the portico, and accompanies him on his journey. But these functions appertain to him because he was the bachelor (ἠΐθεος) of the family, as we are appropriately told in reference to his taking a couch near the guest, while the married persons always slept in some separate and more private part of the palace[105]. Pisistratus, therefore, was probably the youngest son. But it is also pretty clear that Thrasymedes was the eldest. For in the sacrifice he strikes the fatal blow at the ox: while Stratius and Echephron bring it up, Aretus holds the ewer and basin, Perseus holds the lamb, Pisistratus cuts up the animal and Nestor performs the religious rites of prayer and sacrifice[106]. [102] Od. xi. 254, 6. [103] Od. xi. 281. [104] Od. iii. 36. [105] Od. iii. 402. Il. vi. 242-50. [106] Od. iii. 439-46 and 454. And again, when Pisistratus brings up Telemachus and the disguised Minerva, he places them, evidently as in the seat of honour, ‘beside his brother Thrasymedes and his father.’ This is in perfect consonance with our finding Thrasymedes only, together with Antilochus who fell, selected for service in the Trojan war. Upon this question, again, an important collateral light is cast by Homer’s mythological arrangements. They are, in fact, quite conclusive on the subject of primogeniture among the Hellenes. The Olympian order is founded upon it. It is as the eldest of the three Kronid brothers, and by no other title, that Jupiter stands at the head of the Olympian community. With respect to the lottery, he is but one of three. His being the King of Air invests him with no right to command the King of Sea. In the Fifteenth Book, as he is of nearly equal force, Neptune declines to obey his orders until reminded by Iris of his seniority. The Erinues, says the Messenger Goddess, attend upon the elder. That is to say, his rights lie at the foundation of the moral order. Upon this suggestion, the refractory deity at once succumbs[107]. And, reciprocally, Jupiter in the Thirteenth Odyssey recognises the claim of Neptune to respect as the _oldest_ and best (of course after himself) of the gods[108].-- [107] Il. xv. 204-7. [108] Od. xiii. 141. Thus exalted and severed in rank, thus beautiful in person, thus powerful in hand and mind, thus associated with the divine fountain of all human honours, the Greek Βασιλεύς of the Iliad has other claims, too, to be regarded as representing, more nearly perhaps than it has ever been represented by any other class of monarchs, a benignant and almost ideal kingship. The light of these great stars of heroic society was no less mild than it was bright; and they might well have supplied the basis of that idea of the royal character, which has given it so extraordinary a hold over the mind of Shakspeare, and led him to adorn it by such noble effusions of his muse. ~_Function of the King as Priest._~ The Homeric King appears before us in the fourfold character of Priest, Judge, General, and Proprietor.