Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/73

51 LITERATURE OP ANCIENT GREECE. 51 whose time, although the heroic traditions may have become more meagre and scanty than they had been in that of Homer, yet the chief occurrences must have been still preserved in memory), the Trojans, after the Battle at the Landing, where Hector killed Protesilaus, but was soon put to flight by Achilles, made no attempt to drive the Greeks from their country, up to the time of the separation of Achilles from the rest of the army, and the Greeks had had time (for the wall of Troy still resisted them) to lay waste, under the conduct of Achilles, the surround- ing cities and islands ; of which Homer mentions particularly Pedasus, the city of the Leleges ; the Cilician Thebe, at the foot of Mount Placus ; the neighbouring city of Lyrnessus ; and also the islands of Lesbos and Tenedos*. The poet, in various places, shows plainly his notion of the state of the war at this time, iz., that the Trojans, so long as Achilles took part in the war, did not venture beyond the gates; and if Hector was, perchance, willing to venture a sally, the general fear of Achilles and the anxiety of the Trojan elders held him back f. By this view of the contest, the poet is sufficiently justified in bringing within the com- pass of the Iliad events which would otherwise have been more fitted for the bejrinnina - of the war. The Greeks now arrange themselves for the first time, by the advice of, Nestor, into tribes and phratrias, which affords an occasion for the enumeration of the several nations, or the Catalogue of Ships (as it is called), in the second book; and when this has made us acquainted with the general arrangement of the army, then the view of Helen and Priam from the walls, in the third book, and Agamem- non's mustering of the troops, in the fourth, are intended to give a more distinct notion of the individual character of the chief heroes. Further on, the Greeks and Trojans are, for the first time, struck by an idea which might have occurred in the previous nine years, if the Greeks, when assisted by Achilles, had not, from their confidence of their supe- rior strength, considered every compromise as unworthy of them ; namely, to decide the war by a single combat between the authors of it ; which plan is frustrated by the cowardly flight of Paris and the treachery of Pandarus. Nor is it until they are taught by the experience of the first day's fighting that the Trojans can resist them in open battle, that they build the walls round their ships, in which the omission of the proper sacrifices to the gods is given as a new reason for not fulfilling their intentions. This appeared to Thucydides so little conformable to histo- rical probability, that, without regarding the authority of Homer, he engaged in these maritime expeditions must be answered by history, not by the mythical tradition. It is also remarkable that Homer knows of no Achaean hero who had fallen in battle with the Trojans after Protesilaus, and be/ore the time of the Iliad. See particularly Od. iii. I0b,aeg. Nor is any Trojan mentioned who had fallen in battle. ./Eneas and Lycaon were surprised when engaged in peaceable occupations, and a similar supposition must bo made with regard to Mestor and Troilus. II. xxiv. 257. t II. V. 783; ix, 352; xv, 721. e2
 * The question why the Trojans did not attack the Greeks when Achilles was