The assembly at Ithaca was irregularly summoned. The words of the first speaker, the aged Ægyptius, show that according to custom the king alone had the prerogative of issuing a summons by the voice of the heralds. Odysseus had been absent for twenty years: and Ægyptius says, "Since the godlike Odysseus departed in his hollow ships our assembly and session has never been held. And now who is he that summoned us? who was compelled by so great necessity? has he heard news of our warriors coming back, and hastens to tell us? or has he aught else of our country's weal to speak about? I say he is a good man, God bless him! and may Zeus perform for him whatever his heart desires![27]" [27] _Odyssey_ II. 25-34. The business of the assembly at Ithaca was not exactly judicial and can scarcely be described as deliberation on policy. Telemachus summoned the elders and the people in order to declare to them that the proceedings of the suitors were intolerable to him, that he bade them leave his house, that he would resist them by force, if he could, and that if they were slain in his house no price for their lives would be due from him to their kindred. The assembly came to no formal resolution: the practical result of it was settled by the speeches of the elders without any intervention of the common folk, and was expressed by the last speaker Leiocritus, who declared that the suitors were not afraid of Telemachus nor of Odysseus himself, and bade all those who were present to go away each about his own business. An assembly occupied in administering justice was depicted in a compartment of the shield of Achilles, which the poet thus describes[28]: "A people too was there, gathered in assembly: and in their midst a dispute had arisen, and two men were disputing about the price (wergild) of a man that had been slain. The one was declaring aloud to the multitude that he had paid the whole, the other that he had received none of it. And both were ready to go before a judge to get a decision: and the people on this side and on that were cheering them on, but were restrained by the heralds. And there sat the elders on seats of wrought stone in a circle protected by the gods, holding staves given them by the loud-voiced heralds; and then the elders were arising in turn to give judgement. And in the midst were lying two talents of gold to be given to him whose judgement was the straightest[29]." [28] _Iliad_ XVIII. 497-508. [29] _Or perhaps_, to him who best proved his case. In this assembly, as in the other, power belonged solely to those who formed the inner circle. The presence of the king in the judicial assembly is not mentioned, but kings did sometimes take part in giving dooms, for Nestor says to Agamemnon: "O most famous son of Atreus, Agamemnon, king of men, thou shalt be my ending and thou my beginning, because thou art king of many people and Zeus has given thee the sceptre _and judgements_ that thou mayst be their counselor[30]."