ἤθελε; τὸν λύχνον, παῖδες, ἀποσβέσατε.
while the sudden bathos of Anth. Pal. v. 7, is quite in the same spirit. Even where a more real punishment is suggested, its execution is put off into a very vague and distant future:—
ταὐτὰ παθοῦσα
σοὶ μέμψαιτ’ ἐπ’ ἐμοῖς στᾶσά ποτε προθύροις.[128]
Anth. Pal. v. 164, 3-4.
Striking, too, is the note of resignation that marks poems like Anth. Pal. v. 189, xii. 153.[129] Still more striking, to those who remember the brutality of Epicrates’ attack upon Lais,[130] is the tone in which the aged courtesan is spoken of in Anth. Pal. vii. 217. The two little pictures of happy lovers, so suggestive of the Acme and Septimius of Catullus, in Anth. Pal. v. 153, xii. 105, are also very far indeed away from anything of the kind that had ever gone before.[131]
We are thus confronted by a very remarkable fact. That way of regarding women which we may call the romantic feeling—a feeling which we have noticed to be conspicuous by its absence in Euripides—appears suddenly developed to a high degree, in what is practically the first poetry extant after him. The full meaning of this fact we shall come to consider later; but before it is possible to do this, it will be necessary to institute some further preliminary enquiries.
Attention has already been sufficiently drawn to the almost entire absence from the early Greek literature of love-poetry of any kind addressed to women; at the same time, it has been briefly pointed out more than once that love-poetry addressed to boys or men is a very common phenomenon in this literature. This mere fact in itself would be one requiring some investigation, in an examination of this kind; but when the nature of this love-poetry comes to be considered, it will be seen how particularly important, in the present connection, is this phase of the Greek mind. For it is a fact which becomes immediately apparent, and grows more and more evident, the more the matter is looked into, that while such little love-poetry as does exist, addressed by men to women, is entirely concerned with the purely sensual aspect of the matter, in the very considerable volume of poetry addressed by men to men, this aspect is well-nigh entirely ignored. But obvious though this fact must be to everyone who reads the early Greek poetry with open eyes, the influence of our present methods of thought and training has been so strong, that not only has its importance been strangely ignored by modern writers, but even the fact itself has been questioned or denied. Under these circumstances, it will not be superfluous to go into the matter at some length, for reasons which will appear more clearly when the truth has been established.[132]
The story of the Iliad is a story without a heroine, a feature which makes it well-nigh unique among national legends. This fact has struck various people, and has been accounted for in various ways, the favourite explanation, perhaps, being that the Greek imagination was severer and more self-controlled, more statuesque, one may almost say, than that of other primitive peoples, and was therefore content with a hero whose sole inspiration lay in love of glory and love of battle, apart from any gentler emotion whatever.[133] This estimate of the Greek imagination is no doubt a just one, but there is none the less a strong objection to seeking in it an explanation of the peculiarities of the Iliad. To regard the Achilles of Homer as a person animated solely by ambition and military enthusiasm, is, in face of the facts of the case, impossible. As is well known, Achilles sulks because deprived of Briseis, and is only roused again by the death of Patroclus; that is to say, his two main actions are influenced entirely by motives outside of those which are looked upon as his chief characteristics.[134] In other words, Achilles is not a military hero at all; the interest one feels in him is due almost entirely to the emotional side of his character. But while this much is clear, the question still remains: Why has this emotional hero no corresponding heroine? for, of course, one cannot regard Briseis as such.
The answer to this is one that will not please a certain class of modern minds, but that is no proof that it is not true. There is a heroine in the Iliad, and that heroine is Patroclus. The Achilleis is a story of which the main motive is the love of Achilles for Patroclus.[135] This solution is astoundingly simple, and yet it took me so long to bring myself to accept it, that I am quite ready to forgive anyone who feels a similar hesitation. But those who do accept it, cannot fail to observe, on further consideration, how thoroughly suitable a motive of this kind would be in a national Greek epic. For this is the motive running through the whole of Greek life, till that life was transmuted by the influence of Macedonia. The lover-warriors Achilles and Patroclus are the direct spiritual ancestors of the Sacred Band of Thebans, who died to a man on the field of Chaeronea.