Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/52

30 30 HISTORY OF THE the people, as in the courts of justice, the nobles alone speak, advise, and decide, whilst the people merely listen to their ordinances and decisions, in order to regulate their own conduct accordingly ; being suffered, indeed, to follow the natural, impulse of evincing, to a certain extent, their approbation or disapprobation of their superiors, but still without any legal means of giving validity to their opinion. Yet amidst this nobility, distinguished by its warlike prowess, its great landed possessions and numerous slaves, various persons and classes found the means of attaining respect and station by means of intellectual influence, knowledge, and acquirements, viz., priests, who were honoured by the people as gods*; seers, who announced the destinies of nations and men, sometimes in accordance with superstitious notions, but not unfrequently with a deep foresight of an eternal and superintending Providence ; heralds, who by their manifold knowledge and readiness of address were the mediators in all intercourse between persons of different states ; artisans, who were invited from one country to another, so much were their rare qualifications in request t; and, lastly, minstrels, or bards ; who, although possessing less influence and authority than the priests, and placed on a level with the travelling artisans, still, as servants of the Muses J, dedicated to the pure and inno- cent worship of these deities, thought themselves entitled to a peculiar degree of estimation, as well as a friendly and considerate treatment. Thus Ulysses, at the massacre of the suitors, respects Phemius their bard§; and we find the same class enjoying a dignified position in royal families; as, for instance, the faithful minstrel to whose protection Agamemnon entrusted his wife during his expedition against Troy ||. § 2. Above all, we find the bards in the heroic age described by Homer as always holding an important post in every festal banquet ; as the Muses in the Olympian palace of Zeus himself, who sing to Apollo's accompaniment on the cithara ; amongst the Phaeacians, Demodocus, who is represented as possessing a numerous choice of songs, both of a serious and lively cast ; Phemius, in the house of Ulysses, whom the twelve suitors of Penelope had brought with them from their palaces in Ithaca ^f. The song and dance are the chief ornaments of the banquet**, and by the men of that age, were reckoned as the highest pleasure tt. This connexion of epic poetry with the banquets of princes had, per- J ris ya.g on fs~v«v y.aXii aXXofov a.u<ro; ri$aii aXXov y, tt fin rcuv o" dnu'io'-pyoi tuffiv ; fiuvriv '/i r/iTn»a xax.uv n tzxtovx oovgcov, V V ' / n i? , , , ovrei y«o xXnroi yi p^oruv ssr uwnpova yaiccv. Odyssey, xvii. 383 el sec. J ~MoVffdcJV fcnti?rov-Tls. § 0<ly.ss. xxii. 344 ; sue particularly viii. 479. || Orfyss. iii. 267. «[ Od. xvi. 252. ** <W^ aTa W<5 f . ff Od. xvii. 518.
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