We must therefore assume that Alcinous, in his proposal, felt that he was acting according both to precedent and the general opinion. He does not order any measure to be taken, but simply gives his opinion in the Assembly about providing a passage, which is silently accepted (ver. 46). Yet I cannot but take it for a sign of the strong popular infusion in the political ideas of the age, when we find that even so slight a measure, as the dispatch of Ulysses, was thought fit to be proposed and settled there. But we have weightier matter disposed of in the Twenty-fourth Odyssey, which affords us an eighth and last example of the Greek Assembly, its powers, and usages. The havock made of the Suitors by Ulysses is at last discovered after the bodies have been disposed of; and upon the discovery, the chiefs and people repair in a mass to the open space where Assemblies were held, and which bears the same name with them[266]. Here the people are addressed on the one side by Eupeithes, father of the leading Suitor Antinous, on the other, by Medon the herald, and Alitherses, son of Mastor the Seer. And here we are supplied with further proofs, that the Assemblies were not wholly unaccustomed to act according to their feelings and opinions. There is no sign of perplexity or confusion; but there is difference of sentiment, and each party acts upon its own. More than half the meeting loudly applaud Alitherses, and break up, determined not to meddle in the affair[267]. The other party keep their places, holding with Eupeithes; they then go to arm, and undertake the expedition against Ulysses. Having lost their leader by a spear’s throw of Laertes, for which Minerva had supplied him with strength, they fall like sheep before the weapons of their great chief and his son. Yet, though routed, they are not treated as criminals for their resistance; but the poem closes by informing us that Minerva, in the form of Mentor[268], negotiated a peace between the parties[269]. [266] Probably the strictly proper name of the Assembly, as distinguished from the place of meeting, is ἄγυρις or πανήγυρις (as Od. iii. 131), but the name common to the two prevails. [267] Od. xxiv. 463. [268] Od. xxiv. 546. [269] Besides all the particulars which have been cited, we have incidental notices scattered about the poems, which tend exactly in the same direction. For example, when Chryses prays for the restitution of his daughter, his petition is addressed principally to the two Atridæ, but it is likewise addressed to the whole body of Ἀχαιοὶ (Il. i. 15), that is, either to the entire army, or at any rate to all the kings; or, to all the members of the Achæan race. This we may compare with the application of the prayer of Ulysses in Scheria to the king and people. ~_Councils or Assemblies of Olympus._~