The Greek States of the historic ages, says Grote, always present to us something in the nature of a constitution, as the condition of popular respect towards the government, and of the sense of an obligation to obey it[4]. The man who broke down this constitution, however wisely he might exercise his ill gotten power, was branded by the name of τύραννος, or despot, “as an object of mingled fear and dislike.” But in the heroic age there is no system, still less any responsibility[5]: obedience depends on personal reverence towards the king or chief. Into those ‘great individual personalities, the race or nation is absorbed[6].’ Publicity indeed, through the means of the council and assembly, essentially pervades the whole system[7]; but it is a publicity without consequences; for the people, when they have heard, simply obey the orders of the king[8]. Either resistance or criticism is generally exhibited as odious, and is never heard of at all except from those who are at the least subaltern chiefs: though the council and assembly would in practice come to be restraints upon the king, they are not so exhibited in Homer[9], but are simple _media_ for supplying him with information, and for promulgating his resolves[10]. The people may listen and sympathize, but no more. In the assembly of the Second Iliad, a ‘repulsive picture’ is presented to us of ‘the degradation of the mass of the people before the chiefs[11].’ For because the common soldiery, in conformity with the ‘unaccountable fancy’ which Agamemnon had propounded, made ready to go home, Ulysses belabours them with blows and covers them with scornful reproofs[12]; and the unpopularity of a presumptuous critic, even when he is in substance right, is shown, partly by the strokes that Ulysses inflicts upon Thersites, but still more by the hideous deformities with which Homer has loaded him. [4] Grote’s Hist. Greece, vol. ii. p. 83. [5] Ibid. p. 84. [6] Ibid. p. 102. [7] Ibid. p. 101. [8] Ibid. p. 86. [9] Ibid. pp. 90, 102. [10] Ibid. p. 92. [11] Ibid. p. 95. [12] Grote’s Hist. Greece, vol. ii. pp. 94, 96.