“Iliad,” Book X.

Of all Books in the Iliad, Book X., called the Doloneia, is most generally scouted and rejected. The Book, in fact, could be omitted, and only a minutely analytic reader would perceive the lacuna. He would remark that in Iliad, IX. 65–84, certain military preparations are made which, if we suppress Book X., lead up to nothing, and that in Iliad, XIV. 9–11, we find Nestor with the shield of his son, Thrasymedes, while Thrasymedes has his father’s shield, a fact not explained, though the poet certainly meant something by it. The explanation in both cases is found in Book X., which may also be thought to explain why the Achaeans, so disconsolate in Book IX., and why Agamemnon, so demoralised, so gaily assume the offensive in Book XI. Some ancient critics, Scholiast T and Eustathius, attributed the Doloneia to Homer, but supposed it to have been a separate composition of his added to the Iliad by Pisistratus. This merely proves that they did not find any necessity for the existence of the Doloneia. Mr. Allen, who thinks that “it always held its present place,” says, “the Doloneia is persistently written down.” 324

To understand the problem of the Doloneia, we must make a summary of its contents. In Book IX. 65–84, at the end of the disastrous fighting of Book VIII, the Achaeans, by Nestor’s advice, station an advanced guard of “the young men” between the fosse and wall; 700 youths are posted there, under Meriones, the squire of Idomeneus, and Thrasymedes, the son of Nestor. All this is preparation for Book X., as Mr. Leaf remarks, 325 though in any case an advanced guard was needed. Their business is to remain awake, under arms, in case the Trojans, who are encamped on the plain, attempt a night attack. At their station the young men will be under arms till dawn; they light fires and cook their provisions; the Trojans also surround their own watchfires.

The Achaean chiefs then hold council, and Agamemnon sends the embassy to Achilles. The envoys bring back his bitter answer; and all men go to sleep in their huts, deeply discouraged, as even Odysseus avowed.

Here the Tenth Book begins, and it is manifest that the poet is thoroughly well acquainted with the Ninth Book. Without the arrangements made in the Ninth Book, and without the despairing situation of that Book, his lay is impossible. It will be seen that critics suppose him, alternately, to have “quite failed to realise the conditions of life of the heroes of whom he sang” (that is, if certain lines are genuine), and also to be a peculiarly learned archaeologist and a valuable authority on weapons. He is addicted to introducing fanciful “touches of heroic simplicity,” says Mr. Leaf, and is altogether a puzzling personage to the critics.

The Book opens with the picture of Agamemnon, sleepless from anxiety, while the other chiefs, save Menelaus, are sleeping. He “hears the music of the joyous Trojan pipes and flutes” and sees the reflected glow of their camp-fires, we must suppose, for he could not see the fires themselves through the new wall of his own camp, as critics very wisely remark. He tears out his hair before Zeus; no one else does so, in the Iliad, but no one else is Agamemnon, alone and in despair.

He rises to consult Nestor, throwing a lion’s skin over his chiton, and grasping a spear. Much noise is made about the furs, such as this lion’s pelt, which the heroes, in Book X., throw about their shoulders when suddenly aroused. That sportsmen like the heroes should keep the pelts of animals slain by them for use as coverlets, and should throw on one of the pelts when aroused in a hurry, is a marvellous thing to the critics. They know that fleeces were used for coverlets of beds (IX. 661), and pelts of wild animals, slain by Anchises, cover his bed in the Hymn to Aphrodite.

But the facts do not enlighten critics. Yet no facts could be more natural. A scientific critic, moreover, never reflects that the poet is dealing with an unexampled situation — heroes wakened and called into the cold air in a night of dread, but not called to battle. Thus Reichel says: “The poet knows so little about true heroic costume that he drapes the princes in skins of lions and panthers, like giants. . . . But about a corslet he never thinks.” 326

The simple explanation is that the poet has not hitherto had to tell us about men who are called up, not to fight, on a night that must have been chilly. In war they do not wear skins, though Paris, in archer’s equipment, wears a pard’s skin (III. 17). Naturally, the men throw over themselves their fur coverlets; but Nestor, a chilly veteran, prefers a chiton and a wide, double-folded, fleecy purple cloak. The cloak lay ready to his hand, for such cloaks were used as blankets (XXIV. 646; Odyssey, III. 349, 351; IV. 299; II. 189). We hear more of such bed-coverings in the Odyssey than in the merely because in the Odyssey we have more references to beds and to people in bed. That a sportsman may have (as many folk have now) a fur coverlet, and may throw it over him as a kind of dressing-gown or “bed-gown,” is a simple circumstance which bewilders the critical mind and perplexed Reichel.

If the poet knew so little as Reichel supposed his omission of corslets is explained. Living in an age of corslets (seventh century), he, being a literary man, knew nothing about corslets, or, as he is also an acute archaeologist, he knew too much; he knew that they were not worn in the Mycenaean prime, so he did not introduce them. The science of this remarkable ignoramus, in this view, accounts for his being aware that pelts of animals were in vogue as coverlets, just as fur dressing-gowns were worn in the sixteenth century, and he introduces them precisely as he leaves corslets out, because he knows that pelts of fur were in use, and that, in the Mycenaean prime, corslets were not worn.

In speaking to Nestor, Agamemnon awakens sympathy: “Me, of all the Achaeans, Zeus has set in toil and labour ceaselessly.” They are almost the very words of Charlemagne in the Chanson de Roland: “Deus, Dist li Reis, si peneuse est ma vie.“ The author of the Doloneia consistently conforms to the character of Agamemnon as drawn in the rest of the Iliad. He is over-anxious; he is demoralising in his fits of gloom, but all the burden of the host hangs on him — sipeneuse est ma via.

To turn to higher things. Menelaus, too, was awake, anxious about the Argives, who risked their lives in his cause alone. He got up, put on a pard’s skin and a bronze helmet (here the poet forgets, what he ought to have known, that no bronze helmets have been found in the Mycenaean graves). Menelaus takes a spear, and goes to look for Agamemnon, whom he finds arming himself beside his ship. He discovers that Agamemnon means to get Nestor to go and speak to the advanced guard, as his son is their commander, and they will obey Nestor. Agamemnon’s pride has fallen very low! He tells Menelaus to waken the other chief with all possible formal courtesy, for, brutally rude when in high heart, at present Agamemnon cowers to everybody. He himself finds Nestor in bed, his shield, two spears, and helmet beside him, also his glittering zoster. His corslet is not named; perhaps the poet knew that the zoster, or broad metallic belt, had been evolved, but that the corslet had not been invented; or perhaps he “knows so little about the costume of the heroes” that he is unaware of the existence of corslets. Nestor asks Agamemnon what he wants; and Agamemnon says that his is a toilsome life, that he cannot sleep, that his knees tremble, and that he wants Nestor to come and visit the outposts.

There is really nothing absurd in this. Napoleon often visited his outposts in the night before Waterloo, and Cromwell rode along his lines all through the night before Dunbar, biting his lips till the blood dropped on his linen bands. In all three cases hostile armies were arrayed within striking distance of each other, and the generals were careworn.

Nestor admits that it is an anxious night, and rather blames Menelaus for not rousing the other chiefs; but Agamemnon explains and defends his brother. Nestor then puts on the comfortable cloak already described, and picks up a spear, leaving his shield in his quarters.

As for Odysseus, he merely throws a shield over his shoulders. The company of Diomede are sleeping with their heads on their shields. Thence Reichel (see “The Shield”) infers that the late poet of Book X. gave them small Ionian round bucklers; but it has been shown that no such inference is legitimate. Their spears were erect by their sides, fixed in the ground by the sauroter, or butt-spike, used by the men of the late “warrior vase” found at Mycenae. To arrange the spears thus, we have seen, was a point of drill that, in Aristotle’s time, survived among the Illyrians. 327 The practice is also alluded to in Iliad, III 135. During a truce “the tall spears are planted by their sides.” The poet, whether ignorant or learned, knew that point of war, later obsolete in Greece, but still extant in Illyria.

Nestor aroused Diomede, whose night apparel was the pelt of a lion; he took his spear, and they came to the outposts, where the men were awake, and kept a keen watch on all movements among the Trojans. Nestor praised them, and the princes, taking Nestor’s son, Thrasymedes, and Meriones with them, went out into the open in view of the Trojan camp, sat down, and held a consultation.

Nestor asked if any one would volunteer to go as a spy among the Trojans and pick up intelligence. His reward will be “a black ewe with her lamb at her foot,” from their chiefs —“nothing like her for value”— and he will be remembered in songs at feasts, or will be admitted to feasts and wine parties of the chiefs. 328 The proposal is very odd; what do the princes want with black ewes, while at feasts they always have honoured places? Can Nestor be thinking of sending out any brave swift-footed young member of the outpost party, to whom the reward would be appropriate?

After silence, Diomede volunteers to go, with a comrade, though this kind of work is very seldom undertaken in any army of any age by a chief, and by his remark about admission to wine parties it is clear that Nestor was not thinking of a princely spy. Many others volunteer, but Agamemnon bids Diomede choose his own companion, with a very broad hint not to take Menelaus. His death, Agamemnon knows, would mean the disgraceful return of the host to Greece; besides he is, throughout the Iliad, deeply attached to his brother.

The poet of Book X., however late, knows the Iliad well, for he keeps up the uniform treatment of the character of the Over–Lord. As he knows the Iliad well, how can he be ignorant of the conditions of life of the heroes? How can he dream of “introducing a note of heroic simplicity” (Mr. Leaf’s phrase), when he must be as well aware as we are of the way in which the heroes lived? We cannot explain the black ewes, if meant as a princely reward, but we do not know everything about Homeric life.

Diomede chooses Odysseus, “whom Pallas Athene loveth”; she was also the patroness of Diomede himself, in Books V., VI.

As they are unarmed — all of the chiefs hastily aroused were unarmed, save for a spear there or a sword here — Thrasymedes gives to Diomede his two-edged sword, his shield, and “a helm of bull’s hide, without horns or crest, that is called a skull-cap (knap-skull), and keeps the heads of strong young men.” All the advanced guard were young men, as we saw in Book IX. 77. Obviously, Thrasymedes must then send back to camp, though we are not told it, for another shield, sword, and helmet, as he is to lie all night under arms. We shall hear of the shield later.

Meriones, who is an archer (XIII. 650), lends to Odysseus his bow and quiver and a sword. He also gives him “a helm made of leather; and with many a thong it was stiffly wrought within, while without the white teeth of a boar of flashing tusks were arrayed, thick set on either side well and cunningly . . . .” Here Reichel perceives that the ignorant poet is describing a piece of ancient headgear represented in Mycenaean art, while the boars’ teeth were found by Schliemann, to the number of sixty, in Grave IV. at Mycenae. Each of them had “the reverse side cut perfectly flat, and with the borings to attach them to some other object.” They were “in a veritable funereal armoury.” The manner of setting the tusks on the cap is shown on an ivory head of a warrior from Mycenae. 329

Reichel recognises that the poet’s description in Book X. is excellent, “ebenso klar als eingehend.” He publishes another ivory head from Spata, with the same helmet set with boars’ tusks. 330 Mr. Leaf decides that this description by the poet, wholly ignorant of heroic costume, as Reichel thinks him, must be “another instance of the archaic and archaeologising tendency so notable in Book X.” 331

At the same time, according to Reichel and Mr. Leaf, the poet of Book X. introduces the small round Ionian buckler, thus showing his utter ignorance of the great Mycenaean shield. The ignorance was most unusual and quite inexcusable, for any one who reads the rest of the Iliad (which the poet of Book X. knew well) is aware that the Homeric shields were huge, often covering body and legs. This fact the poet of Book X. did not know, in Reichel’s opinion. 332

How are we to understand this poet? He is such an erudite archaeologist that, in the seventh century, he knows and carefully describes a helmet of the Mycenaean prime. Did he excavate it? and had the leather interior lasted with the felt cap through seven centuries? Or did he see a sample in an old temple of the Mycenaean prime, or in a museum of his own period? Or had he heard of it in a lost Mycenaean poem? Yet, careful as he was, so pedantic that he must have puzzled his seventh-century audience, who never saw such caps, the poet knew nothing of the shields and costumes of the heroes, though he might have found out all that is known about them in the then existing Iliadic lays with which he was perfectly familiar — see his portrait of Agamemnon. He was well aware that corslets were, in Homeric poetry, anachronisms, for he gave Nestor none; yet he fully believed, in his ignorance, that small Ionian bucklers loveth; (which need the aid of corslets badly) were the only wear among the heroes!

Criticism has, as we often observe, no right to throw the first stone at the inconsistencies of Homer. As we cannot possibly believe that one poet knew so much which his contemporaries did not know (and how, in the seventh century, could he know it?), and that he also knew so little, knew nothing in fact, we take our own view. The poet of Book X. sings of a fresh topic, a confused night of dread; of young men wearing the headgear which, he says, young men do wear; of pelts of fur such as suddenly wakened men, roused, but not roused for battle, would be likely to throw over their bodies against the chill air. He describes things of his own day; things with which he is familiar. He is said to “take quite a peculiar delight in the minute description of dress and weapons.” 333 We do not observe that he does describe weapons or shields minutely; but Homer always loves to describe weapons and costume — scores of examples prove it — and here he happens to be describing such costume as he nowhere else has occasion to mention. By an accident of archaeological discovery, we find that there were such caps set with boars’ tusks as he introduces. They had survived, for young men on night duty, into the poet’s age. We really cannot believe that a poet of the seventh century had made excavations in Mycenaean graves. If he did and put the results into his lay, his audience — not wearing boars’ tusks — would have asked, “What nonsense is the man talking?”

Erhardt, remarking on the furs which the heroes throw over their shoulders when aroused, says that this kind of wrap is very late. It was Peisander who, in the second half of the seventh century, clothed Herakles in a lion’s skin. Peisander brought this costume into poetry, and the author of the Doloneia knew no better than to follow Peisander. 334 The poet of the Doloneia was thus much better acquainted with Peisander than with the Homeric lays, which could have taught him that a hero would never wear a fur coverlet when aroused — not to fight — from slumber. Yet he knew about leathern caps set with boars’ tusks. He must have been an erudite excavator, but, in literature, a reader only of recent minor poetry.

Having procured arms, without corslets (with corslets, according to Carl Robert)— whether, if they had none, because the poet knew that corslets were anachronisms, or because spies usually go as lightly burdened as possible — Odysseus and Diomede approach the Trojan camp. The hour is the darkest hour before dawn. They hear, but do not see, a heron sent by Athene as an omen, and pray to the goddess, with promise of sacrifice.

In the Trojan camp Hector has called a council, and asked for a volunteer spy to seek intelligence among the Achaeans. He offers no black ewes as a reward, but the best horses of the enemy. This allures Dolon, son of a rich Trojan, “an only son among five sisters,” a poltroon, a weak lad, ugly, but swift of foot, and an enthusiastic lover of horses. He asks for the steeds of Achilles, which Hector swears to give him; and to be lightly clad he takes merely spear and bow and a cap of ferret skin, with the pelt of a wolf for covering. Odysseus sees him approach; he and Diomede lie down among the dead till Dolon passes, then they chase him towards the Achaean camp and catch him. He offers ransom, which before these last days of the war was often accepted. Odysseus replies evasively, and asks for information. Dolon, thinking that the bitterness of death is past, explains that only the Trojans have watch-fires; the allies, more careless, have none. At the extreme flank of the host sleep the newly arrived Thracians, under their king, Rhesus, who has golden armour, and “the fairest horses that ever I beheld” (the ruling passion for horses is strong in Dolon), “and the greatest, whiter than snow, and for spe............