Menelaus is about to spare the life of the Trojan Adrastus, who clasps his knees and craves mercy, offering a large ransom,—when Agamemnôn repels the idea of quarter, and kills Adrastus with his own hand: his speech to Menelaus displays the extreme of violent enmity, yet the poet says,— Ὣς εἰπὼν, παρέπεισεν ἀδελφείου φρένας ἥρως, ~Αἴσιμα παρειπὼν~, etc. Adrastus is not called an ἱκέτης, nor is the expression used in respect to Dolon (Il. x. 456), nor in the equally striking case of Odysseus (Odyss. xiv. 279), when begging for his life. There are in the legendary narratives abundant examples of individuals who transgress in particular acts even the holiest of these personal ties, but the savage Cyclops is the only person described as professedly indifferent to them, and careless of that sanction of the gods which in Grecian belief accompanied them all.[143] In fact, the tragical horror which pervades the lineage of Athamas or Kadmus, and which attaches to many of the acts of Hêraklês, of Pêleus and Telamon, of Jasôn and Mêdea, of Atreus and Thyestês, etc., is founded upon a deep feeling and sympathy with those special obligations, which conspicuous individuals, under the temporary stimulus of the maddening Atê, are driven to violate. In such conflict of sentiments, between the obligation generally reverenced and the exceptional deviation in an individual otherwise admired, consists the pathos of the story. [143] Odyss. ix. 112-275. These feelings—of mutual devotion between kinsmen and companions in arms—of generous hospitality to the stranger, and of helping protection to the suppliant,—constitute the bright spots in a dark age. We find them very generally prevalent amongst communities essentially rude and barbarous,—amongst the ancient Germans as described by Tacitus, the Druses in Lebanon,[144] the Arabian tribes in the desert, and even the North American Indians. [144] Tacit. German. c. 21. “Quemeunque mortalium arcere tecto, nefas habetur: pro fortunâ quisque apparatis epulis excipit: cum defecêre qui modo hospes fuerat, monstratur hospitii et comes, proximam domum non invitati adeunt: nec interest—pari humanitate accipiuntur. Notum ignotumque, quantum ad jus hospitii, nemo discernit.” Compare Cæsar, B. G. vi. 22. See about the Druses and Arabians, Volney, Travels in Egypt and Syria, vol. ii. p. 76, Engl. Transl.; Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, Copenh. 1772, pp. 46-49. Pomponius Mela describes the ancient Germans in language not inapplicable to the Homeric Greeks: “Jus in viribus habent, adeo ut ne latrocinii quidem pudeat: _tantum_ hospitibus boni, mitesque supplicibus.” (iii. 3.)