[The Iliad of Homer by Homer]@TWC D-Link book
The Iliad of Homer

BOOK XXIV
72/111

527, sqq.
198 "As when about the silver moon, when aire is free from winde, And stars shine cleare, to whose sweet beams high prospects on the brows Of all steepe hills and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows, And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight; When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light, And all the signs in heaven are seene, that glad the shepherd's heart." Chapman.
199 This flight of the Greeks, according to Buttmann, Lexil.p.358, was not a supernatural flight caused by the gods, but "a great and general one, caused by Hector and the Trojans, but with the approval of Jove." 200 Grote, vol.ii.p.

91, after noticing the modest calmness and respect with which Nestor addresses Agamemnon, observes, "The Homeric Council is a purely consultative body, assembled not with any power of peremptorily arresting mischievous resolves of the king, but solely for his information and guidance." 201 In the heroic times, it is not unfrequent for the king to receive presents to purchase freedom from his wrath, or immunity from his exactions.

Such gifts gradually became regular, and formed the income of the German, (Tacit.Germ.Section 15) Persian, (Herodot.
iii.89), and other kings.

So, too, in the middle ages, 'The feudal aids are the beginning of taxation, of which they for a long time answered the purpose.' (Hallam, Middle Ages, ch.x.pt.1, p.

189) This fact frees Achilles from the apparent charge of sordidness.
Plato, however, (De Rep.vi.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books