[160] Besides the representation necessary to confederacies—such as the Amphictyonic League, etc., a representative system was adopted at Mantinea, where the officers were named by deputies chosen by the people. "This form of democracy," says Aristotle, "existed among the shepherds and husbandmen of Arcadia;" and was probably not uncommon with the ancient Pelasgians. But the myrioi of Arcadia had not the legislative power.
[161] "Then to the lute's soft voice prolong the night,
Music, the banquet's most refined delight."
Pope's Odyssey, book xxi., 473.
It is stronger in the original—
Moltae kai phormingi tu gar t'anathaemata daitos.
[162] Iliad, book ix., Pope's translation, line 250.
[163] Heyne, F. Clinton, etc.
[164] Pope's translation, b. iv., line 75, etc.
[165] At least this passage is sufficient to refute the arguments of Mr. Mitford, and men more learned than that historian, who, in taking for their premises as an indisputable fact the extraordinary assumption, that Homer never once has alluded to the return of the Heraclidae, arrive at a conclusion very illogical, even if the premises were true, viz., that therefore Homer preceded the date of that great revolution.
[166] I own that this seems to me the most probable way of accounting for the singular and otherwise disproportioned importance attached by the ancient poets to that episode in the Trojan war, which relates to the feud of Achilles and Agamemnon. As the first recorded enmity between the great Achaeans and the warriors of Phthiotis, it would have a solemn and historical interest both to the conquering Dorians and the defeated Achaeans, flattering to the national vanity of either people.
[167] I adopt the analysis of the anti-Homer arguments so clearly given by Mr. Coleridge in his eloquent Introduction to the Study of the Greek Poets. Homer, p. 39.