It would not surprise me to find that some one of Homer’s old commentators had admired this passage as a perfect allegory of the origin, progress, establishment, and final inheritance of monarchical power among men. I should smile indeed were I to read that the maker of the sceptre, Vulcan, as fire, as that which is of supreme importance to the maintenance of mankind, typified the removal of the necessities which induced the early races of men to subject themselves to a single ruler; that the first king was a son of Time (Ζεὺς Κρονίων), revered and venerable, who desired to share his power with a wise and eloquent man, a Mercury (Διακτόρῳ Ἀργειφόντῃ), or to resign it wholly to him; that the wise speaker, at the time when the young state was threatened by foreign enemies, delivered his supreme authority to the bravest warrior (Πέλοπι πληξίππῳ); that the brave warrior, after having subdued the enemies and secured the safety of the realm, let this power play into the hands of his son, who, as a peace-loving ruler, a beneficent shepherd of his people (ποιμὴν λαῶν), introduced comfort and luxury; that thus the way was opened, after his death, for the richest of his relations (πολύαρνι Θυέστῃ) to obtain by gifts and bribery, and finally to secure to his family for ever, as a piece of property obtained by purchase, that authority which had originally been conferred as a mark of confidence, and had been regarded by merit rather as a burden than an honor. I should smile at all this, but it would increase my respect for a poet to whom so much could be attributed.
But this is a digression. I am now considering the history of the sceptre as a device for making us linger over a single object, without entering into a tiresome description of its various parts. Again, when Achilles swears by his sceptre to be revenged on Agamemnon for his contemptuous treatment, Homer gives us the history of this sceptre. We see it still green upon the mountains, the axe severs it from the parent trunk, strips it of leaves and bark, and makes it ready to serve the judges of the people, as the token of their godlike office.[[104]]
ναὶ μὰ τόδε σκῆπτρον, τὸ μὲν οὔ ποτε φύλλα καὶ ὄζους
φύσει, ἐπειδὴ πρῶτα τομὴν ἐν ὄρεσσι λέλοιπεν,
οὐδ’ ἀναθηλήσει· περὶ γάρ ῥά ἑ χαλκὸς ἔλεψεν
φύλλά τε καὶ φλοιόν· νῦν αὐτέ μιν υἷες Ἀχαιῶν
ἐν παλάμῃς φορέουσι δικασπόλοι, οἵτε θέμιστας
πρὸς Διὸς εἰρύαται.
Homer’s object was not so much to describe two staves of different shape and material, as to give us a graphic picture of the different degrees of power which these staves represented. One the work of Vulcan, the other cut upon the hills by an unknown hand; one the old possession of a noble house, the other destined to be grasped by the first comer; one extended by a monarch over many islands and over all Argos, the other borne by one from among the Greeks, who, in connection with others, had been intrusted with the duty of upholding the laws. This was in fact the difference between Agamemnon and Achilles; and Achilles, even in the blindness of his passion, could not but admit it.
Not only when Homer’s descriptions have these higher aims in view, but even when his sole object is the picture, he will yet break this up into a sort of history of the object in order that the various parts, which we see side by side in nature, may just as naturally follow each other in his picture, and, as it were, keep pace with the flow of the narrative.