Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/105

 FEROCIOUS PASSIONS UNRESTRAINED. g9 When, however, among the Homeric men we pass beyond the influence of the private ties above enumerated, we find scarcely any other moralizing forces in operation. The acts and adven- tures commemorated imply a community wherein neither the protection nor the restraints of law are practically felt, and where in ferocity, rapine, and the aggressive propensities generally, seem restrained by no internal counterbalancing scruples. Homicide, especially, is of frequent occurrence, sometimes by open violence, sometimes by fraud : expatriation for homicide is among the most constantly recurring acts of the Homeric poems : and savage brutalities are often ascribed, even to admired heroes, with appa- rent indifference. Achilles sacrifices twelve Trojan prisoners on the tomb of Patroklus, while his son Neoptolemus not only slaught- ers the aged Priam, but also seizes by the leg the child Astyanax (son of the slain Hector) and hurls him from one of the lofty towers of Troy. 1 Moreover, the celebrity of Autolykus, the ma- ternal grandfather of Odysseus, in the career of wholesale rob- bery and perjury, and the wealth which it enabled him to acquire, are described with the same unaffected admiration as the wisdom 29-30. The expression of the latter historian is remarkable, TO Se rCtv OpaKuv, ofjLOLO, rolf /zu/Uara roD papfiaptKov, v ooviKurarov F.OTL. Compare Herodot. viii. 116; the cruelty of the Thracian king of the Bisaltffi towards his own sons. The story of Odysseus to Eumaeus in the Odyssey (xiv. 210-22G) furnisheg a valuable comparison for this predatory disposition among the Thracians. Odysseus there treats the love of living by war and plunder as his own peculiar taste : he did not happen to like regular labor, but the latter is not treated in any way mean or unbecoming a freeman : ep-yov 6e uoi ov Qihov qev OW oiKuQeTiiTj, 77 re rpeipei ayT^au, re/cva, etc. 1 Ilias Minor, Fragm. 7, p. 18, ed. DUntzer ; Iliad, xxiii. 175. Odysseus is mentioned once as obtaining poison for his arrows (Odyss. i. 1GO), but no poisoned arrows are ever employed in either of the two poems. The anecdotes recounted by the Scythian Toxaris in Lucian's work so entitled (vol. ii. c. 3C, p. 544, seqq. ed. Hemst.) afford a vivid picture of this combination of intense and devoted friendship between individuals, with the most revolting cruelty of manners. " You Greeks live in peace and tranquil- lity," observes the Scythian, Trap' rifuv fie awe-^elf ol 7r6?i{j.oi, /cat vonvu%A:Oi(,i)vTroxupov/J-Ev tiriovTdf, TJ ffv/nrfauv-e( inr ui&a, ev&a ft a /I t a T a 6el i?.cjv dyaiStv, etc.