The reason for considering this number as having a pretty definite sense in the Poet’s mind (quite a different matter, let it be borne in mind, from the question whether the circumstance is meant to be taken as historical) is, that it stands in evident association with the number of days, as it was probably then reckoned, in the year. It seems plain that he meant to describe the whole circle of the year, where he says, that for each of the days and nights which Jupiter has given, or, in his own words[800],
ὅσσαι γὰρ νύκτες τε καὶ ἡμέραι ἐκ Διός εἰσιν,
the greedy Suitors are not contented with the slaughter of one animal, or even of two. Eumæus then gives an account of the wealth of Ulysses in live stock, both within the isle and on the mainland, from whence the animals were supplied: and adds, that from the Ithacan store a goatherd took down daily a fat goat, while he himself as often sent down a fat hog. I have dwelt thus particularly on the detail of this case, because it may fairly be inferred from the correspondence between the number of the hogs and the days of the year, that for once, at all events, the Poet intended to speak, though somewhat at random, yet in a degree arithmetically, and that of so high a number as 360.
There are other cases of lower numbers in different parts of the poems, where it may be argued, with varying measures of probability, that Homer had a similar intention.
The ἑκατομβὴ and numerals of value.
The word ἑκατομβὴ, without doubt, affords a striking proof of vagueness in the ideas of the heroic age with respect to number: and this vagueness extends, yet apparently in varying degrees, to the adjective ἑκατομβοῖος. I have elsewhere[801] referred to adjectives of this formation as indicative of the fact, that for those generations of mankind oxen may be said to have constituted a measure of value; and this fact certainly involves an aim at numerical exactitude. It seems, indeed, on general grounds far from improbable, that the business of exchange may have been the original guide of our race into the art, and thus into the science, of arithmetic.
In the description of the Shield of Minerva, which had an hundred golden drops or tassels, we are told that each of them was ἑκατομβοῖος, or worth an hundred oxen. This use of the word must be regarded as strongly charged with figure. Minerva was arming to mingle among men upon the plain of Troy[802], and it is not likely, therefore, that the Poet would represent her in dimensions utterly inordinate. He judiciously reserves this license of exaggeration without bounds for scenes where he is beyond the sphere of relations properly human, as for example, the Theomachy and the Under-world. Now we may venture to take the Homeric value of an ox before Troy at half an ounce of gold. In the prizes of the wrestling match, where a tripod was worth twelve oxen, a highly skilled woman (πολλὰ δ’ ἐπίστατο ἔργα) was worth four[803]. Two ounces of gold would be a low price for such a person in almost any age. According to this computation, each drop on the Ægis of Minerva would weigh fifty ounces: the whole would weigh above 300 lbs. avoirdupois, and if we were to assume the purely ornamental fringe in a work of this kind to weigh one tenth part of the whole, the Ægis itself would weigh nearly a ton and a half. Primâ facie, this is susceptible of explanation in either of two ways: the one, that the numbers are used poetically and not arithmetically; the other, that of sheer intentional exaggeration in bulk. The rules of the Poet, as they are elsewhere applied, oblige us to reject the latter solution, and consequently throw us back upon the former.
The numerals of value.
Again, we are told that, when Diomed obtained the exchange of arms from Glaucus, he gave a suit of copper, and obtained in return a suit of gilt[804];