VII. In the Thirteenth Odyssey, Ulysses, after being deposited in Ithaca, gives a fabulous account of himself to the disguised Minerva, in which we may be sure that he includes nothing which was deemed essentially dishonourable. In this account he represents himself as a fugitive from Crete on account of homicide. Orsilochus, the son of Idomeneus, had endeavoured, as he says, to deprive him of his share of the Trojan booty: for this cause he waylaid him by night, took away his life without being perceived by any one as he was returning from the country, and then embarked, to avoid the consequences, in a Phœnician ship[835].
VIII. An anonymous Ætolian, having slain a man, fled to Ithaca, visited Eumæus, and as a matter of course was entertained, nay petted, by him; ἐγὼ δέ μιν ἀμφαγάπαζον (Od. xiv. 379–81).
Even this great number of instances do not so fully illustrate the familiarity of the practice, and its thorough disconnection from the idea of moral turpitude, as the mode in which it furnishes the material of general illustration or remark. When Homer desires to represent on the shield of Achilles the ordinary form of public business in an assembly, he chooses a trial for homicide[836]. And so Ulysses, when explaining to Telemachus the formidable difficulties with which, after the slaughter of the Suitors, he has to contend, observes that those whom he has slain were the very flower of the community; whereas, in ordinary cases, a man flies his country after having put but a single person to death, and this even though he be one who has few to take up his quarrel[837].
Now if we knew these facts concerning the Greeks of the heroic age, and knew nothing else, we should at once conclude that they were an inhuman and savage people, who did not appreciate the value of human life. But this is not so. They are not a cruel people. There is no wanton infliction of pain throughout the whole operations of the Iliad, no delight in the sufferings of others. The only needless wounds are wounds given to the dead[838]; a mode of action which imputed nothing brutal or degrading, in times when mankind had not yet learned from the Christian Revelation the honour due to the human body.
It is not then mere savageness, and the low estimate put upon life, which determines the view of the heroic age with respect to homicide. And if not, then it can only be an unbalanced appreciation of some other quality, such as courage, which was commonly implied and exhibited in such cases.
Why viewed with little disfavour.
It seems as though the display of force and spirit of daring, which accompany crimes of violence in a rude age, had such a value in the estimation of the early Greeks, as to excuse proceedings which would otherwise have been visited with the severest censure. We shall find reason to believe that Paris may have had a certain credit in their eyes for carrying off Helen by the strong hand, which went to redeem or mitigate his adultery, and breach of hospitable rights. This idea, which is undoubtedly startling, is supported by the strange narrative of Hercules and Iphitus. Iphitus was the possessor of certain fine mares. Hercules, determined to possess them, visited him, received his hospitality, slew him, and carried off the animals. Now it may indeed be the mixed character of Hercules, which places his εἴδωλον in the Shades, while he is himself among the Immortals; but still the scale is cast on the whole in his favour. Yet surely the story of Iphitus exhibits a crime of the blackest dye; and the only palliation of it that is conceivable seems to lie in this, that he probably did not use stratagem, but proceeded by main force. The crime of Ægisthus, the blackest in the poems, appears to derive its highest intensity from the fact, that he slew Agamemnon like an ox at the stall, in the friendly feast itself, without notice or the opportunity of defence, and by a plot deliberately laid. Such is the effect of all the three passages in which this outrage is described[839]. The most favourable supposition which the case of Hercules admits is, that he came for plunder, and put the possessor of the horses to death, without premeditation, upon his refusal to yield them up; and that such an act, though a proper object of divine resentment, was yet not black enough to destroy his title to honour and a celestial abode[840].
We will now pass on to a kindred subject.
Piracy in the heroic age.
Thucydides has stated that in the earlier ages of Greece the practice of piracy was alike widespread and honourable: οὐκ ἔχοντός πω αἰσχύνην τούτου τοῦ ἔργου, φέροντος δέ τι καὶ δόξης μᾶλλον[841]. In support of this opinion he refers to the questions then usually addressed to strangers on their arrival in a country; such as that by Nestor to the pseudo-Mentor and Telemachus, in order to learn what their business was, or whether they were pirates[842];