3. To the βασιλεὺς, and to no one else, is it said that Jupiter has intrusted the sceptre, the symbol of authority, together with the prerogatives of justice[59]. The sceptre or staff was the emblem of regal power as a whole. Hence the account of the origin and successive deliveries of the sceptre of Agamemnon[60]. Hence Ulysses obtained the use of it in order to check the Greeks and bring them back to the assembly, ii. 186. Hence we constantly hear of the sceptre as carried by kings: hence the epithet σκηπτοῦχοι is applied to them exclusively in Homer, and the sceptre is carried by no other persons, except by judges, and by herald-serjeants, as their deputies. [59] Il. ii. 205. [60] Il. ii. 101. 4. The βασιλῆες are in many places spoken of as a class or order by themselves; and in this capacity they form the βουλὴ or council of the army. Thus when Achilles describes the distribution of prizes by Agamemnon to the principal persons of the army, he says[61], [61] Il. ix. 334. ἄλλα δ’ ἀριστήεσσι δίδου γέρα, καὶ βασιλεῦσιν. In this place the Poet seems manifestly to distinguish between the class of kings and that of chiefs. When he has occasion to speak of the higher order of chiefs who usually met in council, he calls them the γέροντες[62], or the βασιλῆες[63]: but when he speaks of the leaders more at large, he calls them by other names, as at the commencement of the Catalogue, they are ἀρχοὶ, ἡγεμόνες, or κοίρανοι: and, again, ἀριστῆες[64]. In two places, indeed, he applies the phrase last-named to the members of that select class of chiefs who were also kings: but there the expression is ἀριστῆες Παναχαιῶν[65], a phrase of which the effect is probably much the same as βασιλῆες Ἀχαιῶν: the meaning seems to be those who were chief over all orders of the Greeks, that is to say, chiefs even among chiefs. Thus Agamemnon would have been properly the only βασιλεὺς Παναχαιῶν. [62] Il. ii. 53 _et alibi_. [63] Il. xix. 309. ii. 86. [64] Il. ii. 487, 493. xx. 303. [65] Il. ii. 404, and vii. 327. On the force of Παναχαιοὶ, see Achæis, or Ethnology, p. 420. The same distinction is marked in the proceedings of Ulysses, when he rallies the dispersed Assembly: for he addressed coaxingly, ὅντινα μὲν βασιλῆα καὶ ἔξοχον ἄνδρα κιχείη, whatever king _or_ leading man he chanced to overtake[66]. [66] Il. ii. 188. 5. The rank of the Greek βασιλεῖς is marked in the Catalogue by this trait; that no other person seems ever to be associated with them on an equal footing in the command of the force, even where it was such as to require subaltern commanders. Agamemnon, Menelaus, Nestor, Ulysses, the two Ajaxes, Achilles, are each named alone. Idomeneus is named alone as leader in opening the account of the Cretans, ii. 645, though, when he is named again, Meriones also appears (650, 1), which arrangement seems to point to him as only at most a quasi-colleague, and ὀπάων. Sthenelus and Euryalus are named after Diomed (563-6), but it is expressly added,