Mr. Jevons very justly cites a parallel case. Grote has remarked that in Book VII. of Herodotus, "The dream sent by the Gods to frighten Xerxes when about to recede from his project," has "a marked parallel in the _Iliad_." Thus Xerxes, after the defection of Artabanus, was despondent, like Agamemnon after the mutiny of Achilles, and was about to recede from his project. To both a delusive dream is sent urging them to proceed. Xerxes calls an assembly, however, and says that he will not proceed. Why? Because, says Herodotus, "when day came, he thought nothing of his dream." Agamemnon, once awake, thought doubtfully of _his_ dream; he called a Privy Council, told the princes about his dream--of which Nestor had a very dubious opinion--and said that he would try the temper of the army by proposing instant flight: the chiefs should restrain the men if they were eager to run away. Now the epic prose narrative of Herodotus is here clearly based on _Iliad_, II., which Herodotus must have understood as I do. But in Homer there is no line to say--and one line or two would have been enough--that Agamemnon, when awake, doubted, like Xerxes, though Agamemnon, when asleep, had been confident. The necessary line, for all that we know, still existed in the text used by Herodotus. Homer may lose a line as well as Dieuchidas of Megara, or rather Diogenes Laertius. Juvenal lost a whole passage, re-discovered by Mr. Winstedt in a Bodleian manuscript. If Homer expected modern critics to note the delicate distinction between Agamemnon asleep and Agamemnon awake, or to understand Agamemnon's character, he expected too much. [Footnote: Cf. Jevons, _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, vol. vii. pp. 306, 307.] The poet then treats the situation on these lines: Agamemnon, awake and free from illusion, does not obey the dream, does _not_ call the army to war; he takes a middle course. In the whole passage the poet's main motive, as Mr. Monro remarks with obvious truth, is "to let his audience become acquainted with the temper and spirit of the army as it was affected by the long siege ... and by the events of the First Book." [Footnote: Monro, _Iliad_, vol. i. p. 261.] The poet could not obtain his object if Agamemnon merely gave the summons to battle; and he thinks Agamemnon precisely the kind of waverer who will call, first the Privy Council of the Chiefs, and then an assembly. Herein the homesick host will display its humours, as it does with a vengeance. Agamemnon next tells his Dream to the chiefs (if he had a dream of this kind he would most certainly tell it), and adds (as has been already stated) that he will first test the spirit of the army by a feigned proposal of return to Greece, while the chiefs are to restrain them if they rush to launch the ships. Nestor hints that there is not much good in attending to dreams; however, this is the dream of the Over-Lord, who is the favoured of Zeus.