We proceed from the council to the agora: according to what seems the received custom, the king, after having talked over his intentions with the former, proceeds to announce them to the people. The heralds make the crowd sit down in order,[98] and enforce silence: any one of the chiefs or councillors—but as it seems, no one else[99]—is allowed to address them: the king first promulgates his intentions, which are then open to be commented upon by others. But in the Homeric agora, no division of affirmative or negative voices ever takes place, nor is any formal resolution ever adopted. The nullity of positive function strikes us even more in the agora than in the council. It is an assembly for talk, communication, and discussion, to a certain extent, by the chiefs, in presence of the people as listeners and sympathizers,—often for eloquence, and sometimes for quarrel,—but here its ostensible purposes end. [98] Considerable stress seems to be laid on the necessity that the people in the agora should _sit_ down (Iliad, ii. 96): a _standing_ agora is a symptom of tumult or terror (Iliad, xviii, 246); an evening agora, to which men come elevated by wine, is also the forerunner of mischief (Odyss. iii. 138). Such evidences of regular formalities observed in the agora are not without interest. [99] Iliad, ii. 100.— ... εἴποτ᾽ ἀϋτῆς Σχοίατ᾽, ἀκούσειαν δὲ διοτρεφέων βασιλήων. Nitzsch (ad Odyss. ii. 14) controverts this restriction of individual manifestation to the chiefs: the view of O. Müller (Hist. Dorians, b. iii. c. 3) appears to me more correct: such was also the opinion of Aristotle—φησὶ τοίνυν Ἀριστοτέλης ὅτι ὁ μὲν δῆμος μόνου τοῦ ἀκοῦσαι κύριος ἦν, οἱ δὲ ἡγεμόνες καὶ τοῦ πρᾶξαι (Schol. Iliad, ix. 17): compare the same statement in his Nikomachean Ethics, iii. 5.