religious ideas which forced Plato to banish Homer from his
republic had made itself felt in the days of the early Ionic
philosophers.
Failing external testimony, the time and place of the Homeric poems can only be determined (if at all) by internal evidence. This is of two main kinds: (a) evidence of history, consisting in a comparison of the political and social condition, the geography, the institutions, the manners, arts and ideas of Homer with those of other times; (b) evidence of language, consisting in a comparison with later dialects, in respect of grammar and vocabulary. To these may be added, as occasionally of value, (c) much evidence of the direct influence of Homer upon the subsequent course of literature and art.
(a) The political condition of Greece in the earliest times known to history is separated from the Greece of Homer by an interval which can hardly be overestimated. The great national names are different: instead of Achaeans, Argives, Danai, we find Hellenes, subdivided into Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians—names either unknown to Homer, or mentioned in terms more significant than silence. At the dawn of Greek history Mycenae is no longer the seat of empire; new empires, polities and civilizations have grown up—Sparta with its military discipline, Delphi with its religious supremacy, Miletus with its commerce and numberless colonies, Aeolis and Ionia, Sicily and Magna Graecia.
While the political centre of Homeric Greece is at Mycenae, the real centre is rather to be found in Boeotia. The Catalogue of the Ships begins with Boeotia; the list of Boeotian towns is much the longest; and they sail, not from the bay of Argos, but from the Boeotian harbour of Aulis. This position is not due to its chiefs, who are all of inferior rank. The importance of Boeotia for Greek civilization is further shown by the ancient worship of the Muses on Mount Helicon, and the fact that the oldest poet whose birthplace was known was the Boeotian Hesiod. Next to Boeotia and the neighbouring countries, it appears that the Peloponnesus, Crete and Thessaly were the most important seats of Greek population.
In the Peloponnesus the face of things was completely altered by the Dorian conquest, no trace of which is found in Homer. The only Dorians known in Homer are those that the Odyssey (xix. 177) places in Crete. It is difficult to connect them with the Dorians of history.
The eastern shores of the Aegean, which the earliest historical records represent to us as the seat of a brilliant civilization, giving way before the advance of the great military empires (Lydia and afterwards Persia), are almost a blank in Homer’s map. The line of settlements can be traced in the Catalogue from Crete to Rhodes, and embraces the neighbouring islands of Cos and Calymnos. The colonization of Rhodes by Tlepolemus is related (Il. ii. 661 ff.), and seems to mark the farthest point reached in the Homeric age. Between Rhodes and the Troad Homer knows of but one city, Miletus—which is a Carian ally of Troy—and the mouth of one river, the Cayster. Even the Cyclades—Naxos, Paros, Melos—are unknown to the Homeric world. The disposition of the Greeks to look to the west for the centres of religious feeling appears in the mention of Dodona and the Dodonaean Zeus, put in the mouth of the Thessalian Achilles.
To the north we find the Thracians, known from the stories of Thamyris the singer (Il. ii. 595), and Lycurgus, the enemy of the young god Dionysus (Il. vi. 130). Here the Trojan empire begins. It does not appear, however, that the Trojans are thought of as people of a different language. As this is expressly said of the Carians, and of the Trojan allies who were “summoned from afar,” the contrary rather is implied regarding Troy itself.
The mixed type of government described by Homer—consisting of a king guided by a council of elders, and bringing all important resolutions before the assembly of the fighting men—does not seem to have been universal in Indo-European communities, but to have grown up in many different parts of the world under the stress of similar conditions. The king is the commander in war, and the office probably owed its existence to military necessities. It is not surrounded with any special sacredness. There were ruling families, laying claim to divine descent, from whom the king was naturally chosen, but his own fitness is the essence of his title. The aged Laertes is set aside; the young Telemachus does not succeed as a matter of course. Nor are any very definite rights attached to the office. Each tribe in the army before Troy was commanded by its own king (or kings); but Agamemnon was supreme, and was “more a king” (βασιλείτερος) than any other. The assembly is summoned on all critical occasions, and its approval is the ultimate sanction. A king therefore stands in almost as much need of oratory as of warlike skill and prowess. Even the division of the spoil is not made in the Iliad by Agamemnon, but by “the Achaeans” (Il. i. 162, 368). The taking of Briseïs from Achilles was an arbitrary act, and against all rule and custom. The council is more difficult to understand. The “elders” (γέροντες) of the Iliad are the same as the subordinate “kings”; they are summoned by Agamemnon to his tent, and form a small council of nine or ten persons. In Troy we hear of elders of the people (δημογέροντες) who are with Priam, and are men past the military age. So in Ithaca there are elders who have not gone to Troy with the army. It would seem therefore that the meeting in Agamemnon’s tent was only a copy or adaptation of the true constitutional “council of elders,” which indeed was essentially unfitted for the purposes of military service. The king’s palace, if we may judge from Tiryns and Mycenae, was usually in a strong situation on an “acropolis.” In the later times of democracy the acropolis was reserved for the temples of the principal gods.
Priesthood in Homer is found in the case of particular temples, where an officer is naturally wanted to take charge of the sacred inclosure and the sacrifices offered within it. It is perhaps an accident that we do not hear of priests in Ithaca. Agamemnon performs sacrifice himself, not because a priestly character was attached to the kingly office, but simply because he was “master in his own house.”
The conception of “law” is foreign to Homer. The later words for it (νόμος, ῥήτρα) are unknown, and the terms which he uses (δίκη and θέμις) mean merely “custom.” Judicial functions are in the hands of the elders, who “have to do with suits” (δικασπόλοι), and “uphold judgments” (θέμιστας εἰρύαται). On such matters as the compensation in cases of homicide, it is evident that there were no rules, but merely a feeling, created by use and wont, that the relatives of the slain man should be willing to accept payment. The sense of anger which follows a violation of custom has the name of “Nemesis”—righteous displeasure.
As there is no law in Homer, so there is no morality. That is to say, there are no general principles of action, and no words which indicate that acts have been classified as good or bad, right or wrong. Moral feeling, indeed, existed and was denoted by “Aidos”; but the numerous meanings of this word—shame, veneration, pity—show how rudimentary the idea was. And when we look to practice we find that cruel and even treacherous deeds are spoken of without the least sense that they deserve censure. The heroes of Homer are hardly more moral agents than the giants and enchanters of a fairy tale.
The religious ideas of Homer differ in some important points from those of later Greece. The Apollo of the Iliad has the character of a local Asiatic deity—“ruler of Chryse and goodly Cilla and Tenedos.” He may be compared with the Clarian and the Lycian god, but he is unlike the Apollo of Dorian times, the “deliverer” and giver of oracles. Again, the worship of Dionysus, and of Demeter and Persephone, is mainly or wholly post-Homeric. The greatest difference, however, lies in the absence of hero-worship from the Homeric order of things. Castor and Polydeuces, for instance, are simply brothers of Helen who died before the expedition to Troy (Il. iii. 243.)
The military tactics of Homer belong to the age when the chariot was the principal engine of warfare. Cavalry is unknown, and the battles are mainly decided by the prowess of the chiefs. The use of the trumpet is also later. It has been supposed indeed that the art of riding was known in Homer’s own time, because it occurs in comparisons. But the riding which he
