Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/91

III conclude that the State appears in the Odyssey as ripe indeed for formation, but not yet really formed; all the materials are there, but the building is not as yet complete. And if this view be the right one, we may surely use Homer as picturing for us, in outline at least, the features of the kingship of the new-born State; for not only have we abundant evidence that those same features were retained long after the State had been formed, but nothing is more intrinsically probable than that an institution, which certainly existed long before the State arose, should have been accepted as an heirloom by the earliest "statesmen."

What strikes us at once about the Basileus in Homer is, that he is one among many; there are kings of all degrees, from Agamemnon, who in the poet's fancy rules over wide territories, and appears sometimes almost as master of an empire, down to the most insignificant chieftain who bears the title of Basileus. At once, therefore, we get a warning against the mistake of supposing that there is anything of the nature of a fixed constitution to be discovered in Homer. The king has no clearly defined limits to his power of government; kingship is not an office, a magistracy, as we think of it, with a certain sphere of duty and limit of action. It is rather a social position, like that of the "eorl"