And so βουλαὶ, βουλεύειν, βουληφόροι, are constantly used without any, so to speak, official meaning. In Il. x. 147, the expression βουλὰς βουλεύειν can hardly mean ‘to attend the βουλὴ,’ for the singular number would be the proper term for the βουλὴ specially convoked: and I interpret it as meaning, to attend at or to hold the usual council. This is among the Greeks. Among the Trojans, in Il. x. 415-17, Dolon says,
Ἕκτωρ μὲν μετὰ τοῖσιν, ὅσοι βουληφόροι εἰσὶν,
βουλὰς βουλεύει θείου παρὰ σήματι Ἴλου,
νόσφιν ἀπὸ φλοίσβου.
Now the word βουληφόρος is applied, Il. xii. 414, to Sarpedon, as well as in xiii. 463 and elsewhere to Æneas. Neither were among the γέροντες βουλευταί. But further, it is applied, Od. ix. 112, to the ἀγορὴ itself:
τοῖσιν δ’ οὔτ’ ἀγοραὶ βουληφόροι, οὔτε θέμιστες
And therefore the word, though it means councillor in a general sense, does not mean officially member of a βουλὴ, as opposed to an ἀγορὴ or Assembly.
The phrase βουλὰς βουλεύει, in the passage Il. x. 415-17, does not oppose, but supports what has now been said. It is quite plain that this of Hector’s was a small military meeting, or council of war, just as in viii. 489 he held an ἀγορὴ, or assembly of the army, both Trojans and allies; it was not a meeting of a βουλὴ of Troy, because it was held in the field, far from the city, and without any of the Elders, who were the great ἀγορηταὶ and βουλευταὶ of Troy; for Hector had already arranged (Il. viii. 517-19) that the old men should remain in the city, to defend the walls from any night attack: most of all however because, as we hear of no βουλὴ before the military Assembly in the Eighth Book, so we hear of no Assembly following the meeting for deliberation in the Tenth. Generals in modern times hold councils of war: but no parallel can be drawn between them, and Councils for dispatching the affairs of a State.
As we never have occasion to become acquainted with Trojan politics in peace, we can only argue the case as to the nonexistence of a council from the state of war. But in Greece, it will be remembered, both war and peace present their cases of the use of this institution, as one regularly established, and apparently invested with both a deliberative and an executive character.
The greater weight of oratory in Greece.