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It also appears, from the passage cited (I. 489, 492) that assemblies were being regularly held; we are told that Achilles did not attend them. Yet, when we come to the assembly (II. 86-100) it seems to have been a special and exciting affair, to judge by the brilliant picture of the crowds, the confusion, and the cries. Nothing of the sort is indicated in the meeting of the assembly in I. 54-58. Why is there so much excitement at the assembly of Book II.? Partly because it was summoned atdawn, whereas the usual thing was for the host to meet in arms before fighting on the plain or going on raids; assemblies were held when the day's work was over. The host, therefore, when summoned to an assembly at dawn, expects to hear of something out of the common—as the mutiny of Achilles suggests—and is excited.
We must ask, then, why does Agamemnon, after the Dream has told him merely to summon the host to arm—a thing of daily routine—call a deliberative morning assembly, a thing clearly not of routine? If Agamemnon is really full of confidence, inspired by the Dream, why does he determine, not to do what is customary, call the men to arms, but as Jea
If I am right, the poet has not been understood. People have not observed that Agamemnon hopes while asleep, and doubts, and acts on his doubt, when awake. Thus Mr. Leaf writes: "Elated by the dream, as we are led to suppose, Agamemnon summons the army—to lead them into battle? Nothing of the sort; he calls them to assembly." {Footnote: Iliad, vol. ii. p. 46.} But we ought not to have been led to suppose that the waking Agamemnon was so elated as the sleeping Agamemnon. He was "disillusioned" on waking; his conduct proves it; he did not know what to think about the Dream; he did not know how the host would take the Dream; he doubted whether they would fight at his command, so he called an assembly.
Mr. Jevons very justly cites a parallel case. Grote has remarked that in Book VII. of Herodotus, "The dream sent by the Gods to frighten Xerxes when about to recede from his project," has "a marked parallel in the Iliad." Thus Xerxes, after the defection of Artabanus, was despondent, like Agamemnon after the mutiny of Achilles, and was about to recede from his project. To both a delusive dream is sent urging them to proceed. Xerxes calls an assembly, however, and says that he will not proceed. Why? Because, says Herodotus, "when day came, he thought nothing of his dream." Agamemnon, once awake, thought doubtfully of hisdream; he called a Privy Council, told the princes about his dream—of which Nestor had a very dubious opinion—and said that he would try the temper of the army by proposing instant flight: the chiefs should restrain the men if they were eager to run away.
Now the epic prose narrative of Herodotus is here clearly based on Iliad, II., which Herodotus must have understood as I do. But in Homer there is no line to say—and one line or two would have been enough—that Agamemnon, when awake, doubted, like Xerxes, though Agamemnon, when asleep, had been confident. The necessary line, for all that we know, still existed in the text used by Herodotus. Homer may lose a line as well as Dieuchidas of Megara, or rather Diogenes Laertius. Juvenal lost a whole passage, re-discovered by Mr. Winstedt in a Bodleian manuscript. If Homer expected modern critics to note the delicate distinction between Agamemnon asleep and Agamemnon awake, or to understand Agamemnon's character, he expected too much. {Footnote: Cf. Jevons, Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. vii. pp. 306, 307.} The poet then treats the situation on these lines: Agamemnon, awake and free from illusion, does not obey the dream, does notcall the army to war; he takes a middle course.
In the whole passage the poet's main motive, as Mr. Monro remarks with obvious truth, is "to let his audience become acquainted with the temper and spirit of the army as it was affected by the long siege ... and by the events of the First Book." {Footnote: Monro, Iliad, vol. i. p. 261.} The poet could not obtain his object if Agamemnon merely gave the summons to battle; and he thinks Agamemnon precisely the kind of waverer who will call, first the Privy Council of the Chiefs, and then an assembly. Herein the homesick host will display its humours, as it does with a vengeance. Agamemnon next tells his Dream to the chiefs (if he had a dream of this kind he would most certainly tell it), and adds (as has been already stated) that he will first test the spirit of the army by a feigned proposal of return to Greece, while the chiefs are to restrain them if they rush to launch the ships. Nestor hints that there is not much good in attending to dreams; however, this is the dream of the Over-Lord, who is the favoured of Zeus.
Agamemnon next, addressing the assembly, says that posterity will think it a shameful thing that the Achaeans raised the siege of a town with a population much smaller than their own army; but allies from many cities help the Trojans, and are too strong for him, whether posterity understands that or not. "Let us flee with our ships!"
On this the host break up, in a splendid passage of poetry, and rush to launch the ships, the passion of nostalgiecarrying away even the chiefs, it appears—a thing most natural in the circumstances. But Athene finds Odysseus in grief: "neither laid he any hand upon his ship," as the others did, and she encouraged him to stop the flight. This he does, taking the sceptre of Agamemnon from his u
He goes about reminding the princes "have we not heard Agamemnon's real intention in council?" (II. 188-197), and rating the common sort. The assembly meets again in great confusion; Thersites seizes the chance to be insolent, and is beaten by Odysseus. The host then arms for battle.
The poet has thus shown Agamemnon in the colours which he wears consistently all through the Iliad. He has, as usual, contrasted with him Odysseus, the type of a wise and resolute man. This contrast the poet maintains without fail throughout. He has shown us the temper of the weary, home-sick army, and he has persuaded us that he knows how subtle, dangerous, and contagious a thing is military panic. Thus, at least, I venture to read the passage, which, thus read, is perfectly intelligible. Agamemnon is no personal coward, but the burden of the safety of the host overcomes him later, and he keeps suggesting flight in the ships, as we shall see. Suppose, then, we read on from II. 40 thus: "The Dream left him thinking of things not to be, even that on this day he shall take the town of Priam.... But he awoke from sleep with the divine voice ringing in his ears. ( Then it seemed him that some dreams are true andsome false, for all donot come through the Gate ofHorn.) So he arose and sat up and did on his soft tunic, and his great cloak, and grasped his ancestral sceptre ... and bade the clear-voiced heralds summon the Achaeans of the long locks to the deliberative assembly." He then, as in II. 53-75 told his Dream to the preliminary council, and proposed that he should try the temper of the host by proposing flight—which, if it began, the chiefs were to restrain—before giving orders to arm. The test of the temper of the host acted as it might be expected to act; all rushed to launch the ships, and the princes were swept away in the tide of flight, Agamemnon himself merely looking on helpless. The panic was contagious; only Odysseus escaped its influence, and redeemed the honour of the Achaeans, as he did again on a later day.