The message in the case of Ægisthus is equally well defined[459]:
πρό οἱ εἴπομεν ἡμεῖς
Ἑρμείαν πέμψαντες.
It would have been out of keeping, therefore, with the character and rank of the Homeric Iris, to give her the charge of the messages carried by Mercury. The only case at all analogous in the Iliad is that of the decision in the Fourth Book: and there not Iris, but Minerva is employed. It is not, however, true that we have in the Odyssey no recognition of the character of Iris as a messenger. We find one, and that the plainest of all, in the etymology of the name of Ἶρος the beggar. His proper name was Arnæus[460]; and he was called Irus, because he was a messenger:
Ἶρον δὲ νέοι κίκλησκον ἅπαντες,
οὕνεκ’ ἀπαγγέλλεσκε κιὼν, ὅτε πού τις ἀνώγοι.
There is yet another illustration of the view which has here been given. In the Assembly of the Twenty-fourth Iliad, Jupiter, in order to give effect to the general desire of the gods, has occasion to wish for the presence of Thetis: and it has at first sight an odd appearance that he does not, as in other cases where he is acting singly, call Iris and bid her go: but he says, with a mode of expression not found elsewhere,
ἀλλ’ εἴ τις καλέσειε θεῶν Θέτιν....
And Iris, hearing him, sets forth without being personally designated. The peculiar language seems as if it had been employed for the especial purpose of keeping Iris within her own province, and of preventing the possibility of the confusion between her office and that of deities superior in rank, which might have arisen if she had regularly received an errand in the midst of the Olympian Court.
Thus, then, it would appear, that the apparent discrepancy between the various parts of the poems, when closely examined, really yields to us fresh evidence of their harmony. Nor let it be thought unworthy of Homer thus minutely to preserve the precedence and relative dignity of his deities. With our views of the Olympian scheme, it may require an effort to assume his standing-ground: but when he was dealing with the actual religion of his country, it was just as natural and needful for him to maintain the ranks and distinctions of the gods, as of men in their various classes. Mythology might, indeed, afford ample scope to his fancy for free embellishment and enlargement of the established traditions; but these processes must always be in the sense of harmonious development, not of discord.