Before proceeding to what I have further to say of the Agora, I must here add to the discussion opened in Chapter V. the testimony of Homer himself to the form and use of the Agora in the heroic age. In that beautiful passage in which he depicts the trial of a suit, as represented on the Shield of Achilles, he expressly describes the Agora as a sacred circle, with the elders sitting round it on polished stones, or—as we may now venture to translate—on smoothed slabs, like those in the Acropolis of Mycenæ:—[373]
"But the townsmen, all assembled
In the forum, thronging stood;
For a strife of twain had risen,
Suing on a fine of blood.
All was paid, the first protested,
Pleading well to move the crowd;
Nought was had, upheld the second:
Each to obey an umpire vowed;
And the hearers, as they sided