In the Ninth Book it may appear probable that he was among the elders who took counsel with Agamemnon about the mission to Achilles, but it is not positively stated; and, even if it were, his relation to that great chieftain would account for his having appeared there on this occasion only (Il. ix. 168). It is remarkable that, at this single juncture, Homer tells us that Agamemnon collected not simply the γέροντες, but the γέροντες ἀολλέες, as if there were persons present, who did not belong to the ordinary Council (Il. ix. 89). Again, in the Nineteenth Book, we are told (v. 303) that the γέροντες Ἀχαιῶν assembled in the encampment of Achilles, that they might urge him to eat. He refused; and he sent away the ‘other kings;’ but there remained behind the two Atreidæ, Ulysses, Nestor, and Idomeneus, ‘and the old chariot-driving Phœnix.’ The others are mentioned without epithet, probably because they had just been described as kings; and Phœnix is in all likelihood described by these epithets, for the reason that the term βασιλῆες would not include him (xix. 303-12). On the whole then, and taking into our view that Phœnix was as a lord, or ἄναξ, subordinate to Peleus, and that he was a sub-commander in the contingent of Achilles, we may be pretty sure that he was not a βασιλεύς; if that word had, as has I think been sufficiently shown, a determinate meaning. 3. Though Patroclus was in the first rank of warriors he is nowhere called βασιλεὺς or Διοτρεφής; but only Διογενὴς, which is a word apparently used with rather more latitude. The subordinate position of Menœtius, the father of Patroclus, makes it improbable that he should stand as a king in the Iliad. He appears to have been lieutenant to Achilles over the whole body of Myrmidons. 4. Eurypylus son of Euæmon[71], commander of a contingent of forty ships, and one of the ten acceptors of the challenge, is in one place addressed as Διοτρεφής. It is doubtful whether he was meant to be exhibited as a βασιλεὺς, or whether this is a lax use of the epithet; if it is so, it forms the only exception (apart from ix. 607) to the rule established by above thirty passages of the Iliad. [71] Il. ii. 736, 7. vii. 167. xi. 819. Upon the whole, then the evidence of the Iliad clearly tends to show that the title βασιλεὺς was a definite one in the Greek army, and that it was confined to nine persons; perhaps with some slight indistinctness on the question, whether there was or was not a claim to that rank on the part of one or two persons more. ~_Conditions of Kingship in the Iliad._~ Upon viewing the composition of the class of kings, whether we include in it or not such cases as those of Meges or Eurypylus, it seems to rest upon the combined basis of 1. Real political sovereignty, as distinguished from subaltern chiefship; 2. Marked personal vigour; and 3. _Either_, _a._ Considerable territorial possessions, as in the case of Idomeneus and Oilean Ajax;