permitted of her decrees than
the agent of her most awful dispensations? The close union of the
arts of prophecy and song explains his additional office of god of
music, while the arrows with which he and his sister were armed,
symbols of sudden death in every age, no less naturally procured him
that of god of archery. Of any connection between Apollo and the
Sun, whatever may have existed in the more esoteric doctrine of the
Greek sanctuaries, there is no trace in either Iliad or
Odyssey."--Mure, "History of Greek Literature," vol. i. p. 478, sq.

51 It has frequently been observed, that most pestilences begin with
animals, and that Homer had this fact in mind.

52 --_Convened to council._ The public assembly in the heroic times is
well characterized by Grote, vol. ii. p 92. "It is an assembly for
talk. Communication and discussion to a certain extent by the chiefs
in person, of the people as listeners and sympathizers--often for
eloquence, and sometimes for quarrel--but here its ostensible
purposes end."

53 Old Jacob Duport, whose "Gnomologia Homerica" is full of curious and
useful things, quotes several passages of the ancients, in which
reference is made to these words of Homer, in maintenance of the
belief that dreams had a divine origin and an import in which men
were interested.

54 Rather, "bright-eyed." See the German critics quoted by Arnold.

55 The prize given to Ajax was Tecmessa, while Ulysses received
Laodice, the daughter of Cycnus.

56 The Myrmidons dwelt on the southern borders of Thessaly, and took
their origin from Myrmido, son of Jupiter and Eurymedusa. It is
fancifully supposed that the name was derived from myrmaex, an
_ant,_ "because they imitated the diligence of the ants, and like
them were indefatigable, continually employed in cultivating the
earth; the change from ants to men is founded merely on the
equivocation of their name, which resembles that of the ant: they
bore a further resemblance to these little animals, in that instead
of inhabiting towns or villages, at first they commonly resided in
the open fields, having no other retreats but dens and the cavities
of trees, until Ithacus brought them together, and settled them in
more secure and comfortable habitations."--Anthon's "Lempriere