ix. 99): Zeus or the king is a judge, not a lawmaker; he issues

decrees or special orders to settle particular disputes, or to restrain particular men; and, agreeable to the concrete forms of ancient language, the decrees are treated as if they were a collection of ready-made substantive things, actually in his possession, like the sceptre, and prepared for being delivered out when the proper occasion arose: δικασπόλοι, οἵτε θέμιστας Πρὸς Διὸς εἰρύαται (Il. i. 238), compared with the two passages last cited: Ἄφρονα τοῦτον ἀνέντας, ὃς οὔτινα οἶδε θέμιστα (Il. v. 761), Ἄγριον, οὔτε δίκας εὖ εἰδότα οὔτε θέμιστας (Odyss. ix. 215). The plural number δίκαι is more commonly used in Homer than the singular: δίκη is rarely used to denote Justice, an an abstract conception; it more often denotes a special claim of right on the part of some given man (Il. xviii. 508). It sometimes also denotes, simply, established custom, or the known lot,—δμώων δίκη, γερόντων, θείων βασιλήων, θεῶν (see Damm’s Lexicon, _ad voc._) θέμις is used in the same manner.

See, upon this matter, Platner, De Notione Juris ap. Homerum, p. 81, and O. Müller, Prolegg. Mythol. p. 121.

The family relations, as we might expect, are set forth in our pictures of the legendary world as the grand sources of lasting union and devoted attachment. The paternal authority is highly reverenced: the son who lives to years of maturity, repays by affection to his parents the charge of his maintenance in infancy, which the language notes by a special word; whilst on the other hand, the Erinnys, whose avenging hand is put in motion by the curse of a father or mother, is an object of deep dread.[134]

[134] Οὐδὲ τοκεῦσι Θρέπτρα φίλοις ἀπέδωκε (Il. iv. 477): θρέπτρα or θρεπτήρια (compare Il. ix. 454; Odyss. ii. 134; Hesiod, Opp. Di. 186).

In regard to marriage, we find the wife occupying a station of great dignity and influence, though it was the practice for the husband to purchase her by valuable presents to her parents,—a practice extensively prevalent among early communities, and treated by Aristotle as an evidence of barbarism. She even seems to live less secluded and to enjoy a wider sphere of action than was allotted to her in historical Greece.[135] Concubines are frequent with the chiefs, and occasionally the jealousy of the wife breaks out in reckless excess against her husband, as may be seen in the tragical history of Phœnix. The continence of Laërtês, from fear of displeasing his wife Antikleia, is especially noticed.[136] A large portion of the romantic interest which Grecian legend inspires is derived from the women: Penelopê, Andromachê, Helen, Klytæmnêstra, Eriphylê, Iokasta, Hekabê, etc., all stand in the foreground of the picture, either from their virtues, their beauty, their crimes, or their sufferings.

[135] Aristot. Polit. ii. 5, 11. The ἔδνα, or present given by the suitor to the father, as an inducement to grant his daughter in marriage, are spoken of as very valuable,—ἀπερείσια ἔδνα (Il. xi. 244; xvi. 178; xxii. 472): to grant a daughter without ἔδνα was a high compliment to the intended son-in-law (Il. ix. 141: compare xiii. 366). Among the ancient Germans of Tacitus, the husband gave presents, not to his wife’s father, but to herself (Tacit. Germ. c. 18): the customs of the early Jews were in this respect completely Homeric; see the case of Shechem and Dinah (Genesis, xxxiv. 12) and others, etc.; also Mr. Catlin’s Letters on the North American Indians, vol. i. Lett. 26, p. 213.

The Greek ἔδνα correspond exactly to the _mundium_ of the Lombard and Alemannic laws, which is thus explained by Mr. Price (Notes on the Laws of King Ethelbert, in the Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, translated and published by Mr. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 20): “The Longobardic law is the most copious of all the barbaric codes in its provisions respecting marriage, and particularly so on the subject of the Mund. From that law it appears that the Mundium was a sum paid over to the family of the bride, for transferring the tutelage which they possessed over her to the family of the husband: ‘Si quis pro muliere liberâ aut puellâ mundium dederit et ei tradita fuerit ad uxorem,’ etc. (ed. Rotharis, c. 183.) In the same sense in which the term occurs in these dooms, it is also to be met with in the Alemannic law: it was also common in Denmark and in Sweden, where the bride was called a mund-bought or a mund-given woman.”

According to the 77th Law of King Ethelbert (p. 23), this _mund_ was often paid in cattle: the Saxon daughters were πάρθενοι ἀλφεσίβοιαι (Iliad, xviii. 593).

[136] Odyss. i. 430: Iliad, ix. 450: see also Terpstra, Antiquitas Homerica, capp. 17 and 18.

Polygamy appears to be ascribed to Priam, but to no one else (Iliad, xxi. 88).

Not only brothers, but also cousins, and the more distant blood-relations and clansmen, appear connected together by a strong feeling of attachment, sharing among them universally the obligation of mutual self-defence and revenge, in the event of injury to any individual of the race. The legitimate brothers divide between them by lot the paternal inheritance,—a bastard brother receiving only a small share; he is, however, commonly very well treated,[137] though the murder of Phokus, by Telamon and Pêleus, constitutes a flagrant exception. The furtive pregnancy of young women, often by a god, is one of the most frequently recurring incidents in the legendary narratives; and the severity with which such a fact, when discovered, is visited by the father, is generally extreme. As an extension of the family connection, we read of larger unions, called the phratry and the tribe, which are respectfully, but not frequently, mentioned.[138]

[137] Odyss. xiv. 202-215: compare Iliad, xi. 102. The primitive German law of succession divided the paternal inheritance among the sons of a deceased father, under the implied obligation to maintain and portion out their sisters (Eichhorn, _Deutsches Privat-Recht_. sect. 330).

[138] Iliad, ii. 362.—

Ἀφρήτωρ, ἀθέμιστος, ἀνέστιός ἐστιν ἐκεῖνος, Ὃς πολέμου ἔραται, etc. (Il. ix. 63.)

These three epithets include the three different classes of personal sympathy and obligation: 1. The Phratry, in which a man is connected with father, mother, brothers, cousins, brothers-in-law, clansmen, etc.; 2. The θέμιστες, whereby he is connected with his fellow-men who visit the same agora; 3. His Hestia, or Hearth, whereby he becomes accessible to the ξεῖνος and the ἱκέτης:—

Τῷ δ᾽ Ὀδυσεὺς ξίφος ὀξὺ καὶ ἄλκιμον ἔγχος ἔδωκεν, ~Ἀρχὴν~ ξεινοσύνης προσκηδέος· οὐδὲ τραπέζῃ Γνώτην ἀλλήλοιν. (Odyss. xxi. 34.)

The generous readiness with which hospitality is afforded to the stranger who asks for it,[139] the facility with which he is allowed to contract the peculiar connection of guest with his host, and the permanence with which that connection, when created by partaking of the same food and exchanging presents, is maintained even through a long period of separation, and even transmitted from father to son—these are among the most captivating features of the heroic society. The Homeric chief welcomes the stranger who comes to ask shelter in his house, first gives him refreshment, and then inquires his name and the purpose of his voyage.[140] Though not inclined to invite strangers to his house, he cannot repel them when they spontaneously enter it craving a lodging.[141] The suppliant is also commonly a stranger, but a stranger under peculiar circumstances; who proclaims his own calamitous and abject condition, and seeks to place himself in a relation to the chief whom he solicits, something like that in which men stand to the gods. Onerous as such special tie may become to him, the chief cannot decline it, if solicited in the proper form: the ceremony of supplication has a binding effect, and the Erinnys punish the hardhearted person who disallows it. A conquered enemy may sometimes throw himself at the feet of his conqueror, and solicit mercy, but he cannot by doing so acquire the character and claims of a suppliant properly so called: the conqueror has free discretion either to kill him, or to spare him and accept a ransom.[142]

[139] It must be mentioned, however, that when a chief received a stranger and made presents to him, he reimbursed to himself the value of the presents by collections among the people (Odyss. xiii. 14; xix. 197): ἀργαλέον γὰρ ἕνα προικὸς χαρίσασθαι, says Alkinous.

[140] Odyss. i. 123; iii. 70, etc.

[141] Odyss. xvii. 383.—

Τίς γὰρ δὴ ξεῖνον καλεῖ ἄλλοθεν αὐτὸς ἐπελθὼν Ἄλλον γ᾽ εἰ μὴ τῶνδ᾽, οἳ δημιόεργοι ἔασιν, etc.;

which breathes the plain-spoken shrewdness of the Hesiodic Works and Days, v. 355.

[142] See the illustrative case of Lykaon, in vain craving mercy from Achilles. (Iliad, xxi. 64-97. Ἀντί τοι εἶμ᾽ ἱκέταο, etc.)

Menelaus is about to spare the life of the Trojan Adrastus, who clasps his knees and craves mercy, offering a large ransom,—when Agamemnôn repels the idea of quarter, and kills Adrastus with his own hand: his speech to Menelaus displays the extreme of violent enmity, yet the poet says,—

Ὣς εἰπὼν, παρέπεισεν ἀδελφείου φρένας ἥρως, ~Αἴσιμα παρειπὼν~, etc.

Adrastus is not called an ἱκέτης, nor is the expression used in respect to Dolon (Il. x. 456), nor in the equally striking case of Odysseus (Odyss. xiv. 279), when begging for his life.

There are in the legendary narratives abundant examples of individuals who transgress in particular acts even the holiest of these personal ties, but the savage Cyclops is the only person described as professedly indifferent to them, and careless of that sanction of the gods which in Grecian belief accompanied them all.[143] In fact, the tragical horror which pervades the lineage of Athamas or Kadmus, and which attaches to many of the acts of Hêraklês, of Pêleus and Telamon, of Jasôn and Mêdea, of Atreus and Thyestês, etc., is founded upon a deep feeling and sympathy with those special obligations, which conspicuous individuals, under the temporary stimulus of the maddening Atê, are driven to violate. In such conflict of sentiments, between the obligation generally reverenced and the exceptional deviation in an individual otherwise admired, consists the pathos of the story.

[143] Odyss. ix. 112-275.

These feelings—of mutual devotion between kinsmen and companions in arms—of generous hospitality to the stranger, and of helping protection to the suppliant,—constitute the bright spots in a dark age. We find them very generally prevalent amongst communities essentially rude and barbarous,—amongst the ancient Germans as described by Tacitus, the Druses in Lebanon,[144] the Arabian tribes in the desert, and even the North American Indians.

[144] Tacit. German. c. 21. “Quemeunque mortalium arcere tecto, nefas habetur: pro fortunâ quisque apparatis epulis excipit: cum defecêre qui modo hospes fuerat, monstratur hospitii et comes, proximam domum non invitati adeunt: nec interest—pari humanitate accipiuntur. Notum ignotumque, quantum ad jus hospitii, nemo discernit.” Compare Cæsar, B. G. vi. 22.

See about the Druses and Arabians, Volney, Travels in Egypt and Syria, vol. ii. p. 76, Engl. Transl.; Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, Copenh. 1772, pp. 46-49.

Pomponius Mela describes the ancient Germans in language not inapplicable to the Homeric Greeks: “Jus in viribus habent, adeo ut ne latrocinii quidem pudeat: _tantum_ hospitibus boni, mitesque supplicibus.” (iii. 3.)

“The hospitality of the Indians is well known. It extends even to strangers who take refuge among them. They count it a most sacred duty, from which no one is exempted. Whoever refuses relief to any one, commits a grievous offence, and not only makes himself detested and abhorred by all, but liable to revenge from the offended person. In their conduct towards their enemies they are cruel and inexorable, and, when enraged, bent upon nothing but murder and bloodshed. They are, however, remarkable for concealing their passions, and waiting for a convenient opportunity of gratifying them. But then their fury knows no bounds. If they cannot satisfy their resentment, they will even call upon their friends and posterity to do it. The longest space of time cannot cool their wrath, nor the most distant place of refuge afford security to their enemy.” (Loskiel, History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the North American Indians,