4. More varied in its application than any of these, perhaps older, and related to the time when the only known form of sovereignty implied indeterminate, and so far absolute powers of disposal, the word ἄναξ involves the double idea of political authority and of ownership; it accompanies them both, like our word lord, when they separate, and it adheres to each of them in all its forms.
I admit that the construction which it is now proposed to put upon ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν has not, so far as I am aware, been heretofore propounded; and that this is, pro tanto, a presumption against it. But in lieu of pro tanto, I would in this case crave to write pro tantillo; for it seems to be the fact, that, as only of late has Ethnology been systematically studied, so only of late have the text and diction of Homer been subjected to minute investigation; and it is reasonable to expect, that the further application of critical attention to it may yet disclose to our view much, which has heretofore been unsuspected. It is the more allowable to proceed upon this view in the case of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, because so few readers of Homer appear even to have observed that it is ever applied to any person besides Agamemnon, and therefore the common opinion rests upon an inaccurate impression as to the elementary facts. My purpose, accordingly, may more justly be described as an attempt to open a new question, than as an attack upon a critical verdict regularly delivered.
Let us now proceed to examine what the facts really are respecting the use of the phrase ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν in Homer.
Persons to whom it is applied.
It is applied to Agamemnon in the following passages:
Il. i. 7, 172, 442, 506.
ii. 402, 434, 441, 612.
iii. 81, 267, 455.
iv. 148, 255, 336.
v. 38.
vi. 33.
vii. 162, 314.
viii. 278.
ix. 96, 114, 163, 672, 677, 697.
x. 64, 86, 103, 119, 233.
xi. 99, 254.
xiv. 64, 103, 134.
xviii. 111.
xix. 51, 76, 146, 172, 184, 199.
xxiii. 161, 895.
Od. viii. 77.
xi. 396.
It is also applied to
Anchises, Il. v. 268.
Æneas, Il. v. 311.
Augeias, Il. xi. 701, 739.
Euphetes, Il. xv. 532.
Eumelus, Il. xxiii. 288.
Now although, as we have seen, the term is in fact employed only with names nearly akin to one another in point of metrical value, yet the Poet has given us the most distinct evidence that the employment of it was not a mere metrical expedient to assist him in the use of names otherwise unmanageable. This we learn in the two following forms:
1. The name Eumelus is one of those to which he applies the phrase: but the metrical conjunction of it with this name is by no means particularly convenient, for out of five places in which Homer mentions Eumelus in the nominative case, he only once gives him his title of ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. Again, it is evident that he has no preference for the end of the verse as a place for the name of Eumelus; for he places it elsewhere, at the beginning, and in τὴν Εὔμηλος ὄπυιε (Il. ii. 714. Od. iv. 798), on the only two occasions when he uses the nominative without a title annexed. He only puts it at the end of the verse in order to couple it with ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, and with κρείων (Il. xxiii. 288, 354). So far then from being a metrical convenience, this phrase rather forces him out of his way in order to introduce it. So it is with Æneas. Homer uses his name very many times, but never once places it at the end of a verse, except in the single case in which he attaches it to the title ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν. Again, then, the phrase compels him to adopt a position which he is uniformly careful to avoid elsewhere for Æneas, and this in little short of forty instances.