Sarpedon, the Lycian commander in chief, performs the greatest military exploit on the Trojan side that is to be found throughout the poems[323]. That he does not obscure the eminence of Hector is only owing to the fact, that his share in the action of the poem is smaller, not to its being less distinguished. Everywhere he plays his part with a faultless valour, a valour set off by his modesty, and by his keen sense of public duty according to the strictest meaning of the term[324]; Jupiter, his father, sheds tears of blood for his coming death; and he is in truth the most perfect as well as the bravest man on the Trojan side. Glaucus, his second in command, is inferior to no Trojan warrior save Hector, though in the exchange of the arms with Diomed Homer has, as usual, reserved the superiority to the Grecian intellect. The distinctions awarded to the Lycian people are in full proportion to those of their king Sarpedon. They formed one only among the eleven divisions of the auxiliary force, but the Lycian[325] name, and theirs only[326], evidently on account of their eminence, is often used to signify the entire body. In the great assault on the Greek trench and rampart, Sarpedon their leader commands all the allies, and chooses as his lieutenants Glaucus, and Asteropæus a Pæonian, but not the Pæonian general[327]. They are never mentioned with any epithet except of honour: and to them is applied the term ἀντίθεοι[328], which is given to no other tribe or nation in the Iliad, and in the Odyssey only to the Phæacians[329]; to these last it appertains doubtless on account of their relationship to the immortals. The Lycian attack in the Twelfth Book is the one really formidable to the Greeks[330], and in the rout of the Sixteenth Book we are told, that ‘not even the stalwart (ἴφθιμοι) Lycians’ held their ground after the death of Sarpedon[331]. They alone are appealed to in the name of that peculiar and sacred sentiment of military honour called αἰδὼς, which, with this single exception, seems to be the exclusive property of the Greeks[332]. It is difficult to account for this glowing representation, so consistently carried through the poem, except upon the supposition, that Homer regarded the Lycians as having some peculiar affinity or other relation with the Greeks; and that he on this account raised them out of what would otherwise more naturally have been a secondary position. There are many signs of a specific kind, that this was actually his view of them. 1. To make Sarpedon the son of Jupiter was at once to establish some relationship with the Greek races.