It is even doubtful how far the Greek poets believed in the personality of their gods, or, what comes to the same thing, in their detachment from the natural objects in which a divine power was supposed to be embodied. Such a detachment is most completely realised when they are assembled in an Olympian council; but, as Hegel has somewhere observed, Homer never brings his gods together in this manner without presenting them in a ridiculous light—that is to say, without hinting that their existence must not be taken quite in earnest. And the existence of disembodied spirits seems to be similarly conceived by the great epic master. The life of the souls in Hades is not a continuance but a memory and a reflection of their life on earth. The scornful reply of Achilles to the congratulations of Odysseus implies, as it were, the consciousness of his own nonentity. By no other device could the irony of the whole situation, the worthlessness of a merely subjective immortality, be made so poignantly apparent.[217] The characters in Homer are marked by this incredulous disposition in direct proportion to their general wisdom. When Agamemnon relates his dream to the assembled chiefs, Nestor dryly observes that if anyone of less authority had told them such a story they would have immediately rejected it as untrue. Hector’s outspoken contempt for augury is well known; and his indifference to the dying words of Patroclus is equally characteristic. In the _Odyssey_, Alcinous pointedly distinguishes his guest from the common run of travellers, whose words deserve no credit. That Telemachus should tell who is his father, with the uncomplimentary reservation that he has only his mother’s word for it, is evidently meant as a proof of the young man’s precocious shrewdness; and it is with the utmost difficulty that Penelope herself is persuaded of her husband’s identity. So in the _Agamemnon_ of Aeschylus, nothing less than the report of an eye-witness will convince the Chorus of old men that Troy has really fallen.[218] Finally, to complete the list of examples afforded independently of philosophical reflection, Herodotus repeatedly expresses disbelief in the stories told him, or, what is more remarkable, holds his judgment in suspense with regard to their veracity.