I stop for a moment to observe, that the view here taken of the comparatively restricted numbers and sphere of the slaves in heroic Greece may serve in some degree to answer the question, why do we not hear of them in the army of the Iliad? As men of equal blood with the Greeks themselves, they would perhaps be dangerous comrades in arms. As persons established in charge of the property of the lord, there would be a strong motive to leave them behind for its care. It is very difficult to judge how far the state of heroic Greece bore any resemblance to the feudal system of the later middle ages, and whether it did not present a more substantial correspondence with the allodial system of the earlier. We have before us a large number of independent proprietors, each bound by usage probably to render personal service, but we have nothing that resembles the obligation to bring so many retainers into the field with reference to the size of the estate. And accordingly, in the Iliad we do not find many merely personal retainers. The menial services in the tent of Achilles are performed by the women-captives, or by Patroclus in person. After Patroclus was dead, his tent was attended only by Automedon, his charioteer, and by one other warrior. Agamemnon had no other male attendants that we hear of, except his two herald-serjeants, Talthybius and Eurybates, who discharged a double function[162]: [162] Il. i. 321. τώ οἱ ἔσαν κήρυκε καὶ ὀτρηρὼ θεράποντε. We may infer from the poems, that each independent family furnished one or more of its members, drawn by lot, to serve in the expedition[163]. Such is the declaration of the pseudo-Myrmidon to Priam: and again, in the Odyssey we find Ægyptius[164] of Ithaca had sent one son to Troy, while he kept three at home. The inference is strengthened[165] by the negative evidence of the Twenty-fourth Odyssey. There[166] Dolius the slave appears with no less than six sons: but no mention is made of any member of his family as having attended Ulysses to Troy, although, if there had been such a person, some reference to him here, in the presence of Ulysses just returned, would have been most appropriate. Indeed, the six are introduced as ‘the sons’ of Dolius, which of itself almost excludes the idea of his having sent any son to the war. [163] Il. xxiv. 396-400. [164] Od. ii. 17. [165] Ibid. 474. [166] Od. xxiv. 387. 497.