But first of all the Elders
A secret conclave Agamemnon called.
Agamemnon collects the Elders, and examines with them how to arm the people for the fight.
And that it is necessary for the leader before all things to care for the salvation of the whole, he teaches in his characters by the advice he gives (I. ii. 24):—
To sleep all night but ill becomes a chief.
And how it is necessary for subjects to obey their leader, and how the commander should bear himself toward each class; Odysseus shows this, persuading the superior class by soft words, but using toward the crowd bitter words of rebuke.
To rise up for one's superiors is sanctioned in all laws. This the gods themselves do in the case of Zeus (I. i. 535):—
At his entrance all
Rose from their seats at once; not one presumed
To wait his coming.
There is a rule among most that the eldest shall speak. Diomed by necessity of the war having dared to speak first, requests to be pardoned (I. xiv. 111):—
Nor take offence that I,
The youngest of all, presume to speak.
And it is an universal rule that voluntary offences are punished and involuntary ones are excused. This, too, the poet shows, in what the minstrel says (O. xxii. 350):—