Let this be enough on this subject.
But civil discourse belongs to the rhetorical art, with which it seems Homer was first to be familiar. If Rhetoric is the power of persuasive speaking, who more than Homer depended on this power? He excels all in eloquence; also in the grasp of his subject he reveals an equal literary power.
And the first part of this art is Arrangement, which he exhibits in all his poetry, and especially at the beginning of his narratives. For he did not make the beginning of the "Iliad" at a distant period, but at the time when affairs were developing with energy and had come to a head. The more inactive periods, which came into past time, he goes over in other places succinctly. The same he did in the "Odyssey," beginning from the close of the times of Odysseus's wanderings, in which it was clearly time to bring in Telemachus and to show the haughty conduct of the suitors. Whatever happened to Odysseus in his wanderings before this he introduces into Odysseus's narrative. These things he prefers to show as more probable and more effective, when said by the one who experienced them.
As therefore all orators make use of introductory remarks to get the benevolent attention of their audience, so our poet makes use of exordiums fitted to move and reach the hearer. In the "Iliad" he first declares that he is about to say how many evils happened to the Achaeans through the wrath of Achilles and the high-handed conduct of Agamemnon; and in the "Odyssey" how many labors and dangers Odysseus encountered and surmounted all of them by the judgment and perseverance of his soul. And in each one of the exordiums he invokes the Muse that she may make the value of what is said greater and more divine.
While the characters introduced by him are made to say many things either to their relatives or friends or enemies or the people, yet to each he assigns a fitting type of speech, as in the beginning he makes Chryseis in his words to the Greeks use a most appropriate exordium. First he desires for them that they may be superior to their enemies and may return home, in order that he might gain their kindly feeling. Then he demands his daughter. But Achilles being angered by the threat of Agamemnon combines a speech for the Greeks and for himself, in order to make them more friendly disposed. For, he says, all had proceeded to the war, not on account Of some private enmity, but to please Agamemnon himself and his brother, and he went on to say he had done many things himself and had received a present not from Agamemnon and Menelaus, but from the whole body of the Greeks. Agamemnon replying to him has no difficulty in winning the crowd. For when Achilles says he means to sail back home, on account of the insult he has received, he does not say "go" but "flee," changing what is said abruptly into an attack on Achilles reputation. And his words are:—
I do not exhort you to remain; there are here who value me.
And this was agreeable to his hearers.
And afterward he introduces Nestor, whom he had previously called sweet in speech and a shrewd orator (I. i. 249):—
Whose voice flowed from his tongue sweeter than honey.
There could be no greater praise for an orator. He starts off with an exordium by which he tries to change the minds of the contesting chiefs, bidding them consider by opposing one another they give occasion of joy to their enemies. He goes on to admonish both and to exhort them to give heed to him as their elder. And by telling one to be prudent, he says what gratifies the other. He advises Agamemnon not to take away what has been given to a man who has labored much; Achilles, not to strive with the king who is his superior. And he gives suitable praise to both: to the one as ruling over more people; to the other, as having more prowess. In this way he seeks to moderate them.