Two modes of handling for Greece and Troy.
It does not appear to me that Homer has studied the more minute points of consistency in motive and action among the Trojans of the poem, in the same degree as among the Greeks. He has (so to speak) manœuvred them as subsidiary figures, with a view to enhancing and setting off those in whom he has intended and caused the principal interest to centre; not so as to destroy or diminish effects of individual character, but so as to give to the collective or joint action on the Trojan side a subordinate and ministerial function in the machinery of the poem. As Homer sung to Greeks, and Greeks were his judges and patrons as well as his theme, nay rather as his heart and soul were Greek, so on the Greek side the chain of events is closely knit; if its direction changes, there is an adequate cause, as in the vehemence of Achilles, or the vacillation of Agamemnon. But he did not sing to Trojans; and so, among the Trojans of the Iliad, there are as it were stitches dropped in the web, and the connection is much less carefully elaborated. Thus they acquiesce in the breach of covenant after the single combat of the Third Book, although the evident wish among them, independent of obligation, was for its fulfilment[406]. Then in the Fourth Book, after the treachery of Pandarus, the Trojans not only do not resent it, but they recommence the fight while the Greek chiefs are tending the wounded Menelaus[407]; which conduct exhibits, if the phrase may be permitted, an extravagance of disregard to the obligations of truth and honour. Hector, in the Sixth Book, quits the battle field upon an errand, to which it is hardly possible to assign a poetical sufficiency of cause, unless we refer it to the readiness which he not unfrequently shows to keep himself out of the fight. Again, there is something awkward and out of keeping in his manner of dealing with the Fabian recommendations of Polydamas when the crisis approaches. Some of these he accepts, and some he rejects, without adequate reason for the difference, except that he is preparing himself as an illustrious victim for Achilles, and that he must act foolishly in order that the superior hero, and with him the poem itself, may not be baulked of their purpose.
Thus, again, Homer has given us a pretty clear idea even of the respective ages of the Greek chiefs. It can hardly be doubted that Nestor stands first, Idomeneus second, Ulysses third: while Diomed and Antilochus are the youngest; Ajax and Achilles probably the next. But as to Paris, Helenus, Æneas, Sarpedon, Polydamas, we find no conclusion as to their respective ages derivable from the poem.
Yet though Homer may use a greater degree of liberty in one case, and a lesser in another, as to the mode of setting his jewels, he always adheres to the general laws of truth and nature as they address themselves to his poetical purpose. Thus there may be reason to doubt, whether he observed the same rigid topographical accuracy in dealing with the plain of Troy, as he has evinced in the Greek Catalogue: but he has used materials, all of which the region supplied; and he has arranged them clearly, as a poetic whole, before the mental eye of those with whom he had to do. Even so we may be prepared to find that he deals with the moral as with the material Troas, allowing himself somewhat more of license, burdening himself with somewhat less of care. And then we need not be surprised at secondary or inferential inconsistencies in the action, as respects the Trojan people, because it has not been worth his while to work the delineation of them, in its details, up to his highest standard; yet we may rely upon his general representations, and we are probably on secure ground in contemplating all the main features of Trojan life and character as not less deliberately drawn, than those of the Greeks. For, in truth, it was requisite, in order to give full effect among his countrymen to the Greek portrait, that they should be able, at least up to a certain point, to compare it with the Trojan.
Moral superiority of his Greeks.
Regarding the subject from this point of view, I should say that Homer has, upon the whole, assigned to the Greeks a moral superiority over the Trojans, not less real, though less broad and more chequered, than that which he has given them in the spheres of intellectual and of military excellence. But, in all cases alike, he has pursued the same method of casting the balance. He eschews the vulgar and commonplace expedient of a formal award: he decides this and every other question through the medium of action. The first thing, therefore, to be done is, to inquire into the morality of his contemporaries, as it is exhibited through the main action of the poems.
It is admitted on all hands that, in the ethical picture of the Odyssey, the distinctions of right and wrong are broad, clear, and conspicuous. But the case of the Iliad is not so simple. The conduct of Paris, which leads to the war, is so flagrant and vile, and the conduct of the Greeks in demanding the restoration of Helen before they resort to force, so just and reasonable, that it is not unnaturally made matter of surprise that any war could ever have arisen upon such a subject, except the war of a wronged and justly incensed people against mere ruffians, traitors, and pirates. The Trojans appear at first sight simply as assertors of a wrong the most gross and aggravated, even in its original form; their iniquity is further darkened by obstinacy, and their cause is the cause of enmity to every law, human and divine. Yet the Greeks do not assume to themselves, in connection with the cause of the war, to stand upon a different level of morality: and the amiable affections, with the sense of humanity, if not the principles of honour and justice, are exhibited in the detail of the Iliad as prevailing among the Trojans, little less than among the Greeks.
Now, let us first endeavour to clear away some misapprehensions that simply darken the case: and after this let us inquire what exhibition Homer has really given us of the moral sense of the Greeks and the Trojans respectively, in connection with the crime of Paris.
In the first place, something is due to the falsification by later poets of the Homeric tradition: and to the reflex affiliation upon Homer of those traits which, through the influence first of the Cyclic poets, probably exaggerating the case in order to conceal their relative want of strength, and then of the tragedians and Virgil, have come to be taken for granted as genuine parts of the original portraiture.
According to the Argument of the Κύπρια Ἔπη, as it has been handed down to us, Paris, having been received in hospitality by Menelaus, was left by him under the friendly care of his wife, on his setting out for Crete. He then corrupted Helen; and induced her, after being corrupted, to elope with him, and with the greater part of the moveable goods of Menelaus.