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
Now it cannot be said that the use of the word is forborne in the
Iliad from the want of fit persons to bear it; for Hecuba, as the wife
of Priam, and Helen, as the wife of Paris, possibly also Andromache,
(though this is much more doubtful[34],) were all of a rank to have
received it: nor can we account for its absence by their appearing only
as Trojans; for the title of βασιλεὺς is frequently applied to Priam,
and it is likewise assigned to Paris, though to no other member of the
Trojan royal family.
[34] See inf. ‘Ilios.’
We have also two other cases in the Iliad of women who were queens of
some kind. One is that of Hypsipyle, who apparently exercised supreme
power[35] in Lemnos, but we are left to inference as to its character:
the other is the mother of Andromache[36],
[35] Il. vii. 469.
[36] Il. vi. 395-7. 425.
ἣ βασίλευεν ὑπὸ Πλάκῳ ὑληέσσῃ.
She was what we term a Queen consort, for her husband Eetion was alive
at the time. In the Odyssey we are told that Chloris, whom Neleus
married, reigned at Pylos; ἡ δὲ Πύλου βασίλευε, Od. xi. 285. In this
place the word βασιλεύειν may perhaps imply the exercise of sovereign
power. Be this as it may, the introduction of the novel title of Queen
betokens political movement.
There are other signs of advancing change in the character of kingship
discernible from the Odyssey, which will be more conveniently
considered hereafter. In the meantime, the two which are already before
us are, it will be observed, exactly in the direction we might expect
from the nature of the Trojan war, and from the tradition of Strabo. We
have before us an effort of the country amounting to a violent, and
also an unnaturally continued strain; a prolonged absence of its best
heads, its strongest arms, its most venerated authorities: wives and
young children, infants of necessity in many cases, remain at home. It
was usual no doubt for a ruler, on leaving his country, to appoint some
guardian to remain behind him, as we see from the case of Agamemnon,
(Od. iii. 267,) and from the language of Telemachus, (Od. xv. 89);
but no regent, deputy, or adviser, could be of much use in that stage
of society. Again, in every class of every community, there are boys
rapidly passing into manhood; they form unawares a new generation,
and the heat of their young blood, in the absence of vigorous and
established controul, stirs, pushes forward, and innovates. Once more,
as extreme youth, so old age likewise was ordinarily a disqualification
for war. And as we find Laertes and Peleus, and Menœtius, with Admetus,
besides probably other sovereigns whom Homer has not named to us, left
behind on this account, so there must have been many elderly men of the
class of nobles (ἀριστῆες, ἔξοχοι ἄνδρες) who obtained exemption from
actual service in the war. There is too every appearance that, in some
if not all the states of Greece, there had been those who escaped from
service on other grounds; perhaps either from belonging to the elder
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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