[161] Odyss. xvii. 384; xix. 135. Iliad, iv. 187; vii. 221. I know nothing which better illustrates the idea of the Homeric δημιοεργοί,—the herald, the prophet, the carpenter, the leech, the bard, etc.,—than the following description of the structure of an East Indian village (Mill’s History of British India, b. ii. c. 5, p. 266): “A village, politically considered, resembles a corporation or township. Its proper establishment of officers and servants consists of the following descriptions: the potail, or head inhabitant, who settles disputes and collects the revenue, etc.; the curnum, who keeps the accounts of cultivation, etc.; the tallier; the boundary-man; the superintendent of tanks and water-courses; the Brahman, who performs the village worship; the schoolmaster; the calendar Brahman, or astrologer, who proclaims the lucky or unpropitious periods for sowing or thrashing; the smith and carpenter; the potter; the washerman; the barber; the cowkeeper; the doctor; the dancing-girl, who attends at rejoicings; the musician, and the poet.”
Each of these officers and servants (δημιοεργοί) is remunerated by a definite perquisite—so much landed produce—out of the general crop of the village (p. 264).
[162] Iliad, xii. 421; xxi. 405.
[163] Iliad, i. 155; ix. 154; xiv. 122.
[164] Odysseus and other chiefs of Ithaka had oxen, sheep, mules, etc., on the continent and in Peloponnêsus, under the care of herdsmen (Odyss. iv. 636; xiv. 100).
Leukanor, king of Bosporus, asks the Scythian Arsakomas—Πόσα δὲ βοσκήματα, ἢ πόσας ἁμάξας ἔχεις, ταῦτα γὰρ ὑμεῖς πλουτεῖτε; (Lucian, Toxaris, c. 45.) The enumeration of the property of Odysseus would have placed the βοσκήματα in the front line.
[165] Δμωαὶ δ᾽ ἃς Ἀχιλεὺς ληΐσσατο (Iliad, xviii. 28: compare also Odyss. i. 397; xxiii. 357; particularly xvii. 441).
[166] Odyss. xiv. 64; xv. 412; see also xix. 78: Eurykleia was also of dignified birth (i. 429). The questions put by Odysseus to Eumæus, to which the speech above referred to is an answer, indicate the proximate causes of slavery: “Was the city of your father sacked? or were you seized by pirates when alone with your sheep and oxen?” (Odyss. xv. 385.)
Eumæus had purchased a slave for himself (Odyss. xiv. 448).
[167] Tacitus, Mor. Germ. 21. “Dominum ac servum nullis educationis deliciis dignoscas: inter eadem pecora, in eâdem humo, degunt,” etc. (Juvenal, Sat. xiv. 167.)