Eurykleia comforts Penelope in her fear for the absent Telemachos, saying:— “For the seed of the son of Arkeisios is not, methinks, utterly hated by the blessed gods, but someone will haply yet remain to possess these lofty halls and the _fat fields_ far away.”(291) Is it by accident that she here chooses the name of Arkeisios to describe the head of the family of Laertes and Odysseus? He was Laertes’ father, and in Telemachos, if he was preserved alive, he would thus have a _great-grandson_ to represent his line in the succession to his property. (M132) The diversion of inheritance to any property from the direct line is spoken of in Homer as a lamentable circumstance greatly intensifying the natural grief at the death of the direct heir. “Then went he after Nanthos and Thoon, sons of Phainops, striplings both; but their father was outworn of grievous age, and begat no other son for his possessions after him. Then Diomedes slew them and bereft the twain of their dear life, and for their father left only lamentation and sore distress, seeing he welcomed them not alive returned from battle: _and kinsmen divided his substance_ (κτῆσις).”(292) In the tumultuous times of the _Odyssey_ the right of succession must often have been interrupted by war and violence. Possessions, not only of land, had to be defended by the sword even during the lifetime of the acquirer. This prompts one of the wishes of Odysseus in his prayer at the knees of Arete:— “And may each one leave to his children after him his possessions in his halls and whatever dues of honour the people have rendered unto him.”(293) The same anxiety prompts his question to his mother in Hades, to which he obtains answer:— “The fair honour (γέρας) that is thine no man hath yet taken, but Telemachos holdeth in safety (thy) demesnes (τεμένεα νέμεται).”(294) (M133) The belief in the inseparability of the ancestral holding and the family was strong in Samaria at the time of Ahab. The King offered Naboth another vineyard better than his own in exchange for the one at Jezreel near the palace, or, should he prefer it, its worth in money. But Naboth said to Ahab, “The Lord forbid it me, that I should give _the inheritance of my fathers_ unto thee.”(295) Both the Hebrew narrators and the Greek translators describe Ahab finally as taking the vineyard at Naboth’s death _by inheritance_ (LXX. κληρονομεῖν), in spite of the violence of the means of acquiring it adopted by Jezebel. The limited right of the prince to alienate from his family any part of his possessions is thus alluded to by Ezekiel:—