ἵνα σφ’ ἀγορή τε θέμις τε
ἤην.
And, in the description of the Cyclopes, the line is yet more clearly drawn; for it is said[277],
τοῖσιν δ’ οὔτ’ ἀγοραὶ βουληφόροι, οὔτε θέμιστες.
In that same place, too, the public solemnities of religion were performed: and though in the Greek camp it was doubtless placed at the centre of the line with a view to security, its position most aptly symbolized also its moral centrality, as the very heart of the national life. At the spot where the Assemblies were held were gathered into a focus the religious, as well as the patriotic sentiments of the country.
The fact is, that everywhere in Homer we find the signs of an intense corporate or public life, subsisting and working side by side with that of the individual. And of this corporate life the ἀγορὴ is the proper organ. If a man is to be described as great, he is always great in debate and on the field; if as insignificant and good for nothing, then he is of no account either in battle or in council. The two grand forms of common and public action are taken for the criteria of the individual.
When Homer wished to describe the Cyclopes as living in a state of barbarism, he says, not that they have no kings, or no towns, or no armies, or no country, but that they have no Assemblies, and no administration of justice, which, as we have seen, was the primary function of the Assemblies. And yet all, or nearly all the States had Kings. The lesson to be learned is, that in heroic Greece the King, venerable as was his title, was not the fountainhead of the common life, but only its exponent. The source lay in the community, and the community met in the Agorè. So deeply imbedded is this sentiment in the mind of the Poet, that it seems as if he could not conceive an assemblage of persons having any kind of common function, without their having, so to speak, a common soul too in respect of it.
The common Soul or Τὶς in Homer.
Of this common soul the organ in Homer is the Τὶς or ‘Somebody;’ by no means one of the least remarkable, though he has been one of the least regarded, personages of the poems. The Τὶς of Homer is, I apprehend, what in England we now call public opinion. We constantly find occasions, when the Poet wants to tell us what was the prevailing sentiment among the Greeks of the army. He might have done this didactically, and described at length the importance of popular opinion, and its bearings in each case. He has adopted a method more poetical and less obtrusive. He proceeds dramatically, through the medium of a person, and of a formula:
ὧδε δέ τις εἴπεσκεν, ἰδὼν ἐς πλήσιον ἄλλον.