. 
 
 I o. Scherie, the land of the Phaiakes. 
 
 XIII 
 
 The indications given by Homer, as to the 
 situation of the several spots which mark the 
 stages, do not in all cases admit of verification. 
 It is only surprising that there is not more of 
 
124 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. 
 
 obscurity and confusion. Among cardinal points, 
 as conceived and arranged in the brain of Homer, 
 which can be established by reasoning from the 
 text, I place the following : — 
 
 1. The land of the Kuklopes is in the south. 
 
 2. The island of Aiolos lies to the north of 
 west from Ithaca. 
 
 3. The island of Calupso is in the far north. 
 
 4. Laistrugonie is also northern. 
 
 5. Aiaie lies to the eastward, and perhaps north 
 of east. But the site is vaguely conceived. 
 
 6. Thrinakie, with Scylla and Charybdis, lies 
 between Aiaie and Greece, on the way homeward. 
 
 7. Northward of the Greek Peninsula, there lies 
 (not the mass of the European continent but) a 
 great expanse of sea. 
 
 8. There is no trace of the existence of Italy 
 to be found in the Poems. 
 
 XIV 
 
 If these propositions be sound, their combined 
 effect will be to draw in rough outline the voyage 
 of Odysseus. It is begun under the influence of 
 Boreas, and the route lies by the south-west to 
 the west, north-west, north, and then south-east- 
 
VII THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE POEMS 125 
 
 ward to the island of Thrinakie, lying east of 
 Greece. From this point he is driven back to 
 Ogugie in the far north ; and then brought over 
 sea, by the longest of his passages, to Scherie. 
 
 The voyage so viewed occupies about three- 
 quarters of ' the whole compass of the horizon. 
 The remaining quarter is covered by the tour of 
 Menelaos, as it is summarily described in Od. 
 IV. 81-86. 
 
 XV 
 
 Scherie is almost conclusively identified with 
 Corfu by the account given in Od. V. 281 of its 
 aspect from the north, as that of a shield, a nearly 
 level line along the sea, with a boss or upward pro- 
 jection. The northern coast of the island lies rather 
 low, with the very marked exception of Mount San 
 Salvador, which at a single point rises to a height 
 of near 3000 feet. Both the representation and the 
 reality are peculiar, and the resemblance is exact, 
 except in a single particular, namely, that the 
 " boss " on the line of coast is not in the middle, 
 but towards the eastern end. Homer's idea of 
 Scherie was probably derived from report, and is 
 much less precise than his account of Ithaca ; but 
 it appears reasonably to suffice for identification. 
 
[26 LANDMARKS OF HOMERIC STUDY sec. vii 
 
 XVI 
 
 The interesting question remains, What was 
 Homer's idea of the figure into which the surface 
 of the earth, so largely conceived by him, was cast ? 
 This might perhaps be called his geotypy. 
 
 It seems a mistake to suppose he thought the 
 earth was like a plate, although undoubtedly he 
 conceived that it had bounds, which were supplied 
 by the great river Okeanos. He plainly believed 
 that the Underworld lay beneath the ground on 
 which we walk, and at no immeasurable distance 
 from it. He believed also that access to the 
 Underworld was to be had by passing to the 
 extremity of the land in an eastern region, and 
 then crossing Okeanos. Finally, the sun, in his 
 course from one day to another, passed over the 
 mouth of the Underworld, so that he could threaten 
 {Od. Xn. 382, 383) if offended to stop, or enter 
 in, and shine there. Apparently the conception 
 of the Poet concerning the earth approximated 
 to the idea of sphericity, but we should perhaps 
 suppose a slice cut off from the lower side. 
 
On the Points of Contact between the 
 Assyrian Tablets and the Homeric 
 Text 
 
 The picture of the Homeric world, belonging to 
 the period when legend hardens into history, lies 
 within the range of that comparative science which 
 of late has done so much to illuminate antiquity. 
 But we step beyond the process of collecting and 
 comparing allied phenomena, when circumstances 
 enable us to arrange them in order of time, or to 
 connect them, such as they appear in one country, 
 by affiliation, with their yet older forms manifested 
 in another. 
 
 To this purpose, the condition of Homeric 
 Greece is eminently favourable. Although the 
 Greek Peninsula is surrounded at all points of the 
 circle by masses of land as well as sea, all the 
 solid and operative traditions of the Poems, all 
 that exercised an influence in developing the 
 nation, came from within one-fourth part of that 
 
128 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 circumference, lying to the South and South East, 
 and came over sea with the ships of the Phoenicians. 
 We are thus directed by geographical indications 
 to certain quarters, and especially to Syria, Assyria, 
 and Egypt. By the aid of Egyptian discoveries, it 
 has been found possible to trace into that country 
 much that we find in the Poems, and to draw 
 from the connection thus established some lights 
 that help to clear the early history of Greece.^ 
 And the time seems now to have arrived, when it 
 may be reasonably attempted to show, from the 
 Babylonian and Assyrian monuments, how numer- 
 ous appear to be the points of contact between 
 them and the Homeric text Apart from the 
 wider investigations of comparative science, it is 
 matter of legitimate interest to trace upwards to 
 their source, through the channels now opened, a 
 portion at least of the influences which have oper- 
 ated in moulding the Greek nation, and thus 
 somewhat to advance at a point of capital interest 
 the important work, now in progress, of recon- 
 stituting piecemeal the earlier records of our race. 
 I have already made some slight efforts in this 
 
 ^ Lauth, Homer und ^gypten ; Homeric Synchronism^ 1876, 
 part ii. 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 129 
 
 province of inquiry ; ^ but increased knowledge is 
 now accessible, and with it increased evidence of 
 Babylonian derivation. In particular, the points are 
 numerous, which appear to associate the indications 
 of the Poems with the Babylonian cosmogonies and 
 theological systems. Those indications indeed are 
 not abundant. The simple and healthy realism 
 of Homer indisposed him alike to physics and to 
 metaphysics. But, as respects the origin of things. 
 Homer has given us at least one decisive indication. 
 The great encircling river Okeanosis the parent of 
 the gods themselves (//. XIV. 301, 302) and of 
 their entire number {ibid. 245) ; or, in other words, 
 water is the origin of all things. Hence, no doubt, 
 it is that this ancient and venerable, though purely 
 elemental. Power is treated by the Poet with such 
 singular respect, and is not called, like the other 
 elemental powers, to appear in the great Olympian 
 Assembly (//. XX. 7), where with them he would 
 only have taken a secondary rank. 
 
 Now it is a priori most unlikely that this could 
 have been an original conception of the Poet's 
 brain. The Poems are intensely pervaded by the 
 theanthropic principle, and at all points they 
 
 ^ Homeric Synchronism, pp. 230, 234. 
 K 
 
I30 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 depress and repel merely elemental conceptions. 
 To place, therefore, an elemental personage in the 
 relation of parent to all the ruling divinities is 
 therefore a somewhat gross anomaly. The 
 force of this idea will be most clearly seen, if we 
 bear in mind how venerable in Homer's eyes were 
 parentage and seniority — 
 
 oT(rO^ (OS 7rp€(r/3vT€poi(rLV 'E/oivvcs alev eirovrai.^ 
 And again in the light of the shift, to which the 
 Poet has been driven in order to save at once 
 his general principle and the integrity of this 
 particular conception. For surely it is a shift 
 to save the dignity of Okeanos by excluding him 
 from the divine assembly. It was likely, then, that 
 the notion of an oceanic origin of things came 
 to him from a foreign source, and from a foreign 
 source such as would invest it in his eyes with 
 something of authority and sanctity. This con- 
 dition in all likelihood would for him be supplied 
 by a Babylonian stamp. 
 
 The entire tenour of the Poems bears witness 
 to the reverence of Homer for the past. Such 
 reverence could not be confined within the geo- 
 graphical limits of his own country. So the 
 1 //. XV. 204. 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT - 131 
 
 doctrine of oceanic origin, which is incongruous in 
 relation to the Olympian system and the thean- 
 thropic principle, can readily and naturally be 
 accounted for as a Phoenician importation from 
 Babylonia ; and, alike from the evidence of the 
 monument and from the records of later times, 
 we learn how the conception of a water origin of 
 things prevailed in the Babylonian system. 
 
 It is, perhaps, with some reference to this 
 primary conception, that Homer has given us an 
 isolated and seemingly casual utterance in the 
 line (//. VII. 99) which appears to refer the com- 
 position of the human frame to the elements of 
 earth and water. Menelaos speaks of the Greek 
 chiefs, in their momentary hesitation to accept 
 the challenge of Hector, as physically doomed to 
 pass at death into these elements — 
 
 aXK, vfxets fi€V Travres vSoyp Kal yata ykvoicrOe. 
 There is nothing in the Poems to associate this 
 notion of aqueous origin with the Kronid dynasty 
 of deities, either by explaining the manner, or by 
 detailing the stages, of the derivation. I add 
 however some words cited by Dr. Driver-^ from the 
 Assyrian tablets — 
 
 ^ In the Expositor, No. XIII. p. 39. Also Sayce, Hibbert Lectures^ 
 p. 384. 
 
132 , ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 " When as yet the heaven above had not declared, 
 Nor the earth beneath had recorded a name, 
 The august ocean was their generator, 
 The surging deep was she that bare them all. 
 
 When of the gods none had yet issued forth, 
 Or recorded a name, or fixed a destiny, 
 Then were the great gods formed." 
 
 I turn now to the subject of mythological 
 relations between Olympian, and Babylonian or 
 Assyrian divinities. 
 
 In all attempts to trace, in a deity of a parti- 
 cular system and country, a thread of historical 
 derivation from a deity of another name, belonging 
 to another system and country, it is to be borne 
 in mind that the names and attributes of such 
 deities are subjected to change in a manner and 
 degree totally unknown within the precincts of 
 those other religions which have carried upon 
 them, from their origin onwards, a characteristic 
 stamp capable of certifying their identity through- 
 out all ages. Such are the Christian, Jewish, and 
 Mahometan religions. 
 
 It is indeed possible in such cases that, while 
 the stamp remains intact, and in the absence of 
 any violent breach with the current traditions of 
 the system, its character and effect may suffer 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 133 
 
 from within important and even essential changes. 
 But this is alteration within definite dividing lines, 
 alteration without mixture. In earlier days, the 
 silent causes of disintegration were actively at 
 work ; but there were others to boot. There were 
 constant migrations and conquests, settlements and 
 resettlements, displacements and coalitions of the 
 populations ; the religions underwent along with 
 them perpetual modifications, and shifted, like a 
 kaleidoscope, from time to time, in the combina- 
 tions which they presented. In the competitions 
 of languages caused by new arrivals, names are 
 changed ; and competing worships give and take, 
 and arrive by intercommunication at a kind of co7i- 
 cordatiim. Such a result, in satisfying the demands 
 of social peace, disfigures or transfigures, again and 
 again, the religious traditions of a country ; or 
 breaks them up into a multitude of local worships, 
 liable to be unsettled afresh by the neutralising 
 schemes which may have been devised and pro- 
 secuted in their own interests by sovereigns and 
 priesthoods. To all the difficulties produced by 
 these causes are to be added the absence or 
 imperfection of record. Apart from this last 
 source of embarrassment, the picture presented by 
 
134 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 Babylonian and Assyrian religion may perhaps be 
 compared to the network of those Norfolk and 
 Suffolk rivers, which join and part, and rejoin and 
 part again, so as to defy or greatly hamper any 
 clear continuous tracing of their several identities. 
 
 Subject to the full force of the preceding 
 observations, it seems safe to say that the Poseidon 
 of Homer carries marks, which are highly probable 
 if not demonstrative, of Babylonian association. 
 
 In the Poems, he presents to us traits of 
 Southern and of Eastern derivation ; for example 
 in the following points, the detailed proof of which 
 has of course to be given in its proper place, 
 where the needful details would be permissible. 
 
 1. As the god of the Phoenicians. 
 
 2. As the god of the Aithiopes. 
 
 3. As the father of the Kuklopes. 
 
 4. As the god of the horse. 
 
 5. As the dark-haired god. 
 
 6. As resting on the Solyman mountains. 
 
 7. As related to the Giants. 
 
 But the Aithiopes stretch from the rising to 
 the setting sun ; and all these indications taken 
 together do not suffice to mark any one particular 
 region of the South and South-east, from which the 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 135 
 
 Poseidonian tradition was derived. Let us see, 
 however, whether there are not some grounds for 
 supposing that it may have been partially at least 
 borne upon that stream of report, which from the 
 Persian Gulf passed into Syria, and then by the 
 Mediterranean into Greece. 
 
 It seems evident that some important tradition 
 connected with the sea found its way from Chaldaea 
 into Greece : because Thalassa (or Thalatta), their 
 name for the sea, is of Chaldaean origin. 
 
 Again, the position of Poseidon is peculiar in 
 this that he is the god of the sea, and yet is not 
 an elemental god. He has a palace in the sea- 
 hollows, but he does not inhabit the sea like 
 Nereus, and he seems to appear in Olympos {Od. 
 XIII. 125-160), and moves constantly and variously 
 on the surface of the earth. The correspondence 
 is here very strong between him and the Ea or. 
 Hea of the Babylonian Triad. That name is pre- 
 Semitic, and Hea belongs to Eridu on the Persian 
 Gulf, the earliest seat of the Chaldsean civilisation 
 (Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 104). Within his local 
 sphere he was supreme, the supreme god of his 
 country. It is probably in this character that 
 Merodach is the son of Ea. And so Poseidon 
 
136 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 likewise bears upon him the notes of having been 
 supreme in his country of origin, a Zeus-Poseidon, 
 as Aidoneus was the Zeus catachthonios. Hence 
 it may be that Poseidon exhibits in Homer a 
 constant tendency to set himself up as a match for 
 Zeus. It is with the utmost difficulty that Iris 
 induces him to obey the command which requires 
 him to quit the Trojan plain (//. XV. 200-207) ; 
 and in the Odyssey^ where he persecuted the hero 
 against the wish of the whole Thearchy, Zeus 
 says no more than that he surely will not persevere 
 (which however he does) in defiance of the entire 
 body of the gods {Od. I. 78). 
 
 One of the most characteristic notes of the 
 Homeric Poseidon is his complexion, as the dark 
 or black Poseidon. This is not only indicated by 
 epithet : the word Kiianochaites or dark-haired (//. 
 XX. 144), stands substantively to describe him, 
 without any other name or epithet. With this we 
 have to compare the Hymn which treats Ea as the 
 creator of the black race, meaning the old non- 
 Semitic population belonging to Eridu (Sayce, 
 pp. 142, 143). There is no other appropriation 
 in Homer of an epithet of colour to a divinity 
 which resembles that given in the case of Poseidon. 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 137 
 
 In one point the representation of Poseidon 
 {ibid. p. 131) is markedly different from that of 
 Ea ; this, namely that Ea was the god of wisdom. 
 This may mean little more than that Eridu was 
 the first known seat of civilisation, and that Ea 
 was the god of Eridu. Certainly there is here no 
 mark or resemblance to Poseidon, who represents 
 nothing but the conception of mere force. But 
 then the particular attributes of different deities 
 continually shifted with the courses of social 
 change ; and the feature of wisdom may have been 
 effaced from the portraiture of Ea at some period 
 before any reflection of it was conveyed into the 
 Syrian, Phoenician, and Olympian systems ; or he 
 may have been blended with another form of the 
 tradition ruling westwards, and presenting the rude 
 and brutal character to be expected {Od. VII. 56- 
 60, 205, 206), in the father of the Kuklopes, the 
 kinsman of the Giants, and the object, in historic 
 times, of worship by human sacrifices. 
 
 Again : In Babylonia we find the earliest source 
 of the legends of human deification, and in associa- 
 tion with this, of the gigantic size and strength of 
 primeval man. Izdubar has already mounted 
 into heaven. Leucothie, our only case of pure 
 
138 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 deiiication in Homer {Od. V. 335), meets us in 
 the Outer Zone. These legends are associated 
 by Lenormant with the remarkable passages in 
 Genesis (Gen. vi. i, 2, also 4), which, as he holds, 
 describe the monstrous preterhuman births from 
 sons of God and daughters of men, and which 
 state that the Nephilim, rendered giants, were in the 
 earth in those days {Origines de VHistoire^ p. 334). 
 Now Ea is the great deity, whom alone we can 
 trace even from the Persian Gulf into the Olympian 
 Thearchy, and whose counterpart we find in 
 Poseidon. But the Poseidon of Homer stands in 
 immediate relation to these Nephilim. The 
 Cyclop Poluphemos is his son. Nausithoos also 
 sprang from him, by a human mother, who was 
 herself the daughter of Eurumedon, King of the 
 Giants, and the mother of Alkinoos, King of the 
 Phaiakes {Od. VH. 56-66). These were related 
 to the gods, like the Kuklopes and the impious 
 and savage Giants (VH. 205). So again the 
 gigantic Laistrugones, and the deified Leucothie 
 belong to the sea-domain {Od, X. 120). Thus 
 we have new ties between Poseidon and the 
 home of Ea. 
 
 We have yet another connecting link between 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 139 
 
 Ea, the offspring of the Persian Gulf, and Poseidon. 
 Evidently, in Homer's eyes, the Persian Gulf was 
 part of the Ocean-stream, coiled around the world. 
 For in //. I. 423 he places his Aithiopes upon the 
 Ocean verge. True, they are visited, in that 
 passage, not by Poseidon only but by the whole 
 body of the gods. But the visit paid to these 
 same Aithiopes in Od. I. 22-25, ^^^ P^i<i by 
 Poseidon alone. The indication seems to be first 
 of a relation between the Olympian religion and 
 these southern people, as having supplied some at 
 least of its elements ; and secondly, of a more 
 special relation between them and Poseidon. Who 
 then were these Aithiopes ? It seems more than 
 probable that they were, at least in their eastern 
 branch, the Babylonian Assyrians ; for these only, 
 so far as we know, could fulfil that condition of 
 Homer's description, which placed them on the 
 River Okeanos. It will be remembered that 
 Menelaos, after his tour, which extended to an 
 eighth year, enumerates the countries he had 
 visited, not without some attempt at geographical 
 combination. He gives first Kupros, Phoinike, 
 the Egyptians. These may be considered as ex- 
 hibiting a comparatively usual route. He then 
 
I40 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 mentions another group of three countries and 
 races. 
 
 AlOioirds 6^ iKO/JL-qv kol 2t8ovtoi;s kol 'E/)€/x/3ovs. 
 
 He finally describes Libya, in the next line, by a 
 mark of its own. In the line I have quoted, the 
 Sidonians are appropriately mentioned. Sidon 
 was in Homer's time the chief state of Phoenicia, 
 and best represents its intercourse and traffic with 
 the East. The Eremhoi are doubtless the Arabs, 
 and it thus seems that these Aithiopes can hardly 
 be other than their neighbours the Babylonian 
 Assyrians. Through their medium then, and 
 through the location assigned to them on the 
 River Ocean, we seem to have Poseidon placed 
 once more in apparent derivation from the Baby- 
 lonian Ea, who came from Eridu on the Persian 
 Gulf. 
 
 While, however, I think it to be beyond doubt 
 that the Babylonian Ea, or Hea, is principally 
 represented for Achaian purposes by Poseidon, 
 I do not wholly dissent from the opinion of those 
 who hold that he is represented in Kronos. For 
 Kronos is directly associated with the rebellious 
 Titans (//. XIV. 274-279), who dwell in his 
 company below the groutid, therefore in a portion 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 141 
 
 of the Underworld ; and indeed below Tartaros, its 
 deepest region (//. VIII. 14), and the operation of 
 placing them there is performed at the extremity of 
 the earth or land (//. XIV. 200-205), which we have 
 reason to connect with the Aithiopes and Babylonia. 
 We must not be startled at this change from a 
 singular to a dual form of the tradition. The 
 severance may have taken place in the local 
 divisions of Babylonia itself; and we must re- 
 member that the Babylonian doctrines could only 
 come to Homer piecemeal, and as it were in 
 tatters, by oral report, and often without connect- 
 ing links save such as the insight of his genius 
 could imagine. 
 
 There is another not less characteristically 
 marked relation established, apparently, by the 
 monuments ; namely, the relation between the 
 Ishtar of the Babylonians and Assyrians, and the 
 Aphrodite of Homer. 
 
 The Homeric Aphrodite offers to us a picture 
 so remarkable as almost absolutely to require that 
 we should refer it to some historical source, which 
 may serve to account for, if not to reconcile, the 
 incongruous elements which it presents to us. Let 
 me briefly note some of these particulars. In the 
 
142 ASSYRIAN- TABLETS 
 
 first place, she is evidently a foreign goddess, who 
 as such has little claim on the reverence of the 
 Poet. She is related to Cyprus and Cythere, and 
 we must therefore take it for granted that her wor- 
 ship was established in those islands. But we 
 have no sign that it had in Homer's time found 
 its way into the Greek continent. Still she was, 
 in her own person, the acknowledged model of 
 form. As Pallas represented the unattainable in 
 art and skill, so Aphrodite exhibited it in beauty 
 (//. IX. 389, 390). But it is evident throughout 
 that her power lies only in the region of sense. 
 She supplies Here with the means of stirring up 
 lust in Zeus ; she bestows the same baleful gift 
 on Parifs (//. XXIV. 30) ; she drives Helen into 
 the arms of her paramour, and is taunted by her, 
 and by Athene, as the great pander of the world 
 (//. III. 400, V. 42). And though she is placed in 
 a certain special relation to nuptials, this, we may 
 plainly see, is only on the fleshly side (//. V. 429 ; 
 Od. XX. 73). So it is that the loveliest of all 
 visible temples, the female form, is dedicated to 
 a foul demon. There is not a single trace of a 
 moral element in her character. This combination 
 is evidently revolting to the Poet ; so that he 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 143 
 
 habitually exhibits the goddess as odious or con- 
 temptible. Nay, he will not allow her to be 
 supreme even over corporeal Beauty ; for, in the 
 case of the daughters of Pandareus, it is Here who 
 gives them loveliness, and Artemis stature, while 
 the office of Aphrodite is to supply them with 
 cheese, honey, and soft wine {Od. XX. 68-71). 
 She is corporally punished both by Diomed in 
 battle, and by Athene in the Theomachy, in which 
 however she appears only as an interloper. She 
 is not honoured with a place among the com- 
 batants (//. XXI. 416-426). The poet evidently 
 would not present her as a match for any one 
 among his recognised Hellenic deities. On ex- 
 amining this picture as a whole we are compelled 
 to say the original, from which it was drawn, 
 must have been of a peculiar character, and to 
 ask where it was to be found ? I conceive that 
 it was not a copy, but a reproduction which had 
 been subjected to the modifications required by 
 the ideas of the Poet and his nation. 
 
 It has long been familiarly known that we are 
 to look to Syria and the East as the region in which 
 was fully accomplished, by a sort of spurious con- 
 secration, the baleful union between unrestrained 
 
144 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 lust and the observances of divine worship. On 
 the one side there was the image of perfect beauty, 
 on the other the sensual appetite associated with 
 a frightful disregard of all boundary and measure, 
 of the structure of the family, and of the laws of 
 nature. Against the suggestions thus conveyed, 
 the Poems of Homer form a noble protest ; and it 
 is only in the mildest shape, and under the veil 
 which is of itself a confession, that we find 
 exhibited in Achaian life this touch of human 
 infirmity. The conception of what is thoroughly 
 and entirely dissolute, embodied some of the forms 
 in which Ishtar has been worshipped, was in her 
 associated not only with divinity but with para- 
 mount rank among divinities. She was the only 
 goddess who had a place in the Assyrian system 
 by the side of Asshur (Sayce, Hibbert Lectures^ 
 p. 123) ; and in the Old Testament and Phoenicia, 
 as Ashtoreth, she ranks not less high than Baal. It 
 is noteworthy that, while Phoenician immigration 
 could not but bring her worship into Greece, at 
 least she did not come there vested with the 
 attributes of supremacy. Shorn not of her 
 sensuous beauty but of her supreme rank, she 
 enters the Olympian assembly in its lowest and 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 145 
 
 least honoured grade : and Homer may have been 
 in a degree the cause of what is at any rate to all 
 appearance a fact, that the Aphrodite worship did 
 not very greatly spread in many parts of historic 
 Greece. Pausanias assigns to her thirty -seven 
 temples and shrines in his Attic, Corinthian, and 
 Arcadian sections ; but only seventeen in all the 
 rest of the country. 
 
 Great obscurity overhangs the origin of Ishtar 
 as a deity. Nor can we wonder if it was found no 
 simple process to promote to so high a place a con- 
 ception in which the impure ingredients were found 
 so greatly to preponderate. What was good in it 
 passed over to the pale and ineffectual tradition 
 of the Aphrodite Oiirania : in Asia, the coarser 
 elements alone became widely and permanently 
 operative. 
 
 As recorded on the tablets, the doings of Ishtar 
 have imposed reserve upon Mr. G. Smith. He 
 says, " In the succeeding lines, various amours of 
 Ishtar are described. These I do not give, as 
 their details are not suited for general reading" 
 {Assyrian Discoveries, p. 178). She offers her 
 love to Izdubar, but is repelled, and complains to 
 her father Anu : 
 
 L 
 
146 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 " Father, Izdubar hates me, 
 Izdubar despises my beauty, 
 My beauty and my charms." 
 
 And she asks Anu to create a winged bull to 
 be the instrument of her vengeance accordingly. 
 
 Another remarkable though limited correspond- 
 ence with the Babylonian system is to be found 
 in one of the epithets applied by the Homeric 
 text to Aidoneus. He is called by Homer 
 pulartes, the gate - fastener. Elsewhere in the 
 Poems, the word appears as a proper name, taken 
 no doubt from the office of a gate-keeper. As 
 an epithet, it is applied only to Aidoneus (//. VHI. 
 367 ; XHI. 415 ; Od. XL 277), and always in 
 conjunction with the word krateros^ signifying his 
 might. Now the " gates of hell " supply a com- 
 mon figure, expressive of strength, but without 
 any very special point or significance, and it long 
 remained an unsolved riddle to interpret /^//^r/^j-, 
 for it is far from evident at first sight why the 
 king of the Underworld should be his own porter. 
 
 Now the legend of Ishtar's descent to the 
 Underworld appears to supply a pretty complete 
 explanation : which is all the more wanted because 
 the rather elaborate description of the Underworld 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 147 
 
 in the Odyssey makes no reference whatever to any 
 gates. There are, indeed, gates of Tartaros, which 
 have the characteristics of a prison. But Tartaros 
 was not within the Hmits of Hades, which alone 
 appears to have constituted the realm of Ai'doneus 
 (see//. VIII. 15, 16, and XV. 188). That region 
 is to all appearance modelled to some extent upon 
 Egyptian ideas. Now, in the Egyptian Book of 
 the Dead, there is a representation of a gate, that 
 is to say of folding doors, but, so far as I have 
 learned, they stand open,^ and cannot possibly 
 have suggested the epithet we are examining. 
 And the common idea of Hades is rather the 
 all -devouring, and therefore open, than the all- 
 imprisoning, and therefore shut. But, according 
 to the Assyrian tablets, the gates of the Under- 
 world are an elaborate and principal part of its 
 equipment. We derive our knowledge of the 
 particulars from the descent made into it by 
 Ishtar (Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, IV. p. 221, seqq}) 
 when in quest of the healing waters which were 
 to restore Tammuz to life. The Assyrian Under- 
 world is not here the all-receiving, but " the house 
 
 ^ Book of the Dead. Printed for the British Museum, 1890. 
 Introduction, p. 12. 
 
148 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 from within which there is no exit" (Smith, 
 Assyrian Discoveries^ p. 220). 
 
 " The passage to these subterranean abodes is 
 through the seven gates of the world, each guarded 
 by its porter, who admits the dead, stripping him 
 of his apparel, but never allowing him to pass 
 through them again to the upper world " (Sayce, 
 Hibbert Lectures, p. 364). 
 
 Ishtar threatens the gate-keeper m order to 
 procure entrance into Hades. At each of the 
 seven gates, she has to deposit a portion of her 
 ornamentation, in conformity with the rules of the 
 place, and the orders of its queen Allat. It may 
 be conjectured that the purpose of this operation 
 was to secure her withdrawal after the transaction 
 of the business on which she had come. The 
 account of it is given in language sufficiently 
 obscure : but it seems to be completed (Sayce, ubi 
 Sup.) when the waters of life are poured upon 
 her ; and, as she retraces her steps to the upper 
 world, Namtar the agent of Allat restores to her, 
 at each of the gates successively, the attire and 
 ornaments of which she had been divested. These 
 gates with their fastenings are thus a principal, 
 and perhaps the only distinct, feature of the 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 149 
 
 Assyrian Underworld, and they appear to supply 
 the explanation otherwise lacking of the epithet 
 pulartes given by Homer to A'fdoneus as its 
 monarch. 
 
 In the Olympian and perhaps in other mytho- 
 logies, there is a great lack of the personal ties, 
 as among the divinities, which so powerfully unite 
 human beings one to another. This defect becomes 
 glaring in the Olympian system, by reason of the 
 close resemblances it exhibits to the human forms 
 of family and polity. But for one exception, it 
 might almost be said that while jealousy, rivalry, 
 contempt, and conflict abound reciprocally among 
 them, there is no case to be found where any one 
 deity has any personal affection for any other. 
 The one exception, however, is conspicuous and 
 remarkable. It is found in the relation between 
 Apollo and Zeus. Apollo is not only the exact 
 and constant executor of the commands of his 
 sire, but he pays an obedience evidently founded 
 on conformity of mind and will. This is a 
 peculiarity so great as to be almost a solecism in 
 the Olympian system ; and it is strongly indicative 
 of some origin lying beyond the mere invention 
 or experience of the Poet. 
 
I50 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 With this representation of Apollo it is difficult 
 to avoid comparing the great sonship of Merodach. 
 His is a brilliant and powerful figure, like that of 
 Apollo. He resembles the Apollo of general tradi- 
 tion, in being the champion and avenger of the gods 
 against Tiamat (Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 379, 
 p. 1 01), and is so far like the Homeric Apollo, 
 that this conquest may very possibly be signified 
 in many of his characteristic epithets, and by the 
 punishment inflicted on Tituos for violence offered 
 to his mother Leto {Od. XI. 576-581). To 
 Merodach, their first-born, the gods appeal (Sayce, 
 pp. 95, 320), and on him they rely. But while 
 he is this to the deities at large, he is much more 
 than this to his primitive father Ea (p. 1 04) ; in 
 the language of Sayce, Merodach is the minister 
 of his counsels, the active side of his character. 
 
 There is also in Merodach another note of 
 correspondence with the Homeric Apollo, which 
 is, moreover, a note of distinction from the other 
 deities generally. 
 
 He is " the merciful one among the gods " 
 (p. 99). At times he appears as the sun -god 
 (p. 1 01), and we have marks in the Poems that 
 such had been the case with Apollo : but the 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 151 
 
 general character of his attributes is philanthropic 
 rather than solar. Among other such marks we 
 find him to be, like Apollo, the god of hqaling 
 (p. 106). 
 
 He belongs to the Arcadian or pre-Semitic 
 system ; and in that system is the son of Ea. 
 Elsewhere he is affiliated to other fathers, and 
 this diversity is naturally consequent on the sub- 
 divisions of Babylonia, and the diversified and 
 local character of its worship. It is in later and 
 Assyrian times that he becomes himself Belmero- 
 dach, and obtains a supremacy probably due to 
 a local ascendency acquired by his worshippers. 
 
 Homer has drawn the formula of his trinity or 
 triad with much exactitude. According to the 
 account given by Poseidon himself (//. XV. 187, 
 seqq^^ he, Zeus, and Aides, are all of equal rank, 
 and they draw lots for their several sovereignties. 
 Poseidon allows to Zeus authority over his own 
 sons and daughters ; but claims independence for 
 himself: grudgingly admitting in the last resort 
 that Zeus has the prerogatives of a senior {ibid, 
 204-207). In the division of power, the earth, 
 including Olympos, remains unappropriated, or 
 common ground. The Babylonian triad, of Anu, 
 
152 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 Bel, and Ea, is less precisely outlined, and in its 
 ordinary shape does not include the Underworld. 
 But in some forms of that mythology the lord of 
 the ghost-world even carried the notes of supre- 
 macy. It seems probable, as the Egyptian 
 arrangement appears much less distinct, that 
 Homer drew his suggestion of a triad from a 
 Babylonian source, and readjusted the particulars 
 according to the exigencies of his Olympian 
 system : paying off, as it were, with dignity, 
 divinities who had elsewhere been actually 
 supreme, but who were only represented in the 
 nascent Hellas by influences of secondary power. 
 This triad has all the appearance of an artificial 
 and borrowed arrangement, inasmuch as the three 
 have as a body no common action, and no govern- 
 ing authority. But it is convenient in securing 
 for Poseidon the rank he had enjoyed as Ea ; 
 and in placing Aidoneus on a kind of retired list. 
 It may also be that the arrangement, by which 
 Homer brings the office of Aidoneus nearly to 
 a sinecure, may possibly have been suggested by 
 the position of Ana or Anu, who was more a 
 superintending than an active divinity. 
 
 I have now gone through the points in which the 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT ^ 153 
 
 present evidence of derivation from the Assyrian 
 monuments of knowledge or ideas exhibited in 
 the Homeric next appears to be the most clear 
 and full. There remains, however, another class 
 of cases deserving some notice ; inasmuch as at 
 a number of points, the Assyrian monuments 
 establish presumptions respecting the derivation 
 of Homeric knowledge from that quarter, which 
 cannot be termed more than conjectural, but which 
 are not on that account to be cast aside at once as 
 unreasonable. 
 
 For example, as to the observation of the stars, 
 and the use of them as guides in navigation. 
 Wherever we find these in Homer it is in 
 company with foreign not Hellenic association. 
 
 The works of Hephaistos, that is to say works 
 of art, lie outside the domestic sphere of the 
 Achaians. Of these works the Shield of Achilles 
 is the chief; and it is on the Shield, in its 
 first compartment, that we have the only passage 
 where Homer presents to us the stars as a whole 
 together with the names of some principal stars. 
 The coasting navigation, and those narrow seas 
 with which the Poet's countrymen were conversant, 
 left little scope or need for the aid of astronomical 
 
154 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 observation. But, when Odysseus has to perform 
 his seventeen days' voyage from Ogygie, then 
 he receives from the foreign goddess of the island 
 express instructions to work the course of his raft 
 by this means (Od. V. 270-278). It seems clear 
 that all such knowledge came to him from the 
 Phoenicians, and rational if not necessary to sup- 
 pose that they derived it, in their original home 
 on the Persian Gulf, from a Chaldsean source. 
 
 I will hazard another conjecture with respect 
 to the singularly bold conceptions which Homer 
 formed of works of fine art. Here at least the 
 scientific doctrine of abiogenesis is not applicable. 
 In this highest branch of industry Homer dis- 
 tinctly assigns to the divine artist the faculty of 
 giving actual life to its metallic products. Remark 
 for instance the figures on the battle compartment 
 of the Shield. 
 
 <i)jjllX,€vv 8' a)(rT€ ^(ool ^poroi, ^81 ixdyovTo, 
 V€Kpovs t' aXkyXtov tpvov KaraTedveiioTas.^ 
 
 Doubtless, the words are susceptible of an interpre- 
 tation less daring. They might mean a mere 
 resemblance to actual life by way of suggesting 
 it. But they are exceptionally vivid in themselves : 
 1 //. XVIII. 539, 540. 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 155 
 
 and the construction I put upon them becomes I 
 think the natural one, when it is borne in mind that 
 Homer unquestionably ascribes automatic movement 
 to the metallic dogs in the Palace of Alkinoos, where 
 they fulfil the office of guards. They are also death- 
 less, and have perpetual youth((9^. VII.9 1-94). But 
 further, not only the attendant figures of Hephais- 
 tos, but even the chairs or seats which Hephaistos 
 wrought for the Olympian assembly (//. XVI 1 1. 4 1 7- 
 420, 313-377) had the power of automatic move- 
 ment ; in sum, the idea of spontaneous motion was 
 never so boldly applied as by Homer in dealing with 
 works of art. He could hardly have been led in this 
 direction by Egyptian art, which is successful in re- 
 presenting rest but ineffective in dealingwith motion. 
 This idea is, I conceive, far more congenial to the art 
 of Assyria. It seems at least possible that the wings 
 so boldly given to gods, men, and quadrupeds, both 
 in Assyria and to some extent in Egypt,^ may have 
 been the means of suggesting to Homer a further 
 step or stride, and may have led him to endow the 
 metallic figure itself, as it comes from the artist's 
 hands, with the spontaneous gift ? I pass on. 
 Heptaism, or the systematic and significant use 
 
 ^ See Dr. Tylor in Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archce- 
 ology for June 1890. 
 
156 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 of the number seven, while it may be traced else- 
 where, is eminently and peculiarly Chaldaean. It 
 appears (i) in the representation of the winds as 
 seven in number ; (2) in the number of trans- 
 gressions, seven multiplied by seven ; ^ (3) in the 
 seven days of the Flood Legend ; (4) in the 
 intervals chosen for the mission of the birds from 
 the vessel of Hasisadra ; (5) in the number of 
 the rebellious spirits, described as seven ; ^ (6) in 
 the seven gates of the Underworld, and in a 
 multitude of other particulars. Of these the most 
 remarkable is the number of seven heavenly 
 bodies, which entered profoundly into the system 
 of worship, so that in an Assyrian inscription we 
 even find the stars taking precedence of the higher 
 gods, of Assur and of Merodach.^ The only very 
 marked use of the number seven in Homer is as 
 to the city of Thebes ; and the name of that city 
 appears to be not of Assyrian but of Egyptian 
 origin. The two currents, however, joined, and 
 formed as it were a common pool, when they 
 
 ^ Manual published by the Society for promoting Christian 
 Knowledge, pp. 27, 28. 
 
 2 Smith's Assyrian Discoveries, pp. 4CX)-402 ; Sayce, Hibbert Lec- 
 tures, p. 82. 
 
 3 Sayce, p. 403. 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 157 
 
 reached Phoenicia and her ships ; so that Homer 
 may have derived much, both from the one 
 country and the other, without knowing in each 
 instance to which of them it was that he owed his 
 information. 
 
 A conjecture of Assyrian derivation may again 
 be hazarded in connection with the twenty seats 
 which Hephaistos is engaged in fabricating for 
 the gods of the Olympian assembly, at the time 
 when Thetis visits him for the grand purpose of 
 replacing the lost arms of Achilles. 
 
 These seats, endowed with the power of auto- 
 matic motion, were {eeikosi pantes) twenty in 
 number. The Poet's numerical ideas were com- 
 monly vague, and we have no exact means of 
 determining the number of his Olympian deities. 
 The religion of the country was still in a state of 
 fluxion, and there are one or two divinities of doubt- 
 ful title. But upon the whole, as I have already 
 shown {^Sicp. Sect. III., XIV., and XVIII.), the 
 number of those who had seats in the ordinary 
 Olympian meetings seems to have been about 
 or nearly twenty. So again in Assyria we have 
 no means of designating with confidence a parti- 
 cular number for the members of the Thearchy, 
 
158 ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 whereas, as in the case of the Romans, we describe 
 them by the name of the twelve Dt majores. 
 Canon Rawlinson, however, has touched this sub- 
 ject in his Religions of the Worlds p. i8, and he 
 notices the existence of eight great gods, six of 
 their wives, and five astral gods. It seems pro- 
 bable that the number twenty may have been 
 suggested from this source, with a vagueness 
 strange to us, but by no means alien to the 
 manner of Homer. 
 
 A fourth case of possible suggestion is offered 
 by the curious representation of the effect pro- 
 duced on earth by the descent of Ishtar to Hades. 
 It was a general disorganisation, caused by the 
 absence of a ruling deity from her proper sphere. 
 "The master ceases from commanding, the slave 
 from obeying" (Rawlinson, p. 25). Does it not 
 seem possible that some form of this legend may 
 have suggested to the Poet the bold threat of 
 Helios in the Odyssey^ XII. 381, that unless due 
 respect is paid to his demands for redress, he will 
 not rise next morning as usual upon gods and 
 men, but will shine in the Underworld ? 
 
 Again, the story of the^jFlood has a con- 
 spicuous place among the Babylonian legends, and 
 
AND THE HOMERIC TEXT 159 
 
 was the first among the discoveries to challenge 
 a large share of public attention in this country. 
 The chief interest attaching to it lies in its rela- 
 tion to the account given in Genesis.^ In Homer 
 there is but one, and that not an unequivocal 
 trace of this tradition. It is conveyed in the 
 form of a simile, where he compares the motion of 
 Trojan horses at full speed to a flood sent by 
 Zeus upon a land to punish the iniquities of evil 
 rulers. ^ The pointed nature of this connection 
 between a great inundation and the offences of 
 men renders it probable that the Poet was 
 acquainted with some legend such as could 
 supply a basis for it. I suppose it was little 
 likely that he could draw this information from 
 the valley of the Nile ; where indeed the swelling 
 of the waters was familiarly known, not, however, 
 as a retributive visitation, but as a blessing, and 
 indeed a necessity. It seems then reasonable to 
 suppose that the knowledge which suggested the 
 simile came from the same source as that which 
 supplied the Tablets of Nineveh. 
 
 Lastly. It has to be observed that the Helios 
 of Homer is furnished with a patronymic. He is 
 
 1 Mr. George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, p. 188 seqq. 
 
i6o ASSYRIAN TABLETS 
 
 Eslios Huperion ; but this epithet is not given I 
 think except in cases outside the familiar Greek 
 tradition, as in //. VIII. 480, and again in the 
 Odyssey, I. 3, and XII. 176; both of these last 
 being cases where the scene is laid in the Outer 
 Zone, and in a part of it where the Sun is the 
 working head of the Thearchy. Now in the 
 Babylonian system also the Sun had a Father. 
 The Sungod was the offspring of the Moongod. 
 The particular form of this arrangement was 
 obviously one which, as 'Sayce observes {Hibbert 
 Lectures, p. 155), could only prevail where the 
 Moongod was, as in one form of the Babylonian 
 system, the supreme object of worship. 
 
 THE END 
 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh 
 
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