No More Learning

The argument of the
Iliad mainly turns on the affection of Achilles for Patroclus, whose
love for the greater hero is only tempered by reverence for his
higher birth and his unequalled prowess. But the mutual regard which
united Idomeneus and Meriones, Diomedes and Sthenelus, though, as
the persons themselves are less important, it is kept more in the
back-ground, is manifestly viewed by the poet in the same light. The
idea of a Greek hero seems not to have been thought complete,
without such a brother in arms by his side. "--Thirlwall, Greece, vol.
i. p. 176, seq.

244 "As hungry wolves with raging appetite,
Scour through the fields, ne'er fear the stormy night--
Their whelps at home expect the promised food,
And long to temper their dry chaps in blood--
So rush'd we forth at once. "

--Dryden's Virgil, ii. 479.

245 --_The destinies ordain. _--"In the mythology, also, of the Iliad,
purely Pagan as it is, we discover one important truth unconsciously
involved, which was almost entirely lost from view amidst the nearly
equal scepticism and credulity of subsequent ages. Zeus or Jupiter
is popularly to be taken as omnipotent. No distinct empire is
assigned to fate or fortune; the will of the father of gods and men
is absolute and uncontrollable. This seems to be the true character
of the Homeric deity, and it is very necessary that the student of
Greek literature should bear it constantly in mind.
A strong
instance in the Iliad itself to illustrate this position, is the
passage where Jupiter laments to Juno the approaching death of
Sarpedon. 'Alas me! ' says he 'since it is fated (moira) that
Sarpedon, dearest to me of men, should be slain by Patroclus, the
son of Menoetius! Indeed, my heart is divided within me while I
ruminate it in my mind, whether having snatched him up from out of
the lamentable battle, I should not at once place him alive in the
fertile land of his own Lycia, or whether I should now destroy him
by the hands of the son of Menoetius! ' To which Juno answers--'Dost
thou mean to rescue from death a mortal man, long since destined by
fate (palai pepromenon)? You may do it--but we, the rest of the gods,
do not sanction it. ' Here it is clear from both speakers, that
although Sarpedon is said to be fated to die, Jupiter might still,
if he pleased, save him, and place him entirely out of the reach of
any such event, and further, in the alternative, that Jupiter
himself would destroy him by the hands of another. "--Coleridge, p.
156. seq.

246 --_Thrice at the battlements. _ "The art military of the Homeric age
is upon a level with the state of navigation just described,
personal prowess decided every thing; the night attack and the
ambuscade, although much esteemed, were never upon a large scale.
The chiefs fight in advance, and enact almost as much as the knights
of romance. The siege of Troy was as little like a modern siege as a
captain in the guards is like Achilles. There is no mention of a
ditch or any other line or work round the town, and the wall itself
was accessible without a ladder. It was probably a vast mound of
earth with a declivity outwards.