William Gladstone - Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3

This passage at once establishes in the most pointed manner both the right to chide the head of the army, and the obligation incumbent on him, as on others, where he had given offence to make amends.

Thus then a large liberty of speech and judgment on the part of the kings or chiefs, when they differed from Agamemnon, would appear to be established beyond dispute, a liberty which in certain cases resulted in his being summarily overruled. I cannot therefore here subscribe even to the measured statement of Mure, who, admits the liberty of remonstrance, but asserts also the sovereignty of the will of Agamemnon. Much less to the very broad assertions of Grote, that the resolutions of Agamemnon appear uniformly to prevail in the Council, and that the nullity of positive function is still more striking in the Agorè 210 210 Grote’s Hist. vol. ii. pp. 90, 2. .

To that institution it is now time for us to turn.

Influence of Speech.

The trait which is truly most worthy of note in the polities of Homeric Greece, is also that which is so peculiar to them; namely, the substantive weight and influence which belonged to speech as an instrument of government; and of this power by much the most remarkable development is in its less confined and more popular application to the Assembly.

This power of speech was essentially a power to be exercised over numbers, and with the safeguards of publicity, by man among his fellow-men. It was also essentially an instrument addressing itself to reason and free will, and acknowledging their authority. No government which sought its power in force, as opposed to reason, has at any time used this form of deception. The world has seen absolutism deck itself with the titles and mere forms of freedom, or seek shelter under its naked abstractions: but from the exercise of free speech as an instrument of state, it has always shrunk with an instinctive horror.

One mode of proving the power of speech in the heroic age is, by showing what place it occupied in the thoughts of men, as they are to be gathered from their language. Another mode is, by pointing to its connection, in practical examples, with this or that course of action, adopted or shunned. A third is, by giving evidence of the earnestness with which the art was prosecuted, and the depth and comprehensiveness of the conceptions from which it derived its form.

We shall presently trace the course of public affairs, as they were managed by the Greeks of the heroic age in their public assemblies. For the present, let us endeavour to collect the true sense of Homer respecting oratory from his language concerning it, from the characters with whom he has particularly connected it, and from the knowledge which he may be found to have possessed of its resources.

Although it is common to regard the Iliad as a poem having battle for its theme, yet it is in truth not less a monument of policy than of war; and in this respect it is even more broadly distinguished, than in most others, from later epics.

The adjectives in Homer are in very many cases the key to his inner mind: and among them all there is none of which this is more true, than the grand epithet κυδιάνειρα. He confines it strictly to two subjects, battle and debate, the clash of swords and the wrestling of minds. Of Achilles, he says in the First Book 211 211 He uses the epithet for battle in Il. iv. 225, 6. 124, 7. 113, 8. 448, 12. 325, 13. 270, 14. 155, and 24. 391. , (490)

In every other passage where he employs the word, it is attached to the substantive μάχη. Thus with him it was in two fields, that man was to seek for glory; partly in the fight, and partly in the Assembly.

The intellectual function was no less essential to the warrior-king of Homer, than was the martial; and the culture of the art of persuasion entered no less deeply into his early training. How, says Phœnix to Achilles, shall I leave you, I, whom your father attached to you when you were a mere child, without knowledge of the evenhanded battle, or of the assemblies, in which men attain to fame,

So he sent me to teach you the arts both of speech and fight 212 212 Il. ix. 438-43. ,

μύθων τε ῥητῆρ’ ἔμεναι, πρηκτῆρά τε ἔργων.

Even so Ulysses, in the under-world, relates to Achilles the greatness of Neoptolemus in speech, not less than in battle, (Od. xi. 510-16.)

Nay, the ἀγορὴ of little Ithaca, where there had been no Assembly for twenty years, is with Homer the ἀγορὴ πολύφημος 213 213 Od. ii. 150. . In a description, if possible yet more striking than that of Phœnix, Homer places before us the orator at his work. ‘His hearers behold him with delight; he speaks with tempered modesty, yet with confidence in himself (ἀσφαλέως); he stands preeminent among the assembled people, and while he passes through the city, they gaze on him as on a god 214 214 Od. viii. 170-3. . From a passage like this we may form some idea, what a real power in human society was the orator of the heroic age; and we may also learn how and why it was, that the great Bard of that time has also placed himself in the foremost rank of oratory for all time.

It is in the very same spirit that Ulysses, in the same most remarkable speech given in the Odyssey 215 215 Od. viii. 166-85. , sets forth the different accomplishments by which human nature is adorned. The three great gifts of the gods to man are, first, corporeal beauty, strength and bearing, all included in the word φύη; secondly, judgment or good sense (φρένες), and thirdly, the power of discourse, or ἀγορητύς. To one man, the great gift last named is the compensation for the want of corporeal excellence. To another is given beauty like that of the Immortals; but then his comeliness is not crowned by eloquence: ἀλλ’ οὔ οἱ χάρις ἀμφιπεριστέφεται ἐπέεσσιν. For χάρις in Od. xi. 367 we have μορφὴ ἐπέων.

Varied descriptions of Oratory.

In full conformity with this strongly developed idea, the Poet places before us the descriptions of a variety of speakers. There is Thersites 216 216 Il. ii. 212. , copious and offensive, to whom we must return. There is Telemachus, full of the gracious diffidence of youth 217 217 Od. iii. 23, 124. , but commended by Nestor for a power and a tact of expression beyond his years. There is Menelaus, who speaks with a laconic ease 218 218 Il. iii. 213. . There are the Trojan elders, or δημογέροντες, who from their experience and age chiefly guide the Assembly, and whose volubility and shrill small thread of voice 219 219 Il. iii. 150. Homer compares to the chirping of grasshoppers. Then we have Nestor the soft and silvery, whose tones of happy and benevolent egotism flowed sweeter than a stream of honey 220 220 Il. i. 248. . In the hands of an inferior artist, Phœnix must have reproduced him; but an absorbing affection for Achilles is the key-note to all he says; even the account in his speech of his own early adventures is evidently meant as a warning on the effects of rage: this intense earnestness completely prevents any thing like sameness, and thus the two garrulities stand perfectly distinct from one another, because they have (so to speak) different centres of gravity. Lastly, we have Ulysses, who, wont to rise with his energies concentrated within him, gives no promise of display: but when his deep voice issues from his chest, and his mighty words drive like the flakes of snow in winter 221 221 Il. iii. 216, 23. , then indeed he soars away far above all competitors.