[535] That the type of organisation which prevailed during the growth of Homeric poetry was agnatic may be inferred from the regular use of the word πάτρη and the (probably older) expression πατρὶς γαῖα, which perhaps originally denoted 'land of one's father' (the faeder eðel of Widsith, v. 96). But according to Plato (Republic, 575 D) the Cretans used μητρίς for πατρίς. Evidence for the prevalence of cognatic organisation in early times is furnished by certain words denoting relationship, especially ἀδελφός (originally 'uterine brother'), and a relic of the feeling that this form of relationship was closer seems to be preserved in Il. XXI 95. We may also take into account the formation of patronymics in -ιδᾱ, which appear to be extended from the feminine suffix -ιδ- by another suffix (-ᾱ-) also properly feminine. In the north-western dialects these names were declined as feminines (e.g. N. sg. Εχσοιδα, G. sg. Προκλειδας). One can hardly help suspecting that these names belonged originally to genealogies of the Lycian type.
[536] It is possibly due to the same cause that we meet with some curious marriages. Thus Alcinoos is married to his brother's daughter, and Iphidamas to his mother's sister. The former case offends against the principle of agnatic organisation, the latter against the cognatic. Some other heroes (e.g. Diomedes) seem to be in somewhat similar positions.
[537] The Locrian case quoted above (p. [357]) suggests that the kindreds may, sometimes at least, have been organised on a cognatic basis.
[538] There is a certain amount of parallelism also between ἑταῖρος and gesið (cf. p. [350]). But the former has scarcely the same technical significance as the latter.
[539] Assuming the Homeric Ithaca to be identical with the Ithaca of later times. If 'Same' is the later Ithaca, the number of suitors furnished by this island is twenty-four.
[540] Cf. Fanta, Der Staat in der Ilias und Odyssee, p. 26 f., where a distinction is drawn between higher and lower nobility—the βασιλῆες being only a portion of the ἀριστῆες; but the evidence seems to me inconclusive.
[541] Yet the promise made by Odysseus to the herdsmen in Od. XXI 213 ff. may perhaps be analogous to the change of status involved when a Teutonic slave was made a freedman.
[542] In both cases the household slaves seem to have been almost entirely women, who were occupied for the most part in grinding corn.
[543] From Od. IV 644 and VI 489 f. it seems probable on the whole that there existed a class of landless freemen corresponding to the Ang.-Sax. geburas. But no information apparently is given with regard to the κλῆρος—whether it corresponded at all to the hide of the gafolgelda (roughly comparable with the Athenian ζευγίτης) or whether it represented normally a much larger estate.