Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3: I. Agorè: Polities of the Homeric Age. II. Ilios: Trojans and Greeks Compared. III. Thalassa: The Outer Geography. IV. Aoidos: Some Points of the Poetry of Homer.Gladstone, W. E. (William Ewart)
Philosophy
Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3: I. Agorè: Polities of the Homeric Age. II. Ilios: Trojans and Greeks Compared. III. Thalassa: The Outer Geography. IV. Aoidos: Some Points of the Poetry of Homer.
Gladstone, W. E. (William Ewart)
Civilization, Homeric; Epic poetry, Greek -- History and criticism; Homer
he probably means many more of the same condition, wives and other
well-born women, who formed part of his family.
So that Homer, in all likelihood, means to describe to us the threefold
order,
1. Hecuba, as the principal queen.
2. Other wives, inferior but distinctly acknowledged.
3. Either concubines recognised as in a position wholly subordinate, or
women who were in no permanent relation of any kind with Priam.
Beyond the case of Priam, we have slender means of ascertaining the
usages and ideas of marriage among the Trojans. We have Andromache,
wife of Hector; Helen, a sort of wife to Paris; Theano, wife to
Antenor, and priestess of Minerva; who also took charge of and brought
up his illegitimate son Pedæus[448]. The manner in which this is
mentioned, as a favour to her husband, certainly shows that the mark
of bastardy was not wholly overlooked, even in Troy. But, besides this
Pedæus, we meet in different places of the Iliad no less than ten
other sons of Antenor, all, I think, within the fighting age. This is
not demonstrative, but it raises a presumption that some of them were
probably the sons of other wives than Theano; who is twice described as
Theano of the blooming cheeks, and can hardly therefore be supposed to
have reached a very advanced period of life[449].
[448] Il. v. 71.
[449] Il. vii. 298. xi. 224.
But it is clear from the important case of Priam, even if it stands
alone, that among the Trojans no shame attaches to the plurality of
wives, or to having many illegitimate children, the birth of various
mothers. It is possible that the manners of Troy, with regard to
polygamy, were at this time the same (unless as to the reason given,)
with those which Tacitus ascribes to the Germans of his own day:
_Singulis uxoribus contenti sunt; exceptis admodum paucis, qui, non
libidine, sed ob nobilitatem, plurimis nuptiis ambiuntur_[450]. We
must add to this, that Paris, in detaining as his wife the spouse of
another man still living, does an act of which we have no example,
to which we find no approximation, in the Greek manners of the time.
Its significance is increased, when we find that after his death she
is given to Deiphobus: for this further union alters the individual
trait into one which is national. Her Greek longings, as well as her
remorse for the surrender of her honour to Paris, afford the strongest
presumption that the arrangement could hardly have been adopted
to meet her own inclination; and that it must have been made for
her without her choice, as a matter of supposed family or political
convenience.
[450] Tac. Germ. c. 18.
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