‘Where mighty towns in ruins spread the plain, And saw their blooming warriors early slain.’ Cowper wholly omits the last half of the line, and says, ‘After full many a city laid in dust’.... Chapman, right as to the epithet, gives the erroneous meaning to the substantive: ‘Where many towns of princely youths he levelled with the ground.’ Voss, accurate as usual, appears to carry the full meaning: ‘Viele Städt’ austilgend der gottbeseligten Männer.’ This line, in truth, affords an admirable touchstone for the meaning of two important Homeric words. The vulgar meaning takes Διοτρεφέων αἰζήων as simply illustrious youths. What could Homer mean by cities of illustrious youths? Is it their sovereigns or their fighting population? Were their sovereigns all youths? Were their fighting population all illustrious? In no other place throughout the Iliad, except one, where the rival reading ἀρηιθόων is evidently to be adopted, does the Poet apply Διοτρεφὴς to a mass of men[80]. If, then, the sovereigns be meant, it is plain that they could not all be youths, and therefore αἴζηος does not mean a youth. But now let us take Διοτρεφὴς in its strict sense as a royal title only; then let us remember that thrones were only assumed on coming to manhood, as is plain from the case of Telemachus, who, though his father, as it was feared, was dead, was not in possession of the sovereign power. ‘May Jupiter,’ says Antinous to him, ‘never make you the βασιλεὺς in Ithaca: which is your right,’ or ‘which would fall to you by birth[81]:’ [80] Nor is it applied in the Odyssey to any bodies more numerous than the thirteen ‘kings’ of Scheria, Od. v. 378; and to them in the character of kings. [81] Od. i. 386. ὅ τοι γενεῇ πατρώϊόν ἐστιν. When Telemachus answers, by proposing that one of the nobles should assume the sovereignty. Lastly, upon declining into old age, it was, for the most part, either as to the more active cares, or else entirely, relinquished. Then the sense of Il. ii. 660 will come out with Homer’s usual accuracy and completeness. It will be that Hercules sacked many cities of prince-warriors, or vigorous and warlike princes.