Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/126

102 the same right is exercised by Bellerophon, Meleagros, Sarpedon, Glaukos, the chief depicted on the shield of Achilles, Otrynteus, Alkinoos, Telemachus, and Odysseus himself. The wealth of the king, then, depended on the produce of this domain, on the gifts offered by his subjects, the extra shares of the slaves and other plunder allotted to him after a victory, not on any form of direct taxation. Compare this with the state of the old Scotch chieftain. "In the military days," says Pennant, "the chieftain drew little or no rent from his people ; he had some of the best farms in his own hands, to which there was a casual accession by forfeitures ; he had his proportion of the fines laid upon the trespassers of the law ; he had the herezield horse when any of his farmers died ; he had a benevolence or voluntary contribution sent him according to the power and good intentions of every man ; he and his coshir or retinue could lodge on whom he pleased." But it would be a mistake to suppose that his control over this landed property was unrestricted. On the contrary, the Homeric King seems to have been more in the position of a trustee, and the chiefs per contra were entitled to mess at his table and be fed on the produce of the demesne. Thus, to confine ourselves to the Odyssey, we find that the Phæacian chiefs habitually dine at the palace of Alkinoos, as their dependent nobles mess with Nestor and Menelaus. So it is with most savage kings, as in the case of the Basutos, where "the chiefs are the great providers for the community. They must, with the produce of their fields, feed the poor, furnish the warriors with arms, supply the troops in the field, and promote and strengthen the alliances which are to