1. That although we often hear of deliberations and decisions taken on the part of the Trojans, and we have instances enough of their holding assemblies of the people, yet we never find mention of a βουλὴ, or Council, in connection with them. 2. In the Second Book, Homer describes the Trojan ἀγορὴ thus (Il. ii. 788, 9): οἱ δ’ ἀγορὰς ἀγόρευον ἐπὶ Πριάμοιο θύρῃσιν πάντες ὁμηγερέες, ἠμὲν νέοι ἠδὲ γέροντες. This latter line is only to be accounted for by the supposition, that Homer meant to describe a difference between the usages of the Trojans, and those of the Greeks; whose γέροντες were recognised as members of the βουλὴ, even when in the Assemblies. Of the separate place of the Greek γέροντες in the Assemblies, we have conclusive proof from the Shield of Achilles (xviii. 497, 503): λαοὶ δ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ ἔσαν ἄθροοι· and afterwards, οἱ δὲ γέροντες εἵατ’ ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι λίθοις, ἱερῷ ἐνὶ κύκλῳ. And again, where the Ithacan γέροντες make way for Telemachus, as he passes to the chair of his father. But in Troy the γέροντες (such is probably the meaning of Il. ii. 789.) have no separate function: the young and the old meet together: while in Greece, besides distinct places in the Assembly, the γέροντες had an exclusive function in the βουλὴ, at which they met separately from the young. 3. It would appear that the ἀγορὴ was with the Trojans not occasional, as with the Greeks, for great questions, but habitual. And this agrees with the description in Il. ii. 788. For when Jupiter sends Iris to Troy, she finds the people in Assembly, but apparently for no special purpose, as she immediately, in the likeness of Polites, begins to address Priam, and we do not hear of any other business. So, when Idæus came back from the Greeks, he found the Trojan Assembly still sitting. All this looks as if the entire business of administering the government rested with that body only. I draw a similar inference from the remarkable expression in Il. ii. 788, ἀγορὰς ἀγόρευον. This seems to express that there was a standing, probably a daily, assembly of the Trojans, not formally summoned, and open to all comers, which acted as the governing body for the state. The line would then mean, not simply ‘the Trojans were holding an assembly,’ but ‘the Trojans were holding their assembly as usual.’ The names βουλευτὴς and ἀγορητὴς appear to have been merely descriptive, and not titular. Both are applied to the Trojan elders. And so βουλαὶ, βουλεύειν, βουληφόροι, are constantly used without any, so to speak, official meaning. In Il. x. 147, the expression βουλὰς βουλεύειν can hardly mean ‘to attend the βουλὴ,’ for the singular number would be the proper term for the βουλὴ specially convoked: and I interpret it as meaning, to attend at or to hold the usual council. This is among the Greeks. Among the Trojans, in Il. x. 415-17, Dolon says,