[365] This incident may also be compared with a passage in the Iliad (IX 453 ff.). Phoinix' speech (perhaps designedly) shows a nearer approximation to this type of religion (cf. also v. 568 ff.) than any other part of the Homeric poems.
[366] The version of the sacrifice given in the Cypria (cf. p. [235]) is probably to be regarded as later than the other, although it occurred in what was doubtless a much earlier poem.
[367] Cf. Pindar, Pyth. XI 32; Stesichoros (Bergk), fragm. 39.
[368] The Spartans possessed a tomb of Agamemnon at Amyclai (cf. Pausanias, III 19. 6). Indeed, from Herodotus, VII 159, it would seem that they claimed him as one of their own kings as far back as the time of Xerxes. It has been suggested that a similar version of the story is implied in Od. IV 514 f.; but the inference is doubtful. Aigisthos rules Mycenae (after Agamemnon's death in III 305.)
εἰ γάρ τις καὶ πένθος ἔχων νεοκηδέϊ θυμῷ
ἄζηται κραδίην ἀκαχήμενος, αὐτὰρ αοιδὸς
Μουσάων θεράπων κλέεα προτέρων ἀνθρώπων
ὑμνήσῃ μάκαράς τε θεοὺς οἱ Ὄλυμπον ἔχουσιν, κ.τ.λ.
NOTE VI. THE TROJAN CATALOGUE.
In the last chapter we have endeavoured to estimate in general terms the position of the Homeric poems relatively to the poetry of the Heroic Age itself on the one hand and to Hesiod and genealogical poetry on the other. I have avoided entering into details in regard to the relationship between the extant poems and the lost Cyclic poems because I did not wish to load the discussion with matter which, owing to the fragmentary nature of the evidence, must largely be of a hypothetical character. At the same time I am inclined to think that the Trojan Catalogue (Il. II 816 ff.) does contain some indications which may permit the date of its composition to be determined with a fair amount of probability.