As respects the Ninth Book, this theory seems to proceed on a misconception of the nature of the offence taken by Achilles; as respects the others, upon a similar misconception of the measure which the Poet intends us to take of his hero’s greatness, and of the modes by which he means us to arrive at our estimate. It takes time to sound the depths of Homer. Possibly, or even probably, many may share the idea that what Achilles resents is the mere loss of a captive woman, and that restitution would at once undo the wrong. But they misconceive the act, and the man also, to whom the wrong was done. The soul of Achilles is stirred from its depths by an outrage, which seems to him to comprehend all vices within itself. He is wounded in an attachment that had become a tender one; for he gives to Briseis the name of wife (ἄλοχον θυμάρεα), and avows his care and protection of her in that character. A proud and sensitive warrior, he is[693] insulted in the face of the army; and to the Greeks, whose governing sentiment was αἴδως, or honour, insult was the deadliest of all inflictions. Further, he is defrauded by the withdrawal of that which, by the public authority, presiding over the distribution of spoil, he had been taught to call his own; and he keenly feels the combination of deceit with insolence[694]. Justice is outraged in his person, when he alone among the warriors is to have no share of the booty. In this he rightly sees an ingratitude of threefold blackness; it is done by the man, for whose sake[695] he had come to Troy without an interest of his own; it is done to the man, whose hand, almost unaided, had earned the spoil which the Greeks divided[696]: lastly, it is done to him, on whose valour the fortunes of their host with the hopes of their enterprise principally depended, and whose mere presence on the field of itself drives and holds aloof the principal champions of Troy[697]. And, lastly, while the whole army is responsible by acquiescence and is so declared by him, (ἐπεί μ’ ἀφέλεσθέ γε δόντες, Il. i. 299,) the insult and wrong proceed from one, whose avarice and irresolution made him in the eyes of Achilles at once hateful and contemptible[698]. [693] ὕβρις, Il. i. 203, 214. ἐφυβρίζων, Il. ix. 368, also 646-8. [694] Il. ix. 370-6: when he returns again and again to the word: ἐξαπατήσειν, 371; ἀπάτησε, 375; ἐξαπάφοιτο, 376. [695] Il. i. 152. [696] Ibid. 165-8. [697] Il. v. 789. [698] Il. i. 225-8.