he is held or the regard which is paid to her
rights. The contrast between this state of affairs and that prevailing
in later Greek society is sufficiently marked to render comment
unnecessary.

But perhaps the most striking feature of the setting of the Homeric
story is the type of material civilization which is described in
the poems. We are confronted with a society not by any means in a
primitive stage of development, but, on the contrary, far advanced
in the arts of peace, and capable of the highest achievements in
art and architecture. Some of the proofs of its advancement may
be briefly noticed. Into the vexed question of the Homeric palace,
its form, and the conditions of life thereby indicated, there is
no need to enter; for about the point which chiefly concerns our
immediate purpose there is no question at all. The Homeric palace,
described at some length in at least three instances, is a building
not merely large and commodious, but of somewhat imposing magnificence.
The palace of Alcinous, for example, is pictured for us as gleaming
with the splendour of the sun and moon, with walls of bronze, a
frieze of _kuanos_ (blue glass paste), and golden doors, with lintels
and door-posts of silver, while the approaches to it are guarded
by dogs wrought in silver. The whole reminds one rather of the
description of one of the vast Egyptian temples of the Eighteenth
or Nineteenth Dynasty than of what one would have imagined the
palace of an island chieftain. The Palaces of Priam at Troy, and
of Odysseus at Ithaca, less gorgeously adorned in detail, are not
less stately, and even the abode of Menelaus in comparatively
insignificant Sparta is described as 'gleaming with gold, amber,
silver, and ivory.' The minor appointments of these splendid homes
are in keeping with their structural magnificence. Great vessels
of gold, silver, and bronze are in common use, the richly dyed
and wrought robes of the chiefs and their wives and daughters are
stored in chests splendidly decorated and inlaid, and the adornments
of the women are of costly and beautiful fabric in gold and silver.
In the manners and customs of the inhabitants of these stately
houses there is a certain patriarchal simplicity. The Princess
Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous, conducts the family washing as
a regular and expected part of her work, while the great chieftains
themselves are men of their hands not only on the battle-field,
but in the common labours