"Thus the monarch spoke,
Then pledged the chief in a
capacious
cup,
Golden, and framed by art divine (a gift
Which to Almighty Jove lame Vulcan brought
Upon his nuptial day, when he espoused
The Queen of Love), the sire of gods bestow'd
The cup on Dardanus, who gave it next
To Ericthonius Tros received it then,
And left it, with his wealth, to be possess'd
By Ilus he to great Laomedon
Gave it, and last to Priam's lot it fell.
Iliad - Pope
246) an evening
agora, to which men came elevated by wine, is also the forerunner of
mischief ('Odyssey,' iii. 138)."--Grote, ii. p. 91, _note._
83 This sceptre, like that of Judah (Genesis xlix. 10), is a type of
the supreme and far-spread dominion of the house of the Atrides. See
Thucydides i. 9. "It is traced through the hands of Hermes, he being
the wealth giving god, whose blessing is most efficacious in
furthering the process of acquisition."--Grote, i. p. 212. Compare
Quintus Calaber (Dyce's Selections, p. 43).
"Thus the monarch spoke,
Then pledged the chief in a
capacious
cup,
Golden, and framed by art divine (a gift
Which to Almighty Jove lame Vulcan brought
Upon his nuptial day, when he espoused
The Queen of Love), the sire of gods bestow'd
The cup on Dardanus, who gave it next
To Ericthonius Tros received it then,
And left it, with his wealth, to be possess'd
By Ilus he to great Laomedon
Gave it, and last to Priam's lot it fell.
"
84 Grote, i, p. 393, states the number of the Grecian forces at upwards
of 100,000 men. Nichols makes a total of 135,000.
85 "As thick as when a field
Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends
His bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
Sways them."--Paradise Lost," iv. 980, sqq.
86 This sentiment used to be a popular one with some of the greatest
tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of
power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it,
and, in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in
the Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren,
"Ancient Greece," ch. vi. p. 105.
87 It may be remarked, that the character of Thersites, revolting and
contemptible as it is, serves admirably to develop the disposition
of Ulysses in a new light, in which mere cunning is less prominent.
Of the gradual and individual development of Homer's heroes,
Schlegel well observes, "In bas-relief the figures are usually in
profile, and in the epos all are characterized in the simplest
manner in relief; they are not grouped together, but follow one
another; so Homer's heroes advance, one by one, in succession before
us. It has been remarked that the _Iliad_ is not definitively
closed, but that we are left to suppose something both to precede
and to follow it.
