Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3 / I. Agorè: Polities of the Homeric Age. II. Ilios: Trojans and Greeks Compared. III. Thalassa: The Outer Geography. IV. Aoidos: Some Points of the Poetry of Homer.

by W. E. Gladstone

And to Greek views of homicide.

To comprehend these notions, so widely differing from our own, we may seek their further illustration by a reference to the established view of homicide. He, who had taken the life of a fellow creature, was bound to make atonement by the payment of a fine. If he offered that atonement, it was not only the custom, but the duty, of the relations of the slain man to accept it. So much so, that the blunt mind of Ajax takes this ground as the simplest and surest for argument with Achilles, whom he urges not to refuse reparation offered by Agamemnon, in consideration that reparation (ποίνη) covers the slaughter of a brother or a son. Beforehand, the Greek would have scorned to accept a price for life. But, the deed being done, it came into the category of exchangeable values. Even so the abstraction of Helen, once committed, assumed for the common mind the character of an act of plunder, differing from the case of homicide, inasmuch as the thing taken could be given back, but not differing from it as to the essence of its moral nature, however aggravated might have been the circumstances with which it was originally attended.

Now, wherever the moral judgment against plunder has been greatly relaxed, that of fraud in connection with it is sure to undergo a similar process; because, in the same degree in which acts of plunder are acquitted as lawful acquisition, fraud is sure to come into credit by assuming the character of stratagem. We may, I think, find an example of this rule in the Thirteenth Odyssey; where, with an entire freedom from any consciousness of wrong, Ulysses feigns to have slaughtered Orsilochus at night by ambush, in consequence of a quarrel that had previously occurred about booty[423].

Here then we reach the point, at which we must take into view the peculiar ideas and tendencies of the Greek mind in the heroic age, as they bear necessarily upon its appreciation of an act like that of Paris. The Greeks, of whom we may fairly take Diomed as the type, detest and despise him for affectation, irresolution, and poltroonery: these are the ideas uppermost in their mind: we are not to doubt that, besides seeking reparation for Menelaus, they condemned morally the act which made it needful; what we have to account for is, that they did not condemn it in such a manner as to make this moral judgment the ruling idea in their minds with regard to him.

We have seen that, according to Homer, instead of Helen’s having been originally the willing partner of the guilt of Paris, he was, under her husband’s roof, her kidnapper and not her corrupter. Her offence seems to have consisted in this, that she gave a half-willing assent to the consequences of the abduction. Though never escaping from the sense of shame, always retaining along with a wounded conscience her original refinement of character, and apparently fluctuating from time to time in an alternate strength and weakness of homeward longings[424], the specific form of her offence, according to the ideas of the age, was rather the preterite one of unresisting acquiescence, than the fact of continuing to recognise Paris as a husband during the lifetime of Menelaus. It was the having changed her husband, not the living with a man who was not her husband; and hence we find that she was most kindly treated in Troy by that member of the royal house, namely Hector, who was himself of the highest moral tone.

The offence of Paris, though also (except as to the mere restitution of plundered goods) a preterite offence, was more complex. He violated the laws of hospitality, as we find distinctly charged upon him by Menelaus[425]. He assumed the power of a husband over another man’s wife. This he gained by violence. Now, paradoxical as it may appear, yet perhaps this very ingredient of violence, which we look upon as even aggravating the case, and which in the view of the Greeks was the proper cause of the war, (for their anxiety was to avenge the forced journey and the groans of Helen,) may nevertheless have been also the very ingredient, which morally redeemed the character of the proceeding in the eyes of Greece. This it might do by lifting it out of the region of mere shame and baseness, into that class of manful wrongs, which they habitually regarded as matters to be redressed indeed by the strong hand, but never as merely infamous. Hence, when we find the Greeks full of disgust and of contempt towards Paris, it is only for the effeminacy and poltroonery of character which he showed in the war. His original crime was probably palliated to them by its seeming to involve something of manhood and of the spirit of adventure. So that we may thus have to seek the key to the inadequate sense among the Greeks of the guilt of Paris in that which, as we have seen, was the capital weakness of their morality; namely, its light estimation of crimes of violence, and its tendency to recognise their enterprise and daring as an actual set-off against whatever moral wrong they might involve.

The chance legend of Hercules and Iphitus, in the Odyssey, affords the most valuable and pointed illustration of the great moral question[426] between Paris and Menelaus, which lies at the very foundation of the great structure of the Iliad. For in that case also, we seem to find an instance of abominable crime, which notwithstanding did not destroy the character of its perpetrator, nor prevent his attaining to Olympus; apparently for no other reason, than that it was a crime such as had probably required for its commission the exercise of masculine strength and daring.

There remained, however, even according to contemporary ideas, quite enough of guilt on the part of Paris. The abduction and corruption of a prince’s wife, combined with his personal cowardice, his constant levity and vacillation, and his reckless indifference to his country’s danger and affliction, amply suffice to warrant and account for Homer’s having represented him as a personage hated, hateful, and contemptible. But while the foregoing considerations may explain the feelings and language of the Greeks, otherwise inexplicable, there still remains enough of what at first sight is puzzling in the conduct, if not in the sentiments, of the Trojans.

The Trojan estimate of Paris.