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

His meaning must be to refer to the number of nobles who were now collected, from Cephallonia and the other dominions of Ulysses, into that island. The observation is made by him in reply to the Suitor Antinous, who had complained of his bold language, and hoped he never would be king in Ithaca 30 30 Ibid. 386. :

It is, I think, clear, that in this place Antinous does not mean merely, ‘I hope you will not become one of us,’ which might be said in reference merely to the contingency of his assuming the controul of his paternal estates, but that he refers to the sovereignty properly so called: for Telemachus, after having said there are many βασιλῆες in Ithaca, proceeds to say, ‘Let one of them be chosen’, or ‘one of these may be chosen, to succeed Ulysses;’

τῶν κέν τις τόδ’ ἔχῃσιν, ἐπεὶ θάνε δῖος Ὀδυσσεύς.

‘but let me,’ he continues, ‘be master of my own house and property.’ Thus we have βασιλεὺς bearing two senses in the very same passage. First, it means the noble, of whom there are many in the country, and it is here evidently used in an improper sense; secondly, it means the person who rules the whole of them, and it is here as evidently employed in its original and proper signification. It seems very doubtful, however, whether, even in the Odyssey, the relaxed sense ever appears as a simple title in the singular number. The only signs of it are these; Antinous is told that he is like a king 31 31 Od. xvii. 416. in appearance; and he is also expressly called βασιλεὺς in the strongly and generally suspected νεκυΐα of the Twenty-fourth Book 32 32 Od. xxiv. 179. . So again, the kingly epithet Διοτρεφὴς is not used in the singular for any one below the rank of a βασιλεὺς of the Iliad, except once, where, in addressing Agelaus the Suitor, it is employed by Melanthius, the goatherd, one of the subordinate adherents and parasites of that party 33 33 Od. xxii. 136. .

This relaxation in the sense of βασιλεὺς, definite and limited as is its application in the Iliad, is no inconsiderable note of change.

New name of Queen.

Equally, or more remarkable, is the introduction in the Odyssey of the words δέσποινα and βασίλεια, and the altered use of ἄνασσα.

1. δέσποινα is applied, Od. iii. 403, to the wife of Pisistratus, son of Nestor; to Arete, queen of the Phæacians, Od. vii. 53, 347; to Penelope, Od. xiv. 9, 127, 451; xv. 374, 7; xvii. 83; xxiii. 2.

2. ἄνασσα is applied in the Iliad, xiv. 326, to Ceres only; but in the Odyssey, besides Minerva, in Od. iii. 380, Ulysses applies it twice to Nausicaa, in Od. vi. 149, 175; apparently in some doubt whether she is a divinity or a mortal. I would not however dwell strongly on this distinction between the poems; for we seem to find substantially the human use of the word ἄνασσα in the name of Agamemnon’s daughter, Ἰφιάνασσα, which is used in Il. ix. 145.

3. Βασίλεια is used many times in the Odyssey; and is applied to

a. Nausicaa, Od. vi. 115.

b. Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, Od. xi. 258; but only in the phrase βασίλεια γυναικῶν, which seems to resemble δῖα γυναικῶν.

c. Arete, queen of the Phæacians, Od. xiii. 59.

d. Penelope, Od. xvi. 332, 7: and elsewhere.

Now it cannot be said that the use of the word is forborne in the Iliad from the want of fit persons to bear it; for Hecuba, as the wife of Priam, and Helen, as the wife of Paris, possibly also Andromache, (though this is much more doubtful 34 34 See inf. ‘Ilios.’ ,) were all of a rank to have received it: nor can we account for its absence by their appearing only as Trojans; for the title of βασιλεὺς is frequently applied to Priam, and it is likewise assigned to Paris, though to no other member of the Trojan royal family.

We have also two other cases in the Iliad of women who were queens of some kind. One is that of Hypsipyle, who apparently exercised supreme power 35 35 Il. vii. 469. in Lemnos, but we are left to inference as to its character: the other is the mother of Andromache 36 36 Il. vi. 395-7. 425. ,

ἣ βασίλευεν ὑπὸ Πλάκῳ ὑληέσσῃ.

She was what we term a Queen consort, for her husband Eetion was alive at the time. In the Odyssey we are told that Chloris, whom Neleus married, reigned at Pylos; ἡ δὲ Πύλου βασίλευε, Od. xi. 285. In this place the word βασιλεύειν may perhaps imply the exercise of sovereign power. Be this as it may, the introduction of the novel title of Queen betokens political movement.

There are other signs of advancing change in the character of kingship discernible from the Odyssey, which will be more conveniently considered hereafter. In the meantime, the two which are already before us are, it will be observed, exactly in the direction we might expect from the nature of the Trojan war, and from the tradition of Strabo. We have before us an effort of the country amounting to a violent, and also an unnaturally continued strain; a prolonged absence of its best heads, its strongest arms, its most venerated authorities: wives and young children, infants of necessity in many cases, remain at home. It was usual no doubt for a ruler, on leaving his country, to appoint some guardian to remain behind him, as we see from the case of Agamemnon, (Od. iii. 267,) and from the language of Telemachus, (Od. xv. 89); but no regent, deputy, or adviser, could be of much use in that stage of society. Again, in every class of every community, there are boys rapidly passing into manhood; they form unawares a new generation, and the heat of their young blood, in the absence of vigorous and established controul, stirs, pushes forward, and innovates. Once more, as extreme youth, so old age likewise was ordinarily a disqualification for war. And as we find Laertes and Peleus, and Menœtius, with Admetus, besides probably other sovereigns whom Homer has not named to us, left behind on this account, so there must have been many elderly men of the class of nobles (ἀριστῆες, ἔξοχοι ἄνδρες) who obtained exemption from actual service in the war. There is too every appearance that, in some if not all the states of Greece, there had been those who escaped from service on other grounds; perhaps either from belonging to the elder race, which was more peculiarly akin to Troy, or from local jealousies, or from the love of ease. For in Ithaca we find old men, contemporaries and seniors of Ulysses, who had taken no part in the expedition; and there are various towns mentioned in different parts of the poems, which do not appear from the Catalogue to have made any contribution to the force. Such were possibly the various places bearing the name of Ephyre, and with higher likelihood the towns offered by Agamemnon to be made over to Achilles 37 37 There is a nexus of ideas attached to these towns that excites suspicion. It would have been in keeping with the character of Agamemnon to offer them to Achilles, on account of his having already found he could not control them himself. No one of them appears in the Catalogue. Nor do we hear of them in the Nineteenth Book, when the gifts are accepted. It seems, however, just possible that the promise by Menelaus of the hand of his daughter Hermione to Neoptolemus may have been an acquittance of a residue of debt standing over from the original offer of Agamemnon, out of which the seven towns appear to have dropped by consent of all parties. .