It appertains to the character of Ulysses, who comes next to Achilles, that he too should not be wanting in any thing that pertains to the excellence of human nature; while completeness and manifoldness is the specific character of his endowments, as unparalleled splendour is of those possessed by Achilles. Ulysses[753], therefore, is also beautiful. Again, the office and function of Agamemnon require him to be an object capable of attracting admiration and reverence. He, accordingly, is of remarkable beauty, but of the kind of beauty that has in it most of dignity[754];
καλὸν δ’ οὕτω ἐγὼν οὔπω ἴδον ὀφθαλμοῖσιν,
οὐδ’ οὕτω γεραρόν.
Homer never absolutely withholds beauty from any of his Greek heroes, yet he does not always expressly state that they possessed it. This endowment is, for instance, never given to Diomed, but it is ascribed to Ajax in the Eleventh Odyssey[755];
ὃς ἄριστος ἔην εἶδός τε, δέμας τε,
τῶν ἄλλων Δαναῶν, μετ’ ἀμύμονα Πηλείωνα.
It is probably because Diomed equals Ajax in chivalry, and very far excels him in mental gifts, that Homer has thrown weight into the scale of Ajax by assigning to him expressly, while he is silent about Diomed, the gift of a beautiful person.
As with individuals, so does Homer deal with masses. It may be observed that he has a lower class of epithets for the Trojans than the Greeks, and never allows them the benefit of the same national designations. Individual beauty in men is confined on both sides to the higher ranks; but no Trojan, however beautiful, is ever honoured with the title of ξανθός. Again, while he never gives to the Trojans as a body any epithet which describes them as possessed of beauty, he has assigned several expressions of this order to the Greek race. Such are the epithets καρηκομόωντες and ἑλίκωπες, and the phrase εἶδος ἀγητοὶ, (Il. v. 787. viii. 228.)
Beauty of Nireus and others.