[145] Respecting the Thracians, compare Herodot. v. 11; Thucydid. vii. 29-30. The expression of the latter historian is remarkable,—τὸ δὲ γένος τῶν Θρᾳκῶν, ὁμοῖα τοῖς μάλιστα τοῦ βαρβαρικοῦ, ἐν ᾧ ἂν θαρσήσῃ, φονικώτατόν ἐστι.

Compare Herodot. viii. 116; the cruelty of the Thracian king of the Bisaltæ towards his own sons.

The story of Odysseus to Eumæus in the Odyssey (xiv. 210-226) furnishes a valuable comparison for this predatory disposition among the Thracians. Odysseus there treats the love of living by war and plunder as his own peculiar taste: he did not happen to like regular labor, but the latter is not treated in any way mean or unbecoming a freeman:—

[146] Ilias Minor, Fragm. 7, p. 18, ed. Düntzer; Iliad, xxiii. 175. Odysseus is mentioned once as obtaining poison for his arrows (Odyss. i. 160), but no poisoned arrows are ever employed in either of the two poems.

The anecdotes recounted by the Scythian Toxaris in Lucian’s work so entitled (vol. ii. c. 36, p. 544, seqq. ed. Hemst.) afford a vivid picture of this combination of intense and devoted friendship between individuals, with the most revolting cruelty of manners. “You Greeks live in peace and tranquillity,” observes the Scythian,—παρ᾽ ἡμῖν δὲ συνεχεῖς οἱ πόλεμοι, καὶ ἢ ἐπελαύνομεν ἄλλοις, ἢ ὑποχωροῦμεν ἐπιόντας, ἢ συμπεσόντες ὑπὲρ νομῆς ἢ λείας μαχόμεθα· ἔνθα μάλιστα δεῖ φίλων ἀγαθῶν, etc.

[147] Odyss. xxi. 397; Pherekydês, Fragm. 63, ed. Didot; Autolykus, πλεῖστα κλέπτων ἐθησαύριζεν. The Homeric Hymn to Hermês (the great patron-god of Autolykus) is a farther specimen of the admiration which might be made to attach to clever thieving.

The ἡμερόκοιτος ἀνὴρ, likely to rob the farm, is one great enemy against whom Hesiod advises precaution to be taken,—a sharp-toothed dog, well-fed, to serve as guard (Opp. Di. 604).

[148] Iliad, xi. 624; xx. 189. Odyss. iv. 81-90; ix. 40; xiv. 230; and the indirect revelation (Odyss. xix. 284), coupled with a compliment to the dexterity of Odysseus.

[149] Even in the century prior to Thucydidês, undistinguishing plunder at sea, committed by Greek ships against ships not Greek, seems not to have been held discreditable. The Phokæan Dionysius, after the ill-success of the Ionic revolt, goes with his three ships of war to Sicily, and from thence plunders Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians (Herod. vi. 17).—ληϊστὴς κατεστήκεε, Ἑλλήνων μὲν οὐδενὸς, Καρχηδονίων δὲ καὶ Τυρσηνῶν. Compare the conduct of the Phokæan settlers at Alalia in Corsica, after the conquest of Ionia by Harpagus (Herodot. i. 166).

In the treaty between the Romans and Carthaginians, made at some period subsequent to 509 B. C., it is stipulated,—Τοῦ Καλοῦ Ἀκρωτηρίου, Μαστίας, Ταρσηΐου, μὴ ληΐζεσθαι ἐπέκεινα Ῥωμαίους μηδ᾽ ἐμπορεύεσθαι, μηδὲ πόλιν κτίζειν (Polyb. iii. 24, 4). Plunder, commerce, and colonization, are here assumed as the three objects which the Roman ships would pursue, unless they were under special obligation to abstain, in reference to foreigners. This morality approaches nearer to that of the Homeric age, than to the state of sentiment which Thucydides indicates as current in his day among the Greeks.

[150] See the interesting boastfulness of Nestôr, Iliad, xi. 670-700; also Odyss. xxi. 18; Odyss. iii. 71; Thucyd. i. 5.

[151] Odyss. iv. 165, among many other passages. Telemachus laments the misfortune of his race, in respect that himself, Odysseus, and Laërtês were all only sons of their fathers: there were no brothers to serve as mutual auxiliaries (Odyss. xvi. 118).

[152] Opp. Di. 182-199:—

[153] Iliad, xxii. 487-500. Hesiod dwells upon injury to orphan children, however, as a heinous offence (Opp. Di. 330).

[154] Iliad, xxii. 371. οὐδ᾽ ἄρα οἵ τις ἀνούτητί γε παρέστη. Argument of Iliad. Minor. ap. Düntzer, Epp. Fragm. p. 17; Virgil, Æneid, vi. 520.

Both Agamemnôn and the Oiliad Ajax cut off the heads of slain warriors, and send them rolling like a ball or like a mortar among the crowd of warriors (Iliad, xi. 147; xiii. 102).

The ethical maxim preached by Odysseus in the Odyssey, not to utter boastful shouts over a slain enemy (Οὐκ ὁσίη, κταμένοισιν ἐπ᾽ ἀνδράσιν εὐχετάασθαι, xxii. 412), is abundantly violated in the Iliad.

[155] Herodot. ix. 78-79. Contrast this strong expression from Pausanias, with the conduct of the Carthaginians towards the end of the Peloponnesian war, after their capture of Selinus in Sicily, where, after having put to death 16,000 persons, they mutilated the dead bodies,—κατὰ τὸ πάτριον ἔθος (Diodôr. xiii. 57-86).

[156] The Mosaic law recognizes this habit and duty on the part of the relatives of the murdered man, and provides cities of refuge for the purpose of sheltering the offender in certain cases (Deuteron. xxxv. 13-14; Bauer, Handbuch der Hebraïschen Alterthümer, sect. 51-52).

The relative who inherited the property of a murdered man was specially obliged to avenge his death (H. Leo, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte des Jüdischen Staats.—Vorl. iii. p. 35).

[157] “Suscipere tam inimicitias, seu patris, seu propinqui, quam amicitias, necesse est. Nec implacabiles durant: luitur enim etiam homicidium certo pecorum armentorumque numero, recipitque satisfactionem universa domus.” (Tacit. German. 21.) Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, p. 32.

“An Indian feast (says Loskiel, Mission of the United Brethren in North America,) is seldom concluded without bloodshed. For the murder of a man one hundred yards of wampum, and for that of a woman two hundred yards, must be paid by the murderer. If he is too poor, which is commonly the case, and his friends cannot or will not assist him, he must fly from the resentment of the relations.”

Rogge (Gerichtswesen der Germanen, capp. 1, 2, 3), Grimm (Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, book v. cap. 1-2), and Eichhorn (Deutsches Privat-Recht. sect. 48) have expounded this idea, and the consequences deduced from it among the ancient Germans.

Aristotle alludes, as an illustration of the extreme silliness of ancient Greek practices (εὐήθη πάμπαν), to a custom which he states to have still continued at the Æolic Kymê, in cases of murder. If the accuser produced in support of his charge a certain number of witnesses from his own kindred, the person was held peremptorily guilty,—οἷον ἐν Κύμῃ περὶ τὰ φονικὰ νόμος ἔστιν, ἂν πλῆθός τι παράσχηται μαρτύρων ὁ διώκων τὸν φόνον τῶν αὑτοῦ συγγενῶν, ἔνοχον εἶναι τῷ φόνῳ τὸν φεύγοντα (Polit. ii. 5, 12). This presents a curious parallel with the old German institution of the Eideshelfern, or conjurators, who, though most frequently required and produced in support of the party accused, were yet also brought by the party accusing. See Rogge, sect. 36, p. 186; Grimm, p. 862.

[158] The word ποινὴ indicates this satisfaction by valuable payment for wrong done, especially for homicide: that the Latin word pœna originally meant the same thing, may be inferred from the old phrases dare pœnas, pendere pœnas. The most illustrative passage in the Iliad is that in which Ajax, in the embassy undertaken to conciliate Achilles, censures by comparison the inexorable obstinacy of the latter in setting at naught the proffered presents of Agamemnôn (Il. ix. 627):—

The ποινὴ is, in its primitive sense, a genuine payment in valuable commodities serving as compensation (Iliad, iii. 290; v. 266; xiii. 659): but it comes by a natural metaphor to signify the death of one or more Trojans, as a satisfaction for that of a Greek warrior who had just fallen (or vice versâ, Iliad, xiv. 483; xvi. 398); sometimes even the notion of compensation generally (xvii. 207). In the representation on the shield of Achilles, the genuine proceeding about ποινὴ clearly appears: the question there tried is, whether the payment stipulated as satisfaction for a person slain, has really been made or not,—δύο δ᾽ ἄνδρες ἐνείκεον εἵνεκα ποινῆς Ἀνδρὸς ἀποφθιμένου, etc. (xviii. 498.)

The danger of an act of homicide is proportioned to the number and power of the surviving relatives of the slain; but even a small number is sufficient to necessitate flight (Odyss. xxiii. 120): on the other hand, a large body of relatives was the grand source of encouragement to an insolent criminal (Odyss. xviii. 141).

An old law of Tralles in Lydia, enjoining a nominal ποινὴ of a medimnus of beans to the relatives of a murdered person belonging to a contemptible class of citizens, is noticed by Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 46, p. 302. Even in the century preceding Herodotus, too, the Delphians gave a ποινὴ as satisfaction for the murder of the fabulist Æsop; which ποινὴ was claimed and received by the grandson of Æsop’s master (Herodot. ii. 134. Plutarch. Ser. Num. Vind. p. 556).

[159] See Lysias, De Cæde Eratosthen. Orat. i. p. 94; Plutarch. Solon, c. 23; Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. pp. 632-637.

Plato (De Legg. ix. pp. 871-874), in his copious penal suggestions to deal with homicide, both intentional and accidental, concurs in general with the old Attic law (see Matthiæ, Miscellanea Philologica, vol. i. p. 151): and as he states with sufficient distinctness the grounds of his propositions, we see how completely the idea of a right to private or family revenge is absent from his mind. In one particular case, he confers upon kinsmen the privilege of avenging their murdered relative (p. 871); but generally, he rather seeks to enforce upon them strictly the duty of bringing the suspected murderer to trial before the court. By the Attic law, it was only the kinsmen of the deceased who had the right of prosecuting for murder,—or the master, if the deceased was an οἰκέτης (Demosthen. cont. Euerg. et Mnesibul. c. 18); they might by forgiveness shorten the term of banishment for the unintentional murderer (Demosth. cont. Makart. p. 1069). They seem to have been regarded, generally speaking, as religiously obliged, but not legally compellable, to undertake this duty; compare Plato, Euthyphro, capp. 4 and 5.

[160] Lysias, cont. Agorat. Or. xiii. p. 137. Antiphon. Tetralog. i. 1, p. 629. Ἀσύμφορον δ᾽ ὑμῖν ἐστὶ τόνδε, μιαρὸν καὶ ἄναγνον ὄντα, εἰς τὰ τεμένη τῶν θεῶν εἰσιόντα μιαίνειν τὴν ἅγνειαν αὐτῶν, ἐπὶ δὲ τὰς αὐτὰς τραπέζας ἰόντα συγκαταπιμπλάναι τοὺς ἀναιτίους· ἐκ γὰρ τούτωον αἵ τε ἀφορίαι γίνονται, δυστυχεῖς θ᾽ αἱ πράξεις καθίστανται.

The three Tetralogies of Antipho are all very instructive respecting the legal procedure in cases of alleged homicide: as also the Oration De Cæde Herodis (see capp. 1 and 2)—τοῦ νόμου κειμένου, τὸν ἀποκτείναντα ἀνταποθανεῖν, etc.

The case of the Spartan Drakontius, one of the Ten Thousand Greeks who served with Cyrus the younger, and permanently exiled from his country in consequence of an involuntary murder committed during his boyhood, presents a pretty exact parallel to the fatal quarrel of Patroklus at dice, when a boy, with the son of Amphidamas, in consequence of which he was forced to seek shelter under the roof of Pêleus (compare Iliad, xxiii. 85, with Xenoph. Anabas. iv. 8, 25).

[161] Odyss. xvii. 384; xix. 135. Iliad, iv. 187; vii. 221. I know nothing which better illustrates the idea of the Homeric δημιοεργοί,—the herald, the prophet, the carpenter, the leech, the bard, etc.,—than the following description of the structure of an East Indian village (Mill’s History of British India, b. ii. c. 5, p. 266): “A village, politically considered, resembles a corporation or township. Its proper establishment of officers and servants consists of the following descriptions: the potail, or head inhabitant, who settles disputes and collects the revenue, etc.; the curnum, who keeps the accounts of cultivation, etc.; the tallier; the boundary-man; the superintendent of tanks and water-courses; the Brahman, who performs the village worship; the schoolmaster; the calendar Brahman, or astrologer, who proclaims the lucky or unpropitious periods for sowing or thrashing; the smith and carpenter; the potter; the washerman; the barber; the cowkeeper; the doctor; the dancing-girl, who attends at rejoicings; the musician, and the poet.”

Each of these officers and servants (δημιοεργοί) is remunerated by a definite perquisite—so much landed produce—out of the general crop of the village (p. 264).

[162] Iliad, xii. 421; xxi. 405.

[163] Iliad, i. 155; ix. 154; xiv. 122.

[164] Odysseus and other chiefs of Ithaka had oxen, sheep, mules, etc., on the continent and in Peloponnêsus, under the care of herdsmen (Odyss. iv. 636; xiv. 100).

Leukanor, king of Bosporus, asks the Scythian Arsakomas—Πόσα δὲ βοσκήματα, ἢ πόσας ἁμάξας ἔχεις, ταῦτα γὰρ ὑμεῖς πλουτεῖτε; (Lucian, Toxaris, c. 45.) The enumeration of the property of Odysseus would have placed the βοσκήματα in the front line.

[165] Δμωαὶ δ᾽ ἃς Ἀχιλεὺς ληΐσσατο (Iliad, xviii. 28: compare also Odyss. i. 397; xxiii. 357; particularly xvii. 441).

[166] Odyss. xiv. 64; xv. 412; see also xix. 78: Eurykleia was also of dignified birth (i. 429). The questions put by Odysseus to Eumæus, to which the speech above referred to is an answer, indicate the proximate causes of slavery: “Was the city of your father sacked? or were you seized by pirates when alone with your sheep and oxen?” (Odyss. xv. 385.)

Eumæus had purchased a slave for himself (Odyss. xiv. 448).

[167] Tacitus, Mor. Germ. 21. “Dominum ac servum nullis educationis deliciis dignoscas: inter eadem pecora, in eâdem humo, degunt,” etc. (Juvenal, Sat. xiv. 167.)

[168] Odyss. vii. 104; xx. 116; Iliad vi. 457; compare the Book of Genesis, ch. xi. 5. The expression of Telemachus, when he is proceeding to hang up the female slaves who had misbehaved, is bitterly contemptuous:—

The humble establishment of Hesiod’s farmer does not possess a mill; he has nothing better than a wooden pestle and mortar for grinding or bruising the corn; both are constructed, and the wood cut from the trees, by his own hand (Opp. Di. 423), though it seems that a professional carpenter (“the servant of Athênê,”) is required to put together the plough (v. 430). The Virgilian poem Moretum, (v. 24,) assigns a hand-mill even to the humblest rural establishment. The instructive article “Corn Mills,” in Beckmann’s Hist. of Inventions (vol. i. p. 227, Eng. transl.), collects all the information available about this subject.

[169] See Lysias, Or. 1, p. 93 (De Cæde Eratosthenis). Plutarch (Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, c. 21, p. 1101),—Παχυσκελὴς ἀλετρὶς πρὸς μύλην κινουμένη,—and Kallimachus, (Hymn. ad Delum, 242,)—μηδ᾽ ὅθι δειλαὶ Δυστοκέες μογέουσιν ἀλετρίδες,—notice the overworked condition of these women.

The “grinding slaves” (ἀλετρίδες) are expressly named in one of the Laws of Ethelbert, king of Kent, and constitute the second class in point of value among the female slaves (Law xi. Thorpe’s Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, vol. i. p. 7).

[170] Odyss. iv. 131; xix. 235.

[171] Odyss. vi. 96; Hymn, ad Dêmêtr. 105.

[172] Herodot. viii. 137.

[173] Odyss. iv. 643.

[174] Odyss. xiv. 64.

[175] Compare Odyss. xi. 490, with xviii. 358. Klytæmnêstra, in the Agamemnôn of Æschylus, preaches a something similar doctrine to Kassandra,—how much kinder the ἀρχαιόπλουτοι δεσποταὶ were towards their slaves, than masters who had risen by unexpected prosperity (Agamemn. 1042).

[176] Thucydid. i. 5, ἐτράποντο πρὸς λῄστειαν, ἡγουμένων ἀνδρῶν οὐ τῶν ἀδυνατωτάτων, κέρδους τοῦ σφετέρου αὐτῶν ἕνεκα, καὶ τοῖς ἀσθενέσι τροφῆς.

[177] Hesiod, Opp. Di. 459—ἐφορμηθῆναι, ὁμῶς δμῶές τε καὶ αὐτὸς—and 603:—

The two words ἄοικον ποιεῖσθαι seem here to be taken together in the sense of “dismiss the Thête,” or “make him houseless;” for when put out of his employer’s house, he had no residence of his own. Göttling (ad loc.), Nitzsch (ad Odyss. iv. 643), and Lehrs (Quæst. Epic. p. 205) all construe ἄοικον with θῆτα, and represent Hesiod as advising that the houseless Thête should be at that moment taken on, just at the time when the summer’s work was finished. Lehrs (and seemingly Göttling also), sensible that this can never have been the real meaning of the poet, would throw out the two lines as spurious. I may remark farther that the translation of θὴς given by Göttling—villicus—is inappropriate: it includes the idea of superintendence over other laborers, which does not seem to have belonged to the Thête in any case.

There were a class of poor free women who made their living by taking in wool to spin and perhaps to weave: the exactness of their dealing, as well as the poor profit which they made, are attested by a touching Homeric simile (Iliad, xiii. 434). See Iliad, vi. 289; xxiii. 742. Odyss. xv. 414.

[178] Herodot. iv. 151. Compare Ukert, Geographie der Griechen und Römer, part i. pp. 16-19.

[179] Odyss. xx. 383; xxiv. 210. The identity of the Homeric Scheria with Korkyra, and that of the Homeric Thrinakia with Sicily, appear to me not at all made out. Both Welcker and Klausen treat the Phæakians as purely mythical persons (see W. C. Müller, De Corcyræorum Republicâ, Götting. 1835, p. 9).

[180] Herodot. i. 163.

[181] Nitzsch. ad Odyss. i. 181; Strabo, i. p. 6. The situation of Temesa, whether it is to be placed in Italy or in Cyprus, has been a disputed point among critics, both ancient and modern.

[182] Odyss. xv. 426. Τάφιοι, ληΐστορες ἄνδρες; and xvi. 426. Hymn to Dêmêtêr, v. 123.

[183] Hesiod. Opp. Di. 615-684; Thucyd. i. 13.

[184] Odyss. xiv. 290; xv. 416.—

The interesting narrative given by Eumæus, of the manner in which he fell into slavery, is a vivid picture of Phœnician dealing (compare Herodot. i. 2-4. Iliad, vi. 290; xxiii. 743). Paris is reported to have visited Sidon, and brought from thence women eminent for skill at the loom. The Cyprian Verses (see the Argument. ap. Düntzer, p. 17) affirmed that Paris had landed at Sidon, and attacked and captured the city. Taphian corsairs kidnapped slaves at Sidon (Odyss. xv. 424).

The ornaments or trinkets (ἀθύρματα) which the Phœnician merchant carries with him, seem to be the same as the δαίδαλα πολλὰ, Πόρπας τε γναμπτάς θ᾽ ἕλικας, etc. which Hêphæstus was employed in fabricating (Iliad, xviii. 400) under the protection of Thetis.

“Fallacissimum esse genus Phœnicum omnia monumenta vetustatis atque omnes historiæ nobis prodiderunt.” (Cicero, Orat. Trium. partes ineditæ, ed. Maii, 1815, p. 13.)

[185] Ivory is frequently mentioned in Homer, who uses the word ἐλέφας exclusively to mean that substance, not to signify the animal.

The art of dyeing, especially with the various shades of purple, was in after-ages one of the special excellences of the Phœnicians: yet Homer, where he alludes in a simile to dyeing or staining, introduces a Mæonian or Karian woman as the performer of the process, not a Phœnician (Iliad, iv. 141).

What the electrum named in the Homeric poems really is cannot be positively determined. The word in antiquity meant two different things: 1, amber; 2, an impure gold, containing as much as one-fifth or more of silver (Pliny, H. N. xxxiii. 4). The passages in which we read the word in the Odyssey do not positively exclude either of these meanings; but they present to us electrum so much in juxtaposition with gold and silver each separately, that perhaps the second meaning is more probable than the first. Herodotus understands it to mean amber (iii. 115): Sophoklês, on the contrary, employs it to designate a metal akin to gold (Antigone, 1033).

See the dissertation of Buttmann, appended to his collection of essays called Mythologus, vol. ii. p. 337; also, Beckmann, History of Inventions, vol. iv. p. 12, Engl. Transl. “The ancients (observes the latter) used as a peculiar metal a mixture of gold and silver, because they were not acquainted with the art of separating them, and gave it the name of electrum.” Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 241) thinks that the Homeric electrum is amber; on the contrary, Hüllmann thinks that it was a metallic substance (Handels, Geschichte der Griechen, pp. 63-81).

Beckmann doubts whether the oldest κασσίτερος of the Greeks was really tin: he rather thinks that it was “the stannum of the Romans, the werk of our smelting-houses,—that is, a mixture of lead, silver, and other accidental metals.” (Ibid. p. 20). The Greeks of Massalia procured tin from Britain, through Gaul, by the Seine, the Saone, and the Rhone (Diodôr. v. 22).

[186] Herodot. ii. 44; vi. 47. Archiloch. Fragm. 21-22, ed. Gaisf. Œnomaus ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. vi. 7. Thucyd. i. 12.

The Greeks connected this Phœnician settlement in Thasus with the legend of Kadmus and his sister Eurôpa: Thasus, the eponymus of the island, was brother of Kadmus. (Herod. ib.)

[187] The angry Laomedôn threatens when Poseidôn and Apollo ask from him (at the expiration of their term of servitude) the stipulated wages of their labor, to cut off their ears and send them off to some distant islands (Iliad, xxi. 454). Compare xxiv. 752. Odyss. xx. 383: xviii. 83.

[188] Odyss. iv. 73; vii. 85; xxi. 61. Iliad, ii. 226; vi. 47.

[189] See Millin, Minéralogie Homerique, p. 74. That there are, however, modes of tempering copper, so as to impart to it the hardness of steel, has been proved by the experiments of the Comte de Caylus.

The Massagetæ employed only copper—no iron—for their weapons (Herodot. i. 215).

[190] Hesiod, Opp. Di. 150-420. The examination of the various matters of antiquity discoverable throughout the north of Europe, as published by the Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen, recognizes a distinction of three successive ages: 1. Implements and arms of stone, bone, wood, etc.: little or no use of metals at all; clothing made of skins. 2. Implements and arms of copper and gold, or rather bronze and gold; little or no silver or iron. Articles of gold and electrum are found belonging to this age, but none of silver, nor any evidences of writing. 3. The age which follows this has belonging to it arms of iron, articles of silver, and some Runic inscriptions: it is the last age of northern paganism, immediately preceding the introduction of Christianity (Leitfaden zur Nördischen Alterthumskunde, pp. 31, 57, 63, Copenhagen, 1837).

The Homeric age coincides with the second of these two periods. Silver is comparatively little mentioned in Homer, while both bronze and gold are familiar metals. Iron also is rare, and seems employed only for agricultural purposes—Χρυσόν τε, χαλκόν τε ἅλις, ἐσθῆτα θ᾽ ὑφαντήν (Iliad, vi. 48; Odyss. ii. 338; xiii. 136). The χρυσοχόος and the χαλκεὺς are both mentioned in Homer, but workers in silver and iron are not known by any special name (Odyss. iii. 425-436).

“The hatchet, wimble, plane, and level, are the tools mentioned by Homer, who appears to have been unacquainted with the saw, the square, and the compass.” (Gillies, Hist. of Greece, chap. ii. p. 61.)

The Gauls, known to Polybius, seemingly the Cisalpine Gauls only, possessed all their property in cattle and gold,—θρέμματα καὶ χρυσὸς,—on account of the easy transportability of both (Polyb. ii. 17).

[191] Tyrtæus, in his military expressions, seems to conceive the Homeric mode of hurling the spear as still prevalent,—δόρυ δ᾽ εὐτόλμως βάλλοντες (Fragm. ix. Gaisford). Either he had his mind prepossessed with the Homeric array, or else the close order and conjunct spears of the hoplites had not yet been introduced during the second Messenian war.

Thiersch and Schneidewin would substitute πάλλοντες in place of βάλλοντες. Euripidês (Androm. 695) has a similar expression, yet it does not apply well to hoplites; for one of the virtues of the hoplite consisted in carrying his spear steadily: δοράτων κίνησις betokens a disorderly march, and the want of steady courage and self-possession. See the remarks of Brasidas upon the ranks of the Athenians under Kleon at Amphipolis (Thucyd. v. 6).

[192] Euripid. Andromach. 696.

[193] Ἡ παλαιὰ πόλις in Ægina (Herodot. vi. 88); Ἀστυπάλαια in Samus (Polyæn. i. 23. 2; Etymol. Magn. v. Ἀστυπάλαια): it became seemingly the acropolis of the subsequent city.

About the deserted sites in the lofty regions of Krête, see Theophrastus, De Ventis, v. 13, ed. Schneider, p. 762.

The site of Παλαίσκηψις in Mount Ida,—ἐπάνω Κέβρηνος κατὰ τὸ μετεωρότατον τῆς Ἴδης (Strabo, xiii. p. 607); ὕστερον δὲ κατωτέρω σταδίοις ἑξήκοντα εἰς τὴν νῦν Σκῆψιν μετῳκίσθησαν. Paphos in Cyprus was the same distance below the ancient Palæ-Paphos (Strabo, xiv. p. 683).

Near Mantineia in Arcadia was situated ὄρος ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ, τὰ ἐρείπια ἔτι Μαντινείας ἔχον τῆς ἀρχαίας· καλεῖται δὲ τὸ χωρίον ἐφ᾽ ἡμῶν Πτόλις (Pausan. viii. 12, 4). See a similar statement about the lofty sites of the ancient town of Orchomenus (in Arcadia) (Paus. viii. 13, 2), of Nonakris (viii. 17, 5,) of Lusi (viii. 18, 3), Lykoreia on Parnassus (Paus. x. 6, 2; Strabo, ix. p. 418).

Compare also Plato, Legg. iii. 2, pp. 678-679, who traces these lofty and craggy dwellings, general among the earliest Grecian townships, to the commencement of human society after an extensive deluge, which had covered all the lower grounds and left only a few survivors.

[194] Thucyd. i. 2. Φαίνεται γὰρ ἡ νῦν Ἑλλὰς καλουμένη, οὐ πάλαι βεβαίως οἰκουμένη, ἀλλὰ μεταναστάσεις τε οὖσαι τὰ πρότερα, καὶ ῥᾳδίως ἕκαστοι τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἀπολείποντες, βιαζόμενοι ὑπὸ τινῶν ἀεὶ πλειόνων· τῆς γὰρ ἐμπορίας οὐκ οὔσης, οὐδ᾽ ἐπιμιγνύντες ἀδεῶς ἀλλήλοις, οὔτε κατὰ γῆν οὔτε διὰ θαλάσσης, νεμόμενοι δὲ τὰ αὑτῶν ἕκαστοι ὅσον ἀποζῇν, καὶ περιουσίαν χρημάτων οὐκ ἔχοντες οὐδὲ γῆν φυτεύοντες, ἄδηλον ὂν ὅποτέ τις ἐπελθὼν, καὶ ἀτειχίστων ἅμα ὄντων, ἄλλος ἀφαιρήσεται, τῆς τε καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἀναγκαίου τροφῆς πανταχοῦ ἂν ἡγούμενοι ἐπικρατεῖν, οὐ χαλεπῶς ἀπανίσταντο, καὶ δι᾽ αὐτὸ οὔτε μεγέθει πόλεων ἴσχυον, οὔτε τῇ ἄλλῃ παρασκευῇ.

About the distant and unfortified villages and rude habits of the Ætolians and Lokrians, see Thucyd. iii. 94; Pausan. x. 38, 3: also of the Cisalpine Gauls, Polyb. ii. 17.

Both Thucydidês and Aristotle seem to have conceived the Homeric period as mainly analogous to the βάρβαροι of their own day—Λύει δ᾽ Ἀριστοτέλης λέγων, ὅτι τοιαῦτα ἀεὶ ποιεῖ Ὅμηρος οἷα ἦν τότε· ἦν δὲ τοιαῦτα τὰ παλαιὰ οἷάπερ καὶ νῦν ἐν τοῖς βαρβάροις (Schol. Iliad. x. 151).

[195] Odyss. vi. 10; respecting Nausithous, past king of the Phæakians:

The vineyard, olive-ground, and garden of Laërtes, is a model of careful cultivation (Odyss. xxiv. 245); see also the shield of Achilles (Iliad, xvii. 541-580), and the Kalydônian plain (Iliad, ix. 575).

[196] Odyss. x. 106-115; Iliad, xx. 216.

[197] Thucyd. i. 10. Καὶ ὅτι μὲν Μυκῆναι μικρὸν ἦν, ἢ εἴ τι τῶν τότε πόλισμα νῦν μὴ ἀξιόχρεων δοκεῖ εἶναι, etc.

[198] Nägelsbach, Homerische Theologie, Abschn. v. sect. 54. Hesiod strongly condemns robbery,—Δὼς ἀγαθὴ, ἅρπαξ δὲ κακὴ, θανάτοιο δότειρα (Opp. Di. 356, comp. 320); but the sentiment of the Grecian heroic poetry seems not to go against it,—it is looked upon as a natural employment of superior force,—Αὐτόματοι δ᾽ ἀγαθοὶ δειλῶν ἐπὶ δαῖτας ἴασιν (Athenæ. v. p. 178; comp. Pindar, Fragm. 48, ed. Dissen.): the long spear, sword, and breastplate, of the Kretan Hybreas, constitute his wealth (Skolion 27, p. 877; Poet. Lyric. ed. Bergk), wherewith he ploughs and reaps,—while the unwarlike, who dare not or cannot wield these weapons, fall at his feet, and call him The Great King. The feeling is different in the later age of Demêtrius Poliorkêtês (about 310 B. C.): in the Ithyphallic Ode, addressed to him at his entrance into Athens, robbery is treated as worthy only of Ætolians:—

(Poet. Lyr. xxv. p. 453, ed. Schneid.)

The robberies of powerful men, and even highway robbery generally found considerable approving sentiment in the Middle Ages. “All Europe (observes Mr. Hallam, Hist. Mid. Ag. ch. viii. part 3, p. 247) was a scene of intestine anarchy during the Middle Ages: and though England was far less exposed to the scourge of private war than most nations on the continent, we should find, could we recover the local annals of every country, such an accumulation of petty rapine and tumult, as would almost alienate us from the liberty which served to engender it.... Highway robbery was from the earliest times a sort of national crime.... We know how long the outlaws of Sherwood lived in tradition; men who, like some of their betters, have been permitted to redeem, by a few acts of generosity, the just ignominy of extensive crimes. These, indeed, were the heroes of vulgar applause; but when such a judge as Sir John Fortescue could exult, that more Englishmen were hanged for robbery in one year than French in seven,—and that, if an Englishman be poor, and see another having riches, which may be taken from him by might, he will not spare to do so,—it may be perceived how thoroughly these sentiments had pervaded the public mind.”

The robberies habitually committed by the noblesse of France and Germany during the Middle Ages, so much worse than anything in England,—and those of the highland chiefs even in later times,—are too well known to need any references: as to France, an ample catalogue is set forth in Dulaure’s Histoire de la Noblesse (Paris, 1792). The confederations of the German cities chiefly originated in the necessity of keeping the roads and rivers open for the transit of men and goods against the nobles who infested the high roads. Scaliger might have found a parallel to the λῃσταὶ of the heroic ages in the noblesse of la Rouergue, as it stood even in the 16th century, which he thus describes: “In Comitatu Rodez pessimi sunt; nobilitas ibi latrocinatur: nec possunt reprimi.” (ap. Dulaure, c. 9.)

[199] Thucyd. i. 4-8. τῆς νῦν Ἑλληνικῆς θαλάσσης.

[200] Herodot. i. 171; Thucyd. i. 4-8. Isokratês (Panathenaic. p. 241) takes credit to Athens for having finally expelled the Karians out of these islands at the time of the Ionic emigration.

[201] Thucyd. i. 4. τό τε λῃστικὸν, ὡς εἰκὸς, καθῄρει ἐκ τῆς θαλάσσης ἐφ᾽ ὅσον ἠδύνατο, τοῦ τὰς προσόδους μᾶλλον ἰέναι αὐτῷ.

[202] See the preceding volume of this History, Chap. xii. p. 227.

[203] Thucyd. i. 10. τῷ παλαιῷ τρόπῳ λῃστικώτερον παρεσκευασμένα.

[204] Thucyd. i. 13.

[205] See Voelcker, Homerische Geographie, ch. iii. sect. 55-63. He has brought to bear much learning and ingenuity to identify the places visited by Odysseus with real lands, but the attempt is not successful. Compare also Ukert, Hom. Geog. vol. i. p. 14, and the valuable treatises of J. H. Voss, Alte Weltkunde, annexed to the second volume of his Kritische Blätter (Stuttgart, 1828), pp. 245-413. Voss is the father of just views respecting Homeric geography.