ἠχῇ θεσπεσίῃ· δίχα δέ σφισιν ἥνδανε βουλή.
There is no intimation here that the people in dividing simply followed their chiefs. Nay, the tone of the description is such as obliges us to understand that the movement was a popular one, and took its rise from the debate: so that, even if the chiefs and their men kept together respectively, as they may have done, still the chiefs may probably have followed quite as much as they led. Again, when the second separation takes place, it is thus described, ‘One portion returned, under Ulysses, to Agamemnon. Prognosticating evil, I made sail homewards with the whole body of my ships, which followed me. Diomed did the same, and (ὦρσε δ’ ἑταίρους) invited his men (to do it). And after us at last came Menelaus.’ (vv. 162-8). Now here instruction is given us on three points:
1. Diomed urged his men; therefore it was not a mere matter of course that they should go.
2. Nestor mentions especially that his division all kept together (σὺν νηυσὶν ἀολλέσιν); therefore this did not always happen.
3. It is very unlikely that the part, which is first named as having returned with Ulysses, should have been confined to his own petty contingent.
Thus it is left in great doubt, whether the chiefs and men did uniformly keep together: and the tenour of the narrative favours the supposition, that the men at least contributed materially to any joint conclusions.
Ithacan Assembly of Od. ii.
As, in the first Assembly of the Iliad, Achilles acts his personal quarrel in the public eye, and lodges a sort of tacit appeal against Agamemnon, so, in that of the Odyssey, Telemachus does the like with reference to the Suitors. It is there that he protests against their continued consumption of his substance; that he rejects their counter-proposal for the dismissal of his mother on their behalf, and that he himself finally propounds the voyage to the mainland[255]. There too we find a most distinct recognition by Mentor, his guardian, of the powers and rights of the people; for he loudly complains of their sitting silent, numerous as they are[256], instead of interposing to rebuke the handful of Suitors that were the wrongdoers. But if, according to the genius and usages of the heroic age, the people had nothing to do but to listen and obey their betters, the expectation that they should have risen to defend a minor against the associated aristocracy of the country would have been absurd, and could not have been expressed, as we find it expressed, by Mentor.
It is true indeed, as has been observed by Tittmann[257], that this Assembly makes no effective response to the appeal of Telemachus; and that the Suitor Antinous is allowed to declare in it his own intention, and that of his companions, to continue their lawless proceedings. But what we see in the Odyssey is not the normal state of the heroic polities: it is one of those polities disorganized by the absence of its head, with a people, as the issue proves, deeply tainted by disloyalty. Yet let us see what, even in this state of things, was still the weight of the Agorè. First, when Telemachus desires to make an initial protest against the acts of the Suitors, he calls it to his aid. Secondly, though at the outset of the discussion no concession is made to him, yet he gains ground as it proceeds. The speech of Antinous, the first Suitor who addresses the Assembly (Od. ii. 85-128), is in a tone of sheer defiance, and treats his attempt as a jest and as an insult (v. 86). The next is that of Eurymachus; who, while deriding the omens, yet makes an advance by appealing to Telemachus to take the matter into his own hands, and induce his mother to marry one among them (178-207). The third, that of Leiocritus, contains a further slight approximation; for it conveys an assent to his proposed voyage, and recommends that Mentor and Alitherses shall assist him in making provision for it (242-56). Thus even here we see that progression, which may always be noticed in the Homeric debates; and the influence under which it was effected must surely have been an apprehension of the Assembly, to which both Telemachus, and still more directly Mentor, had appealed.
Thirdly, however, we perceive in this very account the signs of the disordered and distracted state of the public mind. For, beyond a sentiment of pity for Telemachus when he bursts into tears (v. 81), they make no sign of approval or disapproval. We miss in Ithaca the well-known cheers of the Iliad, the