Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/101

 PERSONAL SYMPATHIES. 85 permanence with which that connection, when created by partak- ing 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 refresh- ment, and then inquires his name and the purpose of his voyage. 1 Though not inclined to invite strangers to his house, he cannot repel them when they spontaneously enter it craving a lodging. 2 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 cere- mony 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. 3 There are in the legendary narratives abundant examples of individuals who transgress in particular acts even the holiest of 1 Odyss. i 123; iii. 70, etc. T/'f yap 6i/ %elvov xaAet u?.Ao-&tv avrdf eTre/.diJv which breathes the plain-spoken shrewdness of the Hesiodic Works and Days, v. 355. 3 See the illustrative case of Lykaon, in vain craving mercy from Achilles. (Iliad, xxi. 64-97. 'Avrt rot eZ/z' iKerao, etc.) Menelaus is about to spare the life of the Trojan Adrastus, who clasps hii knees and craves mercy, offering a large ransom, when Agamemnon 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, Aiaipa irapeiiruv, etc. Adrastus is not called an IKS-TIC, nor is the expression used in respect to Dolon (II. x. 456), nor in the equally striking case of Odysseus (Odyss. JUT. 279), when begging for his life.
 * Odyss. xvii. 383.
 * A/.Aov -f el fj.!) ruv6 ol drjitLotpyoi i-aaiv, etc. ;