It is plain that the word κρείων is a term of that class only: which, pro tanto, is indicated by its relationship to the established and ordinary epithet of comparison κρείσσων. It clearly describes the class of those, who bore single-handed rule, in the address to Jupiter, ὕπατε κρειόντων[778]; and it answers to the epithet princely in Il. xxiv. 538.
ὅττι οἱ οὔτι
Παίδων ἐν μεγάροισι γονὴ γένετο κρειόντων.
‘For he had not as yet a princely offspring in his home.’
Lower than Βασιλεὺς, which corresponds to the rank implied by our term ‘majesty,’ and less wide in sense than ἄναξ, which corresponds very nearly with ‘lord,’ it is generally the equivalent as to rank of prince or princely, according to the English sense of the terms; but it is in Homer always a descriptive word only, and never a title. Accordingly it is found in the later Greek writers, when both ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, and even ποιμὴν λαῶν have disappeared.
The ποιμὴν λαῶν of Homer.
The phrase ποιμὴν λαῶν is more largely used than κρείων, and with more appearance of approximation to that substantive character, and susceptibility of individual application, which belongs to a title. Thus in
Οἱ δ’ ἐπανέστησαν, πείθοντό τε ποιμένι λαῶν,
σκηπτοῦχοι βασιλῆες[779],
the βασιλῆες are the members of the Greek βουλὴ, and ποιμὴν λαῶν means Agamemnon. Like κρείων, it was applicable to those who held secondary sovereignties, the feudatories, so to speak, of the principal chiefs: as for instance, we find among the secondary commanders of the Pylian division,
Αἵμονά τε κρείοντα, Βίαντά τε, ποιμένα λαῶν[780].
It reaches down to persons, of whom we know and can infer nothing, but that they may probably have held small fiefs (so to call them) with derivative sovereignty of some kind, such as were, among the Trojans[781], Bienor, Hypeiron, Apisaon, Hypsenor: and it is also applied to the sons of the greater chiefs, for example, Thrasymedes and Agenor[782], as well as to the chiefs themselves, including Agamemnon. It is likewise given to Ægisthus, when he was, de facto, in possession of the throne of Agamemnon[783]. It is therefore applicable to the idea of political rule in the very widest sense, differing however from ἄναξ in so far that, while it is assigned to personages of smaller note politically, it is confined to the expression of that kind of superiority, and has nothing whatever to do with property.