That these explanations are entirely beside the mark, I am convinced after a somewhat minute consideration.
In answer to Damm, I would observe that the phrase was applied to Æneas, who was a commander, but not a sovereign: it was applied to Anchises, who was a sovereign, but not a commander; it was applied to Eumelus, who was neither a sovereign, nor a warrior of any note, and who commanded no more than eleven ships.
It does not then depend upon the highest degree either of military or of civil elevation.
Nor does it in all cases attach to divine descent, even though that descent be from Jupiter; nor even if it be immediate or next to immediate: as among the living, Sarpedon the son of Jupiter has it not, neither has Polypœtes his grandson (Il. ii. 740). So, among the dead, it is not given either to Hercules or to Rhadamanthus[777], sons of Jupiter. If, as is probable, reputed extraction from Jupiter in all cases attached to it, it was a remote and not a near extraction, and thus the title was the ornament of an antique lineage; certainly divine descent was not the immediate qualification for the particular dignity.
I do not dispute, that an idea of divine descent attaches generally and immediately to sovereigns as such, at least in the Iliad. But this is represented by the words Διοτρεφὴς and Διογενὴς, as they bear witness by their etymology, and not by ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. Indeed we seem to find the word Διοτρεφὴς used for heaven-born, without reference to political power, in that line of the Odyssey (v. 378), where Neptune applies it to the Phæacians:
εἰσόκεν ἀνθρώποισι Διοτρεφέεσσι μιγείης.
But of those Homeric titles which are specifically Greek, by far the most remarkable is the title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν.
Particulars of its use.
It is used by the Poet fifty-two times: fifty times in the Iliad, twice only in the Odyssey.
It is applied forty-six times to Agamemnon, and six times to five other persons, once for each in four cases, and twice in one. The persons are,