Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/84

 68 HISTORY OF prising is, that none had ever been summoned or held since the departure of Odysseus himself, an interval of twenty years. " No agora or session has taken place amongst us (says the gray -headed ^Egyptius, who opens the proceedings) since Odys- seua went on shipboard : and now, who is he that has called us together ? what man, young or old, has felt such a strong neces- sity ? Has he received intelligence from our absent warriors, or has he other public news to communicate? He is our good friend for doing this : whatever his projects may be, I pray Zeus to grant him success." l Telemachus, answering the appeal forth- with, proceeds to tell the assembled Ithakans that he has no public news to communicate, but that he has convoked them upon his own private necessities. Next, he sets forth, pathetic- ally, the wickedness of the suitors, calls upon them personally tc desist, and upon the people to restrain them, and concludes by solemnly warning them, that, being henceforward free from all obligation towards them, he will invoke the avenging aid of Zeus, so " that they may be slain in the interior of his own house, with- out bringing upon him any subsequent penalty." 2 We are not of course to construe the Homeric description as anything more than an ideal, approximating to actual reality. But, allowing all that can be required for such a limitation, it exhibits the agora more as a special medium of publicity and intercommunication, 3 from the king to the body of the people, than as including any idea of responsibility on the part of the 1 Odyss. ii. 25-40. Odyss. ii. 43, 77, 145.- 'N^iTOivoi Kev exeira 66/Ltuv IvToa&ev o?.oia$E. 3 A similar character is given of the public assemblies of the early Franks and Lombards (Pfeffel, Histoire du Droit Public en Allemagne, t. i. p. 18; Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques Italiennes, t. i. c. 2, p. 71). Dionysius of Halikarnassus (ii. 12) pays rather too high a compliment to the moderation of the Grecian heroic kings. The ktngs at Rome, like the Grecian heroic kings, began with an up^J) avnrfb&wof. the words of Pomponius (De Origine Juris, i. 2,) would bo perhaps more exac.tly applicable to the latter than to the former: " Initio civitatis nostrae Populus sine cert lege, sine jure certo, primum agere insti- tuit: omniaque manu a Regibus gubernabantur." Tacitus says (Ann. iii. 26), " Nobis Romulus, ut libitum, impcritaverat : dein Numa religionibus ci uivino jure populum devinxit, rcpertaque quaylaro a Tullo et Anco : sad